It felt like his organs were turned inside out as bright light enveloped his vision. In an instant, his entire body was wrenched away from his world. When he opened his eyes, he found himself in an enormous room with a white floor and ceiling. With an instinctive push of aether, he caught himself as he still had no left leg or arm.
As far as the eye could see, the room’s endless white walls stretched on. Next to him stood Xenia, gawking at the hundreds of flashing lights that appeared in the room. When the flash of light passed, it would reveal another citizen of Trianon standing in its place. Five meters apart from him, Serafina and Akeem materialized out of thin air. Thousands of people from all social classes, genders, and ethnicities appeared around them. He estimated that there must have been about twenty thousand people at least. There were beggars, thugs, traders, caravan overseers, peasants, some nobles, northerners, southerners and … Res’s gaze was drawn to an especially bright light. The entire elite palace guard with the prince at the front materialized five hundred feet away. Immediately, their commander shouted out orders, and they split up into units of four. Another flash of light appeared close to him and the ghostbound that hunted him appeared next to him. Before he could react, the ghostbound’s fist hovered an inch before his face. A blue barrier had appeared around his face and the ghostbound backed away in confusion.
Serafina, Xenia, and Akeem took on fighting positions and Jason chimed in: “You can’t hurt each other here. You could talk sense into him.”
Res extended his hand to the ghostbound. “Nice to meet you, my name is Res. Hurting each is other isn’t possible here. I don’t know why you want to kill me, but I hope we can become allies.”
The hooded figure eyed his hand and hissed out: “Foul Spirit, don’t think you will get away with possessing a body.”
After saying that, he walked several steps back and continued to watch him. Res only shrugged his shoulders and turned to his immediate problem: “Please tell me you have some secret aether talent you have hidden away, Xenia.”
She clutched at her necklace and answered hotly: “I have enough aether to start artifacts and that is more than most of the population.”
Res deflated and sat down on the ground with his face buried in his hands. A voice resounded through the room: “LADIES AND GENTLEMAN! This is the twelfth king’s tournament of planet A3U7, also known as Planet Jason.”Roaring applause resounded through the room and everyone cast about for the source of the voices. Res only shook his head.
“Jason, you have balls to name an entire planet after yourself.” Jason sent feelings of smugness and pride through the connection. “Bro, I didn’t even do it intentionally. When I dropped by on their planet, they were being invaded by red slimes and I helped them out a bit. They asked me where I had come from. I didn’t want to give them the fucking coordinates, else they could hold the entire planet hostage.”
He looked at the white room with renewed interest. “Is this another planet? Another world? Why are there no plants or soil?”
Jason laughed heartily. “Ahhh, that was refreshing. To your question: The klengan’s initially lived in a world like yours. This is only a special room to make teleporting easier. In their world, everyone lives better than the king in your world. They all know how to read and write and they have magic constructions that can kill worlds.”
His whirlwind of thoughts was brought to a stop by a voice that seemed to act as the announcer. “Dear participants, it seems like there are even more participants than usual. Unfortunately for you and fortunately for us, we will need to root out most of you before the proper tournament starts. We will begin with a classic arena matchup. Always keep in mind: If you lose, you will lose the ability to draft aether ever again. We offer either one versus one fight or four versus four. You will have the next twenty minutes to either form a team of four. If you don’t want to form a team, you can use the time to prepare yourself for a tense solo battle. You form a team by having four people hold each other’s hands while saying: ‘We form a team’. Good luck!”
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For several moments, the entire room was quiet, then havoc broke loose. People were shouting about how powerful they were and many were flocking to imposing thugs. Akeem grabbed his hand and motioned him to do the same with the two girls.
“Xenia will last four seconds in any arena and I don’t want to besmirch my family’s honor even more.”
Res looked into Xenia’s scared eyes and something primal came over him. He felt a faint vibration in the air and the weighing feeling of the entity flooded his body. He whispered “This is me” and grabbed Xenia’s arm. She smiled at him, but still bit her lip. Behind Res, the ghostbound screamed something about him needing to man up and face him in a one on one.
Res ignored him and they spoke in tandem: “We form a team.”
Pink lights in the shape of a unicorn appeared over their heads. Jason broke out into laughter and a voice in his head announced: “Team pink unicorn has been formed.”
Akeem took on the same expression of dread as Res, while Xenia and Serafina laughed. Akeem buried his head into his hands as he viewed the other team’s banners around him. “Pouncing Tiger, Demon Reaper, Fire Wolf, Royal Undead, Electric Ravens and we are the fucking pink unicorns. The announcer will laugh every time we fight.”
Xenia chimed in: “Unicorns can be fierce … ” She trailed off and added: “I think.”
Behind them, the ghostbound had stomped over to a group of thugs and turned a piece of cloth into sand. The thugs immediately pushed one of their friends out of the group and formed a group with him. The masked young man cursed at him and Akeem asked Res: “Who is that guy?”
He had never felt such temptation to lie, but he remembered the entity asking him ‘Who are you?’. He wasn’t a liar. As nonchalantly as he could, he said: “He has captured a ghost and harnesses its power.”
All of them turned dead silent, and Serafina laughed nervously. “No, be serious. Who is he?”
“Everything that I said is the truth.”
Akeem took an involuntary step back and gasped out: “Ghostbound … ”
Res looked at him, surprised. “You know of them?”
“I overheard father speaking about a ghostbound who killed fifty people in the palace. He wasn’t persecuted …”
Xenia definitely didn’t like them talking about something she didn’t know of. “What are ghostbounds?”
“They have taken control of a ghost within their body and can harness that ghost’s power. I know little of them either.”, Res explained. Akeem raised his brows and eyed him.
“Why does such a powerful organization want you dead?”
His palms began to sweat. “I have a ghost in my body, too. We are friends though and don’t have the customary slave-master relationship.”
For several moments every one was silent, then Serafina asked: “Are your personalities merged or do you take turns at piloting your body?”
Xenia’s face changed from shocked to horrified and Res interjected. “I am in the unique situation that we are able to live side by side. We are like roommates. He doesn’t mess with my body at all, has other ghost friends, and helps me with aether. I even already told you about him when we were in the auction house.” His explanation didn’t seem to calm Akeem at all, so Res continued. “I didn’t know for a long time that there were other people with similar powers. The time I was introduced to that concept was while you, Serafin, and I were sleeping together.”
Through their mental bond, he sent both Xenia and Serafina the sincerity he felt. Xenia was still for several moments and Serafina sent feelings of forgiveness through their bond. Not wanting to be outdone, Xenia sent feelings of lust and compassion to him. Their communication degenerated into a confusing swirl of emotion. Panting, Res had to break off the connection. When Res opened his eyes, he was only centimeters away from Akeem’s angry face. Akeem’s foot was tapping on the white floor and his fear of Res had evaporated. Picking his nails, he asked: “Sooooo, you slept together.”
Xenia, still enraptured by the whirl of emotions, answered in a suggestive tone. “Ohhh yes, it was so nice to feel Res’s heartbeat …”
That was enough for Akeem. The boy standing in front of him had established a blood bond with his sister and had slept with her. Res babbled incoherent words as Akeem drew his fist back with his muscles rippling: “She misspoke. We only took a short twenty-minute nap, and I was bedridden.”
The merry voice of the announcer interrupted their friendly conversation. “You will be teleported to your first match against wild beasts in three, two, one.”