The moment her staff vanished from her hand, a blue streak moved so fast it looked like she had ripped a line straight through the arena itself. Her target was Mace. He barely had time to snap his chain up in defense before she was on him. He threw the weapon forward in a violent strike meant to break her path but this time she did not dodge.
She caught the chain with one hand.
Mace's eyes widened as she yanked hard and dragged him forward with terrifying speed. He was pulled toward her like a body caught in a tornado.
"Mace!"
"Mace, move!"
The Prism Madonna summoned a beam of Soul Energy onto Mace at point-blank range.
IThe beam swallowed Mace whole. The other two brothers flinched back instinctively. When the light cleared, Mace was gone.
Where he had been, only a brittle skeleton remained for a moment before the Prism Madonna's hand closed around what was left of his soul. Blue light condensed in her palm, refining itself into a sapphire-hued soul mass that gleamed like a precious crystal under the arena light. She looked down at it briefly, almost with indifference, and let out a small sigh.
Axe's face changed first, then Mallet's. Both of them shouted at once.
"MACE!"
The Prism Madonna looked at them and sighed.
"You really shouldn't be shocked. You literally signed up for this."
The audience, which had been roaring only moments ago, had gone stiff with disbelief. A few spectators clutched the railings. Several of the contestants further back had gone pale. The host on the upper platform looked like she was still processing what she had just seen. The Prism Madonna didn't wait for them to recover though. She moved to Mallet next.
This time there was no warning. She simply accelerated at him and drove her body into close combat before he could fully recover from the loss of his brother. Mallet tried to swing his hammer down in a defensive crush but she was already inside his range. Her fists came fast. She had proper hand-to-hand combat that it shocked everyone how skilled of a fighter she was.
Mallet's guard cracked. His torso shattered under the impact. His shoulder dislocated with a sharp sound. The crowd began to realize too late that she was not just a mage. She could fight hand-to-hand like a monster.
Mallet tried to absorb the blows through raw endurance, bracing himself and forcing his body to tank the damage but every impact was heavier than he expected. The Prism Madonna was too experienced. She knew how to strike joints, angles and weak spots without struggle. She changed her stance from the hands to the limbs, smashing his balance, then his shoulders, then his elbows. The sound of dislocation started to come in pieces.
Mallet gritted his teeth and tried to keep his stance, but she had already broken the pattern. Her fist struck his jaw hard enough to turn his head sideways. Another hit slammed into his chest. Her elbow came in under his guard. Then she caught one arm, twisted and forced the shoulder joint out with a violent jerk.
Mallet roared but the Prism Madonna did not stop. She hit him again and again. His stance was gone. His breathing had become uneven. She stepped in close, grabbed his head with both hands and looked directly at him through the visor for one second.
She tore his head off.
Mallet's body collapsed forward without its anchor. The Prism Madonna held the head for a while before refining the soul inside it. The Soul Energy gathered in her palm once more, crystallizing into another sapphire mass. She let it settle beside the first one for only a moment before closing her hand around both.
Axe was the only one left standing and now he was furious.
His face had gone red with rage and grief. She had killed two of his brothers in minutes. He tightened his grip on his axe and lunged forward with all the power he had left, shouting something that the crowd barely even heard over the shock they still had.
The Prism Madonna turned towards him slowly.
"I'm going to use the Soul Energy of your brothers to end your life."
"I'll kill you!"
He charged with everything.
The arena floor cracked beneath him. His weapon came up in a brutal overhead slash meant to split her head open before she could cast again. He was using all of his speed now, all of his strength and all of the rage left in him. The crowd could feel it. This was the final charge of a man who knew he was already standing at the edge of death and had decided to try to drag the world down with him.
But the Prism Madonna lifted her face. Her visor vanished. Her cracked irises flashed into view.
Her golden eyes split by blue fractures. Her pupils were broken like shattered glass. The Mystic Eyes of Crystallization glared onto Axe at the exact moment he saw them. Sapphire spread across his body. His limbs froze. His momentum died. His weapon stopped in mid-air. The whole body was frozen under the force of crystallization. Every part of him suddenly turned rigid and useless.
Axe's eyes widened in fury and terror. He could not move. Not even his breath felt entirely his own anymore. The Prism Madonna raised her hand and the sapphire soul energy she had taken from his brothers gathered at the center of her palm.
The Soul Energy beam hit Axe dead center and consumed him in a flash so violent the arena light seemed to die around it. The crystallization held him just long enough for the beam to erase him completely. The impact tore through the space where he stood, leaving nothing behind but fading blue sparks and charred bones. Even his soul was gone.
The arena did not react at first. No one screamed. No one cheered. No one even seemed capable of making a sound.
The Triplet Rampage Brothers were gone.
The top hundred gatekeepers had been erased in front of everyone watching and the Prism Madonna stood in the center of the floating arena with sapphire light still fading from her hand. The silence that followed was absolute. That's when her voice echoed across the arena.
"I guess I'm number 97 in the top strongest Immortals of the Immortal Anchor. Now then, am I allowed to represent myself in the Forge Tournament?"