"This match is going to be tough," Lance muttered, massaging his temples as he paced down the corridor. His staff weighed heavily in his hand, the grimoire tucked into his robes, and the swinging pendant served as a constant reminder of what was at stake. "Astrape Svante... A dual elemental Conduit with Acid and Lightning. This is insane." Lance shook his head, replaying everything he knew about his opponent.
According to what Ariador had mentioned, Astrape Svante was a dual elemental sorcerer, specialising in Acid and Lightning. That was utterly insane, because it implied he had two Conduits, but it could make theoretical sense if Lance's suspicions were true. Maybe, just maybe, but even then, it was a damn stretch and a half.
To make matters worse, both his elements were utterly destructive in nature, easily befitting of a Black Magus.
His grip tightened around the sceptre, doubt gnawing away at him, the thoughts of the damage his spells could cause warring with the certainty that defeat was not an option. And if his suspicions were right, close quarters combat wasn't an option either... unless he used that, but taboo spells were taboo for a reason.
Back to Astrape, the man had worked his way up to his current rank, and is rumoured to have a transformation or ability that raises his capacity manifolds, but no one has lived to tell the tale.
Not just that, but Lance had other suspicions. The harsh syllables and sibilants back then, the almost grating accent he spoke in...
That was, without a doubt, Dragon Tongue – the languages of the Dragons. His aura and energy felt similar to a dragon too... somewhat. Lance had never seen a Dragon, but he had heard of Dragonslayers, those who absorbed the heart of the dragon, and it seemed Astrape was one of them. Although, he wasn't aware that Dragonslayers knew Dragon Tongue too.
Not that it would work against Lance, but it was still better to be careful.
An inherited Dragon Heart, combined with a natural born Conduit, could theoretically explain his dual elemental sorcery.
More importantly, losing wasn't an option. The staff itself didn't hold much meaning to him, but it was a gift from the Eldest. The same went for the grimoire, which was a gift from The Church. And most perhaps the most importantly, he had to win for Aurora. Her mother's pendant aside, he couldn't afford to let his friend end up as a debt slave. Once again, Lance cemented the fact in his mind; losing was not an option.
But at the same time, Lance wasn't just satisfied with winning. He had to overcome his habit of holding back his punches. Literally. And he planned to do just that.
Grimacing slightly, Lance walked into the light, the blinding sun forcing his eyes shut. He was still not used to the brightness of the outside world.
Sunlight stabbed at his eyes as he walked up the stairs and towards the arena, the deafening cheers crashing down like an avalanche. 'Volcanic caverns were quieter than this,' he thought, grimacing against the assault on his senses.
Lance didn’t pause even as the blinding light and deafening noise overwhelmed him, striding into the arena while maintaining a façade of unshaken confidence. By the time he reached the marble paving at the top of the stairs, his senses had adapted to the blinding sunlight and the roar of the crowd.
Across the expanse, Astrape emerged, growling as he climbed the stairs. His expression mirrored Lance’s – a mix of annoyance and fatigue. Neither enjoyed theatrics, but it was sadly a non-optional social conduct.
As the two rivals sized up one another, a third voice suddenly boomed over the stadium, catching Lance off-guard and rattling his bones.
"LADIES! AND! GENTLEEEEMEEEEEN!" A voice boomed over the crowd, magical amplification sending shockwaves through the arena. Lance winced at the volume, casting a quick spell to dull the roar in his ears. The announcer went on a rant, overhyping Astrape’s feats to stir the audience into a frenzy. 'I prefer the volcano over this.'
Lance scanned around the colosseum with his eyes, eventually finding the VIP room where Copulus sat besides Aurora, with Ariador next to them on his reindeer, and Amani standing besides them with his arms crossed. Honestly, he wouldn't even have recognised them from this distance if not Amani's easily recognisable figure.
On the opposite hemisphere of the colleseum, in the same place, he spotted the announcer. His hair was a flowing pink, with chocolate brown sunglasses and a fabulous moustache that he could see even from the distance. The fancy man struck all kinds of fancy poses as he yelled into the mic.
"In the other corner, we have a mysterious mage, whose origins are shrouded in secrecy, but whose power has earned him the right to take on Red Plaque requests! Give it up for LANCE FALLOUT!"
Lance really hated this part of this place's culture. He'd much rather just fight, dance, sing, climb rocks, do whatever he came here to do without an announcer screaming his throat off.
He did respect the fancy 'stache, at least.
