Alister walked up the steps of the Augustine manor. The front door had been made of mana glass, which had been obliterated along with every bit of mana glass throughout the entire home during Alister’s opening salvo.
The runic vibration had caused an instability in the material, causing every inch of the glass to bend inward after being attracted to the air and mana in the environment all around the glass.
Alister wore a broad smile hearing the crunch of shards underneath his dress shoes. He’d entered the compound with every intention of beating down every mob boss and political leader that had gathered within for the information he needed, and was excited to see what level of adversity he would face during his raid of the home.
He didn’t make it far in before a roar drew his attention. A well dressed young man raced toward Alister. His suit sleeves ablaze and his long black hair marking him as one of the Augustines inner family.
“Hey Tony,” Alister said casually as the young Cultivator lifted both arms in his direction, twin sprays of fire washing over Alister like a strong breeze. His clothes buffeted backward with the force of the flames, but not burn even the slightest bit.
Alister performed a high kick as Tony Augustine tried to bear hug him. The kick snapped out so quickly that the young Cultivator had no chance of defending himself, instantly lifted off his feet into the air.
In a flash Alister stepped in, not allowing the young Augustine to fall from the air before nearly a hundred punches were drilled into the youthful Cultivator’s body. An entire morning’s worth of memories was wiped away with a flurry of blows, before Alister took a smooth step backward, allowing the young Cultivator to fall to his knees after being bounced through the air like a martial form practice dummy; the Augustine member seemingly hung on hooks in that moment, for nothing more than a Cultivator’s practice for aerial combat.
“Are you okay?” Alister asked after bending over to get close to the bleary eyed Augustine youth. Tony blinked up at Alister confused and dazed, his once blazing shirt sleeves snuffed out completely.
“What happened, where am I?” Alister shrugged as Tony looked around at the destroyed entrance to his home.
“I don’t know, I came in and you were kneeling on the ground with your eyes closed, so I shook you to wake you up, where is your dad? Isn’t there supposed to be some kind of meeting today?” Alister asked with a kind smile. Tony thought for a moment before nodding slowly.
“Umm, yeah, I think he’s in the basement getting ready—“
Alister didn’t even let the young man finish speaking before he executed a perfect spin kick to the head, sending Tony flying out of the front door. The young Cultivator knocked out completely before he even rolled down the front steps. Alister shook his head as he strode away, whistling once more.
“Bloody idiot…”
…
Almarine slowly descended from the sky. Looking all throughout the Augustine manor as she dropped from the skies above for Alister, not finding him anywhere.
As she thudded down to the marble floors of the manor, the entire home shook with a tremor. The tinkle of glass brushing against glass echoing all through the home before Almarine even took her first step.
“Alister!”
She received no answer in response to her yell, so with a sigh, decided to go and look for the Cultivator she’d come for.
The further she went into the home, the more signs of combat could be seen. Holes in walls. Detached chandeliers. Dislodged and destroyed appliances. As well as an abundance of burning furniture that Almarine felt to be unusual.
“You would think that everything in here would be fire proof…”
The closer she got to the manor’s basement, the more slumped and unconscious Cultivators she saw laid about. The Augustine family members as well as many other clans could be found in the mix, and Almarine could do nothing but shake her head as she strode deeper.
Past a woman slamming her own head in a refrigerator door. Underneath a collapsed wall that two Augustines fought each other in front of, both trying to force the other into a large decorative water fountain. As well as stepping over countless murmuring mortals who lay around on fire, still wearing blank expressions as they burned alive; all made Almarine regret sending Alister to find her target.
“Do you always have to be so heavy handed Alister…”
Finally Almarine found the steps that led into the basement. She glanced toward the open elevator shaft beside the stairwell, just in time to watch two flaming bodies fall from above, the pair of Cultivators amidst a brawl. A thud was heard a moment later, and a wash of flames exploded from the open shaft.
Finally after walking down the stairs, a familiar whistle was heard. Almarine stepped into a small room that was little more than a entryway for the much larger basement to see Alister.
Her protege stood in front of a white haired old man who wore a confused expression as he stared back at Alister. The well built older man glanced toward the ruckus coming from the doorway that led into the basement, and back toward Alister.
