It has been only 10 minutes since Mikaela has stepped her foot on the stage and she has defeated 11 students from Blaze academy without moving from her initial position. Everytime she defeated an opponent the crowd's applaud became louder and louder.
Karl who has sitting on plain grass, had to admit that Mikaela has grown exponentially since their duel. 'During our duel she was robust and confident in her victory which eventually led to her demise. But now she is calculating her opponent's every move while taking outmost caution.'
On the stage, Mikaela thrown a kid with glasses off the stage.
"YEAHHH!"
"PRINCESS OF LIGHT IS BACK!"
"I NEVER STOPPED BELIEVING IN HER."
The crowd's claim regarding Mikaela's reputation took an 180 degree turn.
'Those chains almost feel undestructable.' Karl thinks as he stares at the floating golden chains. 'Seems like no-one from Blaze academy could melt those golden chains. Again, she has an advantage in her element too as everyone she faced until now only used fire element which looks useless against those chains.'
Midst of loud cheers, a girl wearing the uniform of Blaze academy steps on the stage. Her feet trembling, eyes about to get overfilled with tears and a scared expression. Even a dimwit can predict what will happen in this last round. "State your name." The referee orders.
"C-Claire Jones."
Mikaela's expression doesn't change. While Claire is experiencing many complex emotion which were driven by fear.
Few seconds pass by and nothing happens. Seeing her opponent is not making the first move, Mikaela moves the chains with her single thought. Claire sees the sudden movement made by the golden chains.
"HIEE!" She quickly falls on her knees and starts to cry.
Mikaela stops midway.
"I-I want to surrender." The poor girl finally expresses her thoughts. The referee acknowledges the plea of surrender and turns to announce.
"UAHHHH!" A beast-like roar, loud enough to crack normal glass windows was heard everyone. Few people sitting in the crowd started to panic which quickly turned into a riot. In anxiety, majority of people started to run towards the exit.
"Susen, look in the source and Karlos lock down the exits I don't want a single fly out of this dome." Lady Treypin issues orders before moving herself to calm the riot.
A man with a baby in hand was the first to reach the exit as he was about leave, a wall made of rock blocked his exit. He desperately banged the wall. "Please. Let me out. I have my daughter here. If not, at least get my daughter out."
A large amount people quickly swarm at the exit, cramming the small corridor. The man tries his best to get some breathing space for her small daughter. "Hold on sweetie. Everything will be alright. The sentinels are here." He whispers to her crying daughter.
The man looks around and sees that the entire corridor is jam-packed with many people struggling to breath. Claustrophobia overwhelming his mind, he glances at his crying daughter and decides to make a hard decision. 'If it's for my daughter.' With these thoughts, the man summons his dull orange magic circle. It is very small, it barely fills his palm.
Suddenly a sweet yet calming voice is heard by everyone in the dome. "Please calm down. We, Sentinels of the Horizon are here to protect you all. Everything is in our control." The judges quickly control the situation as the crowd calmed down just by few words from Lady Treypin.
A large root of an tree emerges from the ground and breaks down the corridor walls, making more space for crammed civilians. "Please proceed back to your seats. There is no need to panic."
Just as the man relaxes himself and smiles at his daughter, an explosion occurs.
BOOM! It was a small explosion, but it was enough to send shivers through every fleeing civilians. The crowd panicked again.
Lady Treypin looks in the explosion's direction. 'Susen, what are you doing?' Then, she summons a large complex magic circle which covers the half of the stage. The magic circle quickly floats to the ground below.
On the stage, Mikaela quickly grabs Clair who was immobile on the ground due to fear and dashes off. Karl witnesses a large bright green magic circle floating down. Once the circle touches the stage, the ground shakes violently and large flower pops up. It wrecks half of the stage. The giant flower is over 20 metre tall. Thousands of vines and roots comes out of the flower. The vines and roots quickly grabs panicking civilians and puts them back on their seat.
In matter of seconds, almost everyone is back on their seats. "Please be seated and remain calm." This time there was no sweetness in Lady Treypin's voice.
Multiple knights with weapons in hand are running towards the fire which was caused by the explosion. Among those knights, there were some federation agents mixed in.
"You three! Leave the stage, now!" The referee picks up Karl with one hand and forces him to stand. As he stands, his head starts to get heavy but Karl doesn't argues and runs sluggishly to the corrirder which leads to the elevator.
Once inside he falls to his knees, his vision blurring out. Karl gathers his strength and tries to stand up. He somehow stands up and glances ahead. In a distance, he sees Mikaela staring at a girl. He slowly walks towards her, once close enough he can clearly see that this girl was her opponent and she is trembling uncontrollably.
