Aurelius took a look at the scattered remains of the kobold knight, his eyebrows were raised. Aurelius did not see what made the explosion, he was able to hear the brief and precise snap of the fingers on Lord Yshavol and he saw the result. But Aurelius was interested in the spell or skill that the Lord used.
Brian’s body was already exhausted from fighting with the kobold knight, he had to give it his all and than some. Now he felt like a deer caught in headlights, Brian did not want any further part in the unknown and shook his head while his entire body was shaking, while the Lord said he was not allowed to interfere he did not say to what extent Brian now realised. The Lord could very well empower the next kobold knight that would be fighting against Riley, he did not even give a single care about the kobold that he just brutally exploded for whatever slights that the dragonoid perceived. He remembered to reply the Lord before its mood starts swinging again.
“Th-thank you Lord Yshavol. I’m grateful for the offer, I am fine as I am. I’ll step for the arena now you can begin the cleaning without any trouble.” Brian started moving for the arena after he finished his reply, looking for the reprieve that one should feel after a big match. He did not feel any of the exhilaration that should come with the win, only fear and weariness. Before he even made a few steps across the arena back to the waiting Aurelius and Riley. Lord Yshavol spoke again, the voice deep gravely voice this time felt like it was grating on Brian’s eardrums directly.
“Nonsense, you are covered in blood and innards. You shall stand at the edge of the arena while I cast the spell, any further complains and I will consider it an affront to my prestige.”
Brian unable to come up with any other reasonable excuses, his thoughts ran amok running through the numerous scenarios. He might suffocate to death under the green liquid, the liquid might start melting him inch by inch, second by second. It might crush him under immense weight his thoughts went on and on through the various scenario. But it was interrupted midway by a cold harrumphed from the dragonoid impatient for an answer. Brian immediately scrambled for an answer that he felt was pleasing to the dragonoid.
“Your generosity is boundless my Lord, I am thankful that you are giving me a second chance. I will move to stand near the edge.” The dragonoid let out a soft rumble while it nodded, Brian feeling the tension recede from him, almost collapsed from the release and slowly moved towards the side of the arena.
Brian stopped when he was a metre or so away from the edge of the arena and looked towards the dragonoid, he saw the green liquid already heading over and it was moving a lot faster than the previous time he saw it. He stepped back in reflex fear evident in his eyes.
The green liquid threw itself at Brian nearly sending him flying, instead it sent him a few step backs from the initial force. Brian felt the impact, along with what he was confident was his ribs breaking and his nose being caved in. He tasted blood building up in his mouth, breathing was all but impossible for him at that point.
The green liquid started spreading again this time from where Brian stood instead of the middle, with the improvement in how fast it flew at Brian. The spreading speed was proportionate too, the liquid rolled itself out at blinding speed covering the arena in the blink of an eye. The damages caused by the the fight between the kobold warrior and Brian was also restored just as quick, the visceral and remaining body parts was breaking down into nothing.
Riley’s eyes were fixed on Brian during the entire process and what she saw put her past experiences with the kobolds and the floaters to shame, the green liquid was absorbing whatever blood Brian threw out from his mouth as it dug into the open and gaping mouth. The nose that was broken by the green liquid was mixed in real time by brute force, the tears that sipped out from the tear ducts were greedily absorbed into the green liquid. Brian’s face throughout it all was a look through a range of emotions, from pain to horror to dread and finally what looked to be acceptance as he lost consciousness within the liquid.
Lord Yshavol who was still controlling the spell as it finished cleaning up the arena, waved again towards Brian. Causing the green liquid to congregate onto Brian instead of disipating into thin air like the previous one, the liquid held Brian within it as the dragonoid moved it towards Riley and Aurelius.
The green liquid hovered near the two of them before Brian was released from its grip and dropped down from 3 metres in the air, Aurelius moved under the shadow with arms outstretched. He caught the unconscious Brian in his arms and moved towards where Jacob was still meditating, moving past Riley as he did.
