Liliana had trained for weeks to beat Kythrede, this was her opportunity to see how realistic her goal was against a member of Dix.

When the crowd that were originally roaring fell silent after the match began. Neither of the two moved or released aura. They stood at opposites ends of the battlefield slowly lowering themselves to charge in sync with the other. They charged in wards and Liliana jumped in the air and put all of her water aura into her fist and struck where he was but he dodged whilst moving behind her and placed all of his aura into a kick on her back with the earth attribute. She was sent flying.

She got up and smiled, she had predicted where he was going to attack and moved all her aura to her back. Her aura was white, the colour of wind. Ayuin tried to hit and weaken Liliana with earth the element she was weakest against but she countered with the element that earth was weak against wind.

She jumped to give Ayuin a few openings so he would attack, she predicted what he would do and dealt damage. She was leading. Ayuin having underestimated her after her defeat against Dix thought she could only use water aura. She had learnt them all and could manipulate her aura with advanced techniques. Ayuin had his aura slightly drained and knew he had to take her seriously.

Ayuin' aura quickly turned pink. Liliana recognised this as the aura of lightning. Her aura stayed as wind and she prepared for the onslaught of attacks. She lowered the quality of aura and decided to wait him out. She dodged his attacks whilst throwing faints to make him think she was fighting seriously. This was the most strategic thing she could do, since she was unaware of how much aura he could produce and for how long she patiently waited for it to drop.

Ayuin was focused on dodging the faints she threw and wasn't conscious of her change in aura quality. Liliana made sure to keep his eyes occupied on her attacks and not the aura by not changing her aura to a different element, this brought Ayuin into a fall sense of security, both mentally and physically she was winning. Had he completely observed her and continuously watched her aura he would've noticed that the previously thick dark white(or grey) aura that surrounded her now looked pure and white which showed a quality drop.

It would be impossible for anyone to not notice the change but she was careful, if he noticed she would lose. After she decided to wait out his aura, whilst the battle went on she slowly dropped her aura quality in increments, when done properly it could even trick a skilled aura user. Though she dropped it in huge amounts so the colour change was slight but noticeable this doubled with the faints she threw made it impossible to focus on that for him. He was most likely subconsciously aware but after a while his brain got used to the changes and saw no reason to let the conscious part of him aware so it went completely unnoticed.

The change took roughly 5 minutes, this was where the waiting game truly started, if Ayuin noticed too soon he would either drop or remove his aura altogether and they would be at a stand still. But if he noticed too late, his aura would be low and victory would already be in Liliana's hands.

The crowd tensed up as the cold air was filled with reverberating wind from the strikes the combatants were making. No attacks landed, no one dropped their guard. It was an all out fight with all of their bodies that used the entirety of the large coliseum grounds.

Ayuin had noticed that this was draining his physical stamina quickly and switched to speedy attacks with minimal power. They landed, it was the first time since the start of the match that his blows landed. Although wind is strong against lightning she took excessive damage and became immobile, using aura in limited quantities had backfired on her and her nervous system paid the price, she was only unable to move for a second but Ayuin wasted no time and exploited her weakness landing several full power blows with all his aura concentrated in his fists.

The onslaught of attacks continued against her but she still managed to force her body into subjugation and increase her aura quality on the spot to the max and Ayuin had his aura drained and his hands were cut. He backed away, after this display the crowd of students began to shout and scream the names of one of the combatants in a chant to help push them on.

It was slight but Ayuin took damage, Liliana concluded that whilst her plan did backfire, in the long run she succeeded. At the start of the match the quality of aura they could produce was even yet he took damage, the quantity of his aura had decreased and subsequently so did the quality. Her aura was now thicker and she could deal damage now.

Ayuin noticed this and felt slightly idiotic for dancing in the palm of her hands but there was nothing he could do about the past only the present. He dropped his lightning aura to fire. He decided to counter every aura she used with the stronger opposite force. This allowed him to be an equal even with less aura. As of right now hers was wind so his was fire. Liliana noticed this immediately and formulated a plan of action against it.

Now that Ayuin had nothing to fear again he attacked her. They punched each others hands but Ayuin felt as if his cells in his hands were about to explode, he was confused as that was the reaction made from the use of water aura yet she was still using wind. He tried again. Same result. And again same result, now he was weaker than using an opposing aura could combat.

"You made this easy, I thought you were smarter but I guess not" Liliana stated

They were both so focused on the battle they never spoke once. Liliana only decided to instigate to school Ayuin before his demise.

"Huh, how" he responded.

