'It's so much bigger than the one in Ranton,' Lone thought as he entered the fighting ring of Golden Pass City's central arena.
The commentators were listing off everything interesting that was publicly known about Lone while they drummed up the excitement of the event. It was rare for the prince to fight in a battle that wasn't to the death, so even though not a single person thought this fight would last any longer than the prince allowed it to, they were riled up and more than pleased to be here nonetheless.
'There must be at least 300,000 people in the stands, if not more. Then there are the sight mages transmitting the show to the whole city. Prince Keining really pulled all of the stops here, huh? I only asked for a spar and here he is turning it into a, what, grand public humiliation or something?' Lone wondered.
He couldn't really blame the man. He was a busy XX-ranker, so if it become known that he could be challenged with little-to-no risk just by sparing one of his foolish offspring, well, that could be easily exploited to greatly waste the man's time. For what specific purpose, Lone didn't know, but he was sure there could be countless reasons to distract Prince Keining.
The roaring crowd and even louder commentators were silenced in an instant by the present sound mages in response to Prince Keining suddenly falling from the sky and landing in the middle of the arena.
'Did he jump in here? That's insane,' Lone thought while his blood began to boil with anticipation.
Prince Keining reached into his adventurer's pouch and pulled out a gorgeous spear that oozed with power. It sent a chill down Lone's spine and put a smile on his face.
"Good people of Golden Pass City," the ruler of the principality addressed the stadium, "Thank you for coming to witness this event. My son, Keith, foolishly attacked young Lone Immortus here for using blood magic. As I am sure you all know, blood magic is not an outlawed school in our fair principality. For being unjustly attacked and still choosing to spare my son's life, young Lone Immortus here was granted a boon by myself. He, in his thirst for power, asked for pointers in a spar with me."
'Wow. He's good with his words. What a way to twist it,' Lone nodded approvingly as he took some mental notes.
"Good people of Golden Pass City, what is it that we value above all else?" Prince Keining asked the silenced crowd.
A boom like the roar of a thunderstorm issued out from the stands as the sound mages removed their spells for a moment. "STRENGTH!"
"That's correct! I praise you, young Lone Immortus, for your lacking humility, thinking yourself worthy of learning from me. There is no shame to be found desiring more strength, thus your request was granted. I will allow you five strikes on my body and I will then attack you a single time but stop at the last moment. I am certain you will gain the most from this arrangement," the prince stated.
Lone shook his head. "No."
Though they had been silenced once more, the shock and offence on the faces of the crowd members were palpable. Talking back to the strongest person in the city was unthinkable to them, so hearing Lone do so truly insulted their beliefs.
"Explain," Prince Keining ordered.
"I want a fight to the death except, well, if I think I'm about to die, I'll let you know. Me hitting you five times and then not being hit by you once won't help me," Lone said.
Prince Keining frowned. "And being in a fight where you cannot even see what I am doing to you will help you?"
"Would you like to see something interesting?" Lone asked the man for his answer.
Still frowning, the XX-ranked waved his hand as if to say 'go on, entertain my people if you can'.
Lone extended his hand and withdrew his steamforged swordspear, the one Wilbur had forged specifically for his use. He closed his eyes for a moment and willed his weak C-ranker aura into the device, making a razor-sharp steam edge appear on one of its two blades.
He opened his eyes and carefully but swiftly chopped off two of his fingers, one after the other. With the strength of his bones, the steamforged swordspear was barely able to do the job even though Lone had gone for joints instead of raw bone.
Regardless, he quickly flexed his hand as it repaired itself in mere moments. "I am incredibly hard to kill despite my low rank when compared to you. Now, for the fun part."
Lone withdrew two full buckets of blood from his Dimensional Storage. "Blood Clone. Blood Clone. Do you know what this skill does, Prince Keining?"
