The angel flapped his wings forward, and shimmering lights flew at David, transforming into daggers. A wall of shadows erupted in front of him, swallowing the daggers. Immediately, a second pool of shadow formed above the angel, and Elisha leaped out of it, hurling himself down. The angel had very little time to react to the attack, but he didn’t need time. His wings covered him, warding off Elisha’s surprise attack. Elisha pushed off him, landing next to David. Around them, people were dying. Screams of pain bounced off the walls as bodies hit the floor. David glanced at the coin. It was still far from reaching the ground, almost as if it were tumbling in place.
“Can you hold him off?” David asked Elisha. “You don’t have to kill him. I need a few minutes to try something.”
David looked back to see Chloe playing her lute. The reduced intensity made the protective sphere clearer and the barrier stronger. He didn’t delude himself into thinking it was perfect, but it was good enough for now. Strands of sharp-tipped essence swayed around her, attacking those who approached. Zoey was fighting off two orc-like men. From the way she moved, David could tell she was using her partial transformation.
He launched himself forward, knowing the angel would come at him. Elisha intercepted the angel, letting David slip past. He hated leaving Elisha with trouble, but he realized that his attacks were not effective against the man, and there was something he’d been thinking about. He kept his eyes on the coin tumbling down and almost ran into the tip of an ice spear. He stepped back quickly, heard the menacing hiss, and attacked.
The man moved swiftly, his body deftly weaving past David’s attacks while his spear found openings in David’s stance. David forgot the coin for a moment and focused on the man. His eyes were beady, and there was something about his skin—it shone wet and slick. David wasn’t sure what that was, but from experience, he knew to avoid it.
Sword skill: Wind Dance
The technique was originally a manipulation of wind, but David’s skill at using wind was lacking. However, one thing he was good at was essence, which was the foundation of any skill. The fundamental steps of the skill were ingrained in him, and his body moved simply into the rhythm, using essence to strengthen himself. His movements were not as fluid and fast as they were supposed to be, but he covered the distance between them in a blink and used his shoulder to nudge the snake man’s spear wide. He didn't have space for a swing, so he punched the man’s nose with his gauntlet. He felt the crunch of bone as the man staggered back, giving him the space he’d been looking for. He feigned a quick slash, and the man raised his spear to block, while David went down to hack his belly open. A crack echoed, and David felt a surge of power rush through him as Ignis roared.
You are using my techniques poorly, David. A wind dance should be graceful and much more effective. You should have cut him in two with that one move. Instead, you almost got yourself killed.
“Stop complaining and start teaching me,” David said as he stepped over an eye. Then he stumbled on a body, staggering forward into the flowing night of Ara’s robe. She turned around, a spinning star shooting from her as she focused on him. David reached out with his gauntlet to catch it. He almost regretted it, but the star stopped near his hand, its spin slowed, and then it dissolved. Ara looked stung at first, but that lasted only seconds.
Chaos has been tamed!
David didn’t give her time to figure out what had happened. She flowed toward him, her robes making it seem like she was floating. A gush of darkness, like Elisha’s shadow, stretched toward David. His sword tore through it, but when he tried to cut through her, she caught the sword mid-air with a smirk. The smile slowly faded, and then she backed away, staring at David as if he’d suddenly grown a horn. David conjured a swirling mass of essence. It pooled around his fist. The ease with which he accomplished it filled him with trembling exhilaration. The essence spun harshly until it flared up into bright red flames with blue tips. He held it out, listening to the battles going on around them as he shoved the sphere of burning essence at her. Her robe of stars and darkness enveloped the attack and swallowed it. The last thing David saw of her was a glare. She was more terrified than scared.
“What did you do?” David asked, and Ignis confirmed David’s thoughts with a mischievous chuckle. David searched for the coin again, and when he found it, he ran for it. He would need an essence boost to reach it. Unlike his other siblings, he couldn’t fly yet, and he wasn’t sure he ever would be able to do that.
