Chris fell into unconsciousness with a dazed expression on his face.
Five minutes earlier, the match between Lily and Chris had begun.
Chris opened with his signature fire magic, but deliberately held back from a one-shot kill—instead, he slightly offset the spell’s point of impact, making the flames chase Lily as she scrambled frantically.
She would only grow more desperate as she ran.
Chris appeared to leave her an escape route, but in reality, if she followed that opening, she would only run deeper into the encirclement of flames, until there was nowhere left to run.
The whole process was like a cat playing with a mouse.
The presiding instructor also felt somewhat helpless: if you can win, why not just win cleanly and be done with it?
This year’s freshmen were full of surprises!
But this also proved that Lily had truly offended this Prince to the core.
Although the outcome leaned heavily in one direction, as the instructor, he couldn’t prematurely declare the match over until one party was thrown out of the arena, suffered serious physical injury, or conceded defeat.
Chris watched Lily with a teasing smile as she ran like a dog on its last legs. “How about it? Do you realize your mistake now? If you sincerely apologize to me, considering you’re a subject of Leyne, I might just forgive your offense.”
Lily’s internal monologue was practically overflowing with bullet-screen commentary:
Damn it, who said mages are all squishy? At least now she’d discovered that a mage’s physical stamina absolutely couldn’t be neglected! If you run too slow, you’re as good as dead!
And this Chris—why did he sound just like some overbearing CEO from a brainless modern web novel, with his “do you realize your mistake”? Madam has already been hanging from the mage tower for three days!
…
Rants aside, they didn’t stop her from getting down to business. While frantically fleeing, Lily chanted rapidly, “Spirit of air…”
Although Lily spoke quickly and deliberately kept her voice low, as if mixing in some unusual words, Chris could still make it out: she was casting wind magic.
This made Chris frown slightly: was she really planning to try the same trick again? That would be incredibly stupid of her!
No—her wind magic was actually taking effect. She wasn’t using the same “bluffing tactic” as last time.
Chris felt a gentle breeze brush against his face.
This Light Breeze spell was truly very, very light. It was a sign of insufficient magical power.
Chris almost wanted to laugh.
Was Lily trying to imitate Avery’s method of defeating him?
But blowing fire away with wind only worked when the power of both spells was comparable. If the fire was too strong and the wind too weak, her Light Breeze spell would be less effective than just throwing a few more Water Arrows.
Lily was probably fumbling under pressure and underperforming: not only was her Light Breeze spell lacking in power—its aim was off too.
She should have been aiming at the flames, but instead the wind blew straight at Chris!
As he thought this, Chris suddenly felt as if he couldn’t breathe.
He froze, forgetting to keep watching Lily’s pathetic state.
What was happening?
When a person is deprived of oxygen, their instinctive reaction is to gasp for air. And the result of that was—he inhaled even more carbon dioxide.
Chris began to feel dizzy, which directly interfered with his mental energy, and thus affected his spellcasting.
The Fireburst spell that had been chasing Lily became erratic, scattering in all directions. Some flames even crashed straight into the arena’s magical barrier and dissipated into nothing. The power of the flames also weakened considerably compared to before.
This unexpected turn left the spectators utterly baffled.
When Lily had tricked Jayne, although it was the first time such a stunt had ever been seen, everyone could at least understand what had happened.
But this time, even the instructors were frowning, unable to figure out the principle behind it.
But now, Chris had suddenly collapsed without any warning—it was utterly baffling!
What was going on? Was Chris going easy on Lily—no, throwing the entire ocean?
Actually, was Lily not Ray’s person at all, but Chris’s? Had they been putting on an act all along?
In the spectator stands, an upperclassman immediately asked the instructor in the front row, “Professor, what’s Chris doing? Is he faking it? It looks so fake!”
“He’s not faking it. There’s something off about Lily’s Light Breeze spell…” the instructor said with a frown. “But the details are unclear—the magical barrier interferes with my perception. We’ll have to see the referee’s ruling.”
The presiding instructor was inside the magical barrier—no one was in a better position than him to know exactly what was happening in the match. Every move the students made could hardly escape his perception.
But what the spectators didn’t know was that the referee instructor was no better off than they were—in fact, he was almost tempted to call for backup: What the hell was going on? He had no clue! Could someone please come explain it to him?!
In his perception, Lily had cast a very weak Light Breeze spell on Chris, and then Chris had suddenly malfunctioned.
There were two possibilities: one, Chris was acting; two, Lily hadn’t actually cast Light Breeze at all, but some kind of dizziness-inducing magic disguised as Light Breeze.
The referee knew Chris wasn’t acting.
Yet he could clearly sense that it was genuine wind magic—genuine Light Breeze!
It seemed Lily had made some kind of… extension to Light Breeze that he didn’t quite understand. But that shouldn’t matter, because according to one of the fundamental principles of magic: 【Extensions to a spell cannot change its essential nature.】
The essence of Light Breeze hadn’t changed—so how could it be extended into a dizziness spell?
Thus, neither of the two possibilities held up.
And yet, this bizarre situation was unfolding right before his very eyes!
Of course, there was a third possibility: either Chris or Lily was so far above him in power that they could “fake” things right under his nose without him noticing. The gap in power levels was just too vast.
But merely entertaining that possibility felt absurd! He was an instructor at the First Academy!
How old were Lily and Chris? Even if the Kingdom of Leyne had been pouring everything into training Chris since birth, could it really be that outrageous?
While the referee instructor was still in a daze, Chris shook his groggy head and bit his tongue, struggling to maintain his last shred of consciousness.
He knew something was wrong with his state—he seemed to be under attack, though he had no idea how Lily had done it.
Was that dark magic? Or something else? Chris didn’t know. He could only instinctively summon Fireburst to encircle his body. He had no energy left to attack Lily.
This showed that Chris had decent combat instincts. Many people treated fire magic purely as an offensive spell, forgetting that it could also serve as defense.
Moreover, although fire magic didn’t naturally counter dark magic like light magic did, when it encountered dark magic, it would produce black smoke—which at least served as a feeble deterrent.
But… when Lily saw Chris’s move, she silently lit a candle for him.
See you later, little bro.
She had been attacking him with Light Breeze spells filled with carbon dioxide currents, and now he’d gone and set up a firewall around himself—was he trying to lower the surrounding oxygen concentration even further?
At this point, Chris was practically Lily’s best assistant!
Since he was being so cooperative, Lily wanted to save her mental energy and simply stopped casting.
Before long, Chris tilted backward and collapsed, his consciousness sinking completely into darkness. The flames, which had already been growing weaker, vanished along with him.
Outside the arena, an uproar erupted.