Point-of-View: Azyl Roake

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After that close call in the training duel against Ekai, I decided to see if I could form my magic faster and on a larger scale...in the past, my Water Magic came so naturally to me and was already way too powerful for my liking since it drew too much attention towards me, so I never even considered training to make it stronger.

But now, everyone was getting crazy powerful one by one, and so were our enemies, so...I started putting effort into casting my Water and Ice Magic, in the past I simply did so with nothing but my thoughts and no real effort besides that. So, did the training work?

Well, by putting in physical effort by straining my Mana circuits when channeling Mana...I drastically increased the casting speed and output scale. It was a little tricky to grasp and control at fist, but after I got the hang of it, no one even came close to beating me in the subsequent training duels.

Shortly after this attack began, I found myself surrounded by a lot of the enemies...so I froze them all in an instant, and now they're all dead, and will be even after the ice melts. And right now, it looks like I'm staring at the mastermind behind this attack. She looks...excited. I stood up with a sigh and raised my hand up towards her.

"Judging by your appearance, you're Belia Lasmodeus, right? I don't care what you are, I'll freeze you, shatter you and crush you into cold dust..."

I then formed a large, spiky ball of ice, above her, and the instant she glanced up towards it as its shadow fell over her, I dropped my arm, the mass of ice instantly and rapidly falling towards her...now, take this, Frostbite!

Before it could reach her, she formed a protective barrier above herself, which didn't even crack as my attack crashed onto it...I then shattered the mass of ice into several tiny shards and had them zip around the barrier and shoot in towards her from every direction.

She then formed a defensive square barrier all around her. I swiftly formed a fist of ice around it and began applying pressure, but to no avail...this is getting annoying. I then pulled out a piece of blank parchment from my pocket and quickly began filling it out with my right hand, while using my left hand to continue applying pressure onto the barrier she had formed.

If she takes it down even for an instant, with the amount of force I'm putting into this massive ice fist, she'll get crushed flat. In other words, I've bought myself some time, but she's likely to teleport soon, so I need to work fast here, while keeping an eye out for her to reappear if she teleports out of her barrier. Just a little more...almost done...

Suddenly, she reappeared behind me, standing on my mass of ice...I could tell because I had taken my Water Mapping technique to a higher level...I wasn't just limited to streaks of water along the ground, I could use the droplets of water in the air as well...and if the air was too dry for that, I could just make my own water droplets and disperse them throughout the air, allowing my to fully sense my surroundings...and react instantly.

I spun around and sprang back, getting distance away from her, as I subtly folded up the parchment and ran my Mana through it. I don't care how strong you're supposed to be, stepping onto my ice...is a big mistake.

"Woah, that was a quick reaction, not bad!" She grinned, as I froze her feet and raised an ice spike straight towards her torso, "Your Ice Magic is something else, but my barriers are-...!"

She coughed out blood as the ice spike pierced through her abdomen and burst out through her back, her eyes widening with disbelief.

"What was that about your barriers?" I inquired, as I formed sharp icicles all around her, without a single gap for her to slip through, "Now, die."

As my spikes all closed in on her, she hurriedly shattered the ice that was impaling her, before almost losing her balance, as I'd restrained her feet with ice. Right as the spikes reached her and began to pierce her...a shimmering wave burst out all around her, dissipating my attacks, along with the ice below her, as she pressed her palm against herself and...instantly healed herself?

No, it wasn't healing, it was something else...her clothes has gotten restored too. Hm...maybe she turned back time on herself? Judging by her expression, she hadn't wanted to do that. Think, think back to everything Kuro had learnt about her through the Vampire King...wait, that's right...

"Did you just use Divine Magic? Is that why you look so sour? You're apparently immortal, but I bet that if I can make you use that spell again a few more times, you'll use up your remaining Divine Magic...and each time you use it, depending on how much of it you use, you'll grow that much weaker. Am I wrong?" I inquired, taking a gamble...if I'm mistaken, this'll just make me look stupid, but if I'm right...

"How-...oh, right, the book about the past that was published a while ago, by that human Kuro," She responded with a smirk, "I won't bluff, you're exactly right...but you just happened to catch me off-guard is all, my fighting skills are very, very rusty, after all, I haven't been in a proper fight like this in centuries. Even so, I can assure you of this much...it won't be that easy to make me use Restoration Magic again!"

