Death, Devotion, Dissonance

<Since he\'s trying to flush us out, I\'ll create floating platforms of air that you can use to reach a higher area. Make sure you\'re not seen. I\'ll harass him while you do that,> the Voice ordered and Evin heard its tone of voice shifting radically for its Demanding Chant. <Particles of Air! Harden yourselves!>

Evin felt \'himself\' creating a few steps of hardened air invisible to everyone else, which reached towards the under of a platform beside the ceiling. The only way Evin could feel their locations because his mana-core made them. Then, another thick slab materialized on his side and flew towards Decatur\'s arm, avoiding the whirlpool of water that was forming around him. But instead of the particular sound of meat being hit, a thunking sound came from the impact, suggesting that Decatur had hardened his skin with the energy of Apdenul.

"What the he-" Decatur wasn\'t even finished cursing when another slab of Hard Air hit him from his sides, forcing him to focus on defense properly.

"Hard Air!" one of the spectators exclaimed.

Evin smiled from atop the platform of Hard Air that the voice had created, feeling proud of his achievement. The Voice always wanted to create Hard Air, but simply wasn\'t able to. He always complained that it was too unscientific for particles of air to solidify without it being extremely cold. Saying things like, \'But if the air was that cold, then everyone should be fucking dead!\'

One day, Evin offered the Voice to try Chants to create Hard Air. After all, they both knew that it was possible to achieve magic without being knowledgeable in science. With no other choice, the Voice began to relentlessly practice its chants, before eventually, it managed to create what it wanted.

<Particles of Air! Harden yourselves!> the Voice echoed in Evin\'s mind and again, Decatur was hit by a barrage of invisible slabs. But the noble wasn\'t as helpless as he looked.

"Rraargh!" Decatur roared and let his spell loose.

The mass of water fell to the ground and rapidly expanded in all directions. In only five seconds it hungrily covered the entire Arena\'s flooring, but it wasn\'t able to find its prey. Decatur looked confused, and let the mass of water swirl around the ground again, looking even more focused than before. But he wasn\'t allowed to do so leisurely, as the Voice created an invisible sword out of Hard Air and started battering his arms and legs. The sword was blunt, so it didn\'t count as trying to dismember the enemy.

The Voice sounded satisfied as he instructed Evin, <Follow the platform and stand directly above him. A minute has passed already and I\'m thinking we can just survive this duel without him ever finding where we are.>

Evin smiled and soon found himself above Decatur\'s head and right under the dark spot of the ceiling, looking at his enemy struggle against the Voice\'s attacks. Another sword joined the fray and both of them were diligently harassing Decatur. The two invisible weapons would sometimes take on color, just to mess with the noble more. It was obvious that the Voice was toying with its enemy. They weren\'t doing much damage, as it became obvious that the noble\'s body was filled to the brim with the energy of Apdenul, but it was obvious that the blows hurt.

\'To think that only two weeks ago, I was struggling under his hailstorm…\' Evin thought with satisfaction.

Now, he was sitting atop a platform of air that the Voice had created and was casually observing the almost one-sided match. He even wondered if the five-minute thing was necessary at all. And to top it all off, Evin only used the energy of one lodestone so far. But of course, Decatur wasn\'t someone who was going to take such a beating passively.

A layer of water appeared atop Decatur\'s skin and then hardened into an armor of ice. Abnormally quickly, the water levels in the arena started rising and swirling about, and Evin could see it turning harder and sharper at an alarming pace. The two invisible swords were ground down under the small, yet persistent barrage of ice shards. Evin\'s face lost all composure and casualness as he witnessed the birth of a whirling hailstorm, which engulfed the arena grounds in mere seconds.

Evin looked at the Chairman and the others, wondering if Decatur had used a Talisman at some point, but nothing in their expressions suggested that.

The hailstorm was still low enough to not affect Evin\'s position, but Evin was sure that Decatur would realize what was happening soon enough.

"You thought I wouldn\'t be able to cast powerful abilities without my Talismans, didn\'t you?" Decatur declared with a triumphant laugh. "Sure it takes some time, but I never use a Talisman I can\'t recreate myself!"

Evin wanted to curse at himself for being so careless. Even if Decatur acted like a spoiled rich hoodlum most of the time, he was still the second strongest student in the class. Evin was sure that his enemy was slowly, but diligently working on the hailstorm, but was just waiting for everything to be ready to unleash it. After all, Evin casted magic in a similar way all the time.

Evin also should\'ve guessed it from the amount of mana Decatur absorbed and the spells he created with it. Sure, him strengthening himself with Apdenul and covering the arena floor with water would require a large amount, but it wasn\'t enough to burn through five lodestones\' worth of mana. Evin guessed that the previous two efforts cost two and the hailstorm cost three. After all, the one that Decatur made with a Talisman two weeks ago cost five.

Seeing the blunt, yet painful shards of ice slowly rising towards his location, Evin couldn\'t help but shudder slightly, <What do we do now?>

<Heh, why are you so scared?> the Voice said suddenly, its calmness reinforcing Evin\'s mind. <It\'s just a hailstorm and it\'s even slower than last time.>

<It\'s still going to hurt like hell, isn\'t it?>

<Why would it hurt you, if it\'s not going to hit you? Anyway, take out another lodestone and turn it all into the Air energy,> the Voice said with unusual calmness as the hailstorm started to brush against the platform on which Evin was standing on. <Now, stand up and don\'t get startled. I\'ll make the platform as thin as possible, so don\'t move and make sure Decatur doesn\'t see you,> the Voice warned.

