[> Mid Tier Seal – Anchor Lock.<]

Serena didn’t waste a second the moment she realized her captain was slipping onto the losing end, she swiftly threw herself into support again, casting another locking seal to buy Roderic enough time to recover from Alec’s combo fist attack.

Several of the rune-scrolls she’d planted around the arena flared at once after she casted as their glyphs pulsed, and a phantom anchor formed in midair, latched to chains that were tethered to different scroll points on the ground.

The chains twisted through the air and snapped around Alec’s waist, immediately Alec started to feel the resistance.

Not from the chains themselves—no, It was a rule like power, a binding law forced onto him through the anchor seal, dragging at his movement like the world suddenly grew heavier.

He lifted his gaze and stared at Serena, she really was the most troublesome opponent so far... and it only made him more interested, as he wanted to see how far she could push him, how much she still had hidden.

A grin spread across his face as he clenched his left hand, and the black flames blazed brighter, with that same hand, he grabbed the runes hovering around the anchor seal, pulling a large portion of the smoke behind him into the chains, the smoke seems to pass through his left hand to the chain, using his body like some type of conduit.

And right before Serena’s eyes, the anchor-glyphs started to rust, they decayed.

Slowly at first, then faster until the runes were being devoured piece by piece by the black smoke.

Serena froze, shock flashing through her expression.

All this time, she’d assumed the smoke was just able to give Alec stealth and apply pressure on his opponents... she never imagined it carried a decay attribute too.

The anchor’s glow collapsed inward and vanished, and just like that, Alec tore free.

Even though he had the opening to rush towards Serena Marq who was closer, he still didn’t, as he went for Roderic instead.

Alec exploded into a pure flaming combination, as he wasted no motion, no fancy technique, just tight boxing fundamentals fused with raw elemental brutality.

A red-flamed right hook smashed into Roderic’s guard, then a black-fire left jab followed instantly, tearing through what remained of his mana buffer and snapping into his nose.

Roderic grunted and staggered backward, sliding across the arena floor, with scorched points dotted his face where he had been hit, and the enchantments woven into his academy uniform flickered unevenly.

Even Serena was starting to struggle to cast another spell despite scattering rune-scrolls around the ring, and that was because Alec now fought while constantly scanning his surroundings, refusing to step into her traps cautiously.

Roderic snapped his revolver up at point-blank range the moment he noticed Alec’s eyes flicking around, but Alec slapped it aside with the back of his flaming wrist.

Heat warped the barrel as the shot cracked past his ear.

The next instant, Roderic’s sword flashed in a tight arc, silver Qi coating the edge as it aimed straight for Alec’s throat, any normal mage would’ve retreated, Roderic himself probably expected that, hoping to steal a breath and recover a little when Alec did.

But he had underestimated who he was facing, as Alec leaned in instead of backing away.

Clang!

The blade scraped across Alec’s collarbone, as silver Qi hissed as it cut, but didn’t pierce through. Alec’s body was coated in the Mid Tier Stone Skin spell.

So the strike only shattered the outer shell and left a shallow cut; it couldn’t dig any deeper, Alec had been willing to pay that price to close in.

He brought both fists together and slammed them into Roderic’s chest, the black and red flames, which had previously worked independently, now merged for the first time, and Roderic took the full punishment of that fusion.

Boom!

A violent explosion erupted, as Roderic was flung out of the battle ring like a broken doll, propelled all the way until he slammed into the wall beneath the first row of seats.

Those nearby jolted up in shock at the speed and thunder of the impact, then they calmed when a flickering light shield contained the residual shockwaves and kept the stands safe.

Unconscious, Roderic slid slowly down the wall.

Next, Alec turned to Serena, his right hand raised, as his index and middle fingers were extended like a gun barrel, and a bead of flaming energy gathered at the tips, red and black lights interweaving as he kept compressing it until it felt dangerously unstable.

“I believe I’ve shown you enough to understand that surrender is your best option,” Alec said.

Serena simply shook her head, from the start to the end, she had been the least rattled, almost like Alec had deliberately left her for last, so she already knew she couldn’t turn this around.

“I surrender,” she said, turning toward the judges’ platform.

The moment her words landed, the section of the stands packed with Northern Kingdom citizens exploded into celebration, they could barely contain themselves, this match had ended cleanly, and it ended in their favor.

“Alec!!!”

The crowd cheered loudly despite a few still feeling a little cheated, as they wanted to see his terrifying golems on full display, but they were satisfied with what he’d shown, as he had given them enough dominance to scream their lungs out.

—

The instant the War God Mage Academy’s match ended, Dragov turned his gaze toward Carmilla as if to say, ‘Did you see that?’

The Bloodline Academy team began moving toward the tunnels, since they were up next. As for Vincent And Vladimir of the Battle Mage Academy, they also filed out as well, having failed to gather anything truly useful about Ember Citadel or who were even the top members except from the captain and vice captain.

—

#Estonia City

The second day began with the City Lord’s forces attempting to breach the array again, but this time, they didn’t just face the array’s automated retaliation, the Gordons’ mages launched a counterattack, led by Zack Gordons, the newly appointed Eighth Elder.

Zack and several Tier 5 mages used the array’s looping pathways to strike and retreat before they could be surrounded, they repeated the hit-and-fade tactic over and over, grinding down the mages pushing through the formation.

Under that pressure, the City Lord was forced to call a halt and pull his forces out of the array to regroup.

When Alec had created the array, he’d been certain that any intruder who stepped into it would be dealt with mercilessly, but never would he have imagined that the first sets of enemies it would face would come in such numbers.

And because of that, even though he had planted countless random spell cards throughout the formation, many of them had already been destroyed the day before, after the death of mages from the City lord force, therefore helping expose some talisman points and them getting destroyed.

With the sheer volume of mages in the City Lord’s army, they were able to push forward much faster than expected, after calculating their pace, the elders realized it would take only a few more days for the enemy to reach the inner region at this rate, which was why Zack resorted to these hit-and-retreat tactics, determined to frustrate them and delay their advance as much as possible.