We need to fight her

“Each of you is to duel me.” Kiara says. “You can use all of the skills you have at your disposal. I will too. Remember, I only shared with you 1 of my skills. I still have 2 others you don’t know about. Should you succeed in defeating me, you will earn an invitation to my guild.”

Leona and I already have our invitations, so I guess it doesn’t really matter if we beat her. Though knowing Leona, she’s still going to want to defeat Kiara. As for me, I want Kiara to know that I am more than trustworthy. I want her to know I can be relied on in combat.

Shalia is the first to go. Kiara has her opponent stand next to the urns with water and dirt. That should work well in Shalia’s favor.

When the fight starts, Kiara starts running towards Shalia. The pink haired Asian summons water from the urn behind her and sends it towards Kiara, but the hooded sorceress creates a shadow shield on her left arm which shields her from the water.
By now Kiara is close enough to get into melee with Shalia, which she does after changing her shadow shield into a shadow sword.
Shalia uses her quarterstaff to defend herself. Not like she did against Ryul in her first match, but like a quarterstaff is supposed to be used. Unfortunately for Shalia, Kiara changes her sword again, this time into a tentacle which wraps itself around Shalia’s staff. With one good jerk, Kiara pulls the staff from Shalia’s hands and throws it away.
Shalia uses her [Sunlight Shield] skill to defend herself. But when Kiara sends the shadowy tentacle on her left arm back towards the Asian mage, it goes though the shield like it was nothing. The tentacle wraps itself around both of Shalia’s wrists and pulls them above her head. Looks like this fight is over.

“Sunlight shield defends against physical attacks.” Kiara says calmly to her captive. “My shadow manipulation is a magical attack.”

Kiara then lets Shalia go, turns to the rest of us and says, “Miranda, you’re next.”

Miranda starts her first attack with a [Cleave]. The swing of her axe causes a red slash to travel from her to Kiara. Like in her duel with Shalia, Kiara summons a shadow on her left arm in the shape of a shield and defends herself. Miranda closes in on Kiara while also using more [Cleave] attacks. Kiara simply waits until Miranda is close enough for melee, then she quickly changes her shadow shield into a sword in her right hand and blocks Miranda’s next attack.
Miranda was quite surprised that Kiara goes into the melee, same as me. Kiara is a mage, not a spellsword, so it is not expected for her to do so. But when Miranda allows her axe to clash a little too long with Kiara’s sword, the shadowy sword changes shape again and wraps itself around the axe. Then Kiara gives a good pull and Miranda has been disarmed. The black woman tries to reach for her throwing axes, but Kiara transforms her sword into a tentacle and grabs Miranda’s wrist. Another pull has Miranda on the ground, followed by Kiara placing her left foot on the beast tamer.

“Many people know mages are at their best at long range and at their weakest in melee.” Kiara tells Miranda. “Mages know that best of all. This is why most mages try to find a way to counter attempts at melee or otherwise punish those who try to **** them into melee.”

After she lets Miranda go, Kiara calls for Ryul to face her.

Before the battle starts, the stance Ryul takes is one a quickly notice as his [Heaven’s Stance]. When the duel starts, he starts slowly walking towards our mentor. Kiara uses her dark magic and shoots a few [Dark Blast]’s at him. Ryul dodges the blasts with help of his [Sixth Sense], which he can access only because he is using his [Heaven’s Stance] skill. Even when Kiara uses her [Shadow manipulation] to pull a black hand out of Ryul’s own shadow and try to grab his feet, his improved intuition has him avoid her attacks. It’s incredible. I think he might do it. Ryul could actually defeat Kiara.
Kiara then gives up on trying to defeat Ryul at a distance. She creates herself a shadow sword and walks up to him for a melee confrontation. Ryul first dodges her sword, then grabs Kiara by the wrist and pulls her out of balance. Next, he kicks one of her legs from under her and Kiara falls. He’s done it! But when Kiara hits the ground, she sinks into it and disappears. Wait, what?

