Advent of the Three Calamities

She had also fought like the others and her fight lasted for about a minute and a half. Her speed could be considered neither too fast nor too slow. It was in the upper regions as she swiftly dealt with her opponent.

11 || .....

Kiera\'s brows twitched.

A sharp pain invaded her mind for a brief moment before disappearing. It was brief but noticeable enough for her to perceive.

She opened her eyes shortly after and looked around her.

There were a total of seven people remaining from their group. It was clear that they had lost half of their members in the first round.

She didn\'t show much emotion and focused her attention on Aoife who was scrolling through a small tablet.

As if noticing her stare, Aoife turned her head.

Their eyes met.

"Are you healed?"

".....More or less."

Kiera replied after a short pause. Normally she\'d have answered with a \'What?\' \'What are you looking at\' \'Look away\', but she seemed strangely calm today.

It took Aoife aback a little.

"Uh, ah..."

Caught off-guard by the normal response Aoife found herself at a loss for words for a few seconds. It took her a good minute to snap out of it.

"Here."

Since Kiera was being so mild today she didn\'t mind sharing what she had. In fact, this was supposed to be something that she meant to share with everyone. It was just that they were all still recuperating their energies.

"What\'s this...?"

Kiera grabbed the tablet and looked at it.

That was when she finally saw the numerous clips and replays that were on it. Aoife scooched a little before whispering,

"It\'s a clip of all the fights that just happened. Take a look at them and memorize how they fight since our next match will start in a bit. It\'ll help us get ready for the next fights."

"Oh."

Kiera looked through the fights with a disinterested look. Then, after skimming through a few clips, she passed the tablet back to Aoife.

"Here."

"That\'s it...?"

"Yes."

"Is there something wrong? You\'ve been acting a little odd. Are you perhaps si-"

"I\'m not."

"Then..."

"There\'s no point in looking at the fights. Those that are worth fighting held back while the ones who went all out aren\'t worth my time. Don\'t bother as well. It\'s a waste of time."

Kiera began to close her eyes under Aoife\'s dumbstruck expression. Her mouth, like that of a fish, opened and closed repeatedly as she tried to find her words.

She really did try but in the end, no word came out of her mouth.

When she thought about it, she realized that Kiera\'s words held some truth to them. Those that they needed to pay attention to most likely didn\'t reveal any of their cards while those that they didn\'t need to pay attention to had revealed all their cards.

\'But it still doesn\'t hurt to check...\'

One couldn\'t be too careless after all.

Aoife was just about to say this to her when she stopped.

"Hm?"

That was mainly because she received a notification and her expression changed slightly as she looked at Kiera.

This...

The pairings for the next bouts were announced.

Her opponent was quite strong but that wasn\'t what shocked her. No, what shocked her was someone else\'s pairing.

Kiera\'s.

[Platform 5] - Kiera Mylne Vs. Agatha Wintersnow.

***

Aetheria Empire resting area.

"...It\'s interesting."

Caius replayed the match between Julien and Carmen again. For each time he looked, he\'d notice something new. In the end, he couldn\'t help but clap in fascination.

"Not bad at all."

He was quite satisfied with what he had seen.

"It looks like he is using his hand in order to activate the weird gravitational skill, but it\'s actually not the hand that activates it. It\'s his..."

Caius\'s eyes lowered, pausing on Julien\'s feet.

"...feet."

Julien had done a good job at hiding it, or perhaps never intended to hide it, but if one paid close attention they\'d notice how each time he activated the skill he took a step in either direction even though it was unnecessary.

That made it quite obvious for Caius to discover the trick behind the skill.

Julien also didn\'t have very great control over the skill.

From there he was able to come up with a conclusion.

"He\'s about the middle of the pack in terms of strength."

Julien wasn\'t that strong, that much was obvious. However, Caius couldn\'t wait to see his

Emotive Magic.

\'It\'s a bit of a pity that he still hasn\'t used it yet.\'

Julien hadn\'t fallen for the trap that Carmen had set up. It would\'ve been quite entertaining

had he done so, but sadly he didn\'t.

In the end, Carmen ran out of stamina and the fight ended.

There was a slight anomaly in the replay, but Caius dismissed it. The only way he could

explain that irregularity was through the fourth phase of Emotive Magic which was simply impossible for someone\'s Julien\'s age to perform.

In fact, there were hardly any Emotive Mages that could reach such a stage, let alone someone

so young.