"PLAAAAACEEEE YOUR BETS!" The announcer's roar echoed one last time, before going completely silent. The shouts and cheers of the crowd turned into murmurs, and Lance heaved a sigh of relief.
Noticing Astrape also grimacing and clutching his ears on the other side of the arena, Lance raised a brow. It was a little amusing, but it made sense. Culture wasn't the same everywhere. Maybe they didn't have announcers where Astrape came from either?
"Hey, you." Astrape's voice rang out from the other end of the arena, mana seeping into his words, allowing them to cut through the noise. "I don't like you."
Lance rolled his eyes. He responded, "Mutual feelings, my friend, my mutual feelings," his voice dripping with sarcasm.
Astrape shrugged, a sly grin forming. "Yeah, I wouldn’t like me either if I were you."
Not expecting this response, Lance was completely gobsmacked for a good few seconds, before Astrape broke into a chuckle. Lance smiled and shook his head.
"How did you convince The Caldera to let you join?" Astrape asked, genuinely curious. The match didn't start for another few minutes, as the stadium wished to leech as much money from the betters as possible.
Lance looked confused staring, blankly for a few seconds before he questioned, "The who?"
Astrape raised a brow at his reaction. "The Fire Giant?"
Lance still looked a little stumped, before he recalled Midnight addressing Amani by that name. Still, he asked one more question to make sure they were on the same page. "You mean Amani, right? The giant who was with me?"
Astrape stared at him for a few seconds, before exhaling deeply. He said, "Yes, that's the one." He seemed to be fed up of talking to Lance already.
Lance made an 'O' shape with mouth, before nodding. Then, he replied to the original question, "Well, I was signing up for the assignment, and they said I couldn't without a team. That's when I saw Amani walking to the same desk, so I asked him to fill in as my team member."
Astrape looked thoroughly unimpressed at the story, either not believing his words, or bemused at how anticlimactic the story was.
This was because Astrape had this own share of theories on what was going on. Lance's scepter was made of dark wood, shaped like a shepherd's staff, except the apex spiral coiled around a few times, like a serpent, with a strange, green gem in the centre.
Astrape guessed the gem was an amplifier, likely for either Plant or Life magic. If it were Life magic, it made sense The Caldera had chosen Lance for this mission against a Necromancer, Astrape he didn't quite rule out Plant magic either.
Never could he have guessed that Lance's element was something else entirely. Something... nuclear in terms of scale and power.
The two combatants soon assumed their position, standing on a granite circle among the marble platform, not allowed to move before the match officially started.
That did not take very long, a translucent, blue shield expanding from the edge inner ring of the colosseum into the sky, separating the audience from the combatants. The voice too, had gone silent.
Lightning coiled around Astrape's hands and neck, and bluish, circuit-like lines had started appearing on his throat, slowly encroaching the rest of it, creeping up to cover his jaw.
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On the other hand, Lance gripped his staff tightly in his right hand, with his left one barely touching the ground. He looked as if he was about to break out into a sprint, while his sceptre was glowing brighter and brighter, slowly starting to pulsate with luminous intensity.
At that moment, a tremendous boom of a gong echoed throughout the arena, marking the start of the battle.
The gong's deafening boom signaled the start. In an instant, Astrape’s jaw unhinged, a torrent of crackling lightning surging forth. Lance reacted on instinct, diving into a roll as the electric stream seared the air where he’d just stood, his ears suffering from the loud cracking of electricity.
'Is he trying to kill me or what!?' Lance complained, not expecting Astrape to start the battle with such a lethal move.
Sweat trickled down his back, his heart pounding as adrenaline surged his veins... arteries? 'Not the time!' Lance scolded himself, the air thick with the scent of ozone as he sprinted toward Astrape.
Although taken back, Astrape acted fluidly, conjuring several bolts of azure lightning around him, which then all closed in on Lance at high velocity. Lance, however, only forced a grin in response, green wisps conjuring around him.
'Alpha-rays.'
As the spell was cast, the air was ionised, and the green wisps sucked in the bolts before both the wisp and the bolts disappeared with a buzzing sound. Astrape's eyes widened, hurriedly reacting to the development. Lance hadn't stopped running, and was encroaching on his side of the arena concerningly fast.
Astrape growled, his body cloaked in a crackling black aura, as he charged towards Lance with a mighty stomp, cracking the marble beneath him while dark veins of energy snaked up his throat and jaw, resembling electrical circuitry.
"Radioacid!"
