Four days passed with everyone but Yua and Serpa left in the pit. Fortunately, they hadn’t been divested of their equipment, so they didn’t need to rely on the Orochi for food and water. Perhaps unfortunately, since Yua was separated from them, Rai and Isa couldn’t select her as their third participant. After some discussion, one of the divine mages offered himself as their healer. And now, on the morning of the first day of the tournament, Rai, Isa, and Adamus the healer were escorted to the waiting area where all the teams awaited their turn in the arena, while the rest of the expeditionary group was permitted into the tiered seating to watch (under supervision, of course).
Isa clutched her halberd while she surveyed the other teams. To her eyes, most of them looked mostly the same: three serpentsia with spears and or blowguns or staves. There were several teams that were decidedly different, however. The toadians were easily identified, despite her lack of knowledge: they were five-foot-tall, hunched-over bipedal toads with green, warty skin; most of them carried wooden clubs held in two hands, but a few had metal clubs. This left the remaining type to be bugbears: seven-foot-tall, grey-furred humanoids with squashed looking ugly faces. These wore shorts made of woven reeds and leather shirts and carried wooden shields and spiked maces or javelins.
There are more teams than I expected there to be, she thought. We’re underground right now, directly below the arena, so there’s plenty of space, but it’s almost all filled up. It looks like there are fifty teams. Five of those are toadians and six of those are bugbears, then there’s us, so that leaves thirty-eight serpentsia teams. We were told that we’re allowed to let our opponents surrender but there’s no punishment for killing them. I wonder how many teams will be left for the third round? We have to take on a group of monsters, then a single stronger monster. It’s too bad we don’t get to watch the other teams competing.
One of the organizers called out something, and a team headed up the spiral ramp that led to the surface.
“They said: Team One report to the arena,” Rai told her. “We’re team thirty-two, so it’ll be a while until our turn.”
Isa sat down on the ground and settled in to wait. Several minutes later, the first team returned, injured but in a good mood. The next team was called up; they, too, returned a few minutes later. It wasn’t until team six, one of the toadian teams, that there was a fatality. By the rules, a fatality in the first two rounds was disqualifying, so the toadians were understandably upset. They spoke to each other in ribbits and chirps as they passed through the waiting area to the exit.
By the time Isa and Rai’s team was called, five teams had been disqualified: two toadian teams, two serpentsia teams, and a bugbear team.
“Remember,” Rai told Adamus, “Your goal is to stay out of harm’s way. We won’t need your healing for this round. Just keep your defensive spell up. Isa and I have our own defensive spells already cast, and both of us can heal gradually during combat. You focus only on staying unharmed.”
“No arguments from me there.”
“I wonder what we’ll have to fight?” Isa said as they ascended. “Oh, and remember to call out your art names! If there ever was a time to be cool while fighting, this is it!”
They entered the arena, and a portcullis dropped down behind them, cutting off their escape. A hissing voice, magically enhanced, echoed through the stadium. They approached the center of the circular arena, which was some hundred and fifty feet across. The announcer continued speaking, and Isa made out them saying Rai Flamme, Isa Bloodscale, and Adamus Prinro. Then a portcullis on the other side opened, and a group of nine large lizards – perhaps nine feet long, including the tail – rushed out at top speed. In under ten seconds, they were already dangerously close. Isa grinned, revealing her sharp teeth, and charged.
“Silver Rush!”
“Dimensional Thunder Sunder Strike!”
“Dome of Protection!”
Isa split her target laterally from front to back as she rushed past, stopping and letting out a whooping cry as she entered Berserk Mode, her aura appearing and her eyes beginning to glow. Two of the lizards scurried to try to take bites out of her sides, but they failed to get through her enhanced scales. She twirled her halberd and spun in a circle, slashing through both lizards and sending them flying several feet to land lifelessly on the ground. She turned to see that Rai had killed one with a laceration from a distance, had jumped back from the other two, and was in the process of shouting, “Thunder Sunder Wave Strike!” while slashing both with a single swing and sending fire and lightning rays into them both. They both died immediately.
The final thee lizards and gone around and converged on their healer. All three tried to bite Adamus, then stopped as though changing their minds mid-attack. One turned around and rushed her while the other two went for Rai. Teeth skittered on scales, and Isa smashed the lizard’s head in with a cry of “Wrath Strike!”
Rai simply repeated, “Thunder Sunder Wave Strike!” and felled both of the last two at once.
“Way too easy!” Isa crowed. Rai shouted something in the hissing language of the serpentsia.
“What did you say?”
“I said that I thought we asked for a challenge. Considering the cheers, I think it was the right thing to say.”
The portcullis lifted, and they returned to the waiting area to rest and recover their qi while the first round continued. Only one more team was disqualified by the end, but several more teams were significantly wounded. The second round started immediately after the first round ended, and this time not all the teams that won had all their members survive – and many teams didn’t survive at all.
Then it was their turn again.
