"What? I withstood the explosion alone!" Cheng Sui turned around while shouting at Diego.
However, the latter simply shook his head helplessly while pointing to the right.
Cheng Sui furrowed his eyebrows before finding two sharp blades were stopped by a translucent white barrier, which obviously came from Diego.
Before him stood a monster with a unique appearance. The monster had a female body and a dog head, while her four limbs were made of copper. All of them looked like a sharp pointed blade, but the hands slightly curved like that of a grasshopper.
This was the famous monster controlled by Hecate, Empusa. It was said by combining dark magic, animal, bronze, and ghost, Hecate could create the Empusa.
He understood the reason he lost was due to this creature. Still, he couldn't understand how such a creature appeared without him noticing.
Cheng Sui turned around and shouted in confusion. "Ho—"
As he always did, he stopped before even finishing the question as he came to a realization. "Dark Magic, Animal, Bronze, and Ghost… Don't tell me…"
"I will repeat it once again. Thanks to you shouting continuously, I could summon it and attack you from your blind spot. With your weak Awareness, it was even more impossible to spot this creature. If only you stayed quiet for a period of time, the battle would continue for at least another ten minutes… In other words, your big mouth was the reason you lost, muscle brain." Nella smirked and turned around.
"Ahem, please be mindful of your words." Diego coughed, trying to correct Nella.
Nella's expression darkened as her eyebrows twitched. After a moment of silence, Nella apologized to him and left the arena.
Meanwhile, Cheng Sui was dumbfounded by Nella's plan. She used her summoning technique to call a dog to be a part of the entire ritual. At the same time, the small explosive she threw earlier didn't create a huge explosion for one reason. The explosion's only purpose was to send the metal used for the cylinder, copper.
With the copper flying to the dog or probably with the dog caught the copper with its mouth, two of the items had been completed.
And this was when Nella became even scarier. The Dark Magic obviously needed blood to operate or it couldn't bring a living being like that. Hence, Nella came to him and got punched for the sake of spitting the required blood without making Cheng Sui realize her plan.
In that instant, the Dark Ritual had started and Nella simply waited for it to unravel itself.
The one thing that confused him was the ghost part. Not many people could see the ghosts. In this competition, only Enrica probably had the power to see them with her powerful Awareness.
However, there was one more way to sense them, not see them. It was through Control. With Nella's extraordinary Control, she might be able to sense the ghost in this arena.
"…" Cheng Sui finally realized how he lost this battle. He muttered, "My original plan is to use my own body to capture her, but she seems to use my own plan to defeat it… This is like Theodore Griffith and Ignazio Gurrero. No, I should say as expected from a blood-related relative…"
Cheng Sui closed his eyes and decided to leave the arena, ignoring how Sheira tried to hype the entire battle up.
…
In another place, the so-called relative of hers watched her performance while clenching his fists.
He simply couldn't believe Nella had this much power in her.
That was right. Theo's expression had been grim this whole time, realizing the gap between them.
"Theo," Phyrill called his name with a serious expression.
Theo glanced at him before turning to Radvils. "So, do you know anything about this power?"
"Let me hear your opinion first."
"It's the combination of Force and Soft Control as you said. She gathered the Magic Power around her hand and released it in an instant by using her Force Control. That's also the reason why she can release that amount of power in one go… I could see that the Magic Power was swirling around her hand at one point and there was also a time she released it like a bullet."
"Indeed. You probably want to ask our healer later since he has learned acupuncture from China back in the old days. I don't know if he still practices it, but his knowledge is more important. I just remembered it not long ago… We can't really let someone slack for more than a week, no?"
Theo widened his eyes. "Do you mean Teacher Rai?"
"Yes. He is a doctor and his acupuncture technique requires this kind of power to regulate your metabolism, Magic Power, and other things. Of course, his level of control is not at the same level as that girl." Radvils nodded while explaining that he brought Rai here for a reason. "Well, if you suffer injuries, he would already come here, so that's why I never wait here together with all of you. As long as he deems your condition is safe, I can simply let you do whatever you want…"
"To think there is someone that is powerful in our rank." Theo scratched the back of his head, realizing why Radvils and Rai never appeared before them during their battle despite the rule allowing them to do so.
It turned out both of them were together this whole time, watching the match with their own eyes. However, they didn't want to bother Theo and let him grow even more in this competition while making sure the entire team was alright.
Theo couldn't help but smile. This element of surprise made him feel relieved as he said, "I will visit him after this competition."
"You won't be able to learn it within a few days, you know."
"Yeah. I just want to know more about it." Theo shook his head. "Besides, I already know I need to come out in the first battle…"
"Ho?" Radvils narrowed his eyes. "Despite you preventing Alea from participating in the previous round? Are you favoring your own family?"
"No. However, I know that the only one who stands a chance against her is me." Theo shook his head. "Alea may have the chance, but she is similar to Cheng Sui in this regard. I don't want to belittle others, but I also need to calculate the next two rounds. Hence, I decided to go and fight her. Besides, if I come out first, she will certainly appear before me."