“Every one of you better bet on me,” Emyr announced as he stood up, stretching his arms and shaking his shoulders in a lazy shrug.

“Five on whoever is your opponent,” Liliana responded dryly, summoning the gold to wave it mockingly in his face. She darted her hand back when Emyr tried to swipe it from her grip.

“You’ll lose it soon enough,” Emyr shrugged as Liliana put away the money.

The rest of the group gave their well wishes to Emyr as he made his way to the door, Alistair whispering something in his ear that had Emyr’s normally stoic facade cracking for a moment, a soft emotion blurring his features.

“You don’t think he’ll really lose, do you?” Marianne murmured as Emyr left the room, Diana entering seconds after him.

“No, he’s far too clever to lose so early in the game. He probably knows the weakness of most, if not all, of the students.” Liliana said honestly as they turned their attention to the illusion, waiting for Emyr to step onto the sands.

As with every match that had involved one of their own, their attention was glued to the illusion. A tension hung so heavy in the air, Liliana thought she could cut it with a knife. They all knew it was unlikely that every one of them would make it to the finals. The likelihood of them facing someone stronger, or with a fighting style that directly countered them, or even blind, stupid luck, was too high the more fights they participated in.

They’d done well to save their energy in the first round, but as they’d already seen with Anya, that didn’t always work. They could end up fighting each other, people who knew their fighting styles from months of watching them evolve. Or they could end up against someone else who had saved their energy in the first round and was as well rested as they were, or had more Stamina or Mana to call on.

There were no guarantees, and sometimes even the tiniest slip in a fight could spell defeat.

After all, even Achilles had been defeated by a single arrow to his hee,l.

Emyr stepped onto the sands, the long, black coat he wore whipping around him in the wind as he strode across the sands. His opponent was Roy Lawry of class C, a boy who appeared to be challenging her brother for the most muscled teenager in their year. He wore a loose reinforced leather vest that managed to hang off his bulky frame as he faced Emyr down, giving him a friendly smile before the rules were read and the match called to start.

Emyr stepped back into his own shadow when the match began, vanishing from view. Lawry must have paid some attention to the previous match Emyr had been in, for he didn’t look surprised by the move. A hammer larger than the boy appeared beside him, so heavy it pressed down into the sands, Lawry’s hand loose on the haft.

“Can he even lift that?” Basil asked.

“It does not appear so.” Koth’talan responded, and indeed, Lawry didn’t raise the weapon. As if he couldn’t heft his own hammer. Liliana had to wonder how heavy it was that even someone as large as Lawry could not move it, and what the purpose of a weapon he couldn’t even use was.

Lawry shook his head on the illusion and the several in the room drew in sharp breaths when the veins they could see on Lawry’s body bulged grotesquely. His body seemed to inflate, or bloat might be a more apt description of the phenomenon, and Liliana finally understood why his vest had been over sized. By the time a minute had passed, it was straining against his body and Lawry lifted his hammer with apparent ease.

The entire time Lawry had been… transforming, Emyr had not made a move. Liliana wasn’t sure if he was subscribing to some form of chivalry, not attacking Lawry during his preparations or if he knew something the rest of them did not.

“Blood, that’s a blood skill. If you follow the self augmentation path.” Marianne spoke up, eyes wide as she looked at Lawry, who was scanning the seemingly empty arena with a calculating gaze.

“You can just… go beast mode?” Liliana said with a wrinkle of her nose.

She’d known, intellectually, that the Blood affinity could be used inside one’s self to increase their physical attributes. It wasn’t a common affinity for physical fighters to use, but it wasn’t a bad one to take. Not her personal preference, especially seeing it in person.

“More or less,” Marianne shrugged, looking as disinclined as Liliana to try it for herself.

Lawry seemed to have picked a target and with a surge of powerful muscles he jumped into the air, hammer swinging back and down as he crashed it into a cluster of dark shadows. The force was so great a depression was dug deep into the sands, a tremble shaking around Lawry from the power behind the hit. Lawry hoisted his hammer out of the ground with a surge of obscenely bulged muscles and frowned at the shadows before he took off in another blood and muscle enhanced jump to target another bank of shadows.

Still, Emyr didn’t make an attack.

Liliana wasn’t sure what he was doing, or where he was even hiding. She thought she saw some shadows appearing and vanishing across the arena that could be Emyr or a diversion to attract Lawry’s attention, but no other moves were made by the dark mage. Unlike Anya, who he had spent his entire match distracting and harrying, herding her into the perfect position to strike, he was, by all appearances, running from this fight.

