Kal and his team stood ready inside the ring, the crowd growing excited for the fight to begin. Kal could see that several of the people in the crowd were sipping at some of Dalen’s brew. Kal shook his head and turned to watch the prophet step into the middle of the ring and raise his hands.
“Now we begin our first holy bout. Prepare yourselves Hopeful of Dhinir.” He lowered his hands and left the ring. The moment he stepped out a flood of energy washed over each of the combatants. Kal felt it gather in the palm of his hand, he closed his fist and a flanged mace appeared in his hand. Kal would have been disappointed but he was too amazed at the appearance of the mace, It was heavy, a lot heavier than the one he had practiced with during his training with Leo but he felt he could manage it. He looked over his team, Liliana had gotten a pair of daggers, and an axe for Henwick, and Julin got a flail which he looked at with disgust.
Kal nodded to each of them, “Good luck.”
Liliana and Henwick nodded gravely, and Julin just glared back.
Kal took the last minute to inspect the opposing team. Luckily they were at a low enough level that he could still Identify Portan. He was a large man but shorter than Kal, wielding an axe much like Henwick’s, it was clear Liliana was right. He definitely looked like he had heavily invested in strength. From what Kal understood, the more heavily you invest in an attribute the more your body changes to suit. It was more about ratios than actually points though and it was heavily reliant on what level you were. A level one hundred could have thousands more strength than Portan but look much smaller purely because their ratios were more balanced than Portan’s.
The countdown ended with an ear-piercing horn and Team One charged forward, Kal was quickly leading the charge, his agility giving him a clear speed boost compared to the others. His eyes locked on Portan the engaged, Kal making the first strike. His downward swing was clumsily blocked by Portan’s axe. Kal’s aggression clearly took Portan by surprise as he tried to recover with his eyes wide. Kal didn’t let up as he hefted the mace, striking this time for the man’s ribs. Portan managed to block the strike but just barely, one of the flanges still leaving a gash on his chest. Portan grunted and swung his axe forcing Kal to step back. He wasn’t confident he could easily block a strike from the man, but he was confident that he could avoid at least a few of them. Portan certainly hadn’t invested in agility, confirming Kal’s suspicions. Kal moved to swing again but this time as Portan parried he pivoted and hit Kal hard with his shoulder. Kal’s breath left him immediately but he recovered fast, spinning to parry a horizontal swing. He blocked it but his arms ached from the blow. It reminded him of his fights with Leo. Portan was definitely weaker than Leo was at level eleven but the difference compared to Kal was still a huge advantage for the man.
Even successful parries injured Kal enough to make his health drop slowly. The others fought well, though it looked like Liliana was struggling. Urdret was wielding a longsword and with the extra reach, it was difficult for Lilian to get close enough to land a strike. Kal dodged another blow from Portan and swung his mace hard into the man’s right bicep. Portan cried out as the axe fell from his hand, but before Kal moved to strike again, Portan head-butted him square in the face. Kal felt his nose flatten from the strike and his eyes blurred from the mix of blood and tears. Yeah, that sucked. He was getting cocky, he was faster than Portan but not by much and any strike from the man was dangerous. Kal glanced at his resources.
Health:
120/200
Stamina:
140/240
Mana:
0
He still had plenty of juice left in him but he had taken more damage than he had realized. Portan eyed him cautiously as he retrieved his axe, his hand having regained feeling. Kal dashed back in before Portan had a chance to stand fully, striking down towards the man’s head. A flash of green startled Kal as his mace was blocked by Portan’s axe. Kal almost dropped his mace as it felt like he had struck a steel wall, and before he could recover Portan had a hold of his wrist. Fuck…
Portan smiled, “Heavy Haul!”
A flash of green washed over Portan’s arms and suddenly Kal had left the ground and was hurtling through the air before being thrown hard into the ground. His breath left him in a rush, blood poured from his broken nose, and the rest of his but burned all over from the impact. With a groan, Kal rolled to the side and onto his feet just in time to avoid another axe swing. Ok, now he was starting to worry. He had dropped by another fifty percent and looking at Portan, he doubted the man had lost more than twenty percent from all of Kal’s strikes. Looks like the laborer's endurance was definitely helping him here. Even though he was worried Kal was loving this, he felt that same exhilaration he had begun to experience in his more desperate fights with Leo. This time was a bit different though, there was a reward, something Kal could lose if he was defeated. He doubted he would die since he would likely be healed almost immediately after taking an incapacitating blow, but the urgency was still there and with it an uncertainty. Portan was not an enemy, just a participant in a possibly fatal competition. Despite how it sounded Kal still felt himself hesitate with any of his more lethally placed strikes. With every hesitation, he paid for it, with glancing blows or painful weapon clashes.
