In the morning the same pattern persisted. Both of us need help to do pretty much anything. There were more moments of clarity, however, if we were moved apart so that we could not touch each other We actually started to become violent. Forcefully push the team around. Even Elizabeth struggled to contain us with the strength and speed of our blows. It just proved simpler to have us sit side by side with our shoulders touching. At that point, we were as peaceful and gentle as anyone could hope for.

Of course, we still had to attend the Tournament, which even in my confused state of mind seemed more like a trial by fire. In the odd moment of clarity, I remembered hearing a chant from the crowd “Be blessed and welcome Warrior” or some similar invocation, a number of times over the last day.

This time rather than commandeering a cart, a proper carriage was waiting at the exit of the barracks. Lara and I had reached a point where we would or perhaps could not be separated. The team was packed into the carriage and whisked away to the training arena. With both Lara and myself not functional. Yet at various points, during the trip, our presence would double or triple causing some people on the streets to be impacted. Normally Lara was able to reduce the area affected by her presence. However, in this case, even Elizabeth was unable to suppress the wild fluctuations.

Fortunately, it really was not that far to the arena from the barrack as long as the main roads were used. Elizabeth was in the end forced to project her presence to clear the road. As the presence that we were projecting was mostly just fear, rather than authority. And creating terror in the general population was just bad form.

Once we arrived the wards that surrounded the Arena caused the fluctuations to stop. It seemed that the wards in the barracks had a similar suppressive effect. It had to be some external effect that was triggering the wild reactions.

As we entered the arena Elizabeth stated “Since it was not going to work having your two idiots separated. We will have to make it clear that we have formed the combined teams earlier than was planned.

Therefore Lara and Ester will stand behind Fonial. We can place Lara’s hand on his shoulder. Ester, you will restrain Lare when his round arrives. Fanny and Robert you will need to flank him on either side. Fanny, you need to keep that stabilization aura running. Boris stands beside Lara, and Adam beside Ester. Boris You will need to support Ester if Lara becomes problematic.

She went on and organized how the other two teams were to be organized. We were the center team with Dakota to our right and Shamhila to the left. Everyone in the red barracks had acquired classes. The numbers had been made up to seven for each team, with members of the Sphinx sept.

Lara was however the only member of the core family, but all were amongst the most promising members of both the inner and outer courts. But not those who had been the most visible. They were the ones with odd proclivities. They were the septs’ secret resources. In the moments of clarity, Lara was shocked as recognized the other six sep members that had joined red. And what Lara discovered I knew moments later.

She felt that she was being discarded because everyone knew that the heroes were to be used and discarded. When she first attended the training, she thought that it was just window dressing but once it was clear that she was at risk, she feared what was happening. Gaining new powerful skills and then being forced to join had left her emotions in torment.

I was only able to understand her thoughts when her emotions rang clearly through the fog in my mind.

We were starting to separate again.

Individual combats kept happening, oddly I was not called as early as yesterday. Fanny left first, then a while later Robert. It was a short while later that I was called. There was only the male from the land of the giants left after me. Somehow I had reached second place in the tournament. Life became crystal clear, Since yesterday I could feel that there were new and strengthened skills pushing to be used.

I entered the circle as a very large cloth-covered cage was wheeled into the circle. The Announcer cried out “Today for the second-ranked combatant in this tournament we have Striges. A crowd favorite, We can expect a spectacle of unparalleled motion.”

The cover was pulled off

“Oh, how exciting one of the striges has evolved. We will clearly need to alter the beating pools. We open the survival pools. After all, he is only a level two ‘Cadet’.”

It was clear that I was to be assassinated by means of monsters.

I readied my shields, and pushed regeneration as hard as I could. Quickly enhanced my mace.

I could tell that the betting was against me surviving much more than a minute or two. Once the Announcer was ready she called out “Let the combat roll” with that the top of the box disappeared and the side collapsed to allow the striges free access to the sky. More than thirty of the blood-sucking cat-sized winged nightmares started to circle me. The sound of their wings caused vibrations that started to affect my sight and hearing. Then as the first one started its dive-bombing run. I ducked and flung my mace out through the circle killing two as it passed through where it collected the head of the evolved elder strige. The mace drove the body of the strige into the ring shield where there was a splat, as the elder strige effectively exploded. With that, the remaining striges lost all sense of coordination.

