Supreme Swordfiend

Leon cackled as a tower crashed to the ground, the flame-wielding mage who’d claimed it as a refuge catapulted onto the sands below, his legs snapping as he failed to bend his knees, bones shooting through his skin.

Finlay joined him in laughing, while John and the necromancer winced, as they watched the mage die screaming, an opportunist’s blade ending his suffering.

Octavia had produced a fan from her own storage ring, lazily swaying it back and forth, so far disinterested in the fight.

Tossing another handful of popcorn back, Leon surveyed the battlefield.

The opening bloodbath had weeded the weak from the strong, a chaotic brawl claiming a quarter of the participants’ lives before an enterprising mage decided it was much easier to rain fire from above than get involved in the melee.

His decision backfired immediately, an earth mage sending a spire of hardened sand into his redoubt, breaking both man and structure.

That same earth mage got a dagger in the back for his trouble, a rogue spotting a distracted mark.

The rogue attempted to slip back into the shadows, an arrow tearing the woman’s throat out, a longbow-wielding archer having spotted a squishy target to aim at.

The archer lost his head in excitement- literally. A warrior wielding a brutish wooden club, one that looked more like a tree than a weapon, took action. The primal warrior caved the archer’s skull in, brain and bone exploding across the sands, a spray of gristle and gore coating the aggressor’s leather gambeson.

The warrior then fought off a short spear and shield wielder, beating the woman’s shield from her hands, manoeuvring past a thrust that went wide, ending the fight brutally with one hand clasped around her throat, lifting her off the ground, the other wrenching her spear from her hands.

Driving the spear through her stomach, the club wielder left her with a broken neck, blood pooling beneath the woman he’d impaled on her own weapon, the barbarous warrior hoisted his tree club aloft, roaring a challenge to the arena, a pair of rogues slinking back as they recognised a target not worth engaging.

Chewing on his popcorn, Leon examined the warrior. The man had caught his eye.

“Level Ten Warrior- Starter Class.”

Flicking the notification away before it could display the [Slaughter Seal]’s information, Leon relayed his find to the others.

“Shame we didn’t bet on this round- I’d put my money on the savage over there.”

John spoke up, proclaiming his pick.

“The rogue sneaking across the rope bridges- been throwing thin needles at anyone who sticks out. Using a fast-acting paralytic. Causes light-headedness, muscle seizures and heart failure. She’ll move in once the big tough guys are foaming from their mouths.”

As expected from a hunter, spotting the most dangerous game. Leon had seen the rogue, yet hadn’t been sure of her game plan.

“Damn, I didn’t even spot her! Good catch man. How’d you identify the venom from this far?”

The hunter shrugged, breaking into a wry grin as he produced a vial of clear liquid from a pouch at his waist.

“Same type I use. Venomback Extract. Drained a vial’s worth from a spinosaurus claw. Useful, though it’s tough to get into the bloodstream.”

His labrys across his legs, Finlay spoke up, the giant man not content to sit on the sidelines of any conversation.

“That dinnae make sense, laddies. I’m sure we all know ye can burn out poison- the fellas down there can do the same.”

Octavia, fan fluttering in annoyance as she spoke, gave a rebuttal.

“Not if they want to stay alive. Few of these unviable peasants will have been at the top of their ranking- without the luxury of replenishing their food stores on demand, eating at all, never mind eating well, will have been a luxury for them.”

Look closer barbarian- see the way their clothing hangs loosely, the pinch of hunger that tightens their features? These people are far from the peak of health. Any energy used in burning out a seemingly weak toxin leaves them less to swing their axe or dodge an arrow.

By the time their muscles lock, it will be too late.”

Leon had split his focus. Half he kept on the discussion, noting that despite her attitude Octavia raised good points.

The other half he placed on the mage that had come out of nowhere, a wiry and lean man using a strange mana blast with his right hand to perforate any who drew near, a kris in his left hand finishing any who survived, cold steel and arcane might wielded in tandem to great effect, the ten corpses surrounding the unorthodox mage could attest to that.

The necromancer spoke up, voice lacking any of her prior nervousness, excitement and curiosity taking their place.

“That one, the combat mage. That’s a custom spell- he probably took a fireball, stripped it down to a plain mana bolt, then diffused the projectile. It’s like a super short-range shotgun. Bad spell modification- inefficient, it’s burning more mana than it should per shot and he’s forced to fight at close range- the mana from the blast disperses too quickly otherwise.”

Octavia, content with having educated Finlay, shifted to look at the mage in question.

Leon didn’t interject when she spoke- insight on spell craft was something that had eluded him.

“Black cloak speaks true- the man’s work is better than the simpletons who slavishly rely on their base spells, yet still undoubtedly shoddy. I, Octavia Caesar, have seen better work from mere apprentices. That sorry excuse for a mage isn’t even properly generating each projectile that comprises his little blast- he’s merely slapped a splitter on the end of a mana bolt spell and called it a day. Pathetic.”

Leon didn’t bother trying to figure out how the two mages could infer that much information from merely seeing a spell in action.

Their alien guide had returned to meditation, Leon calling over to him as the action wound down.

“Stranger! I know we aren’t allowed to bet on a round in progress- what of a wager, one purely for bragging rights?”

Inclining its shrouded head, the stranger spoke.

“Such a wager is acceptable honoured one, provided it is only ‘bragging rights’ at stake.”

