“Here it is folks, this is the fight you’ve all been waiting for! We have the Master of Flames, the currently undefeated Rank 3 Champion of New Meridia, who is growing stronger day by day, it’s Heath Ryder!” the announcer said.
Heath did not appear at either end of the arena like the other Challengers had. He swooped down from above, riding a weird surfboard with incredible heat flowing out of the bottom. Air shimmered beneath the board as he flew down to the starting position at his end of the arena.
The crowd went absolutely ballistic. People shouted their excitement and chanted his name over and over.
Heath was absolutely eating up the attention. He kicked the burning board out from under his feet and lifted it over his head. It burst into white light and disappeared into motes of anima.
Blake was curious how much anima someone at Rank 3 had access to. Activating that card just to make a flashy entrance would have required anima. If Heath could afford to throw it away like that, he must have an overwhelming amount.
The announcer continued. “And here to challenge the master of flames, we have a newly promoted Rank 3 challenger by the name of Lola Stone! Hailing from a small town in Wyoming called Cuttington, Lola is beginning to make a name for herself in the dueling competition arena here in New Meridia. You’ve seen her rise through the ranks from one to three in the last week, but now things are heating up. Give it up for Lola Stone!”
Lola also made a flashy entrance. She didn't fly down into the arena like Heath had, but she stepped onto the starting area while shrouded in a whirling cloud of stone dust and rocks.
With a flick of her wrist she made this whirling stone dust turn into a small tornado in front of her, and then dissipate into nothing. She raised her hands in triumph at her arrival, and the rest of the crowd went wild.
They had certainly cheered louder for Heath, but Lola had her own fans as well. She wore an airy dress in the signature New Meridia style, and her dark brown hair spilled over her shoulders like she’d just walked out of a salon.
Heath’s outfit was a mostly-red jumpsuit the likes of which you might see on an escaped convict, but with black singes at his wrists and ankles. Blake wondered whether that was part of Heath’s particular brand because of the cards he used.
The screen hovering above the arena showed both faces up close, and they both smoldered with confident intensity.
The moment the announcer gave them to go ahead to fight, Heath drew a card, and he played it immediately. A flaming sword appeared in his right hand, and he ran directly across the arena at Lola.
“Here we have Heath with a Flame Sword to start things off! It’s always good to start a duel with a weapon, and the Flame Sword card is one of the best. Not only does it do decent damage, but the flames the attacks leave behind will continue to burn for up to a minute depending on how much the card has been leveled up! Lola is just lucky that Heath hasn’t pulled his Magma Rider as his first card, or this duel would already be over!” the announcer called out.
Blake figured Magma Rider was probably the name of that weird surfboard. He wondered what kind of monster he’d be able to summon if he somehow won that card from Heath.
Lola played her first card as well a moment later, and she grinned when she drew it from her glowing duel deck.
The announcer broke in, adding commentary. “Look at that grin. Did Lola Stone just pull her most powerful card as her very first draw in the duel?”
Lola played her card, which morphed into a hovering stone ball that orbited her waist as she waited for Heath to reach her. A chorus of oohs and ahhs rose through the crowd, though Blake didn’t really see what all the fuss was about.
“This card is the reason why Lola Stone has risen through the ranks so quickly! She’s played her Stone Sentry card, which allows her to parry incoming attacks using her vigilant sentry! It’s a very difficult defense to break though,” the announcer said.
It soon became apparent just how powerful this card was when Heath reached melee range and tried to strike Lola. The stone sentry flashed out as quick as lightning and countered every single attack that Heath tried to throw at her.
Each impact made an audible clang ring out throughout the arena as the steel core of the sword smashed into the stone sentry and was summarily denied.
Blake thought about the difference between a Flame Sword and a Flame Fists card. He had initially written off the importance of the Flame Fists card as it didn't seem like it had much of an attack advantage aside from the damage over time effect.
Harry still had to get up close and personal to attack someone with his punches, but the sword Heath used allowed him some more distance between, and more chances to defend himself.
However, now that he was watching Heath attack with a sword, Blake saw a downside to the weapon. Heath could only hold the sword with a single hand, and each attack was much slower than attacking with unarmed fists.
If Heath was using a Flame Fists card instead it'd probably be able to land double the number of attacks, and the stone sentry would have a much harder time countering him.
Time passed and Blake felt like it was approaching the one-minute mark. Suddenly, both Heath and Lola broke away from one another.
Lola ran to the side of Heath, heading toward the center of the arena. Heath didn't let her go so easily, though. He pursued her and attacked her from behind, but the stone sentry was just as powerful at protecting her rear flank as it was protecting her front.
Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.
When Heath realized this, he let Lola go and drew another card from his glowing deck. It was now Heath’s turn to grin.
The announcer’s voice broke out across the arena. “I think I know that look, ladies and gentlemen. Has Heath drawn his signature card? Are we about to see the Magma Rider rise again?”
Heath played his new card which exploded into white light and reformed under his feet. He pushed off from the ground like he was riding a flying skateboard and took off into the air above the arena.
Super-hot air made the area beneath the board shimmer as Heath flew above the arena. New borders appeared above the battlefield, marking the allowed upper limit.
Heath swooped down from above, however this attack was thwarted at the last second as Lola played her own next card. The stone sentry protected her as a storm of sharp rocks and stones began whirling around her. She stood in the heart of that storm where it was still calm, but it made for a serious barrier for Heath to have to get through.
