“Did you call Bobby?”
Jasmine nodded toward Arson, answering his question. He couldn’t help but chuckle, knowing that the announcer was going to entertain their guests unlike any announcer Arson had ever encountered, both inside and outside the realm.
“Good.”
“Did you double check all the RSVPs?” Jasmine gave another nod in response. Arson paced within the large meeting room he normally used to interact with any of his friends and family, feeling as if he was forgetting something. Going over a mental checklist he’d built up in his Overlay.
“What about—“
Arson paused when Jasmine lifted a hand palm out toward him, giving him a pointed look.
“I have a question of my own, Arson,” stated Jasmine sternly, before Arson gestured for her to continue and Jasmine’s features softened.
“Are you ready?”
Arson thought a moment, realizing that after a moment of thought, that he wasn’t ready at all. His thoughts were a jumbled mess. He didn’t know how he was even going to approach the tournament, or how he planned on defending himself without his mana, Jill, Jane, and Jaqueline, or his Gestalt abilities.
Even his cowl and mask used mana, and Sky was prone to drain his mana to be used in the slightest of ways sometimes. All he could think to use were his dead arts, and even the Dead Sea Palm would result in him breaking bones and needing mana to heal.
At this point Arson felt as if he would be blessed if the moment he entered the tournament his title triggered and outright stripped him of his mana usage entirely.
“Not at all,” said Arson admittedly. He felt he was going to lose the tournament and fail his second task for learning teleportation from his mother, and the thought alone was enough to make him sigh.
“Don’t you think you should mentally prepare yourself for all this, it is a rather big deal?”
“Prepare how exactly? At this point, I feel like I’m heading toward an absolute thrashing, but I’d rather fail than not participate,” said Arson pointedly. He felt something was wrong with his connection with Troy, not that it was gone or changed, just suppressed somehow. Almost as if an external force was interfering with their bond, which left Arson more agitated than normal since she’d disappeared.
Arson felt he knew where she was by this point, and with his time to return to Endless quickly coming to pass, he had plans to make sure he saw her before he left again.
“Do I even want to ask what’s up your rear, Mr. Attitude?”
“No, I mean nothing is up my you-know-what. I’m leaving... you obviously have this under control, call me if you need me,” said Arson before he strode straight out of the room and headed off. He wanted to clear his head to the best of his ability before he had to arrive at the tournament grounds, and decided to warm up before he ran out of time.
He found himself rushing toward a portal inside the dump that he’d directed Chozen to enter to train the previous day. The young woman wanted every advantage possible before competing with her brothers, whom she’d told Arson may be his biggest hurdle, beside the few random Cultivators from higher realms.
Some of the competitors simply outclassed Cultivators from their realm being born in realm layers saturated in far higher levels of mana. Chozen felt this could include Arson because the dump and junkyard seemed to overflow with various uncountable mana types.
Once he reached the portal, he strode straight inside to find a lush forest surrounding a mountain. The reverse element volcano endlessly spewed water and chunks of ice from its top, creating multiple rivers that flowed down each side of the mountain and into the forest below.
The river he ran alongside was unfrozen and free of ice, as the sun above beamed bright and strong, melting the contents of the rivers the further away from the mountain top one got. He rushed toward the sound of battle, pulling the stealth version of his cowl over his head, his facial features submerged in darkness and the appearance of a star filled night sky once more.
He’d settled on wearing the stealth cowl to disguise himself, even if he couldn’t use the abilities granted by the armament itself. He’d even had a new custom tabard made to wear for the tournament that held a conglomeration of stars that moved in the same spiral that the stars underneath his cowl did. It was an amazing feat of runic design created by his sister Axis that allowed the cloth material to sustain a moving image. With Xani’s help, Axis made it seem as if it was a rather simple task. Regardless, Arson loved it and wanted his old tabard to have the function added.
