As Ray watched the chaotic maelstrom of golden energy, his thoughts were elsewhere.
The Washing.
It was a famous ritual created centuries ago by some monks from the Eastern Islands. During their search for power, they started researching the components that made up mana and aura.
Both of them were made out of a mixture of soul power and another type of energy. Natural energy for mana and Physical energy for aura. So they had an idea, 'What if we mixed Natural and Physical energies?' and so tried.
The result was death.
But not a meaningless one. With it they found out that both energies had some kind of instinct. Physical energy was completely focused on serving the owner of the body, while natural energy sought to swallow and make anything it touched part of nature. When both energies met, they would clash against each other, the physical one would fight for the body's supremacy, and the natural one would fight to make it part of nature.
But if one of them was weaker than the other, wouldn't it be possible to merge them together?
So they weakened the physical energy by purposefully creating several injuries on themselves by overworking their body.
That's where Stelle's natural energy slashes were created, by inflating aura slashes with natural energy, saving aura, and boosting the power of the slashes by several times.
But it did not stop there, a new idea surged in them to create something better. They started by weakening their mana as well with overexertion, completely atrophying their mana channels.
And then the last step, the true Washing.
They would absorb the natural energy into their bodies and then expel it, creating a miracle. The natural energy would refine their muscles and heal any lingering effects of past injuries. It would straighten the mana channels in a manner where they become even more efficient than in the past.
A complete increase in both mana and aura levels of quantity and quality.
And the cause of the phenomenon in front of him.
After finishing the Washing ritual one would enter a state called the Potential Unleashed State. In this state, one would fuse both mana, aura, and divine power into a single, completely functional energy with all their benefits.
And this was the state that Stelle was in.
Both her recently recovered mana and aura were mixed with her newly awakened divine power, increasing her power several fold.
'I might actually lose this.'
"This... really puts a smile on my face!"
He rushed forward with all the speed that his gravity magic could provide him and reached her location fast enough.
He didn't hesitate for a single second and unleashed a powerful punch aimed for her face. Just to be blocked by the flat side of her blade.
'She can finally keep up with my speed!'
They traded several blows with great levels of tenacity. Stelle was no longer a refined swordswoman that was careful in her approach.
Her swordsmanship, although it was still the same, felt different, like she was fighting more with instinct than with rationality.
Using gravity magic, he pulled a piece of the ground, and with it he crafted a sword made by severely compacting it and clashed with her.
'His swordsmanship is so advanced! It feels wild and incomplete, like he was replicating something that he saw long ago, but still it's in a realm I can't fully comprehend, it's insane!'
It was just like he could wield a sword in the same way anyone could move their arms, like it was always a part of him.
Stelle was feeling weird.
After being thrown away by her mysterious opponent, in a last-ditch effort, she tried to reinforce her body with natural energy, just to completely understand that doing such could arm her body, so she quickly dispelled from her body, just for her to fall into this situation.
She felt greater than ever! She once again willed her mana to easily flow through her body, and her aura was no longer weakened, and there was something there that seemed to bring everything together, forming a single energy source.
'Could I try bringing out my affinity?'
She never knew what her affinity actually was, after all, her parents never bothered having her tested, convinced that it would be the usual lightning affinity that every single person in the family had.
And after completely messing up her own mana channels, it was impossible to know for sure.
Now, how could one person use an affinity that they are unaware of? She didn't know how, but she felt that it was possible.
'Something changed.'
Ray stepped back, giving some space between them, waiting for her move.
Suddenly, flames started appearing around her. They were golden in color, and they felt hot, extremely hot.
'Wait, hot? I'm feeling hot?'
Thanks to noticing this, Ray reacted swiftly and distorted the space in front of him using gravity to block a stream of golden flames that were thrown at him.
His eyes widened.
'I, one of, if not the most powerful fire magic user, was wary of her flames?'
Yes, it was a given that he was no longer in full power, but he still was a great fire magic user that couldn't be hurt easily, especially not by someone who just regained their mana.
'Is the increase in strength that comes from the Washing and the Potential Unleashed state? Incredible!'
A wide grin found itself on his face as he rushed in her direction, his gravity magic doing its best to blow away her flames.
With a downward slash, he aimed directly at her sword.
Naturally, she easily blocked it with her sword.
He called upon his Dominion magic.
"Sever!"
In that moment, her sword separated into two parts, the hilt and the crossguard in one, and the blade itself in the other.
The blade flew off, spinning in the air.
Ray kicked Stelle away from the place where the blade would be landing before using his gravity magic to make it float in his direction.
He then crafted a hilt and a crossguard for it and basically made a sword for himself.
He charged at her once again, now wielding two swords.
But Stelle was not outdone. Using her new golden flames, she created a flaming blade in the place of the original one and met Ray's charge.
Once again they traded several blows. From time to time several parts of the ground would float up before falling in their direction, or explosions would ignite frequently.
It was a chaotic fight, one that would bring the whole arena down if they weren't in the virtual world. Flames of the two different colors flew around.
They continued in a stalemate for a while, until Ray made a mistake in his technique. Well, it was to be expected, wielding two swords was vastly different from wielding only one.
With very calculated kick, his ground sword was taken from his hand and was now in Stelle's.
She then let go of her flaming sword, and with a clean strike of her new ground sword...
"..."
"Guh! Haha! What a swift move!"
... she cut the hand that was holding the sword with her old blade, and she was now holding both of his swords to his throat.
"It's done."
She stated simply between his labored breathing.
But he was not done.
"Shoot!"
Using his dominion magic, he commanded the blood coming out of his cut-down hand to fly at gravity-enhanced speeds towards her eyes, effectively blinding her.
With a deep breath, Ray then spews a huge stream of flames to her face, forcing her to retreat a few steps.
Not wasting any time, he then kicked her in the gut before releasing a weak pulse of demonic power.
Normally, such a weak pulse of demonic power wouldn't do anything significant, but due to her lack of experience in wielding divine power and his extreme expertise in it, he could basically force all the energies inside the new energy source she obtained due to her Potential Unleashed state to go crazy and clash against each other.
Blurgh
She vomited several amounts of blood and fell to her knees, clutching her stomach.
"Huff... to think that you would force me to make a sneak attack. I don't know how to feel. Ashamed or excited."
Ashamed to be forced into such a situation.
And excited for future chalenges.
"Since this is the virtual world and you don't seem to be aware of what you just did, find me in the academy, and I will show you how to do it again."
With that he simply pierced her chest with a flaming hand.
«The Match had ended!»
«The victor is Ray!»
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Authors' Note: And this is the last fight of the Volume, the next few chapter will mostly the teachers reactions and the introduction of a few plotlines to be explored.