He threw a bolt of lightning at Meltlake as he flew back, but that just vanished as it hit her aura.
“Permafrost Cascade!”
Sera had finished her spell this time, whispering while Patrick had Meltlake distracted.
Dozens of icy shards appeared, raining down on Meltlake. She created a wall of flame in mid-air, interposing it in the path of the shards.
Sera waved a hand and the shards veered off of their path, flying around the wall and slamming into Meltlake’s aura.
I was impressed Sera had pulled off a spell like that. She must have gotten used to drawing mana from the rest of her body. Still, I didn’t think she’d be able to keep it up for long.
Jin immediately opened fire on one of the spots a shard had hit. This time, I saw a flicker of protective mana flickering beneath the shroud.
Good, that makes it more plausible this will work.
I raised my dueling cane, finished with the harder part.
Making a small mana crystal was easy now. I’d made dozens of both solid crystals and hollow ones.
I hadn’t really experimented with other shapes, but it wasn’t hard. I held the proof of that — a dueling cane, with the blade extended by two extra feet of pure crystal.
The real test was what happened when I hit the last rune, flooding the blade with mana.
Just as I’d hoped, it ran right up the metal and into the crystal.
It still wasn’t quite as good as a real sword, but it would do.
Professor Meltlake was finally turning toward my side of the room, apparently having noticed that hit from Jin.
She hurled a sphere of fire in our direction.
Instinctively, I tried to activate the ring of jumping, but it was still out of mana.
Jin stepped in front of the sphere and shot a hole right through it.
The rest of the sphere collapsed harmlessly.
Huh. Didn’t know that could happen.
I took the moment of apparent safety as a chance to charge.
Meltlake was raising her cane to meet my rush when Patrick threw a blast of fire at the floor at her feet. The explosion was harmless with her aura active, but the tremors caused her to stumble just a step.
That bought me the time I needed to close in and strike.
The crystalline blade made it through her aura, hitting her dead on, and then snapped on contact.
I saw the telltale sparks of damage to her barrier, then she waved a hand and I was engulfed in flame.
My vision was nothing but fire. Both sigils and shroud were protecting me, but the heat was so intense that they couldn’t ward it off entirely. I felt my skin crack and burn.
A burst of cold flashed over me, then the flames were gone.
I stepped back, coughing from the smoke.
Sera was coughing, too, for a different reason. I could see the hints of icy mana still around her from the spell she’d used to save me from the enveloping flames.
She clutched her chest, and I felt a sudden spike of worry as I realized how much she’d pushed herself.
Meltlake must have noticed that, too, because she threw another wave of flame directly at Sera.
Patrick tried to get in the way.
He failed.
The inferno washed over Sera, and then she was gone.
The crystal blade on the dueling cane was snapped too short to give the reach I needed to hit Meltlake again. I needed another plan.
Patrick was forming a sphere of lightning in his hands, preparing what looked like a larger attack than I’d seen him use before. I doubted it would work, but I’d have to buy him time.
I rushed to the right, trying to draw Meltlake’s attention. It worked.
She raised her hand to blast me again, but I was ready for it this time.
Haste.
The burst of speed took me out of the way of Meltlake’s attack, but it also threw me off balance. I stumbled and tripped, but recovered before I actually tumbled to the floor.
When I spun back around, I took a blast of lightning straight to the chest.
My phoenix sigil’s barrier shattered immediately, and I felt my shield sigil drain to almost nothing. Meltlake hit hard, and I didn’t have Sera to save me from another attack.
Fortunately, as usual, we’d all forgotten about Jin.
He stood behind her, dagger in hand, and stabbed straight at her neck.
Meltlake side-stepped the attack effortlessly, turned, and enveloped Jin in a blast of fire.
Addendum: Everyone other than Meltlake had forgotten about Jin.
He staggered, raising his arms to protect himself, but she continued the blast. I hurled my dueling cane at Meltlake’s back. The attack connected, but she barely reacted. The cane melted to slag a moment later.
And a moment after that, Jin was gone.
Patrick let out a growl, finally hurling the huge sphere of lightning he’d been forming between his hands.
Meltlake just shook her head and batted it aside effortlessly. “What did I tell you about investing all your mana in one attack?”
“Don’t do it.” Patrick shook his head. “But you also taught me the value of surprises.”
The sphere split apart, just like Meltlake’s had. Then, rather than flying toward her, the spheres each fired a blast of electrical energy from a different angle.
She knocked one of the blasts aside, but the other two hit her in the chest. I saw her convulse for a moment on impact, indicating that he’d done some real damage.
The spheres kept firing, while Patrick sagged from exhaustion.
I began to charge transference mana in my right hand. It was the last attack option I could think of, unless I wanted to run back to another room to try to get my sword.
One.
Meltlake waved her cane, and chunks of stone shot out of the floor, enveloping the lightning spheres. With the threat of the lightning attacks gone, she turned to Patrick. “Your control is improving — you couldn’t have managed that a few weeks ago.”
“Thank you, ma’am.”
Two.
She shook her head. “It was still a poor choice. You could have done more damage if you’d managed to extinguish my shroud, if only for a moment.”
He shrugged. “I thought a distraction was a better choice.”
Meltlake glanced around. “For what? Corin is unarmed and your friends are all gone.”
Three.
Something slammed into her face a moment later, snapping her neck back.
She staggered, then raised a hand to a bloody lip, wearing an expression of disbelief.
She hadn’t forgotten Jin, like the rest of us had.
But she had underestimated him.
I hadn’t.
The moment Jin had vanished, I knew there were two possibilities. Maybe he’d been taken out of the match like Sera had, but he was a Sunstone, with a stronger shroud than any of ours.
More likely?
He’d gone invisible, using the item I’d given him earlier in the year.
And I had a pretty good idea of his dramatic timing by now. Not quite perfect — I’d only been charging my mana for three seconds, rather than the five I needed for full strength.
But it was close enough.
I lunged forward and punched Meltlake in the face.
She flew backward from the impact, and I felt a hardened barrier cracking against my fist.
Unfortunately, I also felt her aura of fire burn me as I closed in, and that ate up the last of my shield.