Everyone talked with each other while waiting for the next duel to begin.
They had all come here to see the warrior get stomped out like a bug, but instead, the Mage had been stomped out.
However, the people also knew that quite a bit of luck was involved in the battle. If Erel had taken the situation more seriously, he would have most likely won.
But that was the crucial word of the sentence.
Likely.
The public sentiment had shifted from certain victory to likely victory.
Sure, there had been a lot of luck, but the warrior had still moved at incredible speeds, and he even managed to destroy a Mana Shield with a single attack.
These feats were very impressive, with or without luck.
Very few of the present people were conceited people that couldn't accept that they had been wrong after having been given proof.
However, Shang's power made the following duel even more interesting to them.
They wanted to see what would happen.
"Ten minutes are up," Lucin said. "Cloud Cindy, please enter the arena."
Cindy narrowed her eyes and floated into the arena.
Her mind was stalwart and focused.
She would treat this like a genuine life-and-death battle.
Cindy summoned her Focus, which was just as impressive as Erel's Focus.
Shang still carried his Addum and Subsis.
Lucin looked at the two combatants and saw that they were ready.
"Three…"
Cindy's Focus began to catch fire.
"Two…"
Cindy's body began to be covered in frost, and white mist came out of her.
"One…"
The white mist coming off Cindy's body floated down, curved to the side, and floated up towards her Focus.
At the same time, the flames coming from her Focus rose higher, curved to the side, and touched Cindy's hair.
"Go!"
WHOOOOOM!
Wind.
Impossibly powerful wind!
The entire arena fell into a chaotic storm as the extremely cold and extremely hot air interacted with each other.
All the Ice and Fire Mana coming from Cindy transformed into pure Wind Mana, and even more, the amount of Wind Mana was several times higher than what Cindy had used.
Cindy had created something that transformed all the Mana in her surroundings into Wind Mana, including her own Mana.
In a way, this could be considered as pseudo-Void Casting. She was making use of all the Mana in her surroundings, but instead of absorbing it and using it for a Spell, she was using a Spell to manipulate the Mana in the surroundings.
Just this ability alone was already more than impressive.
Cindy had created a way to use Void Casting without needing to comprehend Void Casting.
Only a true genius could come up with something like that.
When Shang realized that Cindy had transformed her fire and Ice Mana into Wind Mana, he realized that the fight wouldn't be as easy.
Shang could destroy the will of a Spell with his Subsis, but Shang could only truly make use of Mana that was either Neutral, Fire, Ice, Light, or Darkness.
Wind was not part of Shang's Affinities, which meant that absorbing Wind Mana would barely do anything. The effect would be so weak that it would barely matter.
Of course, that was only true for now. Shang estimated that he would be able to absorb all kinds of Mana as soon as he truly comprehended his own form of Void Casting.
But he didn't have that yet, which made things troublesome.
An impossibly powerful wall of wind hit Shang.
BOOOM!
Shang solidified his surroundings and used Comet, but the sheer power of the wind slowed him by over 90%!
90%!
Shang was still moving as fast as a Peak Archbeast, but compared to his usual speed, this was nothing.
A black streak appeared in front of Shang, and an instant later, he teleported forward with Ghost Step.
The wind couldn't stop Shang's Ghost Step.
Then, Shang used a second Ghost Step to arrive directly in front of Cindy.
SHING!
But Cindy used Mana Step and arrived on the other side of the arena.
In an instant, Shang turned around and used the direction of the wind to shoot toward Cindy.
This time, he was far faster than usual since the wind was also pushing him forward.
However, a genius like Cindy wouldn't overlook such an obvious thing.
She had already prepared her next Spells.
WHOOOOM!
An orange wall appeared in front of her.
If a normal person looked at this wall, they would think that this was a space filled with peaceful and warm air.
However, that wasn't the case.
This orange wall actually didn't exist.
It was just an image one would perceive since they wouldn't be perceptive enough to see the wall's true appearance.
Actually, there was not one wall, but hundreds of them stacked side by side.
Extreme heat, extreme cold, extreme heat, extreme cold, extreme heat…
The amount of Mana inside these walls wasn't very high, but due to how they were placed, the destructive effect was actually brutally strong.
Shang could control the temperature of his body with incredible accuracy and speed, but even he wouldn't be able to adapt his temperature this quickly.
If this wall hit Shang, he would turn to dust.
And then, the wall shot towards Shang like the wind didn't exist.
The wall was so wide that Shang couldn't even attempt to side-step it in a normal way.
SHING!
Shang was forced to use Ghost Step to evade to the side.
An instant later, Cindy's Focus began to burn brightly, but all the fire seemed to be swept away by the wind.
At that moment, Shang felt an incredibly powerful feeling of danger.
Shang could feel how beautiful little stars appeared around him.
They had appeared without him noticing, which should have been impossible.
After all, they were made of very dense Fire Mana, and Shang could feel Fire Mana very well.
What Shang didn't know was that Cindy had used a Spell that transformed the Fire Mana into Wind Mana, merged it with the storm around her, and transformed it back into destructive Fire Mana when it arrived at her target.
As soon as the tiny stars appeared, it was already nearly too late for Shang to react.
He couldn't evade.
He had to take it!
BOOOOOOOOOOM!
