“And there we go, wasn’t that hard, was it?” John asked, having finally gotten Jeremiah to admit his defeat. Namely by nailing him to the floor with Aclysia’s swords. Hadn’t been the easiest task. For a start, they needed to tire him out by having Gnome and Salamander press him down, being the strongest of the lot. Then John still didn’t want to risk Aclysia getting close, so he had to take the Eclys and the salver-dagger off her and use them himself.

At that point they also confirmed that mithril could cut through the Art Eater’s metal exterior. An information that John didn’t need to get, especially not by going through public torture, but that he took as an extra, since the Art Eater had insisted on being so stubborn. Right up until the Gamer threatened to use Marath on his other leg.

John had aimed to keep it at wounds that would be healed by Jeremiah leaving the barrier, show a level of benevolence and all that. There was an easy argument to be made that he should have crippled the Art Eater in some way, he was one of the most elite individuals of the enemy faction after all, but the Gamer didn’t want to employ such obviously cruel measures. He was fine with somewhat torturing someone who just didn’t want to give up, heavy and permanent crippling was a bit outside his comfort zone though.

Of course, Marath was so thick, not to mention way too heavy for John to wield properly, that this wasn’t a guarantee anymore. Which is why John had only threatened it. If Jeremiah had kept growling instead of saying the magical phrase ‘I give up’, John would have just shrugged and declared himself the winner regardless. It was doubtful anybody would have protested that, but the visual wasn’t quite as good. The threat had proved effective enough anyway.

“Need me to heal you?” the Gamer offered after removing all weapons from Jeremiah, who undid his transformation and was now a regular fleshy person, bleeding out of a stump wound. Before the Art Eater could just throw an insult his way, John offered a reminder, “You still have to fight for the third place, if you want that island. If you leave now, you’ll just be disqualified.”

For a few moments, it looked like the wounded man would deny the offer and just leave the barrier, but then he must have remembered something. John would have loved to take a peek inside his head and check on the why. Had the Lake Alliance put some back-up plans in motion, did he want to look the least bit graceful or had Jeremiah just remembered that he lost absolutely nothing by accepting this? “Go ahead,” he growled, aggressive enough that John didn’t believe he was up to something unexpected.

There was an expected thing, however, that John was surprised to not happen. Namely for Jeremiah to immediately assault him or Aclysia the second Undine had patched him back together. ‘Seems like he isn’t completely unreasonable,’ John thought, having readied himself for that case, but now could only look after his opponent, walking out with relative dignity.

Looking through the replacement sphere, as his glasses were still pretty crushed, he reached into his inventory, his hand immediately finding the box of contact lenses he kept inside, and quickly popped a pair of them out of their plastic cases and fiddled them in. By now, that movement had gotten so routine that he had completely finished the process by the time Rave approached him.

“Well, that gave me some time to gather some breath,” his girlfriend stated, rolling her shoulders. It was probably a true statement, but John doubted it counted for much. Even with as little sport as he had done in his life (before he got his powers anyway), he knew that lightly traitorous feeling between two sets of workout where the body felt a bit rested but really needed another hour.

“We can just skip this, you know,” John told her, not feeling particularly inclined to fight her. He was stronger than her and, unlike the other way around, if he fucked up seriously, it would really hurt. Apothecaries weren’t that far away that they had to worry about a chopped off limb, but it was still better not to push these things too far. “There are no stakes in this for either of us.”

“Kinda… but I feel so close to something,” Rave responded, looking down at her hand and clenching her fist. Her copper cat eyes went up to stare at him, pupils narrowed to near invisibility in the bright daylight. “So, I wanna have this fight.”

“Well, if you say so…” John said, perhaps a bit too dismissively.

At least if he went by her answer. “Don’tcha hold back on me, Johnny,” she almost hissed.

Copernicus meowed from the floor, “You should take this seriously.” It sounded almost like a warning. Giving the suncat a glance, John noticed the earnest in the elemental’s eyes, together with a hefty amount of suspense.

“Alright,” John agreed and took a fair amount of step backwards. The only thing stopping their fight from starting was this conversation, and if he was actually going to battle her, the prime objective was distance between them. Something that Aclysia also picked up on, taking her place between the two of them, Eclys in hand.

The battlefield still bore the scars of the earlier fights. A large bowl-shaped depression where Corith had used a technique to violently decompress the ground. Two holes out of which Aclysia and Gnome had risen following their victory over Jeremiah. The shadow labyrinth, riddled with holes. The water segment, half-refilled by water pumps on the floor of the pond. Much of the sand belonging to the adjacent earth segment lying all around, converted into mud.