“You demon,” yelled the older man suddenly, his face shifting as If he’d just remembered something pivotal. Something that told him that Alister was his enemy. Flames wrapped around the man’s body, a deep purple light exploding into life, only for Alister to sigh in annoyance as he flicked the man in the forehead.
The elderly man flew backward, bouncing off the wall behind himself; Alister reaching out slowly to pluck the man from the air. Almarine only then noticed the black imprint of the man’s body on the wall he’d just been rebounded off of, letting her know this wasn’t the first time this had occurred.
“Let's try this again,” Alister said. The purple flames disappeared and Alister let go of the man’s neck, letting the Augustine elder plop to the floor from the few inches he held him off the ground.
“Elder Anthony, can you hear me?” Alister asked calmly. The older man nodded and rubbed his forehead, looking around in confusion.
“I’m old not deaf, youngster, what are you—“
The elderly man’s eyes went wide, and flames once more lit his body.
“You demon!”
Alister groaned, flicking the man in his forehead once again. The entire process starting from the beginning. Almarine sighed at the sight and decided to speak up before she was forced to witness the cycle continue in utter madness.
“He has a Recollection Chip installed in his spine Alister, doesn’t batter how many times you wipe his brain, his Overlay is going to reinstall a copy of his memories in a fraction of a blink,” Almarine explained speaking up as she stepped closer.
Alister looked between the blazing elder squirming in his grasp, and the Orphan Mother. He then lifted his free hand and summoned a lightning rune, countless sparks dancing between his fingertips as he raised his free hand toward the back of the man’s head. He shrugged as he responded, the Augustine’s elder beginning to thrash violently the closer Alister’s hand came to him.
“Wish I would have known that sooner,” Alister started, but Almarine appeared next to him in a flash, stopping both his speech and his attempted electrocution.
“That isn’t going to do anything either, you're just going to give the man brain damage,” Almarine said looking toward the suffocating man, and the large bruise on his forehead.
“If you haven’t already, that is…”
“Well, what do you expect me to do then, I have a reputation to uphold as an honorable business man, can’t have this geezer running around knowing my ability.”
Almarine looked into the basement to see absolute chaos unfolding less than a hundred yards from them, and shook her head slowly. She pinched the bridge of her nose and took a deep breathe.
“I’ll handle elder Anthony, will you please just stop whatever it is you’ve started in there?”
Alister chuckled, peeking into the basement, before his own eyes went wide.
“Bloody embers that went left quickly…”
Almarine opened her eyes to see the mosh pit of a battlefield that was now the Augustine manor’s basement. The meeting area was filled with Cultivators either dying or killing one another.
One of the stronger Augustines could be seen flying well above the others in the room, expelling flames like a sun. While the rest of her family pulled from her power, redirecting the flames at all their enemies.
Although the Augustines were winning the battle, their victory came with a large cost that was paid in lives. None of the other families had brought enough members to overwhelm the family of flame Cultivators, but the unified front put forth by every individual that fought back was impressive.
Lightning, earthen spears, and even a blackhole could be seen in the room, attacks raining toward the family at the center from all directions as the carnage unfolded.
Alister cleared his throat, looking to Almarine for help. His eyes pleading.
“By the maiden, give me Anthony first and let's be done with this…”
It only took Almarine a moment of contemplation to consider how she wanted to handle the situation, but knew her timing needed to be perfect.
Almarine took Elder Anthony by the neck, looking the man in the eyes, while her free hand was simply waved toward the entrance of the basement. Everything froze in the room beyond, and Alister couldn’t help but chuckle at the sight, Almarine ignored him as she looked deep into the eyes of the elder, her own irises becoming a fractal of power as she spoke. Walking the enamored man toward the doorway as she did so.
“They didn’t want peace, they wanted war, you tried to unite but only friction and betrayal was given in return, now all that is left is war, a war that you and your family will fight until the end…”
Almarine watched as the man’s own eyes flickered with the same fractal pattern her eyes emitted, and knew her hypnosis and mental distortion had been completed. She touched the man’s Recollection Chip as she set him down, scrambling the device with finite precision that even his Overlay wouldn’t be able to overcome, facing him toward the violence abroad.
