Dance With Darkness And Light 49 The Quarter-Finals Begin

The qualification for the quarterfinals had almost taken a day, in the first match Arkenon had won against Ma.s.simo. Sawako then defeated Bazuul's brother Kuzan in a fiery bout that had been considered evenly matched the majority of the fight. Jian Zheng then triumphed over the crown-prince of Donar, Eirik -- and Tarek won against the crown-prince of Eras, Markus Bender. An impressive feat, because he was the only commoner left from the Seven Kingdoms. Even without Bazuul's suspicions, the pair from the Directorate was not affiliated with any nation. Thus they could not be counted as having any status at all.

With this, the quarterfinals of the royal tournament officially started. The contestants of the first round already stood on the battle platform, awaiting Tyr's call. Arkenon looked at the girl in front of him with wary eyes. Nazela's last opponent was a magician just like himself, yet he was defeated in the blink of an eye. Not only that, but there was also nothing noteworthy about the match; it was almost like a brawl among common street thugs. At least he had not noticed any use of magic nor martial arts from her. Apart from the fact that she used a physical attack against the magician from the Circle.

"Ready...FIGHT!" Tyr's voice suddenly erupted, shortly after the crowd of spectators broke out into roars of antic.i.p.ation.

At this moment, Arkenon seemed to weave a spell with his staff, as the moving tip of the stave had a glowing tail of dark magical essence following behind. From time to time, ripples in s.p.a.ce, like the blast-wave of an explosion radiated out of him. Then, all at once, his shadow split into three separate forms and encircled Nazela. Due to the gasps from the stands, one could see that this was an astounding feat. Bazuul, on the other hand, was inspired by this spell. He wondered if he could similarly use his dark essence. If he managed to do that, this ability would come in handy in multiple ways.

The three shadows mounted a synchronized attack, only then, for the first time since the match began, did Nazela move. She dodged one shadow, and the moment she did, it dissolved while the other two stopped moving. It was when Nazela made her first move, that Arkenon felt like something had struck, yet he couldn't make out from where. It almost felt like a deep wave or vibration had hit his innermost core. Each time, Nazela took another step and touched the ground, another wave hit him. At this time, Arkenon had ceased the movement of his staff, his face contorted and his body looked stiff. It felt to him as if his skull would break under the pressure created any time now.

Then, Nazela's voice pierced into his ears, "Oh ~ You poor thing! Look at you. You can barely stand anymore." at this, blood rushed out of his mouth and nose. The waves of her voice were even more volatile than the ones before. Seeing Arkenon's miserable state, she giggled and said, "Let me release you from your suffering." Arkenon was barely able to look up to her when she had already closed the gap between them. Her fist struck him right below the solar plexus, and another round of waves rampaged through his body. With the untempered body of a magician, the damage those waves did were pretty severe. His body rose into the air from the punch, barely conscious anymore his eyes opened a tiny slit. Only to see the women that did this to him, waiting for him down below with open arms. Eventually, she caught him in her embrace, preventing him from falling to the floor. As her hand crawled through the hair at the back of his head, she whispered to him, "Let your wailing soul rest in the halls for all eternity." before throwing him off the stage.

Bazuul had a rather serious expression on his face. As he, just like the rest, was unable to figure out what Nazela did to Arkenon. Ultimately, the guy barely moved after casting the first spell and seemingly threw up blood for no reason. Some theorized that the girl was a master in the school of poisons. Bazuul chose not to force an answer right now, figuring out these abilities would also have time for later. Now he needed to focus on the second match that was about to begin. After all, this was a match between Ela and Sawako. Although in his mind, Sawako didn't stand a chance -- though she might still be strong enough to force Elanar to fight with a certain degree of sincerity.

"A battle of two first princesses huh? Let's see how this goes." Someone in the stands said.

Another agreed, "Mh, from the princess of house Fujimoto's previous matches we can tell that she should be in the seventh stage of the true qi realm. She is practically a genius considering her age, plus the flames around each of her attacks are extremely hot. It must be a special kind of flame."

