Final Showdown V

Rui's ice spread across the sandy floor again, covering every inch of ground within the space of the barrier. Well, every inch that it was able to. The violent winds around Kies stopped the ice in its tracks and made it impossible for it to spread to him.

The temperature dropped drastically, turning even colder inside of the arena. Kies felt the magic flow in his body slow down a lot. He didn't know if Rui was purposely lowering the temperature by this much or if this was a result of how powerful her magic was.

There was nothing he could do to raise the temperature of his body. But even with his magic circulation slowed down, he should still be able to regenerate his magic power fast enough so that it wouldn't affect the battle.

"I guess I'll start..." Kies took the initiative and shot a tornado out of his hand at Rui. The royal guard deflected it with her blade, sending it spinning off over her shoulder. Rui immediately started running towards Kies before he had a chance to fire off another attack. However, she miscalculated one thing, and it was that the tornado could turn.

Rui heard the roar of the wind behind her and glanced behind her. "You have to be kidding me..." She stopped her advance and spun around to block the tornado. The winds pushed her backward, towards Kies. "Not good!" The tornado was keeping her busy and her back was now completely exposed to Kies, and he was already getting his next attack ready.

While Rui was preoccupied with what was in front of her, Kies charged behind her and delivered another blow. As one might expect, getting attacked on both sides wasn't fun. Rui had to make a decision and that was to either give up defending on the front or take the hit from behind. She chose to focus on blocking off the attack in front of her and let her armor take the other hit for her.

Kies didn't get Rui's logic for just giving up on her back entirely until his attack connected. Instead of the clanking of metal like he expected to hear froM her armor, he heard a high-pitched crunching sound. It was ice again! She coated her armor in ice as well!?

The ice nullified Kies' attack and he was forced to jump away. By this time, Rui dealt with his other attack and was charging at him with her sword raised.

Kies quickly swiped his hand in front of him, commanding a strong wind to sweep across, breaking through the ice coating the floor and sending up a wall of sand, giving Kies enough time to distance himself from Rui.

This was a predicament. Even his magic attacks were having no use on her... Did he really have to do it? "I guess it's not my problem anymore..."

Rui suddenly burst through the wall of sand without waiting for it to fall and shot a shard of ice at Kies. This caught Kies by complete surprise as he didn't expect her to dive through the sand like that and the ice punctured his shoulder, causing him to hiss a curse.

But that wasn't all. Rui knew that she shouldn't give Kies any time to react and immediately launched more ice at him before proceeding to run in behind the projectiles.

Kies destroyed all of them with his Wind Blades and then created a dome of wind around himself to block Rui's sword.

"It really isn't my problem anymore..." Kies grunted. Cheap tricks didn't work on her, no matter what he tried. The only way to beat her was to overwhelm her with sheer strength.

"Winds... Gather..." But this wasn't a simple order like all the past times. The arena went still. Rui sensed that something was very wrong and backed away from her opponent. She was on guard for anything... Anything except for what she was about to see.

The tattoo on her hand began to glow, raising a massive red flag that something bad was coming. A voice boomed in her head, conveying an important message, 'Use all of your magic power now!'

Rui took the voice's warning and created as many pillars of ice as she could between her and Kies, ultimately ending up with four walls before the attack went off.

'I meant around yourself, not-' It was too late. The spirit's instructions hadn't been clear enough for Rui to understand. The attack wasn't coming from a single direction... It came from every direction.

Hundreds of powerful wind currents tore the arena apart, leaving deep and ugly gashes in the ground, tearing chunks off Rui's ice, and cutting her body from everywhere at once. It was almost like a thousand wild beasts were released into the arena and left to rampage as they liked. And the person who tamed all these beasts? It was Kies.

The single safe place in all of the ensuing madness was the spot where Kies was standing. Kies made sure to contain the winds inside of the barrier, and under his orders, they will not touch the barrier. As for everything else within the barrier, it was being ripped to shreds. Everything but the land that Kies was on.

The winds dared no approach near him, afraid that he might lash out at them for getting too close. Even the more ferocious winds were scared of him. In the midst of all the wild beasts, he was their king, and no one... No one went against the king.

No one, but those who are of the same status, and it just so happens that Kies wasn't the only one king here. Magic power exploded from Rui, sending out a wave of cold that was so powerful that it even slowed the winds. Ice refroze on the areas where they froze, turning the place into an icy wasteland. Kies' winds retreated away from Rui, hissing and howling at her angrily.

'Just who does she think she is!?'

'How dare she!'

To shake up even the most powerful winds... Kies wasn't surprised at all. He should be, but he knew where she was getting her power from.

"Phew..." Rui emerged from the cloud of sand that the winds kicked up, seemingly fine. Her armor was terribly damaged with dents and cuts all over, but somehow, there was not a scratch on Rui herself. "You're really giving me a hard time here."

"Doesn't look like it."

"Well, I certainly did take a beating for your information." The proof was all over her armor. "However, if you want to take me down, you have to do much more than that," she taunted.

"That, I can agree with." Kies extended his arm and called forth a powerful wind. The razor-sharp winds cut the ice and put more scratches on her armor. Gaps appeared in her armor and pieces began to fall off, leaving Rui with nothing more than her clothes underneath to protect her. But unlike steel, the cloth had no resistance against the winds that were as sharp as needles. Still, her skin was somehow fine against the winds. Taking a closer look, Iris saw that there was ice on her skin, and that was the reason why none of his attacks could cut her.

This meant that Kies didn't need to hold back. It was time to end the battle now before things get more complicated. Kies charged his attack to take down Rui in one hit before she had a chance to actually use her magic against him.

"It's time to end this!" Kies shouted, a miniature vortex forming in his hand.

"End this? But I haven't even started."

"And that is precisely why..." Kies had a feeling that if they continued fighting then they might destroy more than just the arena. The barrier could barely take one of his mid-ranked wind spells. There was no way that it could take a hit from anything more powerful, and Kies was fully capable of using more powerful spells.

The last thing that he wanted was for the prize money from the tournament to go towards the repair of the city due to their fight.

The spell was charged in a couple of seconds and Kies got ready to fire it at his opponent who was also getting ready to receive it when the barrier suddenly dropped.

Fragments of light fell down from the sky like pieces of broken glass and disappeared when they hit the ground.

With the vortex still in his hand, Kies looked at Rui and saw that she was just as confused. He couldn't launch the attack now or else he would risk involving the crowd in it as well.

"Why did the barrier-" Rui's didn't get a chance to finish her question as screams erupted on the south side of the colosseum. Both fighters turned their heads to see what was going on.

Rui's face was already pale enough as it is, but what she saw drained the blood from her face, making it even paler. She looked like a walking corpse with her skin color.

It took Kies a little longer to identify the cause of all the panicking but when he saw it too, he frowned. "How did this happen?"

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