Chapter 74: Thank you

Chapter 74: Thank you... Kaya slammed Doran so hard into the concrete that it cracked. Even though Doran had been shielded by an Earthen Shell, this was still in her favor. Except it wasn’t. Kaya had planned to toss Doran out of the Outer Ring. After lifting him Ten Feet into the air, her vines were supposed to extend beyond the boundary of the Outer Ring and slam him down there, disqualifying him. But, after Doran encased himself in the shell, he became so heavy, her vines didn’t get the time to extend and he came crashing into the ground instead. Barely two feet away from the spot she had taken and lifted him off the ground. She realized now that the shell had done more than protect him, it had grounded him. Even now, her vines were finding it difficult to move him. Fortunately, she didn’t have to move him. She just had to increase the intensity of her vines wrapping around him, stabbing their thorns even harder into his body and siphoning his energy. "Shit—" Doran said as he canceled the shell spell so that it opened up, fell apart, and flaked into dust and then Mana. "Good—" Kaya started to say and then paused her she saw it hadn’t been entirely a slip in concentration. Doran had just transitioned into a different spell cast. He formed a seal with one of his hands and a spell circle appeared overhead. It summoned what looked like a blade but a blunt one lacking any real edge. Fortunately for Doran, the blade didn’t need an edge. It just needed to land from high enough. *Whoosh!* *Bang!* The blade hit the ground with an impact and, through sheer force, it cut through the thick vines that had extended from the ground to wrap around Doran’s body allowing him to slip free. It was at that point that the entire class erupted in cheer and, for a moment, Kaya thought it was because Doran had escaped her. Even Doran thought the same until the two of them realized they had missed a buzzer sound. They looked over and saw Baler was out of the Outer Ring with Caius just putting down the leg he used to make it happen. "Oh great!" Kaya said with wide eyes. Her brain was already calculating how much of a better chance they had to win now that they outnumbered the opposing team three to two. "Fuck," Doran said with a groan and looked at Kaya, looking like his brain was calculating the opposite that she was; He was wondering about his and Aurelius’ chances. Now that Caius no longer had an opponent, he might choose to come join Kaya in fighting him and he did not fancy his odds of coming out on top in that battle. "What to do?" He wondered and looked over at Aurelius for guidance but before he could even get a good idea of what Aurelius and Delia’s fight was like, he was suddenly swarmed by Vines slithering at him and swinging with the intent to send him flying. Or at least grab and stab him with the thorns that’d sap him of his energy. Kaya seemed to have been imbued with renewed confidence. She went after Doran with all she had and offered him no breathing space to look at Aurelius for guidance. She barely gave him time to think for himself. It was when Doran tried to cast his go-to spell and summon Earthen hands that he realized just how dangerous those thorns had been. They hadn’t just sapped his physical energy but also his Mana. He was running so low, a single Earthen hand was all he could manage and he wouldn’t even be able to hold that for long. Still, he gritted his teeth and was determined to try. And to also try in a smarter way. He relied on a slab of Earth to move him about and dodge the vines and had many close shaves. A couple of thorns stabbed him and sapped at his energy and Mana before he pulled away quickly enough to dislodge them from his skin. He didn’t cast a defensive spell just so he could save his Mana for one last move. Slapping his palms together, the spell cast was complete and a golden-brown spell circle appeared beneath Kaya’s feet. She leaped away just in time to avoid the Earthen hand that rose out of the circle. Even though Kaya might have gotten out of the way of its rise, the hand still swung at her. She used a clump of her thorny vines to intercept the smack but the force still pushed her away and almost over the edge of the inner ring. At the same time, Doran slid into the Inner Ring on his slab of earth. The two only locked eyes for a fraction of a second and they knew this was the battle for control of the ’base’. Whoever got knocked out of the Inner ring first would lose. According to the rules, if Kaya got knocked out of the ring and Doran remained inside it, she and her team would have lost. Doran and Aurelius could still continue to fight and try even if he got knocked out of the inner ring but he knew that he was putting everything he had left into this attack. Into this move with the final Earthen hand he could create. It was all or nothing. If he didn’t get Kaya out, then he wouldn’t have any more Mana or energy to stop her from sending him out of the Inner Ring. This was it. Kaya erected a wall of Vines behind herself to avoid going over the edge. The vines still had thorns but as their caster, they might as well have been caressing her skin. The Earthen hand—controlled by Doran whose hand shook at the strain and effort it took to keep the spell going—folded into a fist and struck at Kaya again. It was fast but not too fast that she couldn’t control a vine to pull her out of the way in her own imperfect version of a movement spell. The Earthen fist struck the wall of Vines behind Kaya instead and they both went clear over the edge just as Doran reached his limit and the fist flaked away into dust and Mana. He had known it had been a long shot. Unlike him, Kaya still had more than enough Mana to keep going. It was just not a contest anymore. He smiled to himself. "Damn—" he said and when Kaya now came at him, being moved by a bundle of Vines and presenting an almost imperious visage because she looked like she was sitting on a thorny throne of Vines. "Be gentle," Doran said and his smile was almost charming. "Of course," Kaya assured him as a vine wrapped around his waist, lifted him, and dropped him gently outside of the Outer Ring. The buzzer sounded just as Doran fell to the ground. He looked over at Baler who volunteered their team for the exercise and found himself heaving sighs of relief and chuckling that the battle had ended with him at least not as injured as that. ... "What the hell are you?" Delia asked as she breathed hard and her grey eyes were wide in intense anger and just a bit of helplessness. She looked to the side at Caius and he just shook his head while smiling. Not a happy smile, mind you. Just a ’what an asshole’ smile. In front of them, and the target of their comments and looks, was Aurelius. They had managed to get him down from his footholds of light but neither had been able to get him disqualified. Aurelius hadn’t been able to disqualify them either but that hardly made him look bad because Caius and Delia were practically ganging up on him. Now, he had a blade of light revolving around him and something like a halo was now glowing above his head. Caius could tell Aurelius was truly going all out. Or at least, as all out as he could at this point in the story and it was not something he and Delia could easily defeat. Aurelius seemed to have infinite Mana the way he just kept spamming Light and Earth spells to remain on equal footing with two opponents. He even countered the chaos of Delia’s storm. Remaining well at a distance so that neither Caius nor Delia could get him into a close combat fight. That was the only aspect he was lacking in at the moment but they couldn’t even take advantage of it. Ridiculous! It was then that the second buzzer sounded to announce Doran’s disqualification. "Oh, would you look at that," Aurelius said with that slightly goofy smile of his. ’Three on One now...’ Caius thought and felt ashamed that this was the only scenario he could see them beating Aurelius. Aurelius grinned then and the blade of light around him vanished as he raised his hands. "I suppose that’s enough then," he said and his body became coated with light. Both Delia and Caius got ready to react to him but then, the buzzer sounded a third time and they saw Aurelius had stepped out of the Outer Ring and disqualified himself. "Thank you," he said, "That was fun."