Blair’s current duel opponent was a younger girl with dark brown skin and equally dark hair.
She was a fairly strong ranged fighter, mainly using different types of arrows to dull out large AOE attacks. They were only a few minutes into the fight, but Blair could see that the girl was severely lacking in any sort of defense, as she wore almost no armor and used air waves to move away from Blair any time she got close.
Blair had initially wanted to drag this match out, as she thought there would be something to learn from the younger girl’s evading strategy. She had watched a few matches of her beforehand, thinking that it the girl had perhaps mastered a method of spell weaving that ran parallel to her other abilities.
Blair sighed in annoyance as her Vision of Want ability showed the air wave energy emerge through a small pit in the dark-skinned girl’s chest and fire off autonomously into the space between the two of them. So it’s just a blessing after all… so stupid. With a quick wave of her hand, Blair created a shimmering myth that stationed itself in the girl’s line of fire. She then rose one hand toward the heavens as an incantation spilled from her lips.
“Wrought of dreams, thy flicker of Want emerge into my most lonesome reality.”
The other girl was in the middle of nocking another magic arrow when the space above her began bending forward.
The girl’s eyes widened in a brief second of fear before the ever stretching space around her snapped back into place like a rubber band and slapped her into the ground with an earsplitting crack. The other girl offered only a small squirm in response before her body became still.
The winner screen appeared before Blair, but she waved it away before approaching the unconscious body of her opponent. She noted the blood trickling from the girl’s ears before poking the unmoving body to make sure she hadn’t accidently killed her. After a couple kicks, the body spasmed for a moment, certifying she hadn’t pushed too far. Within seconds, Blair arrived back in the main hall, full of other participants.
As the other girl’s body plopped onto the ground, Blair infused some energy into her hand to gain access to the personal cache she bought from the Chrome. A soft glow emitted from the emblem before a small vial blinked into existence directly in her grip. As she unstopped the vial and downed the contents, Blair scanned the room for any familiar faces. Even though the challenge time was nearing its last half hour, the hall was still packed with participants desperately fighting for points.
Despite the time left on the clock, Blair had decided to be done with duels following her fight with the dark-skinned girl. She strode out of the crowd with a purpose and headed for a console on the far side of the room. The clamor of noise became a muted roar as Blair activated the privacy booth option of the console. It was a rarely used function of the hall consoles, but Blair hated listening to the cries of challenge that permeated the entire room.
Shortly after, she had the leaderboard up and was satisfied to find her score had finally exceeded 100,000. She honestly didn’t care about the Class A reward that came with the milestone, but she had thought that being so close and not going for it would have been a shame.
Worse case scenario, I can sell it and make a small fortune. She thought with disinterest.
For Blair, the entire group challenge had only been about tiering up and discovering new methods of spell weaving. Unfortunately, she hadn’t found anything worth mentioning in that department, but the consistent matchups with random monsters had done wonders for her growth and technique. So many different types of creatures had allowed her to test her abilities against previously unavailable matchups, strengthening not only her adaptability, but also cementing her confidence in attack strategy.
Her eyes briefly glanced back to the crowd, still not finding her brother, Licht, or even the weird older boy: Seth. She blew a strand of raven black hair out of her face and turned her attention back to the leaderboard.
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14. Drake Lothrin (104,600)
15. Jace Volteil (102,210)
16. Blair (102,000)
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38. Licht Suzrin (72,780)
It seemed Drake was still just a bit higher than her, and by the looks of it, he was still gaining points. She was mildly annoyed to find she couldn’t identify Seth’s placement, as the idiot continued to go under the default “Undecided” moniker for some reason.
On the other hand, Licht had been long knocked out of the race because of his lack of offensive power. She had met up with him a few hours earlier and found that after the big match with the top two participants, he had withdrawn himself to only doing traditional matches to continue to make a steady amount of points before the time elapsed. She remembered how giddy he looked after their conversation, no doubt having made a fair amount from the betting pools.
