Blackout Ascension: Return of Primordial Heir-Chapter 11: Ocean and Spark

The dark, jagged grey granite craters left after the breathtaking battle between Teravauros and Breinsten smoothed over. The dust of the pulverized granite slab was washed away. Gallons of crystal-clear water deluged into the arena, washing over the floating platforms, then vanishing into the magical drains under the abyss.

The redolent scent of dust and debris was replaced by an authentic ocean breeze. The air is filled with moisture and cool humidity. The battlefield looked like it belonged to water.

The grand announcer’s voice echoed through the mist droplets filled arena.

"The arena resets! Prepare for the Fourth Match of the Luminary Bracket: Marin Valcoran of Solaris versus Danerys Light of Sylphyros!"

The crowd leaned forward, and the agitation and rigidity filled their glowing eyes. This fight was something different from the brutal attrition of the earth mages before.

The iron grates of the East Gate cranked open. Marin Valcoran stepped forward into the mist from the Solaris side. She was the youngest Captain in the history of the Solaris Royal Guard, a virtuoso of the tides, a true rara avis whose command of water was precise. She wore lightweight armor tinted with sea green and blue, designed for mobility. In her right hand, she casually held a long trident of celurean steel. She walked like she was flowing like an ocean. Every movement of hers looked like a dancer perfectly attuned to the ocean’s natural rhythm.

Across the opposite, the West Gate slid and cranked open. From the Sylphyros side, Danerys Light confidently entered the arena. He was a Striker, a rare aggressive class mage who shone his body as a blade. He wore lightweight, sleeveless black leather armor, scarred arms completely bare and bulk. Even as he walked casually toward his starting mark, his fists glowed faintly with sparks of yellow electricity that jerked continuously between his knuckles with a buzz of static.

The two exceptional warriors walked through the pathway and stopped at the center of the largest, circular floating platform. They were surrounded by the deafening roar of the spectators’ anxiety.

They looked at each other, their eyes fixated. There was no hatred here. Only the pure, unadulterated thrill of the brutal hunt. They both bowed simultaneously, profoundly respecting both the battlefield and the fifty thousand people watching them.

Then, high above, the bronze bell rang.

GONG!!

Marin moved instantly. Water violently erupted from the stone below her agile feet. "Tidal Slash."

She swung her body, waving her silver trident in a horizontal arc. A razor-thin blade slash of highly pressurized water launched from the arc. The water blade hissed through the air, sharp enough to cut a warhorse completely in half.

Danyerys raised his arms in a tight cross block directly in front of his face.

DOOOMMM!!

A blinding flash of lightning rushed outward from his skin, the exact second the water blade made contact with his arms.

The high-pressure water wave split around him. The extreme heat of his electrical aura was so incredibly intense that the water crackled instantly upon impact. It violently turned into an expanding cloud of steam that hissed loudly, obscuring the misty platform.

"Fast," Danerys grinned, his voice flowing through the thick steam, distorted by heavy static, "but a little too wet for my taste."

He punched straight through the white cloud, his fist wreathed in roaring yellow lightning, aiming for Marin’s face.

Marin calmly twisted her trident mid-air, her sapphire eyes glowing with intense blue mana. She didn’t try to dodge the incoming punch. "Hydria Cascade."

The thick cloud of steam instantly folded inward and condensed from a hot vapor back into a freezing liquid. The water rushed backward and wrapped aggressively around Danerys’s charging body like a thick, suffocating blanket. It held thunder forcefully in a spherical water dome.

Marin pointed her trident tip towards him. "Drown!" Marin whispered coldly, slowly clenching her free fist.

The swirling water sphere tightened rapidly, crushing inward with the immense, suffocating pressure of the deep sea, trying to force his lungs out of air.

Inside the water sphere, Danerys couldn’t breathe, but his eyes were wide open. He calmly brought his hands up and slammed his palms. "Thunderheart Pulse."

CRACKKKK..!!

A massive, deafening and devastating shockwave of unfiltered yellow lightning thrust outward from the hands. It violently hit the interior walls of the water cage.

