Leone backpedaled and dodged the feliome’s wide swings, his giant blade missing the young man by mere inches. “Come here, you brat!” the grizzled cat man whined.
The feliome’s primary tool in his arsenal seemed to be his sword. It was large, sure, but it seemed to be all the man had. Also, granted, the cat man looked to be about 5’6” to Leone, so the young man thought the sword might have just looked bigger by comparison. Regardless, his opponent was not doing much besides swinging his large weapon around. The feliome had not sent forth any magic, had not imposed any enchantment onto his blade as far as Leone could tell, and he had not pulled out any other weapons or tools to add to the battle. All things considered, Leone found the fight somewhat boring. Admittedly, however, the young man currently had his Speed Switch activated, so time also seemed to go by a bit slower to him.
The young wizard danced around the sword-swinging cat, never letting a single hit even come close to touching him. As Leone expected, this only agitated his opens even more. “Stay still, you little— Ahhh!” screamed the calico feliome. “Get over here so I can cut you down!”
“Now why in the world would I want that?” Leone asked sarcastically, teasing his opponent.
The furry man growled at his playful opponent. Gripping his giant blade with both hands, he reeled the weapon back behind his head and prepared to swing. Before he could follow through, however, Leone blitzed the grizzled feliome. The young man raced toward his opponent and slid, sweeping the man’s legs out from under him. He smacked into the stadium floor.
“Hey, that was fun! Wanna’ do it again?” asked Leone cheerfully.
Still on the ground, slowly getting up, Leone heard the feliome mumble, “Dos Spliteum.”
As the furry man picked himself up, another figure peeled out of his back, wearing the same clothes, carrying the same weapon, and harboring the same skin. Standing next to the swordsman was an identical version of him, staring at Leone with the same intensity as the original.
“Ah, crap,” the young man muttered.
In an instant, he was rushed by both cats’ wide blades. They crashed down diagonal to one another, missing Leone by a hair. He zipped around to the other side of the stadium, catching his breath and assessing the situation. Alright, no big deal, he thought. There’s just two of ‘em, that’s probably all he can do. If there were more, it might have been a problem, but they just caught you off-guard, that’s all. Just move faster than they can keep up with, don’t give them a chance to hit back, and you’ll be fine.
Turning around, the two feliome copies rushed toward Leone, scraping their large swords behind them on opposite sides. With a determined smile, Leone raced forward, faster than he’d been the entire match. He wedged between the two calico men and, before they could react, landed a punch on each of them in the face that sent them flying apart.
Not breaking stride, the young wizard sped toward one of the two separated clones and landed a series of blows that could not be blocked, finishing with a wide kick that smacked the sword-wielding cat into the wall of the arena. Racing over to the other clone, Leone raised an arm to clothesline the feliome. The furry swordsman recovered just moments before the young man reached him, swinging his huge blade in a horizontal arc in front of him. Leone instinctively dropped to the ground, rolling laterally and bowling through the feliome’s legs once more. Picking himself up before the cat man could, he swept the swordsman’s weapon off the ground and whacked him on the head with its pommel.
Leone raced back to the first calico clone, preparing to strike him with his own cloned sword. Regaining stability just in time, the grizzled feliome slashed his own weapon forward, leaving the two blades to clash. “What are you doing with that?!” The swordsman growled bitterly.
“Kicking your ass with it,” replied Leone.
Pushing the sword up so that the two blades wrestled above the heads of the fighters, Leone quickly let go of the giant weapon and sidestepped behind the feliome. As the furry swordsman brought the unmanned weapon down with his own, he felt his ribcage cave in on itself.
Leone’s rapid punch hit the cat man so hard in the side that it tossed him forward, sliding along the walls of the arena before finally falling. Looking back at the unarmed calico, the young man noticed the clone start to dematerialize, an effect of the original being beaten so thoroughly. With the feliome swordsman unconscious, Leone had once the match, and an open doorway inside the arena revealed itself, showing off another staircase within it. The young man looked back up towards his companions and the knight. “Hey,” he began. “Do I have to go now? Or can I wait with you guys?”
“I’m afraid I don’t know,” replied the armored man. “I think—“
Once again the knight was interrupted, this time by Leone reappearing in the seat he had been removed from. “Oh my,” Azim stated. “It appears you are intended to stay with your group until we all either advance onward... or fall behind.”
This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.
“I think you might be right, buddy,” Leone acknowledged.
“You appear to have something floating above you," added the android.
“Hm?” The young man looked up. “Oh… what is that?”
Above the young wizard was a floating ball of blue light, similar to the flash that shone at the doorways to each floor. The group assessed that the orb must have been some sort of marker to identify that Leone had advanced forward but had yet to actually do so. Meanwhile, the feliome swordsman also vanished from the fighting area, though he did not return to his seat. Outside the tower, the furry man’s limp body appeared on the surrounding patchy lawn. He was still unconscious, and would be for quite some time. Those who would test their mettle in the ever-stretching tower would awkwardly walk past his unmoving body until he finally awoke and scampered away.
Back inside Lemaerk, the knight turned to face the rest of the adventurers. “So, what am I to do about my missing blade? I’m sure I’ll be up soon. Maybe I’ll even be next. I need to have something, or I’m defeated before the match has even begun!”
