Chapter 475: Two Young Mages Against Elephantos
Moon released his blue fire.
The condensed sphere of blue flame shot forward like a comet, a streak of azure cutting through the air toward the charging beast. The Elephantos lowered its head further, expecting the attack to bounce off its thick hide like most fire spells did.
It didn’t.
The blue flames detonated against its forehead. Where normal fire would have scorched the surface and dissipated, Moon’s [Explode] sank in, the reduced fire resistance from the skill’s secondary effect peeling back the beast’s heavy natural defenses. The flames burned through layers of skin that should have been impenetrable.
~SCREEEE~
The Elephantos shrieked. Its forward momentum stuttered as pain ripped through its skull. It tossed its massive head, trying to shake the fire off, but the burning effect clung to its flesh, continuing to eat away at it second by second.
Selene took advantage of its moment of weakness, releasing her own spell, Dragon’s Breath.
A torrent of flame erupted from her staff in a massive cone. The fire wasn’t condensed like Moon’s. It was wide, sprawling, an inferno that filled the air with a wall of heat ten meters across.
The Elephantos was forced to abandon its charge entirely, twisting its body sideways to avoid the full blast. The edges of the spell still caught its flank, blackening a section of hide the size of a wagon.
The beast wheeled around, its eyes burning with rage now, and charged again.
"Move!" Moon shouted.
He activated [Air Step] and launched himself sideways. Selene moved in the opposite direction. The Elephantos thundered between them, its tusks scraping the ground where they had stood a moment earlier.
Moon cast [Elemental Attack] mid-air. Two magma-stone pillars erupted from the ground and slammed against the beast’s hind legs, momentarily anchoring them. Selene took the opening and unleashed a torrent of water that smashed into the beast’s flank, knocking it off balance.
The water reacted with the heat from the magma stone, spreading a small cloud of mist, surrounding the Elephantos.
The Elephantos roared and tore free of the stone, splintering one of the pillars with a kick. It pivoted toward Selene.
Whoosh!
Moon did not give the Elephantos a chance to breathe. Sending a barrage of wind blades screaming from his staff, slicing across the beast’s eye line forcing it to flinch backward.
Selene used the opening to retreat, creating distance between herself and the colossal beast.
Simultaneously, her wolf launched itself at the Elephantos’s leg, biting down hard before darting back before retaliation could land. In comparison to the Elephantos that stood at fourth star prowess, the wolf was only second star.
It could only attempt an attack or two every once in a while.
Selene laid down area attacks, sweeping flames and walls of water that controlled where the Elephantos could move. Moon picked his targets with precision, blue fire and stone strikes hitting specific weak points the area attacks exposed. When the beast pushed toward Selene, Moon intercepted with wind and earth to redirect it. When it turned on Moon, Selene’s flame walls forced it to slow down a little.
They moved without speaking. Selene didn’t need to call out her attacks. Moon didn’t need to signal his positions.
The rhythm of their combat was something built from countless fights side by side, refined to the point where their movements predicted each other automatically.
The Elephantos had close calls. One of its tusks nearly caught Moon across the chest once it took the burnt of one of the attacks in order to land its own, but Selene’s atttack clipped its leg at the exact moment, throwing off its aim.
A swing of its trunk almost caught Selene mid-cast, but Moon’s stone pillar erupted between her and the limb, absorbing the impact.
They saved each other half a dozen times in the span of two minutes.
Above, Klein watched with a grin spreading wider and wider across his face.
’These two. Their synergy is unbelievable.’
He had seen many partnerships in his time.
Trained teams. Family duos. The two young Evolvers before him were certainly at the top of those partnerships.
Their partnership forged through fire. Through battles where one wrong move meant death, where survival required reading your partner’s intentions before they were fully formed.
’This isn’t their first fight together. Not at all. They’ve done this hundreds of times. This level of trust isn’t something you can buy or train. It can only be earned.’
What made Klein even more excited was a detail he had noticed early on. Moon had a lightning element. He had seen it in the boy’s records.
But Moon hadn’t used it yet. Not a single bolt. He was fighting a Fourth Star beast with only four of his five elements.
’The boy is confident. He believes he and the girl can finish this without revealing his strongest card. Smart. Saving the lightning for the bracket stages, where the real predators are watching.’
Klein glanced at his watch and sent out an order.
’Focus all screens on the starting site. Now.’
Across the tournament grounds, around the kingdom, in millions of homes watching the live broadcast, every screen abruptly switched feeds. The fights, the chases, the section points being scored, all of it vanished. Replaced by close-up shots of Moon and Selene’s faces.
"Why are we back to these two slackers?!" The Evolver in the spectator section who had mocked Moon earlier threw his hands up. "They’ve been doing nothing this whole time! Show us the real fights! Show us the real talents!"
A chorus of agreement erupted across the stands.
"Are the broadcast directors stupid?"
"Get them off the screen!"
"We want real competition, not these losers hiding at the starting line!"
The booing grew louder.
Then the cameras began to zoom out of Moon’s and Selene’s faces.
The screens widened their focus, pulling back from Moon and Selene’s faces to reveal what they were standing in front of.
The booing died in throats mid-shout.
