Rhode Foster cautiously tread through the Hillbilly Forest with her team as they sought more opponents to eliminate to solidify their position at the top.
Though she was not a spectator and did not know how many students were already eliminated, common sense told Foster that the students remaining in the forest were no longer much.
In essence, this meant that only the best of them were still in the contest.
After the blunder of Rex and Cassandra, the success streak that she and her team enjoyed in eliminating other students inflated her confidence but the encounter with Rex made her always keep her basic vigilance to danger.
As they walked through the forest silently, looking for prey, they all suddenly paused as they heard the sound of a twig breaking into 2.
Instantly, the 4 of them reacted as they entered their attack formation with Rhode Foster at the very front of the team acting as the anchor.
They waited a few seconds, and seeing nothing, they stepped forward. They saw nothing until they went behind a giant tree where they saw a dead rabbit.
They observed their surroundings carefully for any danger before focusing back on the rabbit. From the bleeding, the rabbit just died.
Foster was confused at first but her eyes soon widened.
"Who killed it?!"
Instantly, Foster was alarmed as she raised her head only to see a familiar mystic Tessen already just a few meters away from her face. The Tessen was thrown directly at her from her front.
Just from seeing the Tessen, Foster already knew who her opponent was.
Foster felt her hair standing on end as adrenaline rushed through her body like a nitro booster, she felt her blood burning hot rapidly.
The will to qualify for the next phase of the tournament in her was so strong that it now empowered her to make an impossible maneuver.
Whoosh!
Foster bent her body at the last moment as the Tessen flew past, cutting a significant part of her untied hair in the process but the attack was not done.
Seeing that the attack had already missed, the Tessen paused in the air for a few seconds as its owner activated its mystic ability.
The mystic ability of the Fairy Morgana's mystic weapon, the Soaring Jade was to shoot a lethal jet stream of air at the opponent.
By bending to dodge the attack, Foster now had her back facing the floating Tessen and this presented the right angle for the lethal attack.
Boom!
As soon as the jet stream of air shot out from the floating Tessen, Foster's fate seemed to have been sealed but this lady was a defiant warrior.
Straightening her body to defend against the attack was already an impossible task for her, and she also didn't learn the defensive skill of the light mystic ability which left Foster with few options at this moment.
She didn't want to give up though, so she improvised.
Whoosh!
While her body still bent, Foster jumped and stretched her legs, making her body become horizontal as she suddenly rotated with speed, turning her body and making her face turn up where the lethal jet stream of air was coming from.
This way, she saw the attack and with the swift rotation, she gathered the momentum that she needed to swing her light spear.
Morgana's attack was fast, but so was Foster's, their speed was otherworldly as the remaining 3 mystic warriors present were still frozen and unable to react.
Foster knew that despite her almost impossible maneuver, a normal attack would not be able to hold its own against her opponent's mystic weapon attack which was why she also activated the ability of her mystic weapon.
Her mystic spear resonated with her even as she channeled her mystic energy as a lethal spear slash accompanied by light energy was sent out.
Boom!
Both attacks hit, and the impact was mighty.
Foster suffered some injuries as the shockwave pushed her to the ground with force while Morgana's Tessen was thrown away.
Despite feeling pain, Foster tried to right herself up and prepare for the follow-up attack. She looked at the front but saw no one, before she could be puzzled though, she felt her remaining hair standing on end again.
Clang! Clang! Clang!
This time, her teammates finally reacted and tried to protect her but Morgana in close combat was a beast!
With her last Tessen in one hand, she easily parried the attacks of the 3 students before going for her goal.
While Foster thought that her opponent was in her front because that was where the first Tessen came from, it was all a trick and Morgana hid in the huge tree from the very beginning.
This was why once she focused on her front; Morgana struck like a viper.
Morgana's Tessen drew blood as it slashed at Foster's neck, but once again, this motivated girl did the impossible as she narrowly dodged the fatal attack again by shifting forward in the nick of time.
Morgana did not let her off as she followed up her attack immediately.
Her opponent was already destabilized by straining her reflexes so much, and Morgana ruthlessly took advantage of it. With just 1 Tessen, she was not at her best but she firmly held the upper hand in this exchange.
Before Foster's teammates could come to rescue her though, Morgana's 1st Tessen returned. Unlike most basic mystic weapons, hers had 2 mystic abilities and the 2nd one enabled her to control the weapon mid-flight like a robot boomerang.
Since she got this mystic weapon, she always kept this ability a secret just for today, and now, her perseverance paid fully in gold.
Ptui!
Foster could not react again. Already preoccupied with fighting Morgana herself, the Tessen was able to effortlessly sever her neck from behind.
As blood flew everywhere, mid-flight, they turned to water.
Rhode Foster was eliminated!
Morgana bowed in the direction of her eliminated opponent before turning to face the 3 students who were still petrified by all that just happened.
"Your leader is eliminated".
"Now, I am your leader!"
…
Boom! Boom! Boom!
5 students fought like there was no tomorrow in an intense battle.
Rex led the attack from the front, while Cassandra acted as his support as they both fought an intense battle against the opposing team of 3 students who were all from the fire department.
The 3 fire department students put up a good show, but faced with Rex and Cassandra's astonishing teamwork, they constantly exposed loopholes.
Rex and Cassandra after fighting repeatedly already suffered a lot of injuries, but still, they persevered as they taught these 3 a lesson.
The battle was fairly even but as more time passed, Rex's endurance which was gotten from having to train with his sword every day even without mystic energy showed as he outlasted all his opponents.
With a well-timed attack, he eliminated the first opponent.
Once the first opponent was eliminated, the remaining 2 became easy work as they both picked them apart with relative ease.
Rex and Cassandra won a 2 vs 3 battle, this was stunning!
With this, they successfully established themselves as the 2 students with some of the most points in the tournament.
At this moment, most of the students were already eliminated, leaving few behind. Once Rex and Cassandra finished this battle, they rested for 2 minutes before continuing their hunt for more students.
To their surprise, they met no other student for 10 minutes, they were all already eliminated by another powerful team of students.
They kept searching for another 4 minutes before they finally met the culprit.
After a long time of spreading havoc through the ranks of the other students, with them being the only ones left, Rex's team finally met Morgana's team.
This was going to be the last showdown to determine the winners of this phase of the tournament!
The smell of gunpowder in the air was already turning suffocating.