Ryul and the rest of us are confused. Where did Kiara disappear to? Suddenly I feel a hand on my shoulder and it pushes me aside. Then I see Kiara running past me, straight towards Ryul. How did she get behind me?
In her rush towards Ryul, Kiara uses her [Shadow Manipulation] to grow herself two wings. She flaps them once to lift her slightly off the ground and even faster towards Ryul, who just now sees her. Then Kiara adjusts her shadow wings into the shape of a large shadowy arm covering her right arm. With a scream, she sands a large shadow hand, the size of a full-grown human, towards Ryul. My elf friend raises both his forearms in front of his head, but he gets swept away by Kiara’s giant shadow hand and gets pinned to the ground. And how did she prevent her hood from falling off?

“Congratulations.” Kiara compliments Ryul. “You made me use my second skill, [Shadow Teleportation].”

“Shadow what now?” Ryul asks confused while lying on the ground.

“It is a skill which allows me to jump into one shadow and out of another. As long as they are not too far apart.”

I look behind me, where Kiara came from after she disappeared into the ground. There are not many objects there but the main structure of the castle, the donjon, does cast quite a large shadow which extends all the way over there. That must be the shadow she escaped from.

“But there aren’t any shadows near us.” Ryul complains.

Kiara smiles. “No matter what happens, there is one shadow I always carry with me.”

By the goddess. Kiara may be a B rank, but she is holding her own against A ranks like Ryul and Shalia. I guess that could be because she has more experience in her skills. Or maybe rare skills really can make that much of a difference.

Next up to face Kiara is Wendy. Though the poor girl is shaking while standing in front of Kiara. When the match starts, Wendy just stands there hidden behind her shield. Our mentor notices how afraid she is and relaxes. Then Kiara casts a spell on herself which has her completely enveloped in darkness.
While spending time in the library, I got curious about the dark magic our mentor was using and read a few books on it. That is how I learned about a spell named [Shroud]. It causes the caster to be surrounded, not my black smoke, but by darkness which looks like smoke. A trick of the light really. Well, trick of darkness.
The effect of the [Shroud] spell make Kiara appear quite menacing. Even more so when she starts slowly walking towards Wendy. Kiara then uses her [Shadow Manipulation] to manipulate Wendy’s own shadow to surround Wendy like a cocoon. It looks to me like Kiara knows just where Wendy’s [Null Field] begins and stays out of it. When she is standing right in front of the shadowy cocoon, Kiara raises her right hand and pushes it inside. Suddenly we hear Wendy scream. After the scream ends, Kiara end both her [Shroud] and removes the shadow cocoon around Wendy and we see the redhead on her knees rubbing her eyes while her shield and spear are lying on the ground. I guess Kiara used the same [Sunlight Charge] spell she used to blind Leona a couple days ago.

“Out of everyone here, I thought you would have the best chance at defeating me.” Kiara says as she helps Wendy up. “But you allowed your fear to drain your strength. It is not I who defeated you today, Wendy. You were defeated by yourself.”

Kiara first helps Wendy back to us. Before our mentor can even return to our little arena, Leona is already there waiting for her.

“Come on, Kiara.” The cat girl says. “This time I’ll defeat you.”

Kiara then readies to duel Leona.

Before the start signal is even given, I notice Leona keeping her shield high and in front of her face. I guess she’s doing that to keep her eyes safe from another blinding flash. When the start signal is given, Leona doesn’t run towards Kiara but steps towards her in a normal pace. Kiara ties to summon shadowy hands to grab at Leona’s feet, but every time one shows up, Leona either slashes at it with her sword or stops on it with her heel.
When Kiara realizes her tactic isn’t working, she employs her [Shadow Manipulation] to create a halberd in her hands. Then she meets Leona for a melee attack. Knowing that Kiara can only use [Shadow Manipulation] on one object at a time, that means Kiara is now unable to summon shadowy hands to grab Leona’s feet. Leona takes advantage of this and increases the speed of her movement.
Once the two meet in melee, the fight is quite fierce. Leona slashes at Kiara. The dark sorceress uses her shadow halberd to defend herself. Then she counterattacks, but Leona defends herself with her shield. Both of them are moving quite fast.
Kiara, though being a B rank, can definitely hold her own against an A, but A ranks still have a higher strength boost then B ranks and it shows. Leona’s strikes land harder than Kiara’s.
Eventually, Kiara manages to make some distance between her and Leona. That is when our mentor raises her right hand and summons a [Sun Lance]. White light appears above her and takes on the shape of a spear. Though when she throws it, Leona is ready. The cat girl readies her shield for an impact and activates [Divine Blessing]. A skill which allows her to decrease the power of magical attacks thrown at her. So far, I have learned this is one of the rare skills Leona has and that she is able to use it only once per day.
When Kiara throws her [Sun Lance], it first comes into contact with Leona’s [Divine Blessing] and becomes less bright. Then it hits Leona’s shield, presumably will less **** then it normally would have. After that, Leona rushes at Kiara. Our mentor tries to defense herself, but when her shadow halberd gets within range of the [Divine Blessing] it too weakens. One slash of Leona’s sword then causes it to disintegrate.

