"This move again," Tilan shook her head, "it seems that conventional tactics are unlikely to defeat the opponent."
It was to be expected, after all. The opponent's move was a perfect combination of Talent and secret technique, wielding the terrifying control afforded by their Talent to manipulate and govern such a broad expanse of magic power. If the Flame Spear wasn't so overwhelmingly powerful that even Levito, with his Sequence 5 strength, struggled to accurately lock on, perhaps Sevia La would have been defeated by it.
She blinked and made a slight adjustment.
Her butterfly wings fluttered behind her as she wrenched herself from the thick air, rising like a butterfly struggling through a storm, attempting to break through the viscous fiery currents and reach the night sky beyond the flames.
"The same move again, huh," Levito sneered with rising rage, feeling that his opponent was underestimating him.
Special sigils slowly surfaced in his eyes. Subsequently, the fire streams in the sky thickened and grew heavier, becoming like a swamp. The flames flowed like magma, and any pebble caught in it would almost instantly turn to smoke.
However, the girl appeared neither surprised nor panicked. If Levito hadn't made any improvements and repeated his past negligence, that would be surprising. After all, the opponent was also a rare genius, who certainly would have found ways to compensate for her past vulnerabilities and weaknesses.
As Levito confidently looked down at the flickering blue dot below, the girl's figure suddenly blinked out of sight. When she reappeared, she was already above the layer of flames and clouds.
Facing Levito, Tilan floated quietly in the night sky, then began to softly sing. With the rise of her song, a faint moonlight descended from the heavens, gradually cooling the air.
"Don't you dare sing!" Levito screamed inwardly, then forcefully thrust his hand forward, and a golden, glittering spear materialized.
"Divine Lance · Brionac!"
The lance pierced through, almost instantly crossing the sky as it fired, but unlike last time, it didn't hit its target. Instead, it drew a distorting trajectory across the night sky behind the girl, disappearing from view.
It was only then that Levito realized the subtly displaced light and shadow beside the girl. It wasn't just a temporary distortion of the air and light causing a visual displacement, but the Songstress also used her singing to unconsciously influence him—causing him to misjudge the location based on sound, thus making his attack miss its mark entirely.
As Levito pulled the spiral lance from the center of the fire stream, preparing to cast it again, the girl's singing slowly came to an end. She gently spread her arms, and endless moonlight poured from the heavens, covering the entire area. The cold frost spread over the land, shattering and dissipating the flames that had been burning, even dimming Levito's spiral lance, making it appear as mundane iron.
A pale moonlight sigil surfaced on her forehead, and the girl opened her eyes. Her black and blue dress took on a faint silver hue under the moonlight, creating an ethereal and distant effect.
Just as Levito combined his own Talent with the secret technique of the Flame Spear, the girl's invocation of the full moon, purifying and cooling the world, was also a manifestation combining her two Talents.
The nature of her Talent Ability was healing and crystallization, but the girl rarely showed her true power. More often, she utilized the byproducts that her Talent Ability produced—cold and ice crystals.
The lance in his hand growing colder, Levito felt his ability to stay airborne waning amid the chill, even as he tried to muster his magic power and Talent. The Aijieka particles in the air remained cold and unresponsive. Slowly falling, he watched the glowing full moon above and the girl growing more distant, as though she was forever out of reach.
Rage roared in his heart—a blend of frustration and fury burning within.
He hadn't even used his ultimate, most powerful Flame Spear—always interrupted by his opponent's bizarre tricks.
His Talent was peerless, considered Legendary Level within the Four-leaf Crystal Star Domain, rare in a century—perhaps only Temisia from years past could compare with him.
Despite having endured in silence for three years, he had been longing for a stunning breakthrough right before graduation, to seize the championship of the Winter Festival competition.
Why did he have to be defeated by such a nonchalant girl, whose leisurely demeanor made Levito feel both overlooked and humiliated?
"I won't accept this!"
Finally, he roared, and then clenched the lance in his hand, throwing it mightily as he plummeted.
As the lance rose in the air, stripped of magic power and various abilities, it was nothing more than an ordinary object; losing speed as it reached its apex, it seemed destined to fall back down, when a hand grasped the lance.
Feeling Levito's lingering resentment and humiliation, the girl understood but found it hard to explain. Should she demonstrate her true strength, instantly crushing him? Would that make Levito willing to concede?
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Though Levito possessed immense innate talent, he still fell far short of Sevia La in training and skill, which prevented him from fully transforming that talent into power.
If that's the case, let me show you how to truly harness that talent and ability.
The girl tossed the lance in her hand upward, and then snowflakes began to materialize in the night sky, countless silver snowflakes swirling in the heavens, just like Levito's previous Flame Spear.
The chill wind blew fiercely in all directions, enveloping the entire venue; colorless, invisible ice particles scraped fine indentations on the stone slabs of the ground, while the girl's face, bathed in moonlight, looked serene and clear, her sleeves and skirt billowing slowly in the evening breeze.
With the tip of her snowy white finger lifting beneath her sleeve, miniature ice vortexes emerged amidst the swirling silver frost in the sky, and one by one, ice crystal lances began to solidify, slowly taking shape.
The lances glistened with intricate patterns, sharp and piercing; the patterns of enchantments flashed through them, and the central lance within the ice vortex coated itself in layers of brilliance, as a multitude of Cold Ice magic flowed into it.
A gentle wave of her right hand sent the lances raining down like arrows, slanting across the entire venue. Watching this real-time demonstration, Levito's eyes widened, his mouth agape.
Then, the central spiral lance also descended slowly, like a commander amidst thousands of cavalry, bringing with it countless other lances trailing behind in unison. Their aura linked, they lit up one after another, like a cascade of falling stars, creating an inescapable net that slowly descended, delivering a crushing sense of despair.
A forest of lances like rain, sticking out of the ground, creating a dense forest forged of ice and snow. At the very center, a spiraled lance stood next to Levito, its emanating chill freezing the earth beneath him, and also soothing the rage that had burned within him.
His gaze returned once again to the distant girl in the night sky, so far, so hazy, almost overlapping with the memory of that legendary prodigy who once dazzled the Winter Festival competition.
Reflecting on the past, he too had lain in the spectator stand, just like the other children, watching in admiration and envy at that figure soaring in the night sky.
I was wrong, you really are the sister of that person, making people feel just as unreachably distant, Levito sighed silently to himself.
"I surrender," he uttered these words slowly, then the referee made the announcement.
"Edith Academy wins!"