The rest of the week passed by quickly, and soon it was the day set for the battle in the arena. When the King told Dean Crue that he planned to watch the battle, Dean Crue decided to have a tournament set up to show off the academy's best students. Other than Sydra and Percy, Jason, Indra and a few other students at the school were going to be participating today as well.
"I can't believe I was chosen to battle in front of the King," Jason says, nervously checking himself in the mirror, "Do you think he might accept me directly into the royal guards if I perform well?"
"Please, even if you win the whole thing, and enter the vault, there is no way the King would just let you into his royal guards," Indra says, "You still have to go through multiple tests."
Jason's entire group was currently in the room with Sydra, Lucas, and Kayla, as Jason and Indra had decided to meet up with Sydra before the match. Other than discussing more strategies, they were also thinking about the prize for winning all the arena matches.
When Dean Crue had changed it from a one on one, he also announced that the battles would be in a tournament, with the winner of each match moving onto the next one. The winner of all the arena matches would be rewarded with whatever they wanted from the Academy's Treasury.
"I heard that there are even a few Monarch rank weapons inside the vault," Tio says, reading the description for the arena battles, "It's too bad I don't qualify to participate,"
"Even if you did participate, you would probably be taken out in the first match," Tila says, surprising everyone as she is usually quiet. With everyone staring at her, Tila turns red and quickly tries to divert everyone's attention, "I hope you do good, Sydra. You've been training really hard this past week,"
"She speaks for everyone when she says that," Cho chimes in, "Anyway, we only have five minutes to get down to the arena, so we should probably hurry up,"
Glancing at the runic dial near the window, Sydra realizes she is right, and they are close to missing the check-in time at the arena. Rushing out of the room, everyone races towards a staircase at the end of the hallway, which is meant for the participants.
"We'll watch your match with the others," Lucas calls out as Sydra heads up the stairs, "You're totally going to win this thing!"
Smiling, Sydra opens a door at the top of the staircase that leads into a large coliseum-shaped room. The floor of the coliseum is covered in different elemental runes, which form different terrains when activated.
"It looks like we're meeting up over there," Indra says, pointing towards a group of students standing at the far end of the arena. Standing within the group is Percy, and two of his friends, and they sneer as they see Sydra and the other's approaching.
"So, you actually decided to show up? I'm honestly surprised, but I guess I can't expect people who associate with filth to have much intelligence," Percy says, smirking at Jason.
"I may not be battling you today, Percy," Jason says, glaring at Percy, "But you should be prepared for the day we do,"
Before Percy could say anything back, a large man dropped out of the air behind him, the floor cracking underneath his immense weight. He was wearing a green robe, and the back of it had the Academy's emblem embroidered onto it. Seeing the man land, everyone went quiet, including the people who were sitting in the stands.
"I am the Terrain Master, Vict Ory," Vict says, studying the students in front of him, "My job is to decide which terrain each of you will be fighting on, as well as to decide the winner of each match. I believe you have all read the rules, so we'll get started right away,"
Glancing at his schedule, Vict points at Indra and a sickly looking boy, "The two of you will be fighting first, on the Grass Terrain," Vict says, motioning for the other students to wait over at the side of the arena.
Once everyone except the participants has left the arena, Vict stomps his foot into the ground, and a rune shaped like several grass blades starts glowing green. It seemed that Vict's power was the full control of elemental runes, and he could create any type of terrain imaginable as long as the runes were already placed on the ground.
As the grass rune glowed, hills and plains rose from the arena, covered in sharp blades of grass that could shred anyone below B-rank into pieces. Standing on hills at either side of the arena, Indra and the sickly-looking boy started at each other.
"You may not know me, but my name is Atler," yelled the sickly-looking boy as he raised his fist into the air. Once the fist reached the highest point it could, a lightning bolt shot down from the clouds above the arena and slammed into it, creating a yellow gauntlet with three claws coming from the knuckles, "And I will not lose to you!"
As soon as Atler finished speaking, a fireball exploded over the arena, alerting everyone that the battle had started. The first thing Indra did was create a lightning spear, and infuse the fire aura into it. Aiming it towards Atler, Indra prepares to throw it, but Atler suddenly vanished.
