CH103 (333), Global Final Personal Battle

As soon as I stepped through the gate, a staff member informed me that the personal combat final would start at 2:15 p.m, so I had about 25 minutes until then.

After thinking about it for a bit, I decided against going back to the stands for now. I would use the time to loosen up and prepare for the upcoming fight instead, so I called mom and told her as much.

She sounded a bit disappointed that she did not get to see me before the next fight, but she still congratulate me for my victory just now and also for becoming the champion. I could hear the others shouting their congratulations as well, and dad took the phone from mom to congratulate me directly.

I hung up afterward and began going over the stuff available on the other finalist. Niko Vaugh was a dual Elementalist from Ferrum representing the western continent. The guy was a Tier 2 First-Class Fire and Electric Elementalist.

He was capable of all ranges of combat, but his long-range capabilities and his speed particularly stood out in his bag of abilities. His speed was mostly due to his "physical" electric manipulation, and he had shown that he could take off into the air as well using fire in a form similar to thrusters.

However, his flight capabilities were pretty mediocre and used in situations where he had to escape certain attacks that made an escape upwards necessary. I doubted he would use it to fly around since I speculated that it wasted a lot of energy to keep up his flight.

Thankfully, ah, nope. I'm not going to finish that sentence. I nearly raised a flag there. No need to risk that at the finals, especially not when I was not sure of my odds at victory.

Anyway, where was I? Quite fast thanks to electric manipulation, mediocre at best flight capabilities, and strong long-range offense in both elements.

He is also a good enough close-range fighter, who can use both elements to burn or shock his opponents during any physical contact, which raises his close combat abilities from decent to pretty good. That was pretty much it.

Hmm, it was possible that he was a little faster than me speed-wise, but my teleportation ability tilted that right back in my favor. Still, long-range combat would be more in his favor in this battle, so I would have to keep this at close or mid-range as much as possible, preferably close range.

I got pulled out of my musings by the staff, who told me that it was time for my fight, so I put away my phone, placed my swords on my back, and stored my bag before I made my way onto the field. I saw Niko doing the same from the other side, and as always, the host began our introduction the moment we stepped onto the field.

We stopped 15 meters from one another and waited for the start of the fight. The host finished his intro a minute or two later, and the moment he did, the referee began his routine. Once he was done going over the rules he asked us if we were ready and signaled the start of the battle after we confirmed our readiness.

As soon as the signal was given, Niko send a torrent of fire my way, forcing me to teleport away. I appeared roughly 40 meters behind him and saw him spinning around while keeping up the fire torrent, attacking every direction with his fire spin.

I had to duck when the fire arrived in my position a second later, and I felt the heat of the flame above my head. I then teleported roughly 50 meters up and saw him in the middle of his second spin from my new position.

I decided to take a potshot at him while he was busy spinning and threw two rounds of aura-boosted senbons at him in quick succession. They made it within 3 meters of Niko before he noticed them somehow and aimed the flame stream toward the approaching senbons.

Unfortunately for him, the 3 meters proved to be too short to burn away the aura that was protecting/covering the senbons thanks to their flying speed, so the batch at the front made it through, even if the ones in the back got melted, and ended up derailing from the flight path.

Still, the first batch made it through the flames, and Niko had no choice but to roll out of the way to avoid the blazing senbons. I naturally had no plans to let go of this chance and kept throwing aura-clad senbons at him, forcing him to keep rolling, while levitating toward him.

It appeared as if Niko had gotten used to rolling around pretty quickly since he began throwing electric/lightning bolts at me while rolling. I reacted pretty quickly if I had to say so myself, and used the plan I had come up with to deal with electric attacks whenever I was unwilling to teleport away.

I directly controlled a batch of senbons with my telekinesis and created something akin to a "senbon snake". The "senbon snake" was positioned roughly five meters before me, directly in the path of the attack.

The "senbon snake" pointed its "tail" away from me, and since metal conducted electricity, the electric bolt got guided away from me. My plan worked and I managed to divert 4 electric attacks that way before I made it close to Niko, who was still on a roll.

When he saw me so close to him Niko stopped rolling and began spinning in place instead, while releasing flames. It looked kinda like break dance or capoeira, just with a fiery addition. While I was forced to retreat from the fire funnel he created, I still thrust the "senbon snake" at him.

During its flight through the fire, the senbons, which previously already showed signs of melting, finally did so to a certain degree, but since my telekinesis and aura kept it together, the senbons just fused into one piece, which became even more dangerous and glowed due to its heat.

