Scarlet

Aria and the girl with nirvana magic both rush straight towards the center while slaughtering one demon after another, leaving the other children far behind in their dust. With Aria killing them using both water and kraken transformations, along with some kraken summons, and the girl – whose name was Valla – killing them with waves of miasma and simply draining their life energy.

Both of them are moving quickly through the maze, each clearly having their own sensory skills guiding them along. But neither of them ever run into any of the other competitors simply because they’re so far ahead of them by now. Which leaves the other kids to fight amongst each other and the lower level demons.

Of course, there are still around a dozen or so who make it past the mob of competitors and are chasing after the two, but they are still rather far behind them.

I watch with interest as the two continue their race towards the center of the maze, all while the audience roars their approval for the two favorites.

From what I understand, Valla’s ability to directly drain life energy from others and manipulate it into her own life energy or mana is an etched skill she got from her mother. A skill far more powerful than the Life Drain skill. One that drains it over a dozen times faster, and has a much higher target limit for how many she can target at once.

So Valla’s build in terms of magic and skills has been shown to be best against numbers. Where she can just drain a large number of enemies at once, filling her reserves and healing herself at the same time.

To the point that fighting her with numbers is actually the worst idea possible if you want to win.

On a one-on-one fight, though? She doesn’t stand as big a chance.

But her battle with Aria won’t really be a one-on-one fight when they meet.

They’ll be surrounded by a bunch of demons attacking them after all.

I tap my chin while watching the two get closer and closer to each other, only for a faint smile to emerge on my face when they finally meet. And instead of greeting each other, they both glare and begin attacking each other.

Right. Almost forgot.

These two don’t like each other.

Maybe it’s because they’re often being compared to each other in their own age range?If you encounter this story on Amazon, note that it's taken without permission from the author. Report it.

No idea.

All I know is that Aria often comes home rather upset because of Valla.

Honestly, looking at how the two are acting right now I wouldn’t be surprised if they were searching more for each other than the Captain.

My smile turns wry as I watch the two go at it.

Aria turning her entire arms into massive tentacles that she sends flying towards Valla, who actually summons ominous black and gray tentacles of her own to combat her. Tentacles that cause necrosis to everything they touch, including Aria’s tentacles. But not without being torn apart by Aria’s brute force strength in the process.

Then they both heal. Because they’re both hybrid healers.

Life magic is the best healing magic after all. And water is one of the best too, especially the special type of water magic Aria has.

All of which also contributes to how much they’re compared to each other.

Both the same age.

Both daughters of very powerful Guardians.

Both with etched skills.

Both with a hybrid type magic including healing magic.

Both use tentacles in their fighting even if one is mostly just manifesting the tentacles while the other is shapeshifting.

Certainly makes for a rather long and drawn out battle between the two.

Hit each other with their tentacles. Heal. Hit. Heal. Hit. Heal.

Summon kraken subordinates, summon undead. Send them at each other. They kill each other.

Hit each other with their tentacles. Rinse and repeat.

Despite how repetitive the battle is though, it’s definitely the most interesting out of the bunch. And the audience seems to be eating it up.

Eventually though, the stalemate is broken.

When Aria finally loses it and activates her once-a-day skill.

One of her etched legendary skills.

Her Kraken Transformation skill.

She transforms into a massive squid monster standing at about five meters tall with tentacles that are even longer than she is tall, filling the maze corridor as he glowing blue eyes illuminate the hall.

And the crowd watching goes absolutely wild.

I smirk before sending a very tiny trail of blood straight up into the air next to Black before reforming myself right by him in the air, startling the man who hadn’t been expecting it.

“Holy shit, do not scare me like that little Scar!” Black shouts, his voice going a little hoarse when he swears. But I just raise a brow at that nickname he started calling me. “What brings you here?”

I cross my arms, ignoring how wild the audience is going just at the sight of me as I answer, “Just watching my adorable little cousin.” Then I glance at Black again, still with a brow raises. “And aren’t you supposed to be a stealth focused Guardian? How did-”

“Aaaanyyyywaaayys,” Black says, drawing out the word as he cuts me off, making my other brow raise as well, “it looks like little Valla is about to go all in as well! Let’s see whether her berserker mode can handle the kraken!”

The audience calls him out on his change of the subject, but he shamelessly ignores them while focusing entirely on the battle. So I just roll my eyes and do the same, finding Valla to be activating the other etched skill she got from her mother.

A skill no one really knows the name of other than the two of them. Just that it basically floods their bodies with death energy and miasma, temporarily turning them into an unkillable undead.

Valla’s skin begins to crack, going paler and paler while black veins stretch all across her skin and she grows a bit taller, her eyes turning pitch black and losing all the whites in them. And Aria lets out a roar in her kraken form.

Meanwhile I just kinda stare while tapping my chin, specifically reminding myself that these are two either thirteen year old girls or soon to be thirteen year old girls.