NOVEL NEXT Chapter 24: Arena first rounds
Solars are called solars because they have light magic weaved into their very being. These include the races of dwarves, high elves and humans. I have managed to design a spell which switches this affinity over to dark magic. Usually major unpredictable mutations happen during this, but this is to my advantage. This mutation side effect can be directed to be beneficial, and can be the catalyst needed to make the ultimate species. There are however another few roadblocks I need to clear before properly deploying it. One being that it has a tendency to cause permanent dissociative identity disorder, resulting in effective death. The other being that inherent light magic within solars is obstructing most of the mutation, if I somehow managed to raise one of the solar races without them using magic until they are of age, and then use the spell I could create the ultimate lifeform here and now. Unfortunately, magic is needed for growth in life, so the only thing my experiments have resulted in is a lot of dead babies, and more angry solars.
-Logbook of The Grand Scientist
The arena of the Empire is rather big, apparently the people here are big fans of bloodsport. Something also tells me that they specifically love it when non-imperials participate in the bloodbath. I was assured by Eden that the arena practices some of the highest levels of medical care, and security of the lives of its participants. Mainly a lot of strong wizards that specialize in locking down someone, and apparently the medical staff can even do limited resurrections. I asked Cathy why I hadn't heard from it before, and she said that apparently the brain of someone survives for quite long without blood, so it's more powerful healing magic rather than actual resurrection.
The first up is Kyla, and it looks like she's up against a massive northman. My match is after this, but I can still spectate just fine for now.
"In one corner of the ring today we have the giant of the north, wielding a double bladed axe that is said to cleave mountains, we have Eats-The-Skulls!" Cheering is heard upon entry of the northman dressed in skull, clearly he isn't living up to the name if he's out here wearing skulls instead.
"And in the other corner of the ring, we have a contestant who, despite being here for her first time we all know and fear, the greatest threat to mankind to be alive, Kyla'th the 14th demon lord of Mazurio!" Most of the crowd goes from cheering to confusion, apparently the public wasn't informed of her being here today. Even with her carrying a blade with solid black flames coming off of it, I can tell that Kyla is a bit nervous, with the cheering so readily switching to murmurs across the crowd. This won't do at all.
"Yeah! Fuck em up, Kyla!" My shout is heard by Kyla, her nervousness quickly transforms into a smile as she waves at me.
"Let's all make this tournament one to remember! Contestants get set, ready, fight!" The announcer who is thoroughly enjoying himself quickly starts the fight without any ceremony. Did they pick Kyla's opponent to be a barbarian specifically to launch the fight while the crowd is still recovering?
My thoughts are quickly stopped as the Demon Queen shatters the ground, and abyssal crevices open up around the arena with dark magic leaking out of it. Her opponent wastes no time, and charges directly at Kyla. She responds by sending multiple black lances at the burly titan, who shrugs off the initial shots, but gets tricked by Kyla, who forms a black ball over his head. The now blind man is still charging in her direction, but she simply hovers away from his charge, and lets him plummet into a crevice. She never even used the flaming black sword.
"And that's the first round, folks! Let's all rejoice for a moment that we got to see the demon lord in action, without having to worry about being the target!" The crowd actually cheers this time. It was disappointingly short, but she did display an excellent level of skill. I suppose it's unfair to expect anyone to put up a fight for more than a minute against the demon lord. Whatever plan the barbarian had was shattered by pure magical might.
The arena gets repaired, and a burly blackened man gets fished out of a crevice before being tended to by medics. I quickly buy a hotdog, and make my way down to the arena entrance. Gearing up for my fight is easy, since I'm practically always geared.
"For our next fight we have a crowd favorite, the immovable wolf, Markryr Hyrtbryker!" My opponent gets announced first, but I'm not in the arena yet, so I simply do some last gear check-ups.
"And in the opposing corner another first timer who has no doubt been on the ears of everyone lately, the titanic pirate queen of Quintillius, Esstrey The Mad!" I enter the arena properly, coming face to face with a wolf man. I did a little studying on Mazurian duel etiquette specifically for such an occasion.
"You are as big as the announcer claimed you were, I will hang your tail from my ceiling, so my pack will forever know who the alpha is." The wolf greets me in standard Mazurian dueling manner. Even if the fight is non-lethal, Mazurians still proclaim trophy taking in real fights.
