Deathmatch(1)

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My footsteps carried an odd sense of heaviness as I approached the six people pompously staring me down with their faces drenched in utter confusion, but I wasn’t paying much attention to their theatrics right now....In fact, I wasn’t paying that much attention to anything other than the flickering lights swaying inside their bodies. My vision was already locked onto the image of their souls so right now all other forms of excess information were being filtered out. I could feel the heat from the recently collapsed pyre on the right side of my face, but it wasn’t enough to evoke any sort of reaction from me.

The only thing my mind was actually paying any attention to was the image of the six ‘targets’ now standing before me.

“KRIIIIEEEKKKK!!!!”

“H-hey, Gorgon, settle down! It’s just a little fire!” Amaris frantically yelled at the large serpent now thrashing about in a fit. After turning his head to glance back at the hissing monster, Owen returned his narrowed sights to my approaching visage.

“I see. You’re using the flames from that tree to act as camouflage for Vreena’s escape by dulling the basilisk’s sense of temperature. Not bad, not bad at all.” He didn’t sound particularly dissatisfied by that revelation, but he clearly wasn’t amused either.

“W-wait, you’re saying he’s here to buy time for Vreena’s escape? That’s ridiculous he’s just a kid.” Amaris retorted in indifference.

“Don’t underestimate him Amaris, I heard he recently awakened as a mage, but I don’t know the specifics of his awakening. We can all see for ourselves what he just did to Lucas, and it goes without saying but, he’s not completely harmless so we might have to cop off a limb or two just to be safe....”

“Pfffft! Hahahahaha! To think that woman, the town elder would abandon him here like that all to save her own skin, you’re really having a rough day kid; I almost feel bad for you - Hey wait.....come to think of it, Lucas isn’t that your sword he’s holding?” Gavin enthusiastically chimed in. That tonality didn’t match up well with the earth woven gauntlets now clinging to his arms at all.

“It’s fine Gavin, he won’t be holding anything much longer.” That irksome remark came from my left, and it belonged to none other than my primary target.

“She didn’t abandon me.” I replied flatly.

“Huh? You say that but you’re here all by yourself right now. Don’t you know what abandonment is, or are you still too young for that?”

“I’m here by myself because I chose to remain as a decoy. I was just supposed to get your attention with some flashy magic and then run off, but I’m not going to do that, I wasn’t ever planning to.”

“Oh? Are you saying you plan to fight all six of us by yourself then, Liam? You’ve barely been a mage for two weeks. This must be hard for you to understand since you’re still a child, but you can’t possibly win, you should have just-”

“I’ll win. You people aren’t all that powerful, and besides, I knew I’d end up fighting you sooner or later Owen.”

“Owen! Are you stupid or what!? This is exactly what they want, the rune girl is getting away!” Another high-pitched scowl came from the fuming Amaris, at this point she was starting to seem even more bloodthirsty than the two monsters under her control.

“Wait Amaris, Vreena’s injured so she won’t be making it very far and that Oliver guy is distracted right now so we’re not in that much of a hurry.” Ulric interjected, still maintaining his nonchalant posture.

“....Alright if you say so.”

“Its six of us against one rookie mage that hasn’t even gotten his adult teeth yet, we’ll finish this up in no time.” Ulric remarked in his ever-confident tone.

“And besides, I want to know what he meant by that just now, you made it sound as if you were suspecting Owen from the very beginning.”

“I did, it was obvious to me, but I suppose Vreena and the others trusted him far too much to ever cast those suspicions onto him.”

“What gave it away?” The disgruntled knight asked with a grimace.

“That.” I pointed to the vapors subtly leaking from the corners of the Basilisk’s jaws. “You said that your radical ability was regeneration, but if you think about it, that power would almost be completely useless against this monster.”

Ignoring the sound of his clenching fists, I continued.

“When Isaac was getting healed, my mother had to extract the poison from his body before she could heal the actual wound, and Vreena herself had mentioned just how contagious the vapors from that poison were. That being said, if your power was actually regeneration then it would have certainly had some effect on you, after all, regeneration is mostly just for healing physical wounds, not dealing with toxins. Yet you somehow managed to miraculously fight off this monster that ambushed your entire unit with poison gas and haul the infected bodies back to town all by yourself? That’s absurd.”

“Well done, that’s a pretty solid deduction kid. He’s been one step ahead of you this entire time Owen. He’s not just some ordinary brat after all.” Ulric added, slowly clapping his hands together as if to emphasize Owen’s oversight.

“No matter, this will all be over in a minute-”

“Mortals, allow me to share something interesting with you.” My stern voice immediately cut off whatever directive Owen was about to dish out.

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“Did he just call us...mortals?” Amaris murmured aloud for the first time after falling off the trails of our conversation long ago.

“I assume you know what reincarnation is, yes?”

The two men both gave me a stifled nod, stepping back almost instinctually after sensing the subtle escape of the ominous power I’d been trying my very best to contain.

“To put it simply, reincarnation is just a way for you mortals to experience the world under a different frame, providing that your souls were deserving of it of course. But for such a thing to happen, there needed to be a ‘system’ in place to guide those souls or else everyone who died would be granted the same opportunity, a second chance at life, whether they were saints or sinners.”

Pausing for a moment, I glanced at their fear-stricken faces before continuing the eulogy.

“However, this world doesn’t have a ‘system’ in place for reincarnation. When you die here, you either pass on or you end up stuck in Limbo for eons before your ego finally dries up and puts an end to your existence. Either way, your soul will end up being assimilated by nature itself after all’s said and done - There is no ‘second chance’ here.”

