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The swarm of fireballs sputtered uselessly against Seraphina's spinning shield defense. This isn't working, Ethan thought, the heat from his own flames washing over him. She's too good at just batting them away. He glanced at the arena's chronometer; two precious minutes had already burned away. If this dragged on, he would lose by default. A support-type's victory condition was survival, and she was surviving beautifully. A direct assault was the only option.
Ethan roared, collapsing his own fire-blade constructs back into his hands, focusing all the energy. "Enough defense!"
The rock shield she wielded was far harder than he'd anticipated. His fiery slashes, which should have melted stone, only produced jarring shocks up his arms and sent showers of chipped rock skittering across the floor.
"It's no use, Ethan!" Seraphina's voice, though strained with effort, was confident. "This shield was crafted from the Skill Aura Core of a Thick-Earth Bear! That mutated creature is legendary for its defense. Your attacks can't break through!"
"Then I'll just have to make a bigger one!" Ethan retorted, a wild idea sparking in his mind.
He wasn't just using the scorching property of his fire anymore. He put his hands together, the plasma between them compressing under his will. A small, intensely bright sphere began to form, the air around it shimmering and distorting as it greedily sucked in heat. It glowed with the blinding intensity of a miniature sun. Then, he unhesitatingly threw it. The super-condensed fireball shot forward, not with a roar, but with a sharp, piercing hiss.
Seraphina, seeing the small, white-hot projectile, instinctively raised her shield to block what she thought was just another fireball. The moment it made contact, however, it didn't just fizzle out. It detonated.
A massive shockwave of pure concussive force and explosive heat erupted outwards. The blast was so powerful it exceeded all of Seraphina's expectations, throwing her backward as if she'd been hit by a truck. She tumbled across the arena floor, her shield absorbing the worst of it, but the force still rattled her to her bones.
Ethan, feeling the backlash of his own attack, steadied himself. "Are you alright?" he called out, a genuine note of concern in his crackling voice.
Seraphina quickly rolled to her feet, her expression a mask of fierce determination. "I can't die yet!" she yelled back. Then, using the momentum, she charged forward in a powerful arrow-step, not to retreat, but to attack. She raised her heavy shield not as a wall, but as a battering ram, and smashed it into Ethan's chest.
The heavy, brutal impact stole the air from his non-existent lungs. "Damn it," he wheezed, "is your family's shield actually used for attacking?!"
"Who made the rule that a shield can only be used for defense?" Seraphina shot back, a brilliant, feral smile on her face. With a deft movement, she channeled her Aura into the shield, a fissure appearing down its center. She brought it up sharply against her knee and, with a loud CRACK, the massive shield broke cleanly in two. Immediately, she used her earth-elemental power to reshape the fractured halves, creating jagged, sharp grips on the broken sections. In an instant, her ultimate defense had been modified into a pair of deadly, jagged rock blades.
Ethan watched, genuinely impressed. "Alright, alright, you can even play like this?" He had always known Seraphina was smart, with a quick, analytical mind. But this—this instinctive, creative, mid-battle adaptation—was on another level entirely.
He wiped both sides of his face with his flaming hands, and the fire on his head, shaped like a mohawk, flared up with renewed intensity. The flames on his entire body burned fiercely, hotter than before. "Come on!"
What followed was a brutal collision of fire blades and rock blades. Every time Ethan's superheated limbs slashed, they would leave a molten gash on the rock blades, but Seraphina, with a surge of Aura, could always repair the damage in time. Their figures intertwined, a whirlwind of red and brown, constantly changing positions on the stage, their attacks landing on each other's armored bodies with punishing force.
Time was slipping away. Less than three minutes remained.
This is a battle of attrition, Ethan realized, his mind racing as he parried a blow. And she has the advantage. I can't break her armor, and she can outlast me. What should I do? He stared intently at the Bedrock Armor covering Seraphina's entire body, at the way the heat from his blows seemed to dissipate across its surface. The rock… the scorch marks… temperature… A flicker of an idea, brutal and efficient, sparked in his mind. Wait. I've been trying to break the armor. But what's inside it? Her. And she can't be heated to 2000 degrees. The armor conducts heat. The rock itself… the rock can be my weapon against her. Got it!
Ethan changed his strategy completely. He gathered all the psionic energy he could spare into his hands, and two thick, continuous pillars of fire erupted, not with explosive force, but with focused, intense heat. He aimed them directly at her.
Seraphina, seeing the change, braced herself, holding her rock blades up as a shield. "It's no use, Ethan! There are less than three minutes left. You can't break my defense!" she yelled over the roar of the flames.
"I don't need to break your defense at all!" Ethan yelled back.
"What?!"
Then, she felt it. The rock blades in her hands were getting hotter. Unbearably hot. Damn it! Seeing that the heat of the stone had exceeded her tolerance limit, she had no choice but to hastily throw them away. But this meant that the raging, superheated flames were now burning directly on the surface of her Bedrock Armor.
"Seraphina," Ethan pressed, his voice a steady, menacing crackle, "your defense is indeed high, but my flame now has a sustained temperature of a full 2000 degrees Celsius! As time passes, the Bedrock Armor on your body will absorb that heat. It will become an oven. How much temperature do you think you can withstand? There are still two minutes left now, but I only need one of those minutes to heat this armor of yours to over 500 degrees! A Rank One psionicist like you is unable to bear that kind of high temperature directly on your skin!"
He took a step forward, the pillars of fire intensifying. "Moreover, your Bedrock Armor isn't completely sealed. It has small gaps at the joints, voids for movement. Those places are all weaknesses. As long as you give me enough time, I can let the searing heat penetrate through those gaps and directly burn your skin!"
Seraphina's heart sank. She lowered her head and looked at the Bedrock Armor on her body, and found that, just as he said, it was beginning to glow a dull red. Glimmering cracks and scorch marks had already appeared on its surface, and the heat against her skin was becoming unbearable.
Ethan, seeing her falter and knowing he had won, didn't dare to continue. He stopped the flames.
Seraphina stood in her original spot, panting heavily, the heat shimmering off her armor. "I… I lost…"
"Ethan Atherton is victorious!" With the referee's order, it represented that Ethan had won this incredible competition. The audience once again erupted in thunderous, deafening cheers, celebrating the exciting, tactical end of this amazing match.
Seraphina hastily removed the now searing-hot armor from her body, letting it fall to the floor with a clatter. Her skin was flushed bright red from the high temperature, but she wasn't truly burned. She gave a bitter laugh. "You really don't show any mercy."
"There's no helping it," Ethan said, de-transforming and walking over, looking exhausted but triumphant. "It's a competition, so of course, I had to take it with one hundred percent seriousness. How about it? Are you still okay?"
Seraphina nodded. "I'm fine, just a little hot. Your flames stopped in time, so I wasn't actually burned."
"That's good then." The two of them came down from the stage together, and Marcus came forward to welcome them.
"That match was fought beautifully! You were both amazing!" he said, clapping them both on the back.
Seraphina looked at him with a mischievous glint in her eye. "Actually, I think a physical-type psionicist like Marcus here really needs to experience this kind of feeling to train his endurance and heat resistance."
Ethan caught on immediately. "What a coincidence, Seraphina. I was thinking the exact same thing."
The two of them stared at Marcus with ill intent.
Marcus: ...
"Well then," he said quickly, "the classmates in the class are all waiting for us. We should hurry back to our spots." Marcus hurriedly left this place, really afraid that they would actually target him and give him a good, friendly scorching too.