The sight of the Coliseum’s ‘arena’ starting up never ceased to confound me. Instead of a black dome rising from the ground to envelop the participants in a half-sphere, each of the ornate pillars began amassing mana from some underground source. A few moments after that, arcs of black lightning emerged from the spike atop each pillar, converging over the square arena and crashing into each other, trembling and dancing fiercely in the air.

The next thing I knew, the sound of a furious explosion of thunder boomed, and a strange, transparent wall emerged, covering the entire arena in a cube. Visible from within it was the miniaturized space of an entire battlefield, though in this case hardly much was visible beside the sheer white of snow.

Immediately after that, the cube glowed a little. In a stunning display combining spatial magic and light magic, the operators of the arena greatly decreased the opacity of the snow, revealing the contestants. The projections in the room and throughout the coliseum began to show close up views of each team, to give the audience a clear view of the fighting.

On one side stood the members of the commoner team, who were already taking off the armor they brought from Syressa, leaving them in leather under armour. On the other stood the Brittania Knights, who used some kind of magic or enchantment to heat their armor – probably a sign that this isn’t the first time they dealt with difficult weather.

“I wonder what the Knights’ strategy will be…”

***

Sir Lanselot du Loc

The match against the Tameryian Gale has only just started, and we’ve already found ourselves in a dicey situation.

“Sir Lanselot! The weather resistance enchantments are draining a lot more mana than usual. At this rate, I’ll be out of mana in twenty minutes!” Sir Bedivere said.

“It can’t be helped.” Sir Gawain said.

“This blizzard is fierce, and the enchantment were general-purpose; not specialized against the cold. Sir Lanselot, should we take off our armor? In this environment, they will only serve as metal tombs draining us of both heat and mana.”

Hmm…

The veteran knight has a point. Still, I can’t accept his suggestion.

“No, Sir Gawain. Discarding our armor would both leave us vulnerable and lock away some of our abilities. More importantly, it gives the initiative to the enemy. Since it’s likely they are better suited than we are to this environment, we should go on the offensive and finish this battle quickly.”

Sir Gareth was about to object, but I raised a gloved hand to him.

“Forgive me, Sir Gareth, but our time is short. We don’t have time to deliberate any further. Sir Percival!” I called.

The young and earnest knight rushed towards me.

“Sir Lanselot! What do you require of me?”

“Please summon your steed and fly overhead to scout. With any luck, you’ll spot our enemy or even lead them to us.”

Sir Percival nodded vigorously and turned around to raise his hand.

“[Summon Bond]!”

A beautiful, snow-white steed clad in steel barding appeared before us, with its iconic horn and fiery temper on display.

“There, girl! Everything’s alright!” Sir Percival said, rushing to activate the weather resistance enchantments on the barding.

Sir Percival may not have been the brightest tool in the shed and almost too naïve to be a knight, but only a pure soul like him could ever hope to get close to such a majestic beast, let alone bond with it.

This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

“I’ll never tire of seeing this beauty.” Sir Ektor said.

“If my son can be blessed with a quarter of Sir Percival’s fortune, I’ll die a happy man. Hahahaha!” The old man chuckled.

As we spoke, Sir Percival mounted his steed and ordered it to move. With one graceful step after another, the steed broke into a gallop, and that gallop quickly ceased moving through snow. Instead, the Unicorn was running through the air, raising Sir Percival high into the air as it circled our position.

“Leave the talk of your adopted son for later, Sir Ector. It is time for us to move!”

***

“Sir Lanselot, I still can’t find anything!” Sir Percival said from above.

“Curses. We’re running out of time; we’ve got to do something, Sir Lanselot!” Sir Gareth said.

We’ve been searching for the enemy for a while, but the blizzard was simply too thick for any scouting to be effective, and our mana reserves were reaching the halfway point already. All of our detection abilities turned up nothing. Sir Gareth is right.

“Change of plans; Sir Gawain, please summon the brightest light you can muster over us. If we can’t find them, let’s lure them towards us.”