Water is a natural conductor of electricity. Marin’s spell instantly backfired, and the overwhelming electrical charge surged through the rotating cyclone of water. The cyclone shattered completely. It exploded outward in every direction into a million sparkling droplets.

The massive audience roared in joy and delight. To the commoners in the stands, it looked like a spectacular fireworks display of golden light shimmering through the twinkling water droplets.

But down on the battlefield, the fight was absolutely not over. Every single one of those million droplets suddenly stopped falling. They hovered perfectly in the humid air. Marin smiled faintly, looking at the electric brawler. She slowly raised two fingers on her left hand, glowing with blue mana. The suspended droplets began to vibrate violently, humming with sheer energy.

Danerys, standing calm, looked around at the floating water. His grin faded into a look of serious engrossment. He realized exactly what was coming. He quickly braced his legs wide to anchor himself.

"Rain Barrage." Marin sharply snapped her fingers.

Thwack-thwack-thwack-thwack!

All suspended droplets shot forward at the same time. Accelerated by her intense water mana, they hit like solid metal bullets fired from a Gatling gun.

Danerys crossed his thick arms, enhanced with mana, tightly over his face and torso to guard his vital organs. The sound of the water hitting his body rumbled through the stadium like a brutal hailstorm striking a tin roof.

The lethal pressure of water bullets tore at his leather clothes, screeching and shredding the fabric. They struck into his bare arms and chest, instantly bruising his skin in crimson red. Even his passively enhanced physical durability took a heavy, painful impact from the sheer, overwhelming power of the attack. He was forcefully pushed back, his boots scratching the floor with a creaking sound.

Marin spun her silver trident again above her head in a rapid circle, gathering all the residual water from the arena floor. The liquid swirled behind her back, rising high into the air like a massive tidal wave.

Danerys finally stood still near the edge of the platform. He slowly lowered his bruised, smoking arms with a hissing sound. He was bleeding from a dozen small cuts across his cheeks and shoulders. He lifted his right fist high into the sky, his eyes burning with golden static. "Storm Call!"

Wild lightning gathered thundering in his raised hand. The electrical current grew so dense and loud that it sounded exactly like a thousand birds screeching at the same time.

An Ocean met a Storm. They lunged at each other simultaneously.

Marin thrust her derivative trident forward with all her might, sending the roaring tidal wave crashing forward across the platform, powerful enough to wash everything away down into the abyss.

Danerys stepped completely into the strike and threw a devastating right straight, releasing a bolt of concentrated lightning directly into the center of the wave.

FLASH!

Their ultimate attacks collided, rumbling in the center of the arena. The entire stadium witnessed a blinding white flash. The shockwave of steam and static current shattered the smaller floating platforms nearby. A freezing gust of wet mist blew howling into the spectators’ stand, completely soaking the screaming spectators in the front rows.

Most of the audience frantically shielded their faces from the thundering blast. But when the blinding light finally cleared, the arena became a mess of flowing water, scorched stone, and lingering static electricity. Thick bolts of yellow lightning crackled around Danerys’s bruised body, distorting the air around him. On the opposite side, Marin’s armor drizzled constantly with water that seemed attached to her skin, glowing with a protective blue mana.

"You’re a lot better than I expected, Valcoran," Danerys roared and admitted, rolling his bruised, aching right shoulder.

Marin raised the back of her hand and wiped a thin line of blood from the corner of her mouth, which was caused by the concussive shockwave that rattled her teeth. "You speak a lot for someone who clearly isn’t used to bleeding, Sylphyros," she countered smoothly, twirling her trident into a defensive guard.

Danerys let out a loud, sharp laugh that echoed through the water. "I speak like someone who genuinely enjoys it!"

He rushed forward again. This time, he was moving with terrifying speed. Roaring electricity burst with flash from the soles of his boots with every single step, aggressively propelling him faster and faster, turning him into a thunderbolt.

ZIP! ZIP! ZIP!

He closed the fifty-foot gap in the blink of an eye. Marin expertly intercepted his blitz. She stepped into his guard and forcefully thrust her trident directly at his chest, aiming to impale him before he could throw a punch.

Danerys aggressively reached out and caught the sharp shaft of the trident with his completely bare left hand.

TRISHHH!

