Magicapita

"Something's wrong, I can feel it." Kyrell's expression grew severe as he tried to consider everything that was happening. His dark eyes ran about, scanning everything that he saw outside of the cave where they had stacked their flag. The bright light of the morning Sun illuminated the trees and forest around him, while the noise of rustling leaves and swaying branches hung in the air.

"Pessimistic, aren't you?" Seol raised an eyebrow, remaining alert to their position. "Why do you think something is off?"

"…I can just feel it," Kyrell remarked.

His tone was serious.

His body language reflected the restless anxiety that had bugged him since the match had begun, leaving him pacing back and forth in front of the cave that they had chosen as their base and the haven for their flag.

It had only one entrance, making it easier to protect. While magic could allow one to pass through the walls without force, it was not worth the effort and would leave anyone attempting it quite vulnerable.

It was a solid choice for a base.

"I didn't take you for a man who relied on his intuition as opposed to his reasoning," Dranst said with an intrigued tone as his eyes turned away from his grimoire and to the chain-laden Kyrell.

"Focus," the only trainer on defense instructed them with a stern tone. "Don't let loose your attention on other matters. It will lower your reaction speed for when they come—!"

His body immediately tightened as several magic circles emerged before him.

"They're here!"

BOOM BOOM BOOM!!!

The team barely managed to defend against the ensuing attacks that seemed to come from nowhere, as their hasty defenses and existing passive defenses were ravaged with intense beams of light and infernos threatening to eat them alive.

They weren't able to defend against the attacks well enough to avoid injury.

"Rgh…!"

"Damn…!"

"Ahhhh!"

BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG!!!

Their subsequent defenses proved to hold off the onslaught better than before, but the injuries that they had already sustained were not merely light scratches or bruises.

"Rgh…!" Kyrell gritted his teeth as he tried casting what little combat healing magic he had learned, trying to cover his wounds and stop the bleeding and reduce the pain with some magical anesthetics, desperately trying to defend against the onslaught from the offensive squad of Team Cæ, led by none other than Cæ himself.

Cæ's stormy gray eyes, which were normally unyieldingly calm, flared with a fierce intensity as he unleashed devastating attacks upon his enemy. The sheer power that he emitted shook Kyrell and Seol, leaving them shocked.

BOOM BOOM BOOM BOOM BOOM!!!

Multi-elemental attacks centered around three or more of the six greater elements blasted their defenses as their eyes widened, stunned.

"His magic is stronger than it was in the final round of the combat selection tournament!" Seol exclaimed with shock. "But that's absurd! The tournament was less than a month ago! How could he have possibly made any meaningful growth in such a short period of time?!"

"Damn him…!" Kyrell gritted his teeth as the chains that wrapped around his body emerged, conjuring more chains while chains, both real and fake, surged in both defense and offense, protecting him from the attacks of the offensive squad and attacking them.

"This…" Dranst's eyes sharpened. "This is unprecedented."

He, too, was shocked by the visible boost in strength that Cæ had displayed.

Then again, it wasn't particularly shocking when one considered the fact that he had only learned magic for around a year. And in that time, he had gone from a complete beginner to one of the seven strongest students in the magicademy and even won the combat selection process, even if everybody knew that Virlyd was the strongest.

It meant that Cæ made significant progress with each month that passed.

It was difficult to imagine how strong he would have been after twelve months by the end of the year. Despite being immersed in the middle of battle with their main objective to protect their flag, the three of them couldn't help but wonder whether Cæ would truly end up becoming stronger than Virlyd, of all people, in one-on-one combat under fair and equal circumstances.

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It made both of them envious of the unfathomable talent that Cæ displayed.

He wasn't the only one, however, who displayed great growth.

Silian had grown significantly stronger as well since his defeat with Virlyd, as his known prodigious talent allowed him to gobble up magic at a rate that would be impossible even for elite talents like the students of the Elendir Institute of Magic.

"Focus." The gruff voice of the defensive trainer gruffly broke them out of their reverie. "We cannot allow them to pass us!"

His words motivated a more fierce defense from the students who gritted their teeth and pushed themselves to the limit to stop the offensive squad of Team Cæ with every ounce of power they had.

The offensive squad, led by Cæ, comprised only four members, as did the defensive squad of Team Miranda. This gave the latter hope that they would be able to at least hold out for a long time.

And they were right.

Cæ's team was indeed quite powerful, and even had an advantage with the mysterious ambush that came out of nowhere, almost like they were invisible. However, even with that advantage, it would not be enough for the offensive squad of Team Cæ to penetrate the powerful defenses of the opposing defensive team.

