"Alright, everyone calm down," Marcus Arognite said stepping forward.

His eyes were on Aylin, but where there had previously been only an inkling of intimidation because of her incredibly perfect beauty, now he was fearful of what she was capable of. Some deductive reasoning demanded that Aylin had to be running out of Mana already from using so many spells all after the other without rest but he couldn't shake the feeling that things were not so simple.

"Things don't have to escalate any further," Marcus said with his hands held up in placation, "We can just go our separate ways, placate some beasts… Or do whatever but we'll be out of each other's way."

"You agreed to the duel already," Aylin said.

"No, I didn't," Marcus answered immediately.

"Ah, seems you've forgotten. All it requires is one team member's acceptance and the whole team must fight," Aylin said while wagging her finger.

"But…" Marcus started to say but couldn't think of much to say after that.

"I agree with him," Eloise said, stepping forward, "We don't have to keep this going. I think we've done enough."

"Only Aylin's done something," Kaya said with her eyes on the nameless third in Baler's team.

"Yeah, Eloise," Aylin said, "It'll be selfish of me to keep all the points to myself."

"Besides, I haven't heard a word of protest from you," Kaya said with a head gesture at the unnamed third, "Seems you are very interested in a duel."

"I'm not averse to it," the unnamed third answered and raised a hand where a spell circle spawned to life. It was chrome black just like the one that had conjured the metal wall from earlier. The wall had melted into nothing long ago.

"Your element… It's unique," Kaya said with a light interested smile.

"That seems to be common here," the unnamed third said and his eyes went from Kaya, to Eloise, and even flicked once at Marcus by his side before returning to Kaya.

"What's your name?" Kaya asked.

The unnamed third laughed a little and then smiled.

"Of course you don't know me," he said, "Your head is usually up in the clouds. Or up Von Helsing's ass. I don't know which is worse."

Kaya frowned.

The unnamed third kept his smile.

"Ralph Eisen," he said as he took a sarcastic bow, "It's a pleasure to 'finally' meet you. But it would be even more of a pleasure to defeat you."

In her team, it was only Eloise who didn't react like Ralph's name was new information to her. She was actually quite versed in the Noble houses. And only one family had made Metal Magic—a synthesis of Earth Magic—into their signature Magical Element; The Eisens. Of which, Ralph was their most recent progeny to attend Lochxen.

To Ralph's claim, Kaya laughed.

"You wish," she said.

Marcus looked between Ralph and Kaya and considered one way to put an end to this. He could just yield which he believed would end the duel. After all, if a team duel could be started without him, then surely it could be ended without Ralph as well.

As though he had read Marcus's mind, Ralph looked to the side at his teammate and his chrome black eyes were intense,

"Don't you dare," he said.

"What?" Marcus asked, surprised.

"If you yield, they can just challenge us again. If you run, they can catch up and challenge you by just attacking first.

Yielding is giving up points for nothing.

We might as well stand our ground and we might have a chance to turn the tide on this," Ralph explained.

Marcus thought about it and then he looked at the screen of scores where Aylin's points were displayed. And he understood what Ralph meant.

Just by beating up her brother over and over again, Aylin had racked up so many points. If they could gain the upper hand, they could put the girls down, defeat them over and over again, to make hefty amounts of points by taking advantage of the same mechanic.

"Alright," he eventually let out, "Let's do this!"

"Finally!" Ralph said and bared his teeth at Kaya who just smiled lightly back at him.

"Well, I'm staying out of this," Eloise insisted and took many steps back to give the fighters space.

Kaya let out a sigh and shook her head at her best friend's constant aversion to combat. Ralph interpreted this as Kaya feeling outnumbered so he went in on the attack to take advantage of what he thought was doubt.

He thrust his hand forward and the chrome-black spell circle that had been forming above his hand was tossed out so it became larger and summoned what looked like tendrils of Liquid Metal.

The tendrils wrapped around Kaya's arms and legs before wrapping around her entire body to seal her up for Ralph to constrict.

But then, his constriction stopped.

At first, Ralph thought this was his limit due to the protective vest keeping him from actually shattering Kaya's bones with the constriction but then the layer of metal began to expand which caused him to furrow his brows in confusion.

"I'm not doing this," he realized as he tried to command his spell circle to redouble the strength of the constriction but whatever was pushing against the Liquid Metal wasn't giving.

*Creak…* *Creak…* *Creak…*

Following the sounds of pressured strain, there was a loud explosive sound…

*Bang!*

… and the Liquid Metal burst into tiny drops that splattered all about.

What had caused the burst was a collection of vines that seemingly grew out of the nonexistence that somehow managed to still exist despite how tightly the Liquid Metal had wrapped around Kaya's body. The collection of vines constructed a spherical chamber within which, Kaya was now secure.

Without a need for casting a spell circle, Kaya had simply summoned her Nature Motes. Because those things were basically light, they didn't need space. That said, she quickly used the motes to summon vines to surround herself in a protective shell. As such, the encasing of Liquid Metal didn't count as a landed hit on her since she was 'always protected'.

From then, she just had to make the shell expand and construct it into the Construct.

Nature Magic had always come easily to her. But in recent times, spells that she had long known were all the easier to cast now.

"Ngh!"

Groaning at how the violent burst had almost caused him to lose control of his conjured Liquid Metal, hence costing him Mana, Ralph kept a hold on his spell circle and controlled it to pull the drops of Liquid Metal together so they could form into a goop.

The goop became tendrils that had sharp points that were all aimed at the construct around Kaya. Ralph put in as much force as he could into the tendrils, clearly hoping to poke right through the construct.

Alas, he failed.

He couldn't even make tiny puncture marks, let alone burrow through.

"Huh?" Ralph let out with furrowed brows.

The ground rumbled then and he looked down to see the grass move in an interesting way. There were almost jerky moves like it was in tune with some kind of rhythm… A Heartbeat?

Ralph's eyes went wide then as he realized whose heartbeat it was. As he raised his eyes from the ground to look at the construct around Kaya, the grasses on the ground were infused with Nature Motes that made them tougher… Longer.

"Get off!" Ralph yelled out as the strong grass wrapped around his legs and began to crawl up his body.

"I said, GET OFF!" He yelled then as he clenched his hand into a fist to turn his metal tendrils into a sharp blade that descended to cut the grasses freeing him from the hold.

He turned his wrist and his large spell circle became smaller, more maneuverable, as he turned the blade into a circular disc that he stepped on so it could lift him inches off the ground to put him out of the reach of the magically creeping grass.

*Creak…*

Ralph heard the sound, then the ground breaking, and before he could fully understand what was happening, a thorny vine rose from the ground, shot upward, and struck his chest and then his jaw with the sound of a cracking whip…

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