The Magician of Sound

They both clashed again. 

Kai was the one on the offensive while Sofia took all his attacks head-on. To his surprise, although his strength was superior to Sofia, he couldn't gain any advantage because she had mastered all techniques to push his attack away without restraining her muscles. 

Even so, Kai kept attacking her from left and right, bottom and top, for a few more minutes. There was no magic involved in this exchange because each other wanted to discern the extent of their physical abilities, including Kai's hearing and Sofia's sixth sense. 

Tasha furrowed her eyebrows when watching this before glancing at Michelle and asking. "Do you think he will lose?"

"The probability is low." 

"So, you think he can lose…" Tasha narrowed her eyes.

"I am just saying according to what Kai believes. The question will remain unanswered until one of them falls to the ground." Michelle shrugged. 

"I somehow want to fight her…" Ayaka suddenly came and said while looking at Sofia. It was like her instinct riling up her animal blood. 

"You have no turn though."

"I know."

"Still, what do you think about her as a comrade?" Michelle asked the two.

"From her strength alone, she will be a great addition to our group's overall strength. Albeit, I am still wondering how annoying it is to have her." Tasha sighed, feeling problems would come soon. 

"It will be a lie if I say I am not jealous or anything… Unlike both of you, I have this kind of repulsive feeling about her." Ayaka furrowed her eyebrows.

"I will be supervising her. Just like how I did back then, I would eliminate her if she proved herself as a threat no matter the cost," Michelle said coldly as she glanced at Ayaka.

"Ahaha…" Ayaka scratched her head, knowing that she must be talking about her. "It seems I have escaped death…"

Michelle shrugged and kept watching the battle.

Seeing they had fought for a few minutes without magic, Kai decided to stop his attack and leaped backward. 

"You are good… If you used your Vibration Sword, I would have died many times." Sofia smirked. "You kept attacking my weak points after analyzing my movement. That was insane, especially in close combat. If I didn't have this sixth sense, I wouldn't be able to counter it."

Kai shook his head. "Your basic ability is excellent, not one that I can complain about. Now that I think about it, your Zodiac Blood... Does it come from an Arctic Fox?"

"Yes." Sofia nodded. "Arctic Fox is known as an animal that can change its fur's color according to the season. However, the effect has evolved into a kind of mimicry when turning into a magical beast. At the same time, its Ice Element has some affinities with my Ice Magic."

"I see." Kai closed his eyes and thought for a moment. "That is a good ability. I think this is also the reason why I can spot you despite having used your mimicry skill…"

"I guess. And my strength isn't that strong due to the backlash of the blood." Sofia sighed. "Well, you will know this eventually, so I think about saying it now. Besides, you are going to come to my base later, so it's all good." 

"…" Kai didn't comment on the base matter and simply looked at her Zodiac's ability. "That's good enough for me. The one that is truly useful is your sixth sense."

"Just like your hearing." Sofia shrugged, telling Kai she wasn't the only one.

"Now I have seen your physical abilities, I will move on to the magic aspect." Kai nodded. Even though this was a fight between him and Sofia, this looked more to a test, checking each other's strength. However, this soon changed as Kai finally released his animal instinct. 

Seeing this, Sofia knew that she couldn't have a nice chat again until one of them lost. She took a deep breath and summoned the four magic circles again. 

Kai knew this and leaped toward her, planning to attack her before she could launch her attack. At this time, Sofia smiled because she had successfully baited him. 

A big magic circle appeared beneath her, and ice started spreading on the ground in all directions. 

"!!!" It didn't stop there. Kai saw ice spikes emerging from the ground, trying to cover her and stab him. And with that area of attack, it was not possible for him to go around as it covered her from all directions. In the end, he halted his step for a second.

Sofia then activated her magic circles and summoned four ice spikes with the size of a human arm. The tip of these ices looked very sharp. 

Kai looked at this and realized that he only had two options. 'Charge against these spikes to dodge this or retreat again… But if I retreat, she will make another attack, and it will never end until I exhaust myself. There is only one thing to do then.'

