Riwall looked at his opponents and made use of his connection with Friday to do some analysis.
{Three men, one woman, they are too far away, about 100 meters if I would guess. I can barely see their faces, but their height make it unlikely for them to be only 15-years-old, didn't this tournament have the same rules as the dwarves'?}
[Eleanor never said that.]
As if to give further credibility to what Friday said, Eleanor jumped from the stands to the arena and faced the opposing group.
"What is the meaning of this? The tournament is to see who will represent Marsastor in the dwarven competition, and you are clearly older than fifteen!"
One of the Dewbrooks elders also jumped into the arena.
"Oh, poor Eleanor, did you just assume we would be following the same rules as the dwarves? Of course we won’t. The family that wins today will get the right to choose who will go there. There was no necessity for risking the lives of those we want to fight in the near future."
He barely made any effort to hide the contempt he felt towards the Commander. To further enrage the Farsteels, he wore a mocking smile while waiting for Eleanor to answer.
"Then, I will be taking the open spot of the Farsteels party." She was already unsheathing her sword when the elder began laughing loudly.
"Unfortunately, you can't do that for two reasons. For the first one, the Lord decreed just a few hours ago that no fighter could be older than 20-year-old. It made all families change everything at the last second, but no one complained. Secondly, the period for changing the parties is already over. Please leave the field so the fights can start. You can always instruct your kids to give up if you are so worried."
"That's all right, Master. I'm actually relieved the opponents are not kids like us. After all, no one likes to hear kids screaming of pain." Riwall said enthusiastically. Making Eleanor frown and worry even more for the kids' state of mind.
She then looked back and saw how the trio was unaffected by this revelation, and they still had the same determined face they had before.
"The change in the rules is still not valid. The Farsteels were not informed of this."
"What you mean by 'not informed'? Your dear brother Edward was in the same meeting after all! Are you telling me he did not share it with the rest of the family? He must be passed out drunk in some alley. Hardly the fault lies with the other families." The elder spoke while faking his disappointment for the Farsteel by shrugging his shoulders and shaking his head.
Eleanor knew Edward had not been seen in the last hour, and her father had already dispatched soldiers to look for him.
"What is the meaning of the delay? Start the fight now!" The Lord's voice echoed throughout the arena, powered by magic to make it suppress all other sounds.
"But my Lord! We have not been informed about the changes!" Eleanor tried to argue in vain.
"The Dewbrook elder is not lying, Edward was at the meeting. We will investigate his alleged disappearance after the tournament." The Lord disregarded her allegations in such a way that made it clear how he saw it as a stalling move to postpone the fight. "Now, both of you leave the arena!" His tone had a sense of finality that left no margin for further discussions.
Eleanor was about to keep the argument going despite what the Lord thought, but Riwall called her before she got herself in trouble and shook his head. She hung her head in defeat and left the arena with the elder, but not before whispering for Riwall to "Not dare to hold back"Riwall looked to where she went and noticed how she positioned herself in a way that made it easy for her to intervene in the fight if necessary. He was about to smile sweetly at her worries when Friday interrupted him.
[Focus on the fight, worry about her later.]
He focused back on his opponents right away.
One was using a tower shield and broadsword while wearing heavy armor, one had a bow in his hands and a sword strapped to his belt as a backup weapon while wearing black leather armor, the third man had a long lance and wore the same black leather armor as his colleague. The woman had a wooden staff that had a gem at one end, and a blade at the other, probably to finish off downed opponents without the need of spending mana. They stood at a close triangular formation with the burdensome armor user taking the lead, the other two at the flanks, and the girl at the safest spot.
{A tank, two damage-dealers, and one healer. Can it get more cliché than that?} Riwall relaxed a little. He had many plans on how to deal with parties that followed this setup.
"Anna, Greg, we will go with plan A-4." They nodded and took a step back.
"FIGHT!" The Lord gave the signal
The Dewbrooks ran forward in concert. They were much taller than the trio, and the spectators began worrying about the kids' safety. Eleanor got increasingly anxious the closer the Dewbrooks got, she thought the trio would play safe and strike from a distance before engaging in close-range combat, but they were not moving at all.
When the distance between the parties reached the 15-meter mark, the archer left the formation and nocked an arrow. Before he could let it loose, the unexpected happened, an arrow pierced his left hand and exploded. Before his bow touched the ground, he was already screaming.
