"What's that building there, Frir?"

  "That one, Lyi? That's the opera house."

  "...Frir."

  "Oh, right. It's a kind of... showroom, where magically gifted folk undergo mock battles. Well, gifted by our standard, anyways."

  Lyi hummed lightly, cupping her hand under her chin in thought. This was certainly the most interesting building so far. Compared to the countless 'Restaurants,' 'Apartments' and 'Study Halls,' this building actually managed to elicit some interest in her. It was certainly grandiose, in a sense, being in that it was a far greater size than the other buildings in this part of the city. Its general colour scheme followed that of the central district: a hazy grey with intermittent streaks of white, accompanied by small streams of Force particles forming a stream similar to a water feature. The streets around were, unsurprisingly for a city of Mages, occupied by hundreds of Anshorans in robes of grey, cyan and yellow; only occasionally were robes of other colours found. Regardless of the colour of their robes, not a one was wandering past the building.

  They were all going to watch one of these mock battles, presumably. Lyi could even spot two Mages amongst the crowd who were notably different from the rest, though that was certainly assisted by the large posters of both that hung on either side of the entryway. Both were male, though they did not share the same robes - rather, the grey-haired older man was garbed in yellow robes and his younger counterpart wore his cyan robes with a cocky grin. It wasn't long before they both entered the building through opposite entrances and the front doors of the building swung open. Lyi watched the crowd surge in for a scant few seconds before turning to look at Frir, who was... undoubtedly annoyed he couldn't go in the building. He wasn't even trying to hide it.

  Sighing and beckoning Frir to follow, Lyi wandered over to the building. Though, she had no idea which of the tens of entrances she should go through. The people around her, when they weren't shooting weird glances at her wings, seemed to know exactly where they were going. As for Frir... the boy was still stood dumbstruck in the streets. Mustering up her voice, she broke him out of his trance with a yell of his name and he eventually came bounding over. She could tell he could barely resist walking in already, but he managed to speak up,

  "Miss, I.. uhm, it's the third door for spectating. The seventh is... ah, that's for sign-ups. The nin-"

  "Hold it, what's a sign-up?"

  "I-it's to go... volunteer yourself to fight? It might not, ah, be the best idea in your... current... state...?"

  Alas, Frir was speaking to no-one but the Wind particles in the air. Hearing she could actually go practice against people that weren't that terrifying old Roch, she felt an excitement well in her like never before. She didn't even watch Roch wander in the third door, she was too occupied by full force sprinting down the halls. Paintings on the wall passed her by in a complete blur, the occasional Anshoran completely left in the dust. Before long, she found herself stood infront a desk with a very bewildered Shae sat behind it. She mumbled and grumbled for not a small while, before groaning and pointing towards the door on her right, accompanying the escaping Lyi with a 'Don't kill anyone else!'

  Lyi's sprint finally came to an end when she found herself infront of an imposing closed door. She was certainly the first one in this room, at the very least. She could just barely see Shae sending most people through the other door, with most having a noticeably dejected look. She didn't get to watch for long as the door opened, though she found herself walking slowly through it contrary to her sprint from before.

  Almost the entire room before her was made from Force particles, desperately trying to arrange themselves into shapes she had never seen before. Her eyes widened when they completely disappeared from her sight, a bright blue sky wrapping around her and making the door behind her disappear. The floor under her... this was water? At the very least, it was similar to what she had read. The only other thing in this endless expanse was that same old man she had seen outside the building.

  Despite there being no wind inside the expanse, his robes still flowed nevertheless. His Aura was far more gentle than even hers, the movement in it barely even noticeable. Based on the phenomena around him and the colour of his Aura, supported further by the colour of his robes, the man was a Wind mage. He had a gentle smile on his face, though she could tell that he was keeping it from twisting when he saw her wings. The man must have been there when Hope gained her title.

  The space briefly rumbled as an earthen pillar jutted up far in the distance, prompting both Lyi and the old man to glance over at it. Two symbols carved themselves in blue against the black rock, the second shifting form almost constantly. Though she couldn't read it, Lyi could tell it was a countdown. A countdown t-

  "I'll keep this brief, Espi. No-one will blame us if you die right here, right now. Not after what she did to us. Do think about that when it comes to it."

  The man's soft Aura began to roil, reaching out to just over 90cm from his body. He was stronger than her? Even further than that... she could feel that Aura was malicious towards her. He wanted her dead. By instinct, she rose her own Aura to match... though it barely breached the 40cm mark. She definitely hadn't recovered from her fight with Roch, but that didn't matter right now. She still had her Heart core, which could certainly make up for the difference between her and the obviously relieved old man. That lock around it shifted to the side when she had the intention to draw out its power, letting the golden blood stored within run rampant in her body.

