Chapter 108 - Knockout 6.
(AN: Made another mathematical error in the previous chapter. Brian was the last to be eliminated in the 4th round which consisted of 8 students.)
Although he could break out of the illusion, it would be quite troublesome if he was continuously put under an illusion. So he decided to act like he was under the illusion to make Beyoni let his guard down and to make a convincing act he had to be under the illusion.
Seeing Blake grimace in pain made Beyoni smile from ear to ear as he dashed towards 'entranced' Blake.
"You are no different than Damon, you guys might be strong but mentally you are just weaklings," Beyoni said with a sneer as he conjured a water sword to quickly end the battle.
The illusion of a lumomancer didn't last forever. Its duration was dependent on how strong-willed the target was. Knowing this fact, Beyoni knew it was better to be safe than sorry so he decided to end it as quickly as possible.
If it was any other person his plan would have worked, but unfortunately he was facing both Blake and the system.
'If he had decided to walk instead of dashing forward, it would have been a replica of anime scenes where the boss wants to end the mc but he ends up telling him his entire plan then the mc surprises him then stops his evil plan.'
[How you can think of such things in such a situation amazes me.] The system said in disbelief.
'Simple, he isn't a threat…' Before the water sword could stab him, Blake activated lightning reinforcement and dodged to the side, before clenching the utterly shocked Beyoni by his throat before slamming him on the ground causing the webs of cracks to spread out.
'What kind of will does he have?!' Beyoni stared at Blake in disbelief. He couldn't believe that someone was immune to his illusions that he had thought to be unstoppable.
Although he was still in shock, he managed to muffle out a word. "How?"
"Figure it out yourself." Having no plans of wasting much time, Blake unleashed a barrage of flame punches on Beyoni.
'What the fuck?! Why did he become a beast all of a sudden?' The brain was stunned by Blake's sudden outburst.
"Winner, Blake." The referee quickly announced when the golden barrier from the badge protected Beyoni.
[Is it now you realize what he said.] The system chuckled.
'But how could Damon lose to him?' Blake asked in disbelief.
He had been so engrossed in making countermeasures for his fight against Luciano that he wasn't aware of those that had been eliminated.
[It is obvious, his will power was weak.]
'For someone who had an outstanding performance when casting will intensive spells, it is very unlikely he couldn't break out of the illusions.
So that brings us to the most important question. "What happened to Damon?" Blake pondered.
[Well you are in the right direction.
The lumomancer kid can't beat him in combat, which means his illusions were the only possible line of action. That implies that the dark kid is surely suffering from a huge psychological problem.] The system too was trying to figure out what could have affected his psyche so much.
"How did you counter the illusions so easily? I have seen Beyoni use it on others and immediately they get captured in the illusion the match is as good as over." Brian asked.
"It's easy, the illusions are light-based and trick the eyes which transmit it to your brain which sends the false signals to the rest of your body. That means if you have enough willpower to realize that you are in an illusion, your other sensory organs would be free from the illusion, and with a little more push you will regain your sight." Blake didn't have the energy for the full explanation so he told Brian the simplified version.
A lumomancer's illusion was more deadly than Blake made it sound. When he was under the illusion, he found out that it was quite troublesome to break out of it in a short time and since Beyoni was already dashing towards him he went for plan B.
His plan B involved using the system's sensory skills instead of his. The system was immune to a measly illusion like that of Beyoni's l, so Blake had the system guide him with a holographic representation of everything within 100 meters just like a VR game.
"How did things get out of hand? The most promising students were eliminated while the average students took the spotlight.
No offense." Blake said to Brian who could only chuckle.
"None taken… I must confess the tournament is quite chaotic, it isn't what most people had expected.
Haldor was eliminated in the first round by Beyoni, Camilla in the 3rd round by Damon who was defeated in the 4th round by Beyoni." Brian's words show Blake how chaotic the knockout exam was.
"The number 4 had been defeated in the 1st round! How the f*ck did I miss that?" Blake was shocked by the price of news.
One's position in the knockout exams was not based on strength, luck was also needed. Just like Esmeralda whose luck wasn't that nice to have been paired against Blake in the second round, anyone could be paired against someone who was stronger or naturally countered their elements.
"How are they doing?" Blake asked as he watched the fight between Luciano and Castiel.
"Although Castiel had come so far with the help of the darkness element, Luciano came prepared for this. From the way, he is countering Castiel's fire and darkness spells I am pretty sure he had used Damon as a reference, but he was given a lesser version of Damon." Brian replied.
Although Brian calling Castiel a lesser version of Damon was quite offensive, it was the bitter truth. Damon's main element was the darkness element while Castiel had awakened it second, also Damon had received lessons from both his father who was a powerful darkness cultivator, and professor Vadik the darkness mastery teacher, but Castiel was still self-taught.
Whenever Castiel used the darkbringer's stealth skill, Luciano used area of effect skills to prevent him from executing any surprise attacks.
Apart from his area of effective tactics, Luciano had come prepared for darkness type spells. Luciano's sensory abilities were second to that of Blake, making him able to notice abrupt movements made by Castiel, but his main plan to counter Castiel was to use the wind element.
The champion realm of the wind element was wind whisperer and they could make a wind domain. In the wind domain, the user would gain better control over the wind and the power of his or her spells would significantly increase.
The first time Castiel had gone into stealth mode, Luciano had activated the wind domain and was using it to keep his distance by checking if the wind flow in the area had been disturbed.
As for Castiel, he wasn't faring well. His fire element was useless in the battle because Luciano had more control over the golden flames and they were more powerful leaving him with the darkness element as his last option, but it still wasn't much of an option.
Luciano was countering all of his moves. With the wind domain on, he couldn't make any abrupt moves and if he decided to leave the range of the domain that spanned over 20 meters his dark siphon spell was way out of range and since Luciano's flames were superior he would be suppressed in a long-range battle.
To cast and maintain his stealth state cost a lot of Mana. He had little time left before he would run out of Mana so he decided to put his all in this final attack.
"Thought you were planning to hide forever." Luciano chuckled as Castiel came out of his stealth state.
"Why don't we put an end to this?" Luciano said.
"One more go I guess..." Castiel said as he dashed forward and shot a flame burst that got countered by a similar golden flame burst shot by Luciano, but this was part of his plan.
Using the smoke as cover, Castiel enters the stealth state and used his increased speed to reduce the distance between them, but before he could get to Luciano a wall of golden flames blocked him.