CHAPTER 91— The "Odd Trio" and the "Loser Trio"(4)
The fierce combat between the so-called "loser trio" and Freshman Group 42 continued to escalate.
Spell after spell was relentlessly barraged by the senior repeaters, while Group 42 maintained their defensive posture, trading counters blow for blow. Within minutes, the entire simulation area became choked with a thick, rolling blanket of smoke from the constant exchange of elemental energy.
"Well, damn... this match is actually turning out to be pretty intense," students in the spectator deck muttered among themselves.
Ritvik sat quietly in his seat, his chin resting heavily on his thumb as he watched the unfolding chaos with unwavering focus.
Slowly, the artificial smoke began to clear across the arena floor. Mason's eyes flickered slightly as he scanned the opposing side. Where a three-person freshman line had stood just moments prior, only a single figure remained.
"What the—? Did the other two somehow get banished out in that last barrage?" Caleb muttered, squinting through the haze.
"Hey! Where are your—"
Before Caleb could finish his sentence, Damon unleashed three razor-sharp waves of compressed wind. The three repeaters scrambled quickly, forced to break formation and dodge the incoming projectiles.
"Looks like it's gonna be a 3v1 now." Mason remarked coldly.
The barrage immediately fired back up. Water, wind, and thunder spells were launched toward Damon from all angles. But acting as a true omni-elementalist, Damon seamlessly shifted his stance, neutralizing and countering every incoming attack with calculated efficiency.
Whoa..." The students in spectacle deck watched the breathtaking display of elemental mastery with wide, shining eyes.
"Ugh... this guy is relentless," Mason muttered under his breath.
Damon's spells weren't landing cleanly because the three repeaters were covering each other's blind spots with terrifying, subconscious synergy.
However, because they were forced to constantly assist one another, their own offensive momentum had completely stalled against Damon's impenetrable defense.
Mason found himself locked in a grueling spell-clash with Damon, while Caleb and Julian scrambled to protect not only themselves, but their leader as well. For the first time the match, all three repeaters were entirely fixated on Damon.
Clang-swish!
Suddenly, two distinct, high-velocity spells—a razor-sharp crescent of wind and a roaring torrent of water—slammed into the flanks from opposite sides.
The unexpected side-attack caught Caleb and Julian completely off-balance, stumbling them backward in opposite directions.
"Guys!" Mason shouted in concern, but he was instantly cut off as Damon capitalized on his distraction, lashing out with a volley of heavy thunder bolts.
"What the hell?!" Caleb gasped, staggering back to his feet. He tried to rush toward Mason to regroup, but abruptly froze in his tracks. Someone was standing directly in his path.
Sarina stood firmly ahead of him, her wand gripped tightly in her hand, radiating a calm, clinical focus.
On the opposite side, Rowan stood planted in his classic lumberjack stance. His prismatic axe was raised, humming with mana and ready to swing.
The tactical blueprint Sarina had laid out for them just moments before echoed clearly in Rowan's mind.
"It's blatantly obvious we won't break through as long as they stick together like glue," Sarina had told them.
"Is that so?" Rowan had asked.
"Yes. So we have to do the most obvious thing."
Rowan glanced back at Sarina, remembering her confident smile.
"We have to split them up and fight them individually. Rowan you would go for Julian, I will go for Caleb and Damon. You would go for their leader."
Back in the present, Julian scrambled to his feet, blinking in surprise as he saw Rowan blocking his route of retreat.
"Whoa... what is this?" Julian groaned, rubbing the back of his neck with a casual grimace. "Isn't this supposed to be a team match? What are you first year's trying to do?"
Rowan didn't bother wasting breath on banter. Instead, he gripped his weapon tighter and brought the heavy blade down.
"Fire Chop!"
Julian instinctively raised his wand to counter with a water torrent, but the sheer kinetic force of Rowan's fire chop tore right through the liquid barrier.
Julian had to violently hurl himself sideways to avoid being scorched. As he hit the ground and rolled, he looked back and saw the spell carving a deep trench into the arena floor.
Their eyes met for a fraction of a second. Without saying a word, Julian scrambled back to his feet and bolted, completely ignoring Rowan as he tried to sprint toward his teammates.
Rowan's jaw dropped.
'The hell! he is running away?'
Suddenly, Sarina's warning flashed through his head:
"Remember, once we scatter them, they're going to desperately try to regroup. You cannot give them a single inch. End the fight quickly. Don't let even two of them link back up!"
Realizing what Julian was attempting, Rowan didn't hesitate. He planted his boots and swung his axe repeatedly, sending a relentless volley of fire and water chops straight toward the fleeing senior.