I also had an easier time controlling it after it fused into one piece, so I was thankful for Niko's assistance in improving my weapon.

"Thanks for the assist," I yelled out to agitate/distract him to gain an advantage, but all he did was release an annoyed grunt, before jumping away from his current position since my "metal snake" lashed at his earlier spot.

Seeing how useful the metal snake was, I focused one of my thought streams on attacking Niko with it, while using the other stream on creating a second "senbon snake", that I then moved toward one of Niko's fire attacks.

It took two fire streams to create the second "metal snake", and just in time as well, since the first one became pretty much unusable after heating up too much, becoming impossible/too hot to control with my current abilities. The extreme temperature interfered with my telekinesis, making me unable to manipulate the molten metal any longer.

My last act before I totally lost control of the first snake was to hurl the molten metal at Niko who cursed out loud seeing the glowing bits of molten metal flying toward him. His whole body lit up like a super light bulb, and he ran away at full speed to leave the area targeted by the molten rain.

I naturally had no plans to let him get away, so I teleported ahead of his running path with my snake no.2 and sent it at his legs as soon as I appeared.

His high speed became a disadvantage in that situation since he was unable to turn around/dodge to the side by the time he noticed the metal wire, forcing him to jump. I was already waiting for him there with both of my swords drawn and attacked him while he was in mid-air.

Nonetheless, Niko was not helpless despite his current situation, and sent an electric bolt at me, which I redirected by moving one of my swords in its path with telekinesis. He released another bolt which I dodged by teleporting right behind him.

I slashed at his back but he actually used the thrust of flames released from his right hand to turn around just in time to block my sword with his metal armguard. I saw him send a current through them onto my sword, but I was safe thanks to the insulating gloves I wore before the fight.

I bought them thanks to Thor, and they proved to be more than enough to stop the current electric current. I gave him a kick in the abdomen sending him flying backward, right towards my second sword that I was moving at him per telekinesis.

He either guessed my plan or heard the sword cut through the air, but Niko released a lot of fire upwards and launched downwards, crashing onto the ground, barely dodging my sword by a razor's edge. Quite literally in fact since I could see a few cut hairs sail through the air.

I think everyone heard the curse that followed after that narrow escape, and I saw him throwing a glare my way before he began cackling with electricity. He also began spinning before he started releasing fire as well, creating another funnel of fire, but it did not stop at that.

The electricity he was releasing began fusing with the fire and "slowly" turned into plasma, and I was inwardly cursing how Niko kept preventing me from turning our fight into a close-quarter one.

As if the plasma tornado he had created around himself was not enough, he apparently could fire plasma bolts from the "plasmado". While he had no aim to speak of, the veritable hail of plasma made up for that, and one of the many random bolts did fly in my direction forcing me to teleport away.

I began wondering how long he could keep spinning like that, while occasionally dodging the random bolt that came my way. I even tried throwing aura-clad senbons at him, more rather the plasma tornado, but they were unable to pass through the plasma.

Trying to attack him with my swords proceed to be futile as well, the plasma proving to be too much/hot for the swords. So, seeing how he did not slow down even a minute after my experiments, I decided against waiting for him to stop or fall on his own.

I teleported high into the air, to a position where I could see the center of the plasma tornado since that place was free of plasma. Once there I briefly contemplated whether I should enter the eye of the storm myself or not, but decided to act prudently instead.

I began raining down aura-clad senbons at Niko, which he could only dodge if he stop spinning and dodge instead. If he noticed them in the first place. I had no idea how much of the outside he could perceive while spinning like that after all.

Well, it seems the answer was 4 or 5 meters since he somehow managed to close the opening of the funnel, turning the tornado into a spinning plasma dome instead.

'What the hell? Was Niko a discount Hyuga with his fake kaiten?' I thought speechlessly while being pretty glad that I had decided against going in myself.

Still, I was pretty sure he would be unable to keep up that spinning dome, not only because I was sure that that had to drain outrageous amounts of his energy reserves, but also because I was pretty sure he would run out of breathable air inside that dome within a few seconds.

I had no idea how long Niko could hold his breath in general, but I doubted he could endure more than a minute while moving like that. I was proven right when his plasma dome dissolved less than 30 seconds later. I directly teleported behind him and swung my sword at his neck while he was trying to regain his breath and orientation.

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