Chapter 191 :

Episode 37 : Quarterfinals (4)

Fluttering~

Alaine, who was sort of recuperating inside an ice box above the ground, was watching the show below her.

"Say, Louis. Who do you think would win? I gotta wonder if she were to win, would you really be able to fight her?" Alaine asked Louis, shifting her eyes to the right to find an ice box with Louis inside.

Louis gazing at the contestants underneath, frowned. "I don't know, but I hope she doesn't get too hurt in this match."

"You really care about her. But you hit me just fine."

"It can't be helped."

"Oh yeah?" Alaine grumbled. "You were doing so great at attacking me, yet when it comes to Mya.. Jeez."

Louis awkwardly laughed. "Hah…" 

In any case, Alaine let out a sigh before crossing her arms, glancing at the two people below. 

Eventually, Alaine groaned. "Mya and Crystal, I don't have a clue on who's winning!"

"I hope Mya wins."

"Are you sure?! What if the judges put you and Mya in a match?! You wouldn't have a chance! I know 'cause you couldn't lay a hand on my clones."

"I'll surrender."

WIth a pause, Alaine proceeded to bawl at Louis. "Oh, no no no. Louis, don't be a jerk! Mya worked herself to get stronger, and you just bail on her in a match?! That's lame and a bad move!"

"How would you know?"

"I know because she has the same eyes as me! She and I both wanted to be powerful to not be a burden!"

"Uh, Alaine?" Louis looked at her when she continued talking.

"Well, I'm mostly selfishly interested in being able to fight without a fear of losing, but I still lose either way! So hm, yeah!"

"Huh.. What are you talking about?"

"Geez, you didn't pay attention to me. What I'm saying is don't surrender and fight Mya! If you surrender, I'll definitely punch you in the face!!"

"Okay, okay. You don't have to get too worked up with it. I'll try my best to fight Mya. Are you happy now?"

Whoosh~!!

In no time, someone stood up abruptly before shouting at the top of their lungs to start the match. "Are you ready, contestants?! Because this is the time for round 2 of the quarterfinals to begin!"

"Alaine, your teacher is.." Louis stared at Raiden who was being a commentator.

"Yep, he's still too excited for his own good. But I'm not complaining. I'm thrilled too!"

"Hahah." Louis chuckled at the excited Alaine.

Chattering~

Shortly after, Raiden introduced the contestants who were below, then he began to relay the rules again just to keep things straight and safe.

"Standing upright with her bow is Mya Rose! And her opponent, small yet formidable, hopping in exasperation is none other than Crystal!"

"Get into position, contestants! Spectators, keep your eyes peeled for this one because it'll be a good match!"

"Also, to keep things safe and sound! Crystal, I want you to balance your power as much as possible. Noelle, your owner has her powers locked, but then unlocked after defeating the Ice Dragon."

"So don't overwhelm Mya with your immense ice abilities!"

"Got it!" Crystal exclaimed in response.

Fwoosh!

Electrified, Raiden tossed a lightning bolt to the sky after his speech. "Okay! Let's start this round 2, shall we? We waited long enough, so prepare yourself everyone!"

"3!!"

At that moment, Mya took an arrow out her quiver to draw her bow whereas Crystal was smacking her paws together.

"2!!"

Eyes locked on to their opponent, Mya and Crystal didn't say a word as their eyes didn't waver.

"1!!"

BANG!

In a flash, the lightning bolt signalized the start of this round 2, bringing forth a ray of skills being unleashed by Mya.

[Player ‘555’ has activated the Hidden Skill, ‘Fighting Spirit’ Lv. 4 (+1)!]

[Player ‘555’ has activated the Hidden Skill, ‘Cheerleading’ Lv. 4 (+1)!]

[Player ‘555’ has activated the Skill, ‘Ice Resistance’ Lv. 2 (+1)!]

Right on time, Mya had shot her arrow into the ground next to Crystal's paw, even though her aim was boosted and her accuracy was good, Mya purposely missed.

And Crystal knew that. "Why did you do that, Mya?" 

"You'll see." Mya smiled which was giving Crystal goosebumps.

[Player ‘555’ has activated the Skill, ‘Wall of Thorns' Lv. 4 (+4)!]

WHOOSH!!

To Crystal's surprise, she found herself surrounded by nature's walls from back to back, left to right and top to bottom, there was no escape.

