"What the hell is this!" Trex screamed as his TSunn character dissolved into particles.
As one would be able to tell, voices are isolated from the cabinet and everywhere else. It was just a simple vibration isolation hex that all arcade cabinets have to reduce the loudness as most arcades are situated within business districts of cities.
Trex did not hear Illana's commands from the outside, nor did the game tell him that his current match is illegal.
[Ghost Zoe Jenza wins!]
The glaring words triggered something within Trex. You see, there are different kinds of gamers. Some like it singular along with the gameplay and story, some like it multiplayer and win the competition.
Most of the players who are into competitions have one trigger, which is losing terribly. A new kind of emotion bubbled inside Trex. He wanted to win or at least fight a good fight.
[0-1]
"Tsk," he snapped.
[Time Remaining: 150s]
[Round 2]
[Cross fighters ready?]
Deeply breathing, Trex calmed himself and thought of his current plans.
He was unsure if the mercenaries didn't really have any idea how to fight against this kind of magic or something is holding it back. What he's sure though is that, he has the knowledge to fight the character called Zoe Jenza.
[3]
[2]
[1]
[Fight!]
Similar to the last round, Zoe started with the 'heat wave' spell that took a few seconds to cast. On the contrary, Trex cast several T1-L1 Ice Bolts. Using his own hands and the runic orb, Trex was able to produce only over thirteen ice shards the moment Zoe finished her casting.
It didn't take long for the ice to smoke and melt.
Even though the amount of ice didn't even go over twenty kilograms, the amount of water vapor produced made the arena seem foggy.
Ice Bolt. This spell specifically did not mean the ice was water.
In this world, magic seems mystical. But in reality, everything has a law to follow.
Just like ice, it doesn't have to be water that freezes at zero degrees celsius. Even though the temperature keeps going down, there wasn't much change. Not unless you add salt, which further reduces the freezing point of water.
This also became a limit for the arcanist as one couldn't make things colder than what the matter they decided to make could contain.
Lowering the temperature of solid water only makes it long to liquefy in the face of high heat.
In the meantime, nitrogen is known to have an extremely low freezing point.
Not only that, but placing liquified, or in this case, solidified nitrogen in a room temperature would cause it to release extreme amounts of fog. Not to mention if it's at iron's melting point.
It was only Trex's gamble, but his gamble worked. Mana really doesn't just function rigidly to what it was asked to. Instead, it responds to the caster's own understanding. There were no runes that indicated that the water to be frozen into ice bolt was hydrogen dioxide, but since this was considered common in this world, people thought it was law that the ice element could only be water.
Swiftly, the arena was shrouded with light fog, which shaded the entire place.
"It worked!" Trex exclaimed in his head.
Immediately, an eight-runic spell circle appeared at Trex's feet.
Shadow tendrils appeared just a second later, quieter than a breeze.
Besides that, Trex's eyes were glowing grey. The shade of a nimbus cloud mightily shrouded his eyes as the darkness of the area began to distort.
Zoe, who was already preparing her molten shards, had to take a step back.
Even though Zoe Jenza is a tier 2 spell caster and should've been ranked as silver in the game, it was just newly added to the system and had not had enough time to grow its artificial intelligence.
Not understanding what was happening around her, she took a step back.
"HYUK!" She screamed as a tendril of shadow pierced through her left shoulder.
Illana, who's watching outside the cabinet, had her mouth agape. Starting from the massively small amount of ice bolt compared to the first round until the artificial fog scattered, she had no idea what was happening.
What Marko, or rather Trex, did was something only done by those who go beyond the laws of existence itself. A small amount of water, even when frozen, can never produce that amount of fog. But Trex's ice bolt did.
With the number of thoughts running through her mind, one would think that her expression would be even more varied. But right now, all she had was confusion. Utter confusion.
Marko, who lost his memories, was able to fight better than he did prior to losing his memories.
Then he chose spells and hex completely opposite to what he was used to. He specialized in fire, and yet he used only ice and shadow.
It was almost as if, besides personality, everything else about Marko turned opposite.
This was a world of magic, and possibilities are endless. A scary thought appeared in her mind but immediately shoved it at a corner of her mind.
[Time Remaining: 118s]
With a gleam in her eyes, Zoe's body glows silver as the shadow tendrils seem to extend out from her body without affecting her. It was as if behind her is a portal that leads in front of her body.
Most of her spells revolve around space and material, making it impossible for her to simply breeze away from the artificial fog.
Not to mention that her' heat wave' is gradually dispelling itself, unable to control the cold nitrogen that is now liquified.
The distortions caused by heat are now entirely gone. Zoe was sure that it would remain as metallic shards if she cast Metallic Rain rather than its heated form.
No matter what kind of strategy she comes up with, she felt like nothing could cancel the artificial fog that came from a simple ice bolt spell.
"In that case…" Zoe muttered, her intelligence growing slowly.
Spotting Trex's TSunn, who's currently glowing dark, a spell circle appeared below Zoe.
It only had five runes, the minimum number for a spell. But the circle itself wasn't flat.
Once the spell circle formed, it suddenly extruded out.
Trex, who's currently throwing all the spells he could muster, trembled.
He was afraid.
Not only was he afraid, but all other personalities in his mind are also fearful.
Tier 2 Level 1 spell.
Fluctuations began to distort the space once again as the artificial fog danced. It didn't disappear on its own, but just because of the oscillations, light began to randomly peer into the arena, creating sounds similar to a motor engine rushing through the highway. This was the shadow tendril spell's weakness; light makes it louder and weaker.
Still, he had more time. T2L1 spells wouldn't be cast in a mere few seconds; most likely, it would take double dozen seconds just to stabilize the spell.
Knowing this, Trex once again overworked his new runic orb that was refreshed by the game.
Cracks spread on the orb as the shadow began to swallow what remained of light. Seemingly countless tendrils attempted to pierce Zoe's body.
Fortunately for Trex, the spell Zoe used to transfer the shadow and avoid getting pierced wasn't omnipotent.
Some shadows pierced Zoe, causing her to spurt blood, but it wasn't as bad as it looked, as most of the shadows only stuck her limbs and other parts that do not contain an internal organ.
Trex swiftly began to focus more on Zoe's head, and heart as his orb's crack immediately grew.
Zoe, on the other hand, remained standing as she cast her tier two level one spell. With her opponent's current standard, she is entirely sure that Trex would go down in a single hit.
[Time Remaining: 86s]