The little Monsters

Yuliah watched Ben with a wary eye as he returned to where Denzel’s other students waited for him, that last blow had been very dangerous, the protective charm she had given out to the competitors was one she had made herself so she knew more than most that it could only defend against so much, if it had activated even a few moments later Sonia’s injuries might have gone beyond what she would have considered safe for a competition like this.

Glancing back over to Kyle who watched Thomas carry the still unconscious Sonia back to her friends with a calm look on his face, she breathed a sigh of relief, if he had known how close that fight had come to ended badly he wouldn’t have looked like that.

Still the girl had performed well, she seemed to have the Entertainer Class which was mostly a support Class so to stand up that well to Ben who had some form of spearman class as well as good skill levels and decent control over his wind magic was quite impressive, she was looking forward to seeing what Sonia would be capable of when she started to level up.

The choice of Illusion Magic was typical of someone with a bard-type Class as these Classes had Skills that would strengthen allies and weaken enemies while the illusions allowed them to keep out of harm’s way and distract enemies from their allies making them excellent supporters. What she was most impressed by however was the young woman’s use of the Mana School, Mana Eruption was a high ranked spell and Sonia had set herself up to use it almost perfectly. She had been unlucky that Ben had been able to defend against the worst of it, if he hadn’t that fight could have ended rather differently.

She called up the next pair of fighters, one of Denzel’s student who went by the name of Damian walked out onto the field carrying a simple staff, Damian was the only true spellcaster among Denzel’s students, Denzel himself wasn’t much of a magic user so he didn’t really like training them but he understood the need for magic users and so had made sure that at least one of his students learnt Mana Manipulation, he had chosen Damian due to the latter’s lack of physical prowess.

Damian’s opponent was a young woman who carried a bow and wore a similar set of armour to the boy who had fought Russel earlier and looked equally uncomfortable doing so, he smirked at her choice of weapon, he used fire magic making this a bad match up for the poor girl and as soon as the fight began he flooded the area with flames causing the girl’s parents to scream in horror and soon the protective charm she carried activated and Thomas rushed out onto the still burning field to treat her burns.

The crowd muttered at the brutal display of magical power, while impressive using that sort of attack on someone that he had known his whole life made Damian look as much ruthless as he did powerful.

Yuliah frowned as once again one of Denzel’s students not only overpowered a fellow villager completely but did it in such a way that could have given them severe injuries that would be difficult to heal, she was starting to think that this had been a bad idea after all, but she knew if she stopped the competition now it would have all been for nothing and once the fires had been put out and the injured girl removed from the field she called up the next contestants breathing a sigh of relief as Ryan swaggered out onto the field, she didn’t think that any of Kyle’s friends would purposely endanger their fellow villagers.

Ryan’s opponent glared at the confident young man who smirked back at him, his hands resting casually in his pockets as he faced his opponent. Unlike the other village kids who had chosen to borrow leather armour this boy had instead opted to wear chainmail over his normal clothes and looked far more comfortable doing so.

 Kyle rolled his eyes at his friend’s actions, he knew Ryan would beat the other boy but that didn’t mean that he had to antagonise him.

Yuliah signalled for the fight to begin and Ryan’s opponent charged towards the skinny young man who was still smirking. Ryan ducked under the other boy’s sword as he swung, his body bending in a way that almost looked unnatural before drawing his own weapon, a curved short sword faster than most of the watching villagers could see and placing it’s razor sharp edge against the other boy’s throat.

“I surrender,” the other boy croaked, he knew there was no way he could escape Ryan unharmed and after witnessing what had happened to the last two people who fought Denzel’s students he didn’t really want to fight against them.

Ryan patted the young man on his back before walking back towards the others with his usual cocky grin in place.

Yuliah breathed another sigh of relief, if there had been another dangerous fight on her watch the old man would have had her head. This soon changed as she realised there were only two more people left who hadn’t fought. Ryan’s sister Jess and Raina, the only girl among Denzel’s students who stalked onto the field stroking the long knives that were strapped to her thighs.

The two girls grinned wickedly at each other, they both knew that if they lost they wouldn’t hear the end of it from their own group, so both were determined to go all out to win, and sure enough when Yuliah started the match they both exploded into action.

Raina used the Conceal Sub-skill of her Stealth Mastery that allowed her to enter Stealth instantly fading from sight as she started to circle around Jess who waved her wand causing mist to appear out of nowhere to conceal her own presence.

Yuliah nodded her head at both girls’ actions, they were both going on the defensive instead of rushing in like the boys in their groups had. Like in the fight between Sonia and Ben, Thomas had erected a barrier around the area where the two were fighting creating an interesting effect as the mist Jess had conjured filled the barrier completely forming what appeared to be a dome-shaped cloud. Occasionally blue lights could be seen within the swirling mists letting the audience know that the fight was still going on.