Heath veered away at the very next moment, and Blake the magma surfboard attack actually had hidden another. Whenever the board came close to the ground, it left long strips of magma in its wake. These persisted even after Heath was gone, crisscrossing the arena.
The announcer provided some commentary. “Now this is one of the most deadly aspects of Heath’s signature Magma Rider ability! Every time he gets close to the ground while riding his flameboard, it summons a stream of magma for the next little while. While these are easy enough to avoid, the more magma streams he summons, the less easily Lola will be able to move around the battlefield!”
But Lola wasn't going to let that stop her from fighting back. Blake watched intently as she sent her storm of stones out toward Heath every time he came in for an attack.
The stone sentry watched her back if Heath got too close, but the whirling storm had a much greater range. The downside of the storm was that while it wasn't surrounding Lola she was exposed and could only rely on her sentry as a defensive measure.
Heath kept trying to use hit and run tactics on Lola Stone, but her defense was far too good.
Another minute passed and both combatants drew new cards.
“We now have our third cards being played in this monumental clash! As long as the cards are on their side, our Challengers should soon be able to start using some of their card synergies! For those of you who don't know what synergies are, there are just some cards who work better with others. When you play two cards that have a synergy, sometimes they combine and create new effects that neither of them had before. Most of Heath’s victories in the past have come because he has used a particular synergy which as yet, has no adequate defense. That said he's never come up against someone who has a Stone Cyclone card before, so he may have met his match!”
Heath grinned as he played his next card, and Lola appeared to swear to herself in frustration as she drew her third card. They played their cards, and Heath took control of the battle.
Lola was stuck between multiple streams of magma left in the wake of Heath’s passage. Suddenly, those rivers began to bubble to life.
She gritted her teeth as she summoned her stone cyclone back to her side, to envelop her and protect her from whatever was coming. It was almost like she knew what was going to happen next but didn't know whether she would be able to withstand it.
Plumes of magma exploded from the glowing lines that surrounded her, lashing out at her from all directions.
The announcer burst with excitement. “There it is folks! Heath Ryder’s Magma Lash, Magma Rider synergy has been unleashed! Magma Lash lets him summon a plume of super-heated magma wherever there might be a source of magma, while Magma Rider allows him to cover the battlefield in magma. Dear audience, this is probably all over unless Lola can pull off a miracle!”
The stone cyclone stopped some of these super-hot plumes of magma from hitting her, and the sentry did a good job of trying to keep her safe, but the assault was too intense.
Magma lashed out at Lola from all different directions, far too quickly for any of her defenses to keep up with. She couldn't even launch an attack against Heath because of his own overwhelming offensive synergy. She couldn’t reallocate any of her defensive abilities into offense or she was done for.
“I forfeit!” She crossed her hands across her chest as she called out the words.
The screen above the arena announced that Heath Ryder was the winner of tonight's duel, and voices rose around Blake in both jubilation and frustration. He figured people had a lot of money riding on this particular fight.
Blake had no idea how he would protect himself against the synergy like that Magma Rider and Magma Lash combo. It looked way too powerful. Lola had tried her hardest, but she had come up short, and she was already Rank 3.
“And that's all folks! Lola will pass one of her cards onto Heath as his prize for winning, and Heath remains the undefeated champion of New Meridia!”
A raucous cheer rose up from the crowd, but the announcer wasn’t done.
“Now just remember if any of you are thinking about taking the Tower Climb Challenge to fight our City Lord, Clay Atlas for yourself, you're going to need to face Heath Ryder first. He is the last and most powerful challenger standing between you and the City Lord himself. Which among you have the courage to seek glory? If you want to sign up as a challenger for our nightly duels, you can enroll through your residence at any time. Goodnight, ladies and gentlemen. Long live New Meridia!”
The crowd began to dissipate and go their separate ways, but Blake was standing there in stunned silence. He had seen the tower climb challenge registration area inside Atlas Tower earlier that day, but he hadn't known what it was for.
So four of the most powerful Challengers from New Meridia were standing between him and his chance at fighting the City Lord himself. Considering Clay Atlas never came down from his tower, never engaged in power card training, and was content to sit there and give out work orders, there was every chance that if Blake could grow strong enough he might actually be able to stand a chance against him.
Unless the City Lord had some kind of hidden trump card up his sleeve.
Clay must have known that the people of New Meridia would want to turn on him and challenge him to a duel at some point. It looked like he’d constructed an elaborate gauntlet to force potential threats to approach him in a way he could control.
The fact that Clay would even have this as an option made Blake uneasy. If he anticipated challenges, then he was doing things that invited conflict. Maybe New Meridia wasn’t as perfect as it seemed.
If his previous experience fighting Frank in Cedar Creek was any indication, anybody could request a duel with another challenger. The system would then decide what was an adequate wager for that particular fight, and if one was vastly more powerful than the other, may not endorse the fight at all.
A plan began to form in Blake’s mind. He liked to be prepared for every scenario, and if there was trouble on the horizon, Blake needed to be ready.
The whole city was abuzz after the night’s duels, and Blake could see himself coming down here most nights. The fights themselves were entertaining, but building a knowledge base of all of the powerful card users here in the city would be a good thing in the long run.
If the Tower Challenge had four New Meridia champions standing between any challengers and the City Lord, then Blake wanted to learn all about them.
Buzzed from the fights, but exhausted from work, Blake wandered the streets in the hopes that he might stumble across his parents. After a few hours, and the knowledge that he’d need to work again in the morning, Blake headed back to his apartment.