The next few minutes were very unpleasant. I did get to trigger a defensive skill “Iron skin”, but the striges swarmed in from all sorts of random directions. While I was able to avoid direct hits to my chest and head, I was struck many times in the legs and arms, and various grazing blows across my back. Mostly I was able to kill those that struck me, but as time passed I accumulated more and more wounds. With each wound, there was a bleeding poison or curse effect that was affecting the wounds. So I was starting to lose quite a lot of blood by the time I killed the last Strige.

I staggered out of the arena holding on to a large wound in my upper arm. The snout of the Strige was still embedded in the wound and I could feel the bleeding effect getting worse until Fanny reached me even before the arena healers could act. She rapidly cast several skills that reduced the bleeding effect, allowing my regeneration to start to seal the wounds. She then removed the snout and three other fragments that were stuck in my body in odd places. By that point the healers arrived, one used a greater healing skill which repaired and sealed the wounds, and the other cast a replenished blood skill. For some reason, they left the curse as I now recognized in effect.

I was now easily able to return to the benches. The fog of confusion was lifting, so I was able to determine that the male giant faced a flock of striges, but that flock did not include an evolved mob, so would be much easier. Within a short interval, my awareness of my surroundings had become limited to Lara, and Ester. Yet I was also becoming more aware of the pressure related to the rapid blinking of the notifications element of my Hud.

I had the feeling that during the combat I had leveled, my class. Which did not really make sense because I had not led anyone but myself.

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Class Level - Insightful leader +1

Class Grant

Choose from

Strong Shields

Strong Damage

Unit Cohesion

Unit Targeting

Strong Mind

Lust for combat

Path to knowledge

Strong Shields allocated by random

Prophecy Grant

Team Orders

Strengthen Team

Team Orders Allocated by random

Boost skills,

New Skill - Basic Iron Skin - 1 / 10

New Skill - Basic Fast Swings - 1 / 10

Skill improvement - Basic Iron Skin - 2 / 10

Skill improvement - Basic Iron Skin - 3 / 10

Skill improvement - Basic Iron Skin - 4 / 10

Skill improvement - Basic Iron Skin - 5 / 10

Skill improvement - Basic Fast Swings - 2 / 10

Skill improvement - Basic Fast Swings - 3 / 10

Sometime later red 1 was up for group combat.

The announcer declared “Since it is clear that the green 1 team formed by the giants and the gardeners has won the group combat the judges had determined that it is pointless for them to continue with the tournament, so they have decided to combine the monsters collected for the two top teams and have them face Red 1.”. The plan of murder by monsters was still in effect!

I stood and started to move into the circle. Fanny and Robert followed. Two large cages were rolled into the arena; they were filled to capacity with feral-looking kobolds. In each cage, there were also a number of elites.

I started to give commands to my team, but as I did so a feat activated. Everything slowed. I was not moving and neither was anything else that I could see. But my voice had changed into thoughts that the team clearly understood. We will retreat as fast as possible so that we can get our backs against the circle’s shield. Robert, your singular focus has to be a fire shield and I need you on my right. I will trigger my sharp shield. But I fully expect that we will get some mobs reaching us. Fanny you are going to have to use your mace to knock back any mobs that get past me. I will be focused on protecting Robert so if they penetrate the shields they will be coming on your side. Even as those thoughts flashed between us I could sense the moment of sharing was fading out.

“Ready”

“Go” screamed the announcer.

With that, we leaped back against the arena shields. We could not push back against them as they were spitting sparks of lighting as we neared. We barely had time to get set, when the first kobolds arrived. While our shields had started to form, and the little bastards became a little crisped it did not stop the first attacking me. I was able to prevent the two that had attacked Robert from reaching him but took a bite on my left arm just above the gauntlet. Fanny knocked the single kobold that attacked her back outside the shield. On the recovery stroke, my hammer passed through the hips of the 3 that were closest to me. That left the one that was now attached to my arm. Fanny reached forward and slammed it up and over the other mobs that were trying to push through the shielding.

My arm started to bleed, but Fanny was able to heal that wound before I lost any significant amount of blood. We settled in for combat by attrition. If we ran out of power before the kobolds ran out of numbers it would become very messy for us.

