“You’re dead.”
Smirking, I watched my Umbral Arms dissipate to release a flustered Zeff. “Yes, I can see that.” He swept at his clothes before lifting his eyes. Then turned, slack-jawed after seeing the faces of my party staring back at him. “To merge spatial magic with darkness.” He gasped, almost to himself. “Fascinating.”
“This concludes the match.” Doyle stepped in with a groan and a wave towards his peer. “Congratulations, Copper Party. You win.”
While I couldn’t help but grin, a confused cheer rose throughout the scattered crowd. Thankfully, Doyle was the one who stepped in to clear up the air.
“Let me explain.” He bared his palms. “Or rather, I’ll allow the other teams to explain what happened first.”
Duke stepped forward almost immediately, waving his talons through the air like open hands. “We were attacked by members of Apple Party. But upon realizing their target was nowhere to be found, they fled.”
“Same!” Zakira chimed in. “A really bright guy tried to sneak in, then ran away when I attacked him. Like a little bitch.” She muttered under her breath.
“Well, Amun guided us to the swamp, where he set up some bait by having Peter simulate a battle.” Doyle beamed, mostly at Zeff. “Rhot and Snusz came to investigate. And Amun masterfully utilized the element of surprise to probe them into attacking. Those two went down as casualties in Amun’s counterattack. And then…” Doyle squinted and shook his head as if his memory was sparse. “I don’t know what happened. I was warped and there was an explosion.”
“Then Zeke Smeal went down.” Zeff completed his words with a nod, then auspiciously turned his gaze just as Winston fell towards him.
“W- what? Zeke?”
“After that, everything was a blur.” Doyle continued, paying little mind to Winston. “One moment, everyone’s pinned to the ground. The next, we’re here.”
“Care to explain your actions for the rest of the party?” Zeff sidled towards me, throwing out hopeful nudges of his elbow all the while.
“No.” I shrugged him off.
“Well.” Doyle chuckled in response to Zeff’s ensuing pout. “Due to your efforts. Each member of Copper party is hereby awarded seven hundred fifty points. Five hundred for successfully defending and two-fifty for turning a defensive role into an offensive one. Amun?” He then turned to me. “You’re awarded an additional five hundred for defeating Rhot and Snusz, plus one hundred twenty-five for executing such an elaborate plan without any hiccups.”
Trying my hardest to conceal my smirk, I lowered my head just a degree. “Thank you.”
“Take lunch for now.” Doyle stepped off with a wave. “After an hour, we’ll wait another hour to give the defensive team some time to get into position. Copper Party will be the neutral team this round. What you decide to do is up to you.”
Once they were out of earshot, I turned my attention to the others. “Alright.” I clapped as a form of applause. “Excellent work, everyone! Before we take lunch, I’ll tell you of my plans for the next round. Essentially, I want to capitalize on us being the neutral team and preserve our strength for the following round.” While pausing to gauge their reactions, I couldn’t help but laugh at the dropped faces of Slate and Kao off to the side. Hopefully, though, they’d be reassured by what’s to come.
“Due to the quick engagements of the last round and the fact that our defensive role is over. The party is still in prime fighting shape. The same couldn’t be said for the other parties. Apple, who spent their time searching for me and Doyle. And Baker, who had a short skirmish with me. That should remain true into the last round when we go on the offensive.”
“And how will we do that?” Samson asked.
“After this last round, it’s safe to assume the attacking Baker Party will keep their VIP close to home.” I motioned to a departing Zeff. “A side effect of warping him here means I’m able to track his location. So I plan to tail him in the hopes that both VIPs will be on the same battlefield.”
“Killing two birds with one stone,” Rhody mumbled into his hand as he rubbed his chin. "And we're cheating? I like it."
“Ugh! A horrible practice.” Duke chirped. "Stones ruin the meat."
“Yeah.” I snorted. “As they say, if you ain't cheating you ain't trying. The plan this round won’t be to win. It’s to sow chaos and wreak havoc. But we also wish to preserve our strength so not everyone will be going. I need Urshure and Zakira to accompany me. In the meantime, we’ll take lunch and build a concealed hideout for the rest of you to occupy while we’re gone. Any questions?” I did a quick scan of the eager or placid faces. “Alright.” I clapped again. “Dismissed.
“Oh!” I shouted. Bringing most of the scattering crowd back in seconds. “I almost forgot. If a storm appears out of nowhere- one that doesn’t have my mana signature, scream my name into the darkness. That’s all. Dismissed.”
