Probably, but it’s not worth the risk. The chance for being hurt is too significant, and it might even get me disqualified.
Fortunately, my phoenix sigil’s barrier is the outside layer — it’ll take damage before the normal shield sigil does.
And I’m a Carnelian now. My shroud will mostly be inside the barriers, so it won’t do much to help my shield last longer, but it will definitely help prevent injuries from slowing me down.
That was all good, but our opponents had phoenix sigils, too. I’d made them myself.
I didn’t regret it for a moment.
I couldn’t hear what Teft was telling the other students at this distance, but they headed to opposite sides of the arena. The tiles were just large enough for a single person to stand on them comfortably and there were a lot of them.
I also wanted to know why some of the squares had remained white, their normal color. If the other squares represented the advanced stages of an attunement, were these “white” squares supposed to be Quartz?
And, if that was the case, did that mean they had no effect?
It seemed so, since the students were stepping on the white squares on their way to the opposite sides of the arena — and there were two white squares for each team on the far sides.
There seemed to be no traps on those initial squares, but I couldn’t be confident that all white squares were the same. Teft often liked to subvert expectations.
“Bow to your opponents.”
The teams bowed respectfully.
“Begin!”
A dome-shaped barrier flickered into life around the arena as soon as Teft spoke.
The combatants surged into motion.
Kyra whispered a word, then vanished in a torrent of swirling shadows.
Instinctively, I activated my attunement to see where she’d gone — and the answer was nowhere. She was still standing in the center of the shadow cloud, reaching out with her hands.
The shadows began to spread.
Rupert and Loria turned toward each other, but Loria was a hair faster. She hurled a bolt of lightning at him. It got within inches before a glowing shield appeared in front of Rupert and deflected the blast.
That was a Shaper spell, but I hadn’t seen Desmond move. There was a good reason for that, and it wasn’t because he was too fast to perceive like Keras. He’d stuck his hands in his jacket pockets so his opponents couldn’t predict his spells based on his gestures. Simple, but effective.
A hail of glowing swords appeared in the air above Loria, descending in a glimmering flash. She dodged to the side, but that meant jumping onto a colored square. A bolt of light erupted when she landed on it, and I saw cracks flicker across her shield.
The glowing sword-storm struck the tiles where she’d been standing a moment before, sinking into the stone several inches before vanishing.
The tiles themselves aren’t shielded, I realized. I might be able to work with that.
Rupert was still gathering energy in his hands. A swirling ball began to manifest, glimmering with heat while he whispered. His Elementalist mark was on his left hand, so he didn’t strictly need to use incantations, but it looked like he’d learned to use his lungs to augment his spells further.
From the intensity of the glow, I’d say it was paying off.
The globe seemed to solidify over the following seconds. Loria hurled another blast of lightning, this time at Desmond, but another phantasmal shield appeared in the way.
This time, the lightning shifted in mid-air to arc around the shield, blasting Desmond back a step and leaving a crack in his barrier. He landed on a green square. Vines burst from the ground beneath him, wrapping around his legs in a moment. His expression was more perplexed than furious.
Near me, Patrick whistled appreciatively. Controlling lightning mid-flight like that was impressive.
So, however, was the ball of flame that was gradually solidifying in Rupert’s hands.
Kyra’s shadows were still spreading — they now encompassed a half-dozen squares, almost reaching where Loria was standing. Assuming she could see within her own shadows, it seemed like a valid strategy — her opponents wouldn’t know where to attack.
Desmond ducked down, forming a phantasmal blade to cut away at the vines that were binding him, while Loria hurled another lightning blast. Rupert took this hit head-on, but he managed to retain his focus on the spell he was gathering.
And, without any further delay, he hurled the sphere in Loria’s direction.
Kyra’s shadows shot out and covered Loria’s square, then seemed to thicken as the fireball approached.
The flames diminished as they entered the enclosure of shade, and not just visually. With my attunement active, I could see the intensity decrease as it crossed inside. An unexpected effect; I hadn’t known that shadow magic could diminish the power of other spells.
But it wasn’t enough.
The fireball detonated with tremendous force, burning away a section of shadow and crashing into Loria. The impact hurled her backward, shattering her barrier. Then she vanished.
It wasn’t one of Kyra’s tricks this time. Loria’s barrier was gone, and she’d been eliminated from the match.
Kyra dropped to the ground when the fireball detonated, and it left her mostly unscathed. Her shadows began to spread again immediately afterward, but it didn’t seem like a sustainable tactic.
Desmond was almost free of his vines, and Rupert was already preparing another ball of fire.
I was expecting Kyra to do something sneaky. Maybe create a bunch of illusions, or manipulate the shadows into attacking from a direction opposite from her own location.
Instead, she braced herself, took a breath, and jumped.
The remaining shadows jerked inward, pulled as if connected by strings, and condensed until they were pressed against her skin.
Kyra’s features vanished as the shadows stretched across her entire body, covering her like paint.
I’d seen that kind of spell before, though; it was more than a cosmetic change. The shadows would enhance her physical capabilities further, and protect her like a suit of armor.
The leap didn’t take her far, but it did draw her opponents’ attention upward. That meant that her opponents didn’t see that she’d left something behind when she jumped — a tiny metal rod.
She landed on another white square, just a few feet away from where she’d started, and began to slowly advance. Nothing happened, seemingly confirming that the white squares were safe.
Desmond was free now, and he conjured another hail of glittering blades in the air above Kyra. They descended, jamming into the writhing shadows around her — and vanished without a trace.
The shadows seemed to diminish for a moment after the attack, but Kyra exhaled a breath, and they solidified again.
Kyra advanced, hopping from white square to white square.
Rupert turned to his partner, still focusing on conjuring a ball of flame, and yelled, “Slow her down!”
Desmond gave a nod and a reply, then closed his eyes and focused.
A glowing wall appeared in Kyra’s path.
She punched it. The wall rippled as umbral mana met with gray, tearing a fist-shaped hole.
Seeming satisfied, she struck the wall again and again, widening it until there was almost enough room to jump through.
The wall vanished just in time for Rupert’s fireball to pass through where it had been a moment before. It hit Kyra straight in the chest.
The shadows rippled on contact, sizzling and burning away as the fireball drilled through. Kyra reached into a pouch at her side, twitching her hand just as Rupert waved his.