Alena started the real fight with a Magma javelin that she create in her right hand. She threw it at her brother without hesitation, with the full intention of hitting him in the face.
Allen smiled and slammed his leg. Three spikes of ice appeared from the ground, like icebergs in the ocean, and stopped the magma from getting through, even though they were destroyed in the process.
The steam from the boiling ice hung in the air for a moment before it immediately condensed and dropped to the ground as the prince used his own attack.
It was a skill not different from Yorsha's Burning Sun in which he turned the entire area around him into a freezing hellscape. Ice spread from where he stood and covered the ground.
At the same time, snowflakes fell from the surrounding air as the remaining water vapor condensed due to the frigid cold.
The princess stood where she was without moving and looked at what her brother was doing without being impressed at all.
When the ice started creeping toward her, she thrust her hand forward, and molten magma burst forth from the ground, engulfing the area around her in a blaze of heat.
The hot air from the magma met the cold air from the tiny blizzard that the prince was creating and steam began rising back into the air, creating a layer of visible mist where the two temperatures met.
The audience was shocked to see one side completely engulfed in magma and hot air, while the other one was frigid cold with ice spikes growing from the ground due to the coldness.
When the two seemed to be at a standstill, Alena chose to break it again. She used her hand to reach into the magma that surrounded her and spread it forward at her brother.
As multiple drops of magma were flung at the Allen, he couldn't use simple spikes to block them at all. He needed something large.
Without missing a second, he poured Essence out of his core and poured it into the stage where ice crystals grew at a rapid pace. They touched each other, conjoining on top of each other as they turned into a giant ice wall that shielded him from the coming Magma.
The magma landed on the ice wall and burned through it, but it couldn't go past it. It simply melted the ice and fell to the floor where it became nothing more than hot rock.
Alena looked at that and smiled. She slammed her feet onto the ground and a wave passed through the molten stage around her. The wave of lava was barely knee high at all, but the wave wasn't the problem that was coming at all.
When the wave reached the furthest they could go, which was the layer of mist in between the two siblings, they suddenly split into serpents made of magma, that easily glided through the ice path.
Alena seemed to be guiding it as they moved forward and dive through the stage itself, going below the ice wall that was protecting Allen.
Allen realized what was happening and immediately dropped to the ground, placing his two palms flat on the surface of the stage. Then, he poured his Ice Essence into the stage as much as he could and began freezing the rock underneath him.
The coldness reached the tendrils of magma that snaked toward him, solidifying and no longer able to move.
Alena frowned when she realized that she could no longer control the snakes that she had sent in her brother's direction.
Allen decided to become proactive as well. He struck the ground with his fist which shattered the ice wall that was already half melted by the previous attack.
As they shattered into a hundred pieces, Allen used his technique to send them flying in his sister's direction.
Alena waved her hand and the magma that was on the floor around her suddenly moved up like a fabric of cloth as it wrapped around her.
The ice shards all landed on the magma cover and did practically nothing to them except leave dark spots when they hit them.
The cold from the ice had turned those portions into just rock, which would need to be heated again to become magma.
The magma dropped around the princess and she appeared out of it very much unharmed.
The crowds were shocked to see that the prince was struggling so much against his sister when they were both supposed to be just as strong as each other.
Why was the prince so much more tired than the princess? Was that going to lose him the match?
Allen knew that was not the case. While Alena was most definitely not as panicked or fatigued as he was, she was also suffering from the same problem he was, perhaps even more so given that she had fought another enemy before him.
They were both wasting their Essence fighting each other.
The prince was somewhat tired, yes, but that meant nothing in the match when the victory was going to be decided by whoever could keep their Essence while making the other one use more.
The prince had made a show of creating ice around him not because he wanted to show off, but because he wanted to make his sister create an environment just the same as his.
Since Magma was denser than Ice by a lot, it required more Essence to be created. By forcing his sister to create a pool of Magma around her, he was forcing her to use her essence in a pretty wasteful manner.
While he had somewhat succeeded in that, the princess had also been quite efficient with the magma she was created.
Scooping it to attack, sending tendrils of it, using it as a defense.
It was obvious that she had also seen through the trick that her brother was trying to use to force her to lose.
She wasn't going to.
Alena finally gave a massive grin as she prepared her next onslaught of attacks that were surely going to edge her toward victory.