"Restoration, huh...so, then you really did turn back time on yourself. It doesn't matter, I'll destroy you regardless," I remarked, as I focused on my next attack...

"Ooh, you're so cool...heh, see what I did there? I-...huh, am I sweating?" She muttered in confusion, as droplets began running down her face and arms.

Now...

She let out a scream of pain as a steam explosion burst out all around her...I'd gathered several water droplets near her, compressed them while increasing their temperature, and then simultaneously decompressing all of them when they reached their boiling point, creating small but intense steam blasts seem seemingly out of nowhere.

"Ahh, that really stings...owww....," She winced, her body shuddering in pain, "Why won't my barrier work?"

Because I just cast a barrier that disables all other General Magic spells within it, no matter how complex or powerful they may be...it's actually a very simple spell, though highly effective, requiring less than thirty command lines.

It worked like this, when a General Magic spell is activated, Mana is discharged at varying frequencies unique to each spell, and what this barrier spell does is respond to any spell activated within it and immediately fire off a frequency that's directly inverse to the activated spell...

In other words, no matter how powerful the activated spell may be, this barrier could shut it down before it could fully activate. The only way to counter this barrier would be to add command lines to the spell that inverses the inverse frequency that negates the initial frequency...but I can probably fix that weakness pretty easily...and it's an invisible and non-physical barrier, so there's absolutely no visible indication that it's active.

And what's more, she wouldn't have been able to see me filling out the parchment, I made sure of that by covering her entire barrier when I grabbed it with that ice fist, and after that, I folded it up and put it in my pocket before she could see it after she reappeared.

"Now, die."

I formed rising ice spikes all around her, angling in towards her, before a shimmer burst out from her again, the ice dissipating...no, that's not it, the ice just turned back to water...in which case, I can still use it!

I combined and compressed the water into a narrow, sharp blade and had it slash across her, which she evaded by swiftly flying up...she's fast, too fast for me to follow by sight...but my powered-up Water Mapping can keep track of her just fine...I'll just rely on that instead of my sight.

"My Weathering Magic is usually pretty absolute, but Water Magic is definitely it's weak point...but it's never been a concern before because no one has ever been able to wield Elemental Magic to this degree," She remarked, before adding with a gleam in her eyes, "Oh, I'm really enjoying fighting you!"

Weathering, huh...I see, that explains it. Fire, lightning and wind fade or weaken quickly, earth crumbles into dust over time, but no matter how much time passes, water doesn't 'age' or rot or anything...ice melts, that's why it affected my ice, and it'll probably cool down any steam attacks too...but it's useless against regular water attacks.

But there's another problem...what'll happen to me if she hits me with that shimmering attack? Most likely...I'll get aged...the question is, by how much? I'd rather not find out...I need to finish her quickly. I rapidly surrounded her with water, enclosing her within it before she could get away. I then encased the sphere of water in an outer layer of dense ice.

I'll crush her now...I swiftly closed and clenched my fist, instantly compressing the water and ice inwards while sharpening the water into thousands of needle-like appendages, before rapidly increasing the temperature of the whole mass, a powerful steam explosion bursting out.

"Woah, that was close! I'll admit, I panicked a bit when my teleport spells failed to activate too. And then I realized what you must have done," Came a voice from behind me, before swiftly flying up as I burst out ice spikes behind me.

"You survived that, huh? Well, it's fine, I'll just have to do it again, I suppose."

"I must say, whatever you've done, I'm impressed...I've seen many magic-negating and nullification spells before, but this is the first time I've come across one that I can't override, I wonder what command lines you used...and it only seems to negate General Magic spells, though my Divine Magic is still intact...if that hadn't been the case, I would have been in real trouble!"

Oh, right, Divine Magic is just a more advanced version of General Magic.

"Now I see, you used some sort of Divine Magic teleportation instead of a normal teleport spell," I realized with a frown.

"You're pretty smart, aren't you? And you're definitely strong, no one's ever managed to shut down my Weathering Magic like this before...guess that means I can't hold back anymore. It'd be pretty pathetic if I died the first time that I played a direct role in my chaos, wouldn't you agree?" She remarked with a smirk.

"You talk way too much," I responded, as I formed thousands of spinning water blades all around the area, "Bring it on, I'll tear you to pieces..."

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