“How’s your energy right now?” Nasq asked from his position against the wall to my left.
“Enough,” I said, though that wasn’t exactly true. The fight against the Hidden Sage had taken much more energy than I’d initially thought necessary. At the very least, the fight had mainly expended raw energy, and I’d managed to keep the lunar and necromantic attributes hidden, even if I’d used the Soul Weaver attribute a little at the end.
“How strong is the noble brat’s proxy fighter?” Nida asked, narrowing her eyes at the black-haired warrior who stood perfectly still, his expression bored as he watched the Group 2 fights.
“At least three rings into the Silver realm,” I grunted, raising my arm to rub a sore spot on my opposing shoulder. “But the development in this world is odd. It’s possible he has four or even five rings around his silver core.”
“Didn’t you say that was dangerous?” Nasq shifted so he could look at me better, the tips of his ears poking out the sides of his blonde locks.
“It is, but less so for an advanced core. The pressure can explode a coreless heart. I’ve seen some begin stacking rings after bottlenecking in the gold or platinum realm, but never silver.”
“So, it’s fine for him to do it?”
I shrugged. “Maybe. Or maybe his heart will explode mid-fight. We’ll have to see.”
If it seems possible, I suppose I could try forcefully cause his heart to overflow with energy… I mused on the thought, running through what I knew about the absorption of energy ability my Soul Weaver attribute provided. I’d been able to pull energy out of someone—could I push it in?
Necromantic-attributed energy could also allow me to drain someone of their life force… but I didn’t really want to expose that attribute just yet. And I wasn’t sure my current realm would be able to sustain the necessary necromantic energy to do that.
Still… Could I? If the pressure on his heart was not already near bursting, I might simply end up filling his reserves, which would be incredibly counterproductive to defeating him.
And if his heart was about to burst from the weight of all the heart rings, could I do it without killing him? My mastery of energy was precise, but I’d never even heard of this method of energy manipulation, much less practiced it.
“How will you tell if the pressure on his heart is enough?” Nasq asked, apparently thinking along the same lines.
“When he is pushed far enough, it should be fairly obvious from the quantity of energy he exudes,” I said. “The quality of his already abundant energy is decent, so I expect this will be an incredibly difficult fight.”
“You’re going to win, right?” Nida asked, her eyes wide with trust despite the tightness of her lips drawing a straight line of concern. “If you don’t, won’t someone else get your sword? And isn’t it…” she lowered her voice. “From Ordite?”
I bit my bottom lip and ignored her first question. The truth was, I did not know if I could defeat Alaric. At least not in my current state. Still, a Queen did not admit to those kind of uncertainties. “It is from Ordite. Though if one artifact is over here, I cannot imagine other artifacts have not also been brought over. The question is how they keep being brought over.”
“We’ll find out once we have the sword,” Nasq said with more confidence than his expression conveyed. “It must have at least some residual magic that can clue us in as to how it came to be in Graedon. Nobody can simply wipe all traces of that level of magic. Or energy, I suppose.” He tapped his growing stubble before wagging a crooked finger at me. “It might actually be energy. You said that Ordite doesn’t have magic, right? Then it wouldn’t make sense for magic to send the artifacts over, unless they are being pulled from this world and not sent by the other.” The elf cocked his head at me. “My lady, do you remember if you were pulled here, or did you come here on your own?”
I mulled over the question for some time without answering. It was long enough that I was able to watch Morgana finish her off her opponent. It was done in a rather overtly malicious fashion. Morgana torched her opponent, charring them so badly parts of their body quite literally cracked off. She laughed, the sound chilling as she stared down her dying opponent as if relishing in their pain and waiting for a surrender she knew would never come from their unconscious lips.
One of the referees stepped forward, surging into the ring to separate the two and forcefully ordering Morgana to leave. Her eyebrows narrowed at the judge, but then she shrugged and shifted to glare at me. She mouthed, “Soon, that will be you,” before storming down the steps of her stage and exiting.
“What is her problem?” Nida growled, but winced from the aggressive movements. The healers had closed her wounds and set her bones, but the bruising and soreness of muscle and skin still remained.
“That’s Lilliana’s sister.” They all stared at me in shock. It struck me then that while I’d shared my story and the journey since arriving in Graedon, I’d never taken the time to explain Lilliana’s background before my arrival. I had assumed the circulating rumors were sufficient, but evidently, they were not. Realizing this, I spent the next fifteen minutes recounting what I knew about Lilliana’s family dynamics, particularly her fraught relationship with her elder sister.
The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.
“So, let me get this straight,” Nida hedged, looking more confused than before I’d started talking. “Your… Lilliana’s sister, Morgana, wants to kill Lilliana because you killed Morgana’s friend with tea that Morgana herself had poisoned?” I nodded. “And you’re not sure who that poison had been meant for in the first place?”
“I suspect it was either done at the last second to poison me, or had been intended for Lady Ballenci. But I wasn’t paying particular attention to the serving of tea, so it’s possible it’d been intended for a different lady. Lady Ballenci, at the time, I believe, was a Lady in Waiting for Morgana. Short of a falling out prior to me, I am not certain why the attempt would have been necessary.”
“Have you talked to Brie and asked what she thinks?”