What was still intact was the wind area, a somewhat boring segment where pipes sticking out of the floor would create sudden gusts in response to pressure plates. That resembled the fire area, which, some scattered about glass aside, was also unharmed. Lastly, there was the light area, an upside-down dome of mirrors.

Looking at those areas again made John realize just how pressed for time he had been in designing this place. There were so many cooler ideas he could have enacted if he had just given it more thought and resources. ‘Alright, it’s Jane,’ John thought, putting Mana Protection back on. Thanks to his absurd Mana Regeneration, it was already topped off again. ‘Main problem is that she knows basically all of my tricks, at least at an instinctual level. Thankfully, she isn’t the scheming type, so she probably doesn’t have a battle plan.’

Rave reached up to her headphones. The integrated mp3-player was activated through the push of a few buttons on the catgirl-friendly design. Tapping her heel on the ground, she tuned into the bass of whatever song she had put on. John, in the meanwhile, coordinated the position of his elementals. A subtle shift in Rave’s posture, a slight leaning forwards, the tensing of her legs, kicked the fight off.

A golden arc of lightning, encapsulated by grey fire, seared itself into the eyes of the onlookers in its path downwards. The Salamander-buffed attack by Sylph hit right on the mark. There was simply no way that Rave could have started the fight quicker than the thunderstorm elemental, with her near 1000 Agility. It struck true, a continuous torrent of electricity and fire.

If John was supposed to be serious about this, then he would throw the strongest opener he had at hand. The shout of pain he heard in response tugged at his heartstrings, but if he was going to get soft on her now, that would have just insulted her. Part of Rave’s bodysuit disintegrated under the attack, but the Baelementium reinforced thing, while not quite as reliable as metal skin, did a good job at neutralizing most of the attack.

The thunder ebbed away with a loud crackling echo. Immediately, Rave sprung into action. Quite literally, as she took a giant upwards leap, Aura igniting. Her arm stretched out towards the air spirit, it looked like the desperate attempt of someone to catch a fly. “Nope, nope, nope,” Sylph declared, darting away as a bolt of blue electricity. “You ain’t gonna catch me, ain’t gonna touch, can’t touch me. Do-dodo-do, can’t touch me!”

“Don’t need to catch ya,” Rave responded, her open palm having never closed in anything resembling a grasping motion. The explosion of flashing light that followed spread throughout the sky in a massive cone of red, blue and green. It was a reckless and extreme spending of mana, the attack covering such a giant area that even Sylph couldn’t dodge in time. The air spirit was smart enough to realize that, not smart enough, however, to realize that her response to it was hasty and stupid.

Sylph attempted to go incorporeal. In theory, that would have saved her. In practice, there were a few seconds during the shifting between the two states where an elemental was extremely vulnerable. To an attack of light at this scope, one second would have been enough. It was reckless, extreme and effective, and within a moment, John got the confirmation window that the thunderstorm elemental had just been ‘killed’.

‘Oh my god, she has a plan,’ John realized when his girlfriend landed on all fours, feathering her fall with feline grace, and immediately dodged a joint counterattack by Salamander and Gnome. Her body bent out of the assaults by both of their fists with ease. Too much ease, for John’s liking. Sure, Gnome was a slow one, she was there for the threat of massive damage and area control, like a typical tank, but Salamander’s Agility counted above three-hundred; she should have been able to catch-up to Rave.

Instead, the Lightbearer continue to thread through attacks. Even with her Aura extinguished again, she was fast enough to keep dodging reliably, just as long as she focused on defence. This did not add up to John’s last information about her Stats and he checked on her quite regularly.

‘Not regularly enough,’ John realized, looking at that window with an open mouth. There had been a massive jump here and it must have occurred in the last two days or so. Was it the way the tournament pushed her in a different way than the usual training? It was the only possible explanation. John did some quick math and had an addition epiphany: Rave had just broken through the Stat per level barrier, going from 5 to 6.

By the time he had analysed all of that, Salamander’s patience had been completely exhausted. Taking off, she gathered a massive ball of fire above her hands. “If anyone bullies Sylph, it’s me, Jane!” the endflame elemental shouted and threw the magical mass of exothermic energy at the Lightbearer.

Rave didn’t seem to have the breath to answer, all of her efforts narrowed on fighting, and this worried John more than any level of banter. Whatever his girlfriend’s plan was, it seemed to be more akin to a loose priority list of who to knock out in the perfect order. Which was actually exactly how John would have approached this as well, knowing his own and her full capabilities.

