169 Team Battle Part 2

Actually, Braiden was not too injured from the earlier attack. He was just caught off-guard and forced outside the stage boundaries. After his uncle helped heal him a little, he woke up right away. Wiping the blood away from his face, he looked towards the stage with a grave expression. Slamming his fist into the ground, Braiden's normally smiling face turned ugly. As far as princes go, he was not the type to really pay attention to keeping face and acting above the rest, but getting eliminated first was truly too humiliating. He could not help but feel guilty towards his teammates still fighting. All he managed to do was injure Keaton. 

"Don't think too much. You should believe that they will still be able to follow through. Who knows if that injury will become a major point later? You have to know that they do not have a healer, so he will have to keep participating with an open wound." The Duke's cold voice sounded by Braiden's ear.

"I understand." Braiden clenched his fist, but knew there was nothing he could change now. All he could do was watch as the battled unfolded. 

The people on the stage could not spare thoughts to Braiden and only focused on their wounds and their opponents. Keaton grit his teeth and he held his leg gingerly. Tatyana wanted to ignore him, but she knew that they were teammates now and would sink or swim together. She walked over and ripped part of Keaton's shirt sleeve. Using the strips, she tied the wound tightly to try to prevent the blood flow. It was only a stopgap measure, but it would have to suffice at the moment. Trevion also treated his own wounds, but it was obvious the both of them should avoid to vigorous movements or they will end up bleeding out.

Although they did not want to give their opponents any time, Greyson, Eris, and Aphina could only watch as they came up with a new plan. 

"Greyson, you are the only one here who could handle facing two opponents, so we can only leave it to you to endure until I can defeat one. Aphina, you would have to defend against an opponent until I'm done. I will straight away attack Efren, because, if it's just one-on-one, I'm fairly certain I can defeat him. Greyson, you try your best to block Trevion and Tatyana from giving support. Aphina, you will have to block Keaton. This time you will be prepared, so I believe you have enough skill to keep him busy while he is injured." Eris spoke up to take the lead in the strategy.

"As long as you don't expect me to beat him, I'm confident I can keep his attention." Aphina nodded with confidence.

"I will try my best to keep them both busy. Thankfully, Trevion does not move too fast, so it's just a matter of containing Tatyana." Greyson also voiced his assent.

Eris started walking in front while asking, "okay, are you both ready?"

"This is a support spell that increases your strength and stamina. Although, it won't do anything in terms of assisting with your mana." 

She also released two more spells, but just for herself that would boost her agility and body's defense. Still not finished, she placed her hand on her chest and a spell engraving appeared on her robe. Her thin robe also worked as an extremely tough defense magic tool.

"Alright! Now, I'm ready." 

"Then, let's get this show started." Eris remarked before jumping straight towards the other four across the stage. Greyson and Aphina followed right after her. Stabbing straight with her spear, Eris activated a lightning spell that appeared at the tip of the blade. With the extra strength, her legs pushed her directly in front of Efren with only a single jump. Caught a little off guard by the sudden approach, Efren was only able to block while the rest dodged to the side. He parried Eris's spear into the ground which proceeded to explode and break apart the stage. Wincing, Efren could feel some residual damage on the bottom of his feet.

Tatyana was the first from the other side to recover her wits and wanted to support. However, a fiery arrow blocked her path and caused another explosion in front of her. The impact sent her flying back. Trevion managed to react in time and caught her to slow down her body's momentum. Feeling his feet sliding back, Trevion acted quickly to dig his feet down and connect with the earth. Both of them soon stopped themselves. Tatyana jumped down from Trevion's arms and thanked him while glaring over at the origin of the arrow. Greyson only smiled back while nocking another arrow on his bow. Just the same as the last one, he enhanced it with the wind element and fire element to make it fast and explosive. He could only concentrate so much firepower in one arrow at a time. Accompanied by a hair-raising whistling noise, the arrow shot out from the bow towards the two targets. This time, Trevion was prepared and chanted a quick spell. A multiple solid rock walls infused with some metal appeared in front of them. The arrow broke through the first one and exploded while the second and third walls protected the two from the impact.

Using the walls as a way to block vision, Trevion urged Tatyana to go over and help Efren. He knew that the other team was trying to divide and conquer, so obviously he could not allow them to reach their goal so easily. Nodding to him, Tatyana burst out with her highest speed towards where Eris and Efren were engaging in battle. However, Greyson already predicted that they would take advantage of the low visibility and positioned himself between his opponents and Eris and Efren's battle. Putting away his bow and arrows and instead pulling out his sword, Greyson also activated his wind element to meet Tatyana head on. Long needles immediately appeared between Tatyana's fingers that she sent flying towards Greyson. Dodging around, Greyson avoided the ones he could while blocking the rest with his sword. When he was right in front of Tatyana, she opened her mouth and spit out a smaller needle right at him. Unable to dodge completely in time, the needle stabbed into his right shoulder. He ignored the pain and tried to swing his sword at her. Tatyana dodged with a back hand spring, but the fast blade still managed to slice a thin cut across her chest.

Greyson moved to continue, but suddenly realized his right arm was tingling and going numb. Recognizing the problem, he immediately pulled out the small needle and activated the light element. However, how could his second opponent allow him the time? Rock spikes began springing from the ground in Greyson direction. He ran to the side to avoid them, but they seemed to follow his movements. His eyes turned purple as his pupils thinned into slits and white scales appeared all over his body. The rock spikes hit his body but completely broke apart upon contacting the scales. Combining with Aphina's support spell and his dragon bloodline, Greyson could feel immense power and strength throughout his body. He glanced over to see that Eris was still tied up with Efren and Aphina was only barely holding up against Keaton. She consistently blocked the acid water with her own healing water, but still lost out a little in the end. Each attack managed to hurt her, but she would immediately heal it. However, such fighting tactics will tire out the user too much.