He whipped around, sliding away from the coming bombardment of dark miasma. It struck the wall behind him, eating into the brick or whatever material was used to build the place. There was no hiss to it, just the process of the brick slowly eroding until the dark substance was used up and gone. David faced his attacker. The man was half-bare, showing toned muscles and a lean figure. His eyes were feline green, and his hair was a cluster of purple petals. They oozed a sweet scent that irritated David. The miasma pooled into his hand as if his palm’s pores had pushed it out of him. It gathered into a semi-solid jelly that he flung at David.
Behind him, David saw Ara. Her robe filled the background like night stretching to the horizon.
“Look,” David said, pointing to the coin. “I think there is a better way to stop this phase.”
He had to yell over the din of people killing and dying, but he noticed the lack of response from the flower-headed boy. The boy approached David at a steady pace, attacking as they got closer. David couldn’t see how she was doing it, but Ara was controlling him. That stung him. He’d thought she was one of the good ones, just as he’d thought Vinel was, but there was something twisted about these Lords.
“Is this how Lords fight?” David asked, looking at the boy Ara was controlling. She smirked but didn’t answer him. David leaped away from where one of the boy’s dark jellies had landed. Then he realized that some of the ones the flowerhead threw earlier were not fading. Instead, they were merging, spreading, and attaching to make a wide sheet of that corrosive substance. He wasn’t sure if he could dispel it, but he figured he could touch it with the gauntlet and see.
Stop, Ignis said when David bent down. That is not a spell. Just like you let out sweat, that boy secretes that stuff.
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David frowned, finding it extra gross. He looked up at the coin, hoping it would come down much faster.
“Don’t you want this phase to end? Or are you like Vinel, trying to get rid of Rankers?”
“He is a Lord,” Ara said, nodding to her puppet. “I don’t care what you are; you can’t be left alive if you can touch my stars.”
“Another mad one,” David muttered under his breath. “How about we finish this phase and then we fight for real? I will take up your challenge anyti—” He made to dodge, but the Lord wasn’t aiming at him anymore. He was filling the space, expanding the corrosive substance so that David was locked in the middle as the murky black formed a circle around him.
“Why should I fight you later when you are almost dead right now?” Ara asked.
“That.” David pointed to the coin. When he looked past Ara, he saw that there were more dead than alive. He searched for a while before he found Elisha fighting the angel. “That coin is not going to come down.”
“What do you mean?” She looked from him to the coin, stepping away from behind the young Lord.
“It is not coming down. It is either an illusion or some kind of time trick,” David said. “Help me, and I promise I will not come after you.”
“Why should I trust you? You are the only one who can get past my attacks. Why should I listen—”
Zoey pushed the tip of an arrow against Ara's neck, and Ara froze, her eyes widening. David smiled and summoned his World Tilter armor. Its fire burned fiercely for a moment. David pushed off the ground, scaling the spread of bubbling liquid to stand in front of Ara. She glared at him, defiant and afraid. David let the armor fade to show him grinning at her.
“You left your puppet the moment you thought you had me locked in. Not nice. I should kill you right now, but like I said, I don’t think I need to.” He turned to the coin still stuck in the air. Now that he was looking at it up close, he could feel the strands of essence working on it. His guesses had been wrong. He walked over to stand under it. The fighting had dwindled, and now most of the others were watching him.
“You can feel it?” David asked Ara. “The network of essence holding it up there, letting it down only an inch at a time. It is amazing. The magic is so tight, I almost missed it.”
“Can you break it?” Ara asked. “That is an essence manipulation by someone close to godhood. I don’t think that power of yours can do anything to it.” She shrugged. “But I would love to see you try.”
“So it was a lie all along?” the angel asked. He was unblemished, while Elisha looked tired. David made a mental note to ask Elisha about the duel later. “They set us up to kill ourselves to the very last man?”
“Not a lie, Eliaz,” Ara said. “They never asked us to fight. It was insinuated, but the real task was to survive the coin drop. They knew what to expect, and we played right into their divine games. They have no fault.”
