Depthless Hunger

Chapter 141: Diamond Crystallier vs Diamond Crystallier

At first when the two Diamond Crystalliers met, Kai was taken aback. Instead of using the abilities he expected, they were fighting hand to hand, exchanging what looked like ordinary blows. Actually, as the melee went on, he felt their movements were too elaborate and acrobatic.

Was this entire fight a farce? Just a formality between merchants, or a scheme to manipulate the city? Kai came up with dozens of potential conspiracies as he watched the two women fighting at clearly less than their full potential.

Suddenly they both landed a blow simultaneously and they slid back across the arena in opposite directions. In that moment something shifted and Kai leaned forward unconsciously.

Both combatants had changed. Traelisia stopped dancing around and rooted herself in place near the center of the arena. A large piece of marble began to melt from the floor, the same as the stone of the Colosseum but brimming with mana. On the outside of the ring, Vyorrine drew her sword quickly and efficiently, with no more of her theatrical flipping.

The beginning had been building the crowd up, but now both sides were serious.

When Vyorrine attacked, she lunged across the arena with blinding speed. Her thrust would have impaled the vast majority of opponents, but somehow the marble block intercepted it. She dodged around it and struck from the side, but the stone moved with startling speed to deflect. Undeterred, Vyorrine began an aggressive assault, determined to break through her opponent's defenses.

Just when it seemed like they'd fallen into a pattern, Vyorrine seemed to flicker in two places at once. Many of the audience members might not have been able to understand what happened, but Kai followed the movement: she first emitted a vast fireball from one direction, then flashed to the other and attacked with her sword.

Traelisia automatically moved her marble defense to deflect the sword and realized the timing of the fireball a moment later. She raised her free arm, moving physically for the first time since the fight became serious, and seemed to take the explosion head on. Only when the smoke faded could Kai see that the side of her body was now covered in a thin layer of stone.

That conflict set the tone for the next stage of the battle. Vyorrine didn't try to use surprise anymore, just probed weaknesses with fire and blade.

"Are fights between high stage cultivators like this?" Kai asked quietly, without taking his eyes away.

"Not really," Zae Zin Nim breathed back. "We generally blast directly and let the superior technique or stronger qi win."

"What if someone has enough Physique to resist it?"

"Don't be absurd. Qi will still burn them."

"At E rank, maybe, but what about higher stages?"

Before she could answer, the combat took another sharp turn. In another dashing attack that looked just the same as every other, Vyorrine abruptly revealed a piece of liquid metal in her off-hand. It arced around the side of the marble block and shattered the layer of stone armor, cutting a bloody line across Traelisia's side.

"Irunian?" Zae Zin Nim asked.

"I thin-"

Kai was cut off by a rumble as stone exploded from the base of the arena, forming from nothing. Traelisia clasped her hands and it closed around the two of them, binding them both within a dome. He could feel a vicious fight going on within, but nothing was visible and the crowd began to boo.

The two fighters didn't hesitate in the slightest, wholly focused on one another.

Abruptly Vyorrine shattered out one side and skidded across the arena floor. She was bleeding from one leg and seemed to have lost her Irunian weapon, but she wasn't mortally wounded. The earth collapsed down into mana, revealing her opponent taking deep breaths but still standing.

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Traelisia began to launch spheres of earth, one after another. Vyorrine danced between them while holding her hands together, building up some new power. Kai realized that it was another elemental power at the same moment it was unleashed: a razor blade of water lashed out, slicing through the marble block to strike the other woman.

Except that the response was devastating. Earthen pillars erupted in rapid sequence, the first destroying the water blade and the following pillars pursuing Vyorrine. She tried to fight back with a sphere of water, only for it to be broken by another pillar that sent her tumbling back across the arena, off her feet for the first time.

If Traelisia had been at full power, she could have ended it then, but she was still recovering. It looked like the water blade had gotten closer than he thought and actually drawn some blood. Both women took a moment to recover while the crowds roared.

