"I hope she eliminates another one of Klein's followers," comnted Min, following Larissa with his gaze as she entered the arena. "Do you think it will be similar to the previous match?"
Ren studied Astor, who was advancing from the opposite side. The boy was considerably larger than Feng. His blue rhinoceros, also at Bronze 1 rank, was known for its extraordinary defense and had obtained its new devastating spinning horn attack.
"It will be different," Ren responded after a mont. "Astor is much more resistant than Feng and doesn't have an elental or natural disadvantage. His defense could prove problematic for Larissa's relatively low attack compared to Liora's."
The combat began with the sa instruction as always, but the developnt was notably different, as Ren predicted.
Astor, instead of waiting, attacked imdiately by invoking his rhinoceros completely, the creature manifested with a roar that reverberated throughout the stadium. It was an imposing beast, almost as large as Taro's Living Tunnel, with skin that seed made of hardened sapphire plates.
Larissa, studying her opponent, kept her mineral fairy partially fused. Small golden crystals adorned her skin, shining with inner light each ti she moved.
The first move was Astor's. He sent his rhinoceros in a direct charge, the beast lowering its enormous head to aim its horn at Larissa. As it advanced, the horn began to spin, becoming a living drill.
To no one's surprise, Larissa executed a spatial jump, disappearing just before impact. What did surprise many was how close she allowed the rhinoceros to get before jumping. So close that so swore they saw the horn graze her.
Larissa appeared in front of Astor, but the boy had already anticipated the situation, so he had returned his beast to his body to use its armor. Larissa's attack barely left a scratch.
Larissa retreated with another jump, and Astor launched his rhino to attack again.
But each ti, Larissa waited until the last mont to jump.
"She's playing with him," observed Min, narrowing his eyes.
"It seems like a psychological strategy," deduced Ren. "Each ti she dodges by such a narrow margin, she makes him pay attention to timing and increases Astor's frustration."
Indeed, after several failed charges by increasingly reduced margins, Astor's expression began to tense. His orders to the rhinoceros beca more abrupt, his calculations less precise.
"You almost caught that ti," comnted Larissa after a particularly tight jump. "One more centiter to the right and it would have been my end."
It was a deliberate provocation, and it worked exactly as expected. Astor, irritated by what he perceived as condescension, ordered his rhinoceros to execute a series of faster charges with its new activated abilities, each from a different angle.
"A mistake," murmured Ren, watching how the strategy developed. "He's exhausting his beast unnecessarily. That's why Larissa isn't attacking him with long jumps anymore and only throws small stones at him... She's saving mana."
Larissa continued her ga of dodging by impossibly narrow margins with short jumps followed by attacks directed at Astor to force him to return the rhino to the starting point, occasionally adding comnts that only served to increase Astor's frustration.
It wasn't cruelty; it was pure tactics, designed to make her opponent spend mana.
Finally, after almost ten minutes of this exchange with no apparent results, Larissa changed her approach.
"It's been fun," she declared, reappearing after her last jump in an offensive position, "but it's ti to see if that defense is as good as you think."
With a fluid movent, she materialized her mineral spear. The weapon shone with golden light, a glow that seed to use Larissa's light elent in a way similar to Ren's style.
Astor, recognizing the threat, absorbed his rhinoceros to adopt a purely defensive posture. The plates on his skin grew, acquiring a deeper blue tone.
Larissa attacked with elegant precision, her spear seeking the points where the plates joined or had just finished expanding in the small openings of the formidable defense.
To the surprise of many, possibly including Larissa herself, the rhinoceros's defense proved even more formidable than it appeared. Even the adjacent skin was quite hard thanks to the enormous increase in defense, and the spear barely managed to leave marks and superficial cuts.
"Impressive," acknowledged Larissa after several attempts. "Your defense is truly exceptional."
Astor smiled for the first ti since the combat began. "The Blue Rhinoceros has the best natural defense of almost all beasts at its level," he declared with pride. "Not even a tier 3 beast can damage it easily."
"True," nodded Larissa. "I guess I'll have to try sothing different."
With these words, she changed her strategy. Instead of attacking the body, she began attacking the face and less defended parts, executing a series of quick spatial jumps so Astor couldn't catch her after each blow.
With each appearance, her spear connected with so soft point on the face, the side of the rhinoceros plates, just below its left shoulder, or even in the groin area, to the terror of male spectators.
Despite everything, the damage was limited.
Each impact was individually insignificant, but they were accumulating damage little by little.
"She's torturing him," explained Ren to his friends. "For so reason I feel that this is a 'very Larissa like' style... but I think now she's the one running out of mana."
The strategy required patience and an extraordinary energy economy. Each spatial jump consud mana, and Larissa was executing dozens of them to stay away from Astor's counterattacks.
"She can't maintain this pace indefinitely," observed Taro. "You're right... She must be near her limit."
Indeed, although Larissa maintained her serene expression, subtle signs of fatigue began to manifest. Her breathing beca slightly more labored, the glow of the crystals on her skin occasionally fluctuated.
Astor, noticing these changes, smiled with renewed confidence. "Now you're the one running out of energy," he declared. "Soon you won't even be able to jump."
Larissa didn't respond verbally.
Instead, she intensified her attacks.
Her jumps, though less frequent now, were more precise and followed by 2 or 3 attacks instead of 1. Each appearance resulted in blows that penetrated a bit deeper than the previous ones.
The mineral fairy fused with her began to manifest its power more visibly, sending discharges of earth and light energy through the spear with each impact. The crystals on her skin shone with new intensity, channeling all her remaining energy toward the tip.
But Astor saw his opportunity in the increasingly easier-to-follow jumps of the princess, who had lost color in her face from fatigue.
However, Astor wasn't in better condition forcing his resistance. It was now or never...
Right after a triple combo that sent waves of pain through his left side, he launched a kick to force her to jump and lunged forward to the new place where Larissa appeared. She couldn't jump consecutively anymore; he was sure he could catch her now.
Indeed, Larissa couldn't jump anymore...
But jumping wasn't the girl's only quality. It was ti for those Lynx reflexes Ren had gifted her to shine.
She planted the back of her spear in the ground, propelled herself upward, leaving the tip directed at Astor, who drove his shoulder into it during the charge, finally breaking his plate. Larissa invoked another spear with the last vestiges of her mana.
The spear stuck in the ground broke along with the plate on Astor's shoulder, and in his concern about missing the attack and having the princess on top of him, the boy forced his mana to grow another but failed as he didn't have enough.
Larissa put all her weight on the new spear as she started to fall and aid it at the top of the now exposed shoulder.
Finally, the rhinoceros's defense gave way. The spear's tip penetrated completely, reaching the vulnerable flesh beneath the hard skin.
It wasn't a mortal blow of course, as it was near the deltoid connection, but it was enough for the rhinoceros boy to roar in pain, montarily unbalanced.
Taking advantage of this single opportunity, Larissa executed a double kick to the back of Astor's neck, knocking him down with her weight to end up barely standing on his back. Her spear, now glowing with the last drop of energy she had left, stopped inches from his neck.
"It's over," she declared simply, her voice slightly trembling from the effort.
Astor assessed his situation, barely enduring the pain in his shoulder and the various cuts on his body. The spear at his throat made it clear that he had lost, but the noble girl had given him the option to declare his defeat honorably.
"I surrender," he finally declared, both frustration and genuine respect in his voice.
Lin advanced to the center. "Victory for Larissa Dravenholm!"
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