The archer saw one of the kids that were further away with a bow on his hand and a mocking smile stamped on his face. (FUCK! How did he shoot an arrow that fast? I could swear he was not moving when I lined my shot!).
After watching the damage done by Greg’s attack, Riwall launched himself forward with unbelievable speed by pushing himself forward with wind magic while using a second spell to negate all wind resistance. This move would be excessively reckless if their ranged fighter could intercept him.
The tank raised his shield and put it down to hold it in place, it was clear how he wanted for the boy to crash into an unmovable shield and hurt himself.
Riwall had other plans. The tank’s move was unexpected but welcome nonetheless, Riwall abruptly changed the direction of his advance by using yet another wind spell at his side. This brisk acceleration and deceleration movement was risky and put a lot of pressure on his body, and anyone else would have fainted trying to pull something similar. Friday stabilized his blood pressure in such a way that he could hold on to his consciousness and surprise even experienced fighters with these maneuvers.
He flanked the Dewbrooks and slapped the healer, shocking everyone who was watching. The lancer thought he was unbalanced after his acrobatic movements using magic and thrust at him, but Riwall narrowly dodged the lance and slapped him in the face as well.
The tank thought he was taunting them, but his two friends' desperate screams immediately told him that was not the case.
Both dropped their weapons and fell to their knees, screaming at the top of their lungs while clutching their throats.
The commoners' crowd erupted in cheers at the scene. The moves shown by the kid had the fluidity they could only see when masters fought while having the bonus of humiliating the nobles that some despised but could not challenge.
The tank was about to ask what happened when he saw how the healer's mouth was completely charred in the inside, and there was even smoke leaving it. The boy had burned their mouths and larynx. The slap was just the medium from which the spell left his palm, the thickness of their cheeks could not stop him from directly casting inside their mouths.
The tank could not afford to overthink the matter. Deep down, he knew that such display of spellcasting was at the same level as his masters, but he also knew that close-combat mages' bane were heavy armor fighters like himself. Few could cast anything powerful enough to damage thick metal plating, and in his case, he wore anti-magic enchanted heavy armor.
This story has been taken without authorization. Report any sightings.
Riwall saw the tank's broadsword swinging in his direction at high speed, but if he could dodge a lance thrust with ease, a broadsword in the hand of a slow fighter would never land on him. He carelessly began the motions to dodge the strike.
However, the broadsword suddenly speed up, and he barely got his shield up in time to block it. The difference of weight between the two and Riwall's wrong stance for blocking made him get sent away flying for a few meters until stopping.
The tank couldn’t help but smile at how his opponnent was easily fooled by this old trick. He was about to give chase when something pierced his lower back right at one of the few gaps of his armor.
Immediately he fell to the ground, unable to feel or move his legs. Anna had an angry expression on her face while holding a bloodied dagger that was expelling dark flames. She had not only found a gap at the waist level, but angled the strike in such a way that it hit the tank's spine while burning everything around to make sure he would not be able to recover before the next phase of the plan.
Her heart skipped a beat when the tank hit Riwall and sent him flying away, at that moment she wanted to rush to his side to check on him, but her training kicked in and she focused on the more pressing matters.
Riwall got up while being severely reprimanded by Friday for dropping his guard and thinking of himself as invincible. The tank's hit was so strong that it crushed the bones of the arm holding the shield. If he had failed to block on time, he would have lost his head instead of breaking a few bones.
"Change of plans! Plan A-1, now!"
He sheathed his sword to free his working hand and began charging a potent spell to finish off at least the healer and lancer user, the tank would probably survive because of his equipment. The healer seemed not to be proficient at casting without chanting, so she had only just calmed enough to start the process of healing her throat.
Anna went for the archer right away.
The archer had already got a hold of himself and had a sword in his working hand. He saw Riwall casting a spell and had a bad feeling about it, so he decided to stop the boy. Greg distracted him by shooting a barrage of arrows in his direction, and the archer got busy deflecting some arrows and dodging the others. As soon as Anna engaged him in a one on one fight, Greg stopped shooting and repositioned himself in wait for an opportunity.
