Realizing that they had no choice, the enemy threw themselves upward the stairs in greater numbers. The confined s.p.a.ce – while being used to its maximum potential by Harrison and the others to become the ultimate killing zone – also proved to be a double-edged sword. Powerful, areof-effect spells that the enemy launched upward combusted, engulfing more than a few of Harrison's teammates in arcane flames, iridescent ice, ethereal earth or l.u.s.trous leaves. Despite Harrison's best attempts to protect them with his holy barriers, even his formidable defesnes were overwhelmed by the sheer volume of spells spitting upward into their otherwise firmly entrenched position.

Never mind his teammates. Even Harrison succ.u.mbed to the overwhelming barrage a couple of times, taken out by a lucky headshot, or also caught in a ma.s.sive explosion alongside his teammates. Though Harrison's team succeeded in holding the upper floor for now, and limiting the opposing team to the underground subway, they were doing so at great cost. The price for their transitionary victory was being paid for in blood, and they were barely hanging on to their slender lead. I could see the total scores being 353-328 in favor of Harrison's team for now, but occasionally the enemy team's score would spike up and close the gap.

If they ever broke past the killing zone at the stairs and elevator and surge upward, they might rout Harrison's team. Well, it probably wouldn't be that bad, but it would certainly mean defeat if the enemy pushed Harrison's team all the way back to their sp.a.w.ning point at the café. The vast, open s.p.a.ce there meant that snipers would have free reign and Harrison's team's current tactics of maximizing the use of explosives and areof-effect spells would fall apart.

To be sure, areof-effect spells would remain potent, but they wouldn't be nearly as effective as they were, currently in such tight confines. Furthermore, the opposing team had skilled snipers that Harrison's team lacked, and they were perfectly capable of picking Harrison and his teammates off the exact moment they sp.a.w.ned next to the café. At least here wasn't a place where we could gain a vantage view of the opponents and shoot them when they sp.a.w.ned.

To do that, we had to break past the stairs and elevator and push them all the way back to their sp.a.w.ning point at the end of the tunnels, where the trains were. In fact, that was the reason why our lead was so slender. This position was not overwhelmingly advantageous to us by any means, as the enemy could use the close confines to take out a whole chunk of Harrison's group whenever the opportunity presented itself.

"Hang in there!" Harrison shouted, casting another golden barrier to withstand another onslaught of spells that crashed into the s.h.i.+mmering wall. Even though the protective screen didn't collapse, the immense impact sent several shockwaves across the enclosed s.p.a.ce, rocking the members of his team who were crouching and firing off their own spells. Gritting his teeth, Harrison obliterated the head of an enemy with a holy blast. "It's almost thirty minutes!"

I glanced at the timer. Harrison was right. Holy…had it really been thirty minutes already? The action was so frenetic, the battlefield so intense and gripping that I had totally lost track of time, and it flew by before I realized it. Right now, the total scores of both teams were 402-389, with Harrison's team barely in the lead. It appeared that it was slowly slipping out of their hands…

"…just a bit more…there!"

One of Harrison's teammates stepped forward as soon as he finished casting his spell. Suddenly, a singularity vortex opened up at the bottom of the stairs, the tremendous gravitational forces catching the opposing team completely by surprise and sucking them into a black hole, crus.h.i.+ng them into unrecognizable messes of blood and flesh. Screams and shrieks filled the air as the others fled, but they were struck in the back by opportunistic mages, looking to pulverize the remnants of the enemy and seize the chance to push forward.

In that single moment, the score jumped to 508-412. Buoyed, the members of Harrison's team surged forward, ready to take the fight to the opposing team's sp.a.w.ning points.

"Wait!" Harrison cautioned, realizing something was amiss. "Don't go too far! They can't possibly have left the subway unguarded…"

His warning came too late. The moment the first member stepped into the bas.e.m.e.nt level of the subway, he accidentally triggered an enchantment that the opposing team spent a lot of time weaving.

"!!!"