An old man behind them that didn't look like an old man then said, "We have not really seen what the first princess of Lumin can do, or at what stage she's currently at. Either her first opponent was too weak, and she got lucky, or she is strong enough to toy with her opponents. That still wouldn't mean that it's enough to defeat the young Fujimoto though."

They were still discussing multiple factors and outcomes when their attention was torn toward the platform from Tyr's call that the match had officially started.

Yet, even then, both contestants just stood there looking at each other. "Draw your weapon princess of Lumin!" Sawako said.

Elanar shook her head and said indifferently, "You're not ready yet for me to draw my weapon."

"So be it, don't regret it though," Sawako answered coldly and began attacking.

Sawako kept on pressing Elanar relentlessly, yet the latter kept on dodging her attacks. Slowly a vexed feeling grew in Sawako's stomach. Every strike had struck nothing, but air, a change of tactic was the only thing she could do now. Once again, just as before, she attacked head-on. The difference was that she wanted her opponent to believe it was the same pattern of attack as previously. Only to then expand the flames around her fist forward in an attempt to burn the indifference off of her opponent's face.

Right around the time her fist had reached the wanted distance, her opponent suddenly vanished and appeared right beside her. Startled she immediately jumped back, seeing that Elanar's leg was closing in fast toward her face. Although successful, a scratch with a bit of blood dripping showed on her left cheek. In anger, she lashed out, and a ball of fire traveled the distance in Elanar's direction. The crowd in the stands gasped as they had not thought that Sawako was still holding back up until now. After all, she had not displayed this feat before now. Elanar didn't seem to mind all that much though. She changed her stand, crossed her arms around her upper body and face, meeting the fireball head-on. On touch, the fireball went off and exploded.

Bazuul's face darkened slightly; he didn't like to see her in potential danger, even though this was by far a matter of life and death. Even still, he hoped Elanar would stop playing around with the girl, lest she gets hurt a bit.

Seconds later, the cloud had settled, and the fire vanished, revealing the condition the first princess of Lumin was in. A silver glowing light barrier shone in front of her arms. Apart from her white dress having some burned spots, Elanar seemed completely fine. Her opponent didn't wait though and launched an attack from below, targeting her legs. Elanar reacted quickly and jumped up. As Sawako slid below her, she said in a sarcastic tone, "A foolish move, elder sister, unless you can dodge mid-ai…" Her sentence abruptly stopped as Elanar had viciously stomped one of her feet in Sawako's face.

The crowd jumped up in awe, it was a simple move, but amidst the action, rather breathtaking. One second they had thought the first princess of Lumin would be covered in burn marks, only to find out she was fine. The next second, before they could recover, Sawako mounted another attack from below. Only to get her face stuck between a rock and a hard place. Some observant folk now realized that it seemed the first princess of Lumin had been in control of this match all along. Without doing much to boot.

"It is time to end this, don't you agree?" Elanar said while Sawako had yet to stand up.

The little princess from Shasta was incensed and didn't even answer, slamming both her fist onto the ground. Shortly after, a scar of burning stone ripped open on the battle platform, out of it, flames and almost melted rock lunged toward Elanar. Suddenly, Elanar broke out into s.h.i.+ning light. Covered in it, one couldn't even make out her form anymore. Then, as the light vanished, the first princess of Lumin was gone too. An outcome that left many flabbergasted, even Sawako was confused. A second later though, this bright light broke out right beside her again. Before she could even react, a fist struck her on her right cheek. The power of that strike broke her connection with the ground, pus.h.i.+ng her away for a couple of meters. Before she even found her balance again, the light once more appeared behind her. She immediately reacted swinging her in fire covered fist, behind her while she turned. At that moment, another light appeared beside her. Sawako's face turned pale as she thought, "Dammit, I've been tricked!"

Elanar's long leg landed on Sawako's side like a whip and blasted the latter out of the ring.

Before the crowd broke out into raging applause, some seemed dazed by the fight. Some others were still seeing blue dots from the blinding lights at the end of the battle.