249 Chapter 249: One versus Ten (2/2)

The chibi Vermillion Phoenix disappeared, only for Green Dragon to appear over my right shoulder and White Tiger to perch on my left shoulder. The flames around my two swords vanished, and were replaced by different elements. A bunch of vividly colored petals danced and coiled around the black blade of Gan Jiang in my right hand while white lightning crackled and wreathed the white blade of Mo Ye in my left.

”?!”

The three mages who were attacking me were taken aback, but it was too late. They continued to plunge toward me.

I still couldn't take the golem head-on yet, since I was still casting a spell for that, so I chose to deal with the first earth mage and the wood mage first. Being smaller in size and a lot faster, they managed to dart past the golem to attack me.

Their mistake. If they had decided to work together with their teammate and use his golem armor as a tank to absorb damage and withstand punishment from my attacks instead of desperately trying to seek glory on their own, they would have made my life a lot more difficult.

As it was, I punished them for their selfishness and arrogance. I sliced through the boulders with my right sword and launched a volley of petals at the earth mage who conjured them. None of his rocks stood a chance. They were all sliced apart by the raging flowers that appeared to blossom in midair. The earth mage then desperately conjured an earth barrier, but the petals easily sliced through the rock and cut into him.

The earth mage toppled over, blood spurting from a hundred different cuts all over his body.

The wood mage didn't hesitate, sending vines and thick, solid branches in my direction. I blasted them apart with a discharge of high-voltage electricity. Before I could counterattack, the golem had reached me, his tremendous fist crashing down upon my position to pulverize me.

Once again, I jumped away, and then landed on his fist. I took a few steps across his arm, and then vaulted away before he could swat me once more. Spinning around, I stretched out my legs and then used the golem's right shoulder as a platform to propel myself in another direction, disappearing just before his armored palm clamped down on that portion with crushing force. Slicing through the network of vines and branches that the wood mage conjured, my two swords easily hacking a path through the dense shrubbery, I stabbed him with my sword.

”Ugh!”

Despite what seemed to be a fatal attack, the wood mage grabbed my sword and grinned. Despite the blood trickling down from his mouth, he finished casting a spell that had huge thorny vines slam down on me like tentacles, the writhing appendages coming from all directions and trapping me completely.

If they hit, I would be punctured by countless thorns and probably ripped into shreds.

Well, I just needed to not get hit then.

Mo Ye glowed and I unleashed a storm of destructive lightning, blasting apart the vines once more and electrocuting the screaming wood mage. Even as I yanked out my sword, his smoldering body fell, smoke fuming from his mouth and blackened skin. He continued to convulse as the deadly currents coursed through him, but I paid him no attention.

The golem had arrived.

Once again, I was forced to evade his slow but overwhelming attacks, each one easily capable of flattening me into a bloody pancakes. Dodging and diving, I rolled across the ground as the golem's huge fists left craters in the coliseum.

Springing to my feet, I tried to duck and avoid more of his attacks for the last few seconds before I could finish casting my spell. The golem tried to stomp on me with his titanic feet, but I managed to clamber over what passed for his toes and avoided being pulverized.

Then I finished casting my spell. Vines and branches traveled out of Gan Jiang and ensnared the golem, wrapping around and immobilizing him. The golem armor flailed and struggled against his bonds, to no avail. The vines held firm, slowly tightening and wrapping around him. flowers began to blossom across the countless vines that tangled around him, and leaves sprouted, a clear sign of the wood spell absorbing mana and vitality from the golem armor.

”You…what did you do?!” the earth mage within the golem armor shouted in panic. I didn't bother to answer. Instead, I turned away as his armor crumbled completely, the vines sinking in and slicing through the rock like razor-sharp garrote wires. The vines then wrapped around the now vulnerable earth mage and completely drained him of mana.

”!!!”

Someone sprang from the shadows, aiming right for my back. The shadow mage had hung back in the shadows, waiting for an opportunity to strike, and now he believed that I had just let my guard down after defeating the person who seemed to be the biggest and strongest enemy, and he capitalized on that moment to plant a dagger in my back.

”Ugh!”

Blood spurted into the air.

The shadow mage stared dumbly at the sword impaling his chest. Lightning crackled around the blade and began to fry him, causing his body to convulse uncontrollably. I had reversed my grip on Mo Ye and stabbed him the moment he emerged from the shadows. He thought I wouldn't notice his scheme, but I had detected the flow of his mana moving through the shadows long before I completed the destruction of the golem and the defeat of its caster.

Calmly pulling Mo Ye out of the falling shadow mage, I turned to face the last, remaining mage. He was trembling fearfully, probably realizing how pitifully outmatched he was. He gulped in dread, but to his credit, he maintained his combative stance. Yelling to improve his own morale, he charged forward. Wind began blowing around him and he used his air element to speed up his body to incredible velocities, shooting across the arena in zigzagged patterns. The guy probably was trying to hit me from an unexpected angle, taking me out by surprise.

I understood why he didn't attack until now. With that sort of technique, he would just as likely end up colliding into a teammate and take the both of them out instead of defeating me. Furthermore, it was hard for him to control himself to avoid friendly fire, especially if the battlefield was filled with too many people – most of them his allies.

Right now, he seemed to be trying to generate a hurricane. But I had no intention of allowing him to finish his spell. Raising my left hand, I then stabbed the white blade of Mo Ye into the ground. Lightning erupted from the ground, turning the entire coliseum into an enclosed electric cage. No, it's not a Faraday cage – rather than block electromagnetic forces, it amplified my electricity.

”UGH!”

The guy screamed as all the lightning was drawn to him and struck his speeding body, much like a lightning rod catching every single electric current in the surroundings. He crashed onto the ground, his fuming body skidding for a few moments.

Then…silence.

I stood there alone, righting the grip on Mo Ye and holding both of my swords up. Then I slowly sheathed them. As I did so, there was a huge yell from the remaining students who were kneeling around the arena. All of them rose up in perfect synchronization and immediately surrounded me, assuming combative stances and getting ready to beat me. This time there was fifteen…no, twenty mages.

Even though my face was outwardly a cold mask, inwardly I was smiling.