Lord of Charm

He quickly cast a shield around him and the hit turned into a blunt crash. Although it hurt as hell, he wasn't out of the game yet, albeit with a broken rib.

The broken rib prevented him from stretching too much, and Dion took full advantage of it. Just like Drake, Gale's opponent from the finals, she used firebirds. The birds flew at high speed toward David, and Dion herself was running toward him from the moment he was thrown back to close the distance between them.

David was forced to take the defensive; he couldn't dodge properly anymore and the shockwaves from the birds were troublesome. He used earth shields to block the birds and powerful gales to negate the shockwaves he couldn't block with his earth spells.

Although his compressing abilities were on par with Dion's, his affinity with his sub-elements wasn't as strong as Dion's with fire. It forced him to use two casting slots to protect himself from one of Dion's.

"David is pushed back, will it be the end of the way for him? Assassins truly aren't at their best in direct combat tournaments like this!"

The comment was true; he was in this situation because Dion expected the attacks from him in the first place.

Dion didn't care though. She used her free casting slot to boost her birds' number, and soon David was overwhelmed and was sent flying again, this time with burns on his torso and a few more broken bones. He didn't get the chance to retreat to the shadows from the moment he was revealed, and it was his downfall.

"Everyone, applaud David for this fight! If they were fighting outside during the night as most assassins do, who knows how'd the fight turn out!"

The crowd wasn't stingy with their applause; they were impressed by David's fights and enjoyed the unique style of combat he showed them.

"Our winner who advances to the quarterfinals is Dion from the Miyena Kingdom! it seems very likely that the Miyena Kingdom will have two slots in the top three again!"

An hour later, the quarterfinals started with 8 mages remaining. Both magicians from the previous rounds were unlucky and met mages as opponents, giving the mages free wins.

The empire was out of luck in this bracket; their second-strongest candidate was disqualified by Lara in the quarterfinals, and the third strongest who could probably put up a good fight against Dion met Jay instead and lost as well.

The semifinals arrived and it was time for a fight between Lara and Jay, in which Jay planned on executing her payback for beating Nina.

Jay was considered the best among Shana's disciples aside from Lena because she had three elements, and two of them had an affinity as strong as a main affinity. She had fire and air as the main elements, and water as a sub-element.

"The fight we've been waiting for, Lara from the empire against our local candidate, Jay!"

The referee counted down and the fight started. Jay started with the fastest spell – air blades. Lara defended herself with a water sphere, and the current of the sphere negated the blades. However, some air still went through the sphere, leaving small cuts on Lara's skin.

Lara cast her water dragon and blocked the air blades with them. The dragon was stitched back to normal as soon as the air blade passed through it since the cut was too clean to make the spell collapse.

When going through the strong water pressure inside the dragon, the blades were weakened to the point they didn't pose any threat anymore.

"Those dragons are too large. They'd be effective against animals or a group of weaker people, but less against equally powerful humans."

Lena remarked next to Gale.

"Why are you saying that? They seem to work perfectly fine against Jay."

Gale asked as they watched Jay running away from the dragons, hopping like a bunny between the dragons. Being caught by a single dragon was almost a guarantee to be captured without any ability to break free without an extreme burst of mana.

Soon after, Gale got his answer. Jay slid under the incoming dragons and managed to position herself behind a few dragons at once and sent air blades to cut the dragons from behind, where the air pressure was the lowest, with balls of compressed fire following them.

Each fireball burst inside the dragon and the explosions sent strong shockwaves around them, creating a large hole in each dragon that the rest of the air blades could pass through unhindered, and forced Lara to spend much more mana on preventing the dragons from collapsing.

"Jay just tickled the dragon's tail yet Lara is the one in danger!"

The crowd cheered as air blades and fireballs passed through the dragons and reached Lara who didn't have any expertise in physical dodging. There were only 4 dragons and three were gone. Since fireballs and air blades were simple spells in comparison, Jay could summon 8 of them, so there were 4 pairs to block when only one dragon survived the ordeal.

Lara used her second cast slot for her normal defensive spell, the water sphere. The surviving dragon wriggled and positioned himself between the Lara and the incoming spells head-on, exploding at the cost of two pairs.

Unfortunately, it wasn't enough. The blades were coming, and Lara could only watch and brace herself for the impact. The spells re-arranged themselves midway, and the two air blades took the lead.

With a huge burst of mana, Lara boosted her water sphere to the maximum, and the two air blades were nullified after leaving a deep cut in the sphere. One fire spell exploded right inside the cavity the blades left behind and the sphere deformed, causing Lara to stumble back from the shockwaves.

Her worst nightmare was yet to come; the last fireball had almost a free route to her body, with only a water sphere on the verge of collapse to overcome.

As expected, the last explosion broke through her defenses and sent her flying in the air with fractures and burns across her body.

"Lara is on the ropes! Can she still make a comeback? No! more fireballs are coming and she is still on the ground!"

The judge had to raise a wall and put an end to the fight, and Jay's victory was announced.