Duel for her honor

Part 9

The earth answered.

Stone tore upward in front of Dev, forming a thick slab just as Ravian’s compressed-air wave arrived.

WHUMM!

The collision shook the corridor.

Air screamed around the edges of the stone, ripping chunks from the improvised wall, but the mass held. Dev’s physical strength reinforced the spell, driving the slab forward through the pressure rather than simply allowing it to absorb the impact.

Ravian’s eyes widened.

The stone wall kept coming.

He immediately dropped the compression spell and threw himself backward.

The earth slammed into his silver barrier.

BOOM!

His barrier held for a fraction of a second before fracturing.

Ravian was hurled backward, skidding across the stone floor.

He caught himself on one knee.

For the first time, there was genuine uncertainty in his expression.

His breathing was ragged.

His mana circulation had become noticeably slower.

And the corridor was still shrinking around them.

Ravian glanced toward the students watching from the far end.

They couldn’t see everything anymore. His own spell had created a partially enclosed section of corridor, leaving the fight obscured from most observers.

His eyes returned to Dev.

Then his gaze dropped briefly toward the stone floor.

A thought seemed to occur to him.

He smiled.

Not confidently.

Desperately.

“Then I’ll stop trying to beat your magic.”

His hand slipped beneath his robe.

Elira’s eyes immediately narrowed.

“Ravian…”

He pulled out a small silver crystal.

Not a focus.

A mana reservoir.

Elira’s expression changed.

“That’s expensive equipment.”

Ravian crushed it in his palm.

Silver light exploded around him as stored mana flooded into his core.

His posture straightened.

His breathing steadied.

The exhaustion temporarily vanished.

Elira took a step forward.

“Dev, he’s replenishing his mana.”

Ravian’s eyes locked onto Dev.

“Round two.”

The silver energy around him condensed into several razor-thin blades of force hovering around his body.

He had just changed the terms of the fight.

“Good I was worried you’d get all winded before the fight even started” Dev taunted, before placing his hands on the ground and the walls around them closed in even tighter until the

Corridor was barely 5 feet wide

Ravian’s smirk vanished as the stone walls ground inward.

GRRRAAAK—

The corridor contracted until barely five feet separated the walls.

His floating force blades immediately became a liability. There was no room to spread them into a wide formation.

Ravian glanced left.

Then right.

His jaw tightened.

“You really do like making the battlefield miserable.”

He dismissed two of the blades.

The remaining three compressed into a single narrow spear of silver force hovering directly in front of him.

At this distance, there was no need for a complicated projectile.

Ravian thrust his hand forward.

The spear launched.

But halfway toward Dev, it split into three smaller lances, each taking a slightly different angle—one aimed high, one toward the center of his torso, and one low toward his legs.

Ravian had learned from the earlier attacks.

He wasn’t going to give Dev one obvious target.

And in a corridor this narrow, there wasn’t much room to dodge.

The second the lance was sent his way Dev pulled a pillar of stone from the Earth reinforcing it with runes and ice, a feat of casting speed only possible because of his new powers and as this spear split he crouched

Twisting his feet as the ground beneath him  shifted out from under him rising in front of himself. Two shards of the lance flew over his head and the third smashed into the horizontal stone pillar shattering it but was stopped. The shards of stone and ice were then propelled by Dev to attack Ravian

The maneuver worked.

Two silver lances screamed over Dev’s head and vanished into the ceiling.

The third struck the reinforced pillar.

KRAAANG!

Stone and ice exploded outward, but the lance’s remaining force died inside the barrier.

Ravian barely had time to register what had happened before the debris reversed direction.

The shattered fragments accelerated toward him.

His eyes widened.

“Damn it—”

He threw up both hands.

A compact silver barrier formed in the five-foot corridor.

CRACK—CRACK—CRACK!

Stone and ice hammered against it from multiple angles.

The barrier held, but Ravian was driven backward until his shoulders struck the wall.

Several fragments punched through his robes before the barrier could fully stabilize. Small wounds appeared across his arms and torso.

Then the healing enchantment from the earlier ice attacks continued its work.

The wounds closed.

Ravian’s face tightened.

His body was healing.

His reserves were not.

Even with the reservoir, the accumulated drain was beginning to show.

He glanced at the narrowing walls.

Then at Dev.

His eyes suddenly flicked toward the ceiling.

The corridor was too narrow for his normal fighting style.

But there was still one direction he hadn’t exploited.

Up.

Ravian bent his knees.

The silver energy around his feet concentrated into a burst of force.

He launched himself straight toward the ceiling, intending to use the confined space itself as a springboard and attack from above, where Dev’s earth manipulation would be harder to use without risking the ceiling collapsing on both of them.

As he rose, one hand swept backward.

A thin silver blade of force formed along his forearm.

He was coming down toward Dev from above.

Dev smiled lifting his arms as the ice armor around him exploded into a barrage of ice spikes launching up towards Ravian. Simultaneously he dug his feet into the ground and launched himself forward into the side of the corridor Ravian had been standing where he reconnected to the mana of the earth and ice debris raising them as five spiked tendrils around himself

The ice spikes erupted upward toward Ravian.

His eyes widened as the barrage closed in.

Still airborne, Ravian twisted his body and brought his silver force blade across himself defensively.

CLANG—CLANG—CRACK!

Several ice spikes shattered against the blade and his remaining barrier. Others missed him entirely, embedding themselves into the ceiling.

One spike struck his thigh.

He grunted as it pierced through, and the wound immediately began closing under the healing enchantment.

But Ravian could feel the price.

His body was becoming heavier.

His breathing was getting harder.

The reservoir had restored his mana, but it hadn’t restored the vitality he’d already burned through.

Below him, the five spiked tendrils remained completely stationary, surrounding Dev as he waited against the corridor wall.

Ravian noticed them.

His expression tightened.

He couldn’t simply land wherever he wanted anymore.

The corridor was barely five feet wide, the ceiling was littered with ice, and five earth-and-ice constructs were waiting for his next move.

He had only moments before gravity brought him down.

Ravian made his decision.

Instead of trying to land near Dev, he thrust his force blade into the ceiling.

KRAK!

The blade embedded itself in the stone.

Ravian caught the hilt with both hands, arresting his fall and leaving himself hanging above the battlefield.

His eyes remained fixed on Dev.

Then his gaze shifted toward the five tendrils.

He was studying them.

Looking for the weakness.

He still had mana.

But now he was fighting for position.

Dev immediately sent three of the five tendrils at Ravian the moment he imbedded his energy blade into the ceiling not waiting for him to get rebalanced, Dev wasn’t going to let the tempo of the fight slow he would press relentlessly now wanting a solid victory before the professors could stop the fight.