Absolute Soul
32. Snow and Ice

The violent clash between Edward's ice and Salvia snow that had lasted several minutes caused a decrease in temperature around the arena, the surrounding audience shivered thanks to this attack.

So far neither of the two have carried out a heavy attack, both Edward and Salvia are still fighting with magic while keeping a safe distance. Even if only fighting from a distance, the magic released by the two did not reduce the tension of the spectators.

"Heh, so this is snow from the Snow Princess? I thought it would be even better." Edward removed a pair of ice spears from both hands, then broke them in mid-air into small pieces of ice raining down on Salvia.

Realizing that Edward was making a series of attacks on a wide scale, Salvia sent snow around her forming a round dome that could withstand the attack. Sure enough, Edward's attack can be withheld even though it comes from all directions.

Snow is not a solid object like ice, but by applying pressure to a single point of snow it can be a more deadly weapon than ice though. That's what Salvia did, stressing the snow at one point and making it solid.

"Hiding for fear of being attacked? It's funny." This time Edward formed a giant ice spear five meters above him, "Whatever denseness of snow, will not be able to beat a real solid object," muttered Edward throwing the ice spear.

"You seem to underestimate me too much, Edward." Aware of the threat of Edward's giant ice spear, Salvia manipulates the snow to capture and dampen the thrust of the ice spear before it reaches her.

At the same time most of the audience was surprised to see it, not least Edward who threw it. He himself knew how strong he was throwing, but it was hard to believe that Salvia could stop him with snow alone.

"I'll repay you with this." Salvia smashed the ice spear to pieces and mixed it into the snow, then created dozens of snow spears equipped with ice shards on her spear eyes that were immediately crushed, "Iced Snow Javelin!"

"Utilizing my ice, huh?" Edward set his foot on the floor and created a thick wall of ice in front of him, making Salvia's ice-eyed snow spear shatter when it hit him, "Useful."

"I'm not done yet." Salvia fused her hands together in front of her chest and closed her eyes trying to concentrate on smashing a large amount of snow, leaving the spectators stunned by the quantity of her soul energy that could make that much snow with just soul energy.

Salvia opened her eyes and exerted all the snow while creating several giant snow waves like a tsunami, "Snow Tidal!"

"Hey, by creating and controlling that much snow, isn't Salvia equivalent to an Advance-level Blazer?!"

"But unsatisfied with the numbers, he can even control everything at once?"

"This figure is completely filled with geniuses!"

While some of the audience commented while amazed to see the appearance of Salvia, Edward who became the opponent of the silvery-white-haired girl frowned.

"Sevel Advance? If only that...." In response to Salvia's massive attack, Edward quickly creates a huge lump of ice behind him and forms it into a three-meter-tall, giant humanoid figure, complete with a head and two legsless hands, "You can't beat me."

The ice giant figure behind Edward shaking one hand drove the snow waves of Salvia to destroy the entire attack in one blow, surprising many.

"So that dispels an attack as level as an Advance Blazer...?"

"Salvia this time was too strong and did not match her abilities."

"It's very likely that Edward will win this fight."

Not a single spectator blinked watching that, neither ordinary spectators, academy disciples, small Guilds nor large Guilds. They all agreed that Edward had a power far beyond their shadow.

Outside the limits of the arena itself, Heru was shocked to see the Salvia attack that had almost killed himself at the time of training could be as easily handled by the noble youth of the Ghaetas family, it was, haikal remained silent and calmly analyzed every attack of Edward or Salvia.

"Salvia...." Haikal muttered spontaneously, not expecting Edward to be able to destroy one of Salvia's strongest attacks, even though he was not sure he could handle it. Even though Haikal looked calm in his heart he was very worried about the state of Salvia.

Haikal knew that creating and deploying snow attacks of that magnitude required a measly amount of soul energy, even for Salvia who had a large amount of soul energy among Blazer candidates of their level. Haikal thought Salvia spent half or more of her total soul energy in this attack.

"The attack just drained your soul energy, huh? This opportunity I won't miss!" Edward swiftly creates more ice and wraps his own body with all the ice, then unites into his giant ice man who has a perfect form complete with legs, "Ice Titan!"