Julian glanced over his shoulder, gritting his teeth as he fired off retaliatory spells to deflect the incoming arcs.
Several of the blazing and fluid chops brushed dangerously close to his arms and shoulders, nearly tripping him up. He stumbled hard, his speed rapidly declining, but he refused to stop moving.
'Shit! What do I do? No matter what I do his legs aren't stopping! Wait... legs?'
Rowan locked his eyes onto Julian's lower half as the senior frantically sprinted across the stone. 'Got it.'
Taking a sharp breath, Rowan reared back for another swing.
"Fire Chop!"
"Water Chop!"
Two intersecting crescents of fire and water roared toward Julian. The senior turned slightly, raising his wand to intercept the double-elemental attack.
Rowan waited for the exact micro-second Julian would use his mana to the defense.
The moment Julian's counter-spell erupted from his wand, Rowan dropped his center of gravity and shifted his grip, changing the trajectory entirely.
"Frost Chop!"
A chilling, hyper-compressed wave of freezing wind mixed with jagged snow particles swept low across the ground. The freezing draft slammed directly into Julian's running ankles while his upper body was entirely focused on blocking the fire and water.
Crack—shatter!
Julian suddenly felt a severe, deadening numbness shoot up his legs. His knees buckled instantly, and he crashed hard onto the arena floor.
"Ahh what the?" Julian groaned as he checked his legs. There some snow particles were clinging to his legs and ankles.
Before he could lift his head, a heavy shadow loomed over him. He blinked up, meeting Rowan's gaze, and let out a dry, self-deprecating chuckle.
"Ah... looks like I'm busted, bro."
Julian looked up at Rowan, expecting a triumphant grin—instead, he froze. Rowan's hands were trembling slightly around the handle of his axe.
'What the hell? Is he... shaking?' Julian thought, his eyes widening in sudden confusion. "Hey! you okay buddy?"
Rowan squeezed his eyes shut, biting his lip hard as he forced his breathing to steady. Slowly, he raised the axe, his muscles taut.
"Fire Chop."
With a soft, muffled thud, the simulation registered the finishing blow, locking Julian's avatar in place.
Crack— Thudd!!
"Agh... dammit!" Caleb grunted, forcefully shoved backward by a sudden, violent gust of Sarina's wind magic.
'Those idiots! Where are they?!' Caleb thought frantically, glancing around the smoky battlefield.
Desperate to break the stalemate, Caleb raised his wand, conjured a massive jagged boulder of earth, and hurled it directly at Sarina as a distraction.
The moment she was forced to deal with the projectile, he turned and sprinted toward Mason's position.
Sarina didn't flinch. With a flick of her wrist, she unleashed a concentrated torrent of water that pulverized the incoming boulder into harmless floating mana particles.
Tracking Caleb's fleeing back, she smoothly adjusted her aim and released a sharp, high-pressure burst of wind.
"Agh—ouch!"
Caleb took the direct hit to his lower back, tumbling face-first onto the stone floor.
'Just as I suspected.' Sarina thought coldly, stepping forward to cut off any further movement. 'They aren't actually very strong. Individually, their foundation is mediocre—they were just terrifyingly good at masking each other's flaws through sheer group synergy.'
Caleb groaned, clawing at the ground as he tried to push himself back up, but he instantly froze as the humming tip of Sarina's wand leveled directly between his eyes.
"Ah... shit," Caleb muttered, offering a weak, defeated shrug.
Mana began to rapidly condense around the tip of Sarina's wand, swirling into a dense, compressed sphere of wind.
"Wind Burst."
A point-blank concussive blast knocked Caleb unconscious instantly.
"Phew..." Sarina let out a long, ragged sigh, lowering her wand as she spun around to check the surrounding area. "I wonder if the others are finished yet..."
She didn't have to wonder for long. Just a few yards away, Damon stood calmly with his hands casually holding his wand. A few feet in front of him, Mason—the self-proclaimed leader of the loser trio—was already lying flat on his back, completely incapacitated.
"Hmph," Sarina hummed in quiet satisfaction, tilting her head as she spotted Rowan jogging over to join them, his expression visibly relaxed.
"The winner of the match is Freshman Group 42!"
The automated announcement echoed triumphantly across the grand hall.
"Sigh... looks like we won." Sarina whispered, a genuine smile breaking across her face.
A fraction of a second later, the digital simulation grid flickered, distorting the environment as the three freshmen were safely pulled back out into the real physical staging zone.
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CHAPTER ENDS