"I've only seen corpses of dragons on my planet. My father had a bone dragon as a pet and I wondered what they were like when they lived," Drake said. "I can't believe you guys are so strong."
"Of course, we are," Derel said.
"But that was truly quite strong," Ning said. "You killed that lion with a single attack. Why did you struggle so much against the Midnight Phoenix then?"
"I can't bring out my full power in my human form," Derel said. "Only maybe 10% of it."
"Then you could have changed and fought right?" Ning asked. "Is there some problem with transforming?"
"No," Derel said. "I just didn't want to."
"Huh? Why not?" Drake asked.
"Because it was only the 2nd competition. I didn't want to give away all my abilities in the 2nd competition. Who knows what other weird fights I will have to go through before I get that system thing," she said.
That was understandable. She had also said that she didn't want to reveal her powers back at the beginning of the 2nd competition too.
As Drake asked Derel more questions, Ning's mind went somewhere else. He turned to the other group and looked at the three remaining women.
The Elf with the green hair, the blond-haired Bellatrix with the blanket for a hood, and the violet-haired Sephandra with the Spirit little blue.
'Who chose what?' he wondered.
As he thought of that, Genesis moved again as the Green, Blue, and Purple gems in the sky started moving on their own and soon another one fell to his hand.
"Blue, come on up," he said as he showed off the sapphire-like crystal to the group.
"I'm up," Issi said and stood up. His hand fell to his sword and he took a deep breath.
"Good luck," Ning said.
Issi nodded and walked on.
From the other side, the elf stood up and walked away from the group. Both she and Issi arrived at the stage at the same time and stood on either side of the stage.
"Introduce yourselves," Genesis said.
"Issilika," Issi said out loud.
"Luna," the elf said back. She wore a green and silver dress that matched her hair and eyes.
She held a staff next to her, and Issi wondered if it had a sword inside of it.
"I will count to 3 now," Genesis said.
"1…"
Issi and Luna both got ready.
"2…"
Suddenly, energy flowed back into both of them and into the air. Luna could feel mana in the air and inside of her, while Issi could feel the water Essence flow around him.
"3!"
Without wasting a single minute, Issi called the water Essence to himself and made them become a blue, water-like armor around him.
At the same time, he pulled out his sword the blade of which was a tsunami.
Luna poured mana into her staff and it changed. Slowly, it turned into a bow which she held in front of her as a string made up of mana appeared on it.
The string was of solid silver color, which she caught and pulled. As she did, a green arrow formed on the bow, consisting entirely of wind mana.
Issi slashed in front of him, sending out a wave of the tsunami with water filling his view. It wasn't just the water that his attack contained, however. It also contained the Essence of sword and sharpness.
As the wave of the slash appeared next to Luna, her silver eyes never showed any hint of worry. He took a deep breath and let both it and the arrow go.
SHWA!~
The arrow made a whistling sound as it went towards the wave. Even as it did, it spun in a way that it gathered all the wind in the surroundings to power her own attack.
When the slash struck the arrow, they didn't interact like a physical object and explode.
Instead, the arrow drilled into the attack, and the air it pulled along with it stopped the advancement of the water wave.
At the same time, the rotating wind spun and shred away the water slash into a million, normal water drops that fell to the ground like heavy rain.
Neither Issi nor Luna gave any sort of reaction at their exchange. Neither of them had given their all after all.
Issi sent away another slash again which Luna destroyed with her arrow again.
Issi couldn't help but frown. It seemed he would have to up the Essence in each of his attacks. That was unfortunate, as he didn't have a lot of Essences, to begin with.
Since there was no other binder alive in his world, there was no one to bind more Essence into the sword at once and he could only maintain it through absorbing Water Essence himself while keeping it to the side.
That he would have to do a long time if he wanted to bring it back to its peak condition.
He sent out another simple slash as he thought of something.
'If I win, I will be reincarnating to another planet right?' he thought to himself. 'If that is the case, then I will only be keeping this sword for so long. I doubt I will get to take them with me.'
'If that is the case, then I can use it as much as I want without worrying,' he thought. Issi's blue eyes shined with determination.
'Fine!' he thought. 'If this girl wants a fight, then I will give it to her.'
Suddenly, the waves that moved in his sword started getting turbulent and they even got bigger with time.
In a few seconds, it was twice as large and wide as before and the waves looked like they would destroy even rocks if they were put in their way.
Luna's eyes narrowed as she saw that. She realized that Issi was starting to get serious.
'Very well,' she thought. 'I guess I should start getting serious as well.'
