
At once, he transformed into his true form, a massive, terrifying red dragon with an aura of fire that immediately enveloped his surroundings. To say I was worried for Lucia was an understatement, but the way she stood her ground against him almost made me wonder if I was looking at another person.
"He's about to make his move," Isis remarked nonchalantly.
"W-when did you get here?" I could almost swear the seat right next to me was empty. Did she learn instant transmission or something?
"Just now," She replied before producing the choicest mutton rib from seemingly nowhere. Where does she learn all these tricks? "It's a skill I received from Lord Behemoth, one I'll tell you about eventually," She explained as if reading my mind before biting into the rib as she watched the fight commence.
Helios spread his wings and took off into the sky, and Lucia mirrored his actions, activating her wind magic spell in the process. Seeing that he had lost his advantage, he breathed out a sea of flames that engulfed the whole arena, going as far as to partially crack the barrier Tamara had created. However, before the damage could spread any further, Tamara reinforced the barrier with magic, explaining,
"I'm quite confident in my barriers, but even they won't hold up in a battle between Apostles if I don't step in." Ah, so that answers my question, I thought to myself as I looked at the other three Dragon Kings. They're Apostles like us. It was a fact that only added to my many worries about the current situation. This has been going on for a while now. Hope she's okay...
"Ah-ha-ha-ha-ha! Never underestimate a Dragon King!" I could hear Helios' voice through the barrier and shortly after that, he ceased his attack. He was probably expecting to see her charred corpse lying on the sand, but to his surprise, he found her standing motionless at the center of the arena, perfectly unharmed.
"Wait a minute. Is that... glass?" I wondered aloud as I strained my eyes to get a better look.
"Clever girl," Cassandra remarked before a chilling breeze suddenly swept through the seats. Wondering where it was coming from, I looked up to see a tower of ice extending all the way to the ceiling, which was made to look like a clear blue sky.
"Aww, she shattered my barrier," Tamara lamented as she returned to her seat with a dejected look on her face. Helios was trapped inside, and Lucia was literally jumping for joy right next to the ice structure she had created. Thinking back to it, her movements at the beginning of the fight were stiff, almost mechanical but humanlike enough to deceive an unobservant opponent. Heck, it even fooled me! She deployed a sand clone and hid, probably somewhere underground where the flames couldn't reach her. Then, when Helios let his guard down, she froze him with a high tier ice magic spell.
"It's not just any high tier ice magic spell, but one with the 'Eternal' attribute. Even the Fire Dragon King will have a hard time coming out of this," Cassandra explained with a laugh as she looked at the tower her student had created. She truly must've learned a lot from her, I thought to myself as I looked at Cassandra.
Over the past few days, I'd been having some mixed feelings about Lucia's extraordinary growth. On the one hand, I was happy she was actualizing her potential and becoming the strongest version of herself. However, on the other hand, it left me feeling isolated, like the distance between us only kept growing larger and larger. And with Lord Behemoth's odd fixation on me, I was beginning to feel like I wasn't living up to my potential.
These doubts had been festering inside me for a while now. I'd just gotten to the point where I felt like I could come to terms with them. I need to catch up to her, was all I could think about as I went to bed that day, vowing that I would work harder than anybody else. At that point, I didn't know that I simply playing into his plans.
Oooh, lil tactitian has been played?
Thanks for the chapter.
Oooh, lil tactitian has been played?
It'll be a while before she realizes tho