Larra arrived in the central clearing after a half-hour of experimentation. She was almost too late, but she still drew herself into the top five hundred contestants, earning a spot in the next round.
She staggered toward the central table of the clearing and slammed the Essence Drop vial down on the table. “Judge it. I’m in time.”
She hadn’t counted all the other contestants, but if they weren’t taking any more, the beacons of light wouldn’t still be shining.
Blood covered her from head-to-toe, but it wasn’t her own blood. She shut her eyes and pushed the water away, but she could only control the water, so it left a dry, crusty coating across her skin and coat.
There had been a few trials and plenty of errors. Controlling another being’s blood wasn’t a simple feat, nor was imitating Karmion’s cycling patterns.
He’d probably been hoping she’d drop dead from the strain and effort, but she didn’t. Her tooth pendant had to boost her to Admiral in order for her to use the technique effectively, but it still worked. She still cobbled together a technique.
But…accidentally ripping apart other contestants? Well, that was an understandable loss, really. She didn’t have excellent control of the ability yet. It was a hammer, but she needed an engraving needle.
When people realized what she was capable of, they’d develop defences. But precision was harder to defend against than raw manipulation of blood.
It was a good first day, but she needed more time to experiment with the technique. She’d have to find more victims…
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Karmion was supposed to be watching over the central clearing, but he let his spiritual perception do most of the hard work. If a stray technique threatened the guests of the tournament, he’d intercept it.
Instead, he watched the contestants. He knew who’d make it to the final rounds just by how quickly they arrived, which made it all the more frustrating when Larra came in only a few places before elimination.
Her technique had progressed significantly beyond her first attempts, but it would still need lots of practice. She could strike at the blood of an opponent and temporarily take control of it, but like most high-level techniques, it would become a constant battle of willpower. The higher stage an opponent was, the more they used Arcara and mana to drive their body—not blood and muscles.
He was somewhat impressed, then, but he couldn’t ever show that. Larra needed to keep striving, and it was best if she thought he was horribly disappointed in her.
Besides, she was still serving him and representing his name, and if she was going to do battle against the Mediator, she couldn’t appear so weak. She had made herself—and Karmion—look weak.
The Mediator had come in well before Larra—fiftieth or so, which was admirable for her unfavourable starting position.
Worse, the girl had already pushed herself higher and stronger than just captain. She was well on her way to Commodore.
He shut his eyes, and for the first time in centuries, a sinking feeling pervaded his stomach.
The Shattered Moon might be the site of their final duel, after all.
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After the opening phase, Vayra and Glade returned to the contestant quarters to rest and recover. In a few days, the brackets would be set, and the fights would begin, but they didn’t know when their first duels would be. It could be up to a week away.
In the meantime, they both processed their Essence Drops. It’d be a massive advantage to anyone who had one—the Drop was a hyper-condensed elixir that lingered in the spiritual system for the rest of the user’s life.
It provided a continuous willpower magnification effect to the user, allowing for faster cycling and more effective techniques. Everyone who got one would see a slight power boost.
But since everyone got one, it wasn’t much of a prize for the tournament itself.
Still, nearly five-hundred contestants moved on from the first round, and there were too many of them to receive extra rewards between rounds—nothing more than an Essence Drop,
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Vayra swallowed the single neon orange drip of elixir and let its power flow out into her channels, then cycled it until the blazing neon power wasn’t perceptible in her spiritual senses any longer—or, more accurately, it had just integrated seamlessly with the rest of her Arcara.
To test it, she stood in the common room of the contestant’s quarters and unleashed a chain of Starlight Palms. They burst out faster, with more power, and she didn’t have to focus as much on cycling in order to make them activate.
Glade finished integrating his Essence Drop a moment later, and he used it to practice a set of Reach techniques with metal filings. He whipped a chain of filings across the floor, leaving a slash and scraping up chips of stone. The swordwyrm abandoned its giant broadsword host and scampered along the ground in its rusty form. As the giant sword clanged to the ground, the wyrm snapped up the sparks and flecks left by Glade’s technique and absorbed them into its form.
“Works like a charm,” Vayra said.
‘Too bad everyone will get the boost,’ Phasoné said.
“It’ll be more effective with our low-power and high-speed techniques,” Vayra said. “Glade swings fast and swings a lot, and I can unleash techniques faster than most people. It’ll hopefully benefit us more than most.”
Glade called all his metal filings back to his hand and tucked them into a pouch on his belt, and the swordwyrm raced back to the hilt and fuller of the giant sword. It bound to the metal, forming a rusty coating and making the sword hover.
