“Serena Berkry, Lady of White, Skill Master, Beast Slayer and The Thorn Witch

“Versus

“Jude, Dungeon Master, Dungeon Expert, Small Party Expert, Lifter of Curses, A Crafters Friend, Heroic Wizard, Skill Master, Demon Slayer, and Hero of Longdale.”

Many had already heard Jude’s list of titles before, but now that the coliseums were combined, there was a whole new crowd that was stunned. Most of his titles had never been heard of before. Even the king looked down with a mixed expression on his face.

Duke Ruthope, the duke that resided over the area of Longdale was particularly surprised when he heard the last two titles of Jude. News from his Duchy was still only coming in after the sandstorm started to dissipate and he had not learned much. He knew that he would have to find this Jude and question him about many things.

But Jude’s mind was only on one thing, his upcoming match. He had paid close attention to Serena’s titles this time to see if he could find anything within them. Lady of White had something to do with her social standing, Skill Master was the same thing he had, Beast Slayer was quite easy to figure out and most likely had to do with the beasts up north. Only the Thorn Witch had Jude concerned. This was clearly related to the Wood element, but he wasn’t sure if this was something to do with it being her primary element or about her control over the element. For all he knew, it could be that she had abilities outside the standard wood mages and summoners.

Jude had noticed that the Core City residence all had a similar focus. They duel classed the two advanced classes of Elemental Mage and Summoner. In each one they would focus all their attention on a single element, meaning that Serena was a Wood Mage and Summoner who specialized in wood creatures.

It wasn’t long before they were both on the colossal stage. Jude was armed with his water illusioned staff in one hand and his other hand grasping his sword while it was still sheathed on his belt.

Serena, on the other hand, looked like a high noble going to a ball. Her long brown hair was done up in a brocade, and her lovely dress of yellow and brown hugged her torso revealing her slender frame, then poofed out into a bell at the bottom. In one hand she had an umbrella that was yellow and white that looked to be made to block the sun rather than rain. In the other hand, she held a slender object that was too short to be a staff, but too long to be a cane. It was made out of white holly wood, topped with a fist size black pearl.

From across the distance, she smiled at Jude with a smile that would melt the hearts of most men and drive them crazy. But to Jude, this was just the sheep’s clothing covering the sinister devil underneath. Serena may look beautiful and lovely on the surface, but underneath existed a genuine terror. After all, it’s better to live on a corner of the roof than share a house with a contentious woman.

Serena spoke, and Jude released his restriction of her whispering to him so that he could hear the words. They were too far apart, for a normal conversation, so Jude let her speak through whisper this one time.

“You will soon find out why I’m called the Thorn Witch,” she said haughtily. “You may have scored higher than me in the preliminaries, but now you will know just what kind of power that you have infuriated.”

Jude sighed at her strange attitude and replied, “The aggravation that I’ve caused you is of your own making. Please keep me out of your delusions from now on.”

Serena didn’t take well to this, “It is your doom that the Blood Will Flow rule has been implemented early. You will die today. And I will make sure to torture you until the very end. Don’t think that my power is limited to changing a few rewards. I will make sure that the referee won’t interfere at all as I slowly rip off your skin with my thorns!”

“Such an evil woman should not be allowed to live. I wonder, just how many other people have you killed and tortured?”

Jude did not wait for the reply and immediately blocked Serena from whispering to him. He didn’t want to know just how bad she was.

“Begin,” the referee shouted using the same magic that made one’s voice travel that the announcers use.

They really were too far away in this gigantic arena, so the first thing Jude did was use Blink to close the distance by half. All the Wizards at this level could use chantless casting, so Jude was concerned seeing Serena yet to cast a spell or even started to. With Area Analyze, Jude could tell when another caster was preparing a spell as it would cause ripples in the surrounding mana conduits.

Jude decided to test things out with a simple spell, “Water Bullets!”

A normal opponent would be hit by at least one with ten water balls Jude sent towards Serena. The way Jude spread them out left a person with little room to dodge or escape. But Water Bullets were slow, especially with the distance they were at, and Jude had no doubt Serena could avoid them. Otherwise, she wouldn’t have made it so far in the competition or have the confidence that she had.

But what she did surprised Jude. She let go of her staff, which continued to stand despite the angle it was at, then with a wave of her now free hand she threw out tiny little seeds like a cloud in front of her.

“Grow,” she commanded.

The water and the seed came into contact and with the spell Grow vines burst forth with an abundance. They instantly drank up all the water and they grew so fast that it created a howling wind.

“This will be too easy if you keep using magic that way,” She said with a laugh.