Anna expertly blocked the archer's attacks while moving around, leading him to think she was afraid of showing a gap for him to exploit. The fight then went on for a few minutes, with Anna solely focused on dodging and blocking.
In his delusion, the archer failed to notice how he got so invested in the exchange that he had turned his back to the adversary archer who had stopped attacking him.
Greg did not miss the opportunity and shot an arrow to his exposed ankle, pinning one of the archer's feet to the ground. Anna did to him the same she did to the tank and disengaged.
By this time, the crowd was at their limits of excitement. They kept screaming and shouting as if their lives depended on it, seeing the underdogs completely dominating the opposition made their blood boil. The fact that the underdogs were commoners only added fuel to the fire.
Even Eleanor was feeling relieved. She had almost intervened when Riwall got hit and sent flying, but the boy quickly got back on his feet while Anna had already disabled the enemy with only one hit. Then she saw how the girl fooled her new target into turning his back to Gregory.
Riwall finished preparing his spell and launched it toward the healer, she had already healed herself and was chanting a healing spell on the lancer.
Everyone in the arena felt a chill run down their spines and looked to the source of their uneasiness. Only the fastest on the crowd managed to get a glimpse of a dark sphere before it hit the healer and disappeared inside her body.
An aura of fear spread from the healer's body in an instant, making the whole arena go silent. Even the soldiers could not help but put a hand on their weapons as if they were about to fight something dangerous.
[Crap! Riwall, call for Anna and Greg to get behind you, now!] Friday was truly scared. She had underestimated the strengthening effect Doom mana had on his spells.
"Anna, Greg! To me, now!"
Both did not even hesitate and got behind him. Friday pushed his mana all the way to the Hallowed spectrum just on time for him to create a dome of the toughest earth he could produce. He had yet to learn any barrier spell, so he relied on the protection of his earth magic instead.
There were dozens of mages around the arena to protect the crowd from the fight. They noticed the strength of the spell immediately and hushed to cast the strongest barrier spells they knew. A semi-transparent green wall manifested to keep Riwall’s spell effects contained to the arena floor.
The healer did not move for over one minute, the aura got stronger each second and many people started to shake in fear. Then, the healer's skin began turning black while her hair started to fall, her body was rotting at a visible pace and the spectators could do nothing but watch and wait for what was to come.
"What the hell is happening, Mad!?" Greg shouted at Riwall's ear. He never felt so scared in his entire life.
"I have no fucking idea." Even he was feeling the effects of the aura produced by his spell.
The healer let out a brief but bony-chilling scream before her body exploded as if rigged with explosives. Instead of the customary red flames from typical explosions, this one was pitch black, consuming everything in its way. Riwall's dome made by hallowed earth started cracking while the mages outside were pouring their entire mana reserves to hold the force of his spell.
With nowhere else to go but up, the explosion turned into a beam of dark flames that traveled almost a hundred meters high before starting to dissipate.
Everyone had a ringing in their ears from the noise while the temperature had risen to very uncomfortable levels. When the dust settled, there was a huge crater in the arena floor, one of the lower levels even partially collapsed at the spot.
The temperature and pressure where the healer was standing got so high that small beads of glass formed at the crater.
Riwall dissolved the earth dome and almost lost his footing when he saw the damage. The enemies were nowhere to be seen, he had disintegrated them.
He was about to curse at Friday as she was the one that controlled the entire spell construction when someone started clapping slowly.
Eleanor had a bright and proud smile on her face as she applauded her students. Her eyes briefly passed over the heads of the three families at war with them, they were completely pale.
Her clap broke the crowd from their daze. At first, they were clapping slowly, but it built momentum in just a few seconds and they began cheering and shouting the Farsteel name.
Eleanor looked again at the families’ heads and they were briskly discussing something while gesticulating a lot. She furrowed her brows and felt something amiss with their behavior.
Anna approached Riwall from behind and whispered.
"You broke your promise. They didn't suffer enough in the end."
He turned to face her and was already coming up with an apology. But he saw both Greg and Anna smiling happily at him, and the latter even had watery eyes.
"But once you got hit and thrown away, I realized no vengeance was worth the cost of losing the only family I have left." Seeing the fox girl giving an uncommon emotional speech brought tears to both Riwall and Greg's eyes.
Unfortunately, the sweet atmosphere did not last as Riwall rushed to the staging room to heal his arm.