It was as if the entire arena froze in time. Enormous ice spikes rose, instantly covering the entire desert landscape in sharp, ragged edges. At least five people were killed on the spot as the ice spears tore vertically through them until each of them had small points at the top of their head like little hats.
A moment earlier as the goat monster had charged at Gideon, I’d seen the man raise his hands. Seventeen heart rings… or maybe magic rings based on the oddity in the foundation of the man’s heart energy, whirling around him in demonstration of his power. Other than the Silverwater Knight Captain, the man acting as ‘the’ Gideon had the strongest foundation I’d seen since arriving in this new world. But there was something very off about his foundation. The energy was different - I couldn't sense it coming from his heart. Instead, the majority of Gideon’s power seemed to originate around his stomach, fortifying my belief that he was using “magic.”
Blue-white light had danced around his outstretched palms while he’d drawn power from the hovering rings. The ground had rumbled and the temperature had plummeted.
I lived thanks to my honed instinct screaming at me to dodge. I had rolled to the side just before a great white spear of ice launched itself from the ground where I’d stood.
Gideon was laughing, that arrogant smirk still clinging to him like a bad rash.
“The Frozen King has descended!” Jarold announced, the audience responding with screams of GI-DE-ON.
I figured this was clearly some sort of reenactment of what the announcer was referring to as a massacre of filth. Something about elves, whatever that was. I had no idea why they were trying to force me into a reenactment. Were candidates supposed to play along? Was playing along part of the test itself? Was I supposed to know about the battle - to know what I was supposed to do?
I glanced around, taking in the magical destruction. I still wasn't sure what exactly magic was, but my instincts were screaming that what Gideon had done was magic. Three of the five men killed were from the ten I’d entered with, but the other two were from his own team. The steel armor they adorned clinked against the ice while their bodies collapsed onto it limp and lifeless.
“The hero king kills his own people?” I shouted, spinning the steel blade I’d looted until its flat side landed softly on my right shoulder. I didn’t really know who the hero king was, but I tried playing along with whatever weird reenactment bullshit was going on. My words rang loud and clear thanks to the energy I imbued into them. It wasn’t a difficult bit of heart energy manipulation, though it did require a refined touch. The poor slaves around me with sub-five heart rings and poor foundations likely didn’t even know it was possible.
Gideon’s smirk twitched but didn’t slip. The audience, however, had completely stilled. I couldn’t tell if it was out of shock or anticipation of what I’d do next. It didn’t really matter. I was absolutely sick of this world tossing me around left and right. If I died, so be it.
But I was done being kicked around. No more.
“I didn’t realize the great hero King Gideon was a coward not fit to lick Ashwash’s balls,” I taunted, adopting the tone and way of speech I’d heard from the Knights who’d served me. “Pathetic.”
Not even Jarold spoke as the entire amphitheater held its collective breath, waiting to hear what the man playing Gideon would do.
I reached into my Heart rings and drew on their vitality, lunar power flooding my energy pathways with a rush that nearly caused me to gasp. Instead, I held up my hand and flicked the would be killer-spear at my side. It didn’t just break. It shattered.
“Now what, oh great king? Do you plan to kill a twelve-year-old girl?” I, again, taunted the still-silent man. I could see him gritting his teeth, clearly not having come prepared for being taunted by a child. Strictly speaking, he was much more powerful than my current self - well, at least where raw energy was concerned. Raw power, however, was not the only factor in war.
“Child, you dare question the honor of the Frozen King?” He finally and lamely bellowed. The crowd gave a cheer but it was hollow, a husk of what it had been. Most of them just looked on, wide-eyed. He paused and spoke quietly, as if to someone unseen. “Who is this kid? You never told me the child had magic, this was supposed to be a slaughter reenactment. She was supposed to be the weakling elf offspring, not, not… not whatever she is!” I didn’t give him time to receive an answer.
“I question the honor of the pig before me, slaughtering his allies. Are you the Frozen King, or some fool pretending to be something greater than himself?”
He snarled and raised his hands, blue magic swirling around them with a deadly flourish. Before his magic was completed, I condensed lunar energy into a single point above my finger.
And then I flicked it at him like I’d done with the ice spear. The white dot collided with the swirling blue energy and both blinked out of existence. No sound, no explosion. Just gone.
I laughed, but it was without mirth. The laugh was cold and cruel, unfitting and unnatural for a twelve-year-old girl. I knew that. I didn’t care. This was not a progenitor. This was a man from a small, backwater world who didn’t even know about cores or cancellation techniques. All I had to do was send a dot of condensed heart energy toward him before his internal energy was released and poof, it dissipated. While everyone was enraptured with the drama, I made my way toward one of the opposing slaves who squirmed, a steel shard sticking from one of his eyes. The other slaves stared at me, open-mouthed and without understanding.
The author's tale has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.
All except an ebony man, no older than his mid-twenties with black eyes that sparked with rebellion. His face was plastered with sweat and his body was covered with scars, blood, and gore. But I liked that expression. Our eyes met for a fraction of a second. A single fraction but I saw understanding dawn in them as I approached the downed man. He whispered something to the man next to him, who looked much older and weathered. This one with pale skin and hair a dull red like a dying fire.