“What is he doing?” Liliana finally asked when the five-minute mark had passed with no offensive attacks from Emyr.

“I’m not… sure.” Alistair said, face drawn in consideration as his eyes scoured the illusion for a hint of Emyr.

Learning from the last fight Emyr had been in, Liliana looked to the sky, searching for meteors hanging only to find none. It was as if he’d entirely left the arena, no hint of him to be found in it. It was impossible, though. The shield that surrounded it was far too powerful for someone of their rank to slip out of it until it was taken back down at the end of the fight.

He had to be on the sands, even if she couldn’t see him. Even if Lawry’s hammer couldn’t strike him, no matter how many shadows he pulverized, leaving craters and holes in the earth with each strike that shook the arena around him like a walking earthquake.

Ten minutes came and passed. The sands turned into a desolate zone of pitfalls and holes that even Lawry was beginning to find troublesome. Each new crater only created more shadows that seemed to lengthen and darken with each passing heartbeat. Liliana would almost say the class C student was bordering on paranoia as he started to strike at shadows erratically, turning sharply at unheard noises only to chase after yet another stretched out shadow, every strike leaving a new hole, and multiplying shadows as the light was obstructed.

Fifteen minutes approached and finally, something new happened. Emyr did not emerge as he had to taunt Anya, but the shadows surged around the arena, a tsunami of darkness that rose up against the shield, cresting halfway up and entirely blocking their view of the arena before they crashed down, swallowing the sands and Lawry under their onslaught.

Liliana saw Lawry try to jump out, his hammer swinging, but shadows gripped his body like skeletal hands, dragging him back down under the darkness, his hammer the last to fall under it. Shadows roiled and writhed as if they were boiling. Flashes of bright white fire broke through the shadows in spurts, only to be snuffed out as more crashed down, a never ending tide of darkness that devoured the light and anything held inside of them.

“Dark Dominion.” Alistair said softly.

“It evolved?” Liliana asked incredulously. She’d seen the spell used before, but it had never been like that.

“Mm, recently. Became a long channel, takes over ten minutes if I remember correctly, and is a huge Mana sink, so he doesn’t like to use it unless he absolutely has to. Requires most of his focus. Hard to manage collateral, too.” Alistair explained, ever the Emyr encyclopedia for his skills and spells.

Was he even aware how much he knew, or did he have a little journal squirrel away somewhere that he noted all of this down in? Maybe Liliana should search his room and find out. It could be wonderful blackmail material.

Only occasional hints of Lawry’s form were seen in flashes when he managed to break free, through force or through small spurts of what Liliana thought were Purification flames. Each minute glimpse of Lawry they were afforded showed a shield slowly turning red.

Despite the overwhelming and apparently powerful nature of the spell, it still took several more minutes before Emyr was declared the victor. The entire time, not a single person in their room could see what happened. Nor what skills or spells were used in tandem to the area of effect spell. If any were. Liliana couldn’t help but think that it had been Emyr’s intent to hide the full extent of his abilities.

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The shadows took a moment to vanish, slowly retreating to their original positions, dripping off Lawry’s panting and red form like they were reluctant to release their captive. Emyr, ever the dramatic shit he was, stepped out of Lawry’s shadow as if it was a stairwell, brushing off his dark coat and giving Lawry a brisk nod before turning and walking off the sands.

He hid it well, but even on the illusion, Liliana could detect the minute shake in his shoulders, the tight clench of his jaw and the way his hands had buried themselves in his pockets to hide the tremors. Others would never see it, but Liliana had known Emyr too long, knew him better than she knew herself.

Emyr was exhausted.

Whatever he’d done, if it had been [Dark Dominion] alone or a combination of that spell and others they hadn’t seen, he’d drained his Mana during his fight. For all his initial bravado, Lawry had been a real threat to him, and Emyr had known it before he’d ever stepped onto the sands. He’d known he’d need to use a big spell to take him down, and more than anything that made Liliana pay attention to Lawry as he walked off the sands, shoulders slumped and overlarge hammer gone, his body deflated like an old balloon.

Alistair stood as soon as Emyr vanished from the illusion. His fight was next.

“Good luck out there, don’t… lose, alright?” Liliana stood and grabbed her brother in a tight hug, whispering the words to him. The sudden knowledge that Emyr had come far closer than anyone had noticed to losing had shaken her.