The prince's frown had birthed a curious edge to it as he answered, "Of course. It creates a controllable mass of blood. Its potential is limitless, but in practice, it is rather impractical due to how many millennia it would take to make the skill truly powerful."
"I'm something of a skill scholar myself and I'm very talented in levelled skills. My version of Blood Clone can do some very interesting things given it is at expert-level-ten with five additional effects, one of which you can see since I have two clones. Now, I would assume word of the skill Fortress Shield Mastery has reached your ears given I used it against one of your children yesterday?"
"Your claims of the skill's abilities were ridiculous... until I confirmed that they were not mere claims," the prince affirmed.
'So Kevin did report it and I guess his dad checked the credit slate or got someone trusted to do so in his place. Nice. That works in my favour,' Lone thought as he nodded. "It is a skill I have created so I know it rather well. These fingers," he said as he bent down and picked up the severed digits with the hand they once belonged to, "they still count as a part of me in the eyes of the system."
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Lone threw the fingers and gave some orders to his two Blood Clones. The two large blobs of blood quickly attached themselves to a finger each and then morphed into large yet thin fortress shields.
"These two active fortress shields will now passively orbit my main body in an effort to protect me while serving as two infinite pools of SP thanks to the regeneration bonus of Fortress Shield Mastery. The skill I used to heal my severed fingers? It uses SP," he said.
Lone paced back and forth a bit before he willed his ominous-looking bone armour to appear. "Now, Prince Keining, do you think you have the strength necessary to kill me when I can essentially regenerate instantly and infinitely?"
Very slowly a feral smile worked its way onto the face of the ruler of this land. The man lowered his stance and gripped his spear very tightly. "That is interesting. Very well. A death match you wanted, a death match you will get."
A light blue glow shrouded the tip of his spear and then he thrust the weapon forward without moving a single step. Both Blood Clones moved to block the attack but the force behind it was too vast and too all-encompassing.
Lone was sent flying through the arena before he slammed into a magical barrier and bounced onto the floor, all of his internal organs ruptured and a haemorrhage began trying its best to ruin his day.
With a trickle of SP, however, all of his wounds and broken armour were fixed in an instant. A wall of system notifications filled his vision and a mad grin consumed Lone's expression. "You'll have to do better than that, Your Highness."
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"You'll have to do better than that, Your Highness." The words of her brother boomed through the crowd thanks to the magic placed upon him.
Hazel felt goosebumps forming on her arms as she watched her brother get up and leap towards the monster wearing a man's flesh. He was moving far too quickly for her to follow but that didn't matter. The sight mages had worked their magic to somehow make every action as clear as day to the common watcher.
"He's insane. Your brother is totally nuts," Scott commented, his eyes darting around to carefully follow Lone as he tried to attack the prince only to be slammed back into the arena's walls with enough impact to pulverise a tank, let alone a person.
'I agree, Scott. he was supposed to be coming here to chat with me but suddenly he's fighting the bleedin' prince, of all people! And he hasn't lost yet! That's what's insane here,' Hazel commented internally before she said, "Fortress Shield Mastery sounds ridiculous just like Lord Keining said."
Everyone nodded, seeing no room to argue against such a statement.
George cleared his throat upon seeing Lone get manhandled for the third time with little to no effort on Prince Keining's part. "Do you think he'll ever land a hit?"
The group of five went silent as the crowd roared around them.
"Ten copper says he doesn't," Scott bet.
Emma grinned. "I have faith. I'll match that bet for him getting at least one good blow on the beefy prince."
Hazel watched George deflate, clearly disheartened at having his affection's target show interest in not just one, but two other men now.
"Hopeless, all hopeless," Hazel muttered. She chose to join Alisa in silently observing her lunatic brother's attempt to 'learn' from the XX-ranker.
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Sophie frowned. There were too many X-rankers in the V.I.P. booth with her and the leech.
She didn't even bother paying attention to the fight below besides making sure to be ready to teleport Lone out should the need arise. He knew what he was doing and she trusted him to not die in a controlled spar, even if he had asked for a death match.
