As Endra appeared inside the arena, he heard some boos from the crowd above. He supposed it was natural, considering he was the away team. The thought put a smile on his face for whatever reason and he looked at his opponent. 

It was a boy with a large body, though he wasn’t as tall as Arza. A smirk stood unwavering on his lips, as he eyed Endra from top to bottom, his neck tilted back slightly.

He had runes tattooed on his muscular body, hints of mana oozing from his pores. Endra recognized the runes as mostly Apdenul ones, with bits of Ivelisi added in. And from what Endra could tell, they were already activated. 

‘He’s a melee type, so I’ll keep my distance from Tattoos,’ Endra decided, walking towards a shade.

“Sorry for the beating in advance, midget,” Tattoos said.

Endra guessed he was being taunted, so of course, he shot back.

“I was hoping to see the Leland in action… Too bad I’m stuck with a nobody like you.”

The boy’s smirk faltered for a second, but he regained his calm soon enough. “It would be a same to bother the Young Lady for filth like you.”

‘He’s respectful to her, and it’s sincere,’ Endra noted, as he created a pair of guns. He debated on using metal bullets, but settled for stone for now.

He nodded to the referee floating above. Tattoos also nodded. 

“The match starts now,” the referee declared.

Tattoos immediately dashed forward. Endra shot back, aiming at Tattoos’ legs. But when the bullets hit, they bounced off Tattoos, a ripple pulsing around his body. It stopped him. But Tattoos looked more curious about what just hit him, instead of the impact itself. 

Endra realized there was a membrane around his body made of Hard Water. It was basically Bella’s mud armor, but stronger and more flexible.

His thoughts were interrupted by Tattoos’ massive body approaching him once again. The shade below Endra turned pitch black, before extending to his right and covering most of the arena’s walls and grounds behind Endra. He himself sunk into the shadows, and switched his stone bullets for the metal ones. He also decided to upgrade his guns, elongating the barrels and also adding more air for the explosion.

Even from above, the crowd’s brains would struggle to comprehend the sudden blotch that appeared on the arena, devoid of light and shapes. So for Tattoos who was looking at it from so close, it would be extra difficult to wrap his head around the sudden phenomena. 

Or so it should’ve been, but Tattoos immediately reacted by casting a Lumiaris spell and a blinding light started blinking in the air. Seeing Endra, he immediately dashed, winding up for a wide punch. 

Endra quickly realized he couldn’t stop the attack, so he made himself weightless, switched his own gravity sideways, and created a powerful jet of air to push him away from the incoming enemy.

Tattoos’ hand just missed Endra and landed on the wall behind him. Upon impact, part of Tattoos’ membranous shield struck with extra force into the wall a second time, destroying it thoroughly. 

Endra was just feeling glad he decided to dodge, when he noticed a body of Hard Water rushing towards him. He didn’t have enough time to fully create his flying spell setup, so he could only propel himself in various directions to dodge the water and hopefully escape Tattoos’ range. 

But of course, Tattoos followed behind him doggedly, not intending to let him breathe. 

Endra cursed again, and hurriedly prepared two explosions. For one, he simply made it as large as possible and set it off right before Tattoos, who was quickly closing the distance between them. For the other, he mixed a ton of stray World energies and directed it towards the blinding light and the chasing Hard Water.

Two booms echoed through the arena, throwing a ton of dust in the air. The light stopped flickering and a cracking sound resounded soon after. 

Endra rolled on the ground falling sideways for a while before finding his balance. Without the flashing lights revealing him, he could hide himself in the safety of his darkness. He then pulled his spear out and searched for Tattoos using his Soul Sense. 

He found him lying about twenty meters from where he was when the explosion occurred. He wasn’t so hurt so he immediately got up and recast the defensive spell on his body. Tattoos looked around with worry, perhaps expecting a follow-up attack.

Endra considered shooting at him, but decided that was going to give away his abilities too much. He was also curious about what his opponent would do next, but he didn’t want to give him too much leeway. He extended the shadow to cover half the arena.

‘If he tries the flashing light again, I’ll just swat it down immediately…’ he thought with a sigh, as the dust settled. 

Tattoos looked at the darkness covering half the arena, and frowned with vehemence. He recast the flashing light, but Endra immediately swatted it with a World energy tentacle. He hit it with much more power than he usually did, expecting the same resilience as Wen, but the spell was destroyed easily. 

Tattoos cursed and started working on another spell. Endra felt he was being ignored too much, so he shot two metal bullets at Tattoos’ left hand. A worrying squelch came from the impact, and the hand was thrown back violently. Tattoos’ body followed it, twisting abruptly to the left.

The second bullet hit him on the right rib, a crack resounding through the arena. Tattoos’ chest wasn’t pierced thanks to the shield, but a metal bullet definitely wasn’t something he could take without problems. He groaned in pain, teardrops at the edge of his eyes.

One of Tattoos’ runes activated, and Apdenul energies appeared on his cracked rib and twisted hand. Endra thought of shooting at him, but felt bad for the kid.

‘Maybe metal was a bit too much,’ Endra sighed.

The darkness following him, he slowly walked towards Tattoos, shooting at the ground every once in a while, making sure to make each explosion as loud as possible. Each shot would make Tattoos flinch, which in turn would make him groan from the pain of sudden movement. 

After the third shot, Tattoos finally shouted. “I yield!”

“Match won by Eviendra of Ankelite Academy,” the referee shouted above the arena.

Endra sighed, undid the darkness, put away his spear, and patted the dust off his clothes. He looked up and was met with the crowd silently eyeing him from above.

He wasn’t really interested in their gazes though, what he wanted to see was the Arcvallen class’s reaction. He saw Wen, his default frown on his face, the rest of his classmates wearing an expression of shock and surprise. 

But behind them all he saw the curious glance of Eliseline Leland, her lips pursed slightly for whatever reason. Endra expected the people’s descriptions of her beauty to be a lie, but she really was pretty. Because of the person inside, the makeup and the few scant jewelry on her made her look more mature than the other students in her class. 

There was also something different that caught Endra’s eye.. The wrongness she emitted sitting there.