'Where did he go?' Indra wonders as his eyes dart across the grassy plains. Unsure of what his opponent's aura did, Indra had planned to use the lightning spear to force Atler to show all of his cards, but he had disappeared before Indra could do anything.
"Were you looking for me?" a voice asks from beneath Indra as a fist explodes from the ground. Dodging back from the unexpected attack, Indra feels the guatlet's claws graze against his face, causing it to go numb. Trying to fight back, Indra slams his lightning spear into the ground, creating a large crevice around the area he is standing.
"Where are you?" Indra shouts, pulling his spear out of the ground so he can attack again. Swinging his spear back and forth Indra slams it into the ground in several different places, but none of the attacks hit Atler. Instead, Indra finds Atler popping out of the ground to his left, a wicked smile on his face as he slams his gauntlet into the side of Indra's knee, and the sound of something snapping echoing across the field.
"Argh!" Indra shouts out, his now bent knee also bleeding from the claws on Atler's gauntlet. Luckily, Indra had covered his body in a light layer of flame armor, otherwise, the damage might have been much worse, 'Damn it, does he have the ability to travel underground?'
Both times Indra had been attacked, the attacks had come after Atler popped out of the ground, so he was under the impression that Atler's other ability was earth-based. But when Indra checked for moving soil or anything that would have pointed to the fact that Atler could manipulate earth, Indra couldn't find anything except the dirt he had turned over while attacking with his spear.
'So if it isn't earth, then what is it?' Indra wonders, increasing the amount of fire in his armor. Due to this, the next time Atler came out of the ground and punched Indra, Indra was able to get a good look at the aura Atler was using, "Interesting, I would have never expected you to have Ghost Aura,"
Ghost Aura was rare, as a person had to be exposed to places or items with that aura, and that meant risking their sanity. This was because Ghost aura was considered one of the aura on the darker side of the scale, and not many people could handle the burden it put on them.
"Even if you know what my ability is, you won't defeat me," Atler says, dropping back into the ground. Knowing that he could pop back up anywhere, Indra created an electrical ring around his body, one that was flowing in the opposite direction of Atler's electrical gauntlets. This made it so the next time Atler popped out of the ground to attack Indra, his power would be reduced.
'While my defenses are good, I haven't been able to land a single attack yet,' Indra thinks as he takes a more stable stance. Increasing his weight by redirecting the flames to push his body down, Indra endured the next few attacks while preparing his own. The next time Atler popped out of the ground, Indra grabbed his wrist, which had to become solid to punch him.
"Haha, that can't stop me," Atler says, trying to turn his wrist back into its astral form. However, when Indra had grabbed Atler, he had poked a small needle made from electricity into Atler's wrist. The electricity disrupted the ghost aura inside of Atler's arm, making it unable to work the way he wanted it to.
"Now, it's my turn to attack," Indra says, smiling as a large fireball with spikes of lightning formed in his left hand.
'Crap, that could kill me!' Atler thought, his eyes darting around the arena for a way to escape. Seeing none, he decides to do the next thing he can think of and grabs Indra's hand with his free one.
Now that Atler is holding onto the hand that Indra is using to keep him in place, he releases a wave of ghost aura into Indra's body. The ghost aura begins corrupting Indra's fire and lightning auras, changing their attributes into one that Atler can control.
...
Back in the stands, everyone is completely focused on the arena, watching as the large fireball in Indra's hand turns from red and yellow, into a ghostly shade of grey.
"What's going on down there?" Jason asks, his eyes widening as a gaping smile appears on the ghostly fireball in Indra's hand, "He is losing control of his power, he needs to release the fireball right away!"
As if Indra had heard Jason's warning, he flings Atler over his shoulder before slamming the hand holding the fireball into Atler's face. Detonating it, a massive explosion goes off in the center of the field, engulfing both Atler and Indra within it.
The explosion has enough force to shake the entire coliseum, and when the flames disappear everyone leans forward to see who the person still standing is.
"The winner is..." Vict trails off as he can't see through the still clearing smoke.