“I’ll take this a tad bit seriously,” I said, getting into a fighting pose. 

The golden hue of Malia’s eyes glowed orange, showing her fire mana was turned on and she gave a smile of accomplishment before charging at me.

Using intense focus, time slowed down making it so I could see the trajectory of her punches and every move she was planning to make.

Left straight… Roundhouse… Tornado Kick… Left… Right… Uppercut.

I parried them all and countered with my own punches throwing feints and actual attacks into the mix. 

My leg moved like a whip, faking a shot to the body and hitting her head instead. I made sure to hold back as I saw her not guarding the kick. Her body rocked and she leapt back to a safe distance, shaking her head. 

“Nice one.” She uttered, getting into a fighting pose again.

She probably didn’t expect the sudden change in trajectory. The infamous question mark kick or also known as the Brazilian Kick, was my favourite to use as a surprise attack. Most fighters instinctively block the body feint and don’t expect the trajectory to change. 

She flash stepped towards me, throwing an axe kick down towards my head; I instinctively dodged, pivoting my leg.

Boom!!

The ground underneath shook as her leg created a large crack in the ground; the crack spread out like a spider web. Jace held his mouth in fear, as he realised Malia’s power.

I leaped up, using my gravity magic to keep me levitating in the air. It looked as if she had split the grounds apart, red fire being seen between the cracks.

Her eyes were golden as she looked up at me with a scary glare. A shiver ran up my spine as she joined her hands together in a clap and the ground sealed itself. 

I zoomed towards her but she spun back, fire swirling around her hand before it flew towards me and grazed my shoulder.

I hissed, reaching the ground and upper cutting her chin. She fell in an upwards motion but simultaneously kicked my throat.

She fell on the floor as I stumbled back, coughing with my hand on my throat.

“Let’s use weapons.” She spat out some blood, before equipping some daggers. 

“Come.” I urged her on with my hand.

‘Lightning Aura.’

Streaks of lightning cackled around me and my hair rose due to the electricity running through my meridians.

She threw the dagger in her right hand towards me, before circling around out of my field of view. I caught the knife mid air and faced her releasing an assault using the knife.

“Where’d you learn to use daggers?” I smirked, switching the blade into my other hand.

“I taught myself.” She answered, making a shallow cut on my torso. 

I grimaced sideways, kicking her stomach, before retreating to a safe distance and regaining my energy. Charging in again, this time I split in two using Blake’s skill, which left Malia confused. She threw two fireballs leaping back.

We both dodged, circling around her. My clone faked a punch, making her raise her guard. This gave me enough time to wrap around her from the back.

Malia breathed heavily, trying to break out of my grip as my blade neared her neck.

“Are you gonna give up?” I smiled. The clone joined back with me and I sent a large voltage threw her body, making her scream.

“You want to play tricks with me. Fine.” She sneered, as a monstrous aura surrounded her body. 

All my instincts roared, telling me to back up. Frightening. Truly scary, the Spirit Wolf.

‘Finish this.’ Voad yawned.

Opening up my palm, flame mana particles began to condense into a perfect ball of intense heat.

Malia reciprocated my intentions and created a violent ball of fire in the palm of her hands.

Jace gulped at the intense showdown.

We both began running towards each other, I threw my dagger towards her head, but she dodged it easily as planned. Waiting for the perfect moment when the dagger had flown behind her, I activated my visual prowess.

‘Switch.’

[You have used 400MP]

I activated the new Visual Power I had achieved from Lucifer. I switched places with the knife that had flown behind her, instantly. It turned out that the further I teleported with this ability, the more mana it would consume. That arises the question, how far could I teleport?

The condensed flame ball in my palms dissipated and I quickly got her in a headlock. 

“What the-” Jace stood up grabbing his head, unable to comprehend what had just happened.

“You just teleported!! What the hell was that?!” Jace shrieked.

Malia swung her foot back, almost making me lose balance but I kept my grip firm. She swayed a little from the lack of air before giving in…

“You win.” Malia tapped out, dissipating the mana in her hands and sighing. 

I let go, rubbing her hair making it go fuzzy. 

I looked down at her lips to see a bruise at the corner. I frowned, feeling guilty but Malia quickly noticed, rubbing it.

“It’s okay. I heal quickly because my spirit magic is super pure.” she assured me as I still frowned.

“Are you okay?” she raised her eyebrows at me as the sting on my shoulder started to burn. I peered at it to see a hole had burned through my shirt.

Malia tiptoed to reach my face, rubbing blood off my cheekbone with her thumb. My eyes dropped to her lips as they rested slightly apart.

She realised where I was looking, intaking her bottom lip and biting down nervously.

“Malia, you were amazing!!!” Jace pushed us apart with puppy eyes. He imitated Malia’s ‘splitting the ground’ move as she giggled. “And you Zeref, what was that spell you used? You instantly teleported behind her.” 

“Yeah. That caught me by surprise.

“Sheeshhh, I’m so unfit.” she yawned, rubbing her back and stretching her limbs. As she yawned, two furry white ears boinged out of her head. 

“AWWWW!” Jace ran towards her.

“Ew why are you aweing at me?” Malia grimaced, turning to look at me.

I smiled at her cute ears and stroked them. Her brain processed what we were awing at as the realisation hit her. Her hand swung up to her head as she tried to flatten her ears.

“No! Ahhhhh!” she screamed, running inside the house with her hands on her head.

“Come back! I want to stroke them!!!” Jace chased after her, leaving me outside by myself.

‘That new move will come in handy but the more you use it, the less effective it will be. So leave it as a trump card. Now go meditate. We need to be at an optimum state before we begin the tournament. It will be one of the final events before we enter the Tower of truth.’ Voad advised. 

I nodded mentally, picking up the small dagger from the floor and heading inside. I had to get stronger.. Much stronger, and the fastest way was to level up and increase my mana pool stage.

Source: Webnovel.com, updated by NovelKeep