Chapter 2066: Final Few

Ning, Naysha, and Liam were among the few who remained.

Ning decided it was about time he did something more than dodge.

A ball rebounded from the wall beside him, and instead of knocking it away, he caught it with his free hand. Then he looked across the chamber toward one of the instructors, a broad-shouldered man who had spent the last several minutes chasing down students along the far wall and was turned slightly away from Ning at that moment.

Ning threw.

The ball crossed the chamber in a straight line and struck the instructor squarely in the back before he had any chance to react.

The cadets on the floor erupted into cheers again, and the instructor looked over his shoulder in surprise as the fields began lowering him toward the floor. He gave Ning a short, rueful nod on his way down.

That left four instructors, Lorna among them, and the remaining ones immediately became more careful.

They also became more focused, and it did not take long for Ning to notice where their attention was turning. Two of them began working together against Naysha, throwing from opposite angles to force her into awkward positions, and for a while, she held them off with her staff, batting away one ball after another.

Then a ball came in faster than the others, and she swung the staff hard to meet it.

She struck the ball cleanly and sent it flying away, but the impact jarred the staff loose from her grip. It spun out of her hands and drifted off across the chamber, turning slowly end over end, well beyond her reach.

Naysha did not waste a moment watching it go.

Another ball was already flying toward her, and she flipped her body backward in the air, folding herself nearly in half and barely dodging the throw as it passed through the space where her chest had been. The movement left her spinning for a second, her body rotating slowly as she fought to steady herself.

The ball that had missed her struck the far wall and rebounded straight back toward her.

Naysha saw it coming, reached out, and caught it in both hands. Then, without pausing, she threw it as hard as she could toward Lorna.

The throw was not really meant to hit. Ning could tell as much from the angle. But the force of it pushed Naysha’s body back in the opposite direction, sending her drifting at a sharp angle toward the nearest wall, which was exactly what she wanted.

Once she reached the wall, she would be able to push off it whenever she needed to, giving her the mobility she had lost along with her staff.

She had no illusions about winning anymore. At this point, her only concern was lasting as long as she possibly could.

Liam’s defensive rhythm lasted longer than Ning had expected, but it could not last forever.

With only a few students left in the air, the instructors had more attention to spare for each of them, and Liam soon found balls coming at him from more directions than he could punch away.

He managed one last moment of satisfaction when he caught a ball squarely with his glove and sent it flying straight into the chest of an instructor who had drifted too close, knocking her out of the game to another loud round of cheers from the floor.

But while he was still savoring that hit, a second ball struck him in the hip from behind.

He looked down at the spot where it had touched him with an expression of pure irritation, and the fields began to release him toward the floor. He descended reluctantly, his gloved fists clenched at his sides, and walked to the edge of the chamber without looking at anyone.

The last of the other students fell shortly afterward, and then there were only two of them left in the air.

Ning and Naysha, against three instructors.

Ning took a moment to look at Naysha’s situation, and he did not like what he saw. She had reached the wall and was using it well, pushing off to dodge and then catching herself again on the padded surface, but without her staff, she had no way to knock incoming balls aside.

Every throw that came at her had to be avoided entirely, and with three instructors left to divide between the two of them, she would be facing far more throws than she could avoid for long.

She would lose soon.

His own position was not much better in the long run. The rope worked well enough for striking balls out of the air, but it was clumsy and slow compared to a staff or a pair of gloves, and every swing left him briefly exposed while he pulled the coil back toward himself.

It was not something he could rely on as a weapon indefinitely, especially once all three instructors decided to focus on him.

He needed something better, and after a moment’s thought, he found it.

A ball drifted past within arm’s reach, and Ning caught it and threw it hard toward the nearest instructor.

The throw missed, as he had half expected it to, but it forced the instructor to twist out of the way, and the force of the throw sent Ning drifting backward across the chamber in exactly the direction he wanted to go.

Toward Naysha.

He reached the wall beside her a few seconds later and caught himself on the padding with one hand. Naysha looked at him with a sharp, questioning expression.

Ning held out one end of the rope.

"Tie this around yourself," he said. "Around your waist, as tight as you can."

Naysha stared at the rope, then at him. "Why?"

"You’re going to be my anchor."

For a moment, she looked as though she wanted to argue, but a ball came flying toward them, and both of them had to push off the wall to dodge it. When they caught themselves again, Naysha took the end of the rope without another word and began knotting it securely around her waist.