Without Sylph on the field, Rave was now the fastest acting fighter. A speed advantage that she now used in a flurry of motions. Aiming first for Gnome, now alone and rather outmatched in the speed department, Rave’s Aura flared up again for just one punch. Although the Lightbearer failed to hit the stomach with the downwards motion, the soil elemental’s comparatively slow backwards motion only changed the point of impact to her upper right leg.

Gnome was anything but a soft target, but Rave had done the majority of her training with Aclysia and had a lot of practice with cracking enemies that were focused on an outstanding defence. Although the initial impact of her punch did only cause a few cracks in the surface, the technique that came afterwards, Penetrative Blast, sent most of the force of the impact through the surface and into Gnome’s thigh. Where it exploded in a mixture of raw martial arts and Copernicus’ blessing, causing an aftershock to occur within the earth spirit’s body.

The result was a surprised Gnome, falling backwards with her own momentum, as one of her legs was suddenly separated, revealing the dirt and rock that her body consisted of at the resulting stump.

Rave had no time to finish her off, whirling around to face the enormous fireball coming her way. That would definitely harm her more than Gnome. ‘Aclysia, get in there,’ John commanded, following a bad feeling, as well as seeing the fragments of unspent mana that Rave’s last punch had unleashed.

It was an unmistakable sign that she was working on the long game. Aside from her regular way of punching her way through problems, John knew that his girlfriend could sacrifice some of her attacks’ effectiveness in order to create those mana fragments. What was usually a sign of a novice unable to properly dosage their power could become fodder for Copernicus, unleashing him and giving Rave yet another immense, if short, boost in power.

Basically, she was setting up her ultimate win condition. One that John had to genuinely be wary of, knowing exactly that her final attack had taken down the mana barrier around the White House.

Rave now pointed her right hand at the fireball. A laser beamed out in a straight, focused line. Its multiple colours would have left dancing dots in John’s retina would he still have used biological components to see.

Two magical forces clashed. Elements that usually did very little in the way of interaction ground against each other as their supernatural origins competed in a struggle over who got to occupy the space. It would have been a much clearer struggle if it had been between solid elements, kinetic energy would have solved that question within moments, but the continuous feeding of mana into the continued attacks by both parties created a stalemate. A concentrated laser against a massive fireball of gold and grey, it was a scene akin to that Dragonball anime that Rave had showed John before.

‘You can’t be fucking serious!’ Salamander exclaimed, likely mentally and physically at the same time, although John only heard the former. Unable to overcome Rave’s resistance, the endflame elemental continued to pour her mana into this endeavour. As did John, desperate to prolong this doomed encounter for as long as possible.

The mistake was that she had agreed to make this a fight of attrition with Rave during blazing hot noon. With her Aura deactivated again and mana absorption from the sun at the highest possible levels, the Lightbearer was running on basically infinite mana. The only thing holding her back was the rate of conversion.

A petty little handicap by comparison. The beam of light suddenly broke through the fireball, just like an arm-wrestling match could come to a rather abrupt end, and came out again at the other end. The attack blasted a hole into Salamander’s abdomen, the endflame elemental spitting out an oil like liquid while falling to the ground.

‘Christ,’ John thought, having taken this seriously, but not having anticipated this level of struggle. ‘Gnome, now!’ he nevertheless coordinated the efforts of his familiars. The earth spirit opened a hole in the ground under Rave’s feet. Reacting immediately to the sudden tremors, Rave moved and skipped out on even sinking into the trap.

While she recovered her balance, John sent several Shardbound attacks her way. The splinters of mana came in swarms of twenty, aimed to only be a nuisance. Which they doubtlessly were, Rave shielding her eyes from the three waves. Some of the attacks still hit her, adding bloody scratches on her face to the wounds, a few even managing to get through the bodysuit she was wearing.

Most of all, however, they provided cover for Aclysia, who had now arrived at the scene. With a quick thrust of her sword, she aimed at Rave’s abdomen. They didn’t have the luxury to hold back anything but the most lethal means. Luckily, nobody around here was easy to kill by any stretch.

Although Rave managed to hastily dodge the blade, the same could not be said for the shoulder that followed. Aclysia, with all her Strength, weight and momentum, crashed her shoulder into Rave’s solar plexus. All air was knocked out of the Lightbearer’s lungs as she was catapulted away. This entire engagement had been so hectic, none of the special areas of the arena had come to use, and it didn’t seem like they would anytime soon either.

Still, Rave managed to catch herself. Her gloved hands hit the ground first, acting as a violent brake that had her landing change from a disgraceful impact on her back, to semi-balanced backflip right into a standing position. Spitting out blood and saliva, Rave raised her fists in a fighting position. The look in her eyes was equally sharp and narrow.

