Seeing the water rising into the air the Krawl warrior panicked, his eyes widening in fear as he dove back into cover, clutching his chest as he panted. Once he thought he should be out of sight, he tried to slip away, moving through the brush and old trees as he hoped to avoid whatever it was his opponent was doing.

Lin didn’t care though… She let the warrior scramble away, not even bothering to watch. All her focus was on the still-growing wave above her, now spiraling as she formed it into a large sphere, floating menacingly above the lakebed.

As Lin summoned more and more water, the nearby stream was soon drained, leaving the small fish and creatures that made it their home with nothing but damp sand and stone. Even without the small stream, the liquid sphere continued to grow, causing those in the audience to gasp as they watched it hang in the air above the lakebed.

After a few moments Lin smiled again, her hand coming down in a swift chop, and the spere above her followed suit, dropping like a puppet whose strings had been cut. It crashed downward, somehow flowing around Lin harmlessly before colliding into the ground beneath. As it splashed against the sand and dirt of the lakebed, it quickly dissipated into the soil, leaving no sign that it had ever even been there.

The crowd watched the spere crash eagerly, hoping that somehow Lin had ended up becoming her own end. Yet seeing her still standing afterward they still laughed in relief. A few warriors from Krawl called out tauntingly to her, jeering as they told her not to try and show off if she was just going to fail.

The rest of the crowd’s tension eased quickly, from what they could tell the water disciple had lost control of whatever she had been trying to do. Perhaps having gone too far in an attempt to break out of the current stalemate. They still didn’t know which way the match would go, as the Krawl warrior’s attacks still seemed ineffective, but at least she didn’t seem to have any way to properly retaliate either.

Around the rim of the basin, it was only Fari whose eye’s shone with a speculative light. “Mother...” Koti called out to the older woman, having just returned with her body covered in bandages and smelling of balms…

“She did that on purpose…” Koti continued her own curiosity clear…

“Yes…” Fari answered her quietly but declined to speak and further. Her attention focused on the match and the competitors below.

On another side of the basin’s rim, Tirr smiled lazily. “Oh?” He laughed, causing Dun’s face to scrunch in confusion for seemed like the hundredth time already.

For the Krawl warrior, the sound of the splashing sphere had given no comfort. Crouched and stealthily moving along a nearby dip, the warrior was too scared to even think of trying to take a peek at what had happened. In his mind, some terrible thing akin to the previous woman’s fire was surely rampaging towards where he had been.

Soon though he heard the taunts of his clanmates… Realizing she must have failed, he grew brave once more, readying himself to resume his attacks… Yet when he took a step forward, he felt a soft splash…

Rising slowly out of the ground beneath him was a thin layer of water… It flowed over and covered the surrounding area almost unnoticeably and seemed to be slowly pooling just at his feet. As the Warrior felt his senses screaming, he tried to run to escape the water slowly bubbling from the ground… Yet as he tried to move it suddenly rose, covering his legs before freezing in a thick coating of solid ice.

The warrior, now truly panicking, cried out in confusion, bringing his axe down to hammer away at the ice encasing his legs. But still, more water streamed upward, freezing into an ever-growing icy restraint.

As the warrior continued trying to free himself, Lin appeared over the hill of the dip, smiling gently as she found the captured warrior. From the beginning, as the water sphere had crashed down, she had sent it out around her in a thin sheet hidden just under the ground.

Connected as she was to the water, she could feel anything and everything that passed through it, and as it radiated out from her, it acted as a pseudo radar/sonar, making finding and capturing the warrior laughably easy…

She enjoyed the sight of the warrior’s useless struggling for a moment, ignoring the panicked shouts of the crowd around them. “In the priestess’s name, may you regret turning from God's light…” She whispered to herself. A new stream of water rose beside her before stretching and freezing into a long viscous looking spike.

The terrified warrior didn’t hear her whisper, but seeing the frozen spike stretching towards him knew exactly what her intentions were… He tried to yell, to say that he gave up… But all that came out was a gurgle as he found his throat blocked by water…

As the spike grew closer and closer the warrior thrashed helplessly, gurgling constantly as he tried to scream… The ice pressed gently into his chest, piercing his skin easily. Suddenly the skin around the point blossomed into a mix of blue and red bruises. The warrior's attempt to scream intensified as it felt like a thousand needles were digging through his body…

“The match is over!” Fari’s voice suddenly rang over the basin, causing Lin to click her tongue in disappointment. The ice melted away instantly, leaving the warrior to collapse on the ground where he was left unmoving… “That will have to do for now...” Lin muttered to herself quietly before putting her smile back on and starting the trek back towards Tirr’s side of the basin, leaving the Krawl warrior for his incoming clanmates…