As Lance spat out the Power Words, a thick, green sludge of radioactive waste shot towards Astrape with devastating momentum. At the same time, Astrape unhinged his maw and unleashed a splash of thick, corrosive black acid, bubbling viciously.
The air between them sizzled as radioactive sludge met corrosive acid midair, splashing the battlefield in toxic vapors. Lance’s lungs burned as the fumes reached him, and he could feel his skin prickle from the radiation.
He was panting slightly, his breath a little laboured, and his face masked in a thin layer of sweat. For him, who spent his life in a land of eternal night, the sun was a tremendous curse. Either he needed to finish the battle fast...
...or he had to get rid of the sun.
At that moment, from the radioactive, acidic vapours leapt out a silhouette shrouded in a lightless, acidic aura. Astrape now sported black draconic claws, which he swiped towards Lance, but Lance swiftly ducked under it.
'Enchanto Aschente – Gaia'
Before Astrape could react, Lance slammed the blunt end of his staff – which now hummed with a brown glow, its mass and momentum augmented by an earthly power – into Astrape's sternum, the force of Astrape's jump working against his favour, his eyes widening as the shock forced him to dispel the acidic claws.
Lance spun his staff with precision, gauging Astrape’s trajectory, timing everything. 'Beta Rays,' he muttered, his voice calm, but his eyes narrowed in cold focus as he unleashed the first intermediate spell in the match, the green bolt shooting towards his foe.
Astrape's wide eyes locked onto the green javelin of light shot from the sceptre towards his chest, before he clenched his fists tightly, growling as he erupted with the sound of thunder, tendrils of lightning snapping from his body, scattering everywhere in range as it lashed around chaotically.
But the net of scattered lightning did little to stop the dark green bolt, which struck him in the chest and pierced right through, knocking him backwards as he fell onto the ground, landing in his back.
Meanwhile, Lance grit his teeth, enduring the pain of the current that coursed through his body. Despite conjuring the ionising Alpha-Rays in time, he didn't manage to mitigate all the damage.
As the lightning faded, he collapsed to his knees. Every breath burnt, and he could feel his vision swimming as the sunlight prickled his skin with burning heat. Electricity crackled around him, and the acidic fumes made each breath feel as if he were inhaling flames.
'Kryozone.'
Lance cast a spell on himself, draining the excess heat from his body, rapidly cooling him down. He heaved a sigh of relief, though this was a temporary solution.
On the other end, Astrape leapt back to his feet, grimacing at the wound on his chest. The burns were healing fast, but the deeper damage lingered – cellular damage, Lance deduced – though not enough to slow him down.
'Great. Lightning Conduits are resistant to ionization damage.' Lance sighed in exasperation. He could feel his back was completely drenched in sweat by now. 'Getting rid of the sun it is.'
"Hey," Astrape's voice snapped him out of his thoughts, cutting through the chaos with a growl. His expression was warped by a mix of pain and resentment as he slowly stood, lightning crackling in the air around him as he interrogated, "What in the nine hells is your element?"
Hearing the question, his lips curled into a cheeky smile, which could be mistaken for a predatory grin between his breaths that came in laboured gasps, his meagre attempt at a tease more akin to a threat, "Take a guess ~"
Astrape stared blankly at him, his expression bemused. His injuries were already healed, but Lance was still cooling down, so hoped the conversation would drag on a little longer.
Sadly, Astrape guessed it straight away. "The nuclear element?" Lance lingered for a second, before nodding with a sigh.
'Oh well, it was good while it lasted.'
"I see..." Astrape's eyes narrowed sharply, before closing them as he inhaled a deep breath of air. When he opened them, they had narrowed into slits. "In that case," Astrape felt his lips form into a grin, "I hope you don't mind me going all out."
Lance was alarmed, but by now, he had cooled down enough. He got into a combat stance, but instead of responding, he began muttering something Astrape couldn't quite hear.
He stared in confusion for a few seconds, before he focused to hear what Lance was saying.
"Great men are forged in fire, lesser faces light the flame..."
Astrape was utterly confused, not sure what Lance was on about.
"Success is the strength of habits, not a star sign on a good day..."
Suddenly, Astrape's eyes widened in realisation. 'This piece of Elvur–'
He was chanting a spell!
Feeling threatened, a little angry at being fooled, and very excited at the prospect of facing the nuclear element, he rushed towards Lance with terrifying speed, the marble shattering with every step he took.