A supernova erupted, rippling across the stairs and incinerating swathes of students. Harrison threw up his hands and conjured a holy barrier to defend the dazed survivors from the expanding cloud of plasma, but the spell was so powerful that it shattered his protective screen in an instant. The ma.s.sive shockwaves, accompanied by tremendous heat, blasted Harrison and the other members of his team back up the stairs and into the wall with such force that their bodies cracked the concrete. Cras.h.i.+ng back down on the ground, their bodies smoldering and their skin blistering, Harrison raised his head, completely dazed and nearly blacking out from the excruciating agony.

In that instant, the opposing team had clawed back up to close the gap, with the score now 527-499. Worse, they were in position to capitalize on that turning point, with their members having resp.a.w.ned seconds earlier, and were now rapidly making their way toward the stairs. With so many of Harrison's teammates obliterated by the supernova trap, and the rest momentarily incapacitated, it appeared that they would lose their advantageous high ground and surrender their lead for the first time in the match.

"Harrison!" Pearl cried out worriedly, but there was no way our captain could hear here, not when he was still within the simulated battlefield, his position about to be overrun by enemies.

The blond team captain evidently realized the dilemma that his team was in, and he ground his teeth as he forced himself back to his feet, swaying slightly from the damage he had received. In the face of overwhelming numbers and an onslaught of spells, he was the only one left to halt their advance.

Taking a deep breath, he took a step forward while his hands frantically drew intricate arcane symbols in the air.

"You shall not pa.s.s!" he bellowed, and stomped his foot against the ground. A ma.s.sive golden holy barrier materialized in front of him, stretching to emcompa.s.s the entire set of stairs, barring entry to the onrus.h.i.+ng mages.

"!!!"

Almost caught by surprise, the various mages attempted to smash their way through Harrison's barrier, but even though he bled from his eyes, nose and mouth, the captain of Jing Tian Academy held on grimly, pouring every ounce of his mana into his barrier.

But inevitably his golden holy barrier cracked and began to shatter, piece by piece, fragment by fragment consumed by the sheer number of arcane spells and ethereal projectiles that hammered his entrenched position.

"Gah!"

Clutching his chest, Harrison coughed out a glob of blood. However, he bit his lip and firmly held his ground, refusing to yield. With a roar, he maintained his upraised hand and infused the last of his mana into his crumbling holy barrier.

Crack!

And then it inevitably shattered completely and totally. Harrison's eyes flashed defiantly as he gathered the last vestiges of his mana to make a last stand, only for him to be engulfed in over a dozen spells that disintegrated his body.

"Harrison!" Pearl screamed. I raised my eyebrow at that. There was no need to be so dramatic, lady. Harrison didn't actually die from that. He would resp.a.w.n in his team's sp.a.w.ning point a few seconds later.

Unfortunately, with his final act of resistance overwhelmed, the opposing team was now free to rush up the stairs, uncontested…

…or so they thought, but Harrison's valiant act of defiance had bought his teammates more than enough time to reach the chokepoint. In fact, one of his surviving teammates – among those who had escaped the supernova trap with her life thanks to Harrison's hastily conjured barrier – had used the time to cast a powerful spell that erupted the moment the fools reached the top of the stairs.

Now the situation was reversed and it was their turn to be caught in Harrison's team's trap. The girl's enchantment went off with the force of a volcano, molten lava was.h.i.+ng the stunned mages back down into the subway and burning them into ash and cinders.

That turnaround allowed Harrison's team to get some much-needed breathing room and widen their lead – now the score read 634 to 589.

And there was only a minute left for the opposing team to try and overhaul their opponents and s.n.a.t.c.h the lead. If Harrison's team could just hold on for the next sixty seconds, then the ten bonus points per player would be as good as theirs…!

My eyes flickered between the timer at the top left corner of the screen and the sp.a.w.n location where Harrison was newly resurrected. This was going to be one h.e.l.l of a nail-biting finish, and I was tempted to swipe the screen right to where the main fight was taking place in the heart of the metro. The stairs and elevator where the opposing team had launched a renewed a.s.sault…or was going to, only for Harrison's team to take out a good number of them in one fell swoop.