Blair cast aside the leaderboard and moved on to the live match streams, looking to see if her brother or Licht had retired to their rooms just yet. After a few moments of searching, she discovered that Drake was currently in a duel, but Licht was nowhere to be found. She didn’t doubt he had decided to throw in the towel after seeing the rapid gain of those higher on the leaderboard. She smirked at the idea of him sulking in his room over the loss.
As she looked at the console, Blair debated whether or not to watch Drake’s duel while continuing to scroll through the matches. Before she could decide, a new window caught her eye. It was another livestream of a duel, but the feed showed a fight that looked almost completely one sided. This wasn’t that odd of a phenomenon, as people seemed to bite off more than they could chew when they were low on points.
But the thing was that Blair recognized the woman in the match, as she was usually only a few places behind Blair on the leaderboard, so she wasn’t bad by any means. The woman in the center appeared to be around the age of twenty, with thorny green braids that were pulled back from her pale white skin. According to the leaderboard, her name was Scheal, and she was an agility type brawler as was told by her light armor paired with spiked caestus’ on each hand. Blair had watched a few of her traditional matches over the course of the challenge, as she always wanted to be prepared in the event they ended up paired against each other for some reason later on.
You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.
This is why the match had caught her eye though, as Scheal was currently not moving from her position in the center of the arena, and she was only using ranged attacks sporadically around her. She looked to be surrounded by a dark ring of smoke that spanned at least twenty meters in diameter. It hung unnaturally in place, not moving at all but seemingly stirring in place.
She watched with interest as Scheal attempted to dart outside of the ring, only to make it just a few meters before a swarm of hands emerged from the smoke, covered in rotting flesh and bones open to view. They all madly grasped at Scheal, but she swiftly danced away from their grasp and resumed her spot at the center of the ring. The hands moved no further, and instead withdrew back into the smoke. Scheal didn’t let them retreat without consequence though, as several thorns shot toward the area where they originated.
The view on Blair’s stream was relatively high, in order to encompass the main area of combat, which allowed her to see that the thorns shot harmlessly through the smoke and buried themselves on a far wall.
The other combatant had yet to show themselves, but she soon found that Scheal was not alone after all, as a plume of sand shot from amongst the smoke, showering Scheal, causing her to raise her guard and cover herself in some kind of defensive crust. Just when she thought the other combatant would show themselves, another plume of sand erupted from the smoke, covering her yet again in sand particles.
Scheal reacted the same way as before, assuming a defensive stance while not moving. But yet again, the aggressor didn’t reveal themselves.
After a moment, she dropped her stance and seemed to prepare for another attempt at running through the smoke. Right when she seemed to lean toward an escape, yet another plume of sand kicked up into her face. This time, Scheal didn’t assume her normal defensive position, but instead she remained loose and vigilant, brushing the sand from her hair and face while squirming slightly at the sand caught in her armor.
This pattern continued for six more sand showers, each one equally pitiful and non-dangerous. Blair could see the growing annoyance on Scheal’s face as she wiped the sand from her eyes over and over.
Finally, the stalemate came to an end as the brawler began methodically shooting her own attacks into the smoke, trying to weed out the other participant while they continued to berate her with sand. Unfortunately, it seemed her efforts were for nought, as the thorns continued to sail harmlessly through the smoke time and time again. Blair couldn’t help but keep watching, now too invested in the odd fight to stop watching.
She glanced at the names of the two duelers, unsurprised to find the opponent had another anonymous “Undecided” name, a rather common occurrence as over a third of the participants hadn’t bothered inputting names for the leaderboard.
As she pondered who the other opponent might be, the previous status quo was abruptly broken as a plume of sand shot directly into Scheal’s face from one side, and a dark figure dashed out from the opposite side of the smoke. Scheal didn’t notice at first, as she only squinted in response to the new sand shower, but her senses finally kicked in not a moment later, and she whirled to meet the new arrival. Her reaction was just a split second too late though, as the figure was astoundingly fast and already on top of her barely a second after emerging from the smoke.
