Bath and Lisa were at the Arena, looking down on the audience from afar. Both looked regal in their contrasting black and white garbs, Bath's cape rippling in the wind, Lisa's dress flowing gently around her legs. They were making their grand appearance for the semifinals of the tournament. For this round, the four remaining teams would face off in two back-to-back matches in the Arena.
"Impressed so far?" Bath asked, face serene.
Lisa peered at him out of the corner of her eye, keeping up her poised and polished facade. "Yep. I need to go through all these training regimens," she admitted. The progress of the people of Basalith after only one or two weeks was incredible.
Bath didn't change his expression, barely moving his lips. "Boons are designed to, ideally, preclude any training," he explained. "Since my boons are still less than the ideal, I think a few days of practice would do you good." Most of Bath's non-combat-oriented boons required very little practice before they reached their full potential. However, most of the combat boons--or really any boons dealing with the physical body--necessitated a bit of first-hand experience.
"They're ready," Lisa noted, looking down at the remaining four teams.
A blaze of fire suddenly overtook the stadium, bathing all in a crackling, fizzing light. Just as soon as it came, it dissipated, leaving all unscathed. Since the semi-finals were in one location, the vast majority of Basalith residents--including quasi-sapients--had elected to watch. For this reason, a thirty-minute delay had been scheduled between the quarter and semi-finals.
The crowd was absolutely enormous, a fact only exemplified by just how much fire had been needed to fill the Arena. Bath was pleased that nobody had panicked; his oxygen-producing microbes started real fires, even if they lasted for a split second. Those present would feel the heat; two weeks previous, everyone might have instinctively recoiled, only to panic and push others onto the flames.
Now, they were getting used to how COTD rolled: huge theatrics, seemingly no risks, countless rewards. They were beginning to trust that so long as they had faith, everything would work out. Spontaneously generated flames wouldn't faze them.
Lisa smiled warmly, then began her commencement speech. "Welcome to the first Grand Tournament of the Church of the Dragon, held on Earth's capital, Basalith. Countless teams have fought one another, displaying their strength for the Dragon and I to witness. These last four teams clearly exemplify the Way of the Dragon. Their power has forged them a path here, to the apex of this city."
Lisa raised her arms, and the crowd burst into screams and cries of jubilation. She could feel the massive group's shell, feel the crowd's worship. They might not be on their knees, praying, but they worshiped with their minds, radiating a puissant energy. As of late, she'd been feeling this power ambiently throughout the city, but it only became truly powerful when she made a direct appearance before a crowd.
She'd thought people's hope and adoration intoxicating while greeting people at The Anima's doors, while sorting people into professions...but this was on another level entirely. Their energy was feeding into her.
She found that she couldn't speak, so overwhelmed by the crowd that she was even starting to lose control of her magnetic sense. Thankfully, this was what explicitly tipped Bath off to something going wrong. He quickly steadied her in the air, then took over speaking.
"Will the following teams please enter the stadium: Excelsior and Bear Skull Legion."
The crowd grew even louder as the two teams, formerly standing on the Arena's off-stage holding area, walked onto the stadium. As usual, no rules were given; the first two teams would simply need to adapt to whatever challenge Bath decided to throw at them while accumulating points.
'Lepochim truly had no sense of imagination,' Bath thought regretfully to himself. 'After the first round, I had to completely scrap his original challenges.'
Bath gave a cool smile, then proclaimed: "Begin!"
---
Kayt looked on on gruesome fascination as what looked to be every shape and size of partially rotting corpses assailed all combatants. Bear Skull Legion was embracing a defensive tactic, their members--including their twenty bears--all frantically arrayed in a circle in an attempt to leave no clear openings to the horde. Excelsior, on the other hand, was using an entirely different strategy: their members split up and raced towards Bear Legion, no doubt to rack up points by incapacitating the team's members.
However, they were quickly bogged down by the endless stream of putrid zombies. A single arm thrust sent most zombies flying away, their soft, mushy flesh and decaying bones blasting apart. Unfortunately, with over fifteen zombies ferociously rushing at each team member at any one time, simply attacking them wasn't an efficient tactic.