I thought for a second and shook my head. “No. We have not spoken of that evening since I threatened to humiliate her family by having her family take the blame and be further dishonored.” I paused. “Or it was something like that. So much has happened since, and that was rather minor.”
“Well.” Nasq ran a hand through his hair and chuckled softly. “You didn’t mention those details earlier.”
“I didn’t think the specifics of my dealings with Lady Ballenci were particularly relevant. She’s providing me with her information services, and that’s what matters.”
Nida sighed and Nasq adapted a frustrated expression. Although Nida seemed to attempt to deter Nasq's next words, the sorcerer wasn’t ready to back down. “My lady, those details are crucial! We’ve been relying on someone who’s cooperating only to avoid blackmail. She could have easily turned on us, putting all our lives at risk.”
I raised an eyebrow at the elf. “We brought her lover here as a prisoner. Did you honestly think she came along willingly under those circumstances? What, did you think I imprisoned her spy lover just for fun?”
Nasq hesitated, visibly deflating. “I… I guess I didn’t think it through.”
We observed the fighters in Group 3 clash for several intense minutes before I closed my eyes and leaned back against the wall, turning my focus inward to examine my silver core. Although there hadn’t been enough time since our arrival in Elyndor to form my third ring, the two I had formed thrummed with strength and vigor around my core.
Given a half dozen months or so, I was confident I could finish the third ring and reach the high-stage of the silver realm. It was frustrating that my core’s growth, despite being prodigious, was relatively still noticeably slower than that of the paragons under the Desire System. Excluding the white and black ring which had developed almost overnight somehow.
When I opened my eyes, exiting the trance of looking within, something clicked in my head, and a black window popped into my vision again. Its large frame obscured my view of the paragons and the Group 3 fighters, replacing it with an enticing message:
[SYSTEM REMINDER: You have gained many Paragons. Congratulations!]
[Reward: You have gained the ability to reap a percentage of all Paragons’ heart energy whenever the System rewards them with bonus energy. Do you accept this reward?]
[Note: This now applies to previously rewarded energy as well. All chosen Paragons will have their levels lowered slightly in compensation for the energy reaped.]
[Yes] / [No]
I let out a frustrated grunt but refrained from selecting [No]. With a simple thought, I dismissed the intrusive black square, restoring my view.
“Why is Group 1 so much stronger than the others?” Nida remarked, her eyes fixed on Justicia effortlessly dispatching her opponent. The remaining two fighters in Group 3 were locked in a duel at a speed that most below the silver realm would struggle to follow, yet it was no faster than Arthur’s earlier performance. Aside from Justicia, both the second and third groups were composed of single-ring silver core fighters or mages who had only recently entered the second mana realm. “Even I can see the disparity between groups—except for that Justicia bitch in Group 3. Our group is filled with those who either fight above their realm stage, like Your Majesty, or are on the verge of reaching the gold realm.”
“Now that you mention it…” Nasq chewed on the inside of his lip as he joined in on Nida’s observation. “Bad luck?”
Nida snorted as if he’d told a bad joke. “Doubt it.”
“Might be rigged,” I guessed, gesturing with a jerk of my chin toward where Alaric stood. “If he’s developed over three rings in the silver realm, chances are he is much more powerful than anyone else in this group.”
“Ah,” Nasq said, nodding in agreement. “That would explain it. Although it’s a battle royale at the end, it seems the two main competitors in the final bout are supposed to be Alaric and Justicia, the proxies of the most favored heir candidate and the temporary matriarch of the House.”
“What about Lilliana’s sister, then?” Nida wondered, sticking her finger into the dirt under her butt and drawing a smiling face. “Can’t be luck that she happens to be in the weakest group.”
I could only offer the tigerkin a shrug. “Bribery? Luck? Design? I cannot say. We would need to ask Morgana herself, or at least her mother.”
“The Baroness?”
“Correct. Baroness Mathilda, I believe.” At the words, a tidal wave of hate cascaded against my core from where the remnants of Lilliana resided. Feelings of hate, rage, wrath, sadness, despair, and pure bloodlust radiated so powerfully from my core that I struggled to push those emotions back toward Lilliana. The girl’s desire to kill her stepmother seemed equal to, if not greater than, her wish for Morgana to suffer. I decided to do something I should have done a while ago. “Nasq, I need you to head up to Brianna. Tell her to look into Lilliana Silverwater’s relationship with her mother and sister. I want every little detail written down and handed to me before I leave this city.”
“When are we leaving?” he asked.
“I am not sure yet."
Nasq looked a bit annoyed, but ultimately nodded. “As you will, my lady.” He climbed to his feet, bowed low, dusted himself off, and made toward the exit.
I stood as well, stretching out my arm.
Nida looked up at me with an arched brow. “You ready?”
“I’m always ready.”
Without glancing back, I ascended the stage stairs, climbing to where Alaric awaited. At some point, he had changed into a light blue tunic adorned with an emblem of a bird soaring beneath storm clouds. The symbol on the front was palm-sized, while the one on his back spanned from shoulder to shoulder.
“Ladies and Gentlemen!” Jarold announced, his voice echoing throughout the colosseum with increasingly obvious false excitement. “It’s time for the semifinals of the Expert Tier! First up, Lady Lilliana ‘Queen’ Silverwater against Sir Alaric of the Storm! Without further ado, BEGIN!”