Eliaz stared at her for a moment. David could tell emotions were colliding within him. In the end, he looked at the coin and shook his head. Zoey withdrew her arrow, and her bow vanished. Chloe was beside her, standing nervously close. David scanned her to find no wounds at all.
“Can you bring it down?” Ara asked, addressing David. But before he could respond, Eliaz walked over to where David stood, shoving him out of the way. He stared at the coin smugly, shaking his head for a moment before lifting off. His wings stayed folded behind him as he floated up to meet the coin. For a moment, David stared at him in awe. His robe was white and edged in gold. It remained unstained even though he’d just been in battle. His hair flowed beautifully down his back, stopping where his wings began.
“You can’t ask a ranker to do this, Ara,” Eliaz said. “I have no hatred for them, but they are lesser powers. There is a reason we are Lords, born in the old realms and pureblooded.”
He stretched his hand out to touch the coin, and when his hand brushed the outer wall of the essence around it, his fingers were sliced through. He stared at the stump for a moment, his eyes wide in shock. The fingers regenerated, but David saw the glow within him dwindle just a bit.
“Don’t try again, Eliaz,” Ara said. “Your stubbornness does not help us.”
“We are doomed then,” Eliaz said, descending. David chuckled, amused. On Earth, Eliaz would have been worshiped as some kind of god or angel. And yet, here he was, acting like an asshole. The more David learned about the tower, the more disillusioned he became. What kind of god would let someone like this serve them?
“You can do it, can’t you?” Ara asked. “I can take you up there. I think you can at least try with that thing.” She pointed at his gauntlet.
“No way am I letting you touch me,” David said with a grin. “Elisha, can you take me up there?”
“Sure,” Elisha said. “I am not good at making it tangible yet, so it might be unstable.”
“Still better than her help. Let’s do it.”
It took a while to get the control right for Elisha to lift David up. He had to make the shadow thick enough to hold his weight and then balance the control as it took David up toward the coin. Ara gave him some pointers, and Elisha learned quickly. David’s heart hammered as he got closer to the coin. If he couldn’t tame the essence holding the coin, he’d lose his fingers. Unlike Eliaz, he couldn’t regenerate them.
David watched the coin toss. It wasn’t as fast as he’d thought. Then it was something else that slashed at Eliaz’s fingers. He looked closely, trying to see if he could find a pattern in it. There was none. He couldn’t see the flow of essence or whatever other attack was stacked with the coin. He would have to go in blindly, trusting his gauntlet to work.
“Ignis, will this work?” David asked.
If you have to ask, then you don’t trust yourself. What do you think?
David sighed, closed his eyes, and stretched his left hand out. He heard the collective gasp, but then his fingers closed over the coin, and he opened his eyes.
Chaos has been tamed! Chaos has been tamed! Chaos has been tamed!
David frowned. That was a three-level stack of spells, and he’d broken it almost effortlessly. His heart still raced, and even as Elisha’s shadow lowered him, David still worried that Ygar might have put some kind of trap there in waiting. His feet touched the floor, and Ara grinned, stretching her hand out to him.
“You should give the coin to me.”
“No,” David said. He tossed it up and caught it before dropping it on the floor.
You have completed the first phase of the competition!
“Brilliant!” Ygar said from the mezzanine. “You have all passed the first phase. We pray for the dead, and may those who survive ascend. Now, you will be met by those who wish for you to represent their masters. Choose wisely, for your allegiance will determine the gifts you receive.”
He lingered for an instant and then left, holding the heavy tome like it weighed nothing. David watched the man go before turning to his family.
“Elisha, are you all right?”
“That angel man was tough to beat. His regeneration made it an endless battle.”
“Yes,” David said. “I couldn’t tame his swords either, but I think I have an idea.”
“And that shadow girl?”
“Not a threat,” David said, watching Chloe. Her silence worried him, but there was nothing he could do. Not yet, anyway.