The battlefield had split cleanly.
Aren watched for only a few seconds longer before his instincts told him what his eyes already knew.
The Curse vs Fire fight would end first. And right on queue, they really did.
A surge of dark ether swallowed the last of a Fire's resistance. A pillar of flame sputtered before dying inside a suffocating barrier. One of the Fire representatives collapsed to a knee. The other tried to break through but was immediately sent flying before he dropped his flag.
The Curse Team picked it up, with the scoreboard updating immediately.
Eliminated Department: Fire.
The rankings shifted.
Curse: 7
Ice: 5
Lightning: 3
Wind: 3
Below, the bald Curse user laughed openly, lifting Fire's flag and tucking it neatly away.
"Told you," he called out, breathing hard but grinning wide. "Points are just lining up for us."
Sunglasses adjusted his frames, exhaling slowly as the dark barrier around them dissolved.
"Now we hunt for our rat."