---
“Alright, here’s the plan. Even if Zeff or Doyle isn’t with the rest of the attacking team, I have a few others tagged as well. When we arrive on sight, stay hidden until they start fighting. If they’re already fighting upon our arrival, wait until I give the signal. When I do, we’ll contain everyone in a ring of fire.” I gestured to Urshure. “After that, it’ll get dark. That’s when I want you to jump in.” I motioned to Zakira. Behind you will be the Menagerie, and-”
“The what?” Zakira flippantly asked.
“My summons.” I sighed. “Anyway, I’ll spawn everyone’s Doppelgangers after that. Then we’ll spread as much chaos as possible. Sound good?”
“It is acceptable.” Urshure regally nodded.
Meanwhile.
“Sounds Fun!” Zakira beamed. “It’s been a while since I had good blood!”
“Yeah I b-”
Cutting me off was a pulse of mana that spread from the southwest. Followed by another, and another shockwave of potent mana. Some familiar, some foreign.
The others- feeling it themselves, wheeled around at once to stare in the general direction with wide eyes. But only I could see it. The expanding domes and firework displays of mana. In every color of the rainbow, they flashed. Electric blue, infernal red, solar yellow, and all the unnatural colors as well. Closing my eyes, I turned my focus toward it and opened up my map to see the cluster of small caricatures whizzing across the 3D board. As I presumed, both VIPs were present on the battlefield. Albeit as far as possible from the line, contained around the fields of potent mana we were sensing.
It wasn't worth the time to pursue. Not without completely breaking the game at least. But that would come later. So I wheeled back around to grasp my companions by the shoulder and Bamfed us to the AO without delay.
We arrived at an unremarkable area. A field of tall grasses and a few trees some 150 meters in radius, give or take. Prime real estate for a battle such as this. And like many battlefields, the combat extended far above and, on occasion, deep below. Every powerhouse in Class 999 was found within, other than the whole of Copper Party, of course. Like the contenders in a savage rugby game, each was arranged and engaged against their enemies, seeking to do as much damage to the other as possible on their way to the VIP.
For Apple Party, their ‘goalie’ was Roheisa, a red-skinned, amber-haired Strfiling. Both stood on either side of Olga with scrutinizing eyes held on the battlefield. The rest of them were scattered out in a cone before them, save Toril and Lucia dominating the sky and a few other notable individuals holding the line. Baker Party was much the same, with Silva, Jaimess, and the half-orcs surrounding Doyle while Lance, Bazzric, and a few Amazonians tried their best to keep the other powerhouses at bay.
And then there was us. A winged dragonborne, a royal vampire, and an elven devil.
Crouched in shadows at the edge of such an intense battlefield, our presence remained unknown to our playmates. But that would only last for a few seconds once we stepped from beneath the veil.
“Alright.” I turned to Urshure. “We won’t have much time. So, fly as fast as possible and maintain the burn. I’ll meet you in the middle.”
Sneering, we waved himself away to perch atop a nearby branch. Then turned an expectant gaze back to me.
“Go!” Signed.
In a soft boom of air, the two of us flew off in different directions. Not soon after, I heard a roaring stream of white flames erupt from my left. Following it, came an intense heat that distantly bit at my exposed hand as I reached it out, pinky and forefinger extended like a rockstar to spit out a powerful torch of blue-white fire.
This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.
Through my peripherals, I saw Urshure keeping up with my pace. Following alongside me over three hundred meters away while a line of forage ignited into a burning plume beneath him. The twin infernos swelled, reaching out to engulf any nearby brush or trees. Only for them to die down to a smoldering ember. Turning, I saw a chain of ash and smoke cascading down the embers toward their sources- toward us.
Wasting no time, I increased the flow of air into my torch and flicked some shadow mana into it with my free hand. Then watched with glee as the Flames of Moil spread through the embers, reigniting the ring in violet flames of abyssal cold. Before any of them could react, I threw more mana into the ascending clouds of darkness. Then thrust my hands behind me to unfurl a carpet of shadows behind me.
Without waiting for any orders, Zakira leaped into action. And behind her came an abyssal rat followed by an ink-black rabbit. Then a fox, two wolves, a snake, and every other member of the Menagerie.
“Alright.” I grinned to myself and kicked off my perch.
Accelerating under the influence of an Artificial Well brought me through the violet flames at breakneck speed. But even then, I felt an object cutting through the ambient mana on an intercept course. Reaching my hand out, I managed to capture an arrow in my domain just before it made contact and dragged it into an orbit. Under the relentless force of gravity, the wood composing the arrow began to creak as it wheeled around on an escape trajectory around the body that was me. Whizzing through the air, it opened a hole through the oppressive smoke. Revealing for just an instant, an elf scrambling out of the way of his own arrow.