"I will make your hide into a coat, so the wanna-be bigshots back home remember who they are dealing with." I smile as I say it. His fur does look like it would make a comfortable coat.
"Contestants get set, ready, fight!"
As soon as we start, rock starts growing on the skin of the wolfman. His claws take on a metallic shine, and he quickly looks more like a knight than anything else. I'm not idle, as I quickly start summoning water on the battlefield. It will be easier for me to maneuver in wet terrain. The wolfman believes he makes the first move by rapidly moving in my direction, but I pull out my conceal-carry crossbow, and force him to cover his eyes for a moment. As the bolt clatters off the rock covered hands, he is instead met with the sight of me charging back at him, tsunami at my back. He gets ready to strike at me, but I use my superior reach to aim at his legs. He grunts in pain as a small cold iron shovel swipes by his leg, causing a shallow cut. I was aiming for deeper.
He tries to retaliate by advancing in combat stance, but underestimated my nimbleness when he saw my size. Instead of allowing him to get closer, I simply back off, and start slowly circling around him on a wave of water. He concentrates for a little while, and I feel a small threat of something like him reach out. I follow the thread, and notice... beh-!. An explosion of rock and dust appears behind me, pushing me in range of the armored dog. He swipes his claws across my tail, drawing blood, but I don't let his success go unpunished as I create a deeper gash in the shallow wound I left before using my shovel. I quickly draw back, not letting him strike again. He should have trouble moving right now.
I decide to use mobility to my advantage, and create a floating donut shaped river with Markryr at the center. I enter the river, and start circling him like a shark, while occasionally launching high pressure pieces of the river at him. It's mostly meant to distract him as I... smell... BLOOD. The shovel in my hand is giving off a DELICIOUS smell. I make the river smaller, and start laughing. I AM SO HAPPY THAT HE IS FILLED WITH BLOOD. A small tinge of fear joins the smells, and Markryr begins to cover himself in more metal. Before he can fully finish I launch myself at him, he managed to counter me by stabbing my in my gut with one of his metal claws, but It's too late for bloodbag. I dig my claws into his shoulders, piercing the pauldrons. I smile at him one last time, before I headbutt him hard. I hear rock break, and the wolf flinches at the mass of mermaid headbutting him. I headbutt again, and I hear a yelp of pain. I headbutt one last time, as this time I hear a crack, and he goes limp in my arms.
My meal is stopped by multiple mages, who quickly work together to launch me away from the wolf. I begin to regain my senses as well. This is gonna be a regular thing, isn't it?
"And we have a winner folks! That has got to be one of the most bloodthirsty fights I have ever hosted, and I have hosted fights between vampires!" The announcer is clearly overreacting. Carmilla regularly tells me how she wants to do some aggressive bloodletting on imperial nobles.
I head back to the spectator stands, since the medic declared me to be fine if I just drink a potion. Sipping on the red juice as I float back to my seat, only to find Cathy no longer there. I had barely noticed she was there until I noticed her absence, apparently.
"For our next fight we have on one side of the ring the meanest bastard on this side of the globe, the meanest and greenest, Dakr-al-zuhl!" A large orc almost as big as the chieftain of our class enters. He wields a serrated blade that looks like it would shatter at any moment.
"And his opponent will be one we know next to nothing about, the most monstrous of northerners, Cathy!" Wait, Cathy was one of the top-scoring students? How? Also, they could really only come up with calling her Cathy? That's not even her name, I just started calling her that because her real name kind of sounds like that.
As Cathy enters the arena, she immediately looks in my direction and waves. I simply wave back, looking a bit dumbstruck. She's wearing some odd flesh-like armor covered in eyes. I'm also pretty sure the armor is shifting around, but I'm not sure since Cathy is kind of a humanoid tentacle slime herself.
"Contestants get set, ready, fight!"
Dakr instantly casts a spell that sets himself on fire, he doesn't really seem too bothered about it, so I'm assuming he is flame retardant or logic retardant. Cathy just rips a hole through space, and slaps him across the back of his head. He stumbles forward, while Cathy retreats her tentacle, which now looks mildly charred. The hole closes before Dakr can even do anything about it. While he's stupefied, Cathy begins to grow in size, and loses her usual shape until she's more monolith shaped. The orc looks in terror as Cathy slowly approaches, multiple mouths having grown on parts not covered by her armor. Dakr charges at Cathy in a fit of fear. His slash digs into the armor, but despite the mean looking blade carving quite nicely into her there is no blood, and he is swallowed whole.