Finally, Arson made it into a clearing where Chozen fought against a horde of various elemental types. Water, earth, ice, stone, and even wood creatures formed from either singular or mixtures of those elements swarmed the young woman on all sides.
Her fist and feet snapped out with sonic booms, plasma pink energy wrapped around her limbs forming armor that exploded on contact with each blow, only to reform before her next strike. Arson had to admit that the sight was impressive.
Even as he approached, he noticed a small dome around herself that slowed any and all attacks sent in her direction. The momentum drained from the elemental's movements the moment they entered her range. Every attack moving rapidly stripped of power to inevitably move in slow motion before they were able to make contact with her body.
The plasma punches and kicks made the humanoid elemental bodies burst with explosions that knocked back other opponents that tried to close in, and Arson couldn’t help but smile. Chozen had already improved drastically while being inside the dungeon. The time inside the space moving at a tenth of the speed that time moved outside the dungeon which had given the young woman almost ten days of combat and training since she entered.
“Having fun yet?”
Arson sped into combat not waiting for a response. He’d asked the question, but honestly hadn’t even wanted to converse. Chozen so focused she merely gave a smile and a nod in his direction, continuing to crush her opponents.
Arson cleaved his way through the mob and toward Chozen. Kicks and punches from the dead art Wing Chun sent out in flurries resulting in devastating losses to the near elemental army around them both.
“Can we turn up the difficulty a little bit,” yelled Arson through the plasma explosions. Chozen’s brow furrowed at his question, until she glanced in his direction, and saw him pointing at a punch that came at him as if his opponent struggled to wade through deep water.
“Sure, no problem,” yelled Chozen, pulling the perimeter of her momentum draining barrier closer in toward her body.
In the next breath all motion in the area snapped violently into a chaotic mess. Arson slightly regretted his request when enemies closed in on all sides of them in a rush. His eyes went wide, and he was forced to use the power of his cowl to inhale the mana around himself, sucking the life-force from the insides of the elementals bodies in a vacuum of power.
Dozens of the monstrous creatures disintegrated in an instant, Arson turning slowly, wiping away a large section of enemies with a single inhalation.
“Way to make a girl feel inadequate!”
Arson’s deep and distorted chuckle rumbled through the area and the two continued to fight. The two weren’t excellent teammates but after an entire morning passed within the dungeon, even that changed. Their movements synchronizing well enough that they needed to move further toward the mountain to gain a continual challenge.
Arson’s punches, counters and sweeping kicks, smoothly linked into the openings brought on by Chozen’s pink plasma explosions. He missed using his weapons and skills, but settled into a voracious momentum that made them more powerful than before, and made the young woman by his side more envious than she was prior.
“You aren’t a mortal, are you,” yelled Chozen in question when they closed in to the base of the mountain. Arson wanted to ignore the young woman, but remembered he’d given her his word that if he’d lost their bet, he would answer her questions.
“No, I suppose not. The System calls me a Godling, whatever that may be, you wouldn’t happen to know what that is, would you?” The wide eyed stare he received, made him wonder if he shouldn’t have told the truth in that moment; Chozen no longer moving amidst a sea of monsters.
“You’re serious, aren’t you,” asked Chozen, forced to dodge in a much more drastic way than ever before even as she questioned him.
“Yes, why is that a bad thing?”
“No, just rare for someone our age is all,” stated Chozen. No words passed between them for a while, but eventually she decided to answer Arson’s original question.
“From what my realm understands, Godlings are creatures that fulfill the requirements for being an immortal in one or two of the three mandates Cultivators see as the minimums needed to become an Ancient, or beings capable of becoming Godly beings, and one day even natural forces used by the system to create balance, order, disorder, and chaos,” said Chozen. Arson nodded, doing his best not to barrage the princess with the flood of questions that bombarded into his own mind. He sensed instinctually that if he remained silent he’d gain far more in that instant than he would otherwise.
