With Lilia being frozen solid, Alaric relaxed his guard and let out a sigh of relief.
However, this was a huge mistake on his part, as an instant later the ice around Lilia began to crack.
With one big move Lilia forced the ice around her to shatter, and chunks of it went flying off at high speed.
“You will need to do better than that if you want to restrain me.” Lilia said with a smirk.
Alaric for his part was stunned to see her break out of his spell so easily.
Certainly, it was only a tier one, but in terms of power it was really high due to needing to come in contact with the target.
He had been able to completely restrain plenty of strong monsters and beasts that were around level thirty-five with this very spell.
Yet Lilia, a thirteen-year-old girl, boasted more physical prowess than even the strongest monsters that Alaric had fought thanks to her unique skill peerless physique.
“I guess I should start taking this a bit more seriously.”
Suddenly erupting with power all around her, Lilia activated her mana body skill and increased all of her physical capabilities to an even higher degree.
So far, she had not been using this stable skill that was a mainstay for all powerful warriors.
Like a blur she appeared in front of Alaric before he could even attempt to move out of the way and punched forward with all her might.
By some miracle he at least managed to move his staff in the way, and with the rounding sound of metal hitting metal the two of them clashed.
The outcome was obvious though, as Lilia had far greater physical stats and abilities.
With practically no resistance Alaric went flying from a single punch and felt the wind get knocked out of him.
Skidding across the ground he left a shallow trench along the way, until he impacted into a tree with a heavy thud.
Lilia had truly held nothing back in this strike. Leaving Alaric feeling sore all over and coughing profusely as he tried to breathe.
“Alaric are you okay!?” Lilia shouted in concern.
Seeing him lying there and wheezing knocked her out of battle mode, and she became increasingly worried.
“I am fine. Let’s keep going.” Alaric said as he forced himself to his feet.
Of course, it was clear that he was far from in the best shape. With scrapes and bruises visible over his body and one of his hands hanging limply at his side.
Lilia wanted to stop here and now and looked towards Marcus to have him call the match.
‘Lilia, keep going. If you stop now when Alaric still wants to fight, you would be trampling on his pride and determination. He has not finished showing you what he has learned.’
Hearing Marcus’ telepathic message, Lilia turned her gaze back towards Alaric and could see the fire still in his eyes.
He had not given up yet, so it would be inconsiderate for her to stop the battle now an declare her victory.
“Very well, we can continue.” Lilia said as she once again adopted a fighting stance.
Smiling, Alaric was happy to not have the battle called after only taking one hit and decided that he would need to go all out.
‘Rime flower.’
For the first time in the battle, he cast his strongest offensive tier four spell and directed right towards Lilia.
He had consciously been holding back because he did not want to really hurt her but determined he would be unable to get anywhere with that mindset.
The large flower made of ice quickly bloomed around Lilia and immediately slammed closed around her.
It was an impressive display of power that had an immense amount of crushing and freezing force.
But no matter how strong it was, it did not matter if it failed to hit its target.
With her extremely heightened reflexes Lilia jumped to the side of the spell as it closed around where she had been moments before.
“Force cannon.”
Retaliating with her own magic, Lilia fired off her tier two spell which sent flying a large sphere of pure force.
‘Wind wall, Snow shield.’
Chaining two defensive spells together Alaric managed to slow Lilia’s attack down with the first one, and the second took the remaining power behind the attack.
Lilia was not going to just sit around waiting to attack whenever Alaric was ready and had already started caring back in to close the distance.
‘Wings of air.’
Expect before she made it to Alaric, he began flying and took to the sky.
Watching this happen Lilia could only look on in surprise as her opponent ascend out of her reach.
“I had not been wanting to do this since it makes the battle far more one sided. But I have realized I have no chance of beating you on the ground.”
With his aerial superiority, Alaric now did not have to worry about Lilia’s physical attacks and only had to deal with her ranged spells. Which he was confident in doing so.
‘Hail Buckshot. Whirlwind Blades. Smoldering swords.’
Chaining spell after spell, Alaric bombarded Lilia from above. Not giving her any chance to attack with her own magic.
The output that Alaric could generate was around three to four times faster than Lilia, who had to at least say the names of the spells she was casting.
Tch! ‘He must have mana regeneration. So, a war of attrition is out.’ Lilia thought while clicking her tongue.
She realizing that she was not going to have any chance of winning this way, so decided to switch up her approach and try something she was still working on.
‘Huh?! Where did she go?’
While blasting down spell after spell, Alaric lost sight of Lilia in the wake of a wind magic spell that blew up a bit of dust.
Looking around he tried to fine her on the ground but could not find her there.
This was because Lilia was no longer staying put and was running up into the air.
Small platforms of mana constantly appeared and disappeared under her feet, as she used the advanced application of the mana barrier skill to ascend into the air.
Currently she was not very skillful at doing so, but it was her only option, so she chased Alaric into the air.
‘Smoke manacles.’
With Lilia coming for him Alaric knew he needed to slow her down and cast the best binding spell in his arsenal.
The tier four smoke magic spell created two dozen chained manacles that flew at his command.
For a moment Lilia flinched when she saw this. Though not because she was afraid of the spell, but due to her past experience.
She remembered when she had been bound in chains before and seeing them come at her right now made her freeze up for a moment.
This proved to be a grave mistake as the smoke manacles caught up to her and began locking her down.
“EXPANDING FORCE!”
Not allowing herself to be bound again, Lilia threw out her arms and sent out an omni directional blast of force which blew the smoke manacles away from her.
Then she turned towards Alaric and launched herself towards him as fast as she could.
This time it was his turn to get caught off guard, and while he did evade her initial punch, a follow up kick from the side connected directly in his gut.
Even with his armor he felt the power behind Lilia’s strike and lost consciousness for a moment.
Lilia took full advantage of this opening and grabbed ahold of Alaric, before launching towards the ground.
With a heavy impact she smashed both of them into the earth and created a deep indent with Alaric’s body.
After taking this heavy blow, Alaric’s entire body was rattled, and he could not focus his mind enough to try and reverse the situation.
“Control Impact.”
Casting her staple tier one spell, Lilia coated her left hand in with the force magic and held her palm right in front of Alaric’s face while keeping him pinned with her legs and right arm.
When he finally managed to come to, he saw Lilia’s shimmering palm positioned right in front of his face.
Alaric seeing this, understood that he had completely lost, and that if Lilia wanted to, she could crush his head like a watermelon.
“I give up.” He said with a disheartened smile.
“Alaric has declared his inability to continue. Lilia is the winner.” Marcus said, declaring and end to the match.
The second she was announced to be the winner Lilia opened her item box and pulled a healing potion out.
Then before Alaric could say or do anything else, she jammed it into his mouth and made him drink it.
For a second he struggled as the bottle was pushed past his lips, but when he tasted the familiar soothing liquid, he stopped any resistance.
A faint glow enveloped his body and the wounds all over him quickly started to disappear like a time lapse recording.
Once Alaric was fully healed, Lilia got off of him and helped pull him back to his feet.
“Are you okay? Do you have any other injuries?” she asked while inspecting his body.
“No, that potion fixed everything. Well except for my pride.” Alaric said as he scratched the back of his head.
It was quite clear that he was disappointed in his lose since he had wanted to impress Lilia.
“But you should be proud. That was a great battle. You proved that you are more than strong enough to fight alongside me now.” Lilia said as she leaned over an placed a kiss on Alaric’s cheek.