Unbeknownst to team Miranda, however, that wasn't the plan.

The offensive squad of Team Cæ did everything in their power to penetrate the defenses of Team Miranda. However, their true goal was to simply draw all their attention away from the flag and force them to keep their eyes front so that Serulia and the invisible five with her could go grab their flag and replace it with a fake, conjured illusion flag.

Cæ unleashed powerful, flashy magic spells of great power, but in reality, they were only magical in the sense that he was performing a magician's trick, misdirection. The real magic trick was the disappearing flag when Serulia got too far to maintain the fake with her illusion magic.

He couldn't sense Serulia and the other five that she hid along with her, but he was certain that they had already entered the cave at that point. His job was to keep the defensive team of the squad completely focused on him, lest they turn their attention to the group that had already snuck behind them.

Cæ's eyes sharpened as a giant seventh-circle magic circle appeared before him while he swept his wand with a single elegant motion. It yielded a powerful, but focused quad-elemental projectile, resembling a javelin, with conjured and manipulated elements, threatening to blast them away.

It crossed the distance between himself and the defensive squad in the blink of an eye.

WHOOSH

BOOOM!!!!

The powerful attack shattered several layers of defenses between them as the tides began sweeping against the team. And yet, despite the winning advantage, Cæ didn't unleash a blind onslaught of attacks against the defensive squad.

Neither did Silian nor the two offensive trainers with him.

They couldn't afford to allow their attacks to mistakenly hit Serulia and their other four teammates with her, even if the latter were protecting her. Not only could they get seriously hurt if something went wrong, but they could also get discovered if they actively defend themselves.

The offensive team has to walk the balance between unleashing all their power and concentrating it on only their opponents, ensuring that it doesn't strike their teammates. This was especially a large concern considering that their opponents had chosen a cave, unfortunately, making it very difficult for Serulia and co to extract the flag, plant a fake conjured illusion of one, and then escape all without being caught.

Serulia narrowed her eyes intensely as she waited for the right moment to switch the real flag with a fake one.

Her light blue eyes remained fixed on the purple flag with great intensity.

Even if she were invisible, she couldn't simply pluck the flag out.

They would notice that without a doubt.

She needed to wait for a moment when their attention was entirely drawn by Cæ's squad that bombarded them with an onslaught of attacks.

And then the moment came.

Four powerful, charged attacks from the four attackers are blasting the defensive team in conjunction.

BOOM BOOM BOOM BOOM!

For a few moments, all four members of the defense squad were entirely consumed with defense alone, rather than protecting their flag.

That was the moment she leaped for the flag, pulling it out of the ground by hand, since it was immune to magic by design, and swiftly conjuring an exact replica while turning the real one invisible.

The swap occurred in less than a second.

One of the defensive trainers turned back instinctively for a moment to check on the flag.

All he saw was exactly what he expected to see.

The flag.

Alone and safe.

His attention returned to the offensive group that continued bombarding the defensive team with a myriad of attacks, distracting them enough to allow Serulia and her squad to escape while they protected her.

Her job was to focus exclusively on illusions and conjuration while the other four protected her from any stray attacks that might generally strike her.

WHOOSH

Through a narrow chink in the armor, Serulia and her guards extract themselves from the cave, just barely avoiding the crossfire between the two teams.

Words couldn't describe the euphoric glee that bubbled up within Cæ's squad as they realized that the escape had already occurred. They had stolen their opponents' flag without them realizing what had happened.

The plan was a crushing success.

The crazy plan that not even the experienced retired Capture The Flag professionals had seen has unfolded with success.

It took Cæ and the other three with him everything in their willpower to stop an excited grin from emerging on their faces. The fact that things had succeeded so smoothly made for a truly exciting match, unlike anything that they could have expected.

They continued attacking the defensive squad of their opponents' team as they had been doing so, but this time, their goal was now to prevent the defensive team from reaching Serulia when they inevitably learned that it was a fake when it was to fade away.

They also had to stop Miranda from reaching her base if she happened to discover their bluff in time and grab the real flag, taking it back to her base. Cæ had prepared for the possibility that the bluff would fail from the start.

'Now we just need to hold and stand here as barriers while putting up a fight against the attackers." Cæ's eyes sharpened. 'The moment Serulia gets back to our base and plants their flag with ours, we win.'

That was the condition for victory in Capture The Flag, and Cæ was confident that they had it in the bag.