It might just be a tournament in a school, with no real stakes for them, but Liliana didn’t want to see any of her friends lose. Didn’t want to see them defeated. Weak, broken. It was ridiculous, and she knew that. A loss here didn’t mean they would be truly hurt, or dead, but the irrational fear defied her logic. It was too close to seeing them defeated in a real fight.

She wanted her friends to be strong, to be unbeatable, as impossible as such a concept was. Not because their power added to hers, but because if they were strong enough, then maybe they wouldn’t be taken from her. This was a cruel, harsh world filled with blood and death. It was a fact Liliana never allowed herself to forget. The weak were too easily culled and ended. And Liliana feared she’d never be powerful enough to protect them if they couldn’t protect themselves.

“Hey, I’ll be fine. I’m your big brother. Have some faith.” Alistair hugged her back, rubbing a hand over her hair and tugging at her braid playfully. Liliana pulled back and adopted a carefree mask, making an annoyed face at her brother.

“Shoo, go give your boyfriend a victory kiss.” Liliana grumbled, sitting back down. Alistair’s mouth dropped open, and he floundered for a moment, skin darkening.

“He’s not-We’re not- it’s. Ugh! You’re awful!” Alistair stammered out, turning and leaving the room, laughter and good lucks trailing after him. Liliana smiled, but unease curled tightly in her stomach, hardening into a stone that weighed her down.

Emyr entered a minute later, looking exhausted, to Liliana, but a little happier. She reached out and dragged him onto the couch next to her before he could get to his original seat, pressing her side tightly to his. Reassuring herself, he was still here, not defeated.

Gods what is with me. This is all fake. None of it is real. It’s just a silly talent show where we get to show off our skills to other students. It’s not even like it’s the final fourth year tournament where alumni are invited. The stakes are low. Why am I so unsettled? Liliana shook her head, leaning it on Emyr’s shoulder, who allowed the action with a questioning hum but didn’t press.

Probably just the stress of the exams and the tournament getting to me. And the amulet. I’m just redirecting my anxieties about other problems on this. Liliana decided. She’d always been sensitive. [Empathy] hadn’t been a surprising skill for her to get, and even Healer Sybil had said she had a natural gift for Psyche work that implied she was more intuitive when it came to others and herself. This was just another example of her sensitivities getting the better of her. She needed to control herself.

Alistair stepped onto the sands, walking tall, with his back straight, as he faced his opponent. Ena Goldcomb of class A. Goldcomb, for her part, seemed at least genial when she nodded at Alistair. Her face was arranged in a careful noble mask. Then again, Liliana expected nothing less from the daughter of a baron.

“It’s almost not fair he has to fight her when he’s already had a fight and she hasn’t.” Liliana muttered, fingers twitching for a knife to play with.

“That is simply how they’ve chosen to organize this endeavor.” Koth’talan shrugged.

Liliana hummed and didn’t respond, gnawing at her lip until she tasted the sharp copper tang of blood. Her lip traced the already healed cut before her lip returned to between her teeth to repeat the process.

“I had to, too. And Emyr. It’s just how it is.” Marianne soothed her. Liliana made a distracted noise, tongue heavy with the taste of blood.

Alistair and Goldcomb listened to the rules read out with passive faces, nodding to show they understood. The fight was called, and both combatants moved. Alistair called his kite shield and sword out immediately, his skin turning from its familiar umber tone to a darker metallic shade, shining under the heavy autumn sunlight above. His shield glowed brightly, the light leaking over his body as he activated his defensive skills. His feet dug into the ground as he set himself up to wait out Goldcomb.

Goldcomb, for her part, was not idle. Jumping back on light feet, she called out an ornate rapier and used it like a conductor as creatures made of earth rose from the ground. Vaguely humanoid and beast alike rose in ranks before Goldcomb, sand falling from them like water as they shook their newly made limbs.

Small beings, almost childlike in appearance but with arms so long they dragged the ground, tipped with stick thin three jointed fingers and wicked curved claws. Large hulking man like creations with nightmarish faces configured to look like they were snarling or screaming, fangs so long they dipped past their chins and spikes up and down their arms and legs.

Thin, eight foot tall man-like creatures that looked like they’d been stretched, every part of their bodies long, too long and disturbing to stare at for any amount of time. Beasts formed to look like overlarge wolves, but with too many teeth, like a shark, and heads coming off their sides.

