The World of Emns 2: Arena

Chapter 14: Raw talent vs discipline

By the time the talk with the tieflings had finished, Ruhnim and Ariana had already made it down to the arena. They both looked quite confident with big smiles on their faces.

"Who do you think will win," Olivia asked, having no idea herself.

Steven rubbed his chin. "It's hard to say. One of them has so many unique abilities that she's highly unpredictable, but it's also true that it'd be really hard to get the most potential out of any of them, considering how much training that would take. Ruhnim doesn't have Ariana's variety, but he does have something very few others will ever gain. Perfect control."

Olivia raised an eyebrow in the hopes Steven would give her an actual answer, but he shook his head.

"Regardless, whichever one of them wins, I will have a hard time against them in the next round."

"Ready, set... go!"

Ariana launched forward, lightning wrapped around her body. As her hand was close to Ruhnim's face, the beginnings of a flash started to form in her hand, much like the one she used on Hugo. At that moment, the ground jolted up, wrapped around Ariana's wrist, and pulled her down onto the ground.

Ariana snapped her fingers, and she and Ruhnim switched places. With this, she believed she had the upper hand and took her time to turn and charge a lightning attack. However, by that time Ruhnim had already gotten up from the floor and pushed her away with a dirt wall. Ruhnim had used the ground that was now wrapped around his wrist to push himself up again, and even used subtle movements in the ground to keep his feet stable as he went up. Every time Olivia saw him do something, she was once again impressed with what perfect control really meant.

The copy mage landed on her feet and shot a beam of lightning towards her opponent. Ruhnim wrapped his hand in soil and simply caught the bolt with his hand. It left a small burn mark, but as he shook the dirt away from his hand, he was completely unharmed himself.

Ariana slammed her foot down, and covered the entire arena in a thin layer of ice. The earth mage was left completely unbothered by this. The first two steps he took were heavy and careful. Ground shot through the ice to create footholds for him mere moments before his feet would reach the ice. He then laughed and ran forward towards the girl.

Ariana's eyes darted around, then she started flicking her hands left and right. From many points of the small ice layer, icicles started to shoot up towards Ruhnim.

"My powers can do that," Olivia yelled. It was unheard of. It was one thing now that she could refreeze the water her ice turned into, but could she manipulate the shape and velocity of her ice after it came to a standstill?! Shooting the icicles seemed to take huge parts of ice from the floor, but still, that was hardly a downside.

Yet it didn't matter to Ruhnim, who was still ever so pushing forward with a whimsical feeling to his pace. He spun his staff around his body and smacked away every icicle that was in threat of hitting him. It was almost like he was attempting some kind of majestic dance.

Ariana held her hands high and released a giant flash that covered the entire battlefield. Olivia had to look away to not hurt her eyes too badly. Gasps and yelps came from the spectator stands as they had to turn away too.

As soon as the light vanished Oliva could see all the ice had gone from the arena. Ariana had sprinted forward and touched Ruhnim on the chest. The earth mage was looking down at her hand on him, and seemed weirdly alright with it. Ariana jumped away, but Ruhnim simply stood still and stayed calm.

"You were after my powers," he asked calmly.

"They're so strong," Ariana grinned, "that I just have to use them to beat you."