Salamander was still recovering in the background, tapped in the mana department and not blessed with particularly effective regenerative abilities. Gnome, however, rose to the ground, her leg reattached with the surrounding soil. Together with Aclysia, they now went back on the offensive.

An offensive whose true nature Rave must have instinctively looked through, pointing her hand at the ground and sending out a quick burst of light at the weaponized maid’s shadow. Siena, the only elemental that was still matching Rave’s current speed, was violently ejected as her place of dwelling ceased to exist. It didn’t exactly hurt the nightmare elemental, but it left her confused for a few moments.

Moments enough for Rave to ignite her Aura and meet her opponents in melee. A melee she was the easily dominant factor in, much quicker than either of them. In just a few attacks, she once more neutralized Gnome and was then engaged in a one on one with Aclysia.

Although the weaponized maid kept taking damage from the armour penetrating strikes of the martial arts adept Lightbearer, their situation was more of a stalemate. One that couldn’t last long. Fragments of mana were flying everywhere. A satisfying mass, it seemed, by the time Siena re-joined the battle, her form complete darkness as she hissed with annoyance. The mana suddenly began moving, drawn by an otherwise unfelt vortex towards the open mouth of Copernicus, who had kept himself nice and distanced until now.

John tried to throw some attacks in the feline’s way, interrupt the happenings by the means of Shardbound. Although a particularly powerful shard hit right on the money, Copernicus continued to devour the mana regardless. In a nova of sunlight, he transformed from a harmless looking, if impressive, golden house cat into a massive tiger.

A transformation that also had its effects on his summoner. Rave’s hair and Aura went from pink and blue to the same gold of the sun. Her power hit that massive boost, allowing her to relatively easefully dodge Siena’s attacks. John felt a bit useless looking at all of that, but his Stats weren’t high enough to be anything but a nuisance in that melee engagement.

All the power Rave had right now didn’t give her eyes in the back of her head, however. With that in mind, John sent a sizable portion of mana to Salamander, who acted immediately. A fireball, small but not insignificant, hit her in the back, sending her one step forwards, into the range of the lying Gnome, who grabbed her foot. Without a single word, completely in her fighting trance, Rave raised her other leg. A quick Focus Stomp separated a second limb from the soil elemental’s frame. A motion that took too long, however.

Eclys was thrusted forwards. By the time Rave began to react to the motion, Siena had wrapped a bunch of tentacles around the Lightbearer’s legs. All she could do now was twist her upper body in an attempt to get away. It was somewhat successful, the weapon only cutting deep into the side of her left shoulder, as opposed to penetrating her joint.

Then there were words, words that were forming power into sounds. All of a sudden, a last barrier was broken down right in front of John’s eyes, caressing his ears with a song that Rave had hummed numerous times before. The rhythm was the same, even if the lyrics were slightly changed.

“A solemn reign, to those few that rise up high,” the golden light encapsulating Rave grew more intense, radiating with heat and energy that John could feel on his skin despite the distance. He wanted to give at least a useless warning to Aclysia. Rave’s words seemed to roll off her tongue quicker than time allowed. “And we all fight, let our worlds’ collide.”

A punch at immediate speed, a motion invisible to John, Aclysia, Siena or anyone else around. The very same, utterly destructive spell that Rave had used against Nariko now burst out, refined and amplified. From where Rave’s fist connected with the weaponized maid’s stomach exploded the complete spread of the rainbow.

The metal made maid was sent flying at a ridiculous speed, as the magic consumed the sand before them and transformed it into glass in less than a second. Siena and Gnome were blasted away by the shockwave, itself an amplified version of Copernicus’ blessing, actually managing to ‘kill’ the weakened soil elemental in the process. A cone of utter destruction in front of her, a circular, devastating shock everywhere else, all originating from that impossibly fast punch.

Perhaps too deep in the zone to recognize what she had just done, Rave turned to John. Lights were still flickering all around the place, displaced flashes without clear origin. They were hanging in the air from the sheer overload of magic, not unlike remains of arcane after a powerful Arcana Strike, just with a different element in mind.

She took one step towards John and he decided to meet her halfway. At this point, if she had the power to take him out as well, she deserved that victory as far as he was concerned. Mana Protection would at least even the playing field somewhat.

However, the moment they were at a striking range, the gold drained from Rave’s hair, flickered out of her Aura and the last step the Lightbearer took, albeit confident in its stride, broke away under her.

John caught her in his arms.