A howling scream rumbled through the very soul of the tempest sorceress Kukei. The heavens rained to the command of her trident, and as the arena flooded and the people covered their heads with whatever they could find to shelter themselves from the rain, she stomped her trident commandingly to the ground again.
"CONJURE LIZARDMEN!" To her command, the water that had seeped into the sand rose to the surface. Taking form as trident-bearing lizardmen of water, the beasts wasted no time in surrounding her opponent.
With a dozen or so conjured monsters around him, William watched their every step as close as possible. Their army kept growing as the seconds passed by, instilling a sense of urgency in the prince's shrewd mind. But before the men charged at him further, he noticed right by Kukei's feet a glowing vortex in the water.
'She's actively summing them?' Charged with adrenaline, he watched the lizardmen getting closer to him in his peripherals. Focused on the vortex itself, he wondered if striking Kukei directly would get rid of the lizardmen. 'No better way to know than to try.'
"Shadow steps!" Melting as a shade into the ground, William moved through the shadow cast by the torrenting rainclouds. Being underwater, however, he had to hold his breath–something he hadn't known and was forced to get out only halfway to Kukei's position.
Emerging from the water, he could hear lizardmen shrieking with annoyance in the back. They'd stabbed a handful of their own and returned them into the water. Turning to the mage as soon as he'd emerged, they charged yet again, ready to strike him from every direction.
"Hellmar Umbra!" Allowing the lizardmen to get close to him, the prince assaulted them with a greater dark spell. Consumed by a puff of smoke flooding out of the prince's body, the lizardmen succumbed to the poison. Falling one after the other into the water, their bodies quickly contaminated their surroundings. That's when Kukei realized that magic alone wouldn't work against the tyrannical prince.
Stopping with her incantations, she tried to look around through the smoke, but much like the audience, she couldn't find William or anything in those dark clouds. Breathing in the smog, she felt her lungs being contaminated as well, and although the audience got to experience the same, a quiet spell by Astoria turned them immune to the dark poison.
"WHERE ARE YOU, YOU COWARD?!" Screaming yet again, the tempest sorceress blew the smoke right off of her face. That very instant, the glistening of a blade was caught in her peripherals. Having no time to move, she decided to cast a defensive spell instead. "LIGHTNING AEGIS!"
A burst of light erupted from her body, and the moment William got close enough, he was sent flying by an intense shock of electricity. But he wasn't the only one to be thrown away, as the late king's robe reflected fifty percent of all magic damage back to the enemy. Flying in split directions, the two landed face-first in the poisoned water.
"AGHHH!" And while William was used to enduring pain in silence to keep his identity hidden in the shadows, Kukei howled in pain, for her electric shield was still active and frying them both as they lay in the water. "ENOUGHHH!"
Grabbing the trident, she dispelled the shield. Taking a moment to recover from the blast, the two slowly rose from the water, their bodies smoking from the shock. Being a human, William's skin wasn't spared the charred scales on his body, but that wasn't the case for Kukei, as she'd incurred great burns because of it.
Lifting their heads, the two looked at each other, visibly shaken. Panting, the duo stood in the cleared slice between the dark smoke. Placing a hand on their chest, they decided to cast the same spell.
"Thymedia!" Turning mana into health, they quickly recovered their bodies and stood up straight.
Gritting her teeth in anger, Kukei was beyond upset that the prince was a better mage than she had expected. William felt no less frustrated either, for he thought of Kukei as nothing more than a rowdy islander who was needlessly amped up by her companions.
"Are you gonna forfeit yet?" William offered.
But instead of giving an answer, Kukei swung her trident to the ground and cast another spell.
"Garner Strength!" Hit with a boost in vitality and strength, Kukei's body began glowing an orange glow. Lowering herself slightly, she spread her webbed toes in the water. "Lightning fist!"
The moment she cast the last spell, her body twitched from the hit of electricity running through her body. But caring not one bit about herself, she trained her eyes on William, who seemed unbothered at the moment.
"Come on then, let's see…" He whispered, and to that, Kukei's temper climbed up a wall.
"CRAUSTEN THUNDRA!" Gathering further lighting into her fist with a greater spell, the tempest sorceress was rattled to the core with pain, and yet nothing mattered as long as she could strike William with it.
Already feeling the effect of Kukei's magic jolting him with intense electricity, William struggled through the pain and continued to stand his ground.
'We all underestimated you, didn't we?' He thought, his eyes momentarily looking around at the crowd, all of whom were leaning forward to get a closer look at the sorceress.
Gathering more and more power while the rain continued to intensify, the sorceress eventually became the only source of light in the entire coliseum. Sucking up every bit of thunder, her entire body was burning a bright yellow with sparks of electricity flying everywhere.
"YOU'RE GONNA DIE WILLIAM! I SWEAR IT!!" Looking at the mage with bloodshot eyes, Kukei took one deep breath, and in the pause before exhaling, she whispered. "Charge…"
And like lightning, her body zapped towards William. A burst of great lightning vaporized the water on the ground in an instant. The dark smoke was annihilated, and the sand under the participant's feet turned into glass. Blinded by the vaporized mist and the reflection from the glass, nobody knew what had happened until, eventually, the mist settled.
Floating mid-air with his father's cape fluttering in the wind, William had escaped Kukei's attack. As for the sorceress herself, her burnt hand was stuck against the arena wall, and she was struggling to take it out from it.
"AUGGHH! GET OUT OF THEREEEE!" Punching the wall, Kukei was growing more and more frustrated by the second, and by the time William's feet hit the glass, she had resorted to slamming her horn into the cracked wall.
Bit by bit, her appearance kept growing more deranged, and with William's footsteps growing closer in the background, the sorceress resorted to something nobody could've expected.
"ARIS BLIZZA!" Creating fangs of ice over her teeth, she used her mouth to cut through her flesh, bone, and skin.
"What the fuck?" Watching her turn with a bloodied mouth, even William was shell-shocked as to just how much someone could hate him.
Covered in blood with her right hand torn off and the stub bleeding, Kukei smiled ear to ear before throwing the trident at William while he was distracted by her injury. Getting struck in the arm, the mage fell to the glass and grunted through gritted teeth. He tried to grab the trident's handle, but it zapped his fingers so hard they broke that very instant.
"I told you I'll kill you," walking up by William's feet, her body drenched in blood and her eyes glowing under the shade of her own head, Kukei smiled at the prince. Grabbing the spear, she dug it in deeper.
"AGHHHH! WH-WHAT THE FUCK DID I EVEN DO TO YOU?!" The prince screamed in response.
But instead of an answer, Kukei once again readied herself to assault him.