Lifting the bloodstained blade off my shoulder, I aligned its jagged tip with the head of my traitorous foes. “That means after I kill you lot, you won’t have any hope of ever coming back to the mortal plane as a living being. Rejoice mortals; you lot get to have the pleasure of being the first set of humans I'll kill with my own two hands.”

As if to emphasize that revelation, the crackling flames at my back suddenly flared up in accordance, flashing a brilliant veil of orange light across the fearful figures standing across from me.

“.....O-Owen, are you sure he’s just four years old? Don’t druids have ridiculously long lifespans or something? I get the feeling he’s not acting his age.” I heard Ulric’s stuttery murmur as he took yet another step backwards.

“Yes I’m sure....But you’re right. I don’t know what this dark feeling is, not even Oliver has an aura this fierce.”

“Huh!? Are you two freaking serious right now? We’re wasting time here!” Lucas shouted in contempt. After abandoning his position on my left, he approached me with malicious intent oozing from every pore in his body.

“Ulric I’ll deal with this kid! He might be able to use a little magic but it’s nothing I can't handle.” Loosening his joints as he approached, Lucas casually stepped inside the ethereal glow of burning timber that was now shimmering throughout the humming forest.

“Alright brat, it’s payback time.” he said with a sneer, glancing briefly at the spot below his feet before locking eyes with me.

I flicked four of my outstretched fingers at him a few times, mimicking the gesture I’d seen Oliver often use as if to say ‘Come on’.

His gritted teeth clenched with rage, disregarding anything but his own killing intent, Lucas crouched down low before charging towards me like a wild beast. Infusing my body with mana, I did the very same, kicking off the ground with my right leg and dashing towards him at an almost inhuman speed.

Before our bodies could collide in a blunt display of pure barbaric force, I ducked under his right hand that was no doubt aiming to grab me by the neck. I used my left hand to deflect his outstretched appendage and watched as his stance shifted to accommodate the sudden change in his position.

Twirling the hilt of the jagged blade in my right hand, I thrust the crimson coated tip of the blade towards his neck, but the blade’s trajectory was abruptly halted mere inches away from its target. Lucas’ free hand was now firmly gripping the blade by it's jagged edges and without wasting any time, he immediately took advantage of the current opportunity. Following through with his attack, he grappled on to my left hand after swiftly adjusting the course of the arm I’d deflected just now.

“~Gotcha~” That cheeky remark was underscored by the crushing force of his mana enhanced appendages now clamping down on my wrists.

With both hands now bound I had no other choice, planting my feet firm on the ground, I extended my body back as far as possible all while ignoring the split sensation of pain from the skin being peeled off my wrists. The second these joints of mine had reached their limit, I willed mana into my legs and directed the entirety of that physical force into adjusting my tilted posture.

My body sprang up from the ground like a frightened sparrow, but Lucas was still maintaining a firm grip on my limbs, a feat which was even better than anything I could have hoped for. Taking advantage of the limbs now holding me captive, I flung my head back whilst still airborne and with nowhere else to go, I slammed my forehead into Lucas’ skull with the force of a cannonball.

“Wha-” That faint murmur was the only thing he could utter in the wake of his eyes glazing over. Just now I felt a subtle shift in the hard structure of his skull as if it were sinking, and a spurt of blood was now spewing from my forehead, but I forced my body to press on without giving him any time to recover.

Twirling the jagged blade in my now free hand, I took advantage of gravity and put the entirety of my bodyweight behind a singular thrust, stabbing straight through his knee and pinning him to the ground in a sickening display of brutal force.

A weak groan escaped his throat, but I wasn’t expecting much more from someone who’d already lost consciousness.

Dry gasps of shock were now coming from his comrades, but before any of them could come to his aid I was already executing my next move. Just as Oliver had taught me, I quickly cycled through my arsenal as if I was switching gears in my mind. In less than a second, my desired affinity had solidified itself at the forefront of my consciousness as the flashing sparks that were conduit to the very wrath of the heavens.

Soon after, red crackles and sparks began springing up from my bangs, serving as the prequel to the surge of lightning that would soon envelope my body in a torrent of power. Without wasting a moment, I tightened my grip on the blade now fastened in Lucas’s knee as I channeled the entirety of the destructive force now surging through my veins into one massive electrical discharge.

The excessive force behind those sparks had sent even his comrades startling back, but as soon as the dust cleared, they’d all quickly come to the same harrowing realization.

Lucas was dead.

Watching the fading embers of his soul finally flicker out of existence was something I was dead set on seeing with my own two eyes and after that last blow, he certainly wouldn’t ever be drawing breath again.

“Haaah.....” I exhaled a warm puff of smoke much like what was now wafting from the charred body in the small crater at my feet. The once proud mercenary was now nothing but another stiff corpse in my path, even the burning timber behind me had more lushness to it than whatever the thing staring up at me in horror was supposed to be.

Both his skin and hair had been burned off and without closer inspection, you’d have a hard time figuring out if this corpse was even supposed to be human or not. The only clues you had to go on was the rather putrid scent still coming from it, along with the sound of whatever bodily fluids he had left evaporating.

Plucking the crude blade from the charred corpse of its master, I turned the murderous red gleam in my eyes over to the rest of his comrades. I approached them with the blade firmly gripped in my right hand, its tip just barely angled above ground. They stared at me in shock as if they were still trying to process what had just happened but the next words I spoke seemed to have snapped them all out of that shared delusion.

“One Down.”