  She could quickly feel her mind shift the more blood she drew out. The countdown, which had just hit single digits, slowed down the most marginal amount. Faint words of a spell she couldn't hear before wormed into her ear and she could see the man lifting his hand. In the same instant she saw his fingers move to click, the countdown disappeared from the rock and the sky above them shifted into a deep red. Her surprise at the shift in environment caused her to dodge slightly later than she intended, the sharp blade of wind the man summoned screeching against her arm.

  Wrapping her Aura around her hand and imbuing {Redirect} into it, she grabbed the blade and tore it out from the shallow cut it managed to make in her arm. The pain was far less than when she had faced Roch, though she could already feel her left arm weakening due to the wound. She didn't have a moment more to think about it, as another yell resounded in the space, the blade just narrowly cutting through the air infront of her face, breaking apart on her wings. The man really was out to kill her!

  She broke into a sprint, though there was a great distance between the two. Every few steps she made, another one of those wind blades would narrowly miss her or shatter against her wings. Clasping her hands together, her hair and feathers spiked as small golden sparks traced through her Aura, the spell {Rapid} allowing her to close the gap far faster. She could finally see the blades before they were upon her, the dodges far more comfortable to make. Though, as she approached, the man began to fling both his arms, the blades coming out far faster than before.

  The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

  She could barely even eek forward before dodging the flurry of blades became unmanageable. Any further and she'd have to take the hits, which she absolutely couldn't risk. This was almost certainly not going to be her only opponent, given how the man had said "Us" in the brief warning. As she lifted her own arm to fire a {Clickrend}, three blades managed to slice open thin wounds along her arm. Screaming 'Di!', she rushed behind the spearhead of Force particles which blocked the wind blades, closing the gap in an instant.

  As the Force particles dissipated, her eyes widened as she watched the man twirl his arm, a ball of Fire particles forming infront of him. She barely managed to move a metre away before he flicked the ball toward the ground, a burst of flame engulfing the both of them. She barely had the time to put up {Shield}, half of the wing closer to the blast completely engulfed by the searing hot flames. Taking a few steps back before stumbling onto the ground from the pain, she watched as the flames faded away, the old man unharmed entirely. His gentle smile warped into a mocking smirk as he twisted his arm again, the same ball of flame emerging infront of him as he spoke,

  "You probably thought that these robes denote what type of Mage we are. Sorry, girl, but it tells you how many elements we can use. Yellow, well, it means three. Inconvenient for the uneducated beast, right?"

  Lyi could just barely hear the man laughing as she watched his finger move out in a flick at that ball of flame. Just as soon as the ball touched her Aura, she clasped her hands together again. That spell was far too slow to prevent her from casting {Rapid} a second time. Pushing out with her foot, she found herself pushed up against some kind of invisible wall in the expanse, though she was extremely far away from the scintillant burst of flame.

  That wasn't her main cause of worry at the moment. She could feel her body almost locking up as a nightmarish pain spread through it, golden blood spilling out of her mouth, eyes, any way it could find. Closing her eyes and biting her lip so hard she managed to break even her tough skin, she let {Rapid} naturally fade after a few seconds of not being fueled. Even though she didn't need to, she took multiple deep breaths, somehow dulling the severe pain.

  For a moment, she laid up against that invisible wall. She could faintly see the unbound magic particles in the air resting up against her wounds, golden blood pooling and slowly coalescing back into her pale skin. Atleast she didn't need to worry about that anymore. Taking one last moment to herself, she smacked the back of her head against the invisible wall and stood back up. Even despite what she just went through, she clasped her hands together and fired {Rapid} up again. She shifted her eyes from the floor, looking up towards the old man.

  Though she couldn't hear it, the man was clearly yelling as he punched the ground constantly. His greying hair had been replaced by little more than singed strands, burns streaked across his entire face. The bright red sky briefly shone blue with his every punch, his calm aura raising ever higher until it was blocked by a Seal. Lyi couldn't help but push her back against the wall as the man stood up, his sharp gaze piercing her own as he turned to face her, half of his face bubbling from the spell he had cast before.

  No Anshoran should have survived that spell at a point blank range, not without {Shield}. The man clearly hadn't had time to put it up... so how? How was he still ready to fight her? She summoned up a {Shield} of her own, layering {Redirect}, {Encharge} and even {Reinforce} on her own body as horns of flame jutted from the old man's head. Even worse, he reached out his arm to the side and a faint purple crack appeared in the air, some kind of weapon finding itself in his grip. The moment he grasped it, the seal around him shattered, his Aura rocketing skyward until it was stopped by the invisible walls around the two. The faint yellow of his Aura twisted into interlacing strands of red, yellow and grey, the skies above taking on that very same colour.

