'What, was that?'
Similar to Tico, many others were wondering why his attack missed. Some thought that Serina dodged it or diverted it, while others believed that Tico had underestimated her again.
"Haha! I thought you said she wouldn't leave another mark on your body?"
As he endured the burning pain from his fresh injury, Tico glared at Fatty who laughed boisterously but he couldn't respond as Serina was charging at him. He quickly used his barrier spell thinking he would have think to regain his composure, but Serina's whip hit the barrier so hard that the vibrations aggravated his injuries.
"What?! Why are you suddenly stronger?"
Although not as fast as before, each swing of her whip was like a hammer that shook his chest. While Tico gave his all to keep his barrier up, he noticed the glowing sword symbol on her forehead.
'Is that from a spell or cultivation method? But I don't remember there being anything like that in the sect.'
In his impatience, Tico felt so pressured by Serina's onslaught that he couldn't notice that her mental state wasn't much better. At this part of their fight, Serina seemed to have the upper hand, but Elder Marco saw things differently. Though Serina's attacks were stronger, she was also using up more energy so it wouldn't last for long. Therefore, they were only having a battle of endurance and so the one with the advantage was actually,
"Ha! Your attacks have gotten weaker."
Once the sword symbol faded from her forehead, Serina's whip noticeably dropped in power. Tico quickly jumped on this opportunity to release his barrier spell and knocked her back with a pure burst of nature energy. However, he wasn't satisfied there.
Temporarily leaving his recovery on hold, Tico aimed his fist at her once more to make up for his previous mistake. This time, his charging fist was clearly heading straight for her gut so he wouldn't miss easily.
Serina also thought that she wouldn't be lucky for a second time so she gritted her teeth and prepared for the incoming pain. But to everyone's surprise, the fist stopped just short of making impact and only blew her a cale away. By this point, everyone who wasn't familiar with Tico thought that he was going easy on her. Even Elder Marco had the same thought and raised his opinion of him.
However, Tico's group of friends knew that he wasn't such a good person. They were one hundred percent sure that he wouldn't go easy on her, especially since he was the one who arranged for this fight. But no matter how much they thought about it there was no other explanation.
And it wasn't only them, Tico himself didn't understand.
'Why can't I hit her? What the hell is wrong with me?!'
Only Serina and Fatty had an inkling as to what was causing this.
'It must be Shui.'
Once she was sure that Shui was here to help, Serina lost all hesitation and only thought on how she could win. Shui would only support her, so she had to win with her own power.
'With the amount of energy I have left, that's the only attack I can use. But how will I get the opportunity?'
Unlike Serina who could now focus completely on how to win, Tico had to come up with a new strategy despite being confused.
'I don't know why I can't hit her, but I should avoid close-range. Tch, I'm using too much energy to stabilise my injuries, but one big spell should be enough. Though it's unfortunate, I won't be able to brutalise her.'
He could no longer complete his original objective but that was nothing in comparison to the fear that he might actually lose.
"Haaa!!!!"
Tico spread his legs and poured his nature energy into a spell that ripped portions of the stage into the sky. As she saw the rising boulders, Serina got worried for a moment, but then a soothing feeling filled her heart.
'I'll be fine.'
Before this disaster of an attack, Serina put away her whip and faced Tico with her bare hands.
"You, you dare look down on me!!!"
Tico took this as a sign of disdain and was further enraged. He swung his hand down and sent the floating objects flying towards her. As they crashed at her location, Tico had a pleased expression, but that look froze when a figure burst out from the cloud of dust that followed the crashes, and stopped in front of him.
"Wha-?!"
Serina couldn't explain it, but for a short period she was able to see through the trajectories of the projectiles and evaded all of them while dashing towards Tico. With her foot mere inches away from his, she landed her right palm on his chest and exhaled sharply.
"Mmm!"
Then, like he was shot by a cannon, Tico was thrown off the stage.
"Woah..."
"Did you see that?"
"That was unbelievable."
Everyone was surprised by this result. Elder Marco for one, thought that Tico was holding back in order to teach Serina a lesson, but it seemed he was serious with that last spell. He was worried that this victory might go to Serina's head, but he still had praise for her talent.
Tico's friends on the other hand, were sure that Tico wasn't holding back until that last spell. Although it was visually imposing, they couldn't believe that Serina had managed to overcome it with her own abilities and started wondering if Tico had truly been holding back.
Halka however, chuckled at the scene. She was the only one besides those involved to correctly deduce that Tico had come with the intention of bullying Serina but got disgraced instead. She was unable to figure out why he couldn't punch her, but chalked it up to Serina's unique abilities.
Now that the fight was over, Halka got up and prepared to leave, but then she heard Serina shout a name.
"Shui!"
After the match when Fatty was congratulating Serina while laughing at Tico who was carried away unconscious, Shui appeared before them. He wasn't even a disciple of Burning Mountain Sect so he shouldn't be here, but for some reason neither the elder nor any of the disciples noticed that.
Honestly, Shui wanted to spend a couple more days in the volcano, but since he achieved his primary objective and he had several matters that couldn't be put off, he exited right before Serina's match began.
As Shui casually appeared before the two of them, Serina ran to hug him while Fatty awkwardly stopped short of doing the same.
"Thank you so much Shui! I couldn't have won without you."
"No, if it wasn't for your own power then my secretive support wouldn't have been enough. You can be proud of yourself."
While Serina showed a cheerful smile in response to Shui's praise, Fatty suddenly remembered a question he wanted to ask.
"Oh, but were you sure that was okay? I know you won't get caught but what if someone looks into the reason why he couldn't hit her."
"Oh, you won't need to worry about that, I didn't interfere with his movements. The only thing I did was boost the power of Serina's soul and weaken his resistance to spiritual attacks."
"Hmm, then why did-?" when Serina was about to ask Shui to explain, his face abruptly turned pale as if he was frightened by some unexpected news.
"Shui?"
"Sorry, I need to go."
The two didn't know what happened to him, but seeing the expression on his face was enough. As Shui tried to leave, he was approached by a certain woman. He was going to brush her off at first, but as he heard what she said he changed his mind.
"Excuse me, do you remember me? You helped me about three days ago and I wanted to thank you for that, maybe over lunch?"
Even though he was in a rush Shui wore a smile filled with guilt as he replied.
"Sorry, but I really need to go somewhere right now."
"Oh..., is that so."
"But,"
The woman started feeling downhearted, but when Shui said 'but' she raised her head with eyes that held a glimmer of hope. A glimmer so pure that he nearly felt bad for what he was doing to her.
"If you really want to repay me, could I ask you to look after that girl for me? If she's in too much trouble then you don't have to do anything, but if you're okay with it..."
Halka took a moment to make some calculations in her head before nodding.
"Okay, I'll do it."
"Thanks. Let's go out when I'm in town again."
After that, Shui left, with one gaze on his back carrying mixed feelings and two giving him troubled looks.