Both of them gingerly stepped backward, away from my spectacle and toward some of the injured slaves. As I drove my foot into the man with the steel shard in his head, they also acted, each killing an injured slave. I didn’t know if the killed men were our opposition or not, but it didn’t matter.
[You have gained heart ring energy.]
[Two others have chosen to transfer their obtained heart ring energy to you. Absorbing.]
[You have absorbed sufficient energy to create a third heart ring.]
[Attempting to form heart ring]
[Error]
[Formation failed. Fighter's name unknown. Unable to register with the System.]
[Provide Fighter Identification]
“Lilith,” I said.
[Accepted. Creating temporary title based on Fighter's past experiences, achievements, and sense of self. Queen of Rot established]
[Class override. Classes necromancer and lunari combined. Current class: Soul Weaver]
Gideon, clearly oblivious to the System, didn’t react to the death of three more of his allies. That put the slave soldiers down from 20 to around 13 now, some having been killed before the ice shards. On the other hand, only four in total from my original slave group had fallen, leaving me with 5 allies.
Luckily, the system seemed to be working for the other five. I could sense properly structured heart rings among them, though not all. The five of them no longer slumped or looked ragged. Their breath came in heavy bursts, but their shoulders were back and the look in their eyes was no longer hopeless.
I clamped down on all three as the third ring formed around my heart. They appeared around me, swirling in a uniform circle much as Gideon’s had done. The man in the golden chariot bellowed a mocking laugh at my three circles, his seventeen rings still dancing around him. What Gideon didn’t know, what no one here seemed to know, was that without a core, high bronze energy techniques would be a heart ring user’s max. Any more and the power would begin to tax their heart. The Knight Captain with his twenty-one heart rings had built a solid foundation despite not having a core himself, so he could likely reach the strength of a high silver-level core before his heart gave out. If he’d had a core, he could have fought me at my prime for some time.
Gideon, however, did not have a proper core nor did he have the solid foundation of the Knight Captain. His heart rings were more foundationally solid than others I’d seen in this world, but not by enough to matter in this fight.
The audience began to jeer at Gideon. Right up until the moment my heart rings collided with each other, spinning radically off their normal trajectory. I technically didn’t have to show this. Broadcasting heart rings was something anyone with a heart ring could do if they wanted to, but it wasn’t necessary.
I wanted Gideon to see. I wanted all of them to see. To know that this - this is was the beginning of their end.
My heart rings became intertwined, spinning across each other’s axis. I put as much focus as I could without risking losing sight of my surroundings into the core’s formation. I had done this before. It wasn’t easy, but once someone learned the methodology, it became a fairly straightforward task. If slightly arduous.
I could feel the entire stadium enraptured at the scene before them. Even Gideon, who I figured would have tried to attack me, was staring dumbly at the spinning heart rings. After a moment there was a deafening crack as the heart rings exploded into particles. Then, quickly, as if being pulled toward an invisible magnet at the very center of their rotations, the particles turned inward. All together and all at once.
What remained where the heart rings had circled was a single black and white diamond thrumming with refined, pure energy. With a silent command, the diamond core vanished and took its place within my heart as the foundational core.
The spectacle took no more than thirty seconds and I doubted anyone watching knew what had happened. Soon they would come to understand.
I cracked my neck to the right and then the left, my grin having never faded. The sheer amount of pure lunar and necromantic energy coursing through my veins was electric. Though I didn’t know how my body was so easily handling necromantic energy with a bronze-level core, I figured it must have something to do with the System assigning me the class of Soul Weaver. Unfortunately, that was not a class I was familiar with.
Vaguely I remembered the System giving me the title of Queen of Rot. I decided to ignore that for the moment. It seemed someone, or something, knew who I was. Who I really was. And I would find that out eventually.
I looked down at the body of the slave soldier my foot had killed and was surprised to find a small, reddish-white ball of energy hovering above his heart.
“W-what was that?” Gideon asked, his voice also heightened by energy now. I wasn’t sure why he hadn’t attacked me yet, even after the spectacle had ended. I suspected it might have to do with the fact I looked like a prepubescent child. He’d seen me kill, but no doubt didn’t really believe I’d be a threat to his seventeen rings.
Jarold, the caster, echoed the question. “Folks… I don’t think I’ve ever seen anything like this before. That little girl had three heart rings and… did she destroy them? But if she did, what was that diamond?”
I ignored them, staring at the ball of energy. Eventually, I shrugged and reached down to grab it. When my hand should have touched the energy, I instead passed right through it. The ball, with a whoosh, slammed back down into the body.
A single, thin string, one nearly invisible, remained attached to my palm and led to the corpse.
A corpse that rose from the ground. Headless.
And then with a pop, his head returned to his shoulders. He looked around, questioningly.
At first, I thought that might have simply been how this world handled necromantic energy manipulation.
No. It isn't necromancy, I realized, reaching out my senses to examine the man. The living man.
“Holy Hells,” Gideon said as a panicked clamor in the audience broke the silence. “What is that?”
The soldier was alive. Not undead. Alive.