Jacob turned his gaze upward as the fireball crashed towards him, he smiled, imbuing his sword with light for the second time and touching the tip of the blade to the fireball, watching as it dissipated all around him, forming a ring of fire on the ground around him.
"Is this all that you've got?" Jacob shouted.
Zaheer looked at him, rage written across his face, "Shut up!" He screamed as he dashed towards Jacob; he drew the sand from the rubble on the floor, fusing it with the other elements and it formed a sword in his hand, he swung down heavily with the sword.
CLANG!
Jacob parried the attack with Excalibur, a gust of wind scattered around them as a result of the force of the two blades hitting each other.
CLANG! CLANG!
Their blades met a couple more times, creating sparks of light with each connection; Zaheer, upon seeing that Jacob was parrying his attacks too easily, grunted and increased his speed.
At this point he was moving even faster than Xenia did during the training sessions, which made Jacob wonder for a second if Xenia had also been holding back.
Jacob parried attack after attack, evading Zaheer at every turn, 'System, activate Emperor Eye!'
'Sweet.' Jacob mused, smiling as he blocked Zaheer's countless flurry of techniques.
Zaheer, finally realizing that his attacks weren't penetrating, took a step back to access the situation, breathing heavily, beads of sweat lined on his forehead. He glanced at Jacob, who didn't have a single scratch on him.
'Shit, how do I beat him?' Zaheer's pondered, 'He doesn't even look like he's trying, I might have to use my final move.'
Jacob almost laughed, his face was covered in excitement, 'Let's see him handle his own attacks.'
Jacob held Excalibur in front of him and covered it in a mixture of fire and light, he spun it around a little and faced Zaheer, who resolved himself and stood on guard as well.
"Oooouuhhh!" The crowd roared as they witnessed what the boy was doing.
Jacob was a natural showboater, he loved grand displays of power, and he was about to show the people the level of his power, or maybe just a small piece of it.
Jacob vanished from his position, a pile of dust rose in his absence, in a second, he appeared behind Zaheer, swinging his sword down with sheer force, his eyes glowed a deep blue, Zaheer barely caught up to him, half-blocking the attack with his blade.
CLANK!
The sound echoed throughout the arena, the weight of the clash pushed Zaheer backwards forcefully, his blade vibrating in his grip as he barely held on to it.
Jacob didn't stop there.
The exchange left Zaheer on the floor, struggling for breath, his left arm had a slash and was bleeding onto the floor as a result of not being able to block Lightning Barrage completely.
He finally got up, holding his blade firmly.
Jacob stared at him, he understood why the boy didn't want to give up and respected it.
Zaheer got down on one knee, he began to emit a faint white light and after a moment, his body seemed to separate into two parts, a likeness of him was formed, wearing the same clothes and wielding the same sword.
They both nodded at each other, a blob of water, formed out of the air and covered their swords, instantly freezing and turning to ice, they both held out their hands and the air particles turned into hundreds of tiny arrow-like structures.
Jacob's eyes widened.
'I need to finish this before the time runs out.' Jacob thought, bracing himself for the attack.
The arrows immediately began to fly towards Jacob, all at once; He swung his body repeatedly from side to side, ultimately avoiding each one gracefully.
The attacks finally ended and Jacob wiped a bead of sweat from his forehead, letting out a sigh of relief.
But Zaheer was far from done.
'I still have one more attack to end this guy.' Zaheer mused as he gathered every last ounce of energy.
He had only used this technique once in training, and was far from mastering it, but it was his strongest move so far.
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
Savant furrowed his brows as he watched the fight, it was already obvious by now who was more powerful between the two boys, and it brought him to a boil.
He looked at Alaric, who immediately noticed his gaze and showed a cunning smile, then resumed watching in excitement.
"This fight was definitely worth it, oh my heavens!" One spectator said to another.
"You're right! I'm glad I lived long enough to witness this."
"A clone ability at the age of twelve is true talent."
"The other one has a copy ability, can control light, fire, earth, who knows what else? Whoa!!"
The crowd cheered endlessly as they watched the two boys go at it.
Elena and Rhoarin watched in surprise, they never realized their son was this strong, and what was worse, he didn't even look to be trying at all out there.
"Jacob is keeping something from us, it's like he can read every of the boy's moves," Elena whispered in Rhoarin's ears, for the crowd was too loud.
"Yes, he's definitely hiding something, the boy is too powerful, I feel he held back during his sparring sessions with Xenia." Rhoarin whispered back.
Elena nodded, her mind still unable to comprehend what her eyes were witnessing.
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
Zaheer gritted his teeth, his clone did the same, they both looked at Jacob with absolute rage as he just stood there, completely unscathed.
"It's time to end this." Zaheer roared, his aura expanding and filling the arena.
"But we're just getting started." Jacob grinned, watching Zaheer's Qi flow from both bodies, to their hands, all of a sudden the ground started to rumble, all the tiny pieces of rubble that were dormant rose up and began floating around them.
Zaheer and his clone began to form a huge ball of fire in their hands, then it was covered by lava, by water, by ice, by earth.
Soon it was an enormous spinning ball of all the elements that Zaheer had dominion over.
'This would surely deplete his Qi reserves, even though there's a bit left off.' Jacob mused inwardly, as the shadow engulfed his frame.
"Ohhhh!"
"Ahhhh!"
"What in the heavens?"
The crowd reactions were exactly as anticipated as Zaheer created the anomaly and hurled it at Jacob, his clone immediately disintegrated and he fell on his knees.
Jacob watched wide eyed as the colossal ball flew towards him.
He dropped his sword and waved his hand at the giant ball, elemental mastery was already part of his arsenal, so why stress over something as minute as this, he assumed control and separated the elements piece by piece until they were just tiny balls surrounding him, then he allowed them all to crash into the earth.
"Nooooo!!" Zaheer screamed as he knelt on the floor.
Jacob walked towards him, slowly.
He pointed Excalibur at Zaheer's neck.
"Guess I won the game, huh"
Zaheer scoffed and buried his face in his hands, 'How could I be so… weak!' He thought to himself.
"Don't beat yourself up, you did really good"
The crowd roared, everybody stood on their feet to give Jacob a standing ovation.
Amidst the shouts, Jacob noticed Savant was already at the entrance, they met each other's gaze just before he walked out.