“I would advice you to stall as long as possible Jacob should almost be done with the process. I can feel the thrumming of power coming from him. Unlike Brian you do not have much experience with fighting, if you insist on fighting head on you might end up dead. I have a small surprise planned. Do not do anything too reckless and we should be fine.” Aurelius warned Riley softly as he passed. Riley nodded, she only had one skill to her name and no actual combat abilities. As positive as she was, Riley did not see a plausible way to win unless she can connect with her skill over the impressive reach of the kobold knights. Riley pumped herself up with both fists as she spoke out loud for the dragonoid. A cruel smile was plastered on it as she looked at the dragonoid.
“Lord Yshavol I would like to be the next challenger, may I request that the fight proceed without armour?” The dragonoid stroked its chin as it contemplated the request. It spoke out loud mid-stroke while it gazed at Riley. Riley trembled under the gaze as she felt the pressure emanating from it.
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“I am inclined to grant the request if you would agree to one of mine, if you lose. You will become the slave of one of my kobold knights.” Riley immediately disgusted by the proposal, gave an immediate refusal.
“I’m sorry, Lord Yshavol. I don’t believe I can agree to your terms. Please forgive me for making the rash proposal. I will choose unarmed combat for my challenge.”
“Do you think this is a place where you can bargain back and forth?” The unseen pressure intensified around Riley’s surrounding forcing her to tense her body to withstand it as the dragonoid’s voice turned grave.
“No my lord, nevertheless I have refused your counter proposal, please respect it and carry on with the challenge.” Riley replied confident that the dragonoid had no method to directly force her into the deal. True to her guess, the pressure on her lessened as the dragonoid spoke once again.
“Hmph, you will find out just what you have missed soon enough.” With those words the dragonoid sent out another one of its knights.
Riley resolved herself to do whats next as she stepped up to the arena with a small jump, and moved to where Brian and Aurelius had stood for their match. She stepped to her position and looked towards her opponent, it was at least twice as tall as her. Even without weapons, it had the gauntlets on each of its bigger than her head hands.
Sweat already started running down her head as she waited for the countdown, even if she knew that she only had to stall for time to the best of her ability. The kobold knight in full-armour in front of her will not give him the luxury of stalling, with her immediate refusal of the dragonoid. She can only imagine what the dragonoid had instructed the kobold knight in front of her to do.
She squared up as she took her gaze off of the height difference and looked directly ahead of her as the blue countdown started along with the sound, a 3 appeared in front of her. Changing into a 2, she took a deep breath trying to calm her pounding heart. She channeled essence out of her core and into her legs as she waited for the start.
‘If I can learn to fight the stone hands, those little kobold statues and big kobold warriors, I can handle this. Its just a bigger and better equipped kobold warrior’ Riley thought to herself as she the number turned to 1 with the blaring of the horn.
Just as the kobold knight was dashing at Riley, she was making every effort to run backwards while looking at the kobold knight. Each step from the kobold knight felt like she was gonna be shaken to her death as it left deep imprints in the arena floor, meanwhile as what looked to be death incarnate approached Riley. She looked at the two upper limbs of the kobold knight ready to dodge whichever limb came at her.
She made sure to veer left and right to avoid falling out of the arena, as she looked to her and right to measure where she would be in the arena. Which was exceedingly hard as the kobold knight now occupied over 60% of her vision as it came swinging at her from above. She pushed herself to the left to avoid death from above.
The impact traveled outwards causing the entire arena to shake, before Riley can even keep moving. Rocks started jutting out from the impact site heading right for her at speed. As she saw the approaching rocks and realising she may not have time to avoid the rocks. She threw out her right hand already brimming with green essence covering her hand like a boxing glove using Aura of the Wild.
‘I’m not entirely defenseless, fighting Riley!’ She thought to herself as she threw out the punch, the spikes rushing to impale Riley upon it was broken apart upon meeting the green boxing glove, shattering onto the ground and stopping its rush giving Riley enough time to get out of the way.
