(MC POV)
I did my best to keep my face passive the entire time.
Even when the Lightning clad ball struck the ground with enough heat and force to turn the sand to glass, I remained stoic and called out the score.
"Three all."
"Big sisters cool!" Cai Hong clapped, bouncing on my lap.
"Ufufufu~ Not bad, Lian Li. But that shan't happen again," Manami chuckled, picking up the ball with a hand.
My golden haired disciple tilted her head, "Oh? Is that a challenge, Manami?"
"Ara? If my dear Lian Li sees it that way?"
"Ahahaha! You're on!"
I… Never saw my disciples being this competitive before. I mean sure they had competed in their training but not to this extent of competitiveness.
Now I'm a little worried about what they might ask of me when they win, too late to back out now though.
Manami tossed the ball to Odriana at the back, letting her start the next round.
Odriana served the ball normally, the ball barely crossing over the net before Brendan tossed a vial at it.
The vial shattered and its contents spilled over the ball, causing the ball to move slowly as though it was dropped in something viscous.
Diao Chan used one of the tentacles to hit the ball upwards, moving it back above the net.
Lian Li leapt towards the net, her entire body cackling with lightning that bathed her in a golden glow.
I erected a shield in front of Cai Hong and I just before she hit the ball, the explosion of electricity blasting the ball back over the net while the shockwave threw up a cloud of dust.
My shield blocked the sand from reaching us as we watched the ball strike the sand on Manami's side of the beach, none of them able to react to Lian Li's lightning strike.
"Four to three, match point," I announced.
Lian Li landed and began dusting her hands with a smirk, "How is that? I did it again!"
Manami turned to look at the ball that was emitting smoke, the sand underneath it having been heated into glass.
"Ara… Maybe we should get a little more serious?" Manami chuckled.
Kiyomi picked up the ball with both hands before moving to the back, intending to be the server this time.
Off to the side, I noticed Eris summoning her sword from her storage ring to hold it by her side.
Without any warning, she had tossed the ball into the air before smacking it with her tail.
Once again, Brendan tossed the vial that slowed the ball but Elaria was the one to move forward to hit it upwards.
Lian Li was moving towards the ball encased with Lightning and I maintained the shield that was in front of me.
My Divine Lightning disciple blasted the ball back again but Eris had actually managed to deflect it, her sword slashing out in an arc to bounce the ball upwards.
Odriana rushed to the front with her sketch book again, opening it once more to show something to the other team.
Only Diao Chan got distracted while the others kept their eyes on the ball, Manami flying up to receive it.
The fox youkai had tapped the ball lightly with a finger before dropping back down and landing on her feet. The action seemed to have made the ball freeze in midair, floating at the exact spot that Manami had touched.
Everyone on Lian Li's side kept their eyes on the ball, wondering what exactly Manami did to it.
Before anyone could ask though, Eris had rushed forward again and slashed her sword in a vertical direction, cutting what seemed to be thin air.
Diao Chan let out a gasp, but even she could not stop the invisible ball from landing on their side of the net after she recovered from Odriana's distraction.
The ball that Manami had touched shimmered out of existence before reappearing a distance away from Lian Li's team, half hidden in the sand.
"Four all," I called out without hesitation.
Seriously, I've given up on thinking that this is even a volleyball match anymore.
The beach already looks like a warzone and if it wasn't for the fact that I had created multiple barriers around the place, the whole beach might have already been devastated.
"Master? Would you like some tea?" Gamma asked, offering a cup of it to me.
I thanked her and took the cup, sipping it slowly as I enjoyed this small bastion of normality compared to what was going on in front of me.
I placed the cup aside just in time to see Elaria stuffing the ball into some sort of tube that she had placed on the ground.
I just recognised it as a mortar tube before the ball was blasted up into the sky, its shape barely visible in the cloudy sky above.
Not sure if Elaria had planned this far ahead, but when the ball started to drop back down, a few of the clouds parted and revealed the sun shining back down on us.
I was quick to shield Cai Hong's eyes but a few cries of surprise told me that some of them were unfortunate enough to have been staring directly at the bright star.
The ball looked like it would land unhindered in the middle of Manami's group but Eris had slashed out her sword at the last moment, bouncing it back into the air just an inch away from the ground.
The swordswoman had used her keen senses to track the ball without her use of sight, something that I had repeatedly trained her to do when sparring in low light conditions.
That gave her team just enough time to recover.
Odriana then moved to set the ball up, bouncing it on her wrist just in front of the net.
Manami flicked her wrist and exploded the air behind it, propelling it over the net and towards the side.
Brendan made a dive for it, his left arm stretched out just in time to deflect the ball.
Unfortunately for him, the angle of his arm deflected it into his face, hitting him right in the forehead before blasting back up to the air.
The poor boy crashed into the sand, groaning in pain.
Not to let Brendan's sacrifice be in vain, Diao Chan smacked the ball back over the net, only for a giant ice wall to sprout out from the ground to deflect it back.
Ah… It seems like Kiyomi had been preparing for this since the start of the map as their trump card, catching Lian Li's team off guard.
Elaria dived forward to receive, hitting the ball upwards in Lian Li's direction in preparation for her spike..
Lian Li leapt upwards, lightning concentrated along her right arm as she did the spike with the ball.
The electrical cannonball smashed through the ice wall without any problems, but Eris was waiting behind it with her sword out.
The sword itself was charged with lightning too and the swords woman deflected it back over the net with a determined expression.
With the wall still covering their line of sight and Lian Li in no position to defend, Eris's deflection would have ensured their team's victory.
Luckily for Lian Li's side, the ball just so happened to fly towards where Brendan was, the alchemist in the midst of pushing himself off the ground.
The ball hit him once more in the head and if it weren't for my inscription dulling the impact, it might have resulted in a concussion with how hard it hit him.
It still knocked him out cold though.
That unexpected save gave enough time for Elaria to load in and fire another rocket launcher towards the ice wall, shattering it completely while Diao Chan used the tentacles to juggle it back towards the net.
Lian Li spun into the air, her fist outstretched and glowing with her trademark Divine Lightning.
I feel like using Divine Lightning was a little bit overkill for a volleyball game but… What do I know?
The moment her fist landed the ball, the most unexpected thing happened.
The ball exploded into pieces.
Well, then… I'm actually surprised it lasted this long before getting destroyed in the first place, that ball should not have survived beyond the first round.
All of us just stared at the exploded ball in silence.
Ok, now what?