Hal leaned over towards Kyle, “What do you think is happening in there?”

“Jess is using her Mana Mines to keep track of Raina as well as damaging her allowing Jess to keep out of reach of Raina’s blades,” Kyle replied calmly, this was Jess’ favoured technique for facing an opponent that was both faster than her and better in close combat.

Inside the dome Jess was breathing heavily, Raina was even faster than she had expected managing to escape the worst of the damage caused by her mines. What was worse was that the mist she was creating was rapidly draining her Mana Pool, Jess frowned slightly as another of her mines went off nearby and moved away from the sound of the explosion as quietly as possible.

Biting her lip, she came to a decision, she didn’t think that Raina would still be using her Stealth Skills, they used up too much Stamina at low levels to be efficient and Jess couldn’t see through the mist either which meant that using them was pointless.

Making her decision she started to cast a new spell causing glowing spikes of blue energy to form in front of her as she faced in the direction the sound of the mine exploding had come from. These spikes were created by her Mana Lance spell, this was one of the more powerful ranged attacks in the Mana School and she had chosen to get the improved versions that allowed her to create three Mana Lances before she fired them. This was usually enough to cause problems for most of her friends when they sparred against each other as the damage dealt by these spikes was quite high for their Level.

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With a flick of her wand she cancelled the spell that had caused the mist to appear and as soon as a surprised looking Raina could be seen she released all three spikes in her direction. Cursing loudly Raina activated Dodge Roll causing to of the Mana Lances to miss, but unfortunately for her the final one hit her in the meaty part of her thigh causing her to lose her balance as she screamed in pain.

Jess bit her lip, she didn’t particularly like hurting people, but her face quickly hardened as she sent a blast of wind hurtling towards the other girl’s face knocking her out.

The crowd muttered, they didn’t know for sure what had happened for most of the fight, but Raina’s leather armour was looking more than a little worse for wear particularly around her legs which looked battered and bruised without even considering the small hole in her left thigh.

Yuliah grimaced slightly as she saw the hole in Raina’s thigh, but she was thankful that Jess hadn’t used a more dangerous attack to finish her opponent off, the Air Bolt spell that she had used was the most basic attack spell in the School of Wind and didn’t do as much damage as some of the spells in the Schools of Water or Mana which were the Schools Jess was more proficient in.

Jess smiled brightly as her friends and family applauded, she knew that Ryan would never had let her live it down if she had been knocked out in the first round, even if his own opponent hadn’t been as much of a challenge as her own.

Emma smiled as she watched the young woman make her way back to her friends, she had been one of the main people to train Jess due to her talents when it came to magic and the young woman had idolised her deciding to pick the same Schools that Emma herself specialised in. Noticing that her mother wasn’t paying her any attention any more Kelly started fussing and Emma quickly returned to gently rocking her daughter in her arms.

“Well done sis!” shouted Ryan drawing irritated looks from the nearby villagers which he ignored.

Jess rolled her eyes as her brother ruined her moment, her friends laughing at the look on her face as she scolded her brother who grinned back at her completely unrepentant.

Over where Denzel’s students were the atmosphere was very different from where Kyle and friends were. With Ben being the only one of them who had managed to get a win against Kyle’s friends and Ben and Damian winning their matches in such a brutal manner had many of the villagers avoiding looking at them.

Denzel was furious not only were his students losing to those brats who stood there celebrating right now but it was starting to look like he had been teaching them that the methods that they used mattered less than the results. He had taught them this, but he had also stressed that those sorts of tactics were only acceptable against monsters, certainly not against their fellow villagers. He understood that they were frustrated that Hal had won against Kerrel so quickly, but that was no excuse for losing control of the situation like they did, but he couldn’t go over and tell them to calm down or it would look like he couldn’t keep his own students under control, which was unacceptable for someone who was in charge of the town guards.

Denzel gritted his teeth as the next two fighters walked onto the field, with only his own students and Kyle’s friends left in the competition this could get bloody.

Damian glared at his opponent who stood casually leaning on his Warhammer, he knew that if Hal got in close the match would be over in an instant, none of his defensive spells would be able to withstand the sort of power that had ruined Kerrel’s breastplate in a single hit. He glanced at his staff, if need be he could use the Blink Step Spell that the weapon had been enchanted with but there were only a few charges left before it ran out.

The fight began with a roar as Damian conjured a wall of fire between him and Hal, the onlooker stumbling backwards from the sight of an inferno suddenly appearing in front of them. Damian quickly followed this up with several fireballs that he launched blindly through the flames hoping that the small radius of the spell would allow him to get a hit.

