"Damn it—the labyrinth's walls can attack too?!" As Dylan's assault erupted, Kael's mind sharpened. With a flick of his scepter, the five Flame Spiders guarding him spewed webs, ensnaring the charging stone walls and neutralizing the strike.
With the spiders at his side, Kael's safety was assured—for now.
"Dylan's lurking in the shadows, preparing another spell. Can't let him finish!" Gritting his teeth, Kael gripped his scepter and chanted.
"Frostflame Hand!"
"Frostflame Hand!"
Having mastered this destructive spell, Kael unleashed twin eruptions. His scepter blazed as frostflame energy detonated radially, obliterating swaths of the labyrinth in violent explosions.
The audience gaped. To casually deploy such high-tier spells back-to-back—with no visible strain or casting interval—was monstrous. For Kael, it seemed as effortless as hurling basic fireballs.
Within moments, the labyrinth's walls within a dozen meters of Kael lay in smoldering ruins. He stood like a demonic harbinger of destruction, surrounded by rubble.
This was magic: as awe-inspiring as it was terrifying.
The spectators' understanding deepened.
"There!" Kael's eyes flashed coldly. Amid the shattered debris, he glimpsed a fluttering robe—Dylan's.
"Vacuum Inferno!" Kael snarled, twirling his scepter into a lethal arc. Blazing flames erupted from the void, engulfing Dylan's hiding spot. Simultaneously, the ten scouting Flame Spiders converged, encircling the area.
"Exposed already?" Dylan muttered. Empowered by Levitation, he darted away at inhuman speed, his gaze chilling. He hadn't anticipated Kael locating him so swiftly—a truly formidable foe.
The ten Flame Spiders tore through stone walls, their eight legs scuttling furiously to encircle Dylan.
"Skyfall Boulders!" Dylan's pre-chanted spell erupted. Dozen-meter-wide stone spheres materialized midair, plummeting with crushing force toward the spiders.
BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!
The audience gasped. Such precision—each boulder struck a spider mid-stride, demanding flawless magical control.
CRACK!
Elemental bodies shattered violently as the spiders disintegrated under the onslaught. Kael's summoned constructs were obliterated.
Yet Kael's Vacuum Inferno had already coalesced.
Iceflame geysered from earth and sky, a ravenous conflagration lunging to engulf Dylan.
"Blink!" Dylan chanted—a seventh-tier Teleportation spell. His form flickered, reappearing dozens of meters beyond the inferno's reach.
The Vacuum Inferno consumed what remained of the Abyssal Labyrinth, reducing it to ash.
"Blink…" Kael's eyes narrowed. He too had mastered this rare seventh-tier spell, though he'd kept it hidden as a trump card.
Now distanced, Dylan allowed himself a grim smile. "Kael…truly remarkable. A mere first-year forcing me this far… But no more."
Yes. This ended now.
Dylan twisted his fingers around his staff, launching into another incantation. The distance between him and Kael now allowed him to chant freely, unhindered by interference.
Kael's pupils contracted. Recognizing Dylan's preparation for a finishing blow, his obsidian eyes flashed coldly. With ten Flame Spiders destroyed, he tapped his scepter: "Meteor Shower!"
Flames cascaded from roiling crimson clouds overhead.
"Earthbrand!" Dylan's staff blazed with pristine ochre light—so brilliant it forced spectators to shield their eyes. Earthbrand, a devastating seventh-tier spell, ranked among the most destructive earth magics. Silver-star sigils shimmered across his staff, a testament to his terrifying mastery of geomancy.
Off-field, Amelia and Ethan paled, mentally simulating defenses against such an attack.
"Gods above—Earthbrand! Kael has no escape now!" Vesper commentated from a safe distance, sweat beading his brow.
The arena trembled as if seized by an earthquake. Beneath horrified gazes, the ground fractured like shattered glass. Chasms yawned open, swallowing chunks of the battlefield. Kael staggered, the very earth conspiring to devour him.
Such was the cataclysmic power of seventh-tier magic—annihilation wrought with a gesture.
Kael's Meteor Shower struck simultaneously, but against Earthbrand's fury, the fiery barrage seemed trivial. Bolstered by his Earth Guardian, Dylan shrugged off the assault effortlessly.
The pressure grew suffocating. Earthbrand transformed the arena into a localized apocalypse—a quaking hellscape where footing dissolved into oblivion.
BOOM! The earth ruptured completely, a storm of dust and debris obscuring all vision. Beyond the arena, the rescue team tensed, poised to charge in and save Kael.
"Damn it—is Kael okay?!" Finn's voice, usually brimming with confidence, now wavered. Dylan's onslaught had reduced the arena to ruins—a first in the tournament's history.
As the dust hung thick, spectators held their breaths. Survival under such cataclysmic magic seemed impossible.
"Did Kael… lose?" someone gasped.
"This looks bad," Korgoth muttered from the shadows.
But when the haze cleared, the crowd froze in disbelief.
Kael stood unharmed. His robes pristine, his posture calm, he gripped his scepter with icy focus, as though Earthbrand had never touched him.
"Unscathed?!" Dylan's composure cracked. How had Kael evaded a spell of such magnitude? Not even a singe marred his attire.
"How did he dodge it?!" Finn blurted, echoing the audience's bewilderment.
"Don't forget," Amelia replied with a knowing smile, "Kael knows Blink too."
Indeed, to escape Earthbrand's wrath, Kael had burned through a staggering portion of his mana reserves with a single Blink—a seventh-tier teleportation spell. Even his prodigious reserves could sustain only three such casts. Combined with prior expenditures, he now teetered on the edge of depletion.
Yet the sacrifice was justified.
Kael raised his scepter. The Equilibrium Gem and ninth-tier fire crystal embedded in its shaft blazed to life as he channeled his remaining magic into one final spell.
Here and now, Dylan—we settle this.