## CHAPTER 11: The Serpent's Strike
"You know what this means?" Storm yelled, her voice bordering on a jagged, manic insanity. Edna didn't reply; her face had gone pale, her expression full of a grim, newfound understanding of the stakes. The sunlight glinted off the polished surfaces of Storm's alchemically modified skin, making her look less like a student and more like a lethal, porcelain doll.
"Unlike you, I don't have to 'charge' my attacks! I don't have to wait for my blood to pump or my lungs to expand! The flow of energy through this body is exactly like breathing! I can fire forever, Edna! Can you dodge forever?"
Storm leaned forward, her golden eyes glowing with a mechanical, violet light that seemed to flicker with a terrifying hunger. "Let's see how much a commoner can take before she breaks!"
With a predatory scream, Storm raised her other hand. A translucent green barrier, humming with high-frequency vibrations, emerged to hover before her, acting as a fortified turret.
"**Consecutive Strike... STRIKING STORM!**"
From the center of Storm's palms, a barrage of violet beams erupted. They weren't timed shots; it was a rhythmic, never-ending stream of light that tore through the air with the sound of a thousand cracking whips.
Edna reacted instantly. She slammed her heels into the sand and raised her hands. "**Ignis Aegis!**" A heavy red shield of dense heat flared into existence. The violet beams struck the shield with the force of jackhammers, sending showers of sparks flying into the air.
Storm didn't stop. She descended into a combat frenzy, her eyes wide and fixed. The rate of fire increased, the beams becoming faster and more intense, a relentless hammering designed to crush the spirit and the defense of her opponent. However, in her madness, her accuracy began to bleed; the beams began to scorch the sand around Edna, creating glass craters in the earth.
"You can hide behind your weak little shield like a coward!" Storm shrieked over the roar of the mana-discharge. "I can keep striking until that pathetic barrier slowly cracks and shatters! Let's see how long your 'Ordinary' soul can hold back the tide!"
Each collision gave off a brilliant green flash against the red heat of Edna's shield. Storm's face was a mask of painted anger. Despite the intensity of her barrage, the red shield remained unyielding. A seed of doubt planted itself in Storm's mind. Her shield is too tough... if I keep this up, I'll exhaust my core before I even touch her.
Storm's head snapped to the left. She blinked, a silent signal to her group of followers. One of her friends, a girl with a sneer identical to Storm's, stepped forward and hurled a wooden-shaped practice sword into the air.
Storm cut her barrage short. The turret-shield faded, and she boosted forward. Using a burst of mana from her heels, she covered the distance in a blur, catching the sword mid-air. In the blink of an eye, she was directly in front of Edna. She raised the blade high, the wood glowing with a lethal violet aura, ready to cleave through the red shield.
Suddenly, the world seemed to slow down. Storm's eyes widened in pure, unadulterated shock. The sword stopped in mid-air. It wasn't the shield that had stopped it—Edna had reached out and caught the blade with both hands, her fingers wrapped around the ironwood as if it were a toy.
Then, a terrifyingly dull, cold tone vibrated from Edna.
"You know," Edna said, her voice dropping into a register that made the audience go silent. "I didn't get to answer your previous question."
Storm frowned, her golden eyes darting around, searching for a trap. "What?"
"You asked if I knew what it means..." Edna said, her gaze lifting to meet Storm's. The crimson in her eyes had darkened to the color of a deep blood red. "It means... that I don't have to hold back anymore."
A strange, heavy wave of pressure released from Edna's body. It wasn't the airy mana of the nobles; it was a dense, suffocating heat that made the audience gasp for air. In the blink of an eye, the wooden sword held between them didn't just break—it turned into black ash, crumbling into the wind as if it had never existed.
Storm felt a cold spike of fear. She instinctively kicked off the ground, jumping backward to put twenty feet of distance between them. She dropped into a defensive stance, her heart—thudding against her ribs.
Edna raised her left hand. Above her palm, a massive red cube of energy flickered into existence, humming with a sound like a swarm of angry hornets.
The audience gasped in unison.
"You really believe that would work on me?" Storm yelled, shaking off her fear with a forced, shrill laugh. "**STORM SHOT!**"
She thrust her right hand forward, firing a concentrated, straight beam of violet light. It struck Edna's personal shield and shattered like glass against a stone wall. It had absolutely no effect.
Storm's face went pale. The fear returned, painted clearly across her features. She watched as the large red cube in Edna's hand began to release jagged arcs of light-red electricity.
"What the..." Storm stammered, her voice failing as she looked into Edna's terrifying, unwavering gaze.
The large cube suddenly fractured. It didn't just break; it divided into a dozen smaller, red cubes, each one crackling with red lightning charges. They circled Edna's arm like a constellation of miniature suns.
"**Viper**," Edna whispered.
She pushed her hand forward. The red cubes didn't fire in a straight line; they launched with a hiss, weaving through the air like serpents.
"**SHELL SHIELD!**" Storm yelled in a panic.
An oval, emerald barrier surrounded her, thicker and more reinforced than anything she had cast before. She braced herself for the impact, gritting her teeth as the red beams closed in.
*****************
A few seconds later, the dust cleared.
Storm was on the floor, her alchemical body riddled with multiple glowing holes. She was still alive—the energy-based vessel she inhabited couldn't "die" in the traditional sense, but the damage was catastrophic. The energy was leaking out of her like water from a broken dam. When the reserve hit zero, the construct would fade, revealing the fragile girl beneath.
"How?" Storm wheezed, struggling to push herself up. Every movement caused a fresh hiss of mana to escape the holes in her torso. "How can a Commoner..."
Edna walked toward her, her footsteps heavy and deliberate. The scary, dull look remained on her face as she stood over the fallen noble, looking down with a gaze that felt a thousand years old.
"Your arrogance was your undoing," Edna said in that same cold, haunting tone.
Then, just as quickly as it had vanished, her face brightened. Her eyes sparkled, and her jolly, happy expression returned.
"And I hate bullies with a passion!" Edna said in her usual cute, high-pitched voice. She turned on her heel and began to walk out of the ring, her short crimson hair swinging.
**The Crowd's Perspective:**
The audience had stood in frozen silence as they saw the red, lightning-charged cubes fly toward Storm's shield. They had expected a massive collision. Instead, they saw the cubes change direction in mid-air. They dispersed with sentient precision—some veering left, some diving right, others soaring upward.
They avoided the shield entirely, curving behind Storm's defenses like heat-seeking miseals. All twelve strikes hit simultaneously, punching clean through Storm's back and chest.
Storm watched with blurry vision as Edna walked away with a jolly smile, as if she had just finished a pleasant stroll in the park rather than a brutal duel. Storm tried to stand, but a jagged crack suddenly appeared across her cheek. The light-red energy inside her flickered.
A blinding light enveloped her as the alchemical construct finally reached its limit. As the glow dimmed, the mana based body was gone. Storm's real body—pale, trembling, and covered in sweat—was revealed on the sand. She lay there, defeated, as the silence of the arena was finally broken by a single, terrifying thought among the nobles:
"The Commoners are not ordinary."