The crowd and even the announcer are silent, even the protective mages forget their role for a bit. Instead of waiting for the announcer, Cathy simply waddles over to my seat, which is nice and close to the arena edge.
"Cathy, the announcer hasn't declared the fight over, yet you still have to beat him before you can sit back down." The large flesh monolith looks at me for a second, before spitting the orc out and giving his still form a slap with a tentacle. Seeing the orc whole and fine seems to snap the mages, and the announcer, out of their stupor.
"T-the winner is Cathy the northwoman!" The blob in question morphs back into her usual form, and crawls up to sit next to me again. The people that were sitting around us take a little more distance from us.
"Good fight, here, take this hotdog. Eddy is next, and the failed drunkard has been hiding his strength way too much, if he has any." Cathy accepts the hotdog, and puts it in one of her mouths.
"F-for the next fight, we have famous duelist, and daughter of the warden of the east, Michelle Prassen!" A fancy noble takes to the stage, but the way she carries herself makes it obvious she isn't here for tea. She carries a rapier that she clearly knows how to use.
"And opposing the warden today is a man we all know and love, our very own, CROWN PRINCE EDEN CIVILLIS!" Both the crowd and announcer go wild, Ed-boy is clearly a fan favorite among everyone. Also, am I spotting it wrong, or is Michelle blushing? Either way, it seems Eden brought along a warhammer, and a decorated golden buckler. I'm sure all of the equipment except for mine is enchanted today, but the mana reading I feel from that buckler matches Kyla's flaming sword.
"Contestants get set, ready, fight!" This time the fight starts instantly, Michelle tried buffing herself with life magic, but Eden instantly deflected solid sunlight in her face.
He charges at Michelle who tries to both buff, and protect herself at the same time, but Eden keeps deflecting sunlight in her face. When I look closely, I notice that her face is actually somewhat scorched already, and I'm surprised her eyes haven't been burned out already. She stops trying to buff herself, and instead impales her own cloak on her rapier. Eden deflects solid light again, only for the cloak to absorb the light, getting scorched instead. Michelle advances to meet Eden's charge, weapons clash as the rapier tries to find a gap in Eden's defense, however a gap in Michelle's defense is found instead. She had focused too much on protecting herself from the shield, she doesn't notice when the hammer comes through the cloak, and breaks her leg. She screams in pain, and drops her weapon.
Eden halts his assault, and helps set her down before the fight is declared over. Michelle doesn't resist, and allows herself to be put in a resting position.
"The winner is Crown Prince Eden! And a stunning display of sportsmanship at the end! I would lament that our other contestants couldn't show that much heart today, but that would be unfair with Eden as competition." HUH!? He couldn't even finish his damn whiskey, how is that good sportsmanship? The crowd seems to disagree with me, as they go absolutely wild at Eden's victory.
"For our next contestants we have nine times arena champion, the strongest man of the Empire, MAGNUS BELLATOR!" The man actually almost matches Eden in cheers, and I catch a glimpse of Eden leaving the arena. I can see the blood draining from his face, as he gets pale at the mention of the man. Magnus is decked out in full metal plating, with mana signatures indicating all of it being rather heavily enchanted. The equipment doesn't match up to the shield or the sword per piece, but he is much more decked than Kyla or Eden were. His total signature is almost twice that of the sword.
"And facing Magnus in the ring we have the one closest to the moon, the boxing priestess of Luna, Bessielle Minatara!" Bessie steps into the arena, clothed in lunar priestess robes, outfitted for combat. She has brass knuckles on her hands. She already broke nearly everyone's bones during practice, but now she looks like she would eat more bones than a hyena.
"Contestants get set, ready, fight!"
Magnus calmly approaches Bessielle. His sword glints in the light, and his tower shield wielded like a feather. Bessiele charges at him in the last stretch, aiming right for the head. Before Bessiele makes contact, Magnus burst out into blinding light, and once the light fades Bessiele is laying on the ground. She's bleeding all over and has multiple broken bones. Magnus stands over her in indifference.
"The victor is Magnus! The strongest man once again claims another victory for the empire!" Woah, this guy is no joke. How the fuck did he get all that gear? And why is he even participating if he has all that? Ed-boy has some questions to answer, and Cathy has already left in what is no doubt his direction.