Kayt chewed her lip as she tried to think of suitable tactics for this round. They were fortunate to go second. She hated the past rounds. In each one, they'd been forced into the challenges without any idea what was going to happen. Many of them were fairly straightforward, but some...she couldn't believe that one of them required teams to attack one another with extremely lifelike human babies. They weren't babies, since when broken apart they exploded into a spray of acid water, but beating another team into submission with babies was a pretty savage form of psychological torment.
"This looks fun," their land-shaper, Anne, snorted. She beat a thick dragonleaf club on the ground. "Never thought all those zombie-killer video games would come in handy."
Kayt looked at their caretaker, David. "You also have a land-shaper profession."
His mouth quirked. "I do. You telling me to use it?"
Kayt frowned. "I just don't want you to be zombie-fodder."
He raised an eyebrow. "Nobody here has the caretaker profession besides me, right?"
"Why?" the surly close combat fighter, Edgewood, cut in.
"I think...it actually might be the key to this challenge."
"The caretaker profession?" Edgewood asked incredulously.
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David gave them all a stern look. "Don't underestimate it just because it doesn't involve smashing enemies to bits."
"But seriously," said Susan as she leaned on her bow, "why is the caretaker profession key to a zombie fight?"
David sighed, feeling quite old amongst all these twenty-somethings and the teenager. "How do caretakers heal people? Flesh manipulation. That's where I think post-Expert tier caretaker is going to lead."
Kayt tilted her head, intrigued. "If that's the case, what does that mean for this challenge?"
Suddenly, Anne laughed. "It means he's going to combine the zombies into a giant zombie monster."
David chuckled nervously. "Um, no."
"No, really. You need to combine them so that they're just a giant ball of rotting flesh. Then they'll be immobile, and any new zombies will just add on to the bloated mass. Cake." After outlining her vision, Anne turned around and once again focused on the current match.
Kayt's eyes darted towards David. "Could you do that?"
Silence. Then, "I can try."
"That's good enough for me," Susan stated calmly before joining Anne in watching the match.
Edgewood gave Kayt and David a narrow-eyed, probing look. "You think the kid's plan is going to work?"
"Well," David began "I have another plan, but it just involves me not being zombie fodder. Fightin' them off on my own."
Edgewood sighed, then rubbed the bridge of his nose. "Okay. What's the worst that can happen?"
---
During the first match, while everyone's eyes had been focused on the fighting teams below, Lisa was able to recollect herself.
"You're okay?" Bath reaffirmed after Lisa assured him that she was able to function normally.
"Yeah, I'm good. I just wasn't quite ready for...that. The crowd's shell."
Bath nodded subtly.
Then Lisa coughed. "Also...zombies?"
Bath gave her a coy expression. "I'm trying to be inventive."
Lisa raised an eyebrow. "Let's see, you had a swamp challenge where both teams were quickly sinking into a bog where they would suffocate...you had a flying trial where--"
Bath's mouth thinned. "Inventive," he emphasized.
"Isn't this trial a bit too difficult, though?" Lisa asked. "How are you divvying up the points?"
Bath sighed. ".0001 points per zombie. I was hoping the combatants would be able to power through and attack one another, but no such luck."
When the ten minute time elapsed, Lisa announced the results of the match. "The winner is: Bear Skull Legion."
Both teams were an utter mess: putrefying gore dripped from everyone. Lisa grimaced, hoping that they could take another break before the final match so that the final two teams could wash up.
"Next, we have Edgier Than You and The Argonauts." As before, both teams entered the stadium to the crazed cheering of spectators. Lisa felt the same worship energy run over her, though this time she was prepared for its influence, letting the energy run through her rather than into her. It reminded her a bit of how she sensed and manipulated her own magnetic field.
After both teams were on their respective sides of the Arena, Lisa nodded once, then announced: "Begin!"
---
As soon as the Church started the match, Anne created a large platform upon which to stand. She quickly encircled the platform with a bulwark of towering dragonleaf spikes which she radiated out and spun. It wasn't quite as fast as a chainsaw, but it still managed to hit and fling zombies away.
"David! Use my dead zombies, damn it," Anne crowed. David was off to her right, currently trying to dodge the horde of zombies lashing at his face. Anne had to admit that they were absolutely terrifying, far more vicious than any video game she'd played. They jerked awkwardly on gangly limbs, always rushing forward, snapping their disfigured and slavering jaws like desperate wolves.
