"It's gorgeous," one noble daughter breathed, leaning forward in her seat with sparkling eyes. "I'd like to wear all the elents as a coat just like that."
"I've never seen anything like it," her companion agreed. "The way the fire dances with the water without them canceling out... It's art."
Many girls in the audience considered the wolverine "beautiful" for being so colorful, a true living rainbow that captured their attention with a visual display no other beast could replicate. It was aesthetically impressive in a way that appealed to so sensibilities.
Many boys considered the coloration garish in contrast, too flashy and ostentatious.
"Looks like soone threw up a rainbow on a perfectly good beast," one young lord muttered to his neighbor.
"Tacky," another agreed, though his jaw was tight. "A proper wolverine should be dignified, not decorated like so festival attraction."
Though that opinion probably had more to do with envy than genuine aesthetic judgnt. It was difficult not to feel so resentnt when your beast struggled to use one or two elents while Ren's wolverine displayed seven without apparent effort.
The professors remained silent. Ren didn't wait after fully summoning the beast. He allowed the shadow jumps imdiately without preamble or so cliche gradual establishnt of lower to higher capabilities.
It was the instant corroboration of what everyone already suspected after seeing the hydra and mantis demonstrate control over light and darkness. The wolverine vanished from its initial position, a transition that confird access to darkness as everyone had anticipated.
One mont solid, the next simply gone.
Liora had already made her wisp jump in response to the summon, the spirit teleporting to damage the wolverine before it could escape. The flaming entity materialized mid-strike, ethereal fangs extended toward where the wolverine was rging into the shadows.
Ren reacted by ordering a light flash, a brilliant burst that was more accurately an explosion capable of damaging spiritual energy beings. Pure radiance detonated from the wolverine's colorful back.
But the wisp turned intangible just before impact, the technique that had worked against the mantis functioning equally effectively against the wolverine's attack. The flash of light mana passed through the spirit without visible effect, light passing the incorporeal form as if it simply didn't exist in the sa plane of reality.
It seed a stalemate was developing because neither beast could effectively touch the other now.
The wolverine could navigate through shadows and flash to avoid the wisp's attacks. The wisp could beco intangible to negate the wolverine's strikes. It was a frustrating balance that could extend indefinitely if neither side found a way to break the pattern.
A battle of dodging rather than damage.
But the Wisp was lower on mana and Liora had one last card held in reserve, a technique she hadn't revealed during the battle against the mantis precisely because she wanted to use it here.
Liora channeled the command through the bond, and the wisp responded with a dramatic transformation.
The spirit instantly jumped to the center of the arena so ters adobe the ground and began to grow, its mass expanding while simultaneously blazing more intensely than before. It wasn't simply an increase in size but an amplification of its elental presence that affected the surrounding environnt. The temperature in the imdiate area spiked noticeably, heat radiating outward in waves.
The shadows on the field began to dance.
Not natural movent caused by changing light but active manipulation where the wisp controlled the shadows directly, deforming them into patterns that didn't follow normal physical logic. Shadows that should be static under fixed light twisted and undulated. Areas that should be dark illuminated inconsistently. The contrast between light and shadow beca fluid, unstable, unpredictable.
It was a technique born from the wisp's unique nature, one that disrupted shadow-based movent.
And that affected the wolverine's rapid movent significantly.
When shadows danced and deford unpredictably, the wolverine lost the capacity to navigate through them with the speed it normally demonstrated.
It was like trying to jump between platforms that constantly moved, possible but much more difficult and risky. A mistid jump could leave the wolverine partially materialized in an unstable shadow, vulnerable to attacks.
Ren's eyes narrowed, analyzing the technique rapidly. Clever. A tactical disruption, taking away his mobility advantage.
Liora prepared to detonate her beast again, the costly technique that uses almost half the beast's mana and that she'd used against the mantis but planned to execute here one final ti, taking advantage of the surprise and the fact that unstable shadows couldn't completely conceal the wolverine. She didn't have mana to waste if she wanted it to work well again and assud Ren would find the counter soon once he understood the shadow manipulation chanics, so she needed to deal significant damage right now while she still had a tactical advantage.
Even if it ant spending all the wisp's remaining energy in the process, it was worth it if she damaged the wolverine before facing the Bashe.
The wisp swelled further, internal fire building toward critical mass. The temperature continued climbing. The shadows writhed more violently.
But it beca instantly apparent that the power of the wolverine's elental control was different in considerable magnitude compared to the mantis.
Where the mantis had been fast and precise, the wolverine was exhaustive and dominant. Ren ordered a maneuver the mantis never could have executed with its more limited control.
The wolverine buried itself several ters into the ground in an instant, excavation that ignored the normal resistance of compacted earth. The soil simply parted around.
It hadn't done so at the beginning because the wisp would have reached and burned it instantly before it could subrge sufficiently into the earth. Shadows were a bit faster in that aspect, allowing instantaneous repositioning rather than the brief but asurable ti required to tunnel.
But now that the wisp was committed to growing for the explosion, that "long" second of peace was sufficient to dig.
And from that subterranean position, it made the entire field explode in enormous earthen stakes that erged to cover the whole area. The ground erupted.
Not in one or two places but everywhere simultaneously, the entire battlefield transforming in a heartbeat. A massive 'spiky hill'.
Stakes of compacted earth and stone burst upward, each one several ters in height and thickness. They didn't follow any regular pattern but instead created a chaotic forest of stone pillars that blocked lines of sight, provided cover, and fundantally changed the terrain.
They weren't simply obstacles but defensive and offensive structures simultaneously, each stake creating stable shadows behind itself while also blocking the wisp's line of effect.
The wisp's prepared explosion detonated against the nearest stakes, fire and force dispersing against stone barriers rather than finding its intended target. The blast was still impressive, several stakes lted, cracked or shattered from the impact… But the damage was distributed across dozens of structures rather than being able to hit the wolverine half inside a shadow or barely so ters into a flat floor that would be very hot right now.
Liora's mouth fell open at the sheer size of the effect the wolverine had generated on the field in less than two seconds.
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