Lance did not stop casting, instead retrieving a book from his robe while slowly stepping backwards, alarming Astrape. The latter screeched to a halt, a blanket of black aura unleashing a tidal wave of corrosive black acid towards Lance. At the same time, the book magically flipped itself open, and shone with a green light.
The runes on the page, which read "Nuclear Waste Surge," illuminated with green light and disappeared. A second later, a large magic circle emerged, unleashing a wave of irradiated fluid that swept across the battlefield, forcing Astrape to back off, neon blue lights illuminating the veins and arteries on his throat.
As the black and green waves collided into each other, breaking each other down, a draconic breath of azure blue lighting ripped through the wall of the fluid, being absorbed into it.
As the now electrically charged fluid threatened to crash onto Lance, the book flipped to another page, casting the basic spell, Mage Barrier. Astrape grinned, knowing a Mage Barrier wasn't enough to stop this attack, but his smile faltered when he saw the book continue to flip several times and cast the same spell manifolds.
The wave crashed onto the barrier, the electricity got drained into the walls, and the fluid simply collapsed to the ground around his feet.
At the same time, a titanic magic circle covered the arena, shocking Astrape. He noticed Lance moved to the very edge of the arena at some point, at the very perimeter of the magic circle.
'Shit. An advanced spell!?
The magic circle's emergence declared that Lance had almost completed his spell, so Astrape felt a hint of panic. Lightning rampaged around him, boosting his speed as he tried to reach Lance before the spell was complete. Unbeknownst to him, draconic wings had torn out of his back in desperation, raising his speed even further as he tried to stop the spell.
But it was too late.
Lance smiled wildly as he unleashed his first Advanced Spell in the battle. He proudly roared out the name of his spell, with Astrape still inside the magic circle which was starting to glow with an even higher luminous intensity. At that moment, Lance cast the Advanced Spell;
"NUCLEAR WINTER!"
The magic circle utterly erupted with radioactive materials. A nuclear cloud of titanic proportions – black mired with hints of green – tore out of the circle, Astrape having been caught and vanished in the smoke, his eyes wide before he disappeared.
The mushroom cloud, symbolic of the Atomic Age, rose high to the sky in a matter of seconds, pushing against the very stratosphere, the resounding boom produced in the process rattling the very barrier that segregated the combatants from the audience. Thickets of black, lightless clouds covered the sky, completely blocking out the sun, with small, green glowing particles raining down slowly, as if snowflakes.
Lance was half-expecting the battle to end right there, but he was sorely mistaken. Because what he saw next, was one of the worst possibilities that could have occurred.
What happened next, made all the spectators watching the fight get up from their seat, and stand up in shock.
'A Dragonborn transformation...' Lance's face turned grim.
In the midst of the black sky, a sole silhouette hovered, its visage sending chills down the spines of Lance and the audience alike.
Astrape stood in the dim light of the nuclear fallout, majestic wings flapping powerfully as he covered right beneath the lightless clouds. His form... was no longer human, but more reminiscent of an anthropomorphic dragon.
His sleek, obsidian-black scales absorbed what little of light from the fallout touched them, only to be interrupted by a radiant, electric-blue glow that seeped from between the joints and plates.
Muscles rippled beneath his dark hide, brimming with more power and vitality than his human form ever did. His chest, broad and sculpted, as if a living stone, heaved with slow, heavy breaths. From his shoulders hung two enormous wings, leathery black and yet veined with the same blue light, flexing occasionally as if testing the air, their edges lined with razor-sharp membranes that shimmered in the eerie glow of the fallout.
Each of his hands, now clawed, was tipped with talons as black as coal, no less blunt than the four curved, ebony spikes that adorned his forearms each.
The azure light hummed the brightest along the creature's spine, following the contours of his vertebrae in a jagged pattern, the glow pulsing with each beat of its heart, flickering brighter with every breath he drew. His eyes, twin marbles of brilliant cerulean, glared at Lance with an intensity that felt more bestial than sapient.
The creature's face was framed by jagged horns, twisted and arcing backward, reminiscent of an ancient crown, their black surfaces gleaming faintly under the soft illumination. Between the horns, its snout tapered into a blunt end, nostrils flaring slightly with the heat of its breath. From its open maw, faint wisps of black smoke curled outward. The scent of ozone filled the air.
It was a fearsome visage, a terrifying one at that.
But Lance wasn't afraid. In fact, he felt a rush of excitement. And despite facing a literal anthropomorphic dragon, Lance didn't think he'd lose. After all...
'Bingo.'
He had gotten rid of the sun.