OW: Tournament Lilin - Round 1b

Merciless, the midday sun hung in the clear blue sky and sent its beams of bright light and heat down onto the dark red sand of the Otherworlde arena. To creatures with a normal sense of temperature, the ground would probably feel uncomfortably hot and they surely would try not to touch it with their bare skin. But Lilin did not mind it. In fact, the appreciated the warmth, it was a nice change in comparison to the normally cold climate of the academy.
Her foe was a small, blond boy she never had seen before. But the devil knew very well not to underestimate an opponent. Before the fight started, bothopponents  met in the middle of the battleground and Lilin used the opportunity to glance at the spectators. She could spot Jaquline, Rose and Alexei and sadly, Asoth as well. Her sister was holding up a big sign, the message written in big capital letters and surrounded by hearts:
"DIE HORRIBLY LILIN!"
It was typical for Asoth. The older devil probably had also placed a ton of bets about how soon Lilin would lose and how badly she'd be injured. But at least she wasn't trying to take Darvenel's place yet, so Lilin dared to stay optimistic. She had an made a rough plan on how to fight. It was more of an idea than an actual battle tactic, but with enough time it could work out very well.
"Ready? FIGHT!", Professor Helmy's voice echoed throughout the arena. Lilin quickly reached out her hands towards the ground and very thin cracks spread forth from where she touched the sand, forming a circle with runes. Event though those lines moved fast, they were still too slow and Darvenel reached her before the circle was completed. He was moving incredibly fast and obviously had no issues hitting a girl.
The first punch landed on Lilin's shoulder and she was sure he intended to knock her over. Another hit landed on her ribcage before she could bring her arms up to protect herself. But even then her opponent was a fast and easily used every weakness in her defense to his advantage. But Lilin was not going to give in to a little bit of beating that easily. Without Darvenel noticing, the circle completed itself, but right now, nothing happened. Another punch landed in her face and a dull pain along with a warm feeling inside her nose told her she was bleeding badly.
As by now, also Lilin's lip was sprung and the painful wound caused a river of blood running down her face. She gave her mainly useless defense and quickly grabbed Darvenel's left arm. He had not see it coming and before he could yank himself free, Lilin heated up her own skin until it was hot enough to badly burn him through his gloves. With an instinctive scream of pain, Darvenel let go of her and brought some distance between the two of them, allowing Lilin to get up. Her upper body ached from the beating she received, but she could ignore that for now. She didn't start an attack towards Darvenel but instead, she summoned her wings and took off. She wasn't sure if her opponent could fly or not, but he appeared to be a melee fighter, so it was only sensible to maintain a certain distance and used ranged attacks to keep him at bay. The boy was suprisingly agile and also, he could jump surprisingly high. The devil knew she had to lure him into her little trap before he would land on her and force her back to the ground by breaking one of her wings. So instead of aiming directly at him, she added a little twist to the trajectory of her fireballs while also increasing the amount of them, leaving Darvenel exactly one safe direction to avoid getting hit. The boy was too busy avoiding the projectiles and probably wasn't even aware that there was a simple magical circle carved into the ground. As soon as he entered it, Lilin hurled her cane down, increasing it's speed using windmancy. Her opponent surely assumed it had been aimed at him, because he made a smart remark about it - or whatever he considered to be a smart remark anyway:
"Hey, are your eyes swollen shut? I'm over here!"
The Cane landed precisely between two unfinished carvings and created a connection between them, just as the devil had intended. The circle began to glow green as it activated. Maybe Lilin should thank Kichi for trapping her inside a shadow dome while trying to kill her. It was a really well working tactic. Though neither of them had thought of that incident as a lesson back then. But it was part of growing up among people like Asoth. You need to be a quick learner in order to avoid being crushed on a daily basis.
Darvenel noticed the green glow and naturally, he tried to get out. A suddenly appearing circle was never a good thing, every student learned that very soon. But a wall of faint green light prevented him. He tried to jump over it, but no matter how high he jumped, the wall was higher.
"Cheater!", he shouted up to the devil and hammered against the walls.
Lilin didn't answer. She doubted explaining to him that the alternative of the circle was quick sand or fast hardening cement would accomplish anything. Now that his scope of movement was limited, it was much easier to hit him. The devil summoned fireball by fireball until it almost became a fiery hailstorm. Due to the high repetition rate, her projectiles weren't really large. But that didn't matter much.
Darvenel did his best to dodge everything Lilin threw at him, but since the fireballs could enter the circle easily while he couldn't exit, he eventually got hit at his left upper arm. he tried not to scream as his skin was burned to an angry red and scorched black mess. Lilin was actually surprised by how bad the wound looked, but she didn't stop. After all, he hadn't gone soft on her and also, if it was too bad, he could always surrender. Maybe it was a dirty trick to trap him, but none of the teacher made any tries to put an end to the fight. So Lilin guessed it everything was still within reason. The injured Darvenel was only a little slower than the unharmed one, so Lilin continued her attacks. She knew she had to hurry. The circle only kept one target inside and the awhirl sand could cover parts of it, thus nullifying the spell.
During the next shower of fireballs, Darvenel got hit on the cheek and one of his lower legs. He still didn't give up, but tried to find a way to escape. His determination was impressing, Lilin had to admit. But that didn't stop her from continuing her attacks. But with his now obvious decrease of speed and agility, she could lower the amount of fireballs. The ground inside the circle was covered by black marks, indicating missed attacks.
"Are you getting tired?", Darvenel shouted as he noticed fewer fireballs were thrown up him.
Again, Lilin remained silent, but threw a bigger projectile at him. As long as he could make such remarks, he was fine and there was no need to worry, she decided. She didn't stop again to see how her opponent was doing, but just kept on shooting. Darvenel's body was covered by third degree burns. Blood and plasma oozed out from beneath the cracks, adding nasty shades of orange and red to the almost black skin.
The pain, the sun's heat, the loss of blood, and the upstarting blood poisening by dirt and dust of the arena caused a quickly increasing dizziness, so the next hit he took wasn't able to add to the pain, but the force of the impact knocked Darvenel over and down to the ground. A part of him wanted to keep on fighting the cheating devil, but the promise of embracing a cold and numb blackness appeared so much sweeter... Darvenel slipped into unconsciousness and didn't notice how Lilin took her cane, thus dismissing the circle, kneeling down next to him and then used a bit of watermancy to clean at least some of his wounds, before he was brought to the medical department.