The crowd on the other side roared in shock as the spells flew through the flames towards them, but Hal just smirked, he was a blacksmith by trade there was no way a little fire could scare him. With a casual swing of his hammer he hit the one fireball that was within range causing it to explode, the conflagration setting off the others.

When the smoke cleared he patted out a few flames that had sprung up on his clothes glaring at the wall of fire in front of him, he had to admit that those spells were more powerful than he had been expecting and guessed that the staff that Damian was carrying was to blame for their increased power.

Damian smiled as he heard the fireballs going off, he knew that they probably hadn’t done that much damage but they had to have at least softened Hal up and raised his staff to start conjuring one of the more powerful spells from his arsenal called Infernal Lance, and was shocked when Hal hurtled through the wall of flames he had conjured at the beginning of the fight, his legs glowing with blue light as the red-hot head of his hammer came crashing down towards Damian.

The Infernal Lance dissipated as Damian quickly activated his staff’s Blink Step and teleported a few feet away just before Hal’s hammer would have hit him, the head smashing down onto the ground with enough force to kick up a cloud of dust.

Damian’s face paled, if he hadn’t reacted in time that one blow would have been enough to activate the protective charm he was wearing instantly.

Hal gritted his teeth, as he raised his hammer once more, that staff was a problem he thought to himself, not only does it increase the amount of damage that Damian’s spells could do it was also enchanted with a spell that could teleport him away.

Dodging Damian’s quickly conjured fireballs Hal closed in on his smaller opponent as fast as he could without activating his Mana Enhancement before activating his Breaker Skill. Breaker was a Sub-skill of his Warhammer Mastery that allowed him to convert some of the damage he dealt to durability damage allowing him to destroy equipment much easier than most people could. He gained access to the Skill because he had both the Blacksmithing Mastery Skill and the Warhammer Mastery Skill which had a high rate of affinity for each other.

The head of his hammer shone briefly as it struck Damian’s staff causing large cracks to appear on the weapon as it was knocked from the other boy’s hand. Swearing Damian thrust his hands downwards causing flames to swirl around him forcing Hal back.

The two young men glared at each other as they panted they had both been using Skills and magic basically non-stop since the fight had began but they both knew that unless Damian finished the fight quickly he wouldn’t be able to stand up to Hal’s physical stats.

Raising his hands Damian sent a barrage of small ball of fire at Hal, he was starting to run low on Mana so had switched to the basic Firebolt Spell in the hopes that it would at least slow Hal down enough for him to cast one of his more powerful spells.

Hal paid no heed to these weak spells trusting the resistance to fire he had built up over the long years of working in the forge alongside his father to protect him as he charged towards Damian, who quickly placed his hands together as he sent a stream of fire towards his opponent.

Swearing Hal dodged sideways his arm coming back as he wound up and tossed his hammer at Damian, hoping it would be enough of a distraction for him to get in close.

The hammer tumbled towards Damian whose field of vision was blocked by the fire streaming from his outstretched hands, he noticed it at the last moment reflexively putting up his hands to protect his face.

Taking the opening he had created Hal leapt forward wrapping his arm around Damian’s neck and slamming him into the ground where he was left gasping for air, Hal reached down and picked up his Warhammer and stood over his opponent who stared up at him with frightened eyes.

‘I surrender,” Damian croaked hoping that Hal wouldn’t try to finish him off.

Hal raised an eyebrow.

“Louder so everyone can hear you,” he commanded.

“I surrender!” Damian cried out as loud as he could.

Muttering broke out in the crowd as one of Damian’s students lost to Hal again, the villagers hadn’t expected the muscular young man to be so formidable.

Hal reached down to offer Damian a hand up, which Damian hesitantly took, he had been a bit of a jerk towards Hal and his friends in the past, so he hadn’t expected Hal to just let him go so easily especially after what Ben had done to Sonia.

After helping Damian to his feet Hal turned and walked away leaving a confused Damian staring at his back.

Kyle grinned at his friend as he approached, “Well done man,” he said clapping his hand down on Hal’s shoulder.

“Yeah well done,” said Ryan. “Though I expected you beat him much easier than you did.”

Hal shrugged before replying, “That staff of his was more of a pain than I expected,” he admitted.

“Yeah looks like you did a number on it though,” said Jess who was watching Damian inspect his staff with a frown on his face, before walking off the field.

Hal grinned, he had just done what Kyle had asked him to do, he would be far happier if Jerald oversaw the guards.

“So, who’s next?” he asked looking around at his friends.

Ryan grimaced, “Me and Ben.”

“Oh, well at least it’s not Jess, and Ben I suppose, no offense Jess,” Hal said.

“None taken, I don’t think I could beat Ben, but my brother at least has a chance if he pulls out all the stops,” Jess replied.

“Thanks sis,’” said an unusually serious Ryan as he turned towards the field.

“Well, wish me luck.”