“I may be able to provide you with some assistance,” Azim spoke up. “Your armor is made entirely of metal, correct?”
“Uh… yeah?” Replied the knight awkwardly.
“This will be rather unconventional, but for the time being I am unable to do anything more than this. Reforming Alloy.”
With a brush of the robot’s left hand, the knight’s armor shifted entirely across his chest and arms, the metal on his right gauntlet extending past his hand while the gauntlet on his left receded. The stretched metal on his right arm condensed at the tip about 3 feet past his hand, resulting in a lance-like shape derived from his own armor. While the knight could still feel his hand inside the newly formed weapon, he was bewildered by what had happened to him. “Y-You’re… a metalmancer…,” the man uttered. “You don’t see too many of those.”
“When did you learn how to do that, hun’?” Riva asked curiously.
“It is of similar principle to what I performed on myself in Appilus when you and Leone brought me to Reavius. I simply adjusted the target to someone other than myself and reshaped the metal I had available, though I admit I do not know how the words came to me,” the metal man responded before turning back to the knight. “ Unfortunately, I do not yet know how to generate new metal or provide you with a separate weapon, but I do hope this will be acceptable for now. After your match, I will be able to change it back without issue, so please do not worry about your right hand.”
“No, yeah, don’t worry about that, I trust you,” the man spoke, still gazing at the lance that took the place of his right hand. “Still just… taking it in is all.”
As if it was a cue that he did not have time to do so, a wave of yellow washed over the knight’s armor just as it had Leone, and moments later, the man was in the center arena. “I knew I’d be next! Thanks, kid!” the knight yelled.
Facing the armored man was somebody he had not been looking forward to. Standing opposite him was one of the two elves that had been sitting a few rows from him and the others. Luckily, it was the tall, lean one and not the shorter one that had shot back at him. Unluckily, said stubby elf was cheering on his companion, telling him to kick the knight’s ass.
As the two’s yellow auras faded and the match began, the skinny elf fired a series of instantly spawning arrows from his bow. The elf did not seem to have a quiver, yet that did not appear to matter. The knight rolled out of the way, his armor clinking and clunking as he did. The armor-made weapon on his right side was trouble to get used to, leaving the man to stumble on it as he got back up.
Drawing the string of his bow back, an arrow manifested in the lean elf’s fingers. He fired the arrow at the knight with daring speed, not giving the man enough time to dodge. Luckily for the knight, his armor was tougher than a speeding arrow, leaving the arrowhead to bounce right off, dented. The elf fired off 4 more consecutive shots, all while his companion in the stands cheered him on. “Show that asshole the superior elegance of the bow!” The tubby elf cried.
“You know, for such an ‘elegant’, ‘dignified’ species, that guy sure is crass,” Leone mentioned.
“I agree,” Riva and Azim said at the same time.
The knight knocked away the incoming arrows with his right hand lance, not letting a single one break through his guard. “Come on, I came here for a fight, not a training session!” the armored man roared.
Disgruntled, the elf raised his bow upwards and pulled back the bowstring. Confused, the knight watched as the arrow flashed a shade of bright green before being let loose. A moment before inevitably hitting the invisible barrier encasing the two fighters, the arrow bent down and flew around behind the knight. The man in armor yelped as he watched it fly, turning around to see where it went. The arrow’s path bent in midair, flying back toward the knight. The man attempted to swing his lance and smash the incoming projectile, but the arrow ducked out of the way and impaled him in his arm, which did not have as much protection as it once had, thanks to Azim's magic. The tubby elf in the stands screamed in excitement.
“Agh!” the knight grunted, returning his attention back to the elf who had lowered his weapon in nonchalance. “Okay then… this, might be a little trickier than I thought…”
The knight clipped the rest of the arrow sticking out of his arm with his lance, resolving to get the actual arrowhead out later. In response, the elf raised his bow once more. The look in his eyes was jaded, almost tired. He looked like he’d been here before, or as if he did not want to be here in the first place. The knight couldn’t tell what the stalky archer was thinking, though he did know he was unnerved by how quiet the elven man was. “So… I guess you’re not much of a talker?” the armored man asked, not expecting an answer. “That’s alright, I’m good with that. Just like you, I’m here to get stronger. To get farther. I guess we don’t need to talk much with the competition if we’re just going to put them down along the way, right?”
The elf let loose 3 more arrows, all of which shot forward before bouncing up in different directions. One shot down from the left, one from the center, and one from the right. The elf just stood back and watched the events unfold, not worried in the slightest about the events to come.
The knight readied himself for the flurry of arrows. He launched himself back just before the 3 projectiles made contact, causing them to bend back up and fly forward, each one next to one another. The knight slashed at the arrows but was too slow. The flying projectiles bounced away from the armored man and circled around him. As they came toward him once again, the knight jumped, with surprising height, and let the arrows clump together. With one swift swipe, before the projectiles could change course, the knight cut each of the arrows in half. Once his boots were back on the ground, the armored man gazed up at the thin elf with a look of confidence. Lowering his armor-made lance to his side, the man simply uttered, “Keep them coming.”