Monday morning.
The Gurglocks spoke in hushed gurgles about the death from above. Of a wrathful God who cast Their vengeful harpoon of pure black coral down onto the ocean and reaped the lives of entire shoals.
They were afraid of the surface. Only the deepest trenches of the oceans could keep them safe. And so there was where they laid their eggs. So the next generation would be protected.
The tribes that insisted on conquering the worlds beyond the gates were decimated. Some by the wrath of the God-Above-Water, others by tribes who demanded the rock-above-water kept free of Gurglocks, hallowed shrines for the God-Above-Water. They were unworthy of setting foot on them.
Like wildfire, messengers were sent from tribe to tribe. A Grand Hierophant appeared as a would-be conqueror who dominated not by force but by dogma. Proselytizers and Indoctrinators, carrying the will of the God-Above-Water written in kelp leaves went far and wide, sometimes swimming with the currents, sometimes boldly preaching. The gospel of the God-Above-Water took form and they chanted Their glory whether the heathen's ear canals wanted to hear it or not.
Blood was spilled in the name of the God-Above-Water. Warriors died and were immortalized in tale and song, their glory eternal.
And so the Gurglock Oceans Realm changed forevermore. Praised be the God-Above-Water, who killed the iniquitous to usher in a new age of understanding, salvation, and holy war.
*
*
Monday morning.
Sixteen young warriors stood on the Colosseum, lined up to receive the highest blessings on the land. While the blessings below the waves were bequeathed in blood and death, here they were passed down with empty praise and the adoration of a nation.
While the Academy Principal gave a well-wrought speech, Robert glanced to the sides. The losers' bracket brought forth two reruns of old adversaries, one dark horse, and one sworn enemy. The pressure to win, the promise of power untold, and the animosity born out of envy and a darkened heart would turn this tournament into a bloodbath.
Just like Robert once created, albeit unwittingly, a chamber where vestiges and remnants devoured each other, here too the path to ascension would be marred with death. This cruel society, hiding behind their smiles and platitudes, would sacrifice as many promising youths, shooting stars already brimming with power to produce one sun that wouldn't share their bounty with the world. No, the winner of this tournament would only get a taste of power and become a greedy dragon, hunger everlasting.
Bonds would shatter and friendships whither. Robert was not exempt from that. Titania Samson had contacted him last night with an offer he couldn't refuse. Not because the reward was too big but because the consequences of disobedience were as dire as they were inescapable. Samson would consider nothing sacred should they stand in the path of their hubris. Amanda was to shine and be crowned queen, or there would be hell to pay.
He was free to claim second place and the reward that came with it if he managed to push his ward to the highest place on the steepled podium. The joke was on them. Robert had always intended to let Amanda take the lead. As a proud brother, he would show the world that their bonds of camaraderie were forged from material sturdier than society's hidden cruelty.
The speech ended with a standing ovation. The crowd seemed pleased but they secretly craved violence. The sixteen gladiators were ushered to their holding pens by their caretakers. In polite conversation, they went by another name but the bloody sport existed for as long as humanity walked on two feet and before.
*
*
Amanda took the second-ranked winner of the loser's bracket.
"Your boyfriend didn't give me a chance to show my worth!" A lean guy bounced on the balls of his feet. "But I'll show him."
Water and Wind. A deadly combo for martial arts. An unknown talent that improved the lethality of his blows. Defeated by a fart. They mocked him, only to enrage the guy to the point that all the fights he won in the losers' bracket sent someone to the ICU or the morgue, in equal amounts.
And now he dared think he would touch Amanda.
"Do your worst," Amanda scoffed. "Robert may have defeated you with the foulest smell, but I will lull you out of this hallowed ground with the most pleasant floral fragrances."
The fart was a cover. What Robert did was to brainwash this idiot into conceding the fight, making it seem he couldn't stand the smell.
A Wind Archhuman, defeated by an enemy that "passed wind". He was the joke those bearing a joke affinity laughed at.
The horn sounded. "Begin!" The referee shouted at the same moment.
The circle on both sides shone different shades of green. Then blue and brown, the man's side returning to a light green tone.
A gale blew from nowhere, propelling the martial artist toward Amanda. The guy's muscles bulged and rippled as the water inside his body flowed to make the most of every movement. Instead of offering friction and resistance, the air around him reinforced his movement, flowing without a single eddie or turbulence as the control of the medium he lived and breathed in was absolute.
Amanda stood and watched, an impassible ice queen, unfazed by the approaching promise of pain. Once he crossed the halfway mark, she sprung into action. Thousands of stems with tiny green leaves popped everywhere on her side of the arena in random locations.
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Her opponent jumped back and landed on the safe side. He looked at the carpet of greenery rapidly growing on Amanda's side of the arena. What would these plants do? He had no idea. But he suspected Amanda had used a significant amount of her essence reserves to grow that many plants. Now, he was faced with a conundrum. He couldn't fly that far. To reach her, he had to step on the plants. What if they were land mines? What if they squirted contact poison at him? What if they entangled his feet and ankles? He was certain he could use his Water martial arts to escape but it was risky.
While he hesitated and pondered, the plants grew at breakneck speeds, so far as plant growth speeds were concerned. He glanced at the disk above and behind Amanda, as transparent as the rest of the shield. She wasn't using essence to grow the plants. Was it her talent, then?"
Amanda grinned. Robert had found a flaw in the shield's essence detection. It could only sense external essence manipulation. If the essence was used internally or somehow hidden from the shield's "eyes", it wouldn't register it.
So she could manipulate the rock floor as she wanted, so long the essence transfer happened underneath her shoes and never left the rock. She could make her plants' roots spread everywhere so long it remained underground.
"So. Come here and lay yourself down on this lovely bed of green. By yourself, mind it," Amanda taunted.
