Bella surrounded the blue elf in a field of raw mana her expression irritated as the androgynous creature seemed unhindered by ten times normal gravity. They were dancing about as three daggers made from black mana were slung into Bella’s unarmored arm. Her tanned skin darkened in places as the black ichor seemingly entered her veins and began to spread.
“What is this?”
“Call of the abyss, the longer we fight the longer you will be influenced by the whispers of the deep. As time goes on you will slowly lose control of your thoughts and become a thrall.”
“Oh. Great. This is some lovecraft-level stuff then.” Bella said having unconsciously shifted to English when she said that statement. However, the reason behind it has more to do with her trying to speak the nickname of a creature that exists beyond their laws to someone of another universe.
“Great, the madness is taking fast.” The elf smiled eerily revealing hundreds of sharp needle-thin teeth.
Bella used the distraction to create a well-up negative gravity which she used to land a kick meant to send the fishy elf flying.
Oddly enough Bella felt as though she had kicked a mountain and the mountain won as her leg was sprained and the elf was only moved an inch.
“What are you made of?”
“Do you really want to know?”
Bella didn’t hesitate as she decreased the gravity even more the creature seemingly began to start floating as she was held in a field of negative gravity.
The elf laughed as she seemingly spun in the air and whipped Bella with eight more daggers of shadow.
Hungry.
“And so it begins.”
Bella looked up and noticed her opponent seemed to be waiting as the sun appeared to move a great distance in a short while.
“Just what are you?” Bella asked her sense of self slipping away as a primal hunger ate at her.
“Who knows.” The elf looked at Bella with unblinking eyes.
“Now then are you ready to give in?”
“Of course not!” Bella charged forward, raising gravity as she forced a transformation.
A swarm of dark tendrils pierced Bella and the last thing she felt before the darkness consumed her mind was the light of the twin moons above.
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“Bella! Come in Bella! Get some distance, I'm on my way.” Cecil said while flipping various switches and pointing his mech in Bellas's general location.
As the distance closed, Bella seemed to begin growing. From her tall werewolf form, she began to grow exponentially. She reached her forced maximum in moments, which was around thirty feet tall, then continued to increase as she doubled two more times as she stood above a creature with blue skin and a hazy figure—almost as though it were but an illusion.
“Oh… that isn’t good.” Cecil’s mech grabbed Bella in her giant form and flew her backward, right as colossal inky tentacles shot from the ground and attempted to grab and drag her into the ground.
“Bella, snap out of it!” Cecil said through the speakers.
“We’re so hungry. Must devour!” Everything in the nearby area increased in weight by 1000% causing the various cacti to implode and the ground beneath her to crater
“Not now, we’re fighting. If you want to eat, go back to normal. You need to focus Bella.”
Bella’s colossal form didn’t like Cecil’s statement she decided to take a bite out of the mech only to immediately wince. As glowing red irises turned blue she immediately began spitting it out.
“Why Cecil, what devil whispered into your ear that covered a giant robot in something so vile?”
“That wasn’t designed with you in mind. Come on, Bella think through the fog!”
“I just need to eat!” Bella's eyes reddened again.
“Who turned our captain into an eldritch horror? Never mind that Bella, I have two of Kyrion’s special healthy food bars. I didn't want to do this but you left me no choice. The ones that taste like chalk and disappointment but are chock-full of vitamins and calories. Say you’re hungry one more time and I'm tossing it in!”
Bella came back for a longer time. “NoOOooo!”
Tentacles wrapped around the mech before shivering. A blue substance seeped into the tentacles.
Cecil opened the cockpit withdrew a rectangular food bar and tossed it with all of his strength. Which appeared to be much greater than one would expect.
The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.
Bella further raised the gravity around her as metal creaked and yet she reacted a little too late as the wrapped brick was forced into her mouth and vanished. Oddly enough an explosion occurred when the bar began getting digested and Bella’s eyes rolled to the back of her head as she passed out.
"More calories than a hundred Twinkies. None of the taste."
“How dare you do that to my sacrifice!” Yelled the blue elf.
Cecil sighed as he fired a beam at the creature from his gauntlets. Falling into his machine with an unconscious Bella.
The strange elf hissed in pain retreating as skin crackled and something underground moved. Within seconds a creature resembling a squid with a seal head sticking out of the top appeared.
“Your death will feed thousands, Metal Man.” The seal head cackled.
Cecil sighed as he received a garbled message.
“...Epsilon...Ceci...use...final...cide...ker"
Cecil squinted as weapons attached to the A.N.G.E.L system received a massive boost in firepower. Wings spread behind the giant mech as magic circles surrounded Cecil’s machine providing him with mana, protection, and a deadly catalyst.
Cecil’s mech withdrew a sword that seemed to stretch high into the sky. “Return to the land as a nourishment starving creature of the Abyss for you trespass on this light filled lands. Become the food of the desolate land. This is your end, and the land's beginning. Life giving execution!”
The elf retreated the second Cecil started chanting, attempting to stab themselves in the heart.
The mountain-sized squid was not lucky enough to be participating in a tournament as the sword fell, the creature raised countless limbs to guard to be cut in half as a field of gravity pushed the sword down with even greater force.
The resounding blast as limbs were destroyed and an Abyssal entity was slain. Spread throughout the land as mana-filled rain began to fall from the sky. In time the climate of the entire area would change rapidly.
“You have overstepped Cecil. Such levels of power are too much for one human under the expert tier to use. You are becoming a threat to this world.” A female voice from above said to Cecil.
“I couldn’t have done something like this without the help of those in my organization. As far as I'm concerned this was teamwork at its finest.”
The voice retreated, contemplating how to judge such an attack if it required multiple people’s help to produce.
“Why is Imala trying to judge me now?”
