Half of his body had already been pulled beneath, bits of sand and clay invading every uncomfortable nook and cranny in his lower half. Only the upper portions of his neck remained above the surface, his chin touching the sand every time he moved his head, and no matter what he tried to do, the damn thing kept constantly pulling him under with every movement. Given the nature of sand, it would allow any and all force-based attacks to get sieved through its pores, and any and all openings would immediately be filled with sand sinking from above.

And using fire when sandwiched inside sand was a stupid idea from the start.

“Banksi,” Lukas drawled with the right mix of apathy and annoyance, “You’re annoying me.”

“Nature of the beast,” Banksi replied back, giving him a shark-like grin, “I’m an Earth-Shaper. It’s what I do.”

Lukas took a moment to remind himself that the other Earth-Shaper whatshisname would have vehemently disavowed such a notion, given his aggressive fighting style. But Banksi wasn’t a professional adventurer and was only in because of this entire mess. If there was anyone who’d want to end this matter without getting dust on his uber-expensive robes, it would probably be him.

But Banksi had made a mistake.

He had assumed that Lukas was exactly the same individual that he had trapped back in the Crypt.

That the same tricks would continue to work on him.

Allow me to correct your ignorance. He thought with a predatory grin.

“Well then,” Lukas drawled, “this is what I do.”

Territory Creation.

Anomalous Energy expanded out of his body, spreading in all directions like wildfire. Lukas felt it permeate through the very sands, and given how the grin on Banksi’s face had suddenly dropped, the Earth-Shaper had realized the sudden loss of control. The earth-shaper doubled the mana he was throwing at him, only for Lukas’s territory to gobble it up.

And that was the sign for his second move.

Lukas threw his head back and yelled—

“ARAH! THE FIREBRINGER! DEVOUR THIS FIELD!”

Tanya watched with surreal fascination and a healthy bout of fear as the sky above them exploded into blazes of light, and the invisible barrier walls, extending several dozen feet into the air, went up with it. Fire leaped up into the air, forty, fifty feet, and the sudden explosion of it threw everyone down to the ground, the wind roaring beneath the flames in a furious gale.

Conjuring an ever-spinning dome of pure wind around herself, she cast a wide-area deflective shield above her teammates, using convection to constantly filter the heat away from them. It was her go-to tactic against pyromancers whenever she faced one during her travels all across the Empire. Knowing the advantage that Pyromancers tended to have against Wind-Shapers, the Shimizu clan had often sent Fire-shaper assassins after her in the past.

Tanya had taught them better, by burning them alive in the same flames they had tried to use against her.

But this? This was different.

This was bigger and stronger. And more importantly, this was way over what she had imagined.

The world around her gasped and went scarlet, red light flooding like a haze. The air screamed with unnatural power as the flames unleashed destruction upon the area, its power rolling off in waves. A power she had seen only once very recently— when Lukas had performed that Spell in the Anomaly.

And even then, it had been carefully constrained, existing only to fulfill a single purpose.

This… This was all that power.

But without purpose.

Without restraint.

The Everfrost in her sang, its whispers growing louder and louder. It wanted her to find this power’s source and devour it. Such power deserved to be contained, used, and directed. Everfrost would give it Direction. It would use the power to bring in the calmness and silence of the Eternal Glacier upon the entire—

“TANYA!”

Zuken’s words shook her out of that twisted line of reasoning. She jerked up, her stomach doing a nasty flip as she concentrated the Wind above them all. Both Zuken and Olfric had gathered close to her, allowing her to encase them all under a protective cocoon of spinning wind. The air and ground shook as a fog of insurmountable heat came crashing down upon them—

Only to be intercepted by a wave of water splashing upon the shield from the right.

Tanya nodded at Olfric, who acknowledged it back in return.

“LOOK!” Zuken screamed, and she looked up.

And up.

And stood rooted in fear.

It was a kami, there was no doubt about that. But to call this thing merely a ‘kami’ was like calling a sabretooth a cat, or a dragon a snake. Her own bond with Ezzeron notwithstanding, kami, in general, were always Bound, trapped by the powers of Eternal Light— the Blessing and the Cursed Chains of the Great Goddess Amaterasu. Every Kami that existed in the Llaisy Kingdom was always bound, with armor forged around them— armor that was actually restraining them from using their fullest power while also decreasing their chances of possessing their Host, if not mana-poison them.

This thing?

It had none.

The creature was easily spanning twenty feet in sheer height, with muscular arms so massive and corded that they bordered on grotesque, with bronze skin and sharp, ash claws, each the size of her own hand. The head looked like a grotesque fusion of an animal skull and a bremetan face, with flames exuding out of its nostrils. Large, twisted horns rose out of its head, and rolled down its entire form like flowing robes, merging with the flames below it. All of those things were discomforting enough. But more than anything physical, this creature was horrifying because of the aura it exuded of sheer, mindless, impossible power. Like nothing she had ever seen or even dreamed of in her blackest nightmares, like watching an earthquake or staring into an oncoming hurricane, frozen in fear and awe by the unimaginable destructive potential and the prospect of certain death.

Tanya understood better than anyone else the nature of the sensations she felt, the type of creature that stood before her. If she attacked, she would be crushed in a single stroke. Even if she took no offensive action and acted solely to preserve her own life, she would most likely not be leaving this arena alive, not if Lukas Aguilar had lost control, and this monstrosity decided it wanted her dead.

She looked at the said individual and found him utterly unfazed. Completely content in staying trapped within Zuken’s sand coffin.

With that condescending smile on his stupid face. And for one moment, Lukas’s words reverberated in her mind.

“You think that facing you guys three on one makes me vulnerable. Maybe you ought to rethink that. Maybe… it’s the other way around.”

And then Lukas Aguilar winked.

At her.

Tanya stared at it, her mouth open. Could it… really be true? He— Lukas was in control? But… how? She had unleashed Ezzeron out only before, and it had not been a pretty sight. Hell, she herself had to resort to using Everfrost to tame him down.

Tanya regarded this… kami. No, not kami. This wasn’t a kami. This was a destroyer. A being wholly specialized for the obliteration of life. It had no purpose but to choose a target and attack, attack, attack with relentless fury and unstoppable force until that target was nothing but wet meat on the ground, and then to choose another target, and another, and another, until there was nothing around it but death.

So why in the nine hells was it under Aguilar’s stupid control?

She didn’t know whether to laugh or cry.

“Damnit!” She heard Zuken exclaim. “Damnit! Damnit! DAMNIT!”

Tanya arched an eyebrow in surprise. Banksi wasn’t one to show his emotions like that.

“I told him to not hold back. I told him to go ahead and demonstrate his full prowess. Without caring for the consequences. I had thought it would make a strong impression on the crowd.”

Tanya nodded dumbly. She herself had acted along the same vein, asking him to take things seriously and even pointing out his lack of fighting experience. That he would be facing multiple Bronze-class opponents, and not even she would be holding back.

And this was what had happened. Aguilar had unleashed an ifrit— one that was on par with Ezzeron from before and had then leveled up to become this. Already she could see the spectators rushing out of the open galleries into the protective zones, with the guards pouring in from all sides, adding their own barriers to keep the massive monstrosity from breaking out and slaughtering everyone.

This tournament was supposed to demonstrate Lukas’s strengths. Somehow, it didn’t seem to fit the definition anymore.

“You know what, Banksi?” Tanya murmured, “I think we might have made a huge mistake.”