‘Hmph.’ I smirked, then amassed shadow mana into my throat and shouted. “Doppelgangers, rise!”
Before the darkness could even begin to amass beneath him, the elf rolled to his feet and drew another arrow. Reflexively, I raised my hand in preparation to counter but in one swift motion, he swept his bow around and released an arrow behind a pulse of mana. With an almost artistic grace, it sliced through the air to embed itself in Urshure’s wing. Causing the hulking draconian to tumble out of control and plummet helplessly to the ground.
But upon landing, his wrath could be felt by all.
Deciding to enter the fray, I spawned my Doppelganger and made an underhanded throw in the opposite direction. As if I’d bowled the pieces onto a clump of darkness, the plates of my Abyssal Armor tumbled and seamlessly clicked into place until the form of a small, armored devil was complete. The Phantom Knight.
“Here.” I threw my daggers to my clone and my spear to the Knight. “You play with the elf. And you, the half-demon.”
Somewhat confused, my clone turned towards the end of my gaze and immediately rocked back in understanding. “Ah. The Storm Thief.”
“Yeah.”
Already knowing the outcome, I lunged forward in the air to race towards Toril and flipped Susanoo’s switch. Upon feeling the surge of energy, nearly everyone froze in place to turn in my direction. Auspiciously increasing those to witness Toril swing his arm overhead with no hesitation. Extended from his grip was his weapon of the same name: an intricate hand axe with a curiously long handle, inlaid with gold atop a gray metal that carried arcs of crackling electricity over it at an ever-increasing pace until it culminated in a strong pulse. And like a great hand had reached into my spirit, I felt the unruly energies of Susanoo be settled in my body.
Now holding the power of my electricity, the Storm Thief pulled his axe back and lunged, preparing to make contact with my staff arcing straight towards him.
Our clash shocked the very skies, reverberating against the ground back-breaking shock waves of electrons and mana scattering in every direction. And between it all was me and Toril, grinning madly at each other while we attempted to overpower the other. An easy effort for Toril against this eleven body of mine. Even then, however, Toril decided against wasting any more energy and pulled mana from his Well to spread a line of burning bubbles between us.
And then came Toril’s laugh.
Letting out a laugh of my own, I withdrew the smallest fraction of arcana from my well, sent it through my own fiery core, and released it toward the sky. Being immune to explosions, heat, and light, Toril and I were flung in opposite directions- him towards the ground, to crash into a few trees until he infused his body with Gas Magic while I rocketed into the sky.
As I rose, a clear picture of the chaos we’d created started to form. Zakira and Urshure were in the center of the ring of dark fire, having fun and rampaging against the small fries until Roheisa, Silva, or someone else stepped in to drive them away. And elsewhere, a myriad of battles similar to the one between me and Toril were taking place. It was... beautiful. But the picture wasn’t complete yet. And so I took my spear back from the Phantom Knight and raised it overhead. I formed a stream of arcana and split it in two, sending one through my core of night and the other through my charged core. And when they fused on the other side, they poured from my frame as Purple Lightning.
Into my spear, my Purple Lightning flowed. Rippling, dancing across the blade until it began to glow with a violet hue. Then I descended, spinning the spear overhead like a storm-fueled helicopter to release my storm upon my classmates. Meanwhile, a streak of cobalt danced through the darkness, ricocheting off nearby combatants until it took to the skies toward the Shadowsteel Reaper.
“Let’s see you steal this!”
After bypassing Toril like a relativistic kill missile, the Shadowsteel Reaper cratered into the ground and detonated in a black flash. In its wake came a web of umbral arcs of electricity that spread in all directions, frying the weaker ones into their cocoons and causing the not-so-weak ones to be shocked with cold fear. The strong ones, however, simultaneously turned their rapt attention to me. However, the lesser of them still faltered after feeling my gravity mana pouring into the Reaper as I spun it overhead.
Once the others passed them. Their courage seemed to return. They lashed out alongside their comrades. Weapons held at the ready. Spells right at the precipice of being cast. But not before I slammed the Reaper’s hilt into the ground to spread a Moon Quake, lifting the many students airborne. But before I could act, I felt a stinging pain erupt below my shoulder blade just before a demonic voice hissed in my ear. “That fucking hurt!”
With another hiss, the searing pain withdrew. Leaving the cold, stinging feeling of an open wound lingering on my back. Turning, I saw the half-demon, Zarzok, drawing a clawed hand up to his face to give it a couple of loud sniffs. “Devil.” He grinned.
