Chapter 55.4- Doom Days

I walked back to the competitor’s box and noted the two significant changes immediately. For one, it was much more sparsely occupied than the last time I had walked in after a duel. For another, the thoughts were not anywhere near as disrespectful. They saw me as a threat now. The wolf in their midst. Or Dragon. Dragon would be a better word. Because these were not sheep. Watching them fight over the day had disabused me of that notion. Instead I was a dragon among wolves. These were still dangerous predators, but I was the apex one no mater what.

The next duel was called and I began to go over the previous one in my head. I could see other ways in which I could have ended it. Fulgur tempestas had been an unnecessary escalation to say the least. A little bit more patience and I would have won handily without revealing that I could cast one of the most powerful elemental spells out there. Of course, that had been the point. I wanted the respect. Bad tactics, but good optics. Was that not the point of living? I did not exist to minmax my way through life, strategising every second to grant myself the largest advantage. What was the fun in that? My last life had given me my fill of that. This one had magic. And magic meant I could no anything I wanted if I dated to conceive it in my mind, had the will to create the intent, and the power to see it all through.

The participants, a French wizard who had a thing for illusions that the witch that had turned the sandstorm into an army in her favour began to fight it out in the midst of a raging blizzard.

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The wheel stopped on red. It was a new day. The clouds were puffy, the sky blue, and the crowd screamed their enthusiasm even more than they had yesterday. We had cut ourselves down to the last sixteen. Ostensibly the sixteen best duelists on or below the age of 17 the world over. If there was better, they were not here, so why did they matter?

The ground shook as it rearranged itself so it was like we were standing atop a volcano. I had doubts about just how hot the lava was in truth. I could feel the heat against my skin even from here, but considering it seemed like the organizers were trying to prevent deaths with this thing, then they probably hadn’t given us actual lava to play with . Either way, the arena formed itself as a series of rocky platforms that floated above the lava. The main dueling platform was one such. It was larger than the others by some margin, but not as large as a full scale dueling stage should have been.

My opponent was an Egyptian witch. And instead of a wand, she wielded a stave. That was interesting. From my experiments with them and the duels back during the tri-wizard, I knew they were blunt weapons. They had none of the finesse that one would expect from wands. They were better a channeling raw power, but she did not wield hers in such a manner.