92 Chapter 81 - Unyielding

Griff stomped his feet and slowly started to crouch. The ice beneath his feet began to form small cracks around them, and black flames started to ooze from the cracks.

Anastasia simply kept staring at him, anxious about what would happen. She didn't want to reveal the rest of her cards so easily right now.

Suddenly the fire that was surrounding Griff seemed to have dimmed away, revealing his face.

His facial expression was mostly nonchalant. He wasn't expressing any emotion. His eyes were simply gazing into Anastasia's. The distance didn't exactly help Anastasia to see his face, but she could feel that something was different from the mana.

And in an instant the ground beneath Griff broke apart as he took his first step with inhuman speed towards Anastasia. Each step he took cracked the frozen frost world beneath him, and from the cracks black flames bursted.

Anastasia touched the ground, once again demonstrating her total dominion over this frozen world... under normal circumstances. Griff was the enigma that was preventing her from total dominion over this area, and it definitely irritated her.

The path between her and Griff instantly turned into a tedious and horrifying frozen death trap. Whole cliffs and structures appeared. The ground slowly turning into a spiked death trap. With each step Griff took frozen icicles and spikes were shot towards him from the newly formed walls, but they didn't seem to be stopping him.

It was as if a God had descended onto his mortal body. Each piece of ice that got close to him for about 1 meter in radius turned into vapor.

"What the hell is that fire..."

Even Anastasia was starting to lose her cool now. She had one more card up her sleeve. A sixth tier spell, but she wasn't ready for that yet. Plus using that was the same as admitting defeat, at least for her.

However that thought of hers turned out to be useless because the frozen barrier around her had instantly shattered by a single punch. She hadn't realized that Griff had came closer to her. This was her weakness, overthinking stuff. She would lose herself facing different possibilities.

She grit her teeth and sighed. She didn't have time to chant anymore. Griff was about a few meters in front of her, and the hear radiating from him was definitely not a good sign.

"Damn... looks like I'm cornered. Fine... you-"

But that was when she noticed something odd with Griff. He wasn't moving anymore, and he wasn't creating more flames. Had he ran out of mana?

She looked at him again, and suddenly noticed what had happened. That crazy Phoenix bastard had fainted while his flames were still ignited! He had melted a bit of the ice under him unconsciously to hold himself up! This... this kid didn't want to give up.

Anastasia shook her head, and looked at him in amazement.

"To think that the Phoenix class had someone like him... which fallen noble's son is he?"

"Anastasia! Drop this spell at once or I will be forced to break through! This has gone on for too long!"

It seemed that the Marquis was wondering what was going on for so long.

"Alright Professor! The battle is over anyway!"

She snapped her fingers, and her snow-white hair slowly turned back to blue. Not only that, but the dome of frost and snow started to dematerialize.

She looked at Griff one more time. His flames were completely extinguished now, and his eyes were closed. But it looked as if he had steeled himself. This wasn't some training spar for him... he had fought as if it was a death match. Going so far as to create energized mana.

Anastasia thought of herself as lucky. She would have not beaten Griff if he was more experienced in magic. He seemed to have not been able to control his mana, and as such his mana depletion was what led her to victory... no matter how bitter it was to her.

The Marquis's footsteps could be heard behind her. The sun could be seen striking above her as well. She looked at the last pieces of ice that were melting. The ones around Griff's feet. She slightly smirked. She hadn't won this fairly, so there was no need to ruin another's image.

The ice around Griff's feet solidified once more, preventing him from falling down. This crazy bastard had definitely gained her interest, and perhaps even some respect. It wasn't everyday that a Gilded King felt threatened by a Phoenix... scratch that Griff was no Phoenix for her. She was dead sure that he was a fallen Noble's son of some great renown.

"What happened here? Do you have any idea how long you were inside the dome? Please tell me you didn't kill another student Anastasia, it will be hard for us all to try to cover up a students death. Where is h-"

The Marquis stopped talking as soon as he saw Griff standing about 3-4 meters away from Anastasia, still standing.

"What? He's in one piece? Wait... you're not finished fighting yet?"

"No... we are. It was a draw."

"Wait... a draw? With you? You have to be kidding me... hey, Phoenix Kid. What happened in here?"

The Marquis walked a bit closer to Griff and snapped his fingers to try to gain his attention.

"Student, I'm talking to you! Answer m- Oh my god... he's knocked out cold! What the... what heck happened?"

"His mana was depleted. I guess he overused it, but it seemed like he could have gone on for a longer period of time... I really don't know what happened. But... if he hadn't passed out I really didn't know how the outcome would have been at this point."

Augustus turned to look at her with a shocked expression.

"You're telling me that you weren't sure if you could beat this Phoenix Kid if he hadn't fainted?"

Anastasia slowly shook her head.

"Oh my god. And the ice beneath his feet, I presume that that was your doing?"

"Partially... he melted it himself so he could keep standing. I just prevented it from melting."

"This kid... he's definitely some nobleman, but maybe he doesn't know about it! An illegitimate hair to a duke, or a renown fallen noble's last of kin. Alright... I'll handle this from here Anastasia, you go get some rest."

She nodded. She looked around to see that there were still a good number of students several hundred meters away looking towards them. The ice dome and Griff's white flames weren't invisible after all.

She sighed as she nodded at Augustus and started to walk away.

'That's strange... my arm feels hot.'

She looked at her right arm to see a slight burn mark... she hadn't even noticed it...