"I am using water aura" she responded

He looked at her but it was evidently the white hue of wind.

"I cannot be fooled woman that is obviously wind" he stated

"Yes, I am using wind right now but only until the very last second"

She briefly explained what she had done to him. She noticed his plan to counter with the opposite element and decided to keep using wind, until the last second. She had trained herself diligently to be able to change her auras state and back in 12ms. The fastest speed a human can see is 13ms. The average reaction speed of a person is 250ms.

Ayuin had no time to see nor react. She changed in an instant. Only trained eyes would've been able to see this, not even Liliana could see the change she just knew that the same time she changed her aura was the same time she needed to revert it back. It took extreme skill to be able to do this and she had spent the majority of her time training to learn this.

The only way this could be beaten was with the same level of skill or prediction. As this was the first time she had publicly shown this no one could predict what they didn't have time to predict. Liliana was still perfecting this skill so there was more to be seen from what she can do. But like that she became a dangerous competitor.

Ayuin's remaining aura was low and he knew that no matter what he did there was no way around this, the difference in skill was too large and he surrendered. The crowd shouted and chanted Liliana's name. #5 Dix member Ayuin had just been defeated, being part of a group where only the strong are allowed this surrender was a verbal confirmation of him not being strong enough. It was an unspoken rule that even amongst Dix, if they thought they were going to lose they should push through and lose with pride, Ayuin thought the difference between the once weak Liliana and himself wouldn't even allow for a prideful defeat.

Liliana had won this fight mentally and physically.

During a match between 2 power players, Kythrede had met with Ayuin to discuss his defeat.

Ayuin was on his knees with his hands on his thighs before Kythrede.

"How!" Kythrede exclaimed with anger "The weak girl that #7 dealt with on his own and captured for us forced you to surrender how?"

Kythrede put his foot on the back of Ayuin's head and forced his face to the ground.

"I don't even want to look at you" Kythrede uttered disgusted.

Ayuin with face to the ground stayed emotionless as blood trickled down his face.

"As you can expect you are no longer a member of Dix, the title was stripped away from you after your defeat and your beggin for mercy" he continued

"I did not beg for mercy, I gave up trying to win a pointless battle. She was kind enough to teach me a new way to use my aura and tell me how I lost otherwise I would have been out cold on the floor wondering how I was defeated" Ayuin responded

"Shut up!" Kythrede said whilst applying more force on his leg.

Ayuin pushed against the force and grabbed his leg.

"I was never overly fond of the way you ran Dix but it seems as short as it was started it would end, although this was not a proper version of Dix and just a group of the strongest people you could find" Ayuin began whilst he grabbed the leg on his head and removed it. "I don't think you are the strongest. Amongst us yes but amongst the rest of the school no. Dix is meant to have been formed after this Necrosis, you used your brothers power to form it before. That will be your downfall"

Kythrede slightly scared watched as Ayuin walked back towards the screaming of the coliseum.

Everything Ayuin said was true. In fact there is only supposed to be a 2nd year Dix, the 1st years were supposed to train hard in aura and win a spot on Dix for their 2nd year at Helix. A 1st year Dix was never supposed to exist, yet Kythrede had formed one and their was Dix amongst the 1st years. The reason it was only the 2nd years was because the school were aware people grow at different rates, just because they were a failure at the start of the year doesn't mean they couldn't become a potential Dix member by the end. Liliana was proof.

All members of Kythrede's Dix had shown great potential and were stronger than the rest of the year but even at the start people were people were being defeated like Zelphar. Just because they showed promise at the start didn't mean they would continue to show promise. The real purpose of the Necrosis tournament was to show the Dix members that got through the 1v1s amongst their year group the difference in power between the previous Dix members or whoever got to the top of the tournament for the 1st years. They were to lose to humble them and let them know that even though they were now apart of Dix they were not the strongest. Kythrede's Dix did the opposite of this and he was about to pay the price.

The first few rounds of the 2nd part of the tournament had gone through without a hitch. Kami, Liliana, Aiden, Colt, Kythrede, the other 7 remaining Dix members and 13 other power players had made it through to the next stages of the tournament. Since 25 1st years can't participate in a 1v1, one of them is pitted against a 2nd year. If they beat the 2nd year they are instantly given a spot amongst the final 20.

Though Kami's first fight wasn't mentioned, there was nothing to mention. The power player that was supposed to face off against Kami never went down to the coliseum grounds most likely out of fear of dying whilst fighting against Kami. So he won by default, Dix still haven't seen his cards yet thanks to his luck. Liliana on the other hand had been found out but no one knew how to counter her technique other than she herself.

