The two stood perfectly still in complete silence. Neither their bodies nor their eyes nor even their intent betrayed a hint of their next move. The elf shot past without warning and half of Shin’s neck split open. Her eyes narrowed. Shin had read her. Not fully, but enough.
She vanished from all senses in an instant, and Shin maintained a deceptively vigilant stance where he stood. A dagger sliced his neck again from the back, no deeper than before. A trace of shock found her eyes this time but there was no time to assess. Before her soared a rippling green orb spiraling within like a storm and from behind sailed a blade Shin swung the moment she moved. Curving down at just the angle she would choose to dart away from the orb. The right was wide open but that was a trap she felt. No, she knew.
She continued forward as the blade missed her back, and the green orb bore a hole in her chest disregarding her phantasm entirely and eating straight through her armor. The elf burst away as flesh from the wound mended in an instant but her armor did not, revealing the same pale blue skin as her face.
Shin remained where he stood, five writhing orbs blooming in the air as he melded Quake and Greater Spirit Gyro into one, and channelled them as far as they would go. Chaotic green orbs emanating harsh ripples of vibration orbited around him, seeming unstable enough to destruct at any moment. Jagged Gyro, he thought of them, and Duality flared within all.
Shin burst forward, six rippling orbs swirling around him as he pursued the evading elf as she kept her distance. The orbs circled him in deliberate coordinated paths, blocking or leaving a trap from every angle she could attack. Paralytic Mindfray didn’t so much as make the elf flinch so they left his thoughts as he continued his pursuit.
Foxfire was too slow to help when even he couldn’t catch her, but her weakness was obvious. To possess this much speed, she had to sacrifice something. Willpower wasn’t needed with whatever mental trait she possessed but that wasn’t enough. Constitution likely, but also Vitality and Spirit had to be lacking. He could outlast her. Every skill she used drained what little she had and soon she would be with nothing.
The shadowdancer razed forward, trading a slice through Shin’s skull for a hole in her shoulder. Seeing Shin chase after unaffected, she stalked around searching for any openings, a sense of urgency about her that wasn’t there before. Nothing that could be gleaned from her expression or movements but Shin felt the atmosphere around her all the same.
Her figure blurred and she appeared in front of him, darting to the side from two attacking orbs. Hazy afterimages trailed behind. The blade of her dagger faded slightly as though its existence slipped away, and passed straight through the staff of Shin’s weapon, slicing through his head once again. But his body spun and a sword in his other hand cleaved through half her body.
The elf burst away from the orbs that followed, her body regenerating along with Shin’s. Shin stored the sword and charged again, resuming the hunt. Something rose within her eyes as she evaded now, annoyance and caution. She knew full well even with unfettered and the Body Supremacy and Regeneration to support it, to fight as though one was immortal without fear of death was not easy.
A sliver of fear existed within every being deep down, even the most conceited, the most zealous, or the most trained. The life of an true assassin was to have such fear tortured away until it bled out of one’s very soul. Such that one could move and live pretending it was gone. But the sliver always remained. Only the ignorant or controlled lacked it. But the experienced could not be ignorant and the controlled free from such shackles upon this stage. She felt it from the target with each favorable exchange she made. He was devoid of fear.
The shadowdancer spun around from another exchange, forcing such thoughts from her mind. She had not the time nor luxury to think of anything but the fight. Shin rushed in from the right, and she noticed an orb missing from her vision. It hid behind him, she deduced in an instant. An opening, a gap in the orbits, appeared on his side and she lunged. Another orb circled from her right, heading straight behind where she’d be. The trap within the trap.
Her daggers faded, and green orb burst suddenly through Shin’s chest right towards her. And her cold eyes glinted. The trap behind it all she had predicted. Afterimages trailed her body as she pivoting with her raze, changing its direction. Her arms blurred and split into three images each severing the fearless invoker in parts.
But as she slid away, her face tensed, four green orbs curving in from different directions. She couldn’t stop her path, not in time. With just a instant to think, she blinked away from the danger.
The afterimages faded away and her daggers returned to normal with the last of her mana. But still, Shin rose, putting the parts of his body back together as they healed. The shadowdancer stored her daggers, as she resigned herself, her eyes devoid of care. Without Haste and Spry, the result was inevitable. There was no need to lose her best weapons in the process. Whatever rewards the tournament held were out of her reach. She had to make the most prudent choice. She had to do as she was expected.
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Shin took a step and paused as he saw the elf’s actions, his mouth lowering neutral. “Are you really alive?”
The elf’s eyes widened just slightly at the question that struck deep. Too sincere, too piercing to ignore. And a storm of jagged orbs sheered away every trace of her body, too quick for the question to linger. Neither did it linger in Shin, for his surroundings shifted and he found himself face to face with his next opponent.
An unremarkable young man compared to his last two. Hardly older than Shin by appearances. Lean, clean shaved, and bald, he wore yellow monk’s sleeveless robes with a single vest strap and simple pants but notable barefoot. A frown held his face, humorless and resolved.