"Wow. I never thought that you of all persons, would save an enemy." Karl says in a low voice.
"She is not my enemy. It is a knight's duty to save as many as innocent lives possible." Mikaela answers.
"Save? She doesn't look saved." Karl points at her trembling body.
"Hmm. Now that you mentioned, I also don't think her condition is…..normal." Mikaela says in nonchalant tone.
Karl waits for few seconds before answering. "Are you serious? She is clearly having a panic attack. Take her to a hospital."
Mikaela turns back to face Karl. "Hos-pi-tol? What is that?"
Karl sighs loudly. "Healer! Take her somewhere to be treated." Mikaela's eyes opens up in realization. She turns back to pick up Claire.
A sudden pain struck in Karl's chest. He coughs loudly. This gains Mikaela's attention. She glances at him while holding Clair over her shoulder. "I hate to ask this but are you okay? I need you until we made it into top 10. There I will defeat you. For that, stay fit."
Karl smirks as he spits blood. "Hah? Are you worried about me?"
Mikaela narrows her eyes as she hates Karl's smile. She turns around to walk ahead.
After few steps later, Karl calls her. "W-Wait. On the second thought, take me too."
COUGH! COUGH!
The Chief creates multiple water cannons to extinguish fire as he moved ahead. 'Accident? No. If it was a accident there shouldn't be a delayed explosion. Then diversion?' He summons multiple magic circles to create a tide of water which will extinguish majority of the excess fire.
A federation knight appears behind him. "Sir, we have evacuated the civilians from the building."
"Good. Any idea what caused this fire?" The Chief asks as he sprays water.
"No. But the explosion happened on the residential floors." The Chief stops and looks at him.
"Which one?"
"33th floor sir." The agent answers.
A solid concrete wall crumbles as the Chief cuts it using his semi-solid liquid spear. He steps into Gea's room or what it used to be. Not a single furniture was intact as fire burned everything in it's way. There is a huge hole in the floor. 'Must be due to explosion.' The Chief thinks as he examines the room.
He sprays a jet of water everywhere in the room. Few minutes the fire inside the room is extinguished, only black ashes remains. The Chief narrows his eyes as he tries to find the culprit. His eyes falls on the huge hole, there is unusual amount of smoke coming out of that floor. He jumps in the floor and lands on 32th floor.
Infront of him, there is a toilet just below a blackened out mirror. The mirror is covered with a half burned cloth. 'Who designed this room?' The Chief wonders as he turns around.
There lies a full burned body in a praying position. Every limb of the was turned black. The black hands infused together due to heat, back bend to an unnatural degree and a fresh bloodied skull between the those arms. The entire scene looks very gruesome.
The Chief walks closer to the body and kneels next to the body. The body could not be identified but from the pelvis and the collar on the neck, the Chief believed it to be a female, a slave to be exact.
The Chief stands up and calls his agents for the cleanup.
[4 hours after the explosion]
Karl is sitting on the hospital bed. 'Maybe I start posting online reviews of hospitals. Hmm. Does content making pay well in this world?' He wonders as he looks up and sees a large cylinder which is attached to Karl's wrist via small rubber pipes. It works like a saline.
It pumps artificial mana into Karl's body. Karl sighs as he remembers how the doctor freaked out when he ran a checkup. Apparently, Karl's mana levels were far below than optimal. The doctor immediately admitted him. After pumping a good amount of artificial mana, the doctor explained the situation.
"Son, I don't know how you got into this situation. But selling an organ for bunch of photons is not worth it. Anyhow, you are going to die. Even it's just a matter of time before your body will start rejecting this mana. At that time, not even the sage himself could save you from death."
Karl's expression was normal but he refuses to talk with the doctor. The doctor stays by his side and tries to talk with him. But nothing works. At the end, he gets up from his seat. "Let me know, if you need any loans or insurance. As the those cylinders are expensive."
Currently, Karl is browsing the watch to search for the price of this cylinder. 'Rejection or not. As long these things can relieve my pain just by a bit. I am buying them.'
He opens up an article about artificial mana. He scrolls through pages of information until he stumbles upon the picture of the exact cylinder attached to him. He clicks on it. "20 BLUE PHOTONS??" Karl gasps.
Just then the door opens up and Ray walks in. He sees Karl's exaggerated expression. "Are you okay, kid?"
Karl notices Ray and calms down. "Yes, still alive but dead inside." He says it in a depressed voice.
"Anyways, why are you here?" Ray smirks. "You and I are going into a meeting. Also you made it into top 10."
Karl rejoices and raises both of his hands. "FUCKING FINALLY!"