"So, let's finish this," Aurora said with casual finality.
She lazily drew a line in the air with one finger. The gesture looked almost dismissive—until the compressed fire blast erupted from that invisible trail, roaring toward her opponents with the heat of a miniature sun.
Lyralei blinked once—then her face went completely still, all emotion draining away as pure combat instinct took over. She pounced toward Aurora, her left hand crackling with thick, condensed black lightning that looked almost solid. Aurora dodged with minimal movement, her body shifting just enough—
Then a massive BANG as Lyralei's lightning struck the ground where Aurora had been standing, cratering the earth and sending up a shower of dirt and grass.
Lyralei tried to follow up, her fists moving in rapid succession—Fifth Form: Phantom Edge Dance—but Aurora dodged every single strike without seeming to move at all. Her body remained almost stationary while compressed air slashes formed around her defensively, forcing Lyralei back.
Between them, Draekon suddenly appeared, his transformed shield absorbing the air slashes. Using his broad back as a platform, Lyralei stepped up and launched herself into a flying drop-kick aimed directly at Aurora's masked face—
Missing by inches as Aurora tilted her head.
Then, in a single heartbeat, the temperature plummeted drastically.
Frost spread across the grass in crystalline patterns. Everyone's breath became visible clouds. The very air seemed to solidify.
Aurora's back rippled and burst—massive black dragon wings unfurling from her shoulder blades, easily twenty feet across, the membranes gleaming like obsidian glass. She rose into the air with a single powerful flap, her white dress billowing dramatically.
She let out a cold sigh that became visible as shimmering ice crystals.
From her mouth came a torrent of Glacial Breath—dragon's breath inverted into pure concentrated cold that froze everything it touched. "The ground crystallized instantly", ice spreading in all directions.
Draekon countered with his own Stormflame Breath, the two dragon techniques colliding mid-air—
His fire froze solid, the flames literally turning to ice sculptures before shattering.
"Haha! She's like the Himalayas given life and wings!" Draekon chuckled despite the dire situation, his breath coming out in frozen clouds.
Massive ice rain began pouring down on him—not water that would freeze, but actual solid ice chunks forming in the air and falling like deadly hail.
Aurora looked left suddenly—
A concentrated black lightning spell struck her face with tremendous force, the electricity crackling and branching. But her left wing swept up defensively, the compressed scales absorbing the impact.
In the air above her, Lyralei appeared with both hands clasped together overhead. She brought them down in a devastating hammer-blow aimed at Aurora's head.
Aurora blocked with both hands raised, catching Lyralei's strike—and both combatants crashed into the ground from the combined force and momentum, creating a crater.
Then in an instant, a compressed air lance materialized and pierced clean through Lyralei's belly, punching through flesh and emerging from her back in a spray of blood.
Draekon came from behind Aurora, his blade slashing—she dodged but not quite fast enough. Several strands of her lush white hair were severed, drifting down like snow.
Aurora's entire body went rigid. She touched her shortened hair with one trembling hand, her aura suddenly becoming oppressive.
"You... cut my hair?" Her voice dropped to a whisper. "Do you know how long dragon hair takes to regrow? Decades. DECADES."
Draekon laughed nervously. "Sorry?"
Aurora's fury manifested as multiple air lances that shot toward him from all angles—he blocked desperately with his shield—
Then she executed dual-casting, using her final two named spells simultaneously.
"Compression Nexus: Eternal Burial!"
The ground beneath Draekon became liquid for an instant, then resolidified around him, trapping him completely. At the same moment, compressed fire ignited from within the earth itself, burning him while buried alive. The combination of earth and flame worked in perfect synchronization to entomb and incinerate.
Lyralei, recovering from her belly wound that was slowly healing, panted hard as she watched Draekon getting buried alive. Her vision swam from blood loss.
Aurora hummed thoughtfully, touching down on the ground and folding her wings. "You know, you're more genuinely dangerous than that perverted hero ever was. Your potential is frightening."
