745: Invisible Maze

Invisible Maze

The stone giant held the powerful staff that he was grasping forward. Nearly immediately, a mass of elemental mana gathered on its tip, as if concentrating. However, nothing was visible on the outside. Usually, by now, at least traces of something could be seen. But of course, it was unnecessary to see the magic to realize that something was happening, considering the concentration of the stone giant mage.0

However, Rudia didn't let go of the opportunity given to her through said concentration, and quickly nocked an arrow onto her bow. She pulled back the string, and let go the moment she knew that she had gathered enough power for a good attack. However, right when the arrow came close enough to the stone giant, it once more stopped. In an instant, the stone giant had activated a spell. The mana that it had concentrated at the tip of his staff expanded suddenly, creating this current effect. Something that only Eisen was truly capable of seeing through. It did seem like this situation was getting a lot more troublesome for Rudia, but he was still confident that she was going to win.

What the stone giant had been doing was not simply gathering his mana for a powerful attack, but rather, he was creating a detailed structure in the compressed mana that he was preparing in a way that it would keep its shape upon expansion. And now, the mage only had to let his elemental mana flow through the already-established structure to strengthen it. But at the same time, that meant that Rudia's best chance was now.

However, even she, although she wasn't able to see what was going on, was able to realize that something had happened, and that the whole air in the arena changed. Slowly, she slid her feet forward, as if trying to carefully creep forward toward something. And then, her foot hit it. An invisible wall. This was the stone giant's element. In just an instant, he was able to create a sort of solid mass the moment something impacted with his mana.

Earlier, the arrows that Rudia shot were hitting the spherical barrier that he had created around himself, and the moment that the arrow's tip came in contact with it, it solidified around it. And then once the arrow was completely stopped, the solidified mana quickly loosened up again, letting the arrows drop to the ground. However, this solid mana wasn't infinitely powerful, shown by the fact that the arrows could break through it. Using her natural, powerful instincts, Rudia may not have figured out all aspects that made up the mana, but she knew what she had to do in order to get past it. That was all she thought about. But now? The stone giant went for a different tactic. He had created a maze throughout the arena. One that he was able to sense perfectly, while Rudia had no way of getting through it.

While there were no permanent walls, the moment that she tried to get through the mana, it would push back against her, so there was really no effective difference. But there were two important things that were shown through this tactics, especially the moment that the stone giant started walking through the maze. Eisen hoped that Rudia would be able to realize these quickly. First, however, she did something that seemed to surprise the stone giant. She shot an arrow into the sky.

"Trying to hit me from above?" He laughed, "Sorry, that's not happening." The moment that he said this, the arrow hit the invisible ceiling that had been created above the maze. Otherwise, Rudia would have been able to escape from here from above. This was a thing that the mage had thought about, however. With a confident laugh, he continued through the maze, but Rudia simply continued trying to figure out her chances. She tapped the surface of the invisible walls of mana around her, figuring out the position of the wall relative to her. Then, she nocked another arrow onto her bow. This time, it was an arrow that she had specially requested to bring with her on different occasions, just in case. It was a survey arrow. When shot, it would start giving off a high-pitched whistle, one that not many ears were able to pick up. However, as a half-dragon, Rudia's ears could. She had trained her senses intensely, and soon gained the ability of echolocation while making use of this sound. To make things easier, the arrow was given a rubber tip, so that it would bounce off of different surfaces to allow for slightly more complex soundwaves for her to pick up.

While sound seemed to pass through the mana without solidifying it, making her echolocation useless, the rubber tip definitely wouldn't simply pass through. Rudia had asked Eisen to make this arrow for this battle just in case she lost her vision somehow, but it came in useful in a totally unexpected situation.

Rudia shot this arrow at the wall at an angle. Using her element, she made the arrow a lot lighter and faster, allowing it to bounce around far more than normal. It wouldn't do any major damage, but it really didn't need to either. All that Rudia was using it for was to figure out the structure of the labyrinth around here. The arrow flew through the air, seemingly bouncing off of nothing, but Rudia was already creating a mental map for herself. She ran after the arrow each time, picking it up off the ground as soon as she could just to shoot it off again. And like this, to the stone giant's surprise, Rudia was able to get through the maze without issue. She did hit some dead ends a few times, but that didn't change that he was in trouble if things continued like this.

However, then, Rudia's arrow bounced off something in a weird way. It was shooting through the air quite horizontally, but then it was suddenly pushed nearly straight up and hit something just a moment later, before then falling onto the ground. Rudia had been sprinting after the arrow the whole time, but now, she stopped. This was one of the traps that had been set up in this maze. It seemed that the mage was not only able to create straight walls, but more complex structures too. Like a wall covered in spikes. The moment that this became apparent, Rudia knew she had to be more careful. If he spread these out over the ground randomly too, then she couldn't move around carelessly. She felt lucky that nothing had happened thus far, with the way that she had been running around.

At this point, it didn't seem like it still mattered, though, since the mage soon reached a certain spot in the invisible maze. It was the exact center of the arena, and it didn't seem like he was planning on moving away from there anytime soon. And then, something bothersome happened. Eisen already noticed that there was something unique set into the staff that the mage was using. A mass of fire started gathering in front of the staff, and a pillar of flames soon shot forward, pushing right through the mage's elemental mana.

Seeing the flames approach, Rudia of course ran back through the labyrinth, trying to dodge them for now while she was thinking. Meanwhile, Eisen let out a deep sigh. The Grandour looked at him with a broad grin on his face, "What, did you just realize you will lose this round?" 

"Hm? Oh, no, of course not." Eisen replied immediately, "I'm just glad that I was worried for nothing." 

"What? Worried for nothing? Those flames even injure us Fire Giants!"

"Right, but Fire Giants aren't the most fire resistant race out there, you know?" Eisen pointed out, and the Grandour looked at him confused, "What do you mean? She's just a somewhat special lizardman, nothing else! Even if her scales gives her flame resistance, it can't be stronger than ours!"

Eisen turned his head toward the Grandour, "Did you not listen to what I called them? They're my Dragon Knights. That is not just a title to make them sound stronger." The old man pointed out, while Rudia had finally finished thinking. She had stopped and turned around, now running straight into the horizontal pillar of flames being shot at her. Eisen smiled lightly, "They're half dragons, you dimwit."

The Grandour turned his head toward the arena, "She's a-"

"Right. She's half a red dragon. You know... the ones with the greatest power over fire?" Eisen chuckled slightly, watching as Rudia jumped up with her feet in front of her as she was becoming enveloped in flames. As her feet hit the elemental mana making up the maze, the mana solidified. However, it was sharing a space with the flames. Not only did the fire mana push the unique mana to the side, making the wall overall weaker, but the flames that were caught within the wall as it was being created weakened it even further. Like that, Rudia, with her superior physical abilities, was able to kick through the maze's walls, running in a straight line toward the mage, who had no idea what was going on, thinking he had already won the duel with this.

But before he knew it, Rudia kicked the staff out of the way, pulling the small knife she carried with her out of its sheath, pressing it against the underside of the stone giant's chin. Her armor had been heavily scorched and was partially burning and melting away, but Rudia simply looked at the mage in front of her with a big grin, not caring for this fact at all.

"It's my win, you smug bastard."

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