The Greatest Sinner

After the attack Evan decided to run away, he didn't want to waste his time and energy, he had better things to do. Unexpectedly for him, the second chain began to shake, which meant he came close to breaking through the second "Barrier".

"Hmm, is he running away? I think he could deal with his attacker, that cocky guy doesn't look like a coward." The man in the white mantle said puzzled.

"Uh, you don't understand anything, he isn`t driven by emotions, he decided to act pragmatically. That sounds like the surest way to win to me." The girl in the silver mantle disagreed with the man.

"It seems to me the contestants don't quite understand the position they find themselves in. He`s got away, but how long will he be safe? I think they all need to band together and kill the Ogres. Otherwise, I'm afraid we won't have a winner this time." The man in the platinum mantle said calmly.

Draven watched Evan closely as the young man began to run away, and thought to himself, <Why...why is he smiling?>

He saw nothing good in Evan having to run away with his tail between the legs, but after a few seconds, he saw something unexpected.

Whoosh.

Suddenly Evan turned around and started casting the "Magic Missile". A white beam flew toward the root behind him.

Bam.

There was a deafening explosion as it collided, a part of the root had been destroyed and fell slowly into the water. But, Evan wasn't going to stop there.

Bam. Bam. Bam.

Evan cast the "Magic Missile" a few more times. His goal was to destroy all the roots behind him, and for that, he was willing to spend most of the mana he had.

"What's that psycho doing!?" The young man, who had attacked Evan from afar shouted displeased. He`d expected to take him down quickly, but he was having none of it. He was upset about his failure, but he didn't expect Evan to suddenly start destroying the roots, including his.

The guy quickly had to jump to another root. There was nothing he could do about the situation, as Evan was already too far away.

"'Wait a minute... damn! What the hell has that freak done?" The young man said loudly as he looked at the many roots that had been destroyed. He obviously didn't expect that Evan will start doing something like that.

Evan had destroyed exactly those roots to cut himself off from the other participants. The entire area was now divided into three locations. One contained the Ogres, the second the students, and in the third, the smallest, there was only Evan.

There was no way to get to him except by going down into the water, but that was too dangerous.

"Why has he done that? He's putting himself and the others in danger. If the Ogres knock all the other students out, this guy won't stand a chance of winning." The man in the silver mantle said puzzled.

Draven said calmly: "He's created a hiding place for himself".

Evan had just spent a huge amount of mana, obviously, this was all part of the plan. He had a definite purpose.

<Great, now no one will bother me for a while. Thought to himself Evan ran off to the farthest corner of the arena. He crouched on a root and looked at the Ogres in the distance.>

"I`ve wasted a lot of mana, but it was definitely worth it, I don't have time to deal with these monsters."

Evan closed his eyes and began to "Create." He was going to break through the second 'Barrier' right here and now and he didn't want to put it off.

There were many ways to break the "Barrier". It could have happened during combat, during training, or during the"Creation". Each magician had his own unique situations when he broke his "Barrier".

The chains around Evan's "Warp" were already shaking badly, all he had to do was put in a little effort. During the battle with Draven and when he had been attacked by Chloe and Lewis, Evan had moved forward. He believed that it was because of these events that he had now almost broken his second "Barrier."

"I hope I`ll see what happened on that hill again." Evan said quietly as he watched the chain shake violently. With each passing second its ringing grew stronger and very soon, it would be destroyed.

He vividly remembered the moment when he had broken his first "Barrier". There had been a strange change with the area next to him then. Evan wanted to see that phenomenon again.

Crack. Crack. Crack.

A few minutes later there were many cracks in the chain. One of the links broke off and fell to the bottom, then turned to dust. The same thing began to happen to the rest of the links. Step by step, Evan came closer to breaking the second "Barrier".

When a magician breaks through the "Barrier", he not only increases the amount of "Void Liquid" he can condense, but also becomes somewhat stronger.

The stronger the magician is, the greater is the effect of breaking the "Barrier", so newbie magicians like Evan get only a minor boost. However, breaking the "Barrier" is still the most important event for every magician, because it`s immediately followed by a "Splash".

Evan had yet to find out what that was.

"Come on, just a little more." Evan muttered quietly as he watched another link fall off the chain.

There were only the last three links left, and Evan finally would be able to take one more step forward.

Bam. Bam. Bam.

With a loud clang, the last links fell down, and at the same moment, Evan felt a rush of strength. A pleasant warmth spread through his body, it was the same unforgettable sensation, incomparable to anything in this world.

"Аh?"

Suddenly, Evan felt a strange cold. It was the exact opposite of pleasant warmth, but the cold was not something foreign. A short wave of cold went through Evan's entire body and vanished without a trace, as did the warmth.

When a few more seconds passed, Evan sighed lightly and opened his eyes.

"Again... what is it...?" Like the last time, the area around Evan underwent a strange and inexplicable change for him.

While he was breaking the "Barrier", he was sitting on a root and the first change happened to him. To Evan's surprise, strange flowers with colorful petals had grown on the root. Some of them were very tall, the others quite low, and it even seemed that they could die from any blow of the wind.

Also to Evan's left, the branches had grown out of the root, as if from the trunk of a tree. Aside from their bizarre shape, they were of no further interest.

Evan slowly stood up and said puzzled: "Sand?"

Under his feet, there was a small handful of sand, that had appeared out of nowhere, but suddenly Evan saw something stranger. An ant slowly crawled out of the sand, Evan didn't understand where the ant had come from because the roots had been summoned by the spell.

But, that wasn't what was most unusual. The ant's whiskers burned with a bright flame and, as in the case of the butterfly, the fire did the insect no harm.

Suddenly the ant threw its head up.

<А? Is it looking at me? Evan thought watching at the strange ant.

Whoosh.

Suddenly the ant's jaws began to heat up, and a fiery breath headed toward Evan. It couldn't hurt Evan, of course, but the sand was charred from the flames. Seeing that his attack didn't work Ant quickly burrowed back into the sand.

"What the fuck just has happened...?"