The second battle my team had fought in proved to be even easier than the first one. They were actually weaker than our previous opponents, and had only made it to this point due to their previous opponents being even weaker. We had absolutely wiped the floor with them.
This just left the final fight of the night, and the one every spectator had been the most excited for. Me, Jade, and Ryker versus the “spear queen” and her teammates. By an unspoken agreement, none of the other four participants would come between me and the woman. If they did, they’d likely be eliminated fairly quickly.
As we entered the arena once more, the announcer began speaking.
“Ladies and Gentlemen, this is the last fight of the night! Which shall prevail? Might or Magic? Tonight we find out as the apex of each clash against one another!”
He was definitely playing up the drama a bit. I wouldn’t even dare to say I was at the apex of magic. Hell, I felt like I could probably upgrade my mana manipulation skill if I gave it another week of practice. Not that I would for now, as gaining levels and advancing through the floors was likely be more beneficial for the amount of time invested.
“Fighters!” The announcer continued. “Get ready! 3... 2... 1... Go!”
Despite what probably everybody was expecting, the countdown was not followed by a burst of movement and the clashing of weapons. No, instead the countdown had simply been when Jade, Ryker, and the two mages on the spear queens side to split off and have their own fight on the opposite side of the arena. While they began duking it out, the spear queen spoke aloud to me, pointing her spear in my direction.
“You seemed pretty confident that this wouldn’t be a tough fight for you. Do you think you are ready to back those words up?”
So, she also wants to play up the drama. I might as well go along with it for no other reason than to put on a show for the crowd. I summoned a shield in one of my hands, with my staff appearing in the other. Both were accompanied by a flash of light as I wasted a bit of mana to make them glow briefly. “I’m more than ready to prove it.” I say, tapping the bottom of my staff against the grounds in beat with my words, adding emphasis to everything I said.
“Then come and show me the strength you believe you have!” She says, bending her knees slightly and taking a proper fighting stance at last. Contrary to what she said, I did not run straight towards her. Sending five mana bolts her way in rapid succession made that clear to her.
She began rushing towards me, closing the distance between us with great speed. She expertly dodges each bolt of mana that is sent her way, and even manages to dodge the one I’d shot at double speed. Having taken no injuries by the time she got to me, she thrust her spear towards my neck. My shield comes up to block it, and a mana blast sends her spear off to the side to prevent a quick follow up attack. The next mana blast is sent straight towards her, knocking her back a meter or so.
She quickly recovers and once more closes the distance. The tip of her spear begins to glow a deep crimson, and instead of trying to outright block the attack I angle my shield to try and deflect the strike away. Her spear hits my shield, and immediately bites into the mana construct. It manages to find purchase and deliver a significant amount of force directly into my forearm. She pulls the spear back, striking my shield several more times before I can hit her with a double cast of mana blast. This use of my spell is much more effective, and manages to knock the spear from her hands.
I rush in to get in some more meaningful damage, but her entire body glows white for a moment before she runs towards her spear nearly twice as fast as she had managed to move before. The white light fades, but doesn’t disappear entirely. Her next few attacks come even faster than her previous ones, her spear continuing to glow red. It must have been some sort of anti-magic skill, as after the tenth hit, my shield shatters under the pressure of the attacks.
“Nice enhancing skill.” I say, referring to the glow that still hung around her.
“Thanks.” She says, grinning. “Maybe it will close the gap between us enough for me to win.”
Summoning my dagger, I use my now faster reaction time to deflect the spear whenever possible, and slow it down when it’s not. The entire time I am using my mana sight to observe the flow of her mana. It was definitely a more refined version of the skill I was using. The flow of mana within her body seemed to be entirely changed as opposed to simply sped up. That was definitely something I could take inspiration from sometime, or in better words, steal.
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About five minutes after the fight began, the glow around her disappeared. This was exactly what I had been waiting for. I’d managed to get all the useful information about her skill that I was likely to get, and had just been waiting for her resources to begin running low to make my big move.
