The arena was deathly quiet as Lyra raised her glowing rapier, her expression calm but confident. The air crackled with frost and tension as the crowd leaned forward, breaths held in anticipation of the final blow.
But then, something changed.
Rynhara, bloodied and bruised, suddenly clutched her chest as a black, viscous miasma began to seep from her pores. Her head tilted upward, eyes glowing with a menacing crimson light.
The crowd gasped.
"What… what is that?!" one of the commentators, Fira, cried out in alarm.
Drollas fumbled with his notes. "I-I've never seen anything like this before! Is it a skill? A curse?!"
In the stands, Tiamora's eyes narrowed. Her claws dug into her armrest. "That's no ordinary power," she muttered. Her voice turned into a low growl. "Someone tampered with her using that arrow."
Rynhara rose to her feet, her trembling replaced by a calm, eerie stillness. The miasma swirling around her body grew thicker, darkening the air with every passing moment. A sinister grin crept onto her face, one that sent a shiver down the spines of everyone watching.
Lyra hesitated, lowering her rapier slightly. "What… what are you?"
Rynhara's voice came out in a distorted growl, layered with something inhuman. "Your worst nightmare."
After letting out a rage filled roar Rynhara disappeared from view due to sudden burst of speed. Lyra barely had time to react as Rynhara appeared inches from her face, her katana slicing down with enough force to send a shockwave through the arena. Lyra dodged just in time, but the ground beneath her split open.
The audience erupted in shocked cries.
"What's going on?!" Fira exclaimed. "Rynhara was on the verge of collapse a moment ago!"
Drollas adjusted his glasses. "This… this has to be some sort of forbidden power! Look at the miasma—it's amplifying her speed, her strength, everything!"
Rynhara's movements became erratic, yet calculated—a predator playing with her prey. With every swing of her katana, a wave of dark energy trailed behind, crackling with lightning.
Lyra retaliated, firing off a Frost Nova that engulfed the battlefield in an explosion of ice.
But Rynhara didn't dodge. She walked through the attack, her body sizzling from the frostbite, her grin never fading.
"You call that an attack?" Rynhara sneered, her voice dripping with malice. With a sudden burst of energy, she lunged forward, her katana glowing with stardust. "Let me show you what a real attack looks like!"
Lightning surged through her blade as she unleashed a barrage of slashes, each strike faster and more ferocious than the last. Lyra was thrown into the air, unable to defend herself against the onslaught.
As Lyra's body soared through the air, battered and broken, Rynhara leapt onto the arena wall, crouching like a predator ready to pounce. Her katana shimmered, now fully engulfed in a raging maelstrom of stardust and green lightning.
She sheathed the blade, her movements slow and deliberate. "Let the stars guide me…" she began, her voice echoing across the battlefield.
The crowd held their breath as the chant continued.
"Let the lightning illuminate my path, the sun cloak my blade in light and the stars shine eternally. May the moonlight guide my blade and the sharpen my soul!"
Lyra, realizing the threat, gritted her teeth. "As if I'd let you!" she screamed, charging her rapier with an icy blue light.
" Absolute zero glacial prison."
With a burst of mana, Lyra unleashed a compressed ionized Ice Bomb that could freeze even souls but had a one a day usage, the explosion swallowed Rynhara in an enormous, frost-filled blast.
The crowd erupted in cheers, convinced the fight was over.
"She got her!" Fira yelled. "Rynhara's finally done for!"
But as the smoke cleared, a shadow incased in ice emerged.
Rynhara stood amidst the carnage still in her iai stance, her katana partially drawn. Her body was battered, her armor shredded, but her eyes burned with unrelenting fury. Her body began cracking as bolts of lightning began leaking from her causing the ice encasing her to break and disperse.
With her right foot forward, she turned her body, unsheathing the katana in one fluid motion as shendashed towards Lyra like a shooting star.
"Final! Demolition !Strike!Shooting Star X Lightning Slash!"
A blinding flash of stardust erupted from her blade as she cut though Lyra, carving through her body and battlefield alike. At the same moment, the massive lightning bolt she had "misfired" at the start of the battle finally descended, striking Lyra with pinpoint accuracy leaving her caughtup in the middle of both attacks.
The two attacks collided, creating a radiant, cross-shaped explosion that consumed the Lrya alondside the arena in a myriad explosion of lightning and stardust.
As the dust settled, the crowd was deathly silent. The once-pristine arena was now a crater, the ground charred and broken.
Rynhara fell on to her knees as she knelt at the edge of the devastation exhausted, her katana planted firmly into the ground. The dark aura around her body dissipated as she exhaled heavily, blood dripping from her wounds.
In the center of the crater lay Lyra, her rapier shattered with a large cross shaped wound starting from her shoulder to her arms elbow . Her body was unmoving.
The commentators broke the silence before they began the countdown. Lyra struggling stood up much to Rynhara's disbeliefas she looked behind but before anyone spoke she was fried by a lightning cross that erupted from the left over mana in the atmosphere. Lyra collapsed again and lay still in a pool of her own blood.
"Ladies and gentlemen…" Drollas whispered, his voice trembling. "It's over. Contestant Lyra is unable to battle. Number one battle! Winner! Rynhara!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!¡"
The screen displayed Rynhara's image with her holding her katana in a cool pose as it displayed the winner title. As for Rynhara herself, she too collapsed as the medics rushed into the arena carrying both her and Lyra to the hospital on stretchers.
Fira leaned forward, her eyes wide. "Rynhara… she… she actually won! I cant believe it. Just like her parents before her she too has triumphed."
The crowd erupted into cheers and gasps, their disbelief turning into thunderous applause.
From the stands, Tiamora allowed herself a small, prideful smirk. "That's my girl, you've made mama proud" she murmured in a barely audible voice.