Forcing her racing heartbeat to calm down, she scanned the battlefield with Mana Sense, observing her opponents carefully. Whenever they attacked, she dodged with minimal movement, doing her best to conserve her mana. At the same time, she took one deep breath after another, slowly refilling her core.
‘How does he make his own spells so much faster than mine?’ she wondered, thinking back to the water mage’s arrows.
The only silver lining about this messy battle was that she had a perfect example in front of her, to help her improve her magic. And it didn’t take her very long to come up with a hypothesis.
‘It has to be the air resistance. At least to an extent.’
By shaping his attacks into arrows, he could propel them through the air much faster than hers. Still, that couldn’t be everything. A huge factor was the caster’s ability to compress the water, as well as the force they shot it with. And she really had no excuse for losing in that department. Not with Circulation filling her body with strength.
As soon as she recovered some more of her mana, Elaine began her counterattack, aiming at the water mage. He was the only one who hadn’t shown a blessing nor a bloodline just yet. He might have one anyway but, for now, he seemed to be the easiest target. That said, she didn’t allow herself to lose sight of the others, constantly tracking their movements via Mana Sense.
Sidestepping all the hostile attacks, she focused on him as she reshaped her projectiles into arrows no different than his. It didn’t take long for her to see an improvement either. Her arrows could still use a lot of work, but they were already a little faster than before. The water mage noticed that too, raising an eyebrow as he realized she was copying him. Still, the distance separating them gave him plenty of time to dodge.
‘Let’s see how much longer you can keep the upper hand.’ she smirked.
Taking full advantage of her boosting art, she compressed each of her arrows even further before loosing it. Not only that, but she put more power behind them too, making each more lethal than the last. Over the next few minutes, her constructs changed shape again, now resembling crossbow bolts more than they did arrows, letting out a shrill cry as they pierced through the air.
‘How do you like that?! I bet you can’t push yours this far!’
Before long, the water mage couldn’t even fight back, too busy dodging her attacks by the skin of his teeth. Still, his teammates didn’t let him suffer much, pressuring Elaine into slowing down her onslaught. At least, they did so at first…
At some point, the fire mage turned towards Percy again, aiming a fireball at him, thinking she hadn’t noticed.
“Not this time.” she spat, intercepting the spell midair, before shifting her focus to him.
The guy appeared genuinely taken aback as an aquamarine bolt pierced through his chest. But she didn’t let herself celebrate, knowing it wouldn’t be this easy. Sure enough, the fire mage faded again, appearing a few metres away unharmed.
‘He can hide himself, but not his spells. If he could, he would have already hit Percy with it.’ she realized.
It was a good thing to know, and her own spell was developing nicely too, though a new problem had presented itself. The obsidian spears weren’t that difficult to dodge individually, but the earth mage had already filled the battlefield with them, blocking her line of sight. That much wasn’t an issue by itself, as she could still spot everyone through Mana Sense. Still, it was harder to get a clean shot at her opponents, and her mobility was starting to be impacted too.
In theory, it wouldn’t be difficult to clear out her surroundings using her whips, but that was probably what the bastard wanted. To get her to empty her core again…
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Elaine clicked her tongue, but she wasn’t deterred. Annoying as they were, they made for excellent whetstones to hone her magic. And she was improving rapidly, now that she had a perfect case study to observe.
Of course, she didn’t know how long it had been. Nor how her cousin was doing. Perhaps, his potion was about to run out. Or maybe, it already had. But she couldn’t afford to lift her attention from her opponents again. In any case, she had yet to be stabbed in the back, so the worst-case scenario probably hadn’t come to pass.
She’d been way too arrogant to think she could kill three members of the Divine Root quickly and still have the strength to assist Percy. Not only that, but she should have shown more trust towards her cousin. At the very least, he’d handled his end of the fight just fine. He certainly wasn’t the one who’d messed up.
Turning back towards the water mage, she fired another bolt at him, this time trying to pierce through an obsidian construct. The water mana did drill a hole through it, but it had slowed down greatly by the time it emerged out of the other side, splashing harmlessly on the next obstacle it encountered.
‘This is such a foreign fighting style to me…’ she grimaced.
While she’d developed her new spells to eliminate her weaknesses, she never thought she’d be relying on them exclusively. Certainly not in such a difficult fight. Her whips, she’d honed her whole life. First through her father’s tutelage, and then through years of combat. The Kraken’s Gambit was the spell she was proudest of. Her specialization. Her expertise.
But she quickly shook her head, realizing how stupid these thoughts were.
‘I’m acting like a spoiled brat. No wonder I’m in my twenties with only two Refined spells…’
Did Percy ever complain over having to learn something new? When he suddenly had to master an entirely new affinity all of a sudden? Or when he found himself with a familiar he had to take care of? Or when he had to pick alchemy up and learn to brew his own elixirs, because there was simply no other way for him to advance? Or when he bargained with a titan to master runecrafting, because it would be a waste not to? Or every time he ripped his soul up, to use his bloodline, or Circulation, or get his spectral trait?
Of course not. He never complained. He was grateful for all these opportunities. Always making the most of them, because he knew he didn’t have the luxury of letting them slip by. And he excelled in everything in the end, not through talent, but sheer effort.
Meanwhile, what did Elaine do? She’d turned him down when he offered to teach her runecrafting. She stuck with what she was comfortable with. Drank the elixirs he brewed for her. And she still had the gall to look down on him.
Gritting her teeth, she pointed her palm against her opponent again.
A spear punched up at her.
Three fireballs were coming her way. She ignored those. Sadly for their caster, the earth constructs inhibited him as much as they did her. Instead, she focused on the water mage and him alone.
A blob of water gathered in her hand. She compressed it into a marble. But she didn’t stop, pressing it more and more, as it vibrated, threatening to explode right then and there, shredding her own hand into minced meat.
Another black pillar was about to emerge beneath her feet. This time, she merely flung her free arm, using a rough whip to dig the earth mana out before it coalesced.
Her focus was still on her opponent, who was watching her carefully, unsure what she was up to.
Unlike before, she didn’t fire many bolts. That would only be a waste of mana. And focus. No. She only needed one. A good one. One fast enough that he couldn’t dodge it. One sharp enough, to pierce through everything in its path.
An azure flash shone through the battlefield, the cool light reflecting off the smooth pillars. It was accompanied by a deafening boom, rattling them, as Elaine felt her very bones shake, a wave of pain spreading up her arm.
But her gaze never wavered. It followed her attack, through the hole in the construct. And the one behind it. And the one behind that. All the way to the hole in the guy’s torso, a lake of blood soaking his robes as he collapsed.
[Congratulations! Your spell has evolved: Pressure Blast – Crude -> Demersal Sniping – Refined!]
Elaine didn’t care much about the notification right now. Part of her wanted to look away from the carnage. But she was no longer a kid, nor was this a war she’d been thrust into out of her control. No. Her involvement was the result of her own choices. Averting her gaze would be hypocritical of her.
She scanned the corpse, taking the gruesome sight in for a few seconds. Only then did she allow her senses to brush over the battlefield, settling on the other two. Their expressions were still marred by shock, their attacks having long stopped.
They weren’t stupid. They could tell it was over. Sure, the spell had eaten quite a chunk of her mana, and her hand still hurt like a bitch.
But she could keep going, and the others knew that they were screwed without their teammate. Slaughtering them both wouldn’t take more than a minute…