“I’ll translate his commentary for you,” Rai said. “He’s saying, ‘Team Rai Flamme, Isa Bloodscale, and Adamus Prinro have called for a more significant challenge. What do you say we give it to them? Send in the One-eyed Green. For those who don’t know, the One-eyed Green is a terrifying beast captured by our Emperor and his personal unit last year. You’ve seen giras before, but One-eye is even more powerful than your average gira. This beast is truly ferocious; this I declare. Now let’s see a real fight.”
The portcullis began to rise.
“Dome of Protection!” Adamus cast.
“Injurious Fury!” Isa cast, infusing both herself and Rai with the power of the third circle spell.
The portcullis on the other side rose, and immediately a massive eight-foot-tall four-armed apelike creature with matted green fur and a scar running through one of its eyes barreled across the arena, reaching them in only a few seconds. It went for Rai first. He tried to jump back out of the way, but it caught him with the claws on all four of its hands and ripped through him, flaying his flesh from his bones and leaving him a raw, open mess. Somehow, he stayed on his feet, staggering back. His eyes glowed red as the magic took effect.
The sight of her friend’s condition knocked Isa into Berserk Mode.
“Balance Breaker!” she screamed, slamming her halberd down into the beast’s side, the blade biting deep and the acidic blood covering it sizzling inside the wound. With a roar of pain, it fell down onto all sixes.
“Elemental Brand!” Rai bellowed, slashing across the beast’s chest and throat. With a boom, the beast flew backward some thirty feet, hitting the ground and rolling while covered in flames and with lightning surging around it before rising to its feet. Blood poured from its wounds, and it roared.
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“Heal Severe Wounds!” Adamus cast, rushing up and placing his hands on Rai’s back. Flesh began to rapidly regrow.
The beast charged again, but Isa charged to meet it, intercepting it before it could reach Rai.
“Silver Rush!”
They collided, its claws tearing through her scales at the same time that she buried her halberd in its chest, piercing right through its heart. For one long moment, they were both locked in position, and then the beast toppled sideways.
There was complete silence.
Isa struggled to free her halberd for a few seconds, and then Berserk Mode faded, leaving her leaning on the dead beast.
“Heal Severe Wounds. Heal the Wounds. Heal Severe Wounds. Heal Severe Wounds,” Adamus cast, using all his second-circle spells to fully heal Rai and Isa. By the time he finished, the red glow had faded from Rai’s eyes.
Rai raised his sword and shouted something, and the crowd went wild.
“What’d you say?” Isa asked with a tired smile.
“That we would turn the blood and flesh of the One-eyed Green One into our own power.”
“I’m not that confident in making qi medicine that won’t have nasty side effects.”
“No, but I’m betting that the Orochi can do it.”
“That’s certainly a thing you can assume.”
The announcer said some things, and they left the arena to return to the waiting area. The rest of the teams fought, and by the time they were done, there were only twenty-one teams remaining in the competition. The end of the second round marked the end of the first day of the tournament, so all of the expeditionary group members were sent back to the pit. Rai and Isa got a lot of congratulations for their wins, but they went to sleep early, wanting to be fully prepared for the next day’s battles.
-x-
Having the jitters like this is not helping, Rai thought in irritation as they all walked to the waiting area. I hope my nervousness isn’t showing… the next round is going to be very dangerous, and I can’t afford to slip up. They told us yesterday that the third round consists of pitting seven teams against each other – three times, since there are twenty-one teams – and the fourth round is the three winning teams competing. People are allowed to surrender, but in a large melee like that, nobody’s going to accept a surrender, so in reality this is to knockout or death.
“We have to win this,” he muttered. “We will win this.”
“Stop worrying,” Isa said, punching him lightly right above the hip. “We’ve got this, partner!”
Rai let out a shuddering sigh. “You’re so much more confident about this than I am.”
“Nah, not really. But we beat that gira thing, didn’t we? Even though it flayed you alive, you still kept fighting.”
“That’s largely because of the spell you cast. It makes people stronger, more reckless, and better able to keep fighting through pain… but its effects are stronger the more injured you are. So when the gira nearly killed me, your spell increased in potency greatly, allowing me to keep fighting. It would have been more effective for you, though – I don’t actually benefit all that much from increased strength, since I mostly rely on dexterity and precision. You, on the other hand…”
“But it kept you fighting, and that’s the important part.”
“Yes, but it lowered my ability to act defensively, too. It’s a double-edged sword.”
“So do you want it or not in our next battle?”
“Not. I need to be able to focus on more than just giving a beatdown.”
“If you say so.”
Once they reached the waiting area, the teams were split into three groups of seven teams each, and the first group was immediately sent to the arena. Rai waited apprehensively for the battle to end. When it did, only three people returned: a team of bugbears. The second group then went up, and their victors were three serpentsia; one red, one green, and one blue. At last, group three was called into the arena: four serpentsia teams, one bugbear team, one toadian team, and Rai’s team. Each team moved to a different part of the arena and waited for the starting order.
