I raced after Tear as she collided with Yuri, but Lox’s bleed effect had ticked off, and he intercepted me. Our blades clashed, locked in a stand still. I was beginning to realize that Lox was a much bigger threat than I had originally considered. We had roughly equal strength, and I had no skills to allow me to bypass his defenses. I could only try to outmaneuver him, or beat him one on one. With others taking shots at me, he would - if not beat me - be able to keep me in a deadlock until others could finish me off.

There were about 10 seconds until my skill trio came off cooldown, so I couldn’t turn my back on Lox or let Tear get in another salvo from stealth. My [Guardian Shield] was on cooldown for another 5 seconds, but once that came off cooldown, it would buy me the space I needed for my skill trio to come back up. All I needed to do was keep Tear in combat so she couldn’t restealth.

I cast [Freezing Wave], unsure if the range would catch Tear across the arena. It burst out in a wave of ice, rooting Lox and just clipping Tear. She growled in frustration and used a skill to clear the root. Then she disappeared from sight, and I realized that I had forgotten about her vanish skill.

But Lox was still rooted, so I ran around him, heading for Yuri. Yuri saw me coming and wound up a shot. I knew it would be a hobbling shot, and I spammed my short duration deflect, praying it came off cooldown before he finished his skill cast.

“Use Lox!” Denise shouted out.

It took me half a second to parse her advice, then realization hit me, and I ran back towards Lox, placing him between Yuri and I.

Yuri’s hobbling shot flew out, but crashed harmlessly against Lox’s back as it tried to home in on me. Lox’s rooted effect still had two seconds, and he lashed out futilely, unable to reach me. I started to chase after Yuri again, when motion caught my eye to the right. I swung my glaive out in a wide arc, lightning fast, and it caught on something. I turned to follow it, and saw my glaive embedded in Tear’s shoulder, her eyes wide with surprise.

My [Guardian Shield] came off cooldown just as Lox’s rooted effect ended. I spammed it, the deflect turning on just as Lox attacked my back. Tear tried to pull away, but was stuck on my glaive. I did a short pull, freeing it from her shoulder, then stabbed forward, catching her in the gut. She teleported away, dead.

Lox and Yuri were launching attacks at me, but as my short deflect ended, my core trio came off cooldown. I activated them and my bleed retaliation hit them both almost instantly.

From there, it was child’s play to chase down Yuri and zero him out.

With just Lox left, it was a battle of attrition. My health pool was over twice as large as his, and I was at full HP with my crazy regen, while he was at 75%. When my deflect was up, I was reckless, launching a blitzkrieg against him and scoring the occasional blows that were whittling him down. When my deflect was on cooldown, I kept him at bay, only attacking if I felt I could score a strike in retaliation.

After a minute of this back and forth, I finally ended it with a glancing blow to his forearm, bringing his HP to zero.

My breath was ragged, my heart racing, and my smile wide. I looked around the room to find the six Angels, congratulate them on a good fight, when I noticed the wide eyes around the room.

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Suddenly, Jeremy started clapping, the sound echoing throughout the basement. Looks of surprise were replaced with smiles and shaking heads as everyone else joined in to clap.

The blood rushed from my limbs to my face as I tried to wave away the applause.

“Guys, stop,” I tried to say, but they clapped through my words.

It was Jeremy who eventually settled them down. He strolled into the center to stand in front of me, turning to address everyone. He put his hands up. “Okay, okay,” he shouted. “Calm down everyone. Ray’s ego can’t take anymore circle jerking.” Some chuckled while others scrunched up their noses at his dirty joke. “I think I can speak for all of us when I say-” He turned to me now, his expression mischievous. “-that was very impressive…But can you do it again?”

The six Angels all perked up at the thought of another chance at me and redemption. In fact, they all looked a little too eager.

“Uh, you know what? I think now is a great time for that break Denise was talking-”

“Oh, hell no!” Tear interrupted. “You don’t get to launch me like some damn beach ball, then bow out! I’m coming for that ass, Ray!”

Cheers went up from the Angels, and I felt my stomach flip. Oh, God, I was asking for it, wasn’t I?

“Okay…” I said reluctantly. “Fair’s fair, I guess.”

They all shared a pleased look as Denise worked the controls.

Combat begins in:

5…

4…

3…

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1…

Begin!

—

Turned out that no, I couldn’t repeat that winning performance. Tear never stayed in grappling range again after that - choosing to hit me when both my deflects were down, then escape as quick as possible. I tried to catch her with [Freezing Wave], but she either used her magic-canceling skill, or Bart cleared her debuff before I could capitalize.

Over the next hour, I managed to get in at least a couple kills before they wore me down, and my massive health pool usually made that a long, drawn-out affair. By the third defeat, we started ending the fight early if I got bogged down during my cooldown window. There was no point after that, as I basically could never recover from that point on.

But I got noticeably better over that hour. Utilizing my skills with better timing, corralling them to remove line-of-sights, and absorbing skills without letting the pain overwhelm me.

And there was a lot of pain. I found that Bell’s debuffs were the worse, and I could only suffer them for a minute or two before I had to tap out. Superficial wounds from Lox’s blades or Yuri’s arrows were easier to deal with for some reason. Laurel’s fire and ice spells were bad, but the pain faded the fastest from those, so I was able to grit my teeth and push through.

By the end of the hour, though, I was a sweaty, quivering mess and my mind - while tougher, for sure - was at its limits. The last fight ended fast, and I only managed to kill one of them before I was forced to tap out. It wasn’t a testament to them getting that much better, really, but that my mind was just so drained from the constant pain.

When we wrapped up the last fight, Denise blessedly stepped in and called it for the day. I stumbled over to a bench and slumped into it.

“As the trainer,” she said. “I can review the footage from the fights. I’ll watch them tonight and come up with a PIP for you to work on.”

I could only nod, my throat hoarse, my breathing heavy.

“Good fights,” Bart said, coming over and slapping me on the shoulder. The casual slap made me wince with phantom pain. God, I needed to rest.

Everyone came over and said goodbye, giving me fist bumps or shoulder slaps. I went through the motions, my actions automatic, but I was dreaming of my bed upstairs.

When the Angels and the guys had departed, Denise sat down next to me. A look from her sent Ryan and Harold off, and after a moment, it was just the two of us.

“Enduring the pain takes a lot out of you, huh?” she asked quietly.

I let out a deep breath, nodding my head. “It’s just mentally draining, I guess.”

She nodded. “I get it. We’ll have to accommodate for that when we draw up battle plans in the future. And we need to get more healers. Bart can give you relief on the battlefield, but you need a dedicated team to keep you moving and pain-free.”

I could only nod, too tired to conversate.

“Okay, I’ll let you go rest. You have Mech’s Dungeon run in four hours.”

I groaned, my head flopping into my hands.

“Greatttt…”