'I can't afford to lose!'

As this thought echoed in Adonis' head, he gritted his teeth and prepared himself to release slightly more power than he planned on.

'Rey, you... you went above the limit you displayed throughout the fights! I underestimated how far you were willing to go in order to win!' His thoughts trailed. 'But, if you're increasing your power output, it's only fair that I do the sa-!'

"I don't think so!" Like a shadow, Rey swiftly crept up on Adonis and grabbed him on his face.

'-ame'

Adonis felt his body falling to the ground at an abnormally fast rate right as he completed his thought, and before he could properly respond...

-B000000000000M!!! -

... His back crashed against the hard surface of the stage.

"Gah!" Adonis didn't feel a lot of pain, but he felt incredible discomfort, as Rey's palm was heavily planted on his face with no way of coming off.

He couldn't escape his grip, and neither could he fight against it with his current output of energy.

"Y-YOUUUU!!!"

Shouting at the top of his lungs, Adonis instantly used up more Mana to improve the intensity of his light.

However, even that remained ineffective.

"You should stay down now..." Rey raised Adonis' head, and then sent it crashing to the ground for the second time.

This time, the noise of the impact rang louder than before.

The entire stage shook violently, and heavy cracks spread from the point of impact. Heavy debris flew in multiple directions, but Rey didn't seem bothered at all.

He still held onto Adonis' face.

"Give up."

Adonis shook his head, his voice completely muffled due to Rey tightly gripping onto his face. However, it was clear what he was trying to say.

"NEVER! I'll never give u-!"

~BO00000000OOM!!!~

Yet another crash into the ground, this time even much louder than the previous two.

"If you keep resisting and increasing your power, I'll do the same." Rey whispered into his

ears.

This caused Adonis' already bloodshot eyes to widen even more.

"Give up now."

"Mmph...!"

-B0000000000000M!-

"Yield."

-B000000000000000000MM!!

"Now!"

-B0000000000000000000000000MMM!!!-

The pounding continued for a few more seconds, with the audience falling silent as they watched the display of stubbornness from Adonis and the mercilessness from Rey. Adonis kept glaring at Rey, but Rey remained expressionless as he looked his friend-or rather, former friend-in the eye.

"You would do the same if our roles were reversed." Rey whispered to him, before finally deciding to resort to something else.

'If I use something like [Absolute Mass Stun], or any other skill to make him lose consciousness, or paralyze him at least, his Class Privilege will simply counter it. To win... I have to actually knock him out..'

However, Adonis was being too stubborn.

'No matter the kind of attack I use, unless it's in a certain kind of destructive level, it won't really faze him.'

However, that didn't mean Rey didn't have a way out.

'[Tempora].'

In that instant, everyone in the hall froze.

They were all forcefully stopped in time, making it so that only Rey and Adonis were the only ones who could move properly.

Releasing his grip on Adonis, Rey raised his fist with one swift motion.

"W-what did you just-?!"

"None of your business. But... with this... it's over" Rey smiled, gathering a dangerous cluster of energy on his raised fist.

There was no way Adonis could defend against this, and it was an unavoidable hit since Rey was much faster than he was. Plus, he was restricting his movements, so there was no escape. 'First, I coat my fist with [Perfect Divine Ray] for a moment... and then...'

"S-stop!"

"... It's my win!"

-B000000000000000M!-

One quick jab did the trick, and it instantly knocked Adonis out cold.

"Haa..." At that moment, Rey released [Tempora], allowing everyone to see the pathetic face

of his opponent, who had just lost consciousness.

Rising from where he stood, he dropped Adonis' body to the ground, ignoring the light thudding sound it made as his flesh hit the shattered ground.

Instead, he raised his fist and smiled at the audience.

"WOOOOOOHOOOO!!!" They cheered, as expected, but Rey's focus was hardly on them.

Instead, he looked in Lucielle's direction and slowly nodded.

'I ended the match quickly, and also made sure not to give him any room to land a single hit. Still, he managed to impress the audience with his flashy moves and stubbornness.' Rey thought slowly. 'In order to do better than him, Lucielle has to at least hold her own against Adrien and land a few hits.'

Rey wasn't expecting her to defeat him or anything, but she had to at least do a lot better than Adonis in order to be selected by the White Dragon Lord.

'Speaking of Adonis...' Rey returned his gaze to the Hero and sighed softly.

There was never a doubt that he would win, but he had actually gotten a little nervous at some point during the fight. It happened when Adonis kept clinging to a chance at victory when there wasn't even one to begin with.

'For a moment there... I felt a spike of emotions... and all of a sudden it was gone.'

He didn't feel the slightest bit of emotion when he kept smashing Adonis to the ground, and then finishing him off with the final move. Rey justified this by thinking Adonis would have done the same to him, but something felt wrong about the whole thing.

'I guess it doesn't matter now.' He told himself as he walked away from the scene. 'I won. That's all that matters.'

****************

"The next and final match of the Semi-Finals, involving Luc'ia and Adrien..."

Lucielle stood on her end of the stage, a small smile on her face, as she faced the nightmare

that everyone thought he was-Adrien Chase.

The two of them were smiling at each other, their white and black hairs dancing in the air as

they waited for their fight to begin.

Tension filled the air, and all eyes were on them.

"... BEGIN!"

*

Thanks for reading!

Who do you think will win this fight? I wonder...