Chapter 132 - Nicole Vs Kian II

Spectators spoke up after seeing Nicole get sent flying by Kian's attacks, some felt the fight was boring, some felt Nicole was unable to react to Kian's attacks.

However, the far more perceptive ones seemed to have realized what Nicole was aiming for.

"No matter how you look at it, she's using him to test her strength."

"Exactly, she barely took any damage from all those attacks."

"Am I the only one who noticed that she parried his aura filled sword with just a dagger?"

Nicole ignored their statements and stood up before dusting the sand off her body, turning towards the charging Kian, she casted a spell.

"Water Magic: Water Dragon."

Right before the flame attributed aura filled sword reached her, a pillar of water gushed out with her at the center.

A cluster of snake-like water dragons generated by magic formed from this pillar of water and drifted around her.

Two of them dashed towards Kian, causing him to fill his sword with more aura in order to counter the powerful attacks.

"Haa!"

With a shout, he sliced the two water dragons in half, resulting in a small explosion that caused the water dragons to dissipate and become water vapor.

"Lightning Magic: Thunderstorm" 

"Wind Magic: Towering Tornado."

There was a bright flash of light as lightning came down from the skies and struck the next duo of water dragons that snaked towards him.

It was followed with a loud roaring sound as an enormous tornado raged with him at the center, preventing the other water dragons from getting close to him at all.

He pushed forward while splitting aside the waves of water dragons with his sword, however the expression on Nicole's face remained calm.

[Are you really going to use that here?]

A voice echoed in her head as she stared at Kian who was cutting the water dragons down and heading towards her. 

It was none other than Undine who had concealed her magic power and shrunk herself before taking residence atop Nicole's head.

'Yes, it is a good opportunity to test out how durable my body has become, I can also test out how strong my attacks have become.'

As some of the more perceptive spectators had realized, Nicole was using Kian to test out her strength. 

She allowed some of his attacks to hit so she could find out how much more durable she had become after advancing to the grandmaster realm.

She was also using her spells in a non-lethal manner to prolong the fight for as long as possible.

Even if any of the water dragons hit him, he would not take as much damage as one may think. Nicole was also trying to test her control over her spells so she was trying to make them deal less damage than they were supposed to by reducing the amount of magic in the spell at the last moment right before they hit.

Nicole looked at Kian who had realized that Nicole was not even the least serious and was fuming in rage, literally.

"Flame magic: Deathmarch Dance!"

He shouted out the spell name and dozens of flaming orbs materialized above his head before firing towards Nicole.

Each of them was easily the size of a grown man's head, if they hit, the damage would not be negligible.

-If- they hit.

"Earth Wall."

Nicole tapped her foot on the ground twice and summoned a giant wall of earth that blocked the attacks. Just because she had an unusually high affinity for water did not mean she could not use other elements, she just rarely did.

**CRACK!! 

**BOOM!!!

The wall could not survive the onslaught of flame orbs and shattered almost instantly, however Nicole did not panic but calmly waved her hands, causing some of the remaining water dragons to crash into the flame orbs.

***BBOOOOMM!!!

Nicole jumped backwards to avoid the resulting explosion of steam that would have ended up giving her serious 4th degree burns.

As for Kian, he covered his body with a thin layer of magic power to protect himself form the hot steam.

Pointing his sword at her, Kian casted another spell, one that was aimed at impairing her vision.

"Sand screen."

A blast of sand was launched from his sword towards her eyes, temporarily blinding her.

"Sand Guard!"

There was a rumbling sound as a giant sentry like golem which consisted entirely of sand was summoned right behind Nicole.

Upon its creation, the sand guard is able to perform any task that the user desires. One of those could be to restrain an opponent.

And that was exactly what it did to Nicole, it grabbed her with its massive arms and held her close to its chest, preventing her from moving.

Nicole's magic power flared as water began spiraling round both her and the golem, but Kian would not let her cast whatever spell she intended to cast.

"Sand Clod!"

A large block of sand appeared above the golem and dropped down towards it, this caused Nicole to use the water that was spiraling around the golem to block the sand block, as its true target was not the golem but herself.

Kian clenched his fist and spoke out a command word.

"Absorb!"

Therefore, it did. The giant block of sand absorbed the water around Nicole with relative ease and continued dropping down towards her with its increased weight.

"Sandbox!"

As he called out the name of another spell, the block of sound that was dropping towards Nicole, scattered before transforming into a cube containing both Nicole and the golem restraining her within it.

"Sand Funeral."

With a calm tone, Kian casted the last spell in the combo causing the sand box that had wrapped around Nicole to contract, pressing down on her from all directions with the aim of pulverizing her.

Many of the spectators held their breaths as few began doubting if Nicole could survive this without using her sacrificial artifact.

Meanwhile, inside the Sand Box, Nicole calmly conversed with Undine who was asking her when she would begin fighting back seriously.

[This is enough for the defensive tests right?]

'Indeed, it is.'

And so, she finally took action.

"Water Magic: Surging Waves."

The ground shook as enormous amounts of water burst forth from underground, crashing into the walls of the sand box and shattering them completely before moving on to break the sand guard that held Nicole tightly in its arms.

Kian tried to absorb the water with his sand but the amount of water was just too much.

**BOOM BOOM!! BOOM!!!

With her now free arms, Nicole pointed towards Kian and spoke.

"Water Ether Technique: Water Dragon's Roar."

Waves of Ether gushed forth from her body and manifested the head of a giant snake like sea dragon with sharp teeth and fired towards Kian.

Naturally, Kian would not stand there and let it hit him. He moved to evade the giant ether based water dragon that threatened to crush him.

Unfortunately, Nicole's new ether technique could not be avoided so easily.

She pointed towards his new location and the water dragon that was about to crash into the empty ground, turned around and dashed towards Kian at a faster speed than before.

"You gotta be kidding me!"

Kian exclaimed before twirling his sword around as Magic power gathered at the tip and flames covered the sword.

"Combination Spell: Magic Iron Ether Bullet."

Magic power condensed and formed a large iron casing around his flaming sword, he then thrusted it out toward the water dragon that was charging towards him.

Propelled by Ether, the casing was launched from his sword and moved towards the rapidly approaching water dragon.

The collision between the two attacks, resulted in a large mushroom cloud explosion that shattered the arena grounds and released shockwaves that were are strong as high tier magic spells.

***BOOOOOOMMMMMMM!!!!!!!!

Nevertheless, Kian did not let up and displayed to all the spectators, the reason why he could keep the rank of 10th best out of over ten thousand students.

He dashed through the explosion towards Nicole who was on the other side with his sword raised high; a layer of aura surrounded his body to protect him from the heat and flames.

He created footholds with earth magic and jumped from one to another to pass over the areas where the ground had collapsed and he lacked proper footing.

"Cavalier Art: Prana Shaker."

The translucent prana gathered around his sword causing a haze to form around the blade.

He put all of the prana energy into his swing and aimed for Nicole's head. 

As the sword thundered down towards her, Nicole's face contorted slightly as she casted a defensive spells with magic while readying an ether technique.

A large amount of water covered her overhead, however the prana filled blade cleaved through it with ease.

Nicole saw that a hastily made defensive magic was not going to be useful so she decided to use the ether technique she had prepared.

"Ether Spirit Technique: Spirit's Lair."