  The man pointed his arm up to the sky, small bursts of Force particles smashing up against the barrier in the sky until they covered it in its entirety. Keeping his eyes directly on Lyi, she watched as small Force particles flew towards her ear and more still outside of the barrier, carrying his message,

  "I'm done pretending, Poenticivt! 52 long years and neither of the Espi I fought perished, though atleast one of the bastards went mad. Let you be the first to die, Hylimdem Avia. My name is Tzya and it will not be disgraced any longer!"

  Lyi immediately felt an extreme sense of danger as the man lifted that unusual weapon and pointed it directly towards her. She just barely managed to stumble back down onto the ground before Tzya pulled on a protrusion at the bottom of the weapon, an extremely concentrated beam of Fire particles piercing through her wings and shattering the sky above them, revealing the real interior of the Opera House.

  Two Mages sat in the bollards let out audible screams as the weapon's flame melted through their robes and set them alight, piercing through even them until it was stopped by the thick stone walls. The Mages lasted little longer than seconds until they turned to ash, though Lyi managed to fare significantly better with the flames flickering out after burning up a number of her feathers. The loose magic rested on her wings, but were quickly drawn in as she layered {Rapid} onto herself a second time. There was no point in thinking about the consequences right now, this was just a waiting game until the Arch-Custodian arrived and broke through the barrier that surrounded her and Tzya. She could see Shae and Roch in the crowd, all of them firing spells at the barrier in an attempt to break it.

  She estimated three more seconds before it would fall, based on how fast cracks were emerging. Even faster if the Arch-Custodian showed up. Though, that's Tzya... he wasn't going to make it easy.

  Three seconds.

  Tzya's arm shot up as he broke a finger, a burst of flame firing towards Lyi. She pushed her foot as if she were going to walk left and crashed straight into the barrier, the burst of flame crashing against the spot she was at before. With a quick flourish of his arm, a small ball of Wind emerged directly above her, a strong pull dragging her towards its centre. Further still, small chains of Force wrapped around the narrowing holes in her wings, dragging her toward the wall.

  Two seconds.

  A small blade of wind from Roch managed to cut through the barrier, severing the chains binding Lyi. With another step, she emerged just behind Tzya, the ball of Wind bursting into tens of tiny blades as the man crushed his hand. She felt something warm in her hand, but she crashed into the barrier directly infront of her before she had time to worry about it. Without looking, she pushed herself upwards, the concentrated beam of flame from Tzya's weapon piercing directly through where she had previously landed.

  Before anything else could happen, blaring alarms rang around through the building as the barrier completely burst, hundreds of spells cutting through directly where Tzya had been standing. But Lyi could tell, it wasn't these Mages who had burst that barrier, nor was it the Arch-Custodian that arrived just a tiny moment after the barrier popped. Crashing down to the ground, she could faintly make out a figure through the dust cloud. Rather, she could make out that Rui Undea and those wings.

  It was her, the Wing of the West. Hope. Tulemti.

  Before any of the Mages in the Opera House could register her presence, she flicked her Rui Undea and disappeared alongside the dust cloud. All that was left of Tzya were slowly disintegrating chunks of meat and the small chunk in her hand, almost indistinguishable from the stone of the red arena beneath them. Just as before, Lyi felt her whole body seize as golden blood poured from her, her Heart core feeling more strained by the moment. Much to her relief, she saw a flash of a multi-coloured stone and all the effects of {Rapid} disappated instantly, bringing some small measure of comfort to her amongst the pain. She could barely see the Arch-Custodian barking orders at the Mages and Shae flying into the distance after Hope, though it was Roch and Frir who stood above her.

  Roch tossed two of the weird rocks into her mouth. After being forced to crunch and swallow, her Heart core lost most of the strain that it was under due to the magic released by the small stones. Her hearing slowly came back to her as she heard Roch whisper 'Breathe, Lyi, breathe...' to her without end, though not without struggle over Frir's yelling. He sent Frir away, letting Lyi get some much needed rest from the boy's yelling, before lifting her up.

  "The Wing came for you, Lyi. Thank her before you kill her, yeah?"

  Barely managing to eek out a laugh between her coughs and strained breaths, she couldn't help herself from cracking a smile. She almost died, but she certainly had much more fun than she usually did. If that Tzya kept himself under the first Step, she might have even been able to beat him. Better still, with Hope's arrival, it meant that the woman was atleast within 2 seconds of Lyi at any given time. She didn't need to strain herself for her location, at the very least.

  Maybe she'd give it a day before she came back to this place. That cocky looking cyan boy might be just as good practice for her.