Kami, Liliana, Aiden and Colt were considered dark horses of the tournament and the crowd soon named them the 4 horsemen of the apocalypse, a rather fitting name for them. Dix was on everyone's mind but the audience showed way more interest on the matches between the dark horses.

Everyone believed that after the battle between Liliana and Ayuin, the rest of the dark horses of the tournament were comparable in strength to that of the self proclaimed Dix members which showed their skill. They all also believed that 4 seats of Dix would be occupied by these people and unauthorised bets were going around about who was going to take the #1 seat of Dix out of the 4 and remainder of Dix.

By the time these rumours had fully spread around the audience we were down to the final matches for the top 10 1st years and top 20 in the school overall were underway. All 4 horses along with Kythrede and his #2 Dix member Jacob had gotten to this stage. Unbelievably to the crowd and Dix themselves only 2 members remained, the rest had been taken out by other power players and they filled the spots. Aiden fought one of the 2nd years and won so his spot amongst Dix was confirmed and he wasn't participating in the fights between the rest of the 1st years anymore.

The first match was between an elf and a dwarf, a battle that resonated deep within their hearts as both races hated each other. The match between Vanya the elf and Fosig the dwarf was short but exhilarating. With less available aura, the odds were heavily stacked against Fosig. His only way of victory against Vanya was with extremely precise manipulation of his aura on a scale similar to Liliana had previously shown.

Vanya had a lot of available aura juxtaposed to Fosig but she only had all the main elements and minimal control over her aura. Her training up to now was focused on using the quality of her aura to overwhelm and beat her opponents. Fosig however focused on manipulating his aura to make up for the low amount of aura he could use. He also only had the main auras learnt. The differences in how they both trained made them equals yet the battle was ended swiftly.

As a reminder aura is like armour, it adds protection against attacks but it is only added onto your own physical strength. Whilst elves were weak and rather fragile,  dwarves were hard and strong, even though there were huge gaps in aura, since the dwarf had made up for this with aura manipulation when the battle started only physical strength really mattered and the elf was made light work of. Victor was Fosig, he had just joined Dix.

The next seat to be claimed was by a fiery man named Lynx. He was a favourite in the tournament, he focused all his aura evenly into his fists in each match and would violently and brutally beat the consciousness out of his opponents. He dodged or blocked every attack with his fist, not a single scratch was on him. With complete domination over all of his opponents and a unique fighting style like that it was only natural that he was a favourite.

There were 3 more seats filled by a man who held true to his beliefs of knighthood Raymond, a female who stood by justice the already known Lilith and the roommate of Kami that everyone forgets about and barely anything is known about him Lyon. Each of these people were yet to go all out.

[Go back a chapter I mentioned him briefly, even I forgot about Lyon and I'm the author lol]

There were 4 seats remaining and the final struggle for them were between the pair of twins Bella and Alex, Colt and #2 Dix member Jacob, Kami and the final power player Rhys(said like Reece) and Liliana and Kythrede.

In accordance with the rules set by Kythrede, since Kami was not fighting him he would need to beat Rhys and win against whoever his 2nd year opponent was. The final battles have been prepared for the final seats that remain for Dix.

A long run rivalry between the twins Bella and Alex was soon to commence.

A demonstration of Colt's strength was soon to be shown against the worthy Jacob.

Kami was preparing to defeat Rhys and challenge a 2nd year.

And Liliana was prepared to get revenge against the man who previously kidnapped her. Kythrede was watching as his so called strongest 1st years were removed and became null and void and was preparing to defend his own honor against the Styx members he now highly regrets angering.

His true thought process had been unveiled. After Ayuin went back to the coliseum after his defeat, he told Kami about Dix. Now that Kami knew why he wanted to get rid of him from the school, he had ruined the reputation of the group he had established and threatened to conquer it.

When Kythrede gave this challenge he knew no fear, he was stronger than both Kami and Liliana and believed his forces would still remain triumphant yet they got defeated rather easily and Kami and Liliana absorbed an entire pool of rich aura. After this Kythrede was no longer sure if he was stronger. He was about to learn first hand the true power of the ones named Styx as he fell from grace.

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Author kun again. Don't think I'm just ignoring the poll from a few chapters back. I have its deadline for the 13th of July. It's rather unfortunate that it's on an unlucky day huh. Scrap that I'm gonna change it to the 12th of July. Go back to chapter 8 and vote!!!

Author kun signing out.

P.S. I can't change the date I just tried :(