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Kal’s health ticked down constantly while Portan’s breath was becoming labored as the green aura came and went when the man reached out to try a grapple. Kal wasn’t planning on getting caught like that again so he kept his distance, playing it safe. His neck and shoulder throbbed from hitting the ground earlier but he powered through. After what felt like an eternity Kal saw his chance. Portan staggered, his face pouring with sweat. Kal moved in and swung his mace with all his strength into the man's leg, striking just below the knee. It broke and Portan cried out and fell to the ground, he tried to raise his axe but Kal was already on top of him slamming the mace into the laborer’s shoulder. Kal couldn’t help but flinch a bit at the wet sound of the flanged mace crushing Portan’s shoulder but he raised the weapon again preparing to bring it down again. He was relieved when he looked at the man’s face. Portan was unconscious, once he ran out of stamina the severity of the injuries must have been too much for him.
Kal let out a breath. He was glad to have one but fighting to such a severe state with people who he had no qualms with didn’t sit well with him. Kal turned to look at how the rest of his team had fared. Julin had managed to come out on top and moved on to help Henwick, Lilian on the other hand was struggling with her opponent. Well, he should probably go help her, but Kal wanted to make sure Portan was actually seen too first. At that though a blue beam of mana moved through the air around Portan carefully lifting him up and moving him over to a place near the Prophet in front of a middle-aged woman who then knelt down and placed her hands on his chest as a light encompassed the both of them. Happy to see Portan being worked on, Kal turned and charged to assist Liliana. It almost felt like cheating. With the two of them facing the one man it was incredibly easy to get past his guard and deal serious injury to the man. Either Kal would move in to block a strike while Liliana stabbed him in the back or She would distract him and Kal would move in and hit him hard with his mace. After about thirty seconds it was done and another member of Team Two was down. Kal was exhausted, he wanted to fall to the ground after the two battles. He checked his status to see that he had nearly bottomed out his stamina, which would have likely earned him a sword to the gut if the two of them took any longer to finish Urdrat.
Health:
52/200
Stamina:
13/240
Mana:
0
He would need to be smarter if he was going to win his next fight. Sure a level fourteen was incredibly impressive since he was unascended, but even so, he had no illusions that he could easily beat whoever he fought next. Kal and Liliana were about to help finish off Peter but found Julin and Henwick already making their way over to them. More of the blue mana swept through the ring collecting the rest of Team Two. The small crowd was cheering them on. Kal could see Dalen clapping his hands excitedly, while Leo simply smiled. Soon after the Prophet began to speak but Kal was finding it hard to listen as his stamina slowly regenerated. His heart started pounding in his chest again, the sound reverberating through his head. His thoughts drifted for a moment as he was involuntarily brought into his lesser meditative state. The world around him slowed as his mind was suddenly directed into his physical being. His perception was restricted to the empty space between the flows of vital energy that moved throughout his body to try and repair him. Kal thought of the strangeness of his current condition but the beating of his heart continued to draw him to something…
*Thud* *Thud*
His muscles ached, burning with their spent energy. The feeling radiates through his body, much like vital energy. But something was different, the source of the sensation was strictly associated with his muscles, no, not just his muscles, but also his skin. Suddenly a green energy appeared before his eyes, pulsating from deep within his muscles and radiating out to his skin where it was slowly burning off. His recovering store of stamina coincided with the density of the green energy that lay inside his muscles. He watched the density grow and the burning energy slowly dissipate as his stamina was replenished. Kal had found his physical energy almost accidentally, he wasn’t sure if he should be amazed or concerned. His birthright seemed to forcibly drag him to the realization of his physical energy. He felt himself slowly returning to the surface of his mind and back into reality, but before he truly awakened his heart sped up, and a searing pain shot throughout his body. Kal would have screamed but it happened so fast that he simply staggered and grunted. Though the intense burning was gone, what was left was a subtle sensation of heat, like a candle had been lit inside him. It didn’t hurt but it was uncomfortable. He finally came back to himself to find the Prophet finishing whatever he was talking about and the crowd continuing to cheer, his team walking out of the ring. Kal needed to recover, he could worry about the sensation later.
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“Was that another signature?” Nyx asked the rest of the retrieval team.
Kiara nodded, frowning, “Yes, it is quite concerning. It is not clear if it is a local source or if something extra-planar.”
Nyx turned back to the camp and reactivated her Hawk’s Eye The man’s may not have looked overly impressive but ultimately an unascended had just defeated a person fourteen levels above him. It was quite honestly absurd. The fact that he had been left to rot as an unascended for so long just proved to Nyx that the Empire and their gods were hopelessly naive. These tournaments are all the proof needed to show that even low rarity classes had merit, and seeing an unascended perform better than that should encourage them to research further. Instead, it was a spectacle, entertainment for the masses, or a way to gather more fodder for their armies. Nyx sighed, there was nothing to be done about it now though, she could only wait for their opportunity. These infernal signatures only made her more curious.