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With every second, the tidal wave of fire was streaming toward me, and it was flaring so hot that it made the magical dome barrier protecting us from the audience start to glow, making its presence known to me.
The only thing that was protecting me from getting burned by the hot air was an air barrier I conjured at the last moment before the superheated air reached me. In those few moments, I was racking my brain to find a solution on how to survive this attack.
My usual go-to solution would be to burrow into the ground and avoid the fire, but, experiencing this level of heat, I was not confident that I would not be cooked alive underground, nor was I sure if or how deep the barrier extended underground, and I was not willing to take that risk.
Another solution was to counter the fire with water, but with most of the arena filled with fire, I was not confident in my chances of smothering the flames. In fact, it may be worse for me; it will most likely just produce so much steam that it will fill the dome barrier, sealing us in, and I am not confident competing with a red dragon in terms of who can withstand higher temperatures, be it flames or steam.
The next solution that popped into my head was using wind magic to fly, but I shot that idea down immediately. I had tried to fly a few times, but I just did not have the sense of balance or the time to practice. And I was not going to put myself in the domain of maneuverability against someone who was born to fly.
This left me with a somewhat stupid idea that I think would work. I channeled my mana and will, and spoke the dragonic words of power, [No Air]. I then took and held a deep breath, pulled in my Primal Aura to become a reinforced layer on my body, and just to be safe, wrapped the air barrier around myself.
The moment I said that, instead of the small twist in reality that usually happens when I manifest Dragon Tounge's magic into reality, this time, the whole environment within the dome barrier twisted, and then I felt it.
The air barrier that I wrapped around myself was ripped away, along with the tidal wave of fire that was rushing toward me. At the same time, I felt my eyes and lungs aching as I felt all the air in my body trying to escape. The only thing making me strong enough to resist the pull was my Primal Aura.
But the pain of air trying to leave my body was not the only thing I had to endure. I also had to steel my will on the [No Air] spell, because unlike other spells, it was mostly me enacting my will upon reality for a short while and letting nature take its course.
Now, it was a very different situation. What I did was create a vacuum. And as the saying goes: Nature abhors a vacuum. That meant that I was going against nature and reality by creating a vacuum where it had no business being.
Within the first three seconds of maintaining [No Air], all the fire was gone, even the ball of [Inferno] that Druuv was holding, and the effect caught him by surprise. Not only did he not get the chance to hold his breath and get the air pulled out of him, but there was no air for his wings to beat against, making him fall out of the sky while clawing at his neck for air that was not there.
The worst part for Druuv was that, if he still had breath, he could have easily countered my spell. Not only did he most likely have more mana than I did, but nature would have been on his side to restore balance.
Despite the pressure on my mind and will fraying at the edges to maintain [No Air], the mana draw to maintain it was just a little higher than usual. All I needed to do was maintain the spell until Druuv fell unconscious.
After around fifteen seconds of maintaining [No Air], I felt something trickle down to my lips. At first, I thought it was just sweat from the stress, but when I licked it, I tasted the iron in it and realised that I was bleeding from my nose. This was shortly followed by my vision getting a tinge of red and the feeling of liquid dripping from my eyes. It did not take a genius to figure that I was bleeding out of my eyes, and that was far from a good sign, but I had to continue to finish the fight.
After another ten seconds, I was blinded by the blood in my eyes and could not see. I could not hear Druuv's struggle because there was no air to carry sound. All I could do was wait for the thrashing of his gigantic body to stop before I released my hold on [No Air].
The moment I did, the altered reality released its hold on the affected area, and I no longer felt the pull on my lungs. But just as I was about to reach up and clear my eyes, I felt my whole body revolt as I fell on all fours and lost my lunch and took another few seconds dry heaving.
Note to self. Even with Primal Aura and spells, never expose myself to vacuum again without a pressure suit.
I counted some water and washed my face and mouth before standing to see that the whole coliseum was silent, and Druuv was being tended to by two other dragons.
A few seconds later, after I saw Druuv's body twitch, the two dragons tending to Druuv nodded to each other, then to King Brakkh'zhaarn.
Then King Brakkh'zhaarn announced, [Winner, Luke Ironcrest!], and the crowd lost it. I was assaulted by the sound waves of their cheers. Some of them breathed fire or whatever element their breath attacks had into the air in joy or frustration over their resulting bets.
With all the bets and the odds against me, I think I just made FUCKING BANK!