Mira swiftly covered herself in black diamonds and charged towards Demetri at a moderate and steady pace. Demetri interrupted Mira’s charge with a blast of ice from the ring on his pinky finger. Mira crossed her arms in front of her and continued to close the distance.

The temperature instantly did a 180 as this bone chilling cold turned into a searing heat. Demetri liberated the hydrogen atoms from the ice releasing a ton of energy as heat.

“BANG!!!!!!!!”

A steam explosion took place due to the rapid change in temperature but Mira was completely unfazed. Her body could handle a wide variety of temperatures so Demetri would have to pull a more profound move to stop her slow and steady charge.

A drop of sweat rolled down Demetri’s face as he swiftly attempted a more devastating method of attack. He faced his palms towards themselves and a pea of silvery metal formed in his hand. The metal pea was isolated from the environment by a ball of his energy. He took in a deep breath as Mira approached striking distance.

The metal pea swiftly grew into metal lance that was isolated from the environment by a layer of his energy. Mira corked her hand back to throw a punch. Demetri stripped off the layer of energy at tip of the lance’s handle.

“BOOM!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!”

The entire battle field turned to hell. The ground liquefied turning into white magma despite Chao Feng’s force reinforcement. The air had turned into flames and plasma bolts. The audience was unable to see the outcome of the clash.

The metal Demetri had created was solid metallic hydrogen. An extremely volatile material that was only theoretically possible. When the metal reacted with oxygen it would release an amount of energy far higher than a dynamite explosion and create water.

Demetri had isolated the metal from the air with his energy and now that it was exposed to air which had more than just oxygen. It not only created oxygen but also Nitroglycerin which added another series of explosions ot the big bang the solid hydrogen made.

Demetri was not spared from the backlash of using such an attack in an enclosed space. He summoned all the water he could get from his the spatial storage ring on his pinky finger and froze them by reducing the vibrations of the water molecules.

Mira looked at the ball of ice in the middle of the hell all around her and thought ‘No soul. He doesn’t have a soul ability’. She had been blasted back all the way to the edge of the stage; Chao Feng’s force field had kept her from going into the audience along with the heat in the stage. Even with such a powerful attack her black diamond covering had not broken. It cracked in many places due to the exceptional power of the explosion but it remained whole. The diamond had fully repaired its structure at this point.

Mira flew towards Demetri. Her skin had turned from silver to red due to the heat of the attack. Mira thought ‘He has to protect himself from his own attack; he hasn’t truly made it his own’.

She stretched her palm towards Demetri and used her soul ability on the diamonds on her palms. The diamonds on her palms began to glow with a blinding light. Apart from the heat and light the soul ability created it created a gravity that drew not only a person’s body but soul towards Mira’s diamonds.

Demetri found himself swiftly approaching Mira’s energy signature. He looked towards the source of the attraction and saw a glowing palm that seemed to call his very being. He swiftly began to prepare to counter with another solid hydrogen explosion.

This time he brought out another accessory from his storage ring. The accessory was a crystal 2 dimensional eye inside a circle. He created metallic hydrogen again and fed it to the eye. All the heat and energy was condensed into a tiny beam as thin as a sewing needle and projected towards Mira’s approaching form.

To Demetri, this was a deadly weapon that could cut anything so he hesitated to use it even though it allowed him to use solid hydrogen without protecting himself. The part of the fiery air that touched the beam turn air turned into plasma as the beam swiftly reached Mira who intercepted it with her palm that was covered in shining diamonds.

The beam contained so much condensed power but it could not break a soul. Hence it didn’t even dent the diamond as Mira closed the distance, broke thorough Demetri’s ice shield and clasped her palms on the floating accessory.

Demetri’s mind was filled with disbelief as what he was warned against happened. When he had sparred with Chao Feng he was told that his lack of soul abilities of any sort would reduce the amount of things he could do. Seeing that his most powerful weapon had been rendered useless, he raised his hands and declared his forfeit to the host.

The host announced Mira as the winner and Mira exited the stage with barely any cheers from the crowd. They had expected her to win so it was not exciting when she did win.

…

Mira arrived at Tian’s cave some moments later. Daisuke was already there watching the previous fights of his next opponent with Tian. Daisuke said “How was your fight?” Mira said “It was alright. The person I fought didn’t have a soul ability”.

Daisuke said “You got the long end of the stick”. Mira nodded as she remembered Daisuke and Tian’s fights. Daisuke looked at Tian and Tian shook his head sadly. Daisuke frowned and Tian sighed in resignation.

Mira frowned in suspicion and said “What are you hiding?” Tian said “You might be joining me as one of the losers soon”. Mira’s expression softened as she said “My next opponent is that bad huh?”

Daisuke shook his head and said “In my bracket, I’ve faced the strongest person or at least the person that was properly equipped to handle me. The other contestants in my bracket have showed almost all their capabilities in their previous fights. So it could be said that I have already won this bracket, all I have to worry about is unexpected abilities or specialized equipment.

“In your case you have won two battles easily. The two remaining opponents you will fight are the real deal”.

Mira said “How would you know for sure the opponent I’ll be fighting after my next battle? Anything can happen”. Daisuke nodded and said “Yes but the next opponent you will be fighting has not gotten a single scratch like you in all her fights. And there’s also another person in your bracket who you’ll certainly fight in the bracket finals. This is because the person has always won his fights in a single move. He has used the same move for the previous two battles and no one could survive without Chao Feng blocking the attack”.

Mira’s heartbeat rose as she thought ‘They are the real deal’.