"What is this?!" Crystal gasped as she rushed to the wall. "Ouch! That hurts?! I only gently touched a thorn."

[Player ‘555’ has activated the Skill, ‘Poison Ivy’ Lv. 5 (+4)!]

Like a room with limited oxygen, Crystal became aware of the safe oxygen she sniffed to be replaced with a poisonous one.

"This is.. bad!" Crystal covered her nose.

[Player ‘555’ has activated the Skill, ‘Nature's Melody’ Lv. 3 (+4)!]

At that point, it got worse for Crystal since Mya activated a skill that was sure to bring her a victory over this match.

A sound that brought about peace, was soothing to the ears, which resulted in Crystal feeling a bit drowsy.

"I can't lose like this! Noelle will be disappointed if I lose." 

In a situation where Crystal had to either block her nose and ears, she must pick one before she faints.

However, Crystal preferred both, so she folded her ears down with her paw while covering her nose as much as possible.

Because she chose this method, she was restricted to only using her back paws, and it was already a disadvantage.

"This is too overpowered, Mya!!" Crystal cried out as she began to land a frosty kick to the wall.

THUD!

Kicks after kicks, Crystal tries to burst through the walls of thorns quickly before she loses, dealing tons and tons of damage to the walls and to herself.

SMASH!

In the end, the thorns were too much on her paws as Crystal shrieked and groaned from the agony of having to get her paws pierced with thorns.

"Oww! Mya! Can't you give me a chance to fight you?" Crystal bawled, gazing at the unglazed walls.

Swoosh!

"Huh?" 

Immediately, Crystal noticed one of the walls where Mya should be behind was opening a small window.

With a glance, Mya looked as she smiled after deactivating a skill of hers. ‘I don't want a match where my opponent falls asleep.. I'll prove to everyone that I don't need a skill like that!’

On the other hand, it sparked an opportunity for Crystal to shoot herself forward with her trail leaving frost to freeze the whole area.

"I'm going to get you, Mya!"

With a kick saturated with cold air, Crystal blasted through the hole without having any difficulties, allowing her front paws to be freed from covering her nose and ears.

Suddenly, Crystal's eyes widened. "Oh my.. goodness.."

[Player ‘555’ has activated the Skill, ‘Ballistic Blossom’ Lv. 3 (+4)!]

Mya standing beside her ‘Ballistic Blossom’, grinned as she looked at Crystal's stunned expression. "This is what I was going to see you, Crystal."

"Is.. Isn't it overkill?!"

BOOOOOMM!!!!

An explosion of petals and ice diamonds shooting from all directions, unveiling a situation where everywhere they looked seemed to be filled with nothing from fatal attacks.

BANGGG!!

The attacks from Crystal and Mya didn't crease while they were in close proximity to each other, even as near as they may be to one another, their defense and offense didn't waver for a second.

SWISSH!

Among the petals and ice, Mya's arrows penetrated with a trail of rose petals that attached to Crystal's ice diamonds, transforming the petals into a poisonous and acidic liquid onto the ice before melting away the ice in a second.

Minus the devastating poisonous petals caused by Mya's bow, there were times where the bow spawned in a rose that Mya made sure to pierce Crystal.

Without a doubt, Crystal dodged all the rose arrows because it seemed like the most dangerous of the bunch.

[Player ‘555’ has activated the Skill, ‘Scattering Leaves’ Lv. 4 (+4)!]

Occasionally, Crystal generated a shield of ice to protect her from the leaves that Mya casted with her skill, noticing cuts and slices onto the shield before turning the ice shield into nothing but shattering glasses.

All this time, it appeared as if Crystal was on the losing side, and everyone could see that from high above.

"Not yet!" 

While exclaiming with determination, Crystal fired ice in front of her, not aiming it at Mya, but instead she was setting the ice to act as platforms to hop onto.

A hop from one ice to another, Crystal punched a whole horde of petals shooting her way, counterattacking by freezing the petals and firing them back at Mya.

"Take this!" Crystal uttered.

Mya responded back with her arrow aimed at Crystal's confident smile. "No, I won't, Crystal."

Much to Crystal's guess, Mya stopped those attacks without breaking a sweat, rising up a roll of thorny walls to protect her from the frozen petals.

Onward to take down Mya, Crystal soared to the sky before raining down a load of ice disks toward her opponent.

