“T-that attack was too strong to be done by a first year! Rhina! What does your profile on her say!?”

Even Rhina was shocked at Maeve’s performance. Although she had only used the law of air during her battle with the ranger, her mastery and use of it sent shivers down her spine. Although she hadn’t fought her, Rhina felt that Maeve was holding back.

“I-I…My profile doesn’t mention her being that skilled.”

“WHAT! I thought you said you profiled every possible opponent! How can you not mention she was so skilled!”

“I TOLD YOU THAT SOME PEOPLE MIGHT APPEAR WEAK WHEN THEY’RE NOT! HOW WAS I SUPPOSED TO KNOW SHE WAS THIS STRONG! WHEN I PROFILED HER SHE WAS ONLY AT THE LEVEL OF A FIRST YEAR!” Finally losing her cool, Rhina snapped at Daisha.

“SHUT UP YOU BRATS!!!!” Taking a brief rest from pacing the strategy room, Kira looked at both girls and released an oppressive aura. “Now listen here you good for nothing little bitches! Your teammate is not here! Do you know what that means? No? Of course you don’t! You’re to busy worrying about some random bitch instead of focusing on the real problem!” Having heard enough of their useless chatter, Kira felt her stress levels rise. Not only was Daelos not here! But her other two students were bickering like children! If she didn’t calm herself down soon, who knows what she’ll do.

…

“Will class 8 and 1 make their way to the courtyard arena.” Shouting out the next match up, the announcer watched as two teams arrived at their positions.

Class 8 was made up of three elves. Two males and one female. The leader of the team was a blonde haired elf in light brown armour, wielding an elegant looking silver spear. The other male elf wore reinforced leather armour with two curved swords in each hand. The last member of their team was a short haired girl carrying a long chain with two circular weights attached to the end of it.

Class 1’s members consisted of two females and one male. The leader of class 1’s team was a beautiful brown haired elf wearing golden earrings and a charming green dress that showed off her wonderful curves. If it wasn’t for the five knives floating around her, you wouldn’t believe that she was here to fight in a tournament. To her left was another beautiful elf who was only slightly inferior in looks compared to the leader. She had ginger hair and her face held several soft features. In her right hand was a beautiful long sword of elven design. In her left hand was a silver shield that reflected the light off of its stainless surface. The last member of the team was an elf with light blue hair. He wore traditional elven armour and held an ice blue bow in his hand. If one looked closely, they could see condense water vapour (steam) being released by the bow.

Seeing the other team’s weapons the leader of class 1 gave his teammates their targets. “Haela stall the woman in the dress, use your chains to redirect her knives and keep her focus on you until either me or Eldrin arrive. Eldrin take care of the one with the sword and shield. If needs be, use the dual art earth sword dance.”

“But how are you gonna take care of the archer with a spear?” Although he wouldn’t usually question Aranel, his strategy seemed to have a few flaws in it.

Smiling at his teammate’s concern, Aranel felt it was cute that his teammate thought that a mere archer could trouble him. “I’ll handle it.”

On class 8’s side, they were also picking their opponents. “I’ll take out the spear user, Iolas keep the one with two swords at bay. Irithiel since you have a shield it’ll be easier if you attack the chain wielding girl. Try to finish your opponent as fast as possible. If you can’t, then stall them until back up arrives.

…

Inside the strategy room, both Rhina and Daisha sat quietly watching the screen.

“Who do you think will win? I think team 1 have a good shot.”

Without taking her eyes off the screen, Rhina answered. “I’m not so sure. I think class 8 has a better balance when it comes to coordinated fights.”

“What makes you say that?”

“Their weapons. An archer is a ranged class so he can provide support, the girl with the sword a shield is probably a close quarter fighter with the attributes of a tank so she should be able to stall an opponent for a long time. Not to mention that if she uses laws to enhance herself, she would be a terrifying opponent. As for the chick with knives floating around her… I don’t know. She may be a wild card.

“A wild card huh.” Turning her focus back to the screen, Daisha watched with excited eyes.

…

In the audience a hooded figure muttered something under their breath after seeing the combatants. “A bunch of weaklings. Nothing special.”

…

“BEGIN!”

Once the announcer started the match both sides charged towards each other. Each team smirked as they dashed towards their target. Sword clashed against a spear, swords struck knives and arrows hit spinning chain.

SHIT!

SHIT!

SHIT!

SHIT!

SHIT!

SHIT!

The same thought crossed all of their minds once they realised that they were matched up against the wrong opponent. Eldrin faced off against the knife wielding Takari.

*CLANG!!*

Holding one of her floating knives in the reverse grip, both the knife and sword clashed against each other creating a nice loud clang. As Eldrin was used to more upfront combat he was slightly stronger than Takari. Raising his other hand he struck down with his second sword aimed at Takari’s head. A light flashed across her eyes as a sudden earth spike erupted out of the middle of the earth causing Eldrin to stop his attack and jump back in retreat. Once they were separated, Takari threw several of her knives at the unsteady Eldrin. Enhancing the knives with the law of air, their speed caught the sword wielding elf off guard.

*WHOOSH!!*

*WHOOSH!!*

*WHOOSH!!*

*WHOOSH!!*

Shit!

