199 - The Result (Patreon)

Arielle had a theory. 

She believed that Selena's speed was controlled by three things: her attributes, the loose scattering of Calor around her body, and an innate quality that no one else had.  

Selena was young, and despite being a Master, Arielle guessed that the majority of her speed would not have come from attributes, nor was it from the Calor scattered around her body, because Arielle temporarily disabling it didn't slow her down by that much.

The most vital part of Selena's speed, the thing that tied it all together, was internal.

And the more she thought about it, the more she felt that, somehow, like the dragon, Selena had internal essences that were charged and that she used to control her entire body, turning her into something superhuman, and making her inner particles vibrate fast without breaking her apart or injuring her. 

Her body reflected light such that she could render herself invisible. She moved faster than anyone Arielle had ever seen before. All without casting spells.

It was incredible and defied natural law, which was how Arielle knew that it was tied to her very being, because if not, her body likely would not be able to keep up with it. It would have fallen apart.

But probably, the same qi that reinforced and strengthened her organs also charged these essences Selena might have within her, which she didn't necessarily produce–as humans could not produce essences–but which she kept regardless.

Perhaps in her blood. 

Arielle had never considered it before, because she’d never thought of Selena being a blood mage. And perhaps she wasn’t in the most traditional sense. Perhaps the essences weren’t in her blood necessarily, but somewhere else in her body. All Ari knew was that the inner essences were probably connected to Selena's qi and was likely the reason that her body did not fly apart at the sheer force she generated.

Most people did not have that much control over their qi, although Arielle knew that noble kids and prodigies learned how to channel it young even before their system evaluation. It took a lot of meditation to get there, and most people would not be able to do it.

But Selena Gregor wasn't most people.

And apparently Selena Gregor had more control over her qi than anyone else Arielle had ever met, even the Phasewalkers. That might be why she could alter things like her breathing patterns and heat her body so readily. It was why she had such control over every single part of her and could simply adjust her heartbeat and body weight at will  to overcome Arielle's slumber spell. Her qi control made her speed extremely difficult to deal with. 

Therefore, in order to beat her, to overcome that, Arielle had to disrupt that control.

She had the crazy idea first, of interfering with the spirit path, the path by which qi flowed around her body. If she could do something to knock off the flow, that would be a sure fire way to slow her down significantly.

Now Ari had very little idea how to actually do this in practice. She briefly recalled the pressure points that Professor Woden had spoken of, the ones that had been in the dragon's stomach, heart, head. But she doubted they would translate directly to a human body, and even if Arielle could find the spirit path pressure points on Selena's body, she doubted it would do much to affect the spirit path.
That had only been something the dragon had done through Arielle and Ari doubted it would be as easy as pushing a few pressure points.

However, that idea spawned another, one that she should have thought of first because it was remarkably less complicated. 

The Calor orbs scattered around Selena were a strength, but could also be a weakness.  

Arielle could try the same technique she’d used with the Phasewalkers, attaching the Calor at her pressure points to Massa, and subsequently cementing her to the ground. 

She already set the plan in motion, making the connections before she said, "Okay, I will.” 

The second she said the words, Selena was wind again. 

“[Creature Control], [Speed Burst], [Blink, Repeat]." Arielle sped up her hand and mouth movements to speed up her casting, and tried to incorporate [Primal Instinct] into her motion, also using a brief anti-magnetic connection to jolt herself back from Selena's blow.

She used [Heated Pulse] to blast Selena backwards and Selena absorbed the blow, but she was back within the blink of an eye.

“[False Paralysis].”  Arielle had come up with a name on the spot for the spell she wasn’t really casting, as she activated the connection she’d made between Selena’s Calor and Massa, tugging on Massa. 

A gasp escaped Selena as she was driven to her knees, then plastered gently on the ground. 

She wriggled and fought to get up but Ari’s ‘spell’ held for the most part.

Until it didn’t.

In a flash, Selena was on the move again, abandoning the Calor that had once surrounded her and sacrificing speed for freedom. Arielle rapidly expanded the anti-motion effect of her shield to further slow her down. She even almost captured Selena with [Earthen Grasp] but then Selena had a sudden burst of speed, as other Calor snapped toward her, arranged in the same pattern as the ones she’d abandoned, as though following a blueprint. 

Wow. 

Her external body-Calor hadn’t been static, like the Phasewalkers Ari had fought. Arielle trapping the body-Calor hadn’t rendered Selena completely unable to move, neither did it keep her trapped as she could simply ditch those Calor orbs and get new ones that were all too eager to arrange themselves in the same pattern. 

