The assistants took the newest "victim" of the tournament to the infirmary, this time the referees skipped the selection process, as there was only one match left besides the one for the captain's position.
"Rank number 2, Aisha Licht".
"Rank number 16, Riley Heller".
Aisha smiled at her son and then graciously went up the platform, from Alexander's side, a girl with long auburn hair followed not too long after.
The screens focused on the newcomers, and the students on the stands were marveled by the two beauties that were now on the stage.
Aisha had long silver hair which reached her lower back, her pretty amethyst eyes stood out like always, she was wearing her usual get up which consisted in a skirt and a long-sleeved white blouse with violet borders, on top of that she used a light metal armor which protected her chest, arms and legs leaving enough space for her to maneuver, as for her weapon she used a one-edged sword.
Riley's most notorious trait was her long auburn hair, her eyes had the same color, she was wearing a black top and shorts, for protection she just used leather armor to protect her chest and surprisingly she didn't have any weapon, in fact she wasn't wearing shoes, in other words her attire was quite minimalist.
But out of all the members of Alexander's class, she was the first that made Daimon frown as he injected mana into his infinity eyes.
'A dual affinity mage', he thought.
One must know that the possibility of having more than one affinity is lesser than having a rare affinity, and having affinities which overlapped to get a stronger result are even rarer, a variant so to speak, Aura being a perfect example of that.
The referees gave the greenlight and Riley's mana exploded out of her body, for a couple of seconds a silence fell on the arena.
"I'm sorry I can't allow myself to lose… I will try to push you out of the platform", mumbled Riley as tapped her left foot on the ground.
A heat wave assaulted those near the platform as a wave of bright red magma advanced with Riley as the center.
Alexander laughed as he glared at Daimon.
"What do you say Licht, very appropriate right, a fight between the queens before the kings have their showdown, I was lucky enough to find a "pearl in the sand", I have yet to see anyone at least four or five realms above Riley, who can put up a fight against her".
'And things should be even worse for you, now that she refined some stalactite milk as well as a seed from the Sun Lily, from the Blazing Peacock academy', inwardly added Alexander.
While Daimon normally didn't pay any attention to Alexander's provocations, he found rather amusing that he was already talking as if the win was in the bag, after a few seconds into the match.
"I don't consider myself a king, but I can assure you, that you aren't one, you aren't even the strongest in your class".
"Y-You!", Alexander's cocky smile froze, but he forgot to answer as the hairs on his body stood on their ends, making him look at the stage.
Purple lightning crackled on half of the platform, clashing against the magma, but that wasn't what caught his attention, but the fact that the lightning was… burning the magma.
Aisha stabbed her sword on the platform and used it as a conductor for the lightning that was covering her body, making a beautiful contrast with her eyes, normally the platform wouldn't act as a conductor, but she covered half of it with metal.
Riley's pupils contracted, her magma originally surpassed the heat of the fire used by star ranked mages quite a bit, the normal orange fire reached at most 500° C, but her magma nearly doubled that, with an impressive 960° C at her maximum, but now after refining the treasures handed by Alexander's father, she surpassed that getting about 1300° C.
She even used a wave of magma to force Aisha out of the platform, without having to directly attacking her as she knew her element was incredibly destructive.
Daimon smiled as he saw the layer of metal covering the platform, and the soles of her heels.
Aisha used Nickel and aluminum on the ground and the heels to resist the heat and gold on the sword to use it as a conductor.
At the area where the Half Emperors were sitting, Zein couldn't help but compliment Aisha.
"Normally no one dares to use "hot" lightning, and just focus in their piercing property… did you perhaps took that girl as your disciple, Argent matriarch?".
Everyone gazed at Aura, especially Arthur, how could he not remember after experiencing with his own flesh, the searing pain of being cut with Aura's sword.
Although Aura nodded to keep up the show, that wasn't the case, Aisha looked for a way to replicate one of the better properties of her domain from when she was a peak Archmage, the capacity to strike her enemies with a lightning at a terrifying temperature which could double the heat of the surface of the sun, that is about 10,000° C.
It was that spell which earned her a position in the history books of the vampire race, and made her the strongest in terms of long-range fights in her galaxy, second only to Half Emperors, and also one of the few that has managed to harm a Half Emperor while not being one, a feat which wasn't known by the public as it happened when she was feeling with Daimon, due to Victor's father trying to capture them.
