The rules of this tournament where a little different than the last one we’d participated in. It was not an individual tournament like the last one had been. Instead, this time around everyone was grouped off into teams of three. It would be an elimination style event where two teams would fight at a time, with the losers being knocked out of the fight.
The arena was very, very large. Upon walking into the front gates, it became apparent that there was some kind of spacial expansion going on, as the inside was larger than the already sizable exterior should be able to accommodate. I could feel a faint buzz in the air from the sheer amount of enchantments that were placed on every surface.
The organizers explained everything to us before the fights began. Lethal attacks were allowed, and the enchantments all around the arena would heal us should we receive such a blow and teleport us out of the fight. This would give us the chance to really see what everybody was capable of.
In total, their were eight teams participating in the tournament, totaling to 24 fighters. The average level was about 27, and the highest level out of anybody participating was 34, two levels higher than myself.
It took a bit of discussion to figure out how we would split up our group of six. After a while though, we came to a decision. Flynn, Van, and Jen, the other mage of the group. It made for a good mix of ranged and melee options, with Jen having defensive spells to protect the group and Van having healing spells to support them. Flynn would likely be the main damage dealer of the group, but given that out of the six of us he was the second highest level, it shouldn’t be too much of a problem.
That left me, Ryker, and Jade to work together. I’d be the one in close range, with Jade and Ryker picking off enemies from afar. Between my mana shield and my empower skill, I was definitely the toughest of us three making me the go to damage sponge.
The brackets were announced shortly before the first fight. Luckily our two teams were on opposite sides, meaning the only way we would face off against each other would be if we both made it to the finals.
The first fight began, and Flynn’s group was in it.
The fight began pretty slow, with both sides just testing the other to see what their deal was. The other team was made up of a swordsmen, mage, and monk. Flynn was pretty hard pressed to deal with two close range fighters at once, but Van did his best to keep him on his feet while Jen battled against the mage.
Eventually the fight ended with Flynn and his team winning once the enemies mage had gone down. With both Flynn and Jen focusing their attacks on the monk, he’d gone down too quick for the swordsman to assist.
The next fight was one I was very interested in. I’d been identifying every fighter I had managed to spot, and this time I managed to catch a glimpse of the highest leveled fighter in the tournament, as well as her teammates.
Human (Level 34)
Human (Level 26)
Human (Level 27)
The woman in charge of the team was quite obviously a melee fighter. She wielded a spear and wore full metal armor. Flynn would likely be hard pressed to stand against her on even footing.
I paid pretty close attention to this fight. I wanted to get as accurate of a judgement of what we were up against as possible. Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to get a very good read on the fighters, as the bout lasted not even a full minute. In that short amount of time, the spear wielding woman had eliminated the entirety of the other team with basically no intervention from her group members. Her spear had moved as fast as the wind, skewering each opponent it hit.
Turning my head to see what everyone else thought of this, I could see the looks of nervousness creep onto the faces of Flynn, Jen, and Van.
“You nervous?” I ask, already knowing the answer.
“To go against that?” Van retorts. “No, I’m terrified. I’m just glad this arena won’t let us die.”
“That also means we are going to have to live with the memory of getting a spear through the face.” Jen says, grimacing.
“Trust me, you will probably experience much worse than that later down the line if you continue fighting as your source of levels.” I say, remembering when I’d had my hand cut off by the skeleton sentinel.
“Let’s just get our heads in the game.” Flynn says. “You guys are up next right? Better get down there and get ready for your fight.”
My team heads down to the main arena, standing near the gates as we wait for the announcers of the event to call us out. When he does, we walk out into the arena proper, and I can’t help but feel a little nervous. Not about the fact that we’d be fighting against another, likely equally skilled team, but that there were seemingly thousands of people watching. Apparently spectating violent battles was a popular pastime within the capital. I inspected each of our opponents to help calm my nerves.
