Cornflower Witch

Chapter 380 A Thrilling Victory
After the first match, Siltia advanced to the top 32, and the next match will begin in half an hour.

"Contestant number 47 versus contestant number 45!"

Hiltiah took to the stage again, and opposite her appeared a woman dressed in elegant black armor and wearing a top hat, holding a rapier.

Strange, is she also a student of Rolik Academy, or a visitor? She seems to be at the third level.

After a brief exchange of greetings, the match began. As expected, the opponent charged forward swiftly like a nimble swordsman, his rapier moving so fast that only afterimages could be seen in the air.

Such an opponent is already comparable in strength to a common knight, except that he does not have the knight's sturdy armor and shield, but he has a speed and agility that surpasses that of a knight.

Faced with her opponent's rapid advance, a glint flashed in Hilti's eyes, and several sharp threads blocked the opponent's path. She thought that at such speed, the opponent would definitely be injured by the barely visible threads, but the situation surprised her.

The woman in black armor leaped easily, using her rapier to cut through the silk threads, and then continued to approach.

Is its perception so sensitive? An ordinary knight wouldn't be able to react at all and would have to take the hit head-on. Of course, the knights probably wouldn't be afraid of these threads and would just go for it.

The silk threads delayed the opponent for a few seconds. Hilti made a grasping motion with both hands, and a bird woven from silk threads quickly took shape and flew out, heading straight for the opponent's face.

Seeing that Hiltiah summoned the bird so quickly, the woman was slightly surprised, but her movements remained unchanged. Her rapier flicked in the air, flashing a pale silver light, and pierced straight into the bird's chest, tearing it apart.

However, under Hilti's precise command, the scattered birds burst open again with sharp threads, cutting her armor with tiny rips, and even leaving a small bloodstain at the corner of her eye.

However, this is the limit. The armor worn by the opponent is not something that the threads manipulated by Hilti can penetrate. With the support of the core secret technique at the third level, she can also gain combat power far superior to that of the second level.

A few seconds later, the opponent broke free from the control of the silk threads and rushed in front of Hilti. The sharp rapier pierced the girl's hair near her ear and then stopped.

Just as the referee was about to announce the result, she raised her hand to concede defeat, a situation that surprised many viewers.

"It's nothing. I already lost because this little girl got hurt in the battle." She smiled, shook her head, and waved goodbye to Siltia with a flourish.

"What's your name?" the other person asked before stepping off the stage.

“Hedra”.

"That's right, my name is Xiwen." Then the other person disappeared around the corner of the corridor in the battle arena.

Back in the lounge, Hilti was surrounded by several other contestants who looked her up and down curiously before telling her the identity of the woman from earlier.

“She is indeed a member of our Rolik Academy, but from a very small branch, the ‘Hunting Department.’ You can think of it as a department that specializes in hunting down fallen individuals, traitors, and some dark mages within the department.”

"Xiwen enrolled two years ago, and her strength is among the top in her cohort. It's normal that you lost. Or rather, it would be surprising if you could inflict even a minor injury on her."

"The next match is coming soon, so let's calm down and prepare well."

"Okay, sure." Hilti sat down in a nearby seat, but the battle from just now kept replaying in her mind.

She reviewed the game again and again, trying to find a chance of winning, but found the probability to be extremely low.

Firstly, the opponent is very strong and has a very solid foundation, meaning they have very few weaknesses, making it difficult to win by finding their weaknesses or shortcomings.

Secondly, due to her current status, she has very limited means of use. If she were to add breathing techniques, weapons, interstellar travel, the secret art of the Demon Eye, and so on, she could probably win even if she were in the second stage.

As her thoughts raced, time flew by, and the third match began. Siltia stepped onto the stage. This time, her opponent was a more traditional 'Phantom School' mage. After the match started, he waved his hand, and several wooden strips gathered on the open ground, quickly assembling into a puppet skeleton before bursting forth with dark red flames.

Then, the simple wooden figure wrapped in dark red flames rushed towards Hilti.

At first, Hilti used silk threads to strangle and intercept, but they were burned by the dark red flames on the opponent's body and could not last long. After that, she summoned a bird woven from silk threads and dared not get too close to the opponent when fighting, lest she be burned by the flames.

From this perspective, the greatest enemy of magic thread-based arcane arts is fire. No wonder that during the scarecrow battle in the first half of the night's celebration, both sides used different fire-based arcane arts.

But how do those elite mages control their magic threads so that they can't be easily burned off by their opponents? During the battle, Hiltiya gained new insights and discoveries.

Seeing that the silk threads were not working, Hilti quickly retreated to avoid the approaching fiery wooden figure. Then, the silk thread birds she summoned scattered and reformed.

'Bird, Wings, Sharp Feathers, Energy, Speed, Sharpness'

She temporarily changed the spell model, removing the silk thread part and adopting a new model with three composite rune structures, among which the 'Bird, Wings, and Sharp Feathers' runes are all secrets of the 'Bionic School'.

After the model was changed, the solidified bird became larger, and the feathers on its wings were like silvery metal blades. It then shot straight into the sky, reached a certain height, and then plummeted down again, several times faster than when it took off.

At this point, Hilti gave up fighting the opponent's fire wooden doll and instead decided to see who could defeat the opponent first.

In terms of distance, the burning wooden figure was only six meters away from Hilti, while the bird swooping down from the sky was tens of meters away from its opponent. However, in terms of speed, the burning wooden figure was at the normal running speed of a human, while the bird descending from the sky was as fast as a falcon, so fast that ordinary people could not see it.

Victory or defeat can be decided in an instant.

Faced with the imposing bird in the sky, the mage commanding the fire puppet faced a difficult choice: should he immediately defend and dodge, or take this opportunity to command the puppet to quickly defeat the girl not far away?

Although he hesitated for just over a second, that gap was fatal, because in that second he neither properly directed the wooden doll to pursue nor prepared any defensive measures. As a result, Hilti easily ran out of the wooden doll's attack range, and then the silver bird pierced through his chest, tearing a huge wound in his clothes and body.

"Number 47 wins."

After the referee finished speaking, the mage on the other side, pale-faced, clutched his chest and knelt down on one knee. He was sweating profusely from the pain of his wounds. In fact, if it hadn't been for Hiltiya to stop, and if this had been a real battle, he would have had half of his body cut off by Asuka on the spot.

Soon after, medical personnel came up, cleaned the wound, applied ointment, and then cast a rapid healing spell, at which point his complexion improved somewhat.

After three consecutive victories, Hilti, the second-tier apprentice, has attracted the attention of many viewers. They have begun to discuss her name and background, and are amazed by her calmness and decisiveness in battle.

"That bird just now, it seems to be a technique from the 'bionics school'," someone finally realized her origin.

"It's amazing that someone who is only a second-tier apprentice can master such complex advanced runes and spells so skillfully."

"This should be the first second-tier apprentice to achieve three victories tonight."

"The younger generation is truly formidable."

"Looks like quite a few professors and teachers will be interested tonight," several students on campus whispered among themselves.

After a thrilling battle, Siltia won three matches as she wished, earning the reward of learning an additional arcane technique.

(End of this chapter)