Riley saw the kobold knight still in its previous position when it slammed down onto the ground, seeing this as her chance she rushed forward and readied another punch hoping to give the kobold knight some pause. She closed in and punched out green boxing glove hoping to reach the helmet of the kobold knight, just as easily as the hope came it was dashed as the glove was destroyed in front of Riley’s eyes.
Before she could see what destroyed her skill, Riley dodged to her left to get ahead of the problem. To her merit, another gauntlet was coming from right clad in yellow punching through the space where she was. Riley quickly ran backwards while the kobold knight got to its feet ready to show off more of its skills.
The kobold knight renewed its chase as it closed onto Riley it brought up both of its hands, ready to hammer the ground. Riley knowing that more rocks will be coming this time decided to dodge into the kobold knight to avoid the rocks without expending her essence.
She dived forward essence powering her push while she was aiming for the big open space between the kobold knight, the hammer came down on the ground once again causing a much bigger impact than the previous hit. Milliseconds later, sharp spikes started protruding outwards again in a semi circle.
Riley safe under the kobold knight, spotted the very defenseless crotch as the self-defense lesson from her youth all came crashing into her mind. She gave a feral shout as she punched up at the nuts waiting to be broken with all the force available to her and her skill. She imagined spikes forming on her boxing glove as it punched out giving the glove an additional point of lethality.
Hoping that she was right, Riley rejoiced as she felt something soft give way to her skill as she punched through. The kobold knight still in its hammer down position gave a shout of such raw emotion and immense pain, that Riley felt her eardrums were gonna burst from how loud it was. She quickly got out from under the kobold knight as she began running away from the knight.
No winner was declared, so Riley did not caused the knight to bleed or the dragonoid just did not want to admit it. Nevertheless it gave Riley time to look towards Aurelius, Jacob and Brian. They were actually right in front of the dragonoid now or Aurelius and Jacob was. Brian was left sleeping at where Jacob was forming his crystalised core.
Riley excited that she did not have to wait for much longer turned her attention back to the kobold knight who was no longer screaming in pain. Instead it was getting up on its knees, it turned around and looked at the perpetrator who caused it so much pain. The kobold knight wrapped its hand around its own helmet, Riley’s already intense breathing took a much quicker turn as she felt the deep hatred within the look that the kobold knight gave her.
The kobold knight ripped out its own helmet blood apparent from the mishandling of the helmet removal, Riley looked hopefully at the dragonoid. But nothing came out from the dragonoid dashing her fleeting hopes. Riley started running away from the kobold knight even before it came after her. This match was definitely a farce now, she began to run for the side of the arena closest to her.
An earth-shattering roar incomparable to the previous one rang out from behind Riley as the kobold knight ran after her, she took a quick look back to see the knight slowly gaining on her. She decided to run for the exit, meanwhile sounds of deep and gravely laughter could be heard from her left. She poured as much essence as her legs could allow.
However, the footsteps of the slightly lighter kobold knight was creeping ever closer. Her hair now a mess from the many maneuvers she was making to dodge the kobold knight and the final dive between the legs stuck onto her face from the sweat. Her vision half impaired she tripped over a rock and fell down to the ground, all the while the footsteps of the kobold knight grew nearer and nearer.
Riley turned around and looked at the approaching kobold knight, it stood in front of her. Breath heavy and eyes bloodshot from the pain. It gave Riley a throaty laugh before it raised its right arm yellow essence visibly snaking around the fist. As the arm came down onto Riley, she closed her eyes while she waited for death. The right arm came right to her nose before the previous deep and gravel-like laughter was gone and replaced with the scream of pain and shock similar to the one the kobold knight gave just recently when Riley destroyed its sons and daughters. Both Riley and the kobold knight looked to where the dragonoid sat, Aurelius hand was protruding from its chest along with Jacob’s sword Flowing Water.