Human (level 29)
Human(level 29)
Human(Level 30)
Not too bad. Both Ryker and Jade were level 29, so at the very least I could trust that they would pull their weight against this group. As we readied ourselves to fight, I briefly wondered how much of my capabilities should I reveal. I barely knew anything about the team with the spear wielder, meaning if we showed off too much then they would have the advantage of information.
After a bit of thinking, I realized that I didn’t really care if they knew what I could do. I had my doubts that they could come up with a perfect counter to my spells in the short time between now and when we fought. Besides, if it was really necessary I always had my trait to catch them by surprise. I’d managed to practice with it a bit more in my brief training period, and had lowered the cost of casting my spells at a distance by a small amount. Not enough to make it a super reliable strategy, but enough to make it an option worth considering.
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The enemy team was the first to make a move, splitting up to try and get us surrounded. They were a group made up entirely of melee combatants, so they likely wanted to give our ranged fighters no route of escape. Actually, they probably thought I wanted to keep my distance too, as my robes and staff definitely had me pegged as a mage. I saw no reason to not play into that misconception, and began casting mana bolts in their direction. Ryker did the same, and Jade shot arrows towards them.
Soon enough, we had them surrounding us. They began closing in, and that’s when I saw my opportunity to strike. I broke off from my team and began running towards the closest fighter. He seemed surprised by my sudden change in tactics, but didn’t see me as a big enough threat to worry about. In his eyes I was moving into a position that would give me a disadvantage.
By the time I was close to him, I had already summoned my new bone dagger into my hand, and was infusing it with my mana to sharpen it. I blocked one swing of the warriors sword before taking a swipe at him with the dagger. It didn’t cut through his leather armor all the way, but it did make a deep gouge across the chest piece. That had apparently caught him off guard, as he hadn’t been expecting the attack to do very much.
He redoubles his efforts, his sword taking on a faint glow as he swings it even faster for the next few attacks. My mana shield takes the brunt of a few well hits, but my dagger manages to leave several gashes in his flesh where the enhanced sharpness ripped right through his armor.
By the time he realized he was in too much trouble to handle on his own, it was too late. His teammates had tried to come to his aid, but Ryker and Jade had them distracted enough to prevent them from coming to save their ally. With one final strike, my dagger sunk right into the heart of the warrior. It didn’t kill him instantly, so I channeled a mana blast through the tip of the dagger, using up all the mana I’d unfused into the weapon to cast the devastating spell.
The warrior disappears in a flash of light, and out of the corner of my eye I see a flash of light in the stands where he had reappeared, fully healed. I turn to the fighter targeting Jade, turning my attention to him next.
The fight didn’t last much longer. With the battle having become a three on two, the enemy team had very little hope of salvaging the fight. They’d at least been smart enough to realize that they needed to group up with one another, but by that point they were already heavily damaged and on the backfoot. Me, Ryker, and Jade all walked out of the arena shortly after the battle ended, with none of us having taken any meaningful damage.
The last fight of the first round had been the closest of all four, and ended in a one on one after each team had lost two members. The archer on the team I’d silently been rooting for managed to land a shot directly to his opponents heart, winning the fight in the end.
The next fight was the first one of the semifinals, and one that I genuinely had no idea what the outcome of would be. Flynn’s team versus the team of the spear wielding fighter. She had the advantage of levels, but Flynn and the others had the advantage of a more well rounded team.
The fight began much more energetically than pretty much all the others had. Flynn didn’t want to give his opponents even a moment to pull any weird tricks. Jen backed him up with bolts of what looked like fire while Van casted some kind of spell on Flynn that made him glow.
The other three all moved quickly, not taking this fight as lightly as they’d taken the rest. The spear wielding woman rushed in and met Flynn halfway, using the longer reach of her spear to slam the tip into his shoulder. Flynn glowed even brighter for a moment, and I saw Van wince. His mana was likely dedicated to keeping that shield active due to him not having any offensive spells.
Flynn closed the distance the rest of the way, swinging his sword at the woman with great speed and power. She used the shaft of her spear to block a few of the hits, though she did take some small cuts here and there.
