Outside Nevermore, in the Order of the Malefic Viper, the old mansion that the Chosen of the Malefic Viper used to live in looked much the same as before he went to the World Wonder. Despite not really having permission, Meira and the others kept using the place for all of their meetups, and Meira lived there full-time. It was simply the best meeting spot, even if the majority of the library was locked off to them.
This wasn’t because Meira didn’t have her own place now… it was more that she only really ever felt at home within the mansion. Whatever bad memories she had from the place were long replaced with good ones. Besides, she had taken care of parts of Jake’s garden for so long and had several experiments ongoing there, so moving would really be a hassle.
Teacher also said it was fine to stay, and Meira saw no reason to question that.
By now, it had been a few months since she evolved to C-grade and threw off the last traces of her former identity as a slave. She still had some parts of her past that lingered, and it was about high time to address them. It was also just something she wanted to do… something she had looked forward to doing.
”I’m surprised you didn’t wait for the Chosen of the Malefic One to return before doing it,” Izil, whom Meira had invited over, said. ”I’m sure he would have agreed to come along if you asked him.”
”I know,” Meira nodded. ”But this is something I have to do myself, okay?”
”Are you sure it counts as yourself when you take me along?” her fellow elf teased.
”It’s different, okay?” Meira said, a bit flustered. ”Anyway, there is no need to bother him with something that trivial. Besides, it’s about time I do it. I’ve delayed enough, and Teacher said that going would be good for my mental state. Records of who I am and where I come from are there, and… I want to go, okay? I want to do what I can.”
”I understand, trust me. But, I have been wondering, how will we get there? It is quite a distance away based on what you told me, and there is no gateway leading anywhere close,” Izil asked.
Meira just smiled. ”Well… I am the Chosen of the Grand Elder now…”
It still felt weird to say, even after several months, but it would be silly not to take advantage of that fact at least once in a while, right?
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The spear shot past his temple, Jake barely avoiding the hit by tilting his head to the side and twisting his body. He dove into close range of the spearman, but his opponent was ready and stepped down hard to release a shockwave of wind, spewing up sand while propelling himself backward, trying to land another stab during his retreat.
Jake deflected the spearhead and gave pursuit, closing in and trying to land a solid blow. The hobgoblin quickly reacted as a gust of wind pushed him backward even more as he raised his other hand and released a blast of condensed fire mana toward Jake.
With a swipe of his katar, Jake pushed away the fireball, stabbing forward into the chest of the spearman. The katar penetrated slightly before Jake was forced to retreat away from a swiping spearhead, aiming to separate his head from his body. Almost like an echo, a flaming wind followed the spear, making Jake block with a surprised look on his face.
Thinking he had an advantage, the hobgoblin attacked once more. Jake smiled, having predicted this, and acted surprised on purpose as he slightly side-stepped the spear, turning his side to the spearman. With his left hand, he grabbed the spear shaft after putting the katar away and, with the other, stabbed toward the hobgoblin.
With an even bigger smile than Jake, the spearman twisted the spear to spin the weapon around as a whirlwind appeared around it. He clearly intended to either make Jake let go or break his wrists, either case resulting in him being in a prime position to attack. Neither of those things happened. The hobgoblin’s smile quickly faded as the spear didn’t move an inch, Jake having it in a vice-grip.
Stable arcane energy swirled around his gloves as he had infused them with it to trigger the enchantment, effectively freezing his own hand. He was fully aware that the gloves wouldn’t survive the ordeal, but hey, insurance was still a thing.
With wide eyes, the hobgoblin barely had time to let go of the spear and jump back to avoid Jake’s attack, but with him disarmed, he knew the fight was over. Considering his body already had plenty of wounds covering it from all of Jake’s prior attacks, he seemed to know the gig was up.
”I surrender,” the hobgoblin said with a sigh as he held up both his hands.
Jake smiled and let the mana fade from his left glove as it disintegrated from the far too potent arcane energy before he tossed the spear back to his opponent. ”Good fight.”
”Yeah… not like I managed to land a single hit, though,” the poor guy said in a defeated tone. ”Anyway, thanks for a good one. Good luck going further.”