Edward's ice man's height this time was about five meters from the arena floor, making the entire arena look at him amazed, as well as Salvia who became his opponent. It was hard to let go of the admiration of an ice giant of this size in first grade High School level.

"It seems that it is not only me who has a large amount of soul energy in this generation," Salvia murmured softly to commemorate herself, then he creates more snow than ever before and co-creates a giant figure from his own element, "Giant Snowman!"

"The eyes are returned, this is what I love!" Without waiting for Salvia to stabilize his giant snowman, Edward lays a powerful punch using his ice giant arm at the spot where Salvia is.

Salvia knew Edward was not the one who would wait until the opponent was ready, so she had anticipated this and created a giant snow arm that slammed into Edward's ice giant arm vertically from below, made Edward click his tongue.

The semi-final stage is different from the quarter-finals, in this round the knockout round is enforced which means if there are participants who lose then he will be immediately eliminated from the draw list. The maximum number of fights per game remains five if both can survive, but it can also be only three if one group suffers a crushing defeat.

According to the system of this round match if Edward or Salvia lost, then one of them would not be able to fight again. Even if the winner gets a match ration again the condition is not prime, so this system had to reap protests when it was announced because it was unfair according to some spectators.

To deal with this Veindal Volksky the headmaster intervened to explain that Blazer did not always fight one-on-one against Verg, there were even times when one Blazer was besieged dozens to dozens of Verg. The blazer is not always in top condition in every fight, so before it really happens Veindal wants the participants to experience and overcome it.

After all, the enemy of mankind is not only Verg, but with fellow humans it is not impossible to fight each other to the stage of killing each other. This semi-final system is also prepared for this if in the future they deal with such groups.

Edward, upset by his attack, is anticipated to hit the ice giant again, but this time the snow giant Salvia has stabilized so that the silvery-white-haired girl can withstand Edward's attack perfectly.

Not accepting his attack was stopped twice, Edward then deployed a giant punch ice streak that forced Salvia to continue defending.

Different from ice which is actually a solid object, snow is not completely solid so to maintain its pressure and density requires a lot of soul energy, especially in large numbers such as Giant Snowman to survive Edward's attacks. Salvia's soul energy diminished a lot thanks to it.

"Damn..if I had more soul energy...." Salvia could feel her soul energy decrease as punch after punch was thrown by Edward.

On the other hand Edward can realize the defenses of the giant snowman Salvia begins to slack every time he hits. A smile was created on Edward's lips when he found out, "What? Just this much power Snow Princess? Someone who is considered the best genius in this generation?"

Salvia reacted slightly to Edward's provocation, but she knew clearly the meaning of the words so that Salvia preferred to concentrate on her defense. But even though Salvia continued to concentrate, Edward's punch became stronger and the snow began to scatter.

Realizing that his soul energy was not left much Salvia turned to where Haikal and Heru were standing, there she could see the pair of companions watching her with worry.

Salvia recalled how hard their training had been over the past month, especially the Haikal and Heru exercises. Considering the two are not geniuses like Salvia, Haikal and Heru's training can be said to be harder than her, especially Haikal who was later known to undergo secret training every day.

As Salvia looked into Haikal's eyes, she remembered Haikal who had trained hard to become a Blazer, but Haikal had no talent for being a Blazer, "If I had to lose, I would not have, then at least I'll have to reduce Edward's power." Salvia's smile expands.

Along with her grin, Salvia's eyes turned sharp as it was not the usual Salvia. His body also released a massive amount of soul energy which shocked most of the spectators. It was just that the soul energy was not the soul energy he was used to, the quality of this soul energy was much different than usual.

At the same time the burst of energy that occurred in Salvia's body made a shock wave that was strong enough in the air, even Edward stopped attacking thanks to the shockwave.

"It's...." Edward's forehead shriveled furiously knowing what was really going on, while almost all the representatives of both small and large Guilds standing with great wide eyes were no less surprised than the Skymaze academy's teachers watching.

When some people were shocked and some were confused not knowing what was happening, Veindal smiled in his room and watched his daughter unleash the power of this extraordinary trouser, "Right, show me your ability, my daughter."

Along with the tremendous release of soul energy, Salvia's hair and iris slowly changed color from originally silvery white and bright purple to pink overall, so is the color of the snow that makes everyone surprised and confused.