Zora stared down into the sand pit with mild disinterest. She didn’t expect anything even remotely entertaining to happen — you could say that she had been rather bored for the past twenty four hours. Everyone else seemed to love the fights, but she just didn’t get it. Genuinely interesting things seldom occurred in these trials.

Of course, she was expected to be there like everyone else. While Zora was confident that Captain Hart wouldn’t give a shit if she stayed behind, she knew that it would look funny to the rank and file. As the gate opened and the worldwalker stepped out, Zora sighed. It’s not like showing up takes much effort.

“Who do you think is going to win?”

Zora answered Chris without so much as averting her gaze to look at him. “The demon.”

The flame brand stepped up beside her, arms crossed. “You sound pretty sure about that — it’s a pretty big difference in level though.”

Shrugging, Zora kept her eyes trained on the two figures down below. “The demon is special. The earth shaker isn’t.”

“Fair enough,” Chris muttered — and then Zora was immediately proven right. The demon had rapidly dashed forward and thrown the spear with such strength that it penetrated entirely through the traitor, shattering against the steep rocky slope below them.

Zora squinted. There was definitely some kind of transient enchantment involved in that attack as well. From what she had seen so far, the demon’s abilities appeared to be primarily kinetic in nature. Remembering what Captain Hart had told her about the demon having lost her paths, Zora wondered if one of them was something like the standard {Kinetic Knight}.

In any case, the archmage smiled as the demon stepped forward to finish off the fight. The traitor was a dead man anyway — but of course, finishing blows were typical in these events, despite being overkill.

But Zora was pleased. Not only did this mean that the trial would be over a few minutes earlier than she expected — it also was completely unexpected and rather uncommon for it to go down like this. Zora was rarely entertained, so this came as a pleasant surprise.

Thank you, little demon. Zora idly frowned as she thought about the worldwalker — Zoe, that was her name. The archmage wondered how she had completely resisted the captain’s taming abilities, especially at such a low level.

But also, she’s only been awakened for what, maybe a week? Zora squinted down at the demon as she readied a killing blow. She’s an oddity — and one with a lot of potential. Smiling again, she imagined the possibilities. Perhaps I’ll take her under my own wing.

And then the bitter stench of corruption wafted up to Zora through her {Manasight}.

As the traitor began to undergo the initial metamorphosis, kicking the demon back with astounding force, Zora wheeled around and made straight for the captain’s bench. As she did so, she saw that he was already beckoning her over.

“Did you corrupt him without me?” She snapped at the captain. If she were anyone else — even one of the other first hands — he would have slapped her for her insolence. But their relative positions were more for show than anything else. They were both equals — but common pirates were more likely to flock to a slightly older immortal, even though she herself would be breaking through the next realm soon.

“I was going to ask you the same thing.” The old beast tamer’s brow was crinkled in confusion as he glanced between Zora and the frenzied melee now raging below. “Which means —”

“That man somehow had stabilized corruption in him without either of us knowing,” Zora finished for him.

The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

He nodded. “I don’t like this.”

“Neither do I.”

They stared back down at the pit for several seconds. The men and women behind them were starting to cheer, but Zora only had a sinking feeling. Looking back up, she shared a glance with her companion. “I think you should go check on the main camp. I have a bad feeling that our surviving traitor isn’t actually alone.”

“Agreed,” Zora said. “Stay here.”

Turning her back to the battle, the archmage set off back towards their camp. She briefly considered using {Kinesis} to fly over, or even {Astral} to open a portal — but she decided that enhancing her physical capabilities would be good enough. After all, if there was trouble, she wanted to have as much mana as she could spare.

Either of those first two options would consume more than she could stomach — at least under the currently uncertain circumstances. As the sounds of battle and the cheers faded away, Zora spared one last thought to the demon. I hope she manages to survive.

As Zora hopped down to the bottom of the rockslide, she caught a subtle whiff of corruption through her {Manasight}. It was funny — the ability sounded like it would manifest as vision, but for Zora it was a hyper acute and directional sense of smell. Granted, from what she knew, it was different for everyone.

In any case, the stench was nearby, though it was was quite faint, almost smothered by the ambient earth and air mana. But unlike what she would have expected, it wasn’t actually stale — no, it was quite fresh.

Readying her most potent abilities, Zora leapt up to the top of a nearby boulder and dropped down to the other side. As she fell, she conjured a shimmering blade of raw mana, sweeping it out in a hundred and eighty degree arc.

One of the two men blocked it. Zora was momentarily surprised — to be able to outright block such a potent attack was something few others she had encountered were capable of. Fortunately, analyzing the camouflaged man revealed that he was only level sixty.

Not a problem, she thought as she backed off. As he prepared a spell of his own, his companion shouted into a strange little box-like device. “This is group six, we’ve been discovered! Hostile contact with a —”

He didn’t finish the sentence, owing to the fact that Zora had violently ripped all of the mana out of his body, turning the physical bits of him into red mist in the process. She immediately tried to do the same thing to the man she had first attacked.

Unfortunately, his spirit resisted with uncharacteristic strength. But before he could finish off his spell, Zora sighed, rolled her eyes, and channeled her {Mana Mastery}. About six hundred mana formed a narrow beam and streaked straight into his heart — courtesy of his recently deceased comrade.

As the corpse fell to the ground, Zora strode forward and scooped up the little device that the other one had been shouting into. Was it some kind of communication enchantment? She didn’t sense any particularly powerful magic in it, which was strange — but a puzzle for another time.

“All units advance immediately. Keep the level sixty and ups occupied. Ignore the rest. No retreat until successful extraction of the worldwalker.

As Zora listened in to the chatter of the communication device, she frowned. Sounds like things are about to get interesting. Up until now, her understanding was that the traitors wanted to prevent them from protecting Greensworth — but now it was obvious that they wanted the demon.

But why?

Shrugging, Zora tossed the device into her storage space. Just before she did so, she realized what the relatively weak enchantment on it actually was — it was a moderately strong and uncommonly complex light enchantment interfacing with a basic sound enchantment.

The first part was bizarrely constructed — by her understanding, it shouldn’t even produce useful light. But somehow, it worked for their purposes.

How peculiar. I’ll have to study this one in greater detail.

As Zora hopped back up towards the arena, she realized that the sounds of battle were now raging all around them.

Looking up, she realized that two aircraft had made a thunderous entrance with their armaments blazing. More of the sandy-brown camouflage-wearing assailants had advanced on their position. As she calmly surveyed the sudden wreckage, Zora realized that a pair of them were advancing towards her — casually slaughtering several of her comrades along the way.

Zora conjured her mana blade. Good. Let them come.

As the archmage advanced to meet them, she made a promise. I won’t them take you, Zoe — and if they do, I’ll follow.

Why?

Well, a soon to be immortal archmage deserved an apprentice — and while they were easy to come by, Zora was sure that the little demon was special. Grinning, she disarmed the first attacker — literally speaking, as her blade cleaved through his weapon and flesh as easily as parting water with a knife.

Yes, she would save the demon. And if she didn’t live up to her high expectations? Well, Zora would soon have all the time in the world to get better material.