What was bothering her more than the fact that there were about a dozen X-rankers present was that one, in particular, hadn't stopped staring at her since Princeling Kevin had escorted both her and the leech up to this area.
Sophie sighed when she saw the man walking towards her via her Mana Sensing. "Breena, enter our shadow and do not leave it until we say you may. We do not care if you run out of SP. Do not leave until we say you can. Understood?"
The girl meekly nodded and invoked her Primal skill, melding into Sophie's shadow, earning a few raised eyebrows and turning some attention away from the battle below.
Soph rotated on her heels and faced the handsome and tall X-ranker who was only a few metres from her at this point. "Do not approach us. Do not talk to us. Do not look at us any longer. We do not care for your rank, your status, or whatever else you may try to coerce us with. We have given our soul, heart, and body, to the man effortlessly enduring attacks from your ruler. You could never compare. Now leave us be."
The man's smile didn't change though his gaze did. He walked up to Sophie's side and looked down at the arena. "This Lone Immortus, yes? A foolish man if ever I have seen one. Not only does he stand to learn nothing from this exchange, but he has also revealed his potent self-healing and the potential of the skill he claims to have created himself. No doubt a lie. I would wager his master or someone else just as mysterious made it and allowed him to learn it. His supposed mastery of it is impressive if nothing else."
"That is our man you are speaking so poorly of. Do not insult him. Trying to besmirch him before us will earn you no favours. You are disgusting in our eyes and a nuisance, nothing more. Speak to me once more and we will make it impossible for you to do so to anyone in the future. We are not known for our mercy so do not take this kindness lightly," Sophie warned.
It was all too clear to her eyes. It was rare that her Mana Sensing let her detect a person's emotions through their magic unless the feelings were incredibly strong like with Lone's love for both her and Soph. Right now, however, this man's emotional intent was so clear she could almost reach out and grab it.
He valued her physical appearance to the extent that he wished to bed her regardless of the cost. A single word came to Sophie and Soph's mind at the same time.
'Pathetic.'
'Pathetic.'
For an X-ranker to be so obsessed with physical beauty to the point of lusting after another man's woman could only be considered as such for the two women. At grand heights of power such as his, surely there were countless other better things to be doing with one's time than this.
He shifted his body to turn in her direction and slowly reached out a hand as if to caress her hair. "I have never been threatened by a C-ranker bef-"
"Barrier Prison." His amused tone was cut off in an instant. "It was not a threat, it was a kindness offered and quite clearly rejected."
Sophie felt the man immediately trying to get out of her Barrier Prison so she took a page from Lone's book and covered him in a second one. She then created thousands upon thousands of barriers within the man's body. There was a moment of resistance before every part of his body turned into a bloody mist.
Shocked gasps and cries of fear rang out from several of the other V.I.P.s. Many even drew their weapons, as if expecting a widescale attack of some sort to come from Sophie.
'Um... what would you have done if that hadn't worked?' Soph asked.
Sophie mentally snorted. 'We would have teleported him to space and then returned fast enough to not take any injuries ourself. Your barriers can rip Lone to pieces, let alone an X-ranker with none of his resistances. Do not needlessly worry.'
'... Lone isn't going to like this,' Soph commented.
Sophie shook her head. 'We disagree. We dealt with a pest trying to claim what was not his to claim.'
'Not that, you killed an X-ranker before he did. He's gonna be so moody for days now...' Soph elaborated.
Sophie frowned. 'Ah. You are right. Damn it. Ha-ah. Well, one thing at a time. Let us first restore calm and order to this jumpy group of supposedly powerful beings. We can deal with Lone later. Luckily, he is busy right now.'
'Don't forget to tell Breena she can come out now! The poor girl doesn't have enough SP to use her Primal skill for that long,' Soph reminded.
'Yes, yes,' Sophie replied dismissively.