Chapter 7: Gnarly Turnout.
Blood and feathers sprayed into the air, the peacock's mournful cries echoing as it thrashed beneath him, its vibrant plumage stained with crimson.
The purple peacocks struggles were growing weaker as Su Ping's claws dug deeper, each strike fueled by a madness he could no longer contain.
The students on the platforms watched in horror, their faces pale, some clutching each other as the bird's screams filled the arena, like a marvelous symphony of pain that seemed to shake the very air.
" I surrender! I surrender!"
" You win! Just get that crazy beast off my baby!"
Roland's smug demeanor shattered, his voice rising in a desperate scream as he surrendered, pleading for Lucinda to call off her "crazy beast" from his "baby."
' H-he's surrendering?'
' Doesn't that mean I win?'
Lucinda, snapped out of her daze, and yelled for Su Ping to stop, her voice trembling with a mix of fear when the sight finally sunk, but Su Ping, lost in the haze of his fury, barely registered her words.
" You crazy beast! I said stop!"
Su Ping suddenly felt an invisible force tighten around his neck, like chains binding his will, but he resisted, his jaws snapping as he bit into the peacock's flesh, tearing out a chunk and swallowing it on instinct, the metallic taste of blood flooding his senses.
Undeterred, he continued his assault, ripping into the bird as it flailed helplessly in the air, Still trying to shake off Su Ping, its cries growing fainter with each savage bite.
The arena erupted in chaos, but before the carnage could escalate further, a figure appeared in a flash of light, an old man, his weathered face stern beneath a shock of white hair, leaning on a cane that seemed to brim with latent power.
" That's enough!"
With a flick of his wrist, he pointed at Su Ping, and a bolt of electricity crackled through the air, striking Su Ping's scaled body with a force that sent him tumbling off the peacock, his vision swimming with pain.
The old man leaped into the air with surprising agility, catching the wounded peacock as it fell, his robes billowing as he landed softly on the arena floor.
" Thank you instructor!"
" Instructor, is my familiar alright?"
Roland's heart sank as the old man shook his head, his expression grim, the peacock's once-vibrant form now limp in his arms, its purple feathers dull and matted with blood.
" No!"
" Damnit! You evil witch, this was your true plan from the very beginning, wasn't it!"
" You weren't satisfied with just winning, you just had to go this far?!"
" Don't you have any sense of humanity?! Or are you just a vile witch through and through."
Roland's rage boiled over, his face contorting as he turned on Lucinda, his voice a venomous shout as he demanded her disqualification, accusing her of failing to control her summon.
" Instructor, as per the rules! Student Lucinda should be disqualified from the competition! Just look at what she's done to my poor familiar! You have to seek justice for it, instructor!"
Lucinda, her pale face flushed with a mix of guilt and refusal to take the blame, pleaded with the old man, her words stumbling over each other as she tried to explain, but the old man's verdict was unyielding.
" I'm sorry but Young master Roland is correct, Student Lucinda, not only did you fail to control your summon, but you even went to the point of summoning an Abyssal creature for the competition against the rules."
" You may be potent with dark magic but rules are rules."
He declared Roland the winner, citing Lucinda's failure to control her summon and her breach of the rules by calling forth a demon.
" Can you believe her? She actually dared to summon such a repulsive thing."
" What more could you expect from a witch, it's in her nature."
" Is it really ok to have her in the same building as us, what if she sacrifices us to one of her demons."
The word "demon" rippled through the crowd, igniting a wave of murmurs, some mocking, others laced with fear, as the students' eyes turned to Lucinda, their whispers sharp and cutting, pushing her to the edge of her composure.
' No! I was so close!'
' I was this close to winning! Why did it all go wrong!'
Lucinda's frustration erupted, her dark eyes blazing as she rounded on Su Ping, who lay dazed and bleeding on the arena floor, his scales slightly charred and filled with cuts.
' You useless thing! It's all your fault!'
' If you'd listened, non of this would've happened!'
' I hate you! You good for nothing demon!'
Her boots struck his side, each kick a release of her pent-up anger, her voice a low hiss as she berated him for his recklessness, for turning her into a pariah.
Su Ping, still reeling from the electric bolt and the invisible chains that seemed to bind him, could only curl inward, his body aching as her blows worsened his injuries, the taste of the peacock's blood still lingering in his mouth now mixed with his own as his internal injuries developed.
The students watched, some with pity, others with disdain, but before Lucinda's fury could escalate further, the summoning time limit expired, and Su Ping's form shimmered, then vanished, leaving the arena empty save for the echoes of violence and the weight of Lucinda's pent up frustrations.
Su Ping materialized in the Abyss once more, he fell out of the air before landing in the canopy of a tree.
Though covered in vibrant leaves, the tree had gnarled branches, its bark rough and strangely warm beneath his claws, as if it pulsed with a life of its own.
Su Ping who was still under the assault of excruciating pain sprawled atop the branch.
Not only did the tree have gnarly branches, it also had red vines, slick and glistening like veins exposed to the air, coiled around the tree's twisted limbs, their surfaces catching the dim, crimson light of the blood-red sky above.