The two of them exchanged blows as the two other members of the woman's team moved to deal with Van and Jen. They were both mages, and I only had to see their first spells to tell that they weren’t very good ones. Even for their levels, the mana bolts they threw out weren’t particularly strong. Why would the highest leveled member participant of this event be teamed up with people like that?
With Vans help, Jen managed to take out one of the mages with a series of fire balls. They were stronger than what she’d been using before, and likely a good bit more expensive too. The spear wielding woman noticed this and grimaced. In a flash of motion, she stepped in and crouched low, using her leg to sweep Flynn’s feet out from under him. Anticipating a spear being stabbed into his head or chest, the man rolled away in anticipation.
I shook my head as I saw that. I probably would have done the same thing in his position, but it had been an inaccurate prediction. Instead, the woman threw the spear with precision far greater than anyone could have expected, and with little resistance it stabbed into Jens neck, sending her to the ground. Flynn recovered and got to his feet, but not before she had already retrieved her weapon.
Running up to the other mage, Flynn sliced his head clean from his shoulder as the unprepared enemy got too close. He tried to run closer to Van as the healer retreated, but the spear soon found a place between his eyes as he too was taken out, leaving just Flynn and the woman in the arena together.
They stared at one another for a moment before Flynn once more ran towards her. The next series of exchanged blows came so quickly that I still needed to lean in and really focus to tell what was happening. Most people present only saw a blur of motion, their stats too low to track the weapons moving at such high speeds. The only thing that was clearly visible were the several splatters of blood that came out of the fight as an attack would hit somewhere important.
30 seconds after the flurry of attacks began, it ended. The woman's body had several cuts all across her arms and legs, but only one strike had managed to hit her stomach and it had been a shallow cut at best. Flynn on the other hand had holes all across his body where the spear had landed. He’d managed to avoid getting hit in the head or neck, which was all that had kept him in the fight this long. As he collapsed to the ground and disappeared in a flash of light, the crowd began cheering and clapping.
“And our winner is the spear queen!” The announcer shouts. “I must admit, that’s the closest I’ve come to seeing her lose in quite some time. Maybe her next tournament could see her losing!”
Despite the words, I could see the woman smiling as she walked away from the arena. She had pretty clearly enjoyed the fight. Flynn, who now sat next to me, had also enjoyed the fight, even if outwardly he didn’t show it very much.
“Damn, I was so close!” He shouted, leaning back in his seat. “I want a rematch sometime, maybe after I gain a few levels.”
“Think you’d have a shot after gaining your level 30 skill?” I ask.
“Maybe.” He says, before his eyes glaze over for a moment. He appears to be looking off into the distance, probably at a system notification. “Speaking of which, I just reached level 30. Didn’t realize I could do that without winning a fight.”
“Well levels aren’t entirely dependent on killing things. You can get them from improving skills or just from pushing your limits and surpassing what you could usually do."
“Well, that fight was definitely one that pushed me to my limits.” He sighs before turning to me. “You and the others better avenge me.” He jokes.
“Oh I will. I am looking forward to that fight.”
“Maybe you’ll even get a level from the fight too. Only more reason to be excited for it.”
“I doubt it.” I say, waving the notion off.
“You don’t think so? Why not?”
“Well if I am being entirely honest, I highly doubt it will be a particularly difficult fight.”
Flynn gives me a look that is a mix of apprehension, confusion, and surprise.
Jade speaks up before he can respond. “Overconfident much?” She says, rolling her eyes.
“Maybe.” I say, nodding. “But just keep in mind that you all have yet to see what I can do when really pushed to my limits.”
“Tell that to her.” Van says, pointing towards the arena. I glance to where he is pointing and see the spear wielding woman staring straight at me. With her stats and the fact that she likely made perception the focus of her spirit stat, she had definitely heard everything I just said. I had expected her to scoff or to roll her eyes in annoyance, but instead she just gave a confident smile and nodded, walking to the exit of the main arena and back to her seat.
Even if this fight wasn’t going to be particularly difficult, I would be lying if I said it wouldn’t be extremely interesting.