A cat appeared on Cecil's shoulder and sighed. “Because she’s currently being watched by a other coworkers and the big boss...Wait, thats odd. It seems that there are other gods close to her as well. I assume this is why the scarlet demon was handicapped so much this morning. Want me to patch you into the Chaos when we get sent back?”
“Sent?” Cecil asked as his mech went dark without warning, as a cube of purple mana surrounded them and they seemingly vanished along with an exhausted Bella.
A statue the size of Cecil’s mech then crumbled as a Lion tore through its stone body.
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Bella awoke in the medical ward seeing a very irritated-looking Cecil looking at an apple as though it stole his blueprints.
“What’s wrong?” Bella asked.
“How are you feeling?” Cecil’s expression softened as he noticed Bella wake up.
“I don’t know. I’m not injured but my head stings a bit.”
“That’s good. The headache means that the medicine they gave you worked. Can you stand?”
Bella got to her feet. “Well I'm not dizzy or injured. What's wrong? I don’t even know how we lost”
“I don’t think we did. Not though the usual means anyways. Someone with power beyond the expert tier is with Volain and they used a spell that triggered the wards instantly before getting eliminated.”
“How could someone like that be eliminated?”
“Only willingly. Which means that they have their own goal and taking us out of the fight was one of them.”
“That is disturbing. Everyone after you is around a similar level of power.”
“Correct in most regards. If our captain was defeated.” Cecil led them to another room where an exhausted Volain was currently looking at a hand of cards.
“The wards should have saved him if he’d been attacked in such a lethal way, manual blood pumping or not. Care to guess why he wasn’t removed?” Cecil muttered aloud.
“Because he countered the wards?” Bella nodded.
“Kyrion may be an airhead but even he knows not to abandon such a position.” Cecil tossed the apple at Kyrion.“When did you do the switch?”
“Switch?” Volain seemed concerned.
“They get more lifelike each time I see them.” Bella looked at the plant clone. The smell was enough to set off her warning signals.
“Exactly and this one has an absurd amount of mana and durability. I suspect this clone is what Volain had fought the whole time.”
“To be precise we swapped during the fight with beakface. I sensed that we were being watched by someone we didn’t know, and swapped under the cover of flame. To be fair this is a weird way to think considering the fact that I contain 75% of the main body’s mind and memories which were deemed enough to act within current parameters, and with our injury, I wouldn’t have been able to beat Volain without that extra 25%.”
“Why do I feel cheated? Fight me when we get out of the hospital.” Volain demanded
“What are you up to?” Cecil added
“I honestly couldn’t tell you. And Volain, I'll fight you when you can beat me at poker.” Kyrion sighed as he closed his eyes.
“I know you’re cheating. I just need to figure out how you're doing it. No one is that lucky.”
“Lets go tail White Fox.” Cecil stated.
“I wouldn’t do that, not unless you want to be docked for cheating…Actually, if we get disqualified, then some of my movements won’t need to be discrete. Cecil is probably the only one who will benefit from something new, that the top rankers will grant.”
“What actually is the top prize?” Bella asked.
“Hmmm…Is this public information Charles?” Kyrion placed a royal flush on the table in irritation before he rubbed the back of his neck.
“I won’t have to kill you if you tell them. But…I may have to kill them instead.”
“Can you tell them then?”
“I would require payment first.”
“A favor or one of these?” Kyrion rolled a blue coin across his fingers.
“Whichever you believe is cheaper.” Charles stated.
Kyrion raised an eyebrow as he thought. “This is easier to make than a blank favor with no limitations.”
“Would I ever do anything that would bring you harm?”
“Yes. If it was for my own good.” Kyrion flicked the coin towards the expert who soon caught it.
“The first prize grants you access to a certain artifact. The Rankers Tablet to be precise. It resembles an awakening tablet only much more powerful. A Rankers Tablet is often used as a way to buy power from various powerful entities. Or to purchase one of the limited awakening tablets, from this world. Though the true limit to what someone can use it for is based on these. One of these could buy up two of fifty awakening tablets, or evolve a spirit within one's core.” Charles held up the coin Kyrion produced.
Volain crossed his arms. “Where’s my lot?”
“The bank is currently under maintenance and I won’t be able to withdraw for eight more days. Blame Imala for breaking the vault. Now then, Charles, what type of wish would be useful to someone like Cecil? But within the power that this tournament will grant?” Kyrion flicked the old man a second coin.
“No need. But as an example, you could be given a powerful core for your mana so that you can cast larger spells and no longer rely on ambient mana or donations from someone like that. I won’t be large, but you could train it, as you are not a spirit master, your method of training your mana pool will be much different and completely up to you. Though you’d be given some powerful tools to help progress down your path.” Charles still slid the coin in his pocket.
“Now then. As for why winning isn’t really in our best interests? It’s about 100% better to evolve your spirit via an infusion of Soul Power (S.P.).”
“He means Divine Essence.” Volain shook his head.
“Call it what you will. There is no real right answer. Though most will call it Divine Essence, as usually one can only gain these coins from a deity. They should only be made by divine entities as well. At least that's how they see it.”
“Anyways. After the tournament I plan on teaching you all how to naturally evolve your spirits before reaching the Expert tier. As doing it during a tournament like this is quite risky.”
“There you have it. Now then, what is your goal in the tournament if it isn’t to win? Mr.Worldbreaker.”
“Lose in a convincing way while making sure Asela wins. Which is why Uriel wasn’t there when your orc squads came.”
“What?” Volain seemed surprised.
“I’m messing with you. As things are either your team or mine will fight either Asela’s or the republic’s. You can show off your tools, and if you want to fight to the end I’ll let you. We’re fighting for pride at this point. Now I'm starting to get tired.” Kyrion shut his eyes and pretended to sleep.