As more and more dry earth came together, the ground seemed to rise up, slowly forming a small hill, then growing into a larger hill, and still it went on growing in size. Rihanna wondered just how much earth was there inside that arena, and if it would suffice for the attack being created by the woman!
Surprisingly, the height of the sphere inside which this entire fight was taking place did not seem to be small. The more the earth piled up, the barrier seemingly responded, and expanded as per their need. The clouds too started drifting upwards, and the space in between the two Challengers grew wider and wider.
The pile of earth finally came to a stop only when it was as large as a medium sized mountain. After a moment's pause, the earth started shifting again, but this time, instead of continuing to grow, it seemed to be taking shape.
"Is that a Earth Puppet?"
"No...I think it is her Guiding Weapon."
Rihanna blinked, trying to comprehend this strange weapon. In her understanding, a weapon was at least supposed to look like a weapon....not like a giant Earth Man! How did people comprehend Guiding Weapons in this world?!
As she was thinking, the man sent out ice whips at the Earth Man. Though they were just as random and high speed as before, they seemed more cautious, as if testing the power and agility of the Earth Man.
The ice whip was not really that powerful, and had no significant effect on the Earth Man. However, Rihanna could tell that the man was not using much power in his attacks. It seemed he was trying to find out loopholes.
The first few times, the ice whip hit the Earth Man. Though it did not do much damage, still the ice managed to break off small chunks of earth from various parts of its body. Some of the ice even melted instantly on touching the Earth Man, soaking the earth and making it soft. The areas drenched in water would slip off the giant figure....obviously, the woman had a harder time controlling wet earth.
However, all of a sudden, the Earth Man stopped trying to dodge the incoming attacks, and directly caught the two whips which seemed to appear from thin air. As soon as the earth touched the whips, the earth directly started piling onto the whip, moving upwards following the support of the whip.
The man too instantly let go of the two whips, turning them into water, which once again soaked through the hands of the Earth Man. However, the woman was ready this time, and thin streams of lava surfaces from the insides of the Earth Man's hands, rapidly drying the earth. The water turned to vapor, returning back to the clouds above.
As the ends of the two whips were disappearing into the clouds, the Earth Man suddenly separated from the waist, and the upper part lunged upwards with great force, heading straight towards the center of the clouds. As it kept climbing higher and higher, the body broke open into many more pieces. And each piece pushed itself outwards and upwards, heading for the different corners of the clouds.
By the times the Earth Man's parts reached the clouds, it had gradually broken down to a very thick layer of dust, which completely shrouded the clouds, turning the greyish-white clouds to a dark, brownish-red. And as soon as the dust particles touched the surface of the cloud, it clung to it, making the clouds heavy.
The sudden weight of the dust started pulling on the clouds, dragging them downwards. Moreover, thin flashes of lightening erupted all over the clouds, making it difficult even for the man to keep remain in hiding amidst the clouds.
But instead of moving down, he moved above the level of the clouds, releasing his wind power at the same time. The wind started gathering around the arena, pulling the clouds towards the center, along with the dust and lightening. Gradually a whirlwind formed at the center, and the clouds and dust was churning in the vortex of this whirlwind.
Surprisingly, instead of letting it go, the man took all the dust sent by the woman, and started using it against her. Still within the whirlwind, the clouds started condensing. Some parts of it turned to water, mixing in with the dust, and turning it to wet earth clumps. The funnel of the tornado started shifting, till it moved to the pool of water. As it absorbed more and more water into its vortex, the tornado started changing colour, turning darker and heavier.
Some part of the water remained in its original state, where a large part of the water was instantly condensed by the man. Very sharp and pointed icicles, with lots of barbed thorns on the surface. Formed inside the whirlwind, circling the vortex.
Finally the tornado started splitting into many smaller and thinner tornadoes. The water and ice and earth separated, each moving to different tornadoes. Simultaneously, without breaking the rhythm, the funnel of the tornado changed side, and soon the tip of each tornado appeared near the man. They came from behind his back, making the people feel as if his hair suddenly grown long and wild, and taken the shape of these numerous tornadoes, which were now being used as suction whips.
The woman had predicted something, and in the time it took for the man to complete the tornadoes, she had shifted a large part of the earth to form a thick layer over the burning lava. Now, the entire lava had been shifted under the ground by her, and she herself seemed to have hidden inside the earth.
However, the man was undeterred, and the tornadoes lashed out at the ground. The water tornadoes broke open on contact with the ground, immediately drenching the earth. The ice tornadoes followed, rapidly throwing the sharp ice thorns all over the soggy ground, trying to embed the woman alive inside the earth.
The other tornadoes moved over the earth covered lava pool, trying to suck up the dust into the thin vortexes. However, due to separating the Core tornado into many parts, the suction power had decreased a lot. It could now only affect a very small area, and took a long time to suck in the dust.
Still, the dust finally moved off, and the lava appeared. Another tornado took the first one's place, and soon a raging fire tornado appeared.