Anne knew that they weren't actual zombies. These creatures...they were alive, but decaying. 'I sure hope they aren't real,' Anne thought to herself as she kept her dragonleaf spikes in rotation. 'Cuz living like that would be a living hell.'
"David! Remember, just grab them and put them together! That's the beginning," Kayt called out from afar, she and Nimesh pummeling and smashing at the advancing zombies.
Susan and Edgewood collaborated to clear a path to the other team. Half the raptors formed a circle around Susan, leaving her protected to rain hell on the enemy. The other raptors accompanied Edgewood. Despite the two of them working together, Edgewood could only progress a few steps at a time.
"Grah!" David cried out furiously. Anne's head whipped around, her face lighting up with glee as she watched David hoist a three-zombie monstrosity into the air. Since the abomination fell to the ground only a few feet away from her platform, Anne used her dragonleaf spikes to direct oncoming zombies in its general direction.
David dove after the three zombies. Then, instead of rebuffing the zombies trying to rip off his face, he began to slam them into the rippling mass of flesh below.
Kayt rushed over and began to use her mace to stun the zombies, bringing them to the ground. Once they were there, David finished the job, smashing them into the rapidly-growing, tumor-like super zombie. Everyone ignored the super zombie's many discordant screams as its newly added components all struggled--and failed--to move away.
"This is actually working," Edgewood muttered out loud. As he spoke, the super zombie was the size of a car. "But how are we supposed to use it to attack the enemy team?" Even though the zombies on their side of the field were being taken care of, the path to the opposing team was still rife with vicious, snarling undead.
"Edgewood, Susan!" Kayt called out. "Clear a path, and keep it clear. We're going to roll this thing over."
'So, that's how,' Edgewood thought to himself, chuckling raggedly between breaths. He redoubled his efforts, working with Susan to eliminate as many zombies as possible.
David was currently at the head of the super zombie, his hands firmly planted in the towering mass of gore as it continued to writhe and squeal. Kayt and Anne gave each other a knowing glance. The two both had land-shaper and close combat boons, and planned to use both in tandem.
"Ready?" Kayt asked.
"Go!" Anne yelled. Anne and Kayt jointly hefted an enormous, counterweighted hammer and aimed it point-blank into the super zombie. As they released the counterweight, which consisted of an astronomical amount of zombie and plant matter, the super zombie rocketed forward. A significant portion of the super zombie caved inwards in a gush of purple blood, trailing a grotesque trail of purple gore and guts. Kayt shuddered at the sight.
David, meanwhile, felt like he was being eaten alive. Right before Kayt and Anne released the hammer, he'd hollowed out a cavity for himself in the super zombie. Now, as the super zombie rolled and bounced across the ground, David couldn't help but feel like he was being pounded further and further into the zombie's center.
When the super zombie came rolling, Edgewood didn't have to be told twice to move out of the way. 'How did they even get that thing to move...?' he wondered to himself, gaping at the sheer size of the abomination. It had to be, at this point, at least as large as a trailer, and it could only grow bigger. Since David was inside, each zombie the flesh ball rolled over became part of the whole.
The other team had less than five seconds to react to the super zombie as it burst out of the general horde.
"Fuck," one of them called out flatly. They certainly wanted to do something--get out of the way, for instance--but had their hands full dealing with the zombie horde.
Edgewood winced as the ball bulldozed over the entire team, its mass ballooning ever more. Then, after the opposing team's screams died out, the rolling super zombie burst apart like a pinata. Dark purple spewed everywhere, like a 360-degree geyser. At the center of it all was a completely purple, shaking David.
"Awesome!" Anne called out. "That was so epic. My next profession is definitely gonna be caretaker!"
David just stood there. If his face hadn't been covered in purple mush, he would've appeared incredibly pale.
"David?" Kayt called out, rushing over. Edgewood, who was closer, reached him first.
"David, you're okay," he said slowly, trying to reassure the man. "You're in the trial. You did it. You defeated the other team with the, um, giant zombie ball. You're gonna be okay."
"Yeah yeah, I know," David said, snapping out of his stupor.
"Shit," Edgewood called out. Even though David had essentially wiped all the zombies off the map, more zombies were respawning rapidly. A contingent of twenty was dashing their way, hooting and shrieking.
But then, as though fortune were smiling down upon them all, the Church spoke: "The ten minutes have elapsed!"
David shook his head and splattered more goop onto the ground. "Bathhouse. Now."