Before she knew it, a black blade speckled with white was already embedded in her forearm. Scheal grunted in pain and surprise, but quickly schooled herself and countered. Quick as lightning, she used a speed enhancement ability to slow the area around herself as well as the cloaked man. Then, instead of seizing the weapon, her free hand, now covered in wicked spines, shot toward the slowed man like a rocket.
Scheal smirked in victory as the punch continued unimpeded directly into the man’s face, but then it was replaced by surprise and fear as her fist went directly through the man. A moment later, the weapon in her forearm disappeared, and the man before her blinked out of existence. It seemed she finally realized her mistake as another spray of sand slapped her in the face and another blade was lodged into the meat of her calf, causing her to stumble to her knee.
She turned just in time to see the weapon disappear, and before she could even think about her next move, another big gust of sand stung her eyes.
She roared in anger at the constant harassment and desperately turned her watering gaze to the smoke around her.
“FIGHT ME COWARD!” She screamed to the unmoving wall of darkness, affording her nothing more than a mouthful of sand as the cloaked man continued to shower her from the safety of the ring.
Blair watched in rapt attention as the onslaught continued, shaving down Scheal’s will to fight as well as her body. After multiple continued lacerations from a hidden source, Blair finally caught sight of the cloaked man as he stepped out of the smoke without preamble. He was shoeless and wearing nothing more than a plain combative outfit and some sort of ugly fur cloak that reached just above his thigh.
The cloak was hooded, so her angle was too far above the fight to see the man’s face. Blair quickly adjusted the spectator viewpoint, and was completely baffled to find that she recognized the mismatched eyes and crooked grin underneath the snout of the dog-like hood.
She watched with confusion as Seth slowly closed the gap between the two with a skip in his step. When he arrived at the center of the ring along with the near collapsed Scheal, he pulled back his hood, and the entire ring of smoke fell away with it.
Blair’s jaw unconsciously dropped and she had to take a moment to school herself before inspecting closer. Up until this point she had only seen him with a mop of uneven blond and black hair, as well as a stringy and unappealing goatee. Now, his sharp features and crooked nose were on full display as his face was cleanly shaven. Furthermore, his hair was now short on the sides and a couple inches longer on the top.
She truly wanted to make fun of it, but Blair couldn’t help but find the new haircut appealing. His previously irregular strands of black hair were now revealed to be oriented in a stylish pattern along only the sides and back of his head. The top was left completely untouched, creating a favorable and unique combination. Besides his physical alternations, Blair was more surprised with his overall strategy and gear choice.
Almost the entirety of the time they had fought together during the group matches, Seth had played an elusive frontliner, right next to Drake. His incredible speed and generally strong physical attributes had made him an effective decoy the duration of their fights. As far as she knew, he had only just recently gotten his first ranged ability, but for some reason he hadn’t even used it on Scheal. So for him to display such an stark change in technique was a huge shock even to her.
She continued to watch as he leered over Scheal’s bleeding figure with one of the biggest shit-eating grins she had ever seen in her life. Blair squirmed with discomfort as she also noticed his eyes were dilated to the size of dimes, making his irises almost impossible to see. He leaned forward and looked to ask Scheal a question that the microphone didn’t pick up. Whatever her response, Seth nodded before delivering a savage heel directly to her nose, sending a spray of crimson to stain the sand, knocking her out and cementing his victory.
Blair sat in silence as the livestream ended, leaving her staring blankly at the results screen. Just like any match, after it was finished the new rankings of each participant were displayed on the console, certifying any changes in placement. Blair glanced up for a moment, noticing that Seth was leaving through the main entrance with the same big grin from before. It seemed that he was done with duels, just like herself. Her eyes lingered on entryway for a few seconds before they resumed their spot on the still glowing screen in front of her.
Previously, Blair didn’t know or care why Seth hadn’t been very sociable over the last couple weeks, but now she couldn’t help but wonder what the hell he had been up to.
Results of Match:
Undecided: New Balance (124,360)
Scheal Lovit: New Balance (85,850)