The Ruler of Ruin

“You might know her as the former champion of the Green Arena who came to the Silver Arena to make a name for herself! She’s been biting, squeezing, and bashing her way through her opponents for weeks now. You know her, you love her, it’s Anna Anacondrian!” The gnomish announcer put more effort and emotion into the introduction of Anna, but I couldn’t decide if it was because he’d just talked to her master Miyuki, or if it was genuine. The crowd response for Anna definitely surpassed the limited cheering that the Barakin had received.

Anna Anacondrian emerged from one of the opposite fighter pits, and I had to admit that her name was on point. Her upper body was humanoid, scaled, with four arms and an unscaled human head. The lower part of her body consisted of about twenty feet of snake. I didn’t like snakes much growing up, they were a bit creepy and could be venomous. For some reason, the snake part didn’t bother me anymore. Maybe because I was covered in scales myself?

Anna held three chakrams in one hand and a serpent capped staff in another. I assumed she’d be a swordsman due to her master, but that wasn’t the case.

“Begin!”

Instincts of the Gossamyr spiked when Anna threw her three chakrams up into the air. One after another, each of the circular blades burst with a different magical aura. The first one sparkled with a coat of ice and left trails of frost where it passed, the second radiated a green toxic cloud that definitely looked to be poison or some kind of affliction magic, and the third trailed streams of smoke.

Once each chakram dramatically burst to life with their element, all three shot at me as if they had minds of their own. At which point I understood why Anna Anacondrian had apprenticed with Miyuki of the Six Swords. Different weapons, but similar fighting techniques.

With the help of Instincts of the Gossamyr I warded the chakrams off in a flurry of parrying strikes, but each time I parried one of the blades it would right itself and fling itself back at me. I was reluctant to let them enter the bubble of protection I could ensure by parrying to allow me to use my vector abilities on them, and I still sought to conceal the true power of Delirium of Ruin, so cutting the chakrams in half was out.

I allowed the cold chakram to breach into the defensive bubble I controlled via Delirium of Ruin and enter the area I dominated with control of vectors. I decided to try Lex Talionis first and reflected the cold chakram at Anna. The spinning blade made it maybe twenty feet, half the distance between Anna and I, before it stopped and shot back at me. Once the weapons left my area I couldn’t reinforce my control over them, but Anna could.

“It looks like the Elegant Dragon is uncertain how to deal with Anna’s Chakram Blitz. He wouldn’t be the first fighter to fall victim to the onslaught before finding a counter to it,” the announcer babbled on, and it annoyed me.

I wanted to reveal as little about my abilities as I could. If reflect was out, I could lock them, but that would reveal one of my most powerful abilities. What if I made a series of extremely fine cuts to the chakrams and then ‘finished’ them with a Bedlam Bolt?

The cold, serpentine eyes of Anna watched me parry her blades again and again. She didn’t try to close our distance or make any other attacks. She seemed to think she had control of this fight, and that she’d all but won already. Her arrogant smirk made each delicate cut of the impossibly sharp blade of Delirium of Ruin against her chakrams all the more satisfying, and moments later I swept a black lightning charged parry through the weapons, which exploded into fragments, many of which vaporized in the aftermath of my electric fury.

“Not bad,” Anna nodded and laughed… and threw three more chakrams into the air, each one bursting with the elements the previous ones had possessed.

Like my ability to summon walls, windows, and Delirium of Ruin, she seemed to have the ability to conjure her weapons. Or to empower them. If she could summon them forever, or summoned them from a bag that contained hundreds more, it didn’t matter, my strategy of beating her chakrams wasn’t going to work.

I blasted her with Bedlam Bolt, which she blocked with a wall of ice.

I couldn’t see a path to beating her without exