Max knitted his brows as he saw the gigantic fireball cast a shadow over a large part of the arena. "Even if I evade the first impact, the shockwaves would be difficult to get rid of."
Cedric was also astounded by the sheer size of the attack. "Isn't that a bit much?"
And then, Ifrit attacked.
The fireball descended at a rapid rate toward the ground. Cedric turned his attention to Max to find that he was still throwing a punch.
"How the hell do you plan to cross the…oomph." The next moment, he was sent flying as an invisible force crossed the distance and struck his jaw.
Cedric remained in a momentary daze as he dropped to the ground with a thud. "…What just happened?"
Not wasting another second, Max backed away rapidly, moving in the direction of his staff while weaving hand seals in quick succession.
"This is gonna be close."
It was an easy task to evade Ifrit's fireball if one were in an open field since its speed of descent was proportional to its size and at the moment, it was as big as it could get.
But unfortunately in an enclosed space, there would be no place to hide, no place to use as cover from the explosion.
"If there's no cover… I'll just have to create one," Max muttered with the fireball a few seconds from impact.
As he got to his staff and pulled it out, it reached.
Boom
An explosion of extremely destructive proportions shook the arena to its core. If not for the protective barrier put in place, the entire coliseum and even the area around it would have surely been taken out in the explosion.
For a moment in Tudor county, the earth seemed to tremble after which it calmed down.
"Frightening, truly frightening," Elena said as she struggled to maintain royal etiquette after seeing such a thing.
It was both terrifying and awe-inspiring. She wondered if she would be able to handle such an attack with her abilities and the answer was obvious… she would be incinerated without a trace.
"Is this the power of geniuses?" the governor on the other hand was astounded. He could recall his younger years and never was there a time that he managed to make the earth tremble with such fervor.
Martha on the other hand had a worried look on her face. "Your highness, if you are planning on taking these to the ruins, I believe it would be best if we tread carefully."
Elena was jolted from her thoughts as she also realized what Martha was getting at. "I'll handle it. You don't have to worry."
Meanwhile, in another section of the audience, Lara had a worried look on her face as she watched the arena get covered in smoke and dust.
"… Max." She mouthed.
Lloyd reached out and patted her shoulder. "Don't worry, Max is fine. You seem to forget that he trained under Regard for five years. Do you think such a pathetic attack would be able to take him out?"
Even though Lloyd's attempt at trying to cheer her up was nice, Lara could not help but stay worried, managing a forced smile at Lloyd before returning her attention to the arena.
Slowly but surely, the smoke and dust cleared up to reveal the situation below.
At one end, Cedric was seated with a complicated expression on his face with Ifrit floating beside him.
"How did he manage to attack with the distance between us?" Cedric was unable to wrap his head around it.
Ifrit pondered for a moment before asking. "Tell me something, is that brother of yours a Magician?"
Cedric shook his head. "To my knowledge, he should be something called a Sage. I don't know what they do though."
As if hit by a train of enlightenment, Ifrit chuckled in amusement. "So that's how it was… haha, I was too excited to probe him initially."
Cedric tilted his head at Ifrit. "Why are you laughing?"
"If your brother is a Sage, then the reason he was able to hit you even without touching you is most likely because of his control over the Law of Space." Ifrit calmly explained.
"Space?... My brother can manipulate space?" Cedric was shocked by the information.
Ifrit shrugged. "That's one of the three laws that make fighting a Sage a problematic affair, especially when you aren't sure of their applications. Hah, it would seem I have to finish this."
Cedric furrowed his brows as he noticed an underlying meaning from Ifrit's statement. "What are you planning?"
Ifrit grinned as his eyes lit up. "Before I was just going to let you face off against this brother of yours but now, I believe I have to ensure that he dies, here and now."
Cedric felt complicated. He should be happy that Ifrit was willing to take a more active role but why was he worried?
"Tch, what the hell is wrong with me?" He shook off the unnecessary thoughts as he dusted himself and got back to his feet.
At this point, the smoke and dust had cleared up completely to reveal a massive crater in the middle of the arena.
"This was a bit much, no?" Cedric remarked.
Ifrit replied. "With a Sage, nothing is ever too much. Thankfully I went all out before he had a chance to make use of his other laws."
As they conversed, both Cedric and Ifrit would soon come to realize that Max was nowhere to be seen in the arena.
"This… where did he go?" Cedric asked as he spread out his Magic to probe his surrounding. Ifrit followed suit with his range being the entire arena.
It was then he sensed it. If he wasn't careful enough, he would have missed it but thankfully he was extra careful.
"There's something over there," Ifrit said, pointing to a certain location.
Cedric took the lead as he moved toward the area.
On getting there, he found nothing of note except the fact that at some point, green vines had sprouted from the ground to form some sort of covering that looked a lot like a tightly woven basket.
He scratched his head in confusion as he used his aura to probe it to find that indeed there was something underneath the tightly woven vines.
It had magical energy fluctuations but it was somewhat negligible causing Cedric to feel even more confused. "That can't be Max… he doesn't have any Magic to be able to cause fluctuations and even if he did, how the hell would he fit in there?"