Even though he was amazed, this was also what he wanted: information. He had learned a lot in that quick exchange. Not only could Serena cast chantlessly, but she was also extremely fast, near the speed of an item spell. Her manipulation of magic was also advanced. He didn’t think someone who could not see the Modicuit could be that in tune with their magic. From what he knew, Grow was a very low-level spell for a Wood Mage. It was typically used to speed up the growth of plants or heal injuries of plant-based creatures and elementals. But what was most frightening was that the seeds she used the spell on not only created a barrier but the way they did it.

They absorbed not only the water in the bullets but also Jude’s magic. In a sense, Serena had siphoned Jude’s magic from his spell to further fuel her own. Jude didn’t even know that was possible.

Large bulbous plants hung in the air supported by numerous vines growing down to the ground. Serena walked up to the bulbs and placed her hands out.

“Summon: Elemental Wood!” She commanded once again.

The ten bulbs created from the combination of Jude’s Water Bullet and Serena’s Grow started to writhe like balls of snakes. The orbs and vines quickly condensed into ten soldiers made of thick vines. Their appearance looked like humans with their muscles exposed, yet they were still green like plants.

These plant soldiers did not stay idle as they quickly rushed towards Jude.

At this point, Jude pulled out his sword. He was still hiding the fact that his staff could do more than cast water spells.

Spark Flints quickly met the incoming soldiers and burst into flame. This didn’t perturb Serena at all.

“Grow!” she commanded yet another spell.

This time her plants sucked in the flames like it was water.

This shocked Jude by no small amount. But he should have seen it coming, after all, he did face a treant once that turned into a rare breed of fire treant. Now, these vine soldiers did the same thing.

The flames on them and Jude’s mana that empowered the flames were quickly sucked dry. The vines that had been green were now red, making their already muscle like forms seem ever more like walking humans without skin.

However, only seven survived the transformation. The other three burned to a crisp in the process of absorbing the flames so at least there was a chance of failure.

“Ice Shot,” Jude said switching magic types yet again. If they absorbed the flame, then they would most likely be very resistant to any more fire attacks. Jude wondered if they would keep consuming different kinds of attacks or if this was Serena’s way of overcoming the wood elements weakness.

The sharp cone-like ice bullets pierced through the red vine warriors leaving gaping holes and flying limbs. Around these holes, ice would form, preventing the elementals from regrowing back to full health.

Serena had now changed tactics as she tapped her staff down on the ground. Each tap of the staff teleported her to a different location.

Jude could roughly predict where she would appear through Area Analyze, so he kept on the offensive casting Ice Shots at both her and the wood elementals.

By the time he cleaned up the wood elementals, Serena had completed a large circle around Jude. Now they faced each other off once again, waiting for the other to make the first move.

Jude wanted to see her take the offensive as everything she had done so far has been reactive.

Pursing her lips, Serena spoke, “If you are not going to attack, then I guess I will.”

“Grow!” She commanded.

From each of the points where she had teleported a plant grew, but they didn’t develop normally, nor did they outright attack. Each one grew into a sickly looking sapling with no leaves, twisting and turning into odd shapes. When they had stopped growing, Jude noticed that they all formed into the shapes of runes.

Serena had combined her Elemental Magic with Inscription Magic to create a magical Foundation. Foundation Magic was very similar to using and creating scrolls, except they were far more powerful. Jude could do something similar with his Script Magic and the large brushes that he made, but never had he thought that it could be done with elemental magic.

Out of all the Wizard specific spell categories, Jude had thought that Inscription Magic was the best. All other skills and magic were very one-dimensional. There was only so many ways you could use it. But the creation of Scrolls and Foundations opened up a broad array of possibilities. However, after fighting with Serena, so far he learned that his thinking was far too limited. Serena had only used two of the most basic skills in her Advance Classes of Elemental Mage and Summoner, but the way she used them proved that they were far more flexible than Jude had assumed.

Green lights erupted from each plant and met up in the sky. Then a green barrier surrounded Jude. The Foundation had been complete.

“Now you will know why I’m called the Thorn Witch!” Serena said with a maniacal laugh.

Vines shot from all directions like harpoons, trailing endless lengths of vines after them. Jude used Blink repeatedly, but he was having a hard time avoiding the unending streams of vines. The came from the ground and the barrier up in the air. When they missed, the other end would stick into the ground or barrier creating a tight rope between the two. Afterwards, it would sprout thick and sharp pointed thorns.

Jude could only shiver at the thought of being caught by one of these vines and evading them was becoming harder as the number of vines continually increased. But as he was dodging, he had also been busy.

“Formless Ice!” Jude cast.

