After saying that, Lucas immediately dashed forward, though he knew he didn’t have much strength left and would soon burn himself out; however, at that moment he was simply grasping at whatever power remained to keep fighting.

He closed the distance and swung his glaive in a backhand motion with his right hand, but the Earth Takeda calmly brought one of his hammer down, pinning the glaive to the ground.

Before he could process what was happening, Lucas had drawn on the last scraps of Qi he had left.

As a crude sword made purely of Qi formed in his left hand, and he thrust it forward, seeing a weapon appear out of nowhere, the Earth Takeda quickly reinforced his defence, by summoning rocky earth armour around his bulky body, its surface etched with rough lines.

Even so, when the blade pierced him, it had only been able to dig slightly into his flesh, as a glint escaped Lucas eye’s, clearly he had another plan, as he forced the remainder of his mana onto the blade, using it to channel the faint lightning he had gathered around his body.

Which, in turn, transferred the remaining lightning into the Earth Takeda’s body after it reached the sword, shocking him with a very high voltage, as Lucas had amplified the lightning’s power by imbuing it with more mana turning it much violent.

“Arrggh!”

The Earth Takeda convulsed violently under the current.

[> Mid Shinobi Spell – Tempest Spear <]

The Wind Takeda who was not far away reacted instantly to support a fellow body by casting a spell, as the air compressed around him, forming four spiralling wind lances that shot forward with a sharp forward motion from his hand.

Lucas, who had fought fiercely since the start, didn’t even attempt to dodge the move, he was completely spent, that was the last of his mana he used to strengthen the lightning, his stamina completely drained, so he simply stood there, one hand still bracing the Qi blade.

As the wind lances slammed into him, they disappeared as if they had never existed, twisting out of existence and merging back with the surrounding air, losing the semi-solid form they had taken to attack.

Though it might have looked like they vanished harmlessly, but that wasn’t entirely true, their effect only showed a second later.

On Lucas’s chest, four spots sank inward where the wind spears had struck, forcing him to bend slightly as he struggled to catch his breath from the powerful force that slammed into him when those four spots appeared, but it didn’t end there, from those four impact points, a spiralling force emerged, driven by the surrounding wind.

Before Lucas could muster any resistance, he was flung out of the battle ring by those spiralling forces pressing against his chest.

After travelling several meters outside the arena, the spiralling wind weakened and faded, causing his body to drop heavily with a dull thud.

This had only happened so easily because he was completely spent and couldn’t resist the force or react in time. Now, the Wind Takeda turned his attention to why the lady he had considered the least threatening was still standing on the battle stage.

“Are you playing around? You should have defeated her by now,” the Wind Takeda said, looking toward the Water Takeda.

“Why not try it yourself, since you think you have a better chance of beating her?” the Water Takeda replied calmly, not even bothering to argue.

Meanwhile, the Earth Takeda had collapsed on the stage after Lucas flew out of the stage, though technically he was still in the fight by being on the stage, but he continued shivering seriously, with his body suffering from lingering numbness.

And even though Lucas only had a weak lightning affinity, when combined with the unyielding nature of his Qi and excess Mana, he had been able to amplify its effects, and with each strand of lightning stacked and overlapped, it multiplied the impact, for the Earth Takeda, who had endured that lightning for some time before the wind attack forced Lucas out of the fight, it meant he would need quite a while to recover from his current predicament.

Now that only one mage remained on the War God Mage Team, the crowd naturally turned their attention to Beatrice.

To many of them, they still didn’t understand why someone like her was even part of the team.

No matter how they tried to picture it, she hadn’t actively fought alongside the others so far, some even saw her as dead weight, and discussions quickly began about why she was the vice captain instead of Lucas, whom many believed deserved the role since he often led the team whenever Alec was absent.

As if that wasn’t enough, conspiracy theories started forming.

Some speculated that her position might be tied to her belonging to an ancient clan, though Lucas too was also a member of an ancient clan, but clearly his clan was not tied to the Northern Kingdom like the Marionette clan was, and people began to feel the War God Mage Academy had simply allowed Beatrice to hold the vice captain spot as a political balance, especially since Alec Gordons, who wasn’t from an ancient clan, was already the team captain.

But regardless of what the crowd thought, Beatrice, who was now the last War God participant still on the battle stage, had worries of her own.

She had truly hoped she wouldn’t have to use the puppet stored inside her coffin, yet it no longer seemed optional, deep down, she knew there was no way she could hold off the two remaining Takedas with just her three main Puppets.

Clearly, the Water-affinity Takeda had been able to fight against her three puppets alone without even breaking a sweat, and on equal footing, this was while she was also actively controlling their movements with her mana threads to make things harder for him.

For puppeteers, once they reach the stage where they can turn living creatures into puppets, those puppets can sometimes fight freely based on instinct.

In several cases, such living puppets even awaken fragments of their past consciousness, allowing them to use spells or skills they learned before becoming puppets with remarkable proficiency.

However, when a puppeteer masters the activation of those skills and has high compatibility with their puppets, they can further enhance the puppets’ combat power by directly controlling them through mana threads which latch on to several joints of the puppet’s body.

By guiding every movement through those threads, the puppeteer can push the puppet’s performance beyond its natural limits.

Beatrice had reached an exceptionally high level of compatibility with her three puppets, especially the flame-mage puppet, whenever she used her mana threads to take direct control, she didn’t just boost its combat strength; she also improved its survivability.

Positioned farther back with a clearer view of the battlefield, she could pull it away from fatal attacks with smooth, precise movements from her fingers.

This constant intervention made it difficult for the Water Takeda to secure a decisive advantage despite his superior physical strength and refined techniques, because whenever he tried to press the flame puppet too hard, Beatrice would withdraw it instantly while sending her other puppets forward to harass him, preventing him from fully neutralizing her main attacker puppet.