Leona was about to kit Kiara with her sword pommel, But Kiara raises her arms and and yells “Yield!”

Leona immediately stops her movement.

“I yield.” Kiara repeats. “You’ve won.”

“But you haven’t teleported yet?” Leona asks.

“I can’t. I have to wait 10 minute every time I do it. The duel with Ryul hasn’t been 10 minutes yet.” Kiara explains.

Leona becomes visibly frustrated and says, “You mean to say, the only reason I beat you, is because you are still weakened from your previous fight?!”

Before Kiara can respond, Leona angrily throws her sword to the ground and walks away. I thought Leona would be happy for winning. She’s weird.

After a short break, during which I see Kiara use a mana potion, it is my turn to face off against Kiara. I’m not sure if I can defeat her. She’s had over 10 minutes, so she can use her shadow teleportation again. Then there’s her [Shadow Manipulation], which has already proven to be very versatile and very powerful. That said, it was fighting against an opponent more powerful than me, like Leona, which helped me become a C rank. If dueling Kiara can get me to B rank, I don’t even need to win from her. A rank up will be more than enough reward for me.

When the duel starts, Kiara sends out her [Shadow Manipulation] at me in the form of a tentacle. I use my sword to deflect it. Meanwhile, I start casting [Water Barrier]. Thanks to Ophelia’s lesson, I don’t even need to hold out my hand to summon water from the urn behind me, it happens automatically. As I deflect Kiara’s shadow tentacle a few more times, the water starts to swirl around me until I am surrounded by a bubble of water. This time when Kiara’s shadow tentacle lashes at me, it bounces off my protective barrier.
With me being protected, I can now dash towards Kiara. I had expected for her to create a shadow weapon to fight in melee again. She does seem to be fond of that. But no, she does something I haven’t seen her do before. Kiara completely wraps herself in a shadow construct and shapes it like armor. Then she jumps forward, through my [Water Barrier] and pushes me to the ground. She then pins both my arms to the ground and has her knee on my belly.
Because of my surprise, the [Water Barrier] has already ended and water is both around and on us. I try to use my magic again, but I Kiara prevents that when I hear her say, “Migraine.”
All of a sudden, I get hit with an incredible headache which comes from nowhere. Kiara lets go of me and I am left clutching at my head. When Kiara snaps her fingers, it sounded like the loudest snap I’ve ever head. But it also resulted in the pain ending.

“Not bad. The water barrier was a good idea. Just remember you’re not the only one who can use magic to enhance defense. In my case, I used my increased defense to enhance my offense.” Kiara explains.

With the pain now gone, I lie on my back while listening to Kiara’s advice. She’s right. I focused too much on my own defense and thought nothing about how she could improve hers. I look over at the others and from where I lie, I could also see Princess Kathleen up on the balcony again. I have noticed her there regularly and only when we are training. I really wonder why she’s taking an interest.

When we return into the castle, Kiara asks Shalia to stay with her a bit longer. In the meantime, I check my adventurer card, but there is no change. Looks like I’m not as lucky as last time.

During dinner, I keep thinking back of Kiara’s skills. If only I had more knowledge of what her skills and spells could all do. Perhaps I’d be able to better predict her and find a way to win, if only I knew what to expect. Next time I get to the library, I should find some books on dark magic and read those.

When Ryul and Shalia leave, Wendy pulls on my sleeve and says, “Hey, Darx. I’m going to join Leona for some extra practice. Will you come too?”