She then waved her hand once more and watched as the elder took in the seen in the same instance that motion returned to the room.
Almarine waved her hand once more and a translucent wall flickered into existence, making her and Alister invisible. So even when the elder glanced over his shoulder slightly confused at how he’d arrived where he stood, no one stood near to give him any answers. He frowned, shaking his head, and refocused on the room filled with an assault on his very blood line and grit his teeth in anger.
With a roar and a burst of purple flame, elder Anthony rushed into the room. Leaving Almarine and Alister alone to bare witness to the battle.
“One day I wish to be as powerful as you, mother,” Alister said staring at the bloodshed with brilliant eyes that gleamed with envy. Almarine merely smirking, as she put her hand on his shoulder, nodding even though she felt her guts twist at Alister’s words.
May that day never come…
…
Troy, like her best friend and partner, was growing rapidly in power, and the ability to innately gain capabilities lost to time and space.
She had taken to meditating between the countless matches she had been thrust into by her situation. A meditation that was allowing her to strengthen her bond with Arson. So though she couldn’t remember his face, the sound of his voice, or even the last words they’d spoken to one another, their connection was being fortified by a refinement practice that some ancients weren’t even capable of accomplishing in their old age.
Through this connection, Troy had pierced the intangible dimensional limits that secluded the Trial of Infallible Memory from the outside world, and begun to extract the memories of the countless beings that had entered the space.
At first what she managed to gain was small. A new way to block, or parry, and even dodge unseen attacks. But after many fortnights of practice, what she was able to pull from the dimension, began to help her bridge the gap between her and the members of the secret halls. Those with a much higher standing within the schools hidden quarters no longer able to control the flow of combat inside the pit of demoralization she fought in.
“Time to die, Time to die, Time to die”
The screams of the crowd drew her from her contemplation of a world beyond her wildest dreams, and back into the current moment.
Alongside the chant for unrivaled slaughter was an undertone of cheering. Troy had earned a fan base in the hidden halls' pits that had begun to shake the foundation of the normal soul breaking combat the school’s arena was known for.
She’d been offered a chance to leave, joining the school's even more fierce curriculum, but turned down the handful of opportunities.
She had more than enough wins to become a student of the secret halls, but felt she was gaining far more by staying saturated in the near overwhelming numbers of opponents offered by the pits.
Instead of the scythe she used in the beginning, her heart whispered toward heavier weaponry, and after a trial of testing various HardLight based weaponry, Troy found herself using twin maces, completely unaware of the fact that she’d only returned to a style of combat that she was more familiar with.
The weapons felt comfortable in her grip, Troy summoning a blue and a green spiked mace in either hand as she exited her cage.
She no longer looked unbathed as her peers within the pit did. Her cage overflowing with amenities granted by Prince, the Cultivator now treating Troy like a prized possession rather than a captured slave.
Heavy weighted blankets with runic systems stitched in that washed her body as she slept. A bird bath that filled continuously with bubbling water for her to drink from. Even a bell she could ring for another one of Prince’s slaves to bring her food could be found in her cage.
So as she stretched, walking out to stand in the middle of the pits to await her next match, every other caged competitor’s eyes were on her; Troy listened to the murmurs shared by the rest of the members trapped within the pits.
“She has no fear, I watched her battle three portals entirely alone before I was caught and brought down here.
“That’s nothing, I’ve seen her pitted against seven other caged Cultivators at once, and let me tell you the match didn’t last long,” whispered another caged student after Troy glanced in their direction.
“Did you see her fight the rhinos, now that was a sight,” added another.
Troy just put the gossip to the back of her mind; the announcer yelling the details of the next attraction while she summoned HardLight clones of herself.
“What the sparks did he just say…?” Troy’s head snapped up, and her heart began to thrum wildly as she looked around.
All eleven portals held inside the pits began to build with power, and each and every cage in the area opened up simultaneously.
That’s right folks, you heard me right, welcome to a once in a lifetime event. It's kill or be killed. Welcome to the pits of damnation!”