The high-tier water enchantment coating the trident instantly rattled his hand. But his grip was absolute raw strength. He completely ignored the agonizing, cutting pressure of the blade. Using it as a lever, he pulled the weapon with a jerk and Marin along with it.

He bent his knees, dropping low, and brutally slammed a lightning-infused right creaking punch into her exposed ribs.

CRUNCH!!

All the air violently left Marin’s lungs in a pained gasp, and a handful of blood splattered from her mouth. The sheer force of the punch lifted her completely off her feet. But Marin was a prodigy of fluid magic. She turned a chaotic lift into a controlled, acrobatic stance.

She released her grip on the trident for a fraction of a second and grabbed the shaft again tightly with her other hand.

"Tail slap!" she grunted through the pain.

She used her momentum to viciously slam the iron end of the trident into the back of Danerys’s skull as she lunged right over his head.

The heavy blow rattled his brain. He tripped, stumbling heavily onto one knee.

Marin landed with grace and jumped on a rising marble pillar twenty feet away. She immediately dropped onto one knee, clutching her bruised, throbbing ribs with her free hand, her trident pointed downward, and clattered onto the ground.

She closed her eyes and took an exhaustive breath, ignoring the pain. The water scattered all across the arena floor surged upward. It completely defied the laws of gravity. A swirling tornado of water rapidly formed, roaring in the open sky directly above her head, growing heavier and more dangerous by every second.

Danerys jerked his head sideways violently, trying to clear the dizziness from his skull. He slowly stood up and looked into the sky. He watched the massive amount of water gathering above her, easily enough to completely crush a three-story building flat.

He was utterly fascinated. "You’re going to transform the topography of the whole damn battlefield... aren’t you?!" he shouted eagerly over the deafening roar of the swirling water.

Marin slowly opened her eyes. Her pupils and irises were gone. Her eyes had gone completely, glowing white with pure oceanic mana. The whirlpool of water descended from the sky. It wrapped around her armored body in a tight, glowing spiral. It aggressively formed into two raged wings on her back. Her aura completely changed. It became incredibly graceful, but overwhelmingly deep, and all-consuming like the pressure of the deep sea.

"Siren Form:" Marin’s voice echoed with a resonance, "Abyssal Wing."

Down below, Danerys cracked his neck loudly from side to side, and a smile crept through his mouth.

"Alright then," he said softly, the intense static electricity making the hair on his arms stand straight up. "I guess I’ll stop holding back, too."

He clenched both of his fists. The ancient, hidden runes carved deeply into his black leather armor began to glow with yellow light. Thick, jagged bolts formed a full, protective sphere around his body.

"Raijin Form:" Danerys commanded with absolute calm, "Overclock."

The audience instantly sensed the power shift. The very air in the stadium grew heavy, completely saturated with the smell of ozone and the damp scent of sea salt.

CLANG!!

The heavy bronze bell thundered out sharply once more.

End of Phase One.

The crowd screamed to halt their anxiety. They were entirely on their feet, stomping the stone in frenzy.

The grand announcer announced, his tone was visibly shaking with genuine excitement. "The First Phase officially concludes! The Second Phase of this magnificent duel will begin shortly! The arena will reset!"

Marin and Danerys simply stood in place, staring intensely at each other across the ruined battleground. They looked at each other with unadulterated shaking excitement.

Neither of them wanted this fight to end. Because only in this fleeting moment is the winner decided.

****

Kairos watched the standoff with narrowed eyes.

"Water actively conducts," Kairos murmured, crossing his arms. "Marin is taking residual electrical damage every single time she manages to hit him. But Danerys is slowing down. He’s burning his stamina to fight through the sheer pressure of her water volume. It’s not a sprint anymore. It’s a race of pure attrition."

****

In the Royal Pavilion above, Princess Seyana watched Marin closely, her heart pounding heavily with pride for her kingdom’s brilliant water mage.

Just a few seats away, Brandon Sylphyros watched Seyana watching the fight. His pale, handsome face was an unreadable mask of dark, possessive shadow in his eyes grew slightly deeper.

The roaring storm and the crashing tide would clash again in just a few moments, and the entire arena trembled in sheer anticipation.