Biting his lip, he decided he needed to take action first instead of waiting for Eris to finish her battle. With a loud roar, Zephyr flew out from his body. The two hovered in the air as Greyson chanted an ancient Snow Dragon spell in a low voice. Blue clouds formed over Trevion's head. Noticing the situation turning for the worst, Trevion had no choice but to summon his own magic beast. Behind his tall body appeared a large reptile with tough rock scales and spikes protruding from its spine. Throwing his shield into the air while the beast curled its body around Trevion, he activated his magic tool and a warm yellow light radiated causing the stage to immediately form a dome over Trevion. Enhanced by the shield, the normal rock of the stage glittered like metal.

The temperature in the field dropped dramatically as icy blue drops that matched the clouds fell from the sky. They seeped into the rock slowly freezing the dome over. Even Trevion could feel his body trembling from the intense cold. From the inside out, he saw the rocks around him turn to ice. However, the rain could not reach him and was instead successfully blocked by the defenses. 

Greyson was not discouraged by this sight and instead smiled victoriously. He and Zephyr flew down at a breakneck speed straight towards the icy dome. Trevion tried to remove his shield to gain back his sight, however, his face fell when he realized he could no longer control the dome around him. His shield instead became the cage that trapped him in one spot. Frowning, he could only up his defenses with simple spells and receive support from his magic beast partner. 

Outside the dome, Greyson and Zephyr were quickly in range. Fire and lightning sparked at the end of Zephyr's tail as he whipped his body sideways. The tail slammed straight into the dome which cracked apart immediately like thin ice. Trevion braced himself as he defenses broke one by one. With one final explosion, his beast let out a cry in pain. He also puked a mouthful of blood as his partner dissipated. The remaining force sent him flying out of the ring.

Greyson had no time to feel happy at this moment, because the last two attacks severely drained his mana. Gasping for breath, his legs felt wobbly as Zephyr quickly returned to inside his body. He soon felt the back of his head tingling, and could only quickly roll his body from its original position at the last minute. Sure enough, a bunch of needles dug into the ground. He could not dodge them all as some hit his left side this time. Actually, he never had the time to heal his right side and now both sides of his body could feel the same numbness and tingling. Earlier, Tatyana noticed Greyson gathering mana for a large attack, so she decisively gave up on helping Efren to take out Greyson. She could then circle back and take advantage of their numbers to slowly eliminate the other two. 

Knowing his situation was dire, Greyson could only activate his light element now. A shield grew over his body as he worked on healing himself. Thankfully, Tatyana did not have high power behind her attacks or else this shield would be rather flimsy. Her biggest strength was speed and sneak attacks with needles laced in poison. His shield could still block those attacks. Just like a turtle hiding in its shell, Greyson lifted his eyebrow with a faint mocking expression as if saying "come and give it your best shot." However, Tatyana did not take heed towards Greyson's provocation to try to get her to stay and instead ran over to Eris and Efren's battle. Smile disappearing, Greyson sighed seeing his plan fail. He had hoped to anger her into repeatedly trying to break the shield. But it seemed his opponent was well aware of her strengths and role.

Thankfully, Eris was always someone who had a good grasp of the all the moving pieces in battle. When she saw Greyson readying himself for a final move, she already calculated that he would not recover fast enough to take care of Tatyana. Therefore, she started attacking with more force and gained the upper hand against Efren. By the time Tatyana came for back-up, Eris used Efren's confidence in seeing his companion to do a sneak attack. She dropped her spear, crouched down to dodge his sword, and instead gathered her strength to punch him straight in the gut. With the lightning element and her extra strength, Efren could not make a sound before fainting.

They had gained the advantage! Greyson grew excited for a moment, before realizing that he was exhausted and Aphina was also not in good shape. Some of her skin was marred by acid burns that she could not heal. Although Keaton was stabbed, his injury was mostly under control and he did not have to move much to attack as he was originally someone who attacked from more of a distance. 

Able to read the current situation as well, Keaton decided to ignore Aphina as she was in no position to block him as easily anymore. He ran in Greyson's direction to attack. Greyson watched him approaching with a grave expression. His light element had still not managed to clear out the poison and he was only suppressing it at this moment. His mana stores were also low. The light element could heal his body, but, instead of replenishing mana, it expended more.

"Hehehe. HAHAHA! You would have never thought that you would end up at my mercy, did you?" Keaton could not help but laughing in glee. Menacing red eyes appeared behind him as his Ruby Nerodia once again made its entrance. He was never someone to take it easy on an opponent just because they were weak. Instead, he loved to see them writhe in the worst pain. It was never about avoiding underestimating his opponent, just that he was too sadistic to let up his attacks.

The same combination attack appeared as a wave of black water crashed towards Greyson. In this moment, Greyson actually did not look towards the impending attack, but towards Aphina. Even in her injured state, she looked up at him and smiled with a wink. His lips parted into a wide smile in return. Using the last of his mana, Greyson did not try to fight back and instead immediately ran off the stage. Once he was outside the boundary, the attack was blocked by the shield surrounding the stage to prevent damage spilling into the field.

The situation was back to two-on-two!