Taking a deep breath and activating his Vibration Sword, Kai slashed the four spikes before leaping toward her. Albeit, his focus suddenly got distracted by these four ice spikes, so he refrained himself from making such a move. 

Instead, Kai stabbed his swords to the ground and grabbed the spikes with both hands while avoiding the other two.

"Although I don't know how strong I am right now, I feel I have surpassed the one thousand mark… So take this." Kai threw the first one.

"!!!" Sofia never expected him to use such an attack. She tried to make a magic shield, albeit it was too late. The spike shattered the unstable magic circle and made its way toward Sofia. 

It was at this time the exoskeleton showed its prowess. Sofia shifted her body, making sure that the ice hit the metal rod instead of her body. This was one of the flaws of the exoskeleton. They had yet to create an exoskeleton that could cover a whole body, so the user was expected to do this if they wanted to block it. Fortunately, the one Sofia used had the most metal rods, so it was the closest to a full-body armor… Even then, Sofia's version only covered thirty percent of her body. 

The moment the ice hit her, the ice couldn't penetrate the metal rod. In fact, the metal rod shattered the ice with its hardness alone. 

Unfortunately, Kai had yet to finish his attack. He threw another one toward her, but this time, he added magic into it.

"Are you kidding me?" Sofia gritted her teeth when a magic circle appeared before Kai released the ice. And as soon as it passed through the magic circle, it sped up and increased its power. "Don't underestimate me!" 

Unlike last time, she had the time to react and punched this ice. Kai just used his Sound Blast to give a boost to the ice's speed and power. This was like what he did in Miami, where he launched several parts of magical beasts but with proper timing and technique. 

That was why when Sofia received it with her fist, she found the full force of a man with a thousand-kilogram strength along with his magic.

As one would expect, the ice still couldn't penetrate the exoskeleton or even bent it, but it didn't mean the ice had no effect on Sofia. The powerful force and momentum pushed her back a few meters before she deflected it in another direction. 

Unfortunately, Kai had yet to stop his continuous attack. Using this opportunity, he jumped forward and swung his sword at her, planning to finish this. 

"Kh!" Sofia never expected she would face this type of situation. Luckily, she managed to react properly this time as she created a blue magic circle in front of her.

At first, Kai thought this must be a magic shield before he felt the temperature drop slightly as a piece of ice appeared out of nowhere. 

"This… No, is she freezing the water particles in the air and spreading it to make a shield?" Kai muttered to himself as he watched how an ice wall appeared out of nowhere. His sword ended up hitting this ice wall instead of her. 

Kai gritted his teeth and completed his swing. The ice started to crack from that extraordinary strength before Kai ultimately broke it into pieces and made his way toward Sofia. 

Sofia smiled as she had bought enough time to prepare her next attack. As soon as he broke through the ice wall, she activated the magic circles above them. Raising her hands, she chanted. "Ice Executor."

An ice cage formed above them, falling down to trap Kai. At the same time, a few ice spikes also appeared, launching themselves toward Kai. This was truly an execution. Not only Kai needed to destroy the solid-looking ice cage, but he also needed to do it under the heavy attacks from these ice spikes.

Kai glanced at the eight spikes that surrounded him as they flew toward him. Knowing that he couldn't dodge this, he summoned his Oscillation Shield to protect his back before shifting his body to the right to dodge the ice spike from the left. 

As for the ones coming from his front and right, Kai simply shattered them with his swords. 

"Now… Let's see whether you can break my ice cage first or my ice hurt you first…" Sofia grinned as she thought she had trapped Kai in her plan. 

"No, you! Goodbye." Albeit, the latter seemed to be unfazed by the whole situation as if he had a perfect counter for this. In fact, Kai smiled gently as he created a magic circle below her. "Sound Blast!"

"!!!" Sofia just realized what he wanted to do. Despite that gentle smile, he was a sadist in doing this. Sofia gritted her teeth as she couldn't escape from this one. The magic circle launched her up to the sky.