One by one, the ice disks clashed with Mya's quick succession of impaling them with her enhanced arrows, letting loose an assembly of broken ice and arrows going to and fro.

..There was no stopping for these two.

Caught into the zone like Louis and Alaine did, Crystal and Mya focused mainly on their opponent, not once did they talk nor let their glance shift to another.

[Player ‘555’ has activated the Skill, ‘Wall of Thorns’ Lv. 4 (+4)!]

"?!" 

Baffled as Crystal should be, she realized that she wasn't the only one that could use her power to climb high up into the sky

Because right in front of Crystal, Mya was running on top of the walls that were building up from the grounds to form a staircase for Mya, catching up to Crystal.

SWOOSH!

No time for Crystal to be fazing at, Mya had fired arrows that were massing into a cluster of leaves and petals to accompany them into penetrating a bunny's body.

"..!!" Crystal grunted while dashing across the ice disks she tossed, running and escaping from the dreadful arrows.

In that moment, ice shards and arrows passed by everything, including the ice boxes where Alaine and Louis were staying.

But Louis and Alaine weren't startled by those, instead they were fazed by the raw strength Mya possessed, wearing bewildered faces as they couldn't utter a word.

"Yeah.. Maybe you should just surrender before you get beat up, Louis." Alaine commented, still flabbergasted.

Louis stared at Mya closely as he didn't reply until Alaine snapped her fingers to get his attention. "Oh! Oh, fight. I mean right."

"Louis! You're not listening, are you?" 

"I might actually lose if I were to fight her."

"Good to be honest. Wait what? Is Mya that strong?! That even you think you wouldn't win?!"

"Yeah."

"Goodnes—"

CLINK!!

In the blink of an eye, an arrow slid past the ice box where Alaine stayed, jolting her a bit when she jumped.

Eventually, Alaine cried out. "Jeez Louise! Aren't they going too far? Why isn't Sensei doing anything about this?!"

"I agree with you.. This is far more dangerous than when we fought."

SWOOSH!!

As they were talking, Crystal and Mya were getting much busier with the fierceness of the battle getting more and more intense as the seconds passed.

A few minutes of conversation resulted in a crowd of thorny walls and snow pillars to pile up immensely.

CLASSSH!!

Not only that, no matter how many times Mya and Crystal slammed their ballistic petals and ice disks toward one another, they both canceled each other out.

..Yet, they didn't falter and continue on without anyone stopping their match.

SLAM!!

Out of the blue, a mistake was made when Crystal took a wrong step off the ice disks, falling off to the ground. 

No, it wasn't a mistake because from what Crystal had seen before she fell, she witnessed the ice where she should land, was melting away from an acid, meaning Mya planned for this to happen.

Realizing this too late, Crystal uttered in distress. "Oh dear.. This isn't good!" 

[Player ‘555’ has activated the Skill, ‘Ballistic Blossom’ Lv. 3 (+4)!]

[Player ‘555’ has activated the Skill, ‘Ballistic Blossom’ Lv. 3 (+4)!]

[Player ‘555’ has activated the Skill, ‘Ballistic Blossom’ Lv. 3 (+4)!]

[Player ‘555’ has activated the Skill, ‘Scattering Leaves’ Lv. 4 (+4)!]

[Player ‘555’ has activated the Skill, ‘Scattering Leaves’ Lv. 4 (+4)!]

Not wasting this chance, Mya took everything within her might to shower numerous bullets of seeds, petals and leaves at Crystal.

Arrows ready to shoot, she directed all of those straight at Crystal as she fired one by one without stopping for a moment, going so far as spamming all the arrows out of the quiver.

Leaving nothing inside the quiver, Mya was left with no arrows to further attack Crystal, so if Crystal survives this, then Mya will have a chance to lose.

"I hope it's enough." Mya spoke before gazing down at Crystal who was struggling to put up plenty of ice shields.

"Ahhh!!" Crystal shrieked, feeling the weights of the attacks hitting the ice shields on her small paws. 

And at that point, they both cried out the same exact line. "I need to win this!" 

CLATTERING!!!

Not stopping yet, Crystal empowered her shield to the point where layers upon layers of ice began to build up to defend her from the outburst of Mya's attacks.

A few petals broke holes into Crystal's shields, scratching and nearly striking Crystal in the process.

..Yet, Crystal didn't waver.

"This victory is mine!" Crystal cried out.