The roots spread. She smirked. Her opponent didn't want to chat. "What's wrong? I promise you they smell good."
His Wind affinity picked the slightest tremor on the ground beneath him. He jumped just as a circle two meters wide underneath him erupted in a storm of roots and vines, reaching up to grab him and end the fight. Wary that a trap could lurk on the place he'd land should he keep his current momentum, he cast windstep to leap in the air and change his course. A single root popped up where he would land and Amanda clicked her tongue in dismay. He smiled. They might mock the Wind affinity but he could hear everything, including her heartbeat and the blood flowing in her veins.
Now that he knew what she was up to, it was obvious that the plants on her side of the arena were a ruse. To grow that many plants at once, she used a lot of essence but these plants were weak. Stronger plants needed more essence to grow. These might be ordinary plants from Earth as far as he knew.
A second windstep propelled him forward as he cast updraft to keep him afloat for longer. While he couldn't yet fly freely through the air, this was the next best thing. His feet pumped in rhythm with his windstep spells, each pushing him up by a little. Until he was right above the bitch. Then he cast downdraft and launched himself down, ready to kick her with a flowing strike and hydraulic flex combo. He considered using his two stars for the blow but it would be overkill. He might kill the girl by accident and then there would be hell to pay.
He couldn't afford to anger a faction as powerful as Samson.
Amanda stared down. Did this idiot really come at her like she wanted? It was preposterous. She should feel offended for being so underestimated but she felt giddy because it was what she wanted. Holding a rock in each hand, she conjured a lattice of vines from her ring above them, then charged the rocks and cast a seismic ejection spell on the rocks. They exploded but the outside layer was hardened but for a weak ring at the top. The result was that the disk of rock above the stones was ejected at high speeds, carrying the plant with it.
The leg coming at her met the lattice of vines, causing the plant to naturally wrap around it. Tossing the rock shells to the side, Amanda braced for impact, raising both her arms and flexing her knees.
The kick connected. Amanda sent a hydraulic flex over her legs and back muscles, not to push against the blow but to cushion it as she tried to spread the damage along her body. But a blow from a powerful Water marital artist was nothing to scoff at. The bones in her arms creaked and cracked, despite her stage 1 granite bones tempering. The tempering she upgraded with minor healing abilities was taking care of the worst of it but her arms were useless until she got some serious healing magic or a cast.
Fearing the plants she spread on her side of the arena, the martial artist evaded to his own side, the disk on his side of the shield flashing light green every time he used his Wind affinity to push against the air. But the bloodcrest vine net was still attached to his body.
He landed on a crouch and tried to rip the damn plant from his leg. While he evaded Amanda's counterattack, the plant sunk painful roots into his leg and was drinking his blood. Red leaves sprouted from the vine mesh. He was caught by a tiny net.
As he ripped one vine loose, he found that the vine was stretchy and had a lot of give before he could break it. The barbed roots came out carrying chunks of his flesh. The wound bled, which caused the bloodcrest vines to go into a frenzy, branches, and roots shooting for the open wound. The roots inside his leg squirmed.
He sensed vibrations on the ground and jumped. Another burst of roots and vines came at him, writhing and wriggling, trying to grab him. He kept an eye on the disk. Amanda wasn't using essence. Her talent had to be plant control. She could control plants at will. He used two windsteps and landed. He had to get this tiny net of vines off of him.
Else the tiny net would be his death sentence.
He grabbed the vines on his leg with both hands. The ground erupted and he was forced to abandon his attempts to jump again. The scene repeated itself over and over. Amanda gave him no quarters, standing where she started, arms dangling uselessly on her sides. Worse, every eruption reduced the places he could safely land. The vines were very active and spread around the eruption sites, making it dangerous ground for him.
After the next eruption, the fourteenth in a row, he tried to use the leg covered in bloodcrest vines to windstep but his ankle didn't respond. He was feeling less pain from the limb and thought it was a good thing but now he looked at his leg in shock. The foot and calf withered and blackened, all life sucked from them. With the nerve ends dead, it was no wonder why he felt no pain. And now, the vines were crawling up his thigh, under his skin, eating the rest of his leg.
He had no choice. Should these bloodthirsty vines reach his torso, he could very well die. Desperate, he used hydraulic flex the wrong way. This ability needed to be so attuned to the wearer that nobody dared make an Ether scroll of it. Every Water arch had to develop their own version of hydraulic flex to guarantee maximum compatibility. And most mistakes when creating the ability meant serious harm to the Arch.
Now, he used it to create a high-pressure area right below his groin, twisting and pushing on both sides to create a shear zone. His leg twisted and cracked the femur, tearing apart the muscles, skin, and tendons, and launching the leg with the vine away from him. He had successfully amputated his own leg in the most gruesome way imaginable to save himself. Like a lizard who discarded their tail.
He used water body and water mending along with raw essence manipulation to stop his leg arteries from bleeding him dry. The pain was unbearable for a normal person but he was halfway through the first stage of hundred wet hells.
More vines erupted. He was forced to evade, on a single leg, maneuvering, sensing the vibrations, keeping his stump from bleeding, and watching Amanda for any signs of an attack. The arena now only had four spots out of the vines' reach.
He landed on one of them. Reaching the others would be hard. The vines cluttering his side of the arena grew buds and blossomed. A sickly scent spread all over the arena. Now he had to filter the air he breathed so none of that pollen reached his airways.
The disk behind him flashed, green, blue, and kept blinking. He was reaching the end of his wits and his essence pool. How was Amanda doing it?
It didn't matter. He wasn't ready to sacrifice his life for a chance to win. In the end, he knew he didn't have what it took.
"I YIELD!" He shouted. Shame was his lifelong partner. And misery loved company.