Simone swung the giant weapon through the air with shocking ease. With her use, it looked no lighter than a feather. That illusion quickly broke when the hammer clashed with Karlyle's sword. If not for it being made of literal fire, it would've shattered. Even then he could feel the fires crack as if they were solid.
"What the hell is that?" Karlyle jumped back to avoid getting squished like a bug by the hammer.
"Only fair I get to use this if you get to use your sword, don't you think?"
Simone spun the hammer around her body and its smoke flowed behind it, trying to catch up. After a moment, she slammed the hammer's face into the ground and the impact caused a vibration to move through the platform. The ground broke due to the vibration which pushed its way through towards Karlyle.
To avoid it, Karlyle jumped up into the air and held himself up with jets of fire. When the vibration ceased, he descended back down and hurled fiery orbs towards Simone. In defence, she hit them away with her hammer and the orbs smashed against the walls, extinguishing on impact.
Karlyle pointed his sword at Simone and a stream of fire forced its way out like the hands of the poor reaching for the high throne of the rich. Simone pushed out a wave of smoke and the two attacks collided, pushing back one another. First, the fire took over, then the toxic gas, then the fire, and so on until the energy generated caused a shockwave that pushed the two fighters onto the ground.
Dashing at Simone, Karlyle brought up his blade and sliced it down. Simone blocked it with her hammer, dragging Karlyle along with his sword. He released jets of fire from his feet to hold himself back and push against Simone's force. The two were stuck in a stalemate so they both sprung to action in order to achieve an advantage over the other.
Simone's palms, which were clasped against the handle of the hammer, excreted the toxic gas while Karlyle's open hand formed a fireball. Karlyle pushed the fireball forward and it spread out into a fiery vortex. The toxic gas that Simone excreted took the hit for her and dissipated the fires. Jumping back, there was once again a fair distance between Karlyle and Simone.
"I see this won't have an end."
Speaking in a calm manner, Simone seemed to be left unphased by the fight. On the other hand, Karlyle was panting and out of breath. No matter what he did, his physique remained low.
"One of us will have to surrender."
"That won't be me."
"Won't be me either."
"Then this will go on."
Simone spun her arm in the air, generating a flow of toxic gas that steadily sped up. The tornado formed by the action began pulling Karlyle towards it, and in response, he used his pyrokinesis to push himself away. Continuing to spin, the toxic gas accelerated and soon started to expand throughout the arena.
With fires on his legs pushing him back, Karlyle used his hands to throw attacks at the tornado. Each fire was dragged in by the toxic gas and dispersed around its circular shape which now took up about 50% of the arena. With no other choice, Karlyle let himself get dragged into the storm.
"AHHH!"
His body was flung around in a circular movement, nausea was setting in and he was about to puke till the force pushed him into the centre where Simone was located. Regaining his composure quickly, Karlyle jumped up and released a combustive fire from his palm. Simone's body was pushed into her own tornado, causing her to lose control and forcing the gas to decay.
Now, she was the one panting.
"Lucky... hit."
"Your own fault."
Repeating what he did last time, Karlyle pointed his sword at Simone and the fiery stream burst out and pushed through the air. Upon reaching Simone, the duel ended and crowned him victorious. The healing enchantment kicked in and the burns on her skin were treated by the green essence of Councilman Kyanar's magic.
"I'll be shocked if he doesn't win the tourney."
Simone rubbed her arm as her mind still felt the pain of the fire.
Mimi looked at Karlyle, who was wiping his face with a towel, and replied, "me too, but I have no idea where that came from."
"What do you mean?"
"There was an unsettling feeling I felt when he did that final attack, I don't know, probably just shock from what I saw."
"Probably. Well, I have to go now. Congratulate him for me."
Simone picked up her coat and left the training room while Mimi walked over to Karlyle. Karlyle was drinking water; now that the battle was done, the exhaustion fully set in. Adrenaline was the secret ingredient that kept him going.
"Good job Lyle."
Karlyle wiped his lips to get rid of the water left on his mouth before responding, "thanks."
"Do you want to fight a bit more?"
"No thanks, I'm too tired."
"Want to go eat then?"
"Nah, I'm not hungry, just thirsty."
"Fair enough. So, what do you wanna do?"
"Probably just nap."
"Go ahead then, I won't disturb you."
Karlyle entered his housing after saying goodbye to Mimi. His body was on the verge of collapsing but he forced himself into showering. The water poured onto his body but to his shock it wa-
"WHY IS IT SO COLD?!"
His screams echoed through the small house while his hand rushed to turn the temperature of the water up. Thanks to the quick temperature drop and then spike, some energy was restored to his body and he felt less sleepy.
Once he finished showering, he hopped into bed and entered the dream world.
In this dream, all he could see was a giant blue and golden orb of flames. After an eternity of staring at it, the void around and the orb started to tremble and shake until a redness entered the flames. The gold colour became silver and the ocean blue became a deep crimson.
Karlyle's body jolted awake when the entire orb became red and silver, and, for some reason, all he could see in his mind was flowing ginger hair.
Covered in sweat and his heart pounding out of his ribcage, Karlyle rubbed his face with his hands and breathed deeply. After a few minutes of deep breaths and pants, his heart calmed and Karlyle headed into the bathroom once again today. He cupped his hands under the sink and the cold water gathered. Once it started to spill over, he brought his face into the water and rubbed the sweat off.
Bringing his head back up, Karlyle faced himself in the mirror; then one of his irises turned red and silver while the other turned blue and gold. Panicking at the sight, Karlyle woke up one more time - back in his bed and covered in sweat again.
"What dream was that? What time even is it?"
Karlyle opened up the Arkana Network and saw that it was 3 in the morning. How long did he sleep? When did the fight with Simone happen? Karlyle's entire sense of time was disturbed and it would take some time to adjust once again.
Going back to sleep, Karlyle had no dream this time around and instead woke up at exactly 8. He couldn't even recall falling asleep, it was as if time just jumped from one point to the next.
After conducting his morning routine and getting dressed, Karlyle went back to the training grounds and used some of the gym equipment. Primarily he lifted some weights and ran on the treadmill. Once he was done with the gym equipment, Karlyle moved to the kinetic practice section of the training grounds that was filled with animated dummies.
Reserving a couple, Karlyle got to fighting them. At first, he tried to go one on one with a dummy, then a one versus two, then three and going back to one. He managed to win every fight and that raised his confidence until he saw the difficulty setting: 'Juvenile Beginner.' The fact that was even a setting for a tourney between 18 year olds sprouted annoyance in Karlyle. He bumped the setting up to 'Intermediate' and he barely managed to get past two dummies nevertheless three at once.
"Damn.. am I on the same level as a beginner still?"
What Karlyle didn't know was that the difficulty settings weren't as accurate as everyone thought. 'Intermediate' was technically 'Advanced,' and 'Juvenile Beginner' was 'Intermediate.' In the end, there were no criteria for each difficulty setting as truly, nobody cared enough to plan it out, especially not a councilman who had significantly more important matters to attend to.
Karlyle continued to fight with the singular dummy set to 'Intermediate' until the dreaded notification, or, well, warning, arrived.
[The third tourney battle will soon be beginning!]
"Great."
Finishing up his battle with the dummy, Karlyle noticed Mimi's arrival and they got to some last-minute training until the third round began.