Things continued in this vein for a while. Only one or two of the kobolds were able to push through the wall of fire at a time. It was clear unfortunately that they were fire-resistant. The Elites organized the charges. So while I was able to kill those that reached us, those that failed to push through were largely unharmed. We had only killed about 20 by the time that Robert started to show the strain. My only choice at this point felt like a charge. Somehow I was seeing the combat from two perspectives. I then realized that I was seeing what Lara was seeing. She was projecting her vision through the path that had formed between our minds.

This allowed me to place where the evolved were. In a gap between charges, I grabbed my mace, enhanced it, and flicked through the shield wall. It punched through 2 regular kobolds killing both then struck an evolved, It deflected off its skull even as the skull shattered and took out another evolved. There was no way that I had the skills to do that, it did not come from Lara, it was clearly a weapon mastery skill that Ester had. How this bond was developing did not make any sense.

It made a difference as the last of the evolved was struggling to organize the kobolds by itself. It made a fatal mistake by approaching the firewall just that much too closely, and I stepped out and slammed the hammer straight into the crown of its head. At last, we had an aspect of control. The only thing was that Robert was fading.

Now that the attacks were less coordinated I started to push as much power as I could into my sharp shield. It did work a little like Robert’s flames but was focused on the left side of my body. I moved forward to the edge of the firewall and started to pick off the kobolds. Each time they attacked me the sharp shield sliced into any kobold that attacked me from the left. While my hammer was constantly moving and regularly harvesting lives.

I should not have any power left, but I could still feel the power flowing. I kept the shield active and as the enhanced weapon enchantment faded I would replace that. I also triggered the iron skin skill. So with the healing from Fanny, it took a while but eventually we prevailed. Even once the kobolds were down to single digits they did not seem able to even consider the concept of retreat.

The three of us slowly dragged ourselves from the arena to loud cheers from the surrounding crowd. Previously recovery was a fast process, at least until the impact of attribute changes or skill changes started to impact me. This time my power level, which I had drawn from Lara when I had run short, was back to full, I was deeply tired. And I did not bounce back. All three of us were so overdrawn in various different ways, that I was even drawn back into the fog that had surrounded me over the last days.

Before people could start to leave a triumphant chorus of horns sounded. The Announcer floated up over the arena ring, which was still being cleaned after all we had made a mess. Once she was sufficiently high the arena ring shield activated and became opaque.

“Well! Wasn't that exciting.

Of course, the judges are not completely pleased as there was some help that bypassed the wards. But since it was from team members we will let it go and not punish the red 1 team. Of course, they cannot get maximum points due to that assistance. So even though it was, an impressive killing. It is decided that they will be awarded second place in the team competition.

With the number of kills and wounds taken does however mean that Fonial has managed to overtake Kios in the individual standings, which none of us ever expected. So he is the champion, coming from last place after the first day to winning has not been done for centuries. It is unfortunate but it looks like there were such few bets placed on this outcome so the payout will be capped at the normal limit.

But more importantly, due to the interference of the noble members of Red 1, the administrators have decided that since we cannot prevent such interference, we will embrace it. To that end rather than the traditional exhibition events, we will have a Battle Royal. What’s more, the noble members of each team will be required to participate.

If you want seats. You need to get in early and bid high. After all the boxes will be occupied by their permanent seat holders. This is going to mean that the general capacity of the seat is going to be reduced by 25 percent.

So I will be excited to see those of you who can make it here tomorrow.”

With that, the trumpets sounded again, and the announcer disappeared.

Elizabeth gathered us together. I could sense the frustration and anger flow down from the stands. The nobles that were part of the other teams had not expected to be forced into participating in the final round. And for it to be a Battle Royal just made it that much worse.

Once we made it back to the barracks. Elizabeth held us all together and explained a few things.

By this point, I was reaching the limits of my concentration and was fading back into the fog.

“So everyone understands the plan the imperials had today was to kill your leader under the guise of a tournament death. But due to his and Lara’s impairments, Lara was present along with the other members of his team. This resulted in the attack failing.

The next phase of any tournament of this type is that there is a culling that happens on the last day. Since it is clear that they will be unable to defeat our teams in the traditional manner they have decided to force the issue. Once Desdemona saw how things would play out she actually suggested this option. Your purpose is not to win, but to survive. The other options were worse: some of you, both those from the sept and the outworlders would have died, and been sacrificed to the god of the tournaments.

This is an unforgiving world that we hope to make better. You all are our best hope. You must survive.

Rest, Examine your skill gains.”

I heard the words and was just able to stagger down the stairs to our rooms. It looked like everyone was now housed here in the basement.