In a quick flash of movement, my dagger began glowing even brighter than before as I infused a significant amount of mana into it. Even more mana was supplied and turned into kinetic energy, increasing the speed of both my arm and the dagger itself. With a loud snapping sound, the spear was cut in half just below the rip, rendering it useless.
The shock that took the woman over for a few seconds was enough for me to use another burst of mana to launch towards her. She attempted to dodge, her eyes wide with fear, but with the speed I was moving at she only had time to shift herself away slightly before my dagger reached her neck. That small movement was all that kept her from being decapitated. Only a few centimeters of tissue and muscle kept the head in place, but it didn’t matter a few seconds later as she disappeared in a flash of light.
The crowd cheered in delight as the fight ended, and the announcer began shouting. “The Spear Queen has been defeated! Congratulations to our winners!” Ryker and Jade ran over to me, having already defeated the mages. They congratulated me on the win, and I did the same for them. We’d all won after all.
Mark upgraded, Slum Champion (Tier 4)
You have completed floor 8!
Welcome to floor 9!
I had more notifications, but I didn’t have time to read them before the announcer continued.
“As a reward, each winner of the tournament will be granted one free request of an item from any craftsmen contracted by the arena.”
As we walked out of the arena, we were intercepted by the others.
“Great job!” Van exclaimed, patting me on the back. “I hadn’t realized you had that in you.”
“Seriously.” Ryker said, disbelief on his face. “It’s almost scary how strong you two were, and that’s not even mentioning the fact that you about took the poor girls head off.”
“Yeah thanks for that.” A voice says, coming from behind me. I turn to see the once headless woman in question, who stood there with a slight smirk on her face.
“Sorry about all that.” I say. “It felt like a better way of getting it done than stabbing you a bunch until you bled out.”
“I’m not about to complain, but I did want to ask you something. Actually, both of you.” She says, pointing to Flynn as well.
“What is it?”
“I was wondering if the two of you would like to have one last fight with me together as a team, this time in the presence of the King.”
“The King?” Flynn asks. “How do you suppose we’ll get an audience with him?”
“Just leave that bit to me.” She says, waving the question off. “I can get it situated. Just meet me out the front gates of the castle in three days.”
Before we can even answer, she jogs off.
“Any idea how she is supposed to get that done?” Flynn asks, turning to me.
“Ties to a high ranking noble maybe? Other than that I don’t really know how she would be able to manage that. Either way, it seems like we have found out how we are going to be upgrading our mark for the last time.”
Saying that reminds me of the elephant in the room. I look to the others, those who had not been invited to the next part of the floor. Had they even gotten their marks upgraded?
“Don’t worry about us.” Ryker says, shaking his head and patting his shoulder. “We got our marks to tier four. I’m sure we can figure out some way to upgrade them again. I don’t think we are gonna be able to keep fighting our way to the end of the floor, not unless we do some serious leveling.”
Jade nods along to everything he says, but I notice Van and Jen don’t have the same enthusiasm. “We didn’t get our marks upgraded.” Van says. “I’m sure we can gain a few levels and try again, but this might just be where we need to start looking for different avenues to continue.”
There is an awkward silence for a few moments. I wasn’t exactly part of it, but I understood why none of them were super happy about this.
One of the reasons that I had decided to take the tower on mostly by myself was for this exact reason. Not everyone would be able to keep up with me. Flynn was probably a one in a million prodigy, but I could absolutely whoop his ass in a fight if I ever needed to. The gap in power was slowly growing more and more, and I wasn’t sure how long it would be until I struggled to find anybody that could put up a real fight.
“I guess this is where we split up then.” Flynn says, finally voicing the thought that every one of them was having. The words seem to finally drive it home for everyone else, and their expressions all sadden a bit.
“Guess so.” Ryker responds, nodding.
I walk off to give the five of them some more time to say goodbye to one another, not wanting to get in the way of it. I didn’t want to admit it, but a part of the reason I left was because I didn’t want to deal with those emotions. The low mood had rubbed off on me more than I would have liked. That mood was only soured more as I finally read the last notification I had waiting for me.
You are now level 33