Crossing his swords together, he gathered the law of fire on his blades and sent a crisscrossed fire strike towards the incoming knives. As if they had a mind of their own the knives avoided the attack and continued their assault.

Fuck!

In the distance a mocking smile could be seen on Takari’s face. Trying to stop my knives with such an attack is just asking me to defeat you.

Seeing the knives continue to approach him, the worry on his face disappeared as his mind raced over his options. Stomping his foot on the ground, a wall of earth shot out the floor and took the brunt of the knife attacks.

*Boom*

*Boom*

*Boom*

*Boom*

“WHAT!” An expression of shock covered Takari’s face as she saw her knives impaled in a slab of earth.

Kicking the wall of earth off into the distance, Eldrin followed up by charging towards the single knifed Takari and slashing down from above.

My KNIVES!!

*SWOOSH!!*

Barley avoiding his slash, Takari threw herself to the ground and summoned an army of earth knives and sent them hurtling towards Eldrin.

“DIEE!!”

What is up with this bitch and knives! Using the law of air on his body, he enhanced his speed and reflexes deflecting all the earth knives that attempted to impale him. While he was busy dealing with that mess, he didn’t notice Takari run off and approach the wall of earth that had her knives stuck in them.

…

Facing off against class 8’s only male member Iolas, was class 1’s only female member Haela.

Keeping his distance from the chain wielding girl, Iolas infused his arrows with the law of water which quickly turned into ice when nocked against his bow. Firing a barrage of arrows into the air, he watched as they rained down on the poor girl.

*CLINK!!*

*CLINK!!*

*CLINK!!*

*CLINK!!*

*CLINK!!*

*CLINK!!*

*CLINK!!*

Covering her chain in intense flames, Haela spun the chain above her head, intercepting the arrows before they could land. Switching from the law of fire to the law of air, she coated her body in light wind and shot towards the retreating archer.

Leaping into the air, she performed a numerous amount of front flips and used her momentum to build up an insane amount of force behind her chain strike. Slashing down with all her strength.

*SWOOSH!!*

Her chain tore through the air as the weight at the end of it was aimed at the archer.

SHIT!!

*BOOOOM!!!*

“ARGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!” Iolas’s scream echoed across the entire arena as the weight landed on his shoulder, crushing his bones.

Holding his left shoulder, he fell to his knees as tears welled up in the corner of his eyes. “ARRRGHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!” Letting out another pain filled scream, something unbelievable started to happen. The bow in his right hand started to emit an icy aura as the temperature around him started to drop. His right hand clutching the bow started to change colour as ice blue tattoos started to slither up his arm from the bow. The bow started to flicker with an icy blue light as the tattoos started to cover every inch of Iolas’s body.

“HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAhaHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA”

A dark laugh erupted out of his mouth as his skin changed to that of the bow. It wasn’t only his skin colour that had changed, his eyes became a deep blue and hair turned snow white, while his nails took on an icy hue. The area around his shoulder miraculously healed and his clothing changed into a white robe decorated with various snowflake patterns.

Landing on the ground, Haela felt her grip on her chains tighten as she felt an uncomfortable sense of dread wash over her. Why did his aura change? Is he able to fight?

Before she got any further into her thoughts, she felt a cold gaze land on her body. Looking up she saw an arrow only inches away pointed at her head. Before she could even blink the arrow was let loose and charged straight through her head until the tip was seen coming out the back. Haela’s body trembled before her eyes lost their light and turned dull. The ice arrow shattered into nothingness as her body collapsed on the ground.

--Silence rained across the entire courtyard.

The sounds of battle had all stopped as the combatants stared at the girl’s motionless body.

“HAELAAAAAA!!!!!!!!!!!!” The sound of a rage filled cry erupted from class 1’s leader. Looking at Haela’s dead body lying there, something inside of him snapped. Memories of Haela flooded his mind as a sharp pain took hold of his chest. That bright cheerful girl who always put others before herself lay there, breathless. Instead of her usual smile, the only thing covering her face was the look of shock and terror.

And standing next to her was the bastard who killed her. His eyes were cold, and he didn’t even bother to look at the body, as if to say it wasn’t worth his attention.

Aranel felt his hands start to twitch as his vision became blurry. Slowly treading towards Iolas his body started to shake violently as if something was coming. “Y-You-YOU BASTARD!!! I’LL KILL YOU!! I’LL FUCKING KILL YOU!! I’LL RIP YOU TO SHREDS!! DEVOUR YOUR HEART!!! I’LL MAKE YOU WISH YOU WERE NEVER BORNNNN!!!!!!!!!!”

But before he could enact his vengeance, Iolas was surrounded by the announcer and various instructors. They easily subdued him and removed by him and the body from the arena.

“Due the murder of Class 1’s Haela, Class 8 is disqualified. And Due to the lack of members Class 1 is disqualified. Because of the recent events we would normally cancel the tournament, but due to several other factors we will be starting the next round once the area is clear.” The announcer quickly gave a statement which left the remaining participants angry and shocked.

“That’s not fair! We can get another person to replace Haela, why do we hav-

*SMACK!!*

Aranel punched Eldrin in the face before he could finish his sentence. His entire body oozed rage as his silent but cold eyes passed over his body. Turning away from the stunned Eldrin, Aranel quietly walked away, leaving everybody shocked.