After the unexpected and unique disruption, the matches finally resumed. It was now time for Iris vs. Ronan.
Iris's body was still covered in bruises and injuries she had received during the battle royale. She was a commoner and hence could not afford the costly medicinal pills to recover herself. She had to only rely only on the spiritual energy she could absorb from the surroundings and the 1-hour break was insufficient to regain her full health.
Meanwhile, from the audience's perspective, Iris was nothing special. For them, she had somehow been lucky and reached up to this point. It was a foregone conclusion in their mind, that there was no way, Iris was going to defeat Ronan.
On the stage, no words were wasted.
Ronan brought out his sword and rushed towards Iris. The spiritual energy of the wind affinity gathered on Ronan's sword and a slash from his sword rushed towards Iris.
The attack was a bit fast for Iris to react but somehow, she was able to pull her body away from the slash at the last moment.
To everyone watching in the audience, it appeared as if she barely dodged the attack. Otherwise, she would have lost in a single move.
Ronan did not stop and continued his onslaught. Multiple slashes laced with wind attributed spiritual energy were sent towards Iris. And to the audience's utter gaze, she was able to dodge most of the strikes by the barest of margin. The few slashes which touched her, fortunately struck her only on her non-vital parts of the body. And they caused nothing more than minor bruises and scratches.
.
.
.
Floating above the arena were two beautiful ladies. They were calmly watching the ongoing battle.
One of the two was the white-haired Miss. Snowfall. The other lady had red hair and she appeared slightly older than Miss. Snowfall.
The red haired lady had amusement flickering in her eyes. She questioned, "To make you appear personally... Is there a reason?"
Snowfall did not react to this and kept quiet. The other lady was used to this behaviour and did not ask further.
She changed the topic, "Three monsters have appeared this year."
She chuckled, "Talent like them is rare even in dozens of years... and we have three in a single year."
Her face turned slightly serious as she continued, "I do not understand, why did Lily interfere to save Luna? Does Lily have any special relationship with this Luna?"
No one knew, whether she was asking this question to herself or to Miss Snowfall.
Unbothered by Miss. Snowfall's silence, she gazed towards Iris and continued, "This girl is quite cunning."
"Not exposing her true self in front of everyone. She even let those bruises stay on her skin," she added with a smile.
Her tone shifted as she asked directly, "Snowfall, who will win among these three? Lucas? Luna? Iris?"
The red-haired lady this time expected an answer. Miss. Snowfall had an innate ability to sense spiritual energy present inside a person. Most of the times, her assessment about who was the powerful proved to be correct.
Even after being asked directly, Snowfall did not answer. She merely tilted her head slightly and looked towards a particular VIP room. The room in which Amden, Cilia, and his parents were seated.
Even from that distance, Miss Snowfall could sense the enormous and tyrannical spiritual energy raging in his body. His spiritual energy, felt that it would devour everything in its path.
Miss Snowfall who was already so powerful and at a point that in front of her aura alone, no one on this planet had the guts to even look directly in her eyes.
"Where are you looking at?" Asked the red haired.
"Just watch," replied Miss. Snowfall in a casual tone ending the one sided conversation.
The red haired lady sighed in defeat and slight frustration and looked below.
On the stage, both Iris and Ronan were engaged in an intense battle. The battle was almost one sided. Ronan was overwhelmingly stronger than Iris and she was continuously on defence. Her body was covered with cuts and slashes from the sword attack and she was bleeding a lot.
Her ice element was her only saving grace as she used it continuously to shield the attacks but it was clear that her spiritual energy was running out.
Ronan was getting frustrated. Although, from the beginning he was having an overwhelming advantage but contrary to what people thought he was not winning. No matter how he tried, other than nicks and hallow slashes, he was not able to inflict a single serious wound on Iris.
At that moment, what appeared to the audience was that Iris went into one final struggle. She jumped back and created distance from Ronan and mustering all the spiritual energy she could have had; she launched as many ice spikes as she could.
Ronan easily dodged few of the spikes. But suddenly he felt his entire body frozen. He was not able to move and he was frightened, 'What is happening? Why can't I move?'
While he was distracted and struggling to free himself from the invisible constraint, an ice spike struck his chest. A deep gash appeared on his chest and he was thrown back.
The audience was stunned in silence. They saw Ronan easily dodging the first few ice spikes but then he suddenly stopped and stood still like an idiot.
"Iris wins," announced the instructor.
Chaos had emerged among the audience. They could not believe this result. How lucky was the girl?
Meanwhile, a rare few but the smarter ones started to doubt this assessment of her being lucky.