He hadn’t used this spell earlier because he didn’t have the advantage he did last time. When he was fighting Valice, there was plenty of rain for the magic to take control of, but this time he used it because he didn’t have a chance to formulate a new spell. He already knew that Formless Magic would work, it was already dangerous to test out experimental spells in this environment, so using a spell he had already used was the best option.

The spell was cast, and although it was formless, a white light seemed to flash across the vines. The nearest ones instantly froze and started to crumble.

Outside of the Foundation, Serena stood still. She was directly controlling the Foundation through her power to manipulate the plants that created it. This Foundation didn’t only create an endless stream of thorns; it also contained the power of her Grow spell.

By the time the nearby vines froze and broke apart, the rest of the Foundation absorbed the freezing magic. The green vines now had bright blue spots on them, and the barrier that surrounded the area also had streaks of blue flashing through it.

After the freezing and absorption, the vines began to move again. Jude dodged out of the way, but they surprisingly didn’t target him. Instead, they seemed to sense the Formless Ice’s existence and pummeled it with tens of vines. Even with the added ice resistance, many of the vines broke apart, turning into solid ice. But with each one that did it weakened the power of the Formless Ice. After losing more than 75% of her vines, did she finally absorb the ice spell. Now the dots on the vines turned a darker blue, and with just a look, one could tell they now possessed an astonishing water and ice resistance.

Jude had landed a distance away from where his Formless Ice had been sacrificed. Irritation filled his heart, and with his life on the line, he decided it was time to pull out the stops. As he landed, he tapped his staff down. The staff hit the floor with the sound of thunder; this caused the illusion that had been placed on it to dissipate, revealing its full might.

The dark wood staff and the bright white pearl on top where the direct contrast of Serena’s staff. Except Jude’s staff didn’t end there. It was a full two meters long, and the pear shone like the sun. The six elements then began to spring forth, and they orbited the pearl like planets. Then Jude activated a preprogrammed spell.

Fire erupted around Jude creating a circular wall. The fire rose up three meters high and the intense heat cause all the nearby vines to shrivel up and dry. Without Serena’s quick retraction of them, they would have burst into flames, possibly spreading the fire to all the vines. But the spell didn’t end there as fireballs began shooting out all directions.

The might of this spell was much greater than any time Jude had used it before. When it was only a scroll, it still had flaws and couldn’t be counted on as perfect. Then Jude used it in his fight with the metal mage during the preliminaries, but it didn’t have the support it needed by the condition of the materials Jude had used. But now, being cast through Jude’s staff, it had the full backing of the divine fire glyphs and mithril inlays that Ellie had worked on. Plus, the complicated structure of the magic processor.

These unexpected actions startled Serena at first, but it wasn’t like she was unaccustomed to fighting Fire Mages. As Fire Magic was her greatest weakness, she had developed most of her strategies to combat this very thing.

She no longer feared fire.

All of her magic absorption techniques had been developed to attack fire, so absorbing it was the easiest element for her to do.

Quickly she started to get to work. The vines no longer crept away but began to attack the fireballs by piercing them with their tips. Dozens of vines were instantly burned away with no results and a cold sweat formed on her back. Only a couple of vines had survived, but the amount of flame and magic they had absorbed was pathetically small.

Inside the firewall, Jude watched everything through Area Analyze. He had already grasped the technique that Serena used to absorb his magic and element and created a countermeasure. Her magic worked by absorbing part of the other casters mana, which would then create a link to the elemental damage being outputted. This link could then absorb the element, thus creating a natural resistance to that element.

All Jude had to do was to release his mana from the element. In a normal situation this would be giving up control of your spell, but through Area Analyze, Jude could fine tune it to be released just at the right moment. With Jude’s mana being absent from the fire when Serena’s vines made contact with them, she naturally could not create a link to the element, so the fire burned up the vines.

The Foundation Serena had created impressed Jude more. It completely cut him off from the outside world and the only way out was the break it. However, the only way to break this Foundation from the inside was to destroy all the endless vines. As long as there was one vine, it would not break. At least, not with the power one had at level 30. Of course, if someone broke one of the runes outside the Foundation that would also work.

But now that Jude had figured out her absorption trick, breaking out should not be a problem.

“Fire Wave, Fire Wave, Fire Wave!” Jude cast multiple spells in a row.

The whole Foundation became a sea of fire, save for one small ring that Jude stood in.

The green barrier soon cracked apart. Serena tapped her staff on the ground once again, teleporting away.

The fire spewed out engulfing the plant shaped as runes, burning them to a crisp.

The fire quickly died out as Jude would not risk keeping his mana inside the flames. All that was left was Jude standing in the middle of a gigantic scorch mark, facing Serena.

Jude smiled at Serena and decided to throw her words back at her, “Now you will see why I’m called the Demon Slayer.”