”Thanks, and you too,” Jake thanked him as both of them exited the arena to the usual commentary from the announcer. Despite wishing him luck, Jake wasn’t so confident in the guy going much further. The competition was tough.
When he had been promoted to Warlord, Jake had hoped for the fights to get harder but had expected disappointment. It turned out his opponents were all actually pretty damn good. He didn’t find himself fearing for his life, and his consistent performance meant he walked out of all fights where his opponent couldn’t make some large-scale attack he chose to tank unscathed. There were even a few times, including versus this spearman, where he used his Fear Gaze defensively to avoid taking a nasty wound during an exchange. If possible, Jake wanted to avoid major injuries, as that would mean he potentially couldn’t fight the next day, and he had a streak to keep going.
However, even if he didn’t take any major injuries, it didn’t mean it was all easy. The hobgoblin was a great example of someone who was just strong. He had good stats, could do a lot of different things, and was incredibly skilled with magic, but especially with that spear of his. To call him a spear master would definitely be no understatement.
It was something Jake hadn’t thought much of before, but the fight with the Emberlight Blademaster illuminated how important experience fighting against certain weapons was. Even if C-grades were far faster, more skilled, and had more tools, the basics were still the same, and all of these fights allowed Jake to get a good basis for fighting against a wide variety of opponents and skill sets.
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In other words, it was a fantastic sparring ground. One that allowed every person who progressed through the Challenge Dungeon to build up a wealth of experience in a relatively safe environment. An environment where geniuses had been gathered from all over the multiverse to fight you, something that couldn’t be found anywhere else.
Even the Show Matches were teaching him a lot. They had definitely also gotten harder by now, but Jake still found them a lot easier than the matches against other combatants. First of all, because he could kill whatever he fought without thinking twice, and second of all, because Jake was uniquely talented at fighting against multiple opponents. Also, while he had a lot to learn when it came to fighting humanoids with different weapons, that was definitely not the case with beasts or monsters.
To conclude, the Colosseum of Mortals had finally become truly fun. While Jake – as weird as he was – liked practicing day in and day out, having a single fight every day to look forward to was nice. He was also only a single week away from having his promotion match to Paragon, so that was something to look forward to.
He also began to do one other thing to practice, something Jake had never really done before:
Spectating.
Seeing two combatants of high skill was definitely a teaching experience, and he surprisingly learned a lot just from being an observer, once more proving that Perception was truly the best stat, even outside of combat. The reason he hadn’t really gone and seen many matches before, only sometimes checking out Owen’s fights, was due to a rule of the Colosseum that said one was not allowed to watch matches above their own rank… a rule that made absolutely no sense if this was a real place, but as a Challenge Dungeon in Nevermore, Jake could see why it was there.
Allowing everyone to watch people like the opponents Jake faced in the promotion matches would be too big of a reward for doing nothing, not to talk about the monsters Jake didn’t doubt were in the Champion rank. If one could just spectate anyone, Jake could see many people enter the Challenge Dungeon just to spend a few years watching pinnacle individuals fight each other rather than fight themselves, completely eliminating the entire challenge part of the Challenge Dungeon.
In some ways, one could even view this ability to spectate higher-level matches as a reward, and upon reaching Warlord rank, Jake found it worth it to watch at least a few fights here and there. It also counted as research if he watched opponents he would potentially face in the future.
Ah, but there was one way for lower-ranked people to see higher-ranked fights. With the invitation of another combatant, they were allowed to view it. Jake suspected this was not something that would really ever happen to someone actually doing the Challenge Dungeon. If it did happen, it would be the reward for some side objective. No, instead, it was probably there to allow the challenger to invite whatever mates they made during the dungeon to go watch stuff together. Or maybe Jake only thought that because it was exactly what he used it for.
That day, Jake, Owen, and Polly decided to attend the match of two other combatants Jake had faced before, namely the Earthborn Faithful and the Benevolent Monk. Both of them were also Warlords at his point and were definitely top contenders to get promoted to Paragon. Maybe even have a shot at the Champion rank.