[Human Arhat (legendary) - Greater Lord]
“Begin!”
The two met dead in the center, violent wind swirling around the arhat’s arms, white mask and kitsune robes donning Shin. A fist struck Shin’s face and wind blasted half of it to shreds, while his own prismatic fist clad in white and black struck the monk’s torso clean. His face tensed slightly, but that was all.
Shin slipped the second punch as his face regenerated, the mere proximity to the wind sliced into his flesh but he ignored it. A testing Mindfray showed no sign of effect but the flicker of his estoc drew a line of blood just under the monk’s eye as he avoiding it piercing through his eye.
The monk jumped back and punched. The small tornado around his fist shot out faster than his own movements, colliding with a Greater Mana Shield, both destroying the other. Channeled Quake bloomed at the ends of Shin’s limbs as he charged burst forth. Shin feinted in several directions as he drew near and kicked high, but the arhat blocked, his palm just out of the range of the quake. The monk stepped in with a punch in return, a short stream of piercing wind shot out at the end just past Shin’s ear as he slipped again.
Limb struck against limb as both fell into a flurry of exchanges. All of Shin’s strikes blocked clean with impeccable technique and pose while every strike the monk returning shot streams or sliced blades of wind as Shin deflected and dodged. Evenly matched in martial arts, the fierce battle continued with no winner in sight, neither man relenting or showing their hand.
The monk broke the standstill first, knocking Shin back with a nova of wind. Tornadoes wrapped around his arms once more, and shot one at Shin. He dodged, just barely as the cluster blast a hole in the stage, and darted away again and again as the monk punched the attacks one after the other without end.
Shin dodged another and rushed towards the monk, flickering past a few more attacks. He stepped on the ground and burst forward with the propulsion its quake, shocking the monk who just barely managed to dodge. He shot another tornado with Shin wide open in his sights but the invoker stepped jumped back off the air over it and again from above flipping a second quake kick.
The jagged vibration crashed into aura coated arms the monk managed to raise in time. The ground cracked beneath him and blood burst from his arms. But he had no time to rest. Shin curled in, two hands carrying quakes each swiping in. Wind swirled in between just in time to meet the rippling force. A huge explosion of pressure blasted them to the other sides of the stage.
Shin calmly twisted through the air to his feet, regeneration healing what wounds he gained from the impact, and looked over to the monk who could not say the same. “How do you have so much aura? What’s it called?” He asked, with no sense of urgency or concern for the fight, his interest solely focused on the ability the monk possessed. A fact the monk took poorly.
“You think this a game?” The arhat’s stern frown deepened.
“I guess.” Yen always said as much.
Rage crept onto the monk’s face, but he forced it back down. A deep breath out settled him into a state of controlled intensity as he took a new stance. A band of golden symbols looped into a disk behind his back and from it six giant arms of golden light grew, each twice the size of the monk’s own.
Shin took to the air and the monk followed. Punches, chops, and thrusts rained down from the six arms just as fast as the monk himself, each unleashing blasts and blades of wind as he did. It was all Shin could do to merely dodge as they blitzed through the air, chunks of his flesh blasted and sliced away at every moment.
But Shin showed no sign of panic. A shrill ringing filled the air with the sound of the wind, quiet at first but gradually rising and rising. Blood started to trickled down the monk’s eyes and nose. He intensified his attack more recklessly, adding blasts from his own two hands but Shin dodged easier than before.
“You’re worse than before.”
“Silence!”
The monk battered and maimed Shin around the arena in a rage, damage almost outpacing his regeneration, but the masked boy stayed as he was, channelling High Pitch without pause. A golden arm raised and the monk vomited blood, his body wracked with pain and his senses swimming.
The opening was only an instant but that was all Shin needed. Quake channelled fivefold in his palm and Duality flared with it. Golden arms covered the monk but it was in vain. Giant sonic booms blasted from Shin’s palm thrust as the impact cratered the monk into the stage like a falling meteor.
Shin dropped down into the settling dust and debris, walking ahead without hurry, the stage residing quickly to reveal the monk laying on the floor, his arms broken and body below his chest splattered out. The monk spat blood twice as he looked to the approaching boy, hatred apparent through the pain.
“The temple… will bring… peace to this madness…” He forced the words out with the last of his breath. “Demon.”
A blade sliced through his head in an instant, bringing the fight to an end. Shin wondered why the monk had neglected such a glaring weakness but that thought and his interest soon left his mind as he reset once more. The elevated fanfare and roar of the crowd caught his attention first but quickly he focused on the opponent in front.
A youthful man in archaic noble attire, pale flawless skin and long golden hair. A face of peerlessly enchanting masculine beauty draped in an aura of quiet and somber elegance would captivate most but Shin only took notice of passionless silver eyes.
[Dhampyr Psion (legendary) - Greater Lord]
“Watch now, as a champion is born!” The cloth masked announcer’s words resonated throughout the impossible vast arena as he raised an arm.
“Begin!”