“Someone with slow but powerful techniques will not notice as much of a benefit,” Glade said, patting the swordwyrm on the hilt.
“But you know who it will benefit, aye?” Nathariel said. “Larra. If she can concentrate her willpower better, whatever new technique she is learning will be infinitely more effective.”
Vayra shut her eyes and crossed her arms. “Yeah. We need a counter to it, both of us.”
Secretly, she’d been hoping that Larra would be eliminated in the first round of the tournament, but they weren’t that lucky. King Tallerion had delivered them a report of everyone who had succeeded, giving them the most updated and accurate list of contestants yet.
But until they had the brackets, there was nothing more she could do to prepare for her fights.
Except learning a counter to blood manipulation. Even if they never faced Larra in the tournament, they would face Karmion—and he had to know the same technique. Who else could’ve taught it to Larra?
“Do you know something that might work?” Vayra asked. She scratched her head.
“If we could use a Bracing technique directly on your veins, it might stop her from manipulating the blood,” Nathariel suggested. “But that’s a long shot. What you truly need is an internal Warding technique to protect your veins and channels from external attacks.”
“Internal warding technique?” Vayra asked.
Truly, she had never heard of such a thing before. She glanced at Glade, and he shrugged—he hadn’t heard of it either.
“It’s something that high-level fire-Path God-heirs use,” Nathariel said. “A specialized technique, I would call it, as few other Paths can use it.” He held out his arm and said, “Observe closely.”
Vayra used her spiritual sight on Nathariel’s arm, and Glade stared intently—he was probably doing the same.
For a second, his Arcara channels flashed bright white, and a ripple of flame washed across them. Then, new channels lit up. His blood vessels burned, and white fire seared inside his body.
In Vayra’s normal vision, his body glowed from the inside.
“Attack me,” he said. “Use your strongest Starlight Palm and hit me. Glade, use your sword.”
“Sir?” Vayra asked, tilting her head.
“You won’t hurt me,” Nathariel said.
‘Believe him,’ Phasoné chimed in. ‘You won’t actually do any damage.’
Vayra inhaled, then launched a Starlight Palm at his arm. The pulse of energy ripped away the upper layer of his skin, and she gasped. It wasn’t supposed to do any damage!
But as soon as anything went deep enough to touch the blood veins and flesh below, it stopped—hitting a powerful Ward that refused to buckle. Glade swung his sword hard and fast at Nathariel’s other arm, but it left only a superficial cut, where it would have otherwise cleaved off the man’s arm.
“You said it wouldn’t hurt you,” Vayra complained, shaking out her hand.
“And it didn’t.” Nathariel folded his arms behind his back.
“But we are not on a fire Path,” Glade said.
“Vayra’s Path is of Starlight.” Nathariel pointed at the pistol in her cumberbund. “She had already used a technique designed for fire, and she used it well. She should be able to mimic this one; starlight functions similarly to fire.”
“But what about him?” Vayra asked. “Swords are…well, they’re pretty far from fire, and sword-Paths don’t have Warding techniques.”
“But he’s not on a pure sword-Path anymore,” Nathariel stepped forward and flicked the sunset-coloured, orange-pink lock of Glade’s hair. “He has an aspect deep within him, similar to fire, but he must draw on it.” Nathariel tapped the new sword the Order of Balance had given him. “They recognized it too.”
“What is it?” Glade asked.
“Dawn. Sunset,” Nathariel provided. “They’re both subsets of sunlight.”
Vayra raised her eyebrows. “Those…are opposites, no?”
“Not really, not in the eyes of elemental authority,” Glade provided. He sighed. “Deep down, I recognized that when building my corespace and seeking my Captain revelation. The sun rises and sets, and when a sun sets, a new one rises. They are two sides of the same coin, but they are the same coin.”
For a few hours, Nathariel showed them the cycling pattern and allowed them to practice the techniques. Vayra and Glade both tried to mimic his movements and Essence rotations, pushing the energy out to her body.
With her Captain advancement, she had a much crisper grasp on how her internal anatomy functioned, and she knew where to shield—the blood vessels.
Larra was using a Reach technique, so Vayra needed to protect herself from such attacks, and a Ward should do that.
After a few hours of attempts, she managed to hold it for a few seconds before it dwindled off and she lost control of it. Her Wards had never been excellent for shielding her own body, anyway.
As the sun began to set, she sat down on the couch in the apartment’s living room and stared up at the ceiling. “We still have a few more days to practice, yeah?”
Glade nodded. “We—”
Before he could finish, someone knocked at the door.