Caius was believed to be the one to have the most potential to reach such a state.

He didn\'t think for one second that there was someone out there with the ability to reach the fourth phase at such an age. It wasn\'t arrogance, but an impossibility. It was like having the ability to be near the Zenith at such an age.

It made no sense.

"Young Master."

Angela stood by his side the entire time. With her usual cold expression, she didn\'t speak

much and only waited for the right time to speak.

Now was such time.

"Their pairings for the next round have been released"

"Oh"

Caius looked at the tablet with his hand before his expression paused. Then, raising his head

to look at Angela, he laughed.

"Now that...."

His eyes squinted.

"....Isn\'t that fun?"

[Platform 12] -- Julien Dacre Evenus Vs. Angela Karliack.

***

"Another one from the Aetheria Empire?"

I looked at my match-up and sighed. My energy was almost fully recovered but my injuries weren\'t. I would\'ve preferred it if I had been matched up with an easier opponent, but in the end, I was matched up with someone high up in the rankings.

\'.... This will probably be more difficult than my first fight.\'

Angela was a speed-type [Body] user.

Her first match was amongst the fastest as she ended it just a little bit after the top four ended their matches. It was most likely done so on purpose in order to not take the spotlight from

Caius.

In any case, her strength was something that couldn\'t be dismissed, and in order for me to have any chance at beating her, then I had no choice but to take it extremely seriously.

"To make matters worse for me, it\'s highly likely that someone has figured out how Step of Suppression works from the replays.\'

It wasn\'t that I was trying to hide it, but I also didn\'t want people to see its glaring weakness.

That was...

As long as I couldn\'t take a step then I couldn\'t use the skill.

Such was one of the flaws of the skill.

\'But it\'s not like this weakness can\'t be used to my advantage.\'

If people knew about its weakness then it wasn\'t hard to predict what they\'d do next. And if

that was the case, then things were easy for me.

After all...

A predictable opponent was a good opponent.

"Hoo."

I took a deep breath and closed my eyes.

The time for the next match was unknown. For that reason, I needed to take advantage of the

little time that I had in order to recuperate my strength and figure out ways how to deal with

my opponent.

And that was what I did.

I kept focused on my condition and sorted through all sorts of scenarios. Time passed this way and before I knew it, a familiar-looking cube appeared before me,

marking the start of the second bout of fights. I still didn\'t know how many fights we\'d have

to perform in a day, but I hoped it wasn\'t more than three.

By then everyone would be too exhausted to compete.

"Oh well..."

Taking a good look at the cube in front of me, I reached out for it and clenched my hand.

My vision shifted and I found myself standing in the middle of one of the platforms above.

Standing opposite me was a cold gaze.

She stood a little shorter than me, but her demenour appeared ice cold. It almost felt as

though she was a robot. In a way, she reminded me of Delilah, but an even more extreme

version. And that was crazy to think about...

"Please get ready."

The referee, a woman with short red hair spoke. She wore a similar uniform to the other

referees and looked in our direction without much regard. She was here to do her job and couldn\'t show much bias.

I got into position and took a light breath.

\'I\'ve watched her clips over and over again but it feels like it only made things a lot more confusing.\'

Her match ended quickly and all I saw was a quick burst of speed before she ended up winning

the fight.

In the case that she ended up going off on the same type of offense...

"Begin!"

The referee\'s voice came down, breaking me off my thoughts. In the instant that her voice

fell, my opponent\'s figure blurred from vision.

She was coming.

My eyes shook as I took a step back.

But that wasn\'t enough.

At speeds that I couldn\'t describe in words, her figure appeared once more. With her body

lowered, the only thing that I managed to catch a glimpse of was her cold and indifferent eyes as they locked onto me.

With her left hand raised above her head, and holding onto a sharp dagger, she slashed down

directly toward my face.

All of this transpired in less than a second and before I even had the time to react, her dagger

reached me, slashing toward my neck.

Swoosh!

The attack was swift and precise, landing directly on my neck. I felt my entire body jerk as an

imaginary pain entered my mind. It was sharp, and it made me twitch.

But the pain was only imaginary.

As the dagger cleaved down on my neck, I looked at my blurring figure, disappearing as

though it had never been there in the first place.

I then looked down.

Toward her exposed back.

That was when I raised my hand and pointed my finger toward her exposed neck.

\'Let this be over with.\'