It was rare that such powerful people would meet like this, but it wasn’t unheard of, and when Jake heard it was taking place, he definitely wanted to go watch. Based on the Battlemaster, there were some people in charge of scheduling that tended to avoid putting peak fighters against each other before the truly high ranks… and it seemed like Warlord qualified as a truly high rank, seeing as they had matched up the two of them.
In either case, it looked like the organizers thought the two were roughly equal and wanted to set up an exciting match. While it was true the two of them were roughly equal when it came to gathering wins, Jake knew they weren’t truly equals, and for one crucial reason.
After the announcer had introduced both fighters, the Benevolent Monk once more walked into the arena and bowed toward the dwarf. ”Greetings, he who serves and is served by the earth. May I propose a friendly competition to-”
“Fuck off!” the dwarf yelled loudly. ”I ain’t doin’ ya stupid bloody competition, ya freak. Face me properly… or imma bury you here.”
The dwarf erupted with energy as the sand all around him rose and began to form rocky pillars. Across from him, the monk stood silently before sighing. ”Very well. I thank you for this coming match… and I shall respect your decision and return you to the earth once more.”
Jake came to learn after the fight that no one had ever rejected this proposition from the Benevolent Monk outside of the first few matches. His act of benevolence was to offer the possibility for a spar and not a true fight. However, should one reject this benevolence, the match would turn from a spar into a true battle… and when fighting for real, there was no room for mercy or benevolence, but what Jake could only describe as pure, unabashed violence.
Everyone there had likely expected the fight to be roughly equal, and while it did look that way in the first thirty seconds, things quickly changed. The defenses of the dwarf crumbled, and even as he pulled out more and more attacks and spells, nothing seemed to work as the monk proved himself far more deadly than Jake had seen him be during their fight.
Every move was one that aimed to kill, and he gladly took minor injuries himself to land blows on his opponent. Moreover, his body was clearly far more durable than it had any right to be, and after a while, Jake spotted a potential reason. While it was hard to see, even when Jake had fought him, odd energy patterns covered his body from head to toe. Like an invisible tattoo, Jake theorized these tattoo-like patterns perhaps functioned as replacements for equipment, as he did know that was possible, albeit extremely rare.
As more time passed, the fight became more and more one-sided, and while the monk was covered in wounds, big and small, he never lost momentum. By now, the dwarf was also clearly unable to escape through the sand anymore.
That was when Jake learned something more. Something quite frankly terrifying as fuck. At the end of the battle between the two anomalies, the monk moved in for a finishing strike as he peeled away the final line of defense of the dwarf, which was when Jake realized. That hit Jake had been struck with when he ”won” the fight against the monk – the one that had left him feeling half-dead for several days - was not some ultimate attack… it was the first strike in the series of a combo attack.
The first punch broke the stone armor and several ribs of the dwarf. The second ruptured his heart, the third destroyed his brain, the fourth burned away all remaining vestiges of his soul, and the fifth obliterated what was left of the body.
An eerie stillness overtook the arena as the monk stood with an outstretched fist covered in blood, droplets slowly dripping from his red fist.
”May you continue to serve the earth, even in death,” the monk said in his usual respectful tone as he bowed toward the huge fan-shaped blood splatter, which was all that remained of the Earthborn Faithful.
That day, it became clear as day… should you reject the benevolence of the Benevolent Monk, there would be no mercy, only death.
”Dude, I’m so glad you didn’t fight that monk for real,” Owen muttered as they watched the monk slowly walk out of the arena, leaving drops of blood in his wake, both from his own wounds and his fists.
”Yeah,” Jake nodded in agreement. ”The rematch will be quite exciting, though from the looks of it, only one of us will be walking out alive.”
This wasn’t just Jake wanting a fight to the death. He felt the pure killing intent and bloodlust from that so-called Benevolent Monk, and he knew that should he want a serious rematch with the monk, there really was only one way it could go. If the monk wanted a life-and-death battle, Jake wasn’t going to reject it.
”It… it isn’t sure you’ll meet him again, right?” Polly asked, worried. ”You already met and beat him once, and repeat matchups are incredibly rare.”
Jake just smiled at her. There was no fucking way there wouldn’t be a repeat matchup.
He just hadn’t expected it would be so soon.