Scene 18

Struggles

There was silence in the air, telling there was one explanation for this kind of situation. Silence mostly refereed to as focusing , however in this case, it was form of crisis. Maxias finally took off his cloak he was wearing because it was wet. Under the dark blue cloak, he was wearing ordinary looking green shirt with long sleeves and in the middle of the shirt, it had three lines standing up what it seemed to be a logo. He pushed right side of the neck hard enough to make a crack sound and he did same for the left side of his neck. He lifted lifted his face to see blue sky at last and sighed heavily. He wasn't seem to be satisfied with the result. Among all the clouds above, one of the closest cloud floating around, he opened his fist and closed it reaching up as if he was trying to grab one of the clouds. When cloud passed by his hand, he stared at two of the Mages then he looked up to see how Shikihime was doing. He did not initiate to attack. It was no doubt that he was in disadvantage, but it seemed like that wasn't the case. He glanced at his clear silver blade of katana reflecting to show other side of the field. He was locked in a thought, maybe thinking a way how to counter back, or thinking a way to avoid the next upcoming attack from enemies. Silence still remained in the air. Nobody was making a move., not even Julin and Duliah. even though the territory was now theirs. Although they got the upper hand, they were cautious and afraif they might make a mistake and ended up giving Maxias opportunity to land a hit on them. The eighteenth scene covers the struggle of the battle between two Mages and the Swordsman.

Silence had broken when Maxias raised his voice to give suggestion as he rubbed his eyes.

"Ya know, how about we call it a day, huh? I mean you guys are heavily injured, I am well soaked with water. Any further will make somebody killed."

"Ha! Didn't you say that if we crossed the boundary line, you'll kill us? But we didn't, so there is no way you are going to kill us. And you should be aware who has the upper hand and advantage now since the water poured down making everywhere wet, well, in boundary anyways. If there was no boundary, you might be able to get on ahead, but right when you set up a boundary, I knew I was going to have upper hand eventually."

Duliah paused to take a breath and talk again.

"So much for thirteenth Swordsman, you a member of the infamous guild called Empty World are going to be crushed by us. So any final words before I crush you?"

Maxias shook his head left and right.

"I didn't mean me, you dimwits, Mages all around you and you should learn to respect your opponent, don't just talk down on them. They have feelings too you know."

Maxias tried to make a joke about it, but there was no laugh. He rubbed back of his head as he talked more sense into them. He tried, but he stopped when there was Julin trying to attack from the behind. Maxias turned around to grab his wrist and threw him to the other side.

"Ya know, I am really tired of dealing with you right now. Same patterns over and over again, at least that water girl is doing her best to actually try. Are you just underling who just watches over what she does?"

Julin didn't answer his question, instead, he quickly moved to approach Maxias once again. But, strangely, this time he appeared behind him before he could notice him coming. When he had an opportunity to strike, he closed his fist to punch him.

When Maxias flew over to the other side, he saw something he never seemed to realize before. There were X markings on the ground. The markings seemed to form some kind of a shape, but he couldn't tell what it was. When he did fall down on the markings, he heard the sound of something hitting on the ground. It was the sound of Julin's hands hitting on the ground. He gathered all the fire power to his hands overheating the surrounding. As the ground was burning out, fire eventually covered the ground with red scorching flame. Within the burning ground, two strings of flame came out of the ground.

Before Maxias could do anything, Julin pulled out the strings as though he was about to trigger something. Eight that moment, ground instantly trembled gradually crumbling into many pieces. Maxias then realized the strings were linked to where the markings were, but it was too late to react. He moved his hands up and down constantly to make strings that were attached to the markings jiggled. They destroyed all the grounds into crumble into pieces. As it jiggled faster and faster, fire swirled around the strings to cause more destructive power. Maxias manged to roll backward to avoid the flammable strings, but from behind water pumped up to hit him in the chin knocking him out again. He shook his head to stay on focus. However, water kept popping out of the ground attacking in a group. They ended up hitting him so hard, Maxias got his face covered with blood. And when it stopped, he finally let out his heavy breathing, panting as loud as he could.

"Hah, hah, I see you have low on mana seeing that you stopped after couple of continuous attacks. That is your limit."

"You seem to notice that, huh? But every where you see is my territory. Every time you move, I'll start pumping up water and if you dodge it or I am catching up the mana load, my comrade, Julin will strike you down., clever, don't you think?"

Maxias, slowly catching up his breath, there was no single opening for him to get to them, but he observed the surrounding just in case looking for an opening. Every ground was almost wet and moist. There had to be a way, but there wasn't. He looked up at the sky pressuring his hands on the ground while sitting down once again. However, this didn't last long, He saw Julin dashing toward him with pumping flames in his hands. This time he didn't go full frontal, instead, he jumped up in the air and punched the ground when landing.

"Fierre Ryujou (Fierce Eruption)"

The fire red magical circle was drawn on the ground summoning flames eruping under the ground in front of him. Maxias tried to turn around to avoid them, but behind him, there was already flowing water getting ready to smash him.

"Ah crud, this is complication. Not only I have to look out for that underground fire. This is going to be infinite loop until I find away hpw to get away with this."

He turned around to flourish the katana to slice down all the sprouting water as he hastily back down when flame almost got him from the underground. He needed a strategy fast. He observed the surrounding even though there was no way out.He knew it was matter of stamina running out if this kept going. He then looked up at the sky again rubbing his chin locked in dilemma.

But, while looking at the floating clouds, he hit his palm as if he thought of an idea. He pivoted his feet few times trying to make a make sure hit out of it. And that moment, Maxias disappeared instantly from their eyes meaning he was too fast to see.