Chapter 54.4- Doom Days

What would it matter in the end though? I would win. I would rise above them all. By the end of the week, only one man would remain in this room— me. The next match was called, and the wheel landed on water again. I watched as one of the contestants took control of the water that surrounded them from the very beginning. The other— his opponent— was good with shields. Excellent even. That was the only thing that prevented him from being washed off the platform in the firs exchange of the battle. But the direction in which the fight was going was obvious to anyone with eyes to see. For one, the wizard on the defense was not even trying to counterattack. He focused all hi energy ion defence.

Using unique shields for every attack that faced him had to be taxing— not just magically, but physically and mentally as well. He met wide waves of water with large shields that covered his whole half of the arena. He met focused blasts intended to break said wide shield with smaller shields about the side of his midsection that looked nigh impenetrable. His opponent switched to direct curses and those he met withoerf3ct counter curses on every case.

I amended my initial assessment as the duel wore on. For one, I had noticed more than a few instances where his opponent had seemingly flagged and dellayed his next spell. Even accounting for the fact that it was easier to spot such things from the outside looking in, there was no chance that the duelist had missed every single opening. So that left only one possibility. He was being cautious. Desperate men were rarely cautious men and that had me looking closer at things.

While the attacking wizard seemed to get more and more flustered as time ran on, his opponent was cool as a cucumber. Every shield was called with the same perfect, practiced set of wand motions. Even looking through my memories it was difficult to see any degradation between his first shields and this one. He wasn’t tiring. And he clearly wasn’t overwhelmed. Defending meant he was still on the backfoot of course, but instead of a back foot borne from his opponent forcing his way into his space and forcing him to retreat, it was borne from ceding space and allowing his opponent take the initiative. It was strategy, and his opponent had fallen for it.

Not even five muinutes into the duel and it was clear he was flagging. He’d done very well in maintaining a steady flow of offense, trying to get around his opponent’s complex web of shields and protections. But those were beginning to dry out as he understood his opponent. Still, his opponent remained on the defensive even as the rate of the attacks reduced. Until they stopped entirely when the duel was ripe to reach the ten minute mark. Both of the wizards stared at each other for a while, neither moving.

“Not gonna do anything, huh? Just gonna stand there and watch?” The American was clearly less patient than his opponent, and his opponent, the Spaniard lit up with a smile.

“My turn” He said, and the arena lit up. The American had two jump to the side to avoid thee first volley— there spells sent so quickly that they might as well have been cast at once, and everything sped up from there/ v