"Half." Grinning back, I wrapped the Dial around my wrist and flicked it to the left. Then jabbed with death mana infused into my knuckles before I activated Terminal Ferocity, accelerating my jab through his pointed nose at truly ludicrous speeds. In my dilated world, I felt the satisfactory sensation of my hand collapsing beneath crushed cartilage as Zarzok’s head reeled back. And in exchange, a potent stream of vitality came rushing back into me, supercharging the healing process of my hand and wound by leaps and bounds. But I wasn’t finished. I reached forward to grab Zarzok by the horns and pulled, breaking the dam on a stream of Usurped Strength that was soon joined by another once gravity saw his face fall into my knee.
As he reeled back again, sneering, I released my hold on his head in favor of raising my left arm and forming a hammer fist to drop on his neck. As before, Zarzok’s body folded under the force of his own strength, yet his strange smirk persisted. Worse, it intensified once the muscles in my arms began to bulge. My bones began to crack all over. My skin began to stretch. And then I felt it.
Real strength.
In one swift motion, I stood upright and skipped forward to punt Zarzok in the chin. And this time, I felt the distinct cracking of bone that out-competed my own. My foot was only a little damaged. Zarzok, however, had been lifted off the ground to eye-level, where he remained suspended in his apex before he began to not-so-gently fall down. With a fat bruise on his chin hilariously resembling a goatee, he scowled at me with wide, burning eyes.
But he could say nothing. He could only attempt to perceive me infusing more mana into my two martial spells than ever before until I lunged forward with an open palm. Upon impact, my palm depressed into his sternum in ways that felt like pushing into memory foam filled with Legos. His bones- crumpled and powdered, dug into my skin like rocks trapped in the grate of a waterway, unrelenting as if they were pressured into the act by the intoxicating strength pouring into me. All while completely disregarding the gravitational energy flowing out. In response, Zarzok began to reel back further and further. And once I released the dial he all but disappeared. Leaving nothing but a stream of foul curses in his wake.
As I watched him go, smiling, a sudden realization came over me.
I spun around at once. Just in time to see a bright light flash into my eyes. Reflexively, I whipped my arm to the left to bring relative time down to a sudden halt. And then I saw it again- or rather, him. Lance. Hardly moving in mid-strike, his eyes focused on where I’d been, even while I calmly stepped around him.
‘Now that is interesting.’
Grinning wide, I spun, jumped, and delivered a gravitationally assisted kick to his lower back. Then released the Chrono Dial for good to watch him go rocketing through the air like Zarzok. Within only five seconds, he'd fallen no less than 1.8 kilometers away from the battlefield. During that time, however, the wave of students who had been fighting found their way to me. Meters ahead of them all was a slender boy with undeniably Asian features approaching with nothing but his fists and feet. Yet, the veil of mana surrounding him was almost as thick as mine. More so, he was simultaneously using Bolstering and Projection in tandem with keeping a stream of mana cycling through his body.
In other words.
‘Another monk, eh?’
Grinning madly, I weaved forward to hit him with a roundhouse, then finished him off with a Gravity Bullet to send him cartwheeling into a group of small fry. Giving me space to infuse my body with void.
Within seconds, the void ate away at the ground beneath me and I fell. Under gravity alone, I dove deep below the surface until my entry point was but a small pinpoint of twilight. Then I began wading. As if I were swimming, I swept my arms and thus swept void tendrils through the bedrock, releasing untold quantities of earth to be raised. Raised like my hands after they were withdrawn and infused gravitationally.
The ground responded to my antics with resonating cracks that threatened to disperse my Wraith Form. As the seconds passed, they grew louder. Stones began to fall from above while boulders only ascended, compacting and spreading to fill the earth and skies while the bubble around me only expanded. As the cave grew, my body ascended. First past the layers upon layers of substrate and soil, mangled with roots and spotted with fossils until, eventually, the twilight began to show through the floating planetoids.
When my body surfaced, the mass of rock and earth above had risen to over a dozen meters above the ground, occluding the torn battlefield in an oppressive shadow. Those not caught up in it could only crane their necks upward and prepare for the best while those trapped in its pull could only orbit around it helplessly. At least until I began to spread the chunks around. Spreading them, weaving them; splitting them in two. And watching them as they multiplied to four and ever more until a cloud of dusty debris remained suspended above the battlefield.
But they broke apart still. And as they did, I turned my focus to my companions and drew them in with an Artificial Well. One by one, they came hurtling through the air towards me. First, my doppelganger, the Phantom Knight, and the Menagerie, followed by Zakira, and lastly Urshure. And with all of us gathered, I turned my attention to the others, scattered across the battlefield, and infused my voice with mana before I Bamfed us out of there and let the sky fall.
“May the strong survive.”