Chapter 707

Waves of raging lava surrounded us and not only that, but a bright red wall emitting tremendous heat was approaching from below.

There was no escape. Fran's going to be swallowed up by the lava.

『Fran?』

（Not yet!）

We can make it if we use teleportation, is what I thought, but Fran still seems to think she can manage on her own.

「Phew……… Ryaaaaah!」

What Fran did was simple. She deployed a barrier to its max output and plunged into the lava. She put up a slightly thicker barrier in front of herself, and all that's left was to go all in.

The faster she ran, the less time she would be covered in lava.

Right now, it wouldn't have been difficult, provided there was no interference from Mordred.

「Ugh!」

『A metal ball!』

Suddenly, Fran's path was diverted to the side by a violent impact.

Mordred had predicted Fran's path and launched a metal ball at her.

It was really difficult to find the metal ball using magic detection because they are covered with the same kind of magic power as the lava. Even if we tried to detect them physically, the lava was completely obscured our vision.

If she stops for a moment in the lava, the barrier will hit its limit. If she tried to force her way through the lava, she would be attacked by the metal balls.

Either way, Fran was at a disadvantage.

She had been dragged into Mordred's playing field completely. So this is how a veteran plays the game, I guess.

So, where do we go from here? If it were up to me, I'd go with teleportation or Dimension Shift.

Fran was trying to use dimensional storage, but it didn't seem to be working. I guess she can't suck in the lava because Mordred has the control of it.

As I watched to see what she would do, Fran stepped forward again. She is on the same course as before, heading straight for Mordred.

Is she going to run straight for him at the cost of taking damage?

As soon as Fran ran forward through the sea of lava toward the bottom again, the metal ball attacked her. I didn't even notice it until just before it touched the barrier.

It was such a stealthy attack however, Fran had succeeded in parrying the blow with her barrier.

She deformed the shape of the barrier slightly, causing the ball to be deflected. I didn't think she should have had enough time to deform the barrier as quickly as she did……

I thought it was a fluke, but Fran succeeded in preventing one attack after another.

The angle of the barrier was perfectly adjusted to deflect and sometimes even managed to deflect the flying metal balls.

It was clear that she could sense the movement of the metal balls.

But how? I've tried so many different skills, but the presence of the lava completely stopped me, and I can't get it to work at all.

Moreover, Mordred was very proficient at hiding the presence of magic and the flow of his mana. He must have honed this skill by dealing with magical beasts that are unusually sensitive to the presence of magic.

I can't tell when he activated his magic earlier, but before I knew it, the magic had already activated under our feet. It wouldn't be easy even for me to keep on detecting Mordred's attacks like this.

I'd love to hear how Fran's doing it, but I don't want to interrupt her right now. I'll ask later.

「Hah!」

「Argh! Rising Impulse!」

After breaking through the wall of lava, we entered a small empty space surrounding Mordred. Fran immediately slashes at him. Mordred, on the other hand, responded with martial arts.

He thrust his spear above his head and fired a shockwave into the air.

Mordred used this technique to kill Fran's momentum and then defended himself with the metal balls. Or at least that was his intention.

However, Fran used air hop to leap down in the air and slash at Mordred while retaining her momentum.

The shockwave was blocked by the barrier at least minimally, and she twisted her body to make the spear miss her vital points. The left side of her abdomen was cut, but the wound wasn't fatal.

Then she used me to strike the metal balls blocking us in rapid succession.

Naturally, Mordred reacts quickly and I am entangled with five metal balls. From the outside, I look like a distorted metal baseball bat.

From Mordred's point of view, he succeeded in completely blocking Fran's weapon. However, his expression didn't look good.

He must've realised that Fran hit the balls on purpose.

That's right, didn't avoid hitting them at all, but intentionally attacked them with me. As a result, I was pulled down so fast that she wasn't maintain her position after she landed on the ground and fell forward.

Mordred, on the other hand, was aiming to stop her by using a spear art, even though he didn't what she was planning.

「Quick Pierce!」

A quick pierce towards Fran's head, but this is exactly what she was waiting for.

「Taaaaah!」

「I've been baited!」

Fran thrusts me at Mordred. There were no metal balls attached to my blade.

Fran had used dimensional storage putting me away for a split second, and then taking me out again. The metal spheres under Mordred's control couldn't be stored, so I was able to be freed from the metal balls.

Neither the metal balls, the spear, nor the needle armor will be able to stop Fran's sword in time.

「Kuh!」

「Gohu…… Gah!」

Mordred's thrust grazed Fran's left cheek, and at the same time, Fran's stab pierced through Mordred's stomach, and the black lightning burned his body from the inside. Mordred falls to the ground, smoke billowing from his body.

He lost his consciousness. Fran won. It's a victory, but……

『Fran! Use the dimensional storage!』

「Nn!」

A huge amount of lava has come falling down all at once, having lost its master. If we don't do anything, Mordred will be caught with us in the middle of this.

We cleaned up all the lava that had been out of Mordred's control leaving us with a vast amount of it inside of our dimensionalstorage.

『Whoa! Just when we thought the arena was covered with lava, now its all suddenly gone! What's more, the match has already been decided! What in the world happened inside! More importantly, earth mages and healers, it's time to go to work!』