The Golem Mage

“My turn,” Endrick said, firing a bolt straight at her head, it moved so fast most people saw only a blur.

Even the judge flinched, sweat beading as he wondered what kind of crazy mage would aim at another opponent’s head like he meant to kill her.

So he lunged into play, however by the time he caught the bolt, he realised the tip was blunt.

At worst, it would have knocked her out, not killed her, he’d interrupted a clean elimination, so he turned to Moro who was already slowly working on breaking free from the thorns imprisonment.

“You’re disqualified. Step off the stage,” the judge said.

“Says who? I’m still very much in this battle if—” she kept ranting at the judge, trying to exploit the fact that he’d interrupted the shot and box him into a corner.

But as the judge hesitated, another bolt hissed forward, this time he stepped aside and allowed the bolt do the job it was meant to do, as Endrick’s Bolt which was covered in Qi, and was conjured from the mana that was infused into the crossbow flew straight the second time with a very fast speed before it struck her head and she dropped unconscious almost instantly.

#Back to the present.

Endrick turned toward the Gordons brothers, flashing Arthur a small smile as his crossbow started to change form again till it turned into a bow.

“Next time, put ‘please’ in your requests, and stop acting like you’re my boss.” He said as drew back the string of his bow; instantly a green arrow lit up on the bow, nocked, and leveled at the Tier-5 Ash Hawk in the air.

Kuto instantly thrust her hand upward, as her beast mantle wrapped tight around her as the rune sigils flared around her, and an irresistible pull seized the hawk above dragging it towards her that was covered in the light.

After a second, the light faded and she stepped out fully clad in her spirit equipment set, with a hawk-styled half-mask which covered the upper half of her face, leaving everything from the nose down exposed.

Her weapon had shifted into a bow, with both tips carved like hawk heads with short blades jutting from their beaks, she drew on Endrick at once; a sharp prickle of danger told her that if she let Endrick loose that arrow on her Hawk, she would have lost her beast support, so she chose to duel him directly before he took out a major part of her battle power.

“And just like that, it’s two-on-one, don’t you think your odds just tanked?” Arthur taunted Osei who was not left with them since Endrick had been able to draw the attention of Kuto.

“I’ll take you both on, no problems,” Osei replied, bursting forward.

“Thats the spirit” Arthur said as his silver golem flashed into being before him and instantly shattered into fragment plates parts that wrapped over him as armor, while Brandon surged in to meet Osei’s cleaving strike.

Bang!

The fight exploded like that as the silver-armored Arthur and dual-weapon Brandon began pressing the dual-axe juggernaut in perfect sync.

No matter how much Osei tried to break their rhythm, the brothers flowed, strike into parry into step, without a word, they’d fought together in too many battles that they just sync naturally; their timing was frightening.

Before Osei realized it, he was being smothered, and the finish came quick: he slammed Daybreak into Brandon’s Sword of Tranquility, only for Brandon to hook it with his off-hand saber, wrenching the axe free and flinging all three weapons aside to a far distance.

Snarling, Osei whipped up his left-hand axe, Duskflayer, which was smaller than the Daybreak Axe, but sharper, and built for follow-through attacks like this, but Brandon dipped under the arc, as the blade skimmed past his face by inches.

In that same beat, Arthur slid behind Osei and drove a kick into the back of his right knee.

The kick landed clean, dropping Osei to one knee as his right leg buckled.

And then Arthur and Brandon followed in the same heartbeat, with a twin straight punches to the jaw from either side, then each seized his head and yanked it down, before driving their knees deep into his face.

The giant toppled with a heavy thud, eyes rolled white, consciousness snuffed, and definitely out of the battle.

Elsewhere, Endrick was darting and circling, trading shots with Kuto, his arrows streaking green, while hers were trailing grey, a running duel that closed the gap step by step.

Shaft met shaft in the air, neither gaining ground, until they were on top of each other and she jabbed the bladed tip of her bow at his throat.

Endrick slipped a half-step off-line and thrust his palm forward; as razorwood stakes, reinforced with green mana, blasted toward her.

At that range he felt sure she couldn’t get clear, at best she’d escape with deep cuts, however the stakes struck and passed through her like nothing as her body unraveled into smoke smoke which later reformed a few meters ahead.

“Got you,” she said, cocking the bow to shoot one last arrow at such close proximity.

And then a small violet-black portal blinked open in front of her, and instantly an ice-pale hand shot out, palm to her cheeks.

It happened too fast, due to her fast she had moved to get rid of Endrick her forward momentum worked against her, as she couldn’t move out in time to avoid the Pale hand; frost spider-webbed out from the touch, racing across her skin.

She fought to move, but the cold spread faster than she thought and her movement became sluggish with each passing second.

In five seconds, her head was sealed in ice.

The judge appeared again, this time he chopped the back of her neck, knocking her out and shattering the ice that had cut off her breathing.

After dealing with the shameless Moro earlier, he’d decided this was the safest way to remove reckless fighters from the battlefield.

With Kuto removed, the hand withdrew into the portal, as Endrick glanced toward the distance and spotted Pale and Sophia standing together.

Sophia clearly had been the one who opened the portal; while Pale was the owner of the hand that knocked her out, he clearly had casted the spell—Zero Chilling Touch, the mid-rank version of Cold Touch which is a low Tier spell, and it had clearly taken a heavy toll because of the spell power.

Pale looked ready to collapse any moment from now, Endrick could tell he must have used that spell to finish off his own opponent, then done one last favor by freezing Kuto, who could slip past physical attacks before the spell cancelled out after draining all of his mana.

Just like that, five Ashmaw Academy members were down and out, with not a single elimination on the War God Mage Academy side yet.