As Fion continued leaping up towards the surface, he stopped when he saw Riley reappear, hovering above the pit as storm clouds began to gather around her. But before he could think about the situation any more, said clouds began to spit lightning down towards him. Scowling, Fion hurled himself out of the way of the first lightning bolt and glanced back up. When the hell did Riley learn to control elemental magic?

"Riley, have you lost your mind?!" Fion screamed up towards the figure in the air, drawing his sword. "This seems a bit excessive for just a few insults, you know!"

Riley. That was the name of the former owner of this body, wasn't it? So Fion would be...her friend? Lover? Brother-in-law? Did he care? No. Was this melodrama annoying? Yes.

All he wanted to do was to destroy a few countries, and in doing so, rid the world of that half-elf monstrosity that ruined the life that he had cultivated so peacefully. And to start, he'd just have to get rid of this Sword Arts user. A good benchmark for how powerful he was without talentium, if nothing else. Fion used wind magic.

"So let's see if I can overwrite that."

Focusing his mana once more, channeling the invisible energy, allowing it to diffuse into the atmosphere, Eldren took a deep breath, and pushed away all the air surrounding the dark-haired swordsman for a radius of ten feet. Was he a generator of air, or simply a manipulator? Eldren would like to see just how far Fion's own magic could go.

Fion halted in place as the wind around him suddenly disappeared, taking his own aura of wind with it. What the hell just happened?! Glancing back up at Riley, he had the sinking suspicion that the half-witch had something to do with it. That, or it was Cygna sabotaging his own efforts to escape. But he had no time to think about that. Trying to wrap the wind around himself again, Fion found that he couldn't recast his aura through this method, as the air around him was simply missing. That only left one option, but it was hell on his mana reserves. 

Letting a deep breath loose, Fion channeled his mana through his talentium, artifically generating magical wind around him through the wonderful cheat that was magic. He would have preferred to simply use the natural wind around himself, seeing as it was far more mana-efficient, but this would have to do. Reapplying his wind aura, Fion glared back up at Riley, more than annoyed at this point. Whatever the hell was going on, Riley was responsible for it, and he'd have to knock her out. With his speed restored, Fion began his ascent back up once more, trying to move quickly enough that Riley or Cygna couldn't keep track of him long enough to pull that trick again. 

So the swordsman was capable of generating his own 'magical' wind, but obviously had not reached a level in which he could do it effeciently. That was good to know. Eldren could starve Fion by depriving the area of gas.

Alternatively, he could just smash him apart.

Mana was focused once more, this time in the magician's right hand. Hidden in the palm of his hand, another spell was crafted, and as Fion continued his ascent towards him, 'Riley' chose to make the journey easier for him. The shadowed cloak collapsed once more, and in an instant, he reappeared right in front of Fion, face inches apart.

Then, his palm opened up, and magma spewed from his right hand, tendrils of intense heat spread outwards like talons, before closing down on the swordsman.

To Fion's credit, the instant Riley appeared in front of him, he reacted instantly and brought the hilt of his scimitar up to attempt to bash her in the face, but abandoned that plan when he saw the first bits of magma stream out of her hand. He backstepped on instinct, narrowly avoiding the magma as he raised his left hand, firing a blade of wind at Riley's arm. 

The blade of wind would have been a nice counter, but the moment it came in contact with the body that Eldren was using, a mouth extended outwards from the darkness. In an almost greedy fashion, it chomped down on the invisible blade, shattering the very spell-work that was put into it, before a dark red tongue licked its white teeth and the mouth retracted.

A burp soon followed, with a distorted giggle coming from Riley's attire.

For a moment, something else shouted in his mind, but Eldren blocked those words out before he comprehended it. Clothing himself with these unknown monsters seemed to have proven itself to be quite a good defensive measure. On the other hand, his opponent...was getting boring.

As Fion continued to back away, Eldren simply took this chance to reuse the thunderclouds that still hovered ahead. With one hand, he funneled it into a stormy tornado. 

With another hand, he ripped out chunks of earth and rock, mixing it into the nightmare storm. And then, he condensed that deadly combination into a ball.

The rest? With an unenthusiastic flick of his fingers, he brought that maelstrom down, surrounding both him and his opponent in this crazed battledome. Those little monsters seemed to enjoyed eating anything that got too close to him, but it was unlikely that Fion would also enjoy this scenario.

Fion looked up and blanched at the storm of rocks that began to fall down on the pit. Immediately, he erupted into a blur of motion, rapidly trying to sidestep the stones that plummeted down towards him. For the most part, he was successful, but the sheer volume of rocks that fell meant that a few of the smaller stones managed to graze him, their sharp edges tearing through both his skin and his leather armor. 

The mercenary let loose a ragged gasp of pain as he raised his hand up, desperately trying to cancel out the tornado by calming the winds with his own magic. Somehow, he succeeded, and the remaining stones in the air fell to the earth, no longer whirling around. Fion collapsed to one knee from the combined exertion of both moving quickly enough to evade a barrage of stones and from summoning up enough mana to cancel out Riley's spell. 

"So..." He gasped, glaring at Riley incredulously as he realized she was completely unharmed. "Care to tell me what this is all about, or are you just going to keep trying to murder me without a word?" 

Disappointing. To think that someone that was so similar to himself was, ultimately, so different.

"Riley was a witch capable of using summons. Yet I am using elemental magic. Have you not being able to draw any conclusions from that bit of information yet, Fion?"

'She' grit her teeth then, spitting out a single word.

"Disappointing."

This was truly the disappointment that accompanied becoming the strongest, where even other prodigies seemed to pale in comparison to yourself. He wouldn't be able to draw any entertainment from this. In fact, this was only making him angrier. Was it he who had grown stronger? Or was it simply the world that had grown weaker? Ah, he didn't care anymore. He'll just kill the boy in front of him and get about doing what he had planned to do before.

"Box of Goblins."

First, a barrier of air pressure, all the air nearby collapsing onto Fion, binding him for just an instant.

Second, pillars of rock, walls of granite extending from the pit, closing off all viable routes of escape for the swordsman.

Third, the summoning of those otherworldly monsters that whispered endlessly in the back of his mind, portals appearing within that earthly prison, as dozens of small, dark 'things' crawled out.

Finally, the bending of those walls, folding over each other like dough, until it became a coffin.

And like that, the coffin began to fall down into the ruined depths of the Burrow.

No escape, not enough room to swing his sword, just a box filled with small, hungry monsters.

He looked up at Cygna, bowed once, and then disappeared, slipping into another part of that world.