Of course, she was way far from that right now, even if her reserves of mana were huge, a trait shared by all the soulmates, the most she could produce right now was 1400° C, and she had to clad her body with a heat isolating metal, since she hasn't gone under the reinforcement that a mage gets after reaching the Arch rank.
Riley saw Aisha calmly pointing her pretty index finger towards her and her instincts screamed, making her raise a wall of magma, one of the advantages her affinity had above fire, was that since magma has mass, it can be used to defend unlike fire which is incorporeal.
"Thunder Arrow".
This time all the students in the stands covered their ears, some even had to close their eyes as a bright line was shot from Aisha's finger.
"Boooom!", a loud thunder sound reverberated through the whole arena, as the purple line of light advanced at an insane speed, clashing against the magma wall instantly ripping a hole through it.
Riley immediately covered her hand with magma, since she couldn't dodge in time, she had to redirect it, but she soon realized how bad of an idea it was.
The line of purple light pierced right through her hand along with the layer of magma and only stopped after clashing against the barrier created by the referees, even then the impact created a scratch on it, making everyone's jaws to drop in surprise.
Even Daimon didn't know whether he should laugh or cry, Aisha basically used a "laser" and made look easy, of course he knew that wasn't the case, it took her about five years to reach this level and it consumed a ridiculous amount of mana to use.
Still the result was worth it, Riley bit her lips and endured the urge to scream, besides the burned hole in her hand, her ears were also bleeding, thunders are created by the heat of a lightning which passes through the air.
And if hearing one far from you is already hard, imagine a thunder which sounds louder with every second that passes, until it reaches you.
Alexander's face paled, with just one attack his possibilities of getting at least one win before his fight practically disappeared.
Still for some reason, Riley didn't back off and instead let out all the mana she had, the tiles of the platform near her became bright red due to the increase in the temperature, to avoid being directly struck by Aisha's spells, she waves her hand and a five-meter-wide magma wave twirled around her body.
She gathered a large amount of magma using the surface of the platform as the material, making everyone doubt their eyes.
"This… this isn't a fight that star ranked should be able to have", mumbled an Arch ranked of some minor family.
Aisha stood there with a calm expression, lightning flooded her area making her look like a lightning goddess, in contrast the other half of the platform was a disaster as a wave of magma of about six meters of height raised.
Riley literally dived inside that wave moving around just in case Aisha tried to attack while she kept accumulating more magma, but her worries were unfounded as Aisha just changed the position of her hand, from one extended finger, to an open palm.
"I can't control it, so if you can't dodge, please get out of the stage!".
"Molten Disaster", after shouting one last warning, the magma wave exploded upwards, it was as if a volcano was having an eruption, both the sky and ground were covered by magma.
Aisha smiled, finding her enemy worth of using another of her original spells, this time a small sphere of purple light condensed in each one of her fingertips, before they were shot frontwards.
"Thunder Barrage", upon contact with the magma, the small spheres contracted and then exploded, making the air tremble as a deafening thunder sound filled the arena, the shockwave even dispersed the wave of magma making it splash outside of the platform, which forced the referees to block it with their mana.
When everyone finally reacted, they were speechless, for the first time since the beginning of the tournament, a whole part of the platform was completely destroyed, an eighth part of it to be more accurate, it was blown away leaving spherical big holes on the ground.
Although one could say that Riley removed a part of the tiles to use as materials for her magma wave, it was clear that Aisha's spell obliterated a part of the stage which shouldn't be possible for a star ranked mage.
Aisha walked towards the new edge of the platform from where Riley which now had no clothes, but was using magma to cover her privates still did her best to hang from the platform avoiding touching the ground by a few millimeters.
"You weren't like the others… unfortunately I can't lose too".
While Aisha admired Riley's determination, she still pointed her finger at her and purple light gathered on it as she charged her thunder arrow one more time, but instead of using it, she just dispelled it and made some electricity hit Riley's hand making her forcefully loose her grip, which made her body to touch the ground "outside" of the platform, signaling the end of the match.
The referees looked at the disaster zone and they inspected Riley, besides some broken bones, teared eardrums and a contusion, she wasn't in such a terrible state as they expected her to be, in other words her opponent showed her mercy on top of not being allowed to kill.
'What a monster', thought the referees as they declared the winner.
"The winner, Aisha Licht".