Then in an instant, before Lyralei could react, Aurora executed a perfect drop-kick directly to Lyralei's face, driving her head into the ground with brutal force—
But the sensation that hit Aurora was completely unexpected.
It doubled back through her body like an electrical current—not painful, but intensely pleasurable. Aurora's eyes went wide behind her mask as the sensation became overwhelmingly familiar.
The sound of rattling chains—like perfect music—rang clearly in her ears. Heat erupted from her spine, traveling to her chest, spreading through all her mana cores. It felt like her mind was being washed clean, refreshed, awakened. Every nerve ending sang.
Chain Strike!
The multiplicative effect kicked back through her leg, up her spine, and Aurora let out a soft moan—completely inaudible to anyone except Lyralei, whose ear was pressed against Aurora's leg.
Aurora blushed furiously behind her mask, her entire body going hot. Not now, not in combat, why does this feel so—
Lyralei's hand suddenly clamped down on Aurora's leg with iron grip, her hand muscles bulging as she tried to literally tear the limb off at the knee joint. Aurora hissed in genuine pain—
Lyralei shocked her with concentrated black lightning, the electricity coursing through Aurora's leg and up into her body, making her muscles spasm.
Aurora started rapidly kicking Lyralei's face into the ground in retaliation—one, two, three brutal strikes—until finally Lyralei's grip went completely limp, her body going slack.
Aurora pulled her leg free and wiped sweat from her face with the back of her hand, breathing harder than she'd like to admit.
"Honestly, are you two made for each other or something? This is ridiculous," she muttered.
She stepped off Lyralei's unconscious form and turned to look at Draekon, who was on one knee, his left shoulder pierced clean through by a compressed air lance that was still embedded in the wound. Blood dripped steadily.
"What happened to defending your lady?" Aurora asked with genuine curiosity.
Draekon groaned, clutching his shoulder. "Aren't you fighting way too hard for an examination?"
Aurora shrugged elegantly. "Aren't you supposed to be a hero? I'm just putting your strength to a proper test. Besides—"
"I think you're both way too full of yourselves," Aurora continued, her voice becoming colder. "I'm ending this. She's done for anyway. You're next."
Behind her, Lyralei stood.
Her eyes were completely rolled back, showing only whites. Her body moved on pure instinct and residual muscle memory, consciousness completely gone. With all her remaining strength, she pushed forward—for a single critical second, she was faster than Aurora had anticipated.
"The Valen Lightning Style—Eighth Form: Void Edge Puncture!"
Her entire body accelerated to maximum speed through pure lightning enhancement. Her hand thrust forward, creating a cone of compressed black lightning that punched through space itself—
Piercing Aurora's belly clean through, the lightning-wreathed hand emerging from her back.
Lyralei collapsed completely, her last reserves spent.
Aurora stood frozen, looking down at the gaping hole in her abdomen. "Wait... what?"
She tried to move—and found herself suddenly bound by chains made of pure crystallized mana. The Dragon's Bracelet had transformed into binding ropes that wrapped around her entire body, restricting her wings and limbs.
Draekon chuckled weakly from where he knelt, one hand extended toward her. "For me, winning isn't about defeating you completely. It's about getting what I want—and what I wanted was to stop you from eliminating us."
With his remaining strength, he hurled Aurora as far as he physically could, using enhancement magic to amplify the throw.
Aurora flew through the air, breaking free from the bindings mid-flight—but by the time she landed among a group of startled students, Draekon and Lyralei were well beyond her 100-meter restriction radius.
She groaned, touching the hole in her stomach that wasn't regenerating. "Abusing my family's sacred relic... now I can't chase them without violating the rules."
She turned to look at the cowering students around her, then shook her head. "Nah, those two are completely spent anyway. They won't be competing further today."
Zone 1: The Verdant Meadows - Final Moments
We see Draekon chuckling weakly as he touched his Dragon's Bracelet, which gleamed in response. "But we were one step short of actually winning, weren't we?"
His vision went dark, and he fainted. The emergency teleportation activated immediately, golden light consuming his broken body and transporting him and Lyralei to the medical ward.