novelraw Chapter 218: Human Nature
Chapter 218: Human Nature
"LADY EARTH!"
"LADY EARTH!"
"LADY EARTH!"
The chant rocked the Colosseum foundations.
Gaia stood in the center of the shattered arena, leaning on her staff, breathing heavy but standing tall.
She raised a fist, and the crowd lost its collective mind.
High above, Lothar was wiping imaginary tears from his eyes.
"Beautiful! Just beautiful! A clash of the best, ending with Lady Earth standing firm! House Gift has truly produced a diamond! And let’s not forget Lord Lykos—he fought like a demon today, even if he fell short!"
John nodded while adding:
"The arena repair team is going to hate this batch."
"They certainly are, John!"
Lothar grinned.
"But we don’t pay them to complain! We pay them to fix it! And they better hurry, because our next match is waiting in the wings!"
The projections flickered, sweeping away the image of the victorious Gaia and replacing it with the next pair of combatants.
"In the right corner! She’s the lightning in the bottle! Nora, guard of Gaia of House Gift!"
Nora walked out, her daggers spinning idly in her hands.
She looked incredibly focused.
"And in the left corner..."
Lothar’s voice dropped an octave.
"She needs no introduction, but I’ll give her one anyway! She is our Student Chief! The Perfect Child! Daughter of Genus! Lady Rosa of House Plant!"
A different kind of cheer went up.
It wasn’t the underdog cheering Gaia got.
It was the respectful, slightly terrified applause reserved for royalty.
Rosa walked out, wearing pristine green and gold armor. Her hair was a brighter shade of white than Acer’s, and where his looked messy, hers was braided in perfect patterns.
She held no weapon; she didn’t need one.
"This is going to be interesting. Nora is a first year. Rosa is a third year and at the top of her class. This is a massive gap in experience."
The match began.
Nora didn’t wait for a signal.
She knew she was outmatched in raw power, so she relied on the one thing she had over everyone in her batch, except Ignotus: speed.
With [Flash Step], she vanished in a crackle of blue and reappeared instantly behind Rosa, her lightning-imbued knives aimed at the girl’s neck.
It was a precise kill shot.
But Rosa didn’t even turn around.
She simply raised a finger, calling upon a spell.
A swirl of pink and green petals materialized from thin air, forming a dense, rotating barrier right at the point of impact.
BZZZT—CLANG.
Nora’s daggers hit the petals and bounced off as if they had struck steel.
"You’re pretty fast..."
Rosa casually commented, her voice utterly devoid of concern.
"But linear."
Nora gritted her teeth and kicked off the barrier, backflipping into the air.
She threw her hands forward, unleashing a cone of lightning to stun her opponent.
Rosa sighed and waved her hand.
The ground didn’t explode with giant, clumsy vines like with Acer. Instead, hundreds of thin, wire-like roots shot up with incredible speed, attacking the lightning itself.
The roots acted as lightning rods, catching the electric burst and channeling it harmlessly into the earth.
Nora’s eyes widened.
"What—"
"My turn."
Rosa gestured at her.
A single, small seed shot from her palm like a bullet.
Nora dodged, using [Flash Step] to zip to the left.
But the seed curved, following her Divinity signature.
POP.
Once close, the seed exploded in midair, right next to Nora’s face.
It released a concussion wave of compressed air and pollen.
"Gah!"
Nora stumbled, blinded for a split second.
That was all Rosa needed.
"Bind."
The thin, wiry roots shot up again. They wrapped around Nora’s ankles, pulling her down.
Nora panicked, sending arcs of lightning jumping between the roots to burn them away.
It worked—the roots turned to ash—but by the time she freed herself, Rosa was standing right in front of her.
"Bloom."
She placed a palm on Nora’s chest.
BOOM.
A massive flower made of hardened Divinity bloomed instantaneously from her palm, hitting Nora with great force, launching her across the arena.
She hit the ground hard, rolling, electricity sparking wildly from her light armor.
The poor girl gasped, trying to stand while reaching for her daggers.
"I’m not... done..."
Forced her body to move, Nora channeled everything into one last desperate move.
Lightning went wild in her body, shooting out in all directions, simply unable to be contained.
Stepping forward, she moved so fast she left afterimages, unable to be tracked by the naked eye. She circled Rosa, throwing knives from every angle, creating a cage of electricity.
Rosa just stood in the center, looking at the ground.
She had nearly the same Runes as Acer, but where Acer used a hammer, she used a knife.
Instead of summoning a poisonous tree, she summoned a forest of needles.
The ground had turned into a bed of spikes.
Nora, moving at high speed, couldn’t stop.
She stepped on that grass.
SHUK. SHUK.
The spikes easily pierced through the metal in her boots.
"Ahhhh!"
Her momentum faltered entirely, and she tripped.
But as she fell, Rosa caught her with a single, thick vine that wrapped gently around Nora’s neck.
Rosa lifted the struggling girl into the air and looked at her face.
’She won’t surrender.’
She tightened the grip, just enough to cut off the air and make Nora’s vision go black.
Nora clawed at the vine, her lightning sputtering out.
She kept kicking and struggling.
But it was useless.
Rosa slammed her into the ground.
CRACK.
And again.
CRACK.
And again.
CRACK.
It was a thrashing.
The cold, unfeeling dominance of talent and lineage over grit.
"That’s enough!"
That was when, finally, the referee jumped in, ending the fight.
Rosa released the vine immediately.
Nora slumped to the sand, unconscious, bruised, and broken.
Smoothing her skirt, Rosa looked up at the cheering crowd, gave a polite wave, and walked away without looking back.
"OF COURSE! THE WINNER IS LADY ROSA!"
Lothar screamed.
"STUDENT CHIEF!"
"STUDENT CHIEF!"
"STUDENT CHIEF!"
The crowd followed his screaming.
Meanwhile, from the tunnel, Ignotus sighed.
"Well... she’ll definitely be the tougher fight."
He looked at the broken form of Nora being carried away by the medics.
It was human nature. The strong devoured the weak.
But Ignotus wasn’t exactly human anymore.