So the external Calor did not matter for her. Those Calor were merely for speed, and they were not connected to pressure points at all. 

The internal Calor might be though. 

If only Arielle could connect to Selena’s internal Calor.

Maybe she could see it with [Sensate] and her aura-reading charm. She’d been able to do that with the serpent and the dragon and it should work as long as the internal Calor wasn’t in the blood or somewhere obscure like in the soul. 

But she’d need to take a breath and concentrate in order to visualize the internal Calor and Selena wasn’t giving her much of a chance for that right now.  

Arielle barely swept out of the way of the next attack, as Selena pierced through her shield once more, after multiple tries. Arielle reinforced it with more Vacu, pushing Selena out, and noted that this would be so much easier if she used spells with no Calor.

Nevertheless, she liked the challenge.

During her escape, her heart pounding as she activated anti-magnet again and zig-zagged automatically in response to Selena's jagged movement. She tried to look into Selena’s body in the meantime, but was distracted when Selena’s lightning whip cracked through the air and arced toward her.

"[Air Slice]." Large swathes of black lines cut through the lightning, as Ari raced away from it.

"[Spell Breaker]," she cast next, but even after lightning essences scattered, they rearranged once in again, snapping towards Arielle in a single blink.

She managed to just about avoid it, but that put her in the trajectory of Selena's physical follow-up attack.

Damn it, she really was everywhere, Arielle thought breathlessly. 

Selena was attacking from all angles seemingly and whenever Arielle avoided one blow, there was another one waiting in the direction she escaped to. 

She wished there was a better way to track her opponent. Using Seismic sensors was useless because Selena’s feet barely touched the ground.

She continued trying to read Selena’s aura and core, but it was difficult while guarding and dealing with Selena's erratic motion.

It all came to a head as Arielle finally cast, "[Seismic Pulse]."

A rumble hit and energy erupted, flaring outward. Selena was flung back, but her whip lashed out regardless, the tip extending and cutting clean through Arielle's shield.

Arielle pulled back, but it wasn't enough. It nicked her cheek.

"Second blood has been drawn," the speaker of the council announced, but Arielle barely heard him. Her heart was racing in her ears as Selena appeared, finally giving her a slight reprieve.

She was so fast. So fast. 

“So you are a Phasewalker?” Arielle wondered aloud as she once again activated the scan. 

Within seconds, she spotted that there were indeed Calor essences within Selena, gathered around what she assumed were vital pressure points. Her guess was correct. 

The problem was connecting to them felt impossible as they vibrated so much they actively rejected any bond she tried to make. 

“No,” Selena said. “I am not a Phasewalker. But I have learned many things over the years, including different techniques associated with different historical calor clans.”

“I see,” Ari responded. 

Selena hadn't been able to bend and recover any of her other spells that Arielle had destroyed. 

And it seemed to have taken her a while to adjust [Fly Trap] in order to phase past it and free herself.

Was it just specific spells she could bend? Perhaps spells that she'd been using for a long time and had become very familiar with? Spells with lots of Calor in them, in particular?

Since [Lightning Whip] was her signature spell, it would be easier for her to be flexible with it, so maybe that was why she could alter it with ease.

So she wasn’t a Phasewalker per se, but she had used Phasewalker techniques to make herself a much more dynamic fighter.

And her inner essences were impossible to grab. Arielle tried and tried, but it wasn’t happening. Were they simply too active? Would she need to slow her down first? 

How? Selena’s innate speed was tied into her qi and her spirit path and Ari could not find said path, at least not without the help of the blue orb. 

“You said you would take it seriously," Selena said, cutting off Arielle's train of thought. "I don't feel like you are."

"I am." Arielle was taking it seriously, but it probably didn't show because she was focused on learning about Selena and inner orbs. But Selena likely wanted something else. She likely wanted Arielle to make this fun for her too, to give her a true challenge.

Arielle had to do it too, not only to fulfil her end of the bargain but also because if she got another nick, this entire fight would be over.

She didn’t want it to be over. Not yet. 

While she tried to figure out how to slow Selena down, she needed to do more to actually counter Selena's spells.

She thought of a name for a spell quickly. "[Ice Arrows].”

Not very creative, but it wasn’t an official spell. Ice was so far something that was very difficult to create from spell work, as it was an odd combination of three different Massa isotopes with an unstable Calor decadron, and a bit of Vacu to reduce the motion of the liquid earth the first complex created.

Arielle's spell book contained a spell for creating water, but it wasn't very powerful and not meant for combat.

Luckily, she didn't need to figure out how to make that spell more powerful.

Arielle had already seen powerful ice in action when Archmage Benhai had used it to protect his wards from demons and had used the fluidity to make his attacks constantly shift so the demons couldn't anticipate them.

That was what Arielle needed to do here.

Of course she would make it different, add some signature that made it hers. Perhaps ice weapons instead of pure ice. 

Arielle was not a combat mage so all the weapons she made would need to be long range and not-hand held. 

Hence, ice arrows. 

She just hoped she was quick enough. 

She created two dozen of them in a circle around her and launched them as Selena charged with her whip, lashing out wildly, leaving shimmering air in the wake.

Arielle cut through the flame with her ice.

She careened away after she did, and figured out her next set of moves while she was in motion.

She sent the ice into the ground, and it froze all the way up, forming an ice cage around Selena.

It dropped the temperature to dangerous degrees, so much that Selena's body shimmered into view, before disappearing again. Ari attached the cage to the Calor around Selena’s body such that the ice followed Selena, spikes constantly shooting up to trap her.

When Selena attempted to hack through, Arielle said, “[Phase Shift]”, and turned the ice to water, to douse her. 

Selena fled back and heated her body to get rid of the water droplets, while Arielle tried to connect to more of Selena’s internal Calor. 

She realized that while the inner Calor was always active, it was slowest when Selena was flitting around, and became much more active when she wasn’t moving as much. 

It probably wouldn’t be as resistant to bonding if Ari could catch her opponent in motion. Easier said than done. 

After a short break, Selena suddenly launched herself at Ari with two lightning whips, longer and fiercer, dancing through the air in a sonic display.

Arielle's heart was pounding so fast, and she tried to follow the movement. Impossible. Selena was barely giving her room to breathe as the whips came at her from different angles, forming another petal around her, stopped only by her expanded shield. 

The shield and anti-magnetic movement was barely holding up and the quick movement was also making Arielle sick in the process, especially with the enhanced [Sensate]. 

Still, Arielle focused, because her concentration meant everything here. She used a vitality spell, and even wished she had the blue orb to help her.

As Selena kept hacking at Arielle's shields, even overcoming her anti-motion perimeter, getting closer and closer to victory, Arielle finally managed to connect to a few of her internal Calor cores, attaching them to Masa and tugging at them….

Selena glitched. 

Or at least it seemed like she glitched, because she appeared briefly and her speed dropped dramatically even though she was still in motion, having launched herself again to attack Arielle while her lightning danced around the shield. 

The first tug had happened while she was close to Arielle, and her lightning was about to cut through Ari's shield from the opposite side.

Arielle tugged Massa again and Selena gasped, dropping to the floor. 

A chance.

In Selena's disorientation, Ari swerved around her whip and shot her with the ice arrow, a shallow slice through her robe on her shoulder. 

“First blood has been drawn by Arielle Blacksoil." 

Arielle shot backward, and panted, hand on her knees, tired but quite pleased with herself.

Excitement pumped through her blood, as Selena rose to her feet, touching her arm absently, while staring down the spot where Arielle had tugged her pressure point in her leg. Had Arielle’s tugging disrupted her spirit path? Was that why she had slowed so dramatically? Was that also what had happened to the Phasewalkers? Or was it just as simple as messing with a human pressure point, nothing more, nothing less?

“How…” Selena finally looked up. “How did you do that?”

"Pressure points," Arielle explained. "I hit one of yours."

"How?"

"Just some air and a tiny piece of ice," Arielle lied, and looked away.

When she looked back, Selena narrowed her eyes.

Then she was wind once more.

She hurtled toward Ari, but at the last minute Ari tugged her pressure point again, making her leg go limp, combining it with [Spell Breaker] and using residual ice to cut her on the thigh.

"Second blood has been drawn by Arielle Blacksoil."

Selena didn't stop moving despite the lag caused by Arielle's pressure point tampering.

"[Hurricane]," she whispered, and the arena exploded with a squalling tempest, a cyclone nearly sweeping Arielle off her feet.

She lost her connection to Selena in the fray, the second her concentration broke. The connection was already tentative at best, and now she could no longer even sense it. 

"[Spell Breaker]," Arielle tried to stop the hurricane, but it was no use because the spell Selena cast merely reformed every time she broke it. It was a huge, complex spell–the entire arena filled with violently charged calor, the raging wind whipping her hair against her face, making it hard to see or breathe.

The environment disappeared in the whirlpool, every sound drowned out by the whistling and wailing of the wind. Arielle kept her shield up, but she felt like she was alone in the eye of the storm. 

Worst of all, because of the abundance of orbs around them, she could no longer tell where Selena was, because she could no longer find the pattern of Calor that remained around Selena’s body even when she was invisible. She blended in with the background, and the chaos and information made it hard to see her.

Arielle knew what Selena would do. She would use the distraction to find a way to burst through Arielle's shield.

Ari could no longer rely on Calor, or she would lose.

She switched her current shield out for her regular shield with Vacu and Luxa, reinforcing it with low-dose reverse Vitae to replace anti-motion with anti-vitality.

Nevertheless, when the first attack came, it rammed into her shield.

Arielle whipped around, but Selena was gone.

In half a breath, it rammed into her again from another angle, and once more the departure was too fast for Ari to track her.

Ari took deep breaths, but it was hard to continue to do so. Tension strung her body tight. She was also feeling a little lightheaded from the heaviness of the air. She needed to do something or eventually, she would either pass out from the lack of adequate air flow or she would lose.

And suddenly she didn't want to lose. 

Selena attacked again, and again. 

Ari’s shields were being battered with endless waves of concussive attacks, and Arielle fought back, using everything she could to try to weigh Selena down. She cast [Fly Trap], [Reverse Density], [Quick Freeze], [Quick Slumber], [Mass Anchor] [Ice Cage] pretty much every spell in her arsenal to overcome the storm.

Then she began fighting fire with fire, or in this case, storm with storm.

She cast [Void Burst], [Seismic Pulse], and her most volatile spells to cancel out and push back the onslaught.  

The slams kept coming, and Arielle slammed back, casting in every direction it came from. She couldn't keep up with Selena’s speee, but perhaps by sheer chance she would manage to get her if she shot out enough spells. Her brain shut down and she moved purely by instinct, the way Professor Graham had taught her to.

This was not a problem she was going to outsmart her way out of.

She needed to brute force it.  

She arranged more Vacu around her and gained ground, with more [Seismic Pulses] laced with Vacu.She pushed back the storm, cutting through it, clearing a path, yet not enough to completely overcome it.

[Hurricane] was a very powerful spell. When did Selena learn it?

How did she learn it?

A strong dizzying heat wave burst over them. 

"[Ice Bath]" Arielle made it hail and released another violent outburst of energy, as the Hurricane increased in intensity, nearly blowing her off her feet. 

Then suddenly her spells disappeared.

So did the storm.

The arena was clear again, and it took Arielle a second to realize why. 

She looked to the side to where most of the spectators she’d forgotten about were now standing to. Both Elric and a bald man had also got out their seats and were now next to the speaker of the assembly. 

The black lines bordering the arena were glowing, showing that they had eliminated all the spells in the arena, thereby stopping the fight.

"That's enough from both of you," the speaker of the house said.

A few beats of silence followed his words. No one else said anything for previous seconds. All that filled the air was Arielle and Selena's panting.

Arielle noted belatedly that somewhere in that chaos, she had suffered another small cut on the back of her hand. She didn't know how it had happened, but she figured it counted as third blood.

She held it up to Selena, who was breathing very hard, her hair a mess around her face, her robes dishevelled.

"You won," Ari told her, pointing at the wound.

Selena's gaze followed Arielle’s pointed finger. 

Then she bent over, and vomited blood.

***

"Selena!" The exclamation was accompanied by panicked footsteps. "Damn it, she needs a healer. Now."

Selena ignored Monk Ernesto's hysterical shouting as she healed herself. Of course, that was mostly a preliminary measure and didn't deal with most of the internal wounds she had, but at least it would enable her to talk now and stand without coughing blood. 

"I'm fine.” Her voice was hoarse, and she cleared her throat “I don't need a healer."

“Yes, you do,” Monk Ernesto came to her side, taking her by the elbow. “Let’s go.”

She yanked it out of his hand. “Don’t tell me what to do.”

The Monk’s frown deepened, but nevertheless, she felt a healing energy sweep through her body anyway, likely from the speaker of the assembly.

 "Princess Gregor?” he said. “Are you okay?"

Selena straightened and nodded.

Truly, she wasn't okay.

Her brain and organs twisted and trembled like her entire body was on the verge of an explosion. Her skin felt like it was boiling. Her hands shook, and she had to wrap them in each other to stop them from quaking.

She had pushed her body to the limit with that last spell, and she wouldn't have been able to keep it up much longer without injuring herself permanently, which was probably why Monk Ernesto had called an end to this battle and why he was giving her that look.

He was likely furious that she had called for this battle in the first place, and even more furious that she had whipped out her secret technique just to beat the young new master, Arielle Blacksoil, who didn’t even have any battle experience yet. 

And yet here Selena was internally bleeding and two steps away from fainting, while Arielle stood there, holding up the tiniest of cuts on her hand, telling her in that calm, non-plussed voice of hers, "You won."

Ha.

It was a joke.

Selena almost thought Arielle said the words to further humiliate her, after that embarrassing display.

Selena had embarrassed herself. She'd figured when she stood that there was a risk of that. She was not arrogant enough to think that, given all the evidence, Arielle would be incapable of squeaking out a win despite her lack of experience. Selena probably should not have called for this fight on such a public stage on the first day of her official debut into the assembly. 

But at least now she knew.

She knew what Arielle Blacksoil was. 

She was...she was....

Well, in short, she was phenomenal..

Jaw-droppingly exceptional. .

She had done things that rendered Selena speechless. Things Selena didn’t even have an explanation for. 

Later, she would go through that fight in her mind and tabulate everything, but for now she could only stare at her opponent, a mix of tumultuous emotions within her.

“I lost,” Arielle said.

“No, you didn’t,” Selena said. She supposed Arielle was either trying to be gracious or she was simply unaware of the level of damage she had caused Selena.

Those last few spells she'd cast had battered Selena silly, made her dizzy, made her insides feel like they were bursting out. And she'd forced Selena to push her body beyond its limits just to keep up with her, just to get a chance at getting close enough to harm her.

And now she was suffering from internal bleeding and qi burn.

That was effectively worse than the tiny cut that Selena couldn't even remember giving her.

And yes, Selena's injuries were her fault too. She should have given up earlier, and probably should not have used [Hurricane], which was a move meant to be for life-and-death matters.

But this felt important.
And at least, now, she knew. 

Bitterness mixed with a grudging respect, making her clench her teeth.

She stared at Arielle, and Arielle stared back at her, still pointing to the back of her hand, offering Selena an easy way out.

But the one thing Selena could never stand was a pity win.

"Actually," she said. "You won. The damage done to me is far more than what was done to you."

Arielle frowned. She wasn't pleased to hear that she had won, any more than Selena was pleased to know that she had lost.

Ari glanced toward the speaker. "Is that true? Did I win?"

The speaker looked between the two girls. "Well, at the point where the fight was deemed too dangerous to continue, you both were in effectively a stalemate. I would say there are no winners. It was never expected to get to this point."

Selena scoffed. Of course, he would say that, but anyone with eyes would see the difference between Arielle's state and Selena's. Arielle looked a little winded, like she'd gone for a long jog on a windy night. And Selena looked like she'd been battered and bruised by a furious tempest.

Selena told herself that it hadn’t been a real fight. In a real fight, she would have been able to turn the floor into an inferno. In a real fight, she would have stabbed Arielle through the throat at her first opportunity. In a real fight, she would have been clearly superior, her experience alone putting her leagues ahead. 

But all those comforting words didn’t matter today.

She had lost, and Arielle was the victor. 

And as bitter as the pill was to swallow, Selena had to swallow it. Arielle Blacksoil wasn't a fraud, nor was she a demon-consorting cheat. And Selena's reign as the best prodigy was over.

She had lost. 

She inclined her head, bowing stiffly, accepting her loss as gracefully as she could.

Then she turned away, trying to get out quickly to lick her wounds,

"Wait."

Selena paused, unable to keep from snapping, "What?"

There was no response for a few seconds, but she turned to find Arielle bowing to her, a hand on her opposite chest.

"Thank you," she said. "For the battle. It was amazing watching you."

Selena blinked, not expecting that. "What makes you say that?"

"Your technique." Arielle's eyes glowed. "I've never seen anything like that. The way you use your qi to transform your entire body into a weapon...it was one of the best things I’ve ever seen. At some point in the future, I would like to learn from you."

Selena's anger faded underneath her shock. "You...want to learn from me?"

Arielle bobbed her head eagerly. "Yes. If you have time."

"How presumptuous," Monk Ernesto said, but Selena ignored him. Arielle Blacksoil was a terrible liar. That Selena knew for sure. And right now honesty shone on her face.

She truly thought Selena was amazing.

Selena felt some of her shame lift, a tiny bit of warmth intercepting it

"Okay," she said, turning away again with the thought that she had just voluntarily offered to spend more time with the girl she could not stand for the entire semester. “If I have time.”
“Thank you.”

Selena tried to make as dignified a walk as she could to the exit, hearing Elric approaching his cousin. 

Arielle Blacksoil.

Selena didn't think she would ever truly like her. There were too many things about the girl’s personality that bothered her and set her teeth on edge. 

However, when she wasn't being irritating...she actually wasn't so bad.