In minutes, Goldcomb had summoned an army of nightmares painted in the dark brown colors of the earth.

“Gods.” Marianne muttered, pressing her side tightly to Liliana’s as a shudder of fear passed through her as she looked across what Goldcomb’s imagination had wrought.

“That’s a real Animation mage there.” Liliana said, equal parts horrified and impressed.

She couldn’t help pitching her voice just loud enough for Zir’elon to hear it back in the room, hoping the jibe stung after Dunstan’s loss. Perhaps if he had Goldcomb’s imagination, he might have survived his round. There was something to be said for psychological warfare.

Goldcomb’s tactic might have even worked against a weaker man. But Alistair had seen monsters made of his own flesh and blood. Followed Liliana when she chased after beasts only she would deign to call beautiful. Monsters, twisted nightmares and hulking brutes would not sway his determination.

She’d seen him face down packs of ghouls, rabid zombies, slavering hell hounds and many more such creations without flinching. He was a tank, and he’d be a poor one if he broke his stance in the face of overwhelming odds and hellish beasts charging him. Alistair’s fearlessness in the face of death was one of the many things she respected about her brother.

She’d never once doubted that he would stand tall against anything that faced him. She could say she’d had never met someone capable of matching her brother’s courage.

Earthen limbs clashed against bright metals and crystal as Goldcomb directed her army to strike like a general. In seconds Alistair was surrounded and his shield was raising and bashing even as his sword moved in concert with it, cutting through thick, false limbs and dropping man-made monsters as he held his ground. Liliana’s eyebrows furrowed and her abused lip left her teeth.

“Illusions,” Liliana breathed softly, catching as a third strike of Alistair’s passed through a monster’s body like it wasn’t there.

Liliana’s eyes bounced from monster to monster, re-examining them with the new information she had. So many creatures, so many illusions, meant the chance of mistakes would be higher. Illusions that moved were the hardest for someone to control, and when there were multiple, it got infinitely more difficult. Liliana began to catch mistakes in Goldcomb’s illusions, real automatons’ limbs clipping through an illusion there, one with their leg phasing through the ground there, a flickering body half hidden in the ranks.

Liliana readjusted her original count for the monsters, the numbers dwindling drastically when she realized that well over half of the automatons were fake. Either Goldcomb didn’t have the Mana to sustain such numbers, or she was trying to conserve it. Automatons still appeared from the ground as their fellows were felled, but as Liliana analyzed the new additions she saw for every real one, three false illusions were summoned.

Alistair seemed to come to the same conclusion Liliana did, and with a grim set smile that Liliana could hardly see behind his shield, he started taking slow steps forward, cutting a swath through false automatons and real.

Attacks, both true and fake, crashed against his body as he moved, but his health shield barely changed. Goldcomb’s automatons were terrifying, but they didn’t have much power behind them, and earth was always weaker than metal.

Dirt fell like rain as Alistair cut his way through the automatons, moving forward at a glacial pace, but a consistent one. Goldcomb was backing up as Alistair cut a swathe through her defenses. It was a slow fight, but an inevitable one. With each step Alistair took, more real automatons fell, and far fewer rose to replace them.

Goldcomb’s arm shook so much her rapier kept dipping and sweat was pouring off her face. Liliana no longer assumed she was preserving her Mana. If anything, she was approaching Mana exhaustion as Alistair kept coming for her.

The fight ended when Goldcomb’s back hit the shield, unaware she’d been methodically herded into a corner. Five illusions and three real automatons fell under Alistair’s blade before their master followed shortly afterwards.

Alistair’s shoulders heaved as he sucked in great breaths of air on the illusion, his sword and shield vanishing as he helped Goldcomb back to her feet when the fight was called to an end. Goldcomb was shaking, swaying on her feet, but she kept hold of her noble mask by the skin of her teeth. She nodded at Alistair imperiously before she turned on her heel, nearly falling, before she walked off the sands with as much grace as her obviously exhausted body could manage.

Alistair turned only when Goldcomb vanished from sight, his worry for the other girl obvious, and walked off the sands himself with far more composure. Yet, to Liliana, his tiredness was obvious. Fighting so many opponents had not been an easy task for him. It being his second fight of the day had not helped.

Liliana let out a deep sigh, relief slamming into her with the knowledge her brother had won. He was battered and tired, but he had made it to the next round of fights.