“If I had to guess, you have either refined your mind, soul, or both to astronomical heights for your age, and your body is most likely the only thing holding you back from an ascension,” said Chozen. The words made Arson wonder how correct she was about him, and why she felt that way, which prompted him to speak up again.
“What makes you believe that?”
“Our experience with the Living Armor, the technique you used was the first thing strong enough to make the armor disengage. Not only that I saw your fingers afterward, your hand was obviously broken as if it couldn’t handle the power behind the maneuver, but above all else, all the Godling Cultivators alive in Prism, my home realm, have either refined their minds, or souls to the same degree, only one Cultivator I’ve ever met has been capable of refining their body to the level necessary to be considered a Godling by the system, and that is my elder brother Tartaria, and even that is a fluke brought on by the power within his blood that makes him able to transform,” explained Chozen even while continuing to wade through the depths of the monster horde around them both. Arson took in the information and couldn’t help but agree. He’d long believed his body held him back in many ways, but to have someone else speak his hypothesis aloud as if it was factual, was rewarding.
“I’ve had the ability to regenerate practically any damage to my body since a very young age, so I’ve never truly had to push my body to become stronger, if I’m being honest I really only fear being decapitated, just don’t know if I could survive that,” said Arson more as a passing thought to himself than a response to Chozen.
“Really think you should be telling a foreign princess what you feel to be is your Achilles heel,” grumbled Anastasia from Arson’s wrist. A glancing glare was directed toward the laughing watch, and Arson rolled his eyes at the strange look Chozen gave him after hearing the strange voice come from his direction in the middle of combat.
“You are full of secrets, aren’t you,” asked Chozen.
“Of course, aren’t we all,” stated Arson, even while stretching backward in a gravity defying dodge to avoid a spray of ice shards from one of the many elementals still pressing toward them from a distance.
“As much as I would like to say yes, I know the depths of myself aren’t nearly as far reaching as the details of your life appear to be.”
“Why do I feel judged,” yelled Arson with a laugh, plasma explosions so loud that every statement that passed between the pair required to be yelled.
“Because you are. If I’m being honest, you're the exact type of individual my father wants me to pursue, and I’d be lying if I didn’t feel as if I should push for that myself,” yelled Chozen with a large smile on her face. Regal armor forming on her body in mere blinks in between enemy strikes. Enemies lucky enough to strike her, blown backward, if not completely dismantled by their own strikes landing on her armored form.
“Sorry to tell you this but I’ve already been stripped of a royal title in my life, and even if I was chasing to regain it, you would have no chance in claiming my heart or attention. I am already taken,” stated Arson with a smile of his own, though his brilliant whites went unnoticed under the effects of his cowl.
“Something told me you would say something like that, but I’d still hoped your gracious generosity had been your way of flirting. Any woman would be lucky to have your complete devotion. Are you sure there is no room for anyone else, even in the slightest?”
“Positive, and trust me, Princess. You won’t struggle to find a powerful partner, just focus on yourself and it will happen,” responded Arson.” Arson saw the girl nod to herself after a glance at him, and though he felt bad, he was glad that he’d potentially dodged another unwanted pursuer, as princess Amorra was more than enough of an annoyance in his life already.
The two continued to fight, and Arson knew that their time inside the dungeon was drawing to a conclusion quickly. Chozen expressed her sadness in not being able to complete the dungeon, asking if it were possible for her to return after the tournament to reach the depths of the mountain they’d only just began to climb. Arson not seeing any issue in the matter gave the princess permission, and the two started their trek back toward the entrance.
Arson felt far more settled after the expanded time fighting in the dungeon. He’d even changed his mind about wearing his cowl during the tournament. The need for hiding pushed aside. The time to shine was upon him, and though he felt villainous in his pursuit of power in recent days, an internal struggle was being overcome, and a new pride was being refined within his mind. A pride that would one day make him loved by many, and feared by all.
“Now let the games begin…”