Fortunately, the resp.a.w.n point was not too far away from the stairs. After materializing in the café, Harrison immediately rushed for the entrance to the station. He vaulted over the ticket barricades and sprinted toward the stairs. With the distance from the combat zone being less than a hundred meters, he wasted no time and began to cast his spells, his hand glowing golden as he acc.u.mulated mana into them.

Reaching the top of the stairs, he immediately cast his holy barrier, protecting several of his teammates from a volley of ethereal elemental spells that detonated fiercely against the s.h.i.+mmering wall of golden light. The ones right behind the protective screen rocked from the huge impacts, but their lives were preserved for now. At theif feet were the casualties sustained from holding the stairs, and the gap between the scores had closed to 648 to 612.

Thirty seconds left. I gulped as my eyes flitted toward the timer again. Lily and Pearl were unconsciously clasping their hands, as if in prayer, while Sheila clutched Craig's arm tightly. Theodore and Cody watched grimly, Yue Chu chewed his lower lip and I swallowed again nervously. Only Bu Fan didn't seem to give a d.a.m.n, what with that haughty expression of utmost confidence spelled across his face. It was almost as if he knew we would make it to the knock-out stage by sheer will of plot, considering that he was the protagonist and his story wouldn't come to an ign.o.ble end here. That he would eventually become champion of the tournament because…well, he was the protagonist.

b.a.s.t.a.r.d.

Harrison retaliated, his hands dancing across the air and drawing arcane runes and sigils. A torrent of holy energy seared downward, was.h.i.+ng over two of the captains from the opposing team and disintegrating them.

Speaking of which, weren't the…captains quite fragile in this match? Normally they shouldn't die so easily in reality, because of physical reinforcement spells and such. Human mages were a lot more durable than that, they shouldn't be dying to a couple of spells even if they received a direct hit from an advanced one. Yet they had died so many times over and over again throughout the match. What was going on?

Later I would find out that the boundary field had deliberately reduced their durability for purposes of the match. I had no idea why. Maybe they were trying to rip off Battlefield 3 and its Operation Metro map or something.

Realizing that they had only scant seconds left to turn the tables, the opposing team renewed their vigor and threw everything they had up the stairs, flinging whatever spells or trump card they had been holding up their sleeves the entire time. Now I suddenly realized that the tournament staff had cast an indestructible environment enchantment over the entire site, otherwise the whole station would have been leveled from the sheer intensity of such powerful spells. But no, just like in any shooter games, even if you fire off a rocket launcher or other powerful weapons within such tight confines, the walls and ground remained completely intact. They showed signs of damage, yes, but other than blackened scorches, cracks and a few pieces of debris (which miraculously disappeared after a few seconds), they were otherwise largely in one piece.

Sucking a deep breath, Harrison steeled himself and strengthened his holy barrier. Furious projectiles clattered ineffectively against the s.h.i.+mmering wall, but the advanced spells began to obliterate it.

"Fall back!" one of his teammates shouted. "We've done enough! We can't hold any longer! Our priority should be to deny the opposing team as many kills as possible!"

"Go," Harrison instructed. "I'll be the rearguard."

As his teammates turned to flee upward and across the station, Harrison wove his intricate wards together, repairing the crumbling barrier to withstand one last onslaught. Unfortunately for him, a crimson torrent of destructive energy speared through his holy wall to slam into him. Harrison was flung back across the head of the stairs, colliding violently against the wall. As his consciousness darkened and he sank into the abyss, the opposing team rushed over him and into the first level, with one of the mages stopping to ensure that he was dead.

"…d.a.m.n it."

Harrison raised his head to look up at his would-be killer in one defiant stare, the timer hit zero.

Then everything vanished in a bright flash of light, the holographic display showing the loading screen that transformed into a scoreboard. Inside the simulated battlefield, all of the partic.i.p.ants, including Harrison, glowed brightly and vanished, their bodies forcibly teleported outside the boundary fields.

The match was finally over.