Chapter 304 - Third Stage of the Competition (12)

Adrianna woke up the next day and found that Dmitri wasn't there. She got up and went to the bathroom. She communicated with him mentally. He was in the kitchen along with Cora and Ed dishing out some of Adrianna's favorite dishes. Adrianna laughed and asked him to get out of the kitchen because she was afraid he would eventually make some poison for her. 

"What? Don't you remember that I roasted such fantastic deer meat for you when we had gone for our honeymoon?" 

Adrianna chuckled and went to take a bath. It was a beautiful time she spent with him. She decided to go with him on that trip once the competition was over. 

"The competition!" Adrianna smacked her head. She should be thinking about the competition when she was thinking about him. 

She had to face the semi finals today and the person she had to fight with was Shay, the boy who claimed to be her cousin. Adrianna thought about Shay and she found him to be one of the mildest persons in the class. She was genuinely surprised that Shay was a brilliant boy who could actually come up to that level. She wondered what would be her strategy to fight against Shay. 

She finished dressing up for the academy and went out to the dining hall where the three musketeers were waiting for her to showcase their kitchen skills. Before the men could even say anything, Cora approached her. She held her hand and brought her to the dishes she had made. Adrianna was surprised at Cora's cooking skills. She had the turkey she had made and it was yummy. "Cora, you must teach me how to make that turkey," said Adrianna eating another mouthful. 

The two men, who had worked together to make dishes for Adrianna as compared to Cora, were just too jealous now. They passed the dishes they had made in front of her. Adrianna had to take those creamy puffs and eat them forcibly. Thank god that she was a witch and thank god she could create an impression that she was eating when in fact she was keeping them in her bag. 

Half an hour later she went to the academy. Dmitri had already discussed with her about Shay in the night but she knew that as an opponent he would try his best to defeat her. 

While flying in her carriage, she gave those creamy puff cakes to Fleur and the safety team who were in the most difficult situations of their life. How could they refuse food from Royal Palace? 

When Adrianna reached the academy, she went straight to the field. She saw that the crowd had grown in numbers and now only two very large segments were there in the field. She had almost half of the field for the semifinals. She wondered whether she even needed so much. The last two times it was very easy. 

The last four participants bowed to each other and went to their respective segments. Adrianna was very polite to Shay but Shay wasn't even looking at her. He was in no mood to talk to her or show his friendly side. His body was stiff. 

"Which side would you like to stand Shay?" asked Adrianna out of curtsey. 

He shrugged and went ahead of her. He was trying to convey that he wasn't in a mood to show how friendly he was. Adrianna understood that and she became cautious. She narrowed her eyes and delved into his mind. To her surprise, there was no strategy that she found there. His mind was blank. She went deep inside to find something that was relevant to the competition, but there was not an iota of information she could collect. Now she became anxious. There wasn't much time to start and Shay wasn't throwing any clue towards her. 

"Start!" the voice boomed on the mic suddenly. 

Immediately Shay pointed his wand and shouted, "Zhargasaaa…" An eerie black light came out of his wand and it started developing into smoke. 

Adrianna didn't know what spell was that. There was no time to go into his mind to find out about that spell. The smoke started spreading around her. She pointed her wand all around to cover her in white light, but the smoke seemed to enter that too. Suddenly, the smoke started taking shape of a giant serpent like beast with red eyes. 

Shay shouted, "Burn her!" The serpent opened its mouth and blew fire form its mouth. 

Adrianna inferred that it was an invisible force that Shay had somehow woken up. It was obeying his commands. 

Adrianna leapt in the air and jumped to the other side as the serpent was blowing fire at her. She dodged him number of times and now her energy was beginning to drain. How can that be? She looked at Shay and he was chanting another spell "Tirosa", which was affecting her physique. 

She had to quickly think of something that would first quiet the serpent. 

"Kill her!" Shay commanded the beast. 

"Kill her!" One couldn't cast the spell to kill but Shay used a sneaky method to kill her. He awoke dark spirits to kill her for him. He wasn't against the rule for awakening dark spirits. The serpent stopped blowing fire and started crawling towards her. Adrianna saw a smoke like serpent, which was almost thirty feet long and as thick as a barrel, crawling towards her. She was rapidly losing her energy. She sat down, sweating and panting. She looked up in front and saw Dmitri, Ed and Cora all of whom had stood up and watched her in silence. Things appeared to go in slow motion. The entire audience had fallen silent. Everyone looked at her with bated breath. Half of them had stood up from their chairs. 

Adrianna closed her eyes. She didn't know what to do because there was nothing that was taught to her regarding dark spirits. She concentrated on whatever energy that was left in her and then used her wand to point that energy at the serpent who was now crawling up and around her. "Still" was all that she spoke and the next moment the serpent turned into solid black sand that froze in its place. She managed to come out of it as Shay watched her in horror. In the next second she pointed her wand at Shay and shielded herself from the "Tiroso" spell, which was easy. She walked away from the serpent and shouted, "Recio!" 

The serpent exploded. Each and every particle of black sand was sent to heaven as she said "Starlzieee…." and created a portal for the dark spirit to enter it just as she had done for Gregory. 

The entire sequence took place within five minutes only. The audience gaped at Adrianna. That was one of the most rare spells only a few could perform. There was a huge applause from the audience and some even started shouting how Shay was circ.u.mventing the rules although the two participants couldn't hear it anything. 

Adrianna had now fully recovered. She had some water from the bottles that were kept on the tables on the periphery of the segment. They were actually special potions made by Professor Lane that provided energy and food to the participants. 

In the next minute both Adrianna and Shay had attacked each other with everything they had ever learnt and the segment was covered in a thick sphere of different types of lights.