Evin felt the platform under him getting smaller and smaller until they divided into two and became only two blocks of Hard Air, only slightly bigger than his soles. Evin didn\'t wish to look down, but he had to, to focus on keeping himself invisible to Decatur\'s eyes. Since the noble was standing on the center of the arena, he guessed that every spectator could see bits and pieces of him standing above the boy. He was thankful that no one snitched out his locations to help out Decatur.

"You\'re up in the air, aren\'t you?" Decatur suddenly said and looked towards the ceiling.

The noble eyed the area with diligence and vehemence, but even when his eyes looked towards Evin\'s location, they didn\'t find anything.

"Even in the sky, you hide in your shadows." Decatur spat out and brought out five other lodestones from his pouch and absorbed all of them. "No matter. You can hide all you want from me, but I\'m not so sure that tactic would work against a hailstorm."

With the added energy, the hailstorm spun faster and more intimidating, slowly rising towards the ceilings where Evin was hiding. Swallowing silently, Evin reached for a lodestone in his pouch, turned it all into Air energy and ceded control to the Voice.

<Particles of air, harden yourselves,> the Voice chanted in an unusually somber way, and Evin felt the Air energies forming a long, lance-like structure of Hard Air between Evin and where the hailstorm was blowing from. On Evin\'s other side, another long, but tube-like structure of Hard Air appeared.

<Remember… don\'t move,> the Voice reminded as the shards of ice began to reach Evin\'s feet. But although it looked like some of them would hit him, their paths were subtly changed by the lance in front of Evin. And after that, the ice shard would be caught by the tube and would follow their original path like nothing ever happened.

It was truly magical, as when the ice shards made contact with the Hard Air, it didn\'t clang or make any noise like Evin expected them to. Instead, the shards would stick onto the Hard Air and then follow its surface, as if it was a leaf falling into a river current and following it without making any splash or noise. Because of this aspect, Decatur never seemed to notice what exactly was happening right above him. This was definitely not the same type of Hard Air that the Voice was using to batter Decatur with.

Overcome by curiously, Evin looked towards the spectators. Most of them looked amazed, trying hard to not stare at Evin so they wouldn\'t give away his location. The students, the Cosmics and a few other people who Evin guessed were mages looked outright confused, but the most notable of all was the Chairman. The man was looking towards him with disbelieving expression which was quickly replaced by a grin. Evin didn\'t like what he saw at all, but he decided not to worry about it for now and decisively focused his attention on the fight.

In a few dozen seconds, the hailstorm reached Evin\'s head. Countless shards of ice flew past his body, but none of them managed to hit it. After Evin got over the first few moments of doubt and fear, he started to enjoy the scene more. It was hard not to feel exhilarated when he was standing inside a hailstorm, yet not feeling anything of it on his body. Not even the cold wind of the previous hailstorm could be felt to him.

In another dozen seconds, the hailstorm engulfed the entirety of the Arena, and Decatur\'s sadistic smile turned into a frown. The noble was deliberately making the hailstorm move slowly, so he could relish the idea of Evin struggling in fear, but now he was plain confused.

"He\'s not inside the arena, is he?" he finally shouted. "He\'s breaking the rules of the fight!"

It was hard to hear him, because of the hailstorm, but everyone around understood what he said.

"Not at all, master Decatur," the Chairman said cheerfully, the previous disbelief in his face gone, "In fact, I can see him inside the arena, this very moment. He-he, but I do suggest you hurry. You have only two minutes until the fight is over."

Decatur looked unconvinced and looked towards his mother, but the latter only offered him a polite shake of the head. For the next minute, Decatur halfheartedly tried a few different directions with the hailstorm, but since he was completely in the dark on what Evin was doing, he wasn\'t able to see past the Voice\'s two constructs.

At that moment, Evin only focused on keeping himself invisible to Decatur and the Voice focused on keeping the ice off him.

Decatur cursed and the hailstorm died out abruptly. Evin looked towards the boy, wondering if the latter had finally given up. But that didn\'t seem to be the case, as Decatur pulled the glass container from his waist and forcefully threw it to the center of the ceiling.

Evin barely managed to dodge the sudden projectile, wondering if the noble had found out about his location through some unknown method. But that didn\'t seem to be the aim of Decatur\'s action as the glass shattered and a dark-grey, almost metallic fog appeared from inside it. Evin thought it was poison of some kind and put his sleeves over his mouth, but the next moment, he felt the Hard Air under him disappearing without warning.

<It\'s eating away at mana and World energies!> the Voice gasped.

Without any time to prepare, Evin fell from the height of three stories and landed heavily on his side. But his misfortunes weren\'t over yet, as he felt something hit hard against his guts and his body being flung across the arena.

When he heard footsteps approaching from behind him, he cried through the pain, "I concede!"

The footsteps began running, giving Evin an irrational sense of fear, but thankfully, the Chairman intervened on his behalf, "Evin concedes the fight. The winner is Decatur din Carew." Evin didn\'t hear any of the usual casualness in the man\'s words.

He knew that there were only about 30 seconds left for the fight and if he toughed through that, the battle would end in a tie… but Evin knew that it was enough time for Decatur to kill him three times over. He felt he\'d demonstrated enough skills to sate the curiosity of the Cosmic Felines and the Chairman.