Ignoring the pointed inflection in the creature’s tone, Leon turned to Finlay, the men meeting each other’s gaze, an unspoken challenge between them. Who would correctly predict the victor of this bout?

He felt a rapport with the giant, both of them bearing bloodlines, the two warriors of the group.

“Who’s your pick, big guy? I’m sticking with the warrior.”

The warrior in question had just finished ripping out a rogue’s lower jaw, beating the crying man to the floor with his own bones, crushing the rest of his head under a tattered boot.

Scratching the back of his head, Finlay weighed up his choices for only a moment before responding.

“Mage- no shot like buckshot lad.”

Turning to his right, Leon extended the offer to the others.

“Princess, kid- either of you want in?”

Leon didn’t miss Octavia’s blush this time- how amusing that such an arrogant woman was so easily embarrassed. Her fan quickly moved, covering her face, hazel eyes peering over the top.

“The rogue will win, swordsman. Of this I am certain.”

The teenage necromancer answered her caution and restraint back in full force.

“...The mage.”

Shifting back to face John, Leon noted the hunter had taken him up on his offer, a fistful of popcorn in his hand. Leon had felt the man enter his perception, pointedly ignoring the sneaky fingers robbing his salted snack.

His enhanced perception was a trump card he’d rather leave unexposed for as long as possible. There was a difference between trust and foolishness. He trusted these people to act in service of themselves. He wasn’t foolish enough to reveal his abilities to them.

“Huntsman, your pick?”

“The warrior. Rogue hasn’t hit him yet. He’s got an advantage.”

Ten fighters remained standing.

The warrior, rogue and mage excluded, the others weren’t worth considering as contenders.

The craven rogue hiding at the arena’s edge, cowardice dominating her decision-making.

Broken warrior, on her last legs, her sword shattered and shield cracked, blood flowing from a shallow wound on her cheek.

Spent archer within a tower, his arrows exhausted, bowstring snapped. Reduced to a dagger and his wits.

A mage, charging a fireball beneath a toppled tower, aiming at the archer’s holdout, and the rogue behind her, ready to plunge his dagger into the woman’s neck once she’d eliminated another member of the competition.

A carefree warrior, juggling a pair of silver knives as he strutted along a rope bridge possessing both the grace and smug aura of a cat, armoured in primarily light leather, with sections of metal to protect his vitals.

Leon had been wrong- this one warranted an inspection.

“Level One Arcane Trickster- Uncommon Class.

Aggregate Level- Eleven.”

He kept silent about the man. If the others had spotted him, they must have written him off.

Still, Leon prepared for an upset from the Uncommon Class bearer.

The violence began with an explosion, the toppled tower bursting into flame as the mage lost control of her fireball, killing both herself and the rogue with one glorious fuck up.

The needle-slinging rogue used the cacophony as cover to slam a needle into the back of both the club-wielding warrior and the hapless archer.

She’d put both men’s lives on a timer.

Her own life ended seconds later, the arcane trickster lobbing a knife skyward, the blade homing in on the rogue’s diminutive frame and piercing her skull.

His knife reappeared in his hands seconds later, free of gore, the trickster crouching within a tower, biding his time.

The shotgun mage closed in on the cowardly rogue, separating her legs from her body with a single well-placed blast, his kris ending her suffering.

A roar of rage followed as the broken warrior was beaten into the arena wall, reduced to pulp under a furious assault by the club warrior, who survived a sudden ambush from the envenomated archer, shrugging off the knife in his back.

The archer’s chest caved in under the blow he suffered, lungs punctured. Denied even a final breath as the warrior stomped his skull into fragments.

The shotgun mage took his shot, dashing in and blowing a hole through the warrior. One the warrior failed to recover from.

The toxin seized him as the mage sank his ritual knife into the man’s throat, severing his carotid artery, blood spray soaking the mage’s robes.

The mage spun, ready and willing to fight the last opponent, his [Slaughter Seal] so close to being fully unsealed. He could practically taste freedom.

A shame that the arcane trickster did not deign to fight. Before the mage could react, a silver knife slammed into his back, vanishing as soon as it hit, whizzing back through the air, out of sight.

Furious, the mage spun, firing a spray of mana pellets in the direction the knife had come from.

From above, a grin played across Leon’s face.

The trickster lived up to his Class name, able to lob knives that curved and travelled in unpredictable ways.

Octavia saw fit to enlighten them on the more arcane aspects of the man’s skills, eyes narrowed in concentration behind her fan as she analysed the arcane.

“Tendrils of mana, tied to the ends of the knives. A simplistic spell, no less effective for it. His control is passable.”

The mage’s panicking hastened his death, his short-range his undoing. A pair of knives flew in pincer motion, slicing his throat and neck open simultaneously.

The headless magician flopped to the ground, dead.

The arcane trickster yanked his implements back into his waiting hands, front flipping off the tower he’d taken as a refuge. Sliding the bloodless knives into the twin sheathes at his hip as he fell, the unblemished victor touched down on blood-soaked sands, performing a sweeping bow towards the tent above.

He had done it. Triumphed over the rest, proved himself the best.

The shimmering bubble insulating the tent vanished, as a snippet of conversation spilled out.

The first words he heard from the ‘honoured ones’ chilled the arcane trickster’s blood.

“...we all guessed wrong princess, no need to sulk, at least we weren’t betting anything valuable on this round. Any takers for fancy pants here?