Sir Gawain nodded and raised his hand.

“[Guiding Light]!”

Pumping the spell with extra mana, Sir Gawain ensured that it emitted a nearly blinding light. Just for good measure, I raised my lance forward before activating one of my skills.

“[Roar of the Tempest]!” I said, thrusting my shining lance forwards.

A massive lance-shaped wave of cutting winds ploughed through the snow and the earth alike. The torrent of air was violent enough to stop the blizzard winds for a brief moment as it screamed a challenge to our opponents.

“Sir Lanselot, are you sure that was wise? An attack like that could not have been cheap.” Sir Bedivere said cautiously.

“Don’t worry, Sir Bedivere. My mana reserves are still high, and this was the loudest signal we could send. It’s going to save the whole team mana, and time is in much lower supply. It shouldn’t be long before our enemy strikes.”

It didn’t take long for me to be proven right; an arrow packed full of mana rushed at a nearly blinding speed towards Sir Percival, striking the young knight in the shoulder but breaking against his armor.

Sir Percival would have been knocked off his mount had he not been attached to its saddle, though that proved to be a double-edged sword as the shattered arrow erupted into a massive, dark cloud brimming with lightning.

Both the knight and his steed were engulfed by it and shocked numerous times before emerging out of it, wounded and charred but still in the fight.

“The arrow came from the northwest! Charge!” I commanded.

Despite being in full armor, the knights behind me charged ahead faster than a ballista’s bolt, eager to strike down the enemy archer. While scouting and miscellaneous tasks were not this team’s strength, direct combat was, and our opponents were about to find out why Britannia’s knights are so feared throughout the Republic.

Pulling my arm back, I prepared to activate my skill once more. Thankfully, the enemy handed us their position on a silver platter with nothing to show for it.

“[Roar of the Tempest]!” I yelled, thrusting with my lance in the direction the arrow came from.

Our vision cleared up as the snowfall was blown away, revealing the enemy party. Standing ahead of them with his shield raised was their captain, having already expected an attack from us.

“[The Stalwart’s Stand]!” He yelled, making his whole body and shield glow with mana.

My attack crashed into the warrior, erupting into a massive explosion of wind and snow. The man was pushed back a few meters but was otherwise unharmed.

“[Greater Anchor Howl]!”

A curse flowed through me and my party, intuitively threatening great consequences should I fail to focus my attacks on the enemy tank. A standard tactic.

“If you think you can stop me, go ahead and try!” I yelled as we descended upon the man and those who took cover behind him.

“[The Stalwart’s Stand]!”

“[Heavenly Moon Piercer]!”

My lance crashed upon the man’s shield with the fury of a thousand gods, and for a moment, our skills warred against each other. In the next however, my lance punched through the man’s shield and head straight for his heart, as expected.

Shields have a hard time blocking a piercing attack from a weapon of a harder material, and there is little that can match my Arondight.

“[Wall of Reprieve]!” A feminine voice yelled behind the man, putting a complete stop to my attack with the point of my lance mere inches from the tank’s chest.

“Wha-…?” I was shocked.

Instead of trying to stop my lance, the mage targeted my lance arm instead, stopping my thrust in its tracks.

The tank immediately let go of his shield and fell back, and I felt the curse restricting me fade away as my team finally caught up. I kicked the shield out of my lance as I stared down my opponents. The enemy tank activated an ability of some sort, materializing an earthen shield to replace the one I punched through. The five of us stood against three of the enemies, with Percival flying overhead and watching our backs for an ambush by the others.

Still, this was as good an opportunity as any. If the enemy tries to fight with a numbers disadvantage, we can crush them and pick off the rest without relying on our armor. If they do fight us with their full numbers, I am still confident of our victory. And now that they’ve fallen under Sir Ector’s sight, they will never escape us.

“Sir Gawain! Sir Gareth! Move to encircle the enem-” I said, when the unexpected struck and interrupted me.

“Wha-?!”