SSS Awakening: I Can Class Change at will

Chapter 553: The attacks

Baaron didn’t look at Klein.

The Ascender’s water sphere was compressing above them, its mass building toward a release that would flatten anything caught beneath it. Any fighter with a survival instinct would have split attention between the two threats. Baaron ignored Klein completely, his eyes locked on Sierra and her five drawn arrows.

Sierra released her bow. The four elemental bows behind her loosed at the same instant.

Five arrows rushed through the air toward Baaron, each one overflowing with the power of its element.

Sierra’s own arrow led them all, its head glowing white.

Klein’s water sphere finished compressing too.

He drew his hand back to release it.

At that exact moment, Ian’s spear came out of nowhere.

The double-bladed weapon streaked across the arena from Farid’s engagement, the tip spinning with brutal speed. Ian had thrown it mid-fight, breaking his own tempo to launch the shot at an angle Klein wasn’t checking, even though he should have.

Klein felt the attack at the last moment, barely able to move an inch. The spearhead grazed Klein’s shoulder and the impact had enough force to spin his body sideways in the air, interrupting his own spell.

A sharp gasp escaped his mouth. His face twisted in pain, his teeth clenched. Blood streamed down his chest from the shoulder wound, painting his robes red.

The sphere lost control, hurtling forward.

Sierra’s eyes snapped toward Ian.

Shock crossed her face for the first time in the entire fight. She hadn’t expected him to sacrifice his weapon like that. Throwing a spear at an Ascender mid-duel was unexpected.

But it had worked. Klein was hit. His attack was gone.

Ian was already grinning. "You better thank me later, midget."

Farid was on him, his expression ice cold. "You think so lowly of me. Throwing your weapon away in front of me. You have a death wish."

His staff came down in a sweeping arc, blue flame trailing from its tip. The threads of fire that had been gathering behind him for the entire fight surged forward at once, twisting into a strike that hit Ian from four directions simultaneously.

Ian’s face went pale.

He tried to summon his spear back. The weapon reversed mid-flight, spinning through the air toward his outstretched hand. But the return trip took time.

Farid’s fire crashed into him.

The flames burned through his secondary weapon and shallow defense, tearing across his side in a wave of concentrated heat.

A ragged scream ripped from his lungs as the fire dug deep into muscle and bone. His body was thrown sideways, crashing into a broken section of the arena wall with force enough to shatter the stone behind him.

The spear returned to his hand just as he hit the ground.

He rolled to a knee, his face contorted with agony, his side smoking, his teeth bared in a snarl. The wound was deep, it was going to slow him down for the rest of that fight.

"You’ll pay for that." Ian rasped.

Farid didn’t respond.

The two of them clashed again, but the tempo had shifted completely. Farid pressed forward, punishing Ian for his earlier intervention.

Ian was losing.

Away from them, Klein’s water sphere came crashing down.

Without his control, the massive water ball struck the outer edge of the arena, detonating on impact.

The eastern section of the tournament building collapsed.

Empowered concrete broke under its weight and pressure, steel beams bent and snapped. Entire tiers of the spectator stand disintegrated into rubble, the wave of pressurized water shredding everything it touched. The sound was deafening, akin to a tsunami that shook the entire arena to its foundations.

Klein’s attack continue, hitting the dome eventually.

A small crack appeared across its surface, running from the impact point outward for several meters.

The shockwave rolled outward through the arena floor. Moon felt the ground beneath him shake uncontrollably, the tremor knocking several of the retreating Evolvers off their feet across the arena.

Kael grunted, one hand slamming against the rubble to keep himself from being thrown off. "What the hell was that?!"

BOOM!

Before they could recover from the first shock wave, a second one hit them.

Sierra’s five arrows reached Baaron.

The floating cleaver spun in a wide, brutal arc that intercepted every incoming arrow at once.

Five detonations happened simultaneously.

Fire, water, earth, and wind erupted outward in a chaotic explosion of colors. The four elements bloomed across the arena in overlapping bursts, red and blue and brown and grey and white intermingling into a chromatic maelstrom that swallowed Baaron’s position entirely.

Smoke poured out of the impact zone in every direction, obscuring vision for hundreds of meters.

The concussion wave hit everyone for the second time.

The Evolvers who had been retreating were driven to their knees. Moon was pushed backward through the air, using earth and wind element to stabilize himself.

The colored smoke swirled slowly before a figure rushed from inside of it at an astonishing speed.

It was Baaron, rushing towards Sierra with a frenzied expression.

Sierra did not lose focus. Every archer of her tier had contingencies for the moment when a melee opponent finally committed to closing the gap. Her hand was already reaching for the specific arrow at the back of her quiver, a wind-propelled shaft that could double as a mobility tool.

She had already used it before to escape. She was going to use it again.

The moment she was about to propel herself backwards, she heard a shout from behind her,

"Sierra! Jump!" Klein shouted.

Sierra’s eyes flicked sideways for a fraction of a second. She caught a glimpse of Klein in her peripheral vision.

His staff was raised, casting a terrifying water lance that would penetrate any opponent. The lance was aimed straight at Baaron’s, ready to skewer him the moment Sierra cleared the line of fire.

Sierra trusted her partner, her fingers finished nocking the wind arrow. Rather than shooting it towards Baaron, she shot it downwards, fulfilling Klein’s plan.

The propelled shaft struck the ground at her feet and detonated in a burst of wind. The upward thrust launched her body vertically, her boots leaving the rubble in a controlled arc that carried her ten meters above Baaron’s swing.

The line of fire cleared, and Baaron’s rushing body was now in sight.

Baaron was standing directly in its path.

Rather than dodging, Baaron suddenly stopped, dead in his place, a smirk forming on his face.

Above him, Sierra was still in mid-air.

’...Something is wrong.’

Sierra felt her stomach drop instantly. The smirk on Baaron’s face was not assuring. She looked left. She looked right. Nobody was there to attack her.

And yet, the instinct that had kept her alive across decades of fighting was screaming at her that she had made a mistake.

Time seemed to slow.

’There is only one place left to check...’

Her head slowly turned mid air as time seemed to slow to a near stop.

All she could see was the approaching Lance that was about to peirce her heart.

Her mind had gone into a frenzy, working at a speed faster than her body could, yet only one thought occupied it, ’Traitor...’

Sierra couldn’t dodge, she had used her life-saving arrow to leap up in the air where she had no leverage.