Soon the entire arena was being slashed apart by the water, wind, ice, fire and earth tornadoes.
Yet....there was no sign of the woman! Even the spectators failed to catch even a glimpse of her shadow all around the arena.....where in the world had she disappeared?!
The woman had indeed disappeared.....and nowhere other than inside the fire tornado. She was currently moving up the inside of the vortex, using a large amount of earth which the tornado had gathered when sucking at the ground.
Fully focused, she concentrated her earth energy, bringing the dust particles towards the center of the vortex so that they could cling together. Then using the suction force of the tornado, she was pushing herself off from one clump of earth to another above her.
However, a fire tornado had a way of completely burning up air, thus leading to asphyxiation. So this is where her hidden trump card came in handy....she had an Inner World. An Inner World is sort of like a personal dimension space, which a space cultivator carries with themselves. Depending on the level of your space cultivation and comprehension, the dimension could be small or big, be only used for storing resources or keep food fresh or even retain the life of plants and beasts and other living forms.
Her Inner World was not very big, and could only be used for storing resources. However, it had some air, and in the current situation, she was using the space like an oxygen tank. While climbing upwards, whenever she ran out of breath, she would quickly disappear into the Inner World to fill up her lungs, then come out to continue climbing.
Due to the fire and earth inside the vortex, the woman managed to hide her aura from the male Challenger, till she finally appeared behind the man. During her climb, she had slowly gathered all the earth inside the vortex, and as soon as she came up behind the man, the collected earth turned into a smaller Earth Man, jumping straight towards the back of the man.
The man had either already predicted such a move, or his instincts were terrifying. Though the time between the woman appearing, and the Earth Man forming completely and jumping towards the man seemed like the blink of an eye, the man had already twisted his body to face the Earth Man. Instead of attacking the Earth Man, or evading his attack, the man simply let go of his body, falling straight towards the ground. The Earth Man followed, and man and Earth Man were falling rapidly towards the ground, neither showing any sign of stopping the vertical fall.
The woman was a bit surprised, and seemed distracted for a moment. And that distraction was all it took. The man, even while falling without support, had been observing the woman closely. And as soon as he saw the hesitation, he subtly flicked his fingers.
When the man fell, the tornadoes suddenly lost their support, and had gone wild, moving all over the arena without control. And from one of these whirlwinds, a sharp, barbed piece of icicle shot out, going for the woman at an exceptional speed.
The woman sensed the incoming icicle attack, and in the nick of time put up a fire barrier before herself. However, when the icicle hit the barrier and started melting into water, a black dust flew out into the air, crashing into the fire wall and exploding. Immediately a thick, black fume was released, which spread rapidly in all direction, crossing over the fire wall and reached the woman who was still holding up the barrier. Though she responded instantaneously, Rihanna felt certain that the poison had hit her.
Meanwhile the man was still falling freely as he made another gesture with his fingers. The tornadoes dispersed, and the wind gathered at the sides, blowing hard at the sides of the man's body. With the force of the wind, the man was blown away from his position below the Earth Man. However, the Earth Man was quite large and his limbs were spread outwards, which knocked into the shoulder of the man.
Knocked out by the weight of the body, the man was unable to control the force of the wind ad his descent, and fell on the ground with a loud thump. The body rolled on the ground, even flying into the air due to the force of impact, till it finally came to rest amongst the rising dust on the ground. The Earth Man, having lost connection with the woman, broke as it fell, scattering all over the floor of the arena.
For a few moments, there was no movement on the arena stage. Finally a figure appeared in the air. It was the woman. Rihanna frowned upon seeing her. She was right - the poison had hit her. For she was bleeding from her mouth and nose. Due to the great height at which she appeared, and the fact that currently she was unable to control the Earth Man, she fell straight from the air, landing harshly on the ground.
A long time passed. No one was moving in the arena. The auditorium was filled with hushed voices and concerned people.
In the end, the man coughed, seemingly just having gained consciousness. After a long struggle, he finally managed to stand up. As he was trying to keep his balance and check his surroundings, the woman too coughed, seemingly also coming back to her senses.
However, the poison had done too much damage, and try as she might, she could pull herself up. In the end, her body lay prone in its place, only able to blink and watch the man through half open eyes. The man waited for something.
Suddenly the barrier array around the arena lit up with a bright and bold symbol. It was the symbol of the Ye Major Clan. The male Challenger, from Ye Major Clan had won this round. The barriers slowly lifted, allowing the Challengers to wither return back to the petal, or leave the arena.
The man slowly trudged forward, stopping quietly beside the woman. Then he took out a bottle from his space storage and placed it beside the woman. Rihanna guesses this was the antidote for the poison mist. Then he slowly continued to move forward, finally walking up the steps to take his place on the petal once more.
All the spectators heaved deep breaths, low chattering and comments once more filling up the auditorium. Rihanna leaned back in her seat. Thankfully there were only two fights organized every day. With this kind of intensity, even one fight was already weighing heavy on her mind!