A loud gong crash signaled the commencement of the fight.
“Lightning Surge!” Rai shouted, casting his pure lightning variant of Elemental Burst directly on top of the toadian team, creating a hemisphere of surging violet lightning crisscrossing itself. Then, while the fighters were still flinching at his sudden display of power, he followed it up with, “Flaming Bolt!”, sending a raging lightning-bolt-shaped blast of flames engulf the bugbears, who were in a perfect line extending away from him in the other direction.
“Dome of Protection!”
“Armor of Blood! Injurious Fury!” Isa cast on herself.
The two injured teams rushed toward Rai’s team, while the four serpentsia teams chased after those teams. In under six seconds, all seven teams were in the same third of the arena. The todians converged on Isa, while the bugbears all attacked Rai, with Adamus hiding slightly behind the two of them.
Rai dodged one morningstar, his heart pounding as another had its force blunted by his Force Armor when it struck him in the shoulder, opening him up to the third, which smashed through and cracked against his sternum, leaving multiple punctures in his chest. Not bothering to shout the names of his arts, he thrust forward, his golden sword, wreathed in fire and lightning, flashing too quickly for the central bugbear to react as he stabbed it in its vitals. Rays of fire and lightning split off from his blade just before impact, targeting not the creature he stabbed but the ones on either side. Even before the bugbear fell lifelessly to the dirt, two of the serpentsia teams converged, finishing off the injured bugbears and clashing with each other.
He risked a glance at Isa. The same thing had happened on her side. She had taken a hit from one of the two-handed clubs – he could see the broken scales – and she was surrounded by her red aura, but all three of the toadians were down. One had clearly seen the business end of her halberd, while the others had been finishing off by the other two serpentsia teams.
Then everything turned to complete chaos as the serpentsia attack both Rai’s team and each other, and it became hard to tell what was happening. Rai took a spear directly to the gut, and he heard Isa snarl as she was also struck. He executed a wide-slashing Wave Strike plus Thunder Sunder, and then another, trying to dodge attacks coming from all directions and failing, his side savaged by another spear. Beside him, he heard Isa shouting out, “Pierce Through!” repeatedly.
“Heal Severe Wounds!” Adamus cast frantically on Isa at the same time she took another hit, followed by another. She was barely standing, even after the healing – and was covered in broken blood armor. Another spear came in and she shattered it with a “Sword Breaker!” before following up with a pair of strikes, finishing off its wielder.
A spear went straight through Rai. His eyes widened as he coughed up blood and his vision went red. The serpentsia ripped out the spear and he almost fell, catching himself at the last moment. A surge of energy and vitality rushed through his body.
I can’t die here! he thought desperately, blowing away the serpentsia with an Elemental Brand slash.
“Heal Severe Wounds!”
The worst of Rai’s wounds began to heal.
Only four serpentsia remained: one from each team, all wounded. There was a pause in the fighting as they exchanged looks with one another.
“We surrender!” all four of them said simultaneously, dropping their weapons.
“We win!” Rai crowed.
The crowd went wild.
-x-
A full ten castings of Healing Blood later, Rai and Isa were fully healed. Isa was running low on spells; she could cast three third circle and three second circle spells more – and could replace any of them with lower circle spells, such as Healing Blood, if she needed to. Adamus, for his part, had two second circle spells and six first circle spells available, while Rai still had plenty of first and second circle spells available, but only two third circle spells. Unfortunately, they were only given a five minute break – not long enough to recover their qi for their arts – and Rai was nearly completely drained of it.
“How did you manage to keep going long enough for me to heal you?” Adamus asked Rai as the final three teams returned to the arena. “You got skewered!”
“I’m not completely certain. I’ve been near death several times now and have pushed through every time… maybe it’s because of that. But I’ll tell you one thing: that’s not happening again until I’ve had a good night’s sleep. I drew on energy I didn’t know I had, going beyond my limits. You can’t do something like that twice in a row.”
“I wanna know how they cleared out all the bodies so fast,” Isa said when they arrived. The bloodstains were still there, but neither corpses nor unconscious people were.
“I’d rather not think about it,” Rai said. “It may be easier to kill when they look so completely different from us, but… this is still just glorified murder. I know we’re doing this because we need to, but it still leaves a bad taste in my mouth.”
“They volunteered for this,” Isa pointed out. “Just like we did. This is different from just walking up to somebody and shanking them.”
“…Barely.”
“So, what, you want to make things harder on us by trying to take them down nonlethally? We almost died going all out. That would be certain death.”
“You don’t have to get defensive about it, Isa. I’m just… not comfortable with this.”
The three teams moved to form a large triangle with each team at a vertex.
“Well, you better get over that, because we’ve got another round to go before we tackle the Emperor, and it’s about to start.”
Rai’s expression hardened. “Don’t worry; I won’t hold you back.”
Isa grinned. “Damn right you won’t.”
The gong sounded, and the battle began.