"A master versus a dilettante." Zae Zin Nim shook her head. "Trying to use that water ability was a mistake. She only gained a moment of surprise and then her opponent punished her with pure superiority."

"Just a little bit faster and she might have ended the fight then."

"If she'd focused on her core abilities, she might have been that little bit faster."

The fight ramped up rapidly after that. Vyorrine built up fire in one hand and water in the other, then combined the two in a technique that created a vicious storm of steam. For a moment it looked like Traelisia might have been overwhelmed, but she emerged wearing a full suit of stone armor and building more power around her.

More marble plates began to form, generated by the earth ability to shield her from all sides. Vyorrine began to leap around the arena, aiming for one hole after another, combining fire and steam and bursts of qi. It should have been an overwhelming assault, yet her opponent deflected every attack... and she was still summoning more marble defenses.

Maintaining that many must be draining her or she wouldn't have waited to use them, yet Kai doubted that an elite would needlessly exhaust herself. The fight was definitely taking a toll on Vyorrine, who didn't look like she could run much longer. Low on mana and qi, eventually she wouldn't be able to keep up that pace and then it would probably end badly for her.

It looked like he was going to lose his bet, but Kai watched closely out of respect for both fighters.

Finally Vyorrine faltered. She was leaping in midair when stone formed around her leg and caught her in place. Several of the marble defenses immediately shot out, moving to crush her from different sides. The woman in the center took a deep breath as if in acceptance.

And then exhaled.

Raw golden power exploded from her lips, fire so intense it resembled a solid cone more than a breath. The onrush of flame made one of the marble defenses explode and the rest struck Traelisia, sending her flying across the arena.

Vyorrine dropped to the ground, coughing violently and limping on the leg that had been trapped. But Traelisia lay unmoving on her back while, all around the arena, her stone constructs crumbled to the ground. The victor was clear and the crowds exploded to previously unseen levels of frenzy.

In all the chaos, Kai was mostly interested in getting a better look at the victorious woman, because something had changed in her soul.

Name: Vyorrine Nermtrian

Total Power: 406

Flamecaster Class: 40 (50)

Waterborn: Firstswept (89)

Path of Steel: Steel 2 (40)

Crystal Cultivation: 2551 (72)

Physique Level: E-2 (86)

Soul Level: 7 (49)

Golden Dragon Breath (+20)

>

His best guess was that she had used a partial shroud to hide her last ability, or perhaps the dragon breath operated differently, more like magical equipment. He had only seen similar symbols a few times, with Frontier elites and the foreign cultivator. Whatever those represented, they clearly had the power to tip the usual balance of abilities.

"Huh." Zae Zin Nim sat back with a slight frown. "I was wrong, but I must point out that she won while having a superior Power rating."

"Everybody will be calling her the winner, but it was a close thing," Kai said with a smile. "I'm just glad to have seen it. You're not going to tell me this wasn't one of the best fights you've seen?"

"One of the most elaborate, perhaps. But this is hardly the most powerful battle I have witnessed. Every single conflict between Earth Soul cultivators utilized more strength."

"Well, those wouldn't be the strongest either. That would be the fight we saw between everyone who fought over the abyss in the Frontier."

"That... is true." Zae Zin Nim paused like she was going to say something, then kept her mouth closed. She looked unusually contemplative and it didn't seem like the right time to point out that he'd won the bet.

On his way out, though, Kai managed to find one of the Yulthens Stadium officials and had his formal bet acknowledged. There was no con or trick this time, he was given prize money of 2200 Goralian Eagles. Judging from all the angry faces he saw around him, many had been betting in the other direction and the arena probably made plenty of money.

For his part, Kai didn't really care. Just watching such a good fight was exhilarating, but there was more to it than that. For most of those watching, a fight like that was a once in a lifetime experience.

For him, it was the level he intended to be fighting at in the future.