During the clash between Kelvin and Sylvia in the tornado, Sylvia had the advantage in attack output and speed due to her choice of weapon, which was also being boosted past what Kelvin could manage with Sword Mastery. She had been pressuring him the entire time. Kelvin’s large scythe could only manage big swings, so its compatibility with her sword was awful, forcing him into a purely defensive fight. In order to make up for this, he added magic into the mix. Unfortunately, magic didn’t work on Sylvia, and half of his Green Magic repertoire was useless (or so it seemed), so his options were limited.
The only things that worked were the support magic that Kelvin could cast on himself and the healing magic he could use to recover from her attacks. Of course, support magic wasn’t very reliable because there was a chance it would disappear if Sylvia got too close. At any rate, Kelvin used everything at his disposal to somehow weather Sylvia’s fierce onslaught, waiting for the slightest of chances.
“I knew it! You have the advantage in close combat!” Kelvin shouted. “Reminds me of last time!”
“Mm. And yet you’re hanging on,” Sylvia responded. “It feels like I have the advantage in terms of circumstance rather than skill.”
“Ha ha! I wonder! Well, I do feel like I’ve trained a lot! Don’t think everything will go your waaayy—whoops!”
Sylvia’s blade bit deep into Kelvin’s cheek. If he had been even a little later, it would have gone right through his head.
“Mm, another close one,” said Sylvia. “A wound like that is meaningless; it’ll be gone in an instant.”
“Come on! You have Auto Healing to recover from any damage too! We’re both in the same boat! Wait... Hey... Does that mean we’re stuck in an infinite loop?” Kelvin started to wonder. “Can I fight forever?”
“Maybe, if your MP is bottomless,” Sylvia replied.
“Thought so!”
Instead of an infinitely long fight, the stage would actually reach the top of the barrier and fling them outside. As for whether Kelvin remembered that or if he was too absorbed in the fight...
“Air Void!” he shouted.
The answer was no but also yes. Kelvin knew about what awaited them. Naturally, he didn’t want such a boring end to the battle, so he made his next move to try to extend the match, causing Sylvia to let out a noise of shock.
“And then comes the next step!” Kelvin exclaimed.
Air Void changed the atmospheric pressure within its area of effect, creating a vacuum. Kelvin cast the spell with extreme speed before bringing his scythe straight down on the stage. Even if magic didn’t work on Sylvia, she would be affected if magic were to change her environment. In this case, she was assaulted by a lack of oxygen thanks to all of it being sucked out of the area.
“Grk...urgghh!” she moaned.
This was Sylvia’s first time seeing this spell, and she was confined inside the tornado. Between being hit by the effects of the spell and her ferocious offensive earlier, she showed the slightest of openings as she gasped for breath. She quickly recovered, though, extracting oxygen from magically created water like a fish using the Rank C Blue Magic spell Fake Gills.
Sylvia had created this spell on the spot, without ever trying it beforehand. She’d known what she needed most in the moment and created it on the spot before instantly using it. It might have sounded easy, but accomplishing such a thing instantly was nearly impossible. Not even Kelvin could create magic with such speed, even for a Rank C spell.
Seriously?! That speed is impossible, even with Parallel Processing! Is she a genius?! he thought.
As someone experienced in creating magic, Kelvin knew what had just been accomplished. He was incredibly impressed, knowing that Sylvia would continue to grow with him, filling him with hope for the future of his combat career and causing him to act out of character and thank the gods.
But I got the chance I needed! he thought.
Not taking advantage of it would be rude to Sylvia—at least, as far as Kelvin was concerned—so he went ahead and achieved his goal: destroying the object launching them upward.
With a shriek of breaking ice, the tornado around them, the ice stage that was even better than what master craftsmen could achieve, and the chunk of ice that had grabbed the audience’s attention below were all split in two. Having swung his scythe safely, Kelvin was met with Sylvia’s furious assault, riddling him with holes, although no vital organs were hit. And so, his insides were once again revealed to the world. Of course, Shutola and Ema could have seen them as well if they’d wanted to, but...
“I don’t have time to look away!” Ema shouted.
“Neither do I!” Shutola agreed.
They refused to do so, opting instead to concentrate on the friend and opponent whom they were imminently clashing with. Even with the stage split in two, Ema remained sure-footed, charging at Shutola along the shortest route. She stuck her blazing blade out in front of her, destroying the blue web that attempted to block her. No matter how many threads shaped like webs were placed in front of her, they couldn’t stop her Zolub.
“Is that what you thought?” Shutola asked.
Ema let out a noise of shock. “Hey, that’s...”
The webs were definitely being destroyed by Ema’s charge. The instant they touched the burning blade, they melted away without so much as a peep. However, Ema felt Solforme grow unnaturally heavy. By her reckoning, it was now at least twice as heavy. She looked at her blade, noticing a large crystal the same size as her weapon attached to its sharp edge. Not only that, but the crystal was gradually getting bigger and heavier.
“This warning’s a bit late, but you shouldn’t be so cavalier about touching those spider threads,” said Shutola. “They reject anyone I don’t approve of.”
By attaching her magic threads to Kelvin’s specially made spider golem puppets, Shutola had given them a new ability. In other words, the golems were a device to transform the properties of her magic threads. In this case, her threads now crystallized anyone or anything that came into contact with them. The crystals would grow bigger over time, eventually swallowing up their prey entirely. At this point, Ema could only let go of her beloved sword to avoid crystallization.
“Is that what you thought?” Ema asked.
Shutola grunted in surprise. “You!”
The crystals evaporated from the blade as Ema spoke. The sword shone brilliantly as she immediately resumed her charge. Ema made sure to destroy the entirety of the web as she approached Shutola.
“Ah, the effect of Chains of the Shunned,” Shutola said after a moment of thought.
“Oh, come on! How did you figure it out so quickly?” Ema asked. Her Unique Skill, Chains of the Shunned, was able to anchor a target’s status or support effects. But now, she had developed her ability to another level and was capable of reapplying a fixed status from the past. In this case, she had targeted Solforme to anchor the status of not having any statuses. In other words, the crystallized status had been overwritten into a no-status state.
“Oh well! Even if you saw through the trick, it doesn’t change the fact that your terrifying ability no longer works! This is going to be a one-sided—” Ema started.
“Do you really think so?!”
Once again, it was Ema’s turn to let out a noise of shock.
Kelvin came from above, blindingly fast, interrupting Shutola and Ema’s conversation. Sylvia was hot on his heels, coming to stand beside Ema.
“Agh, I was so close! I mean, to be fair, she probably still had something up her sleeve, even if Kelvin didn’t come, but still!” Ema complained.
“It’s okay. Also, we’re falling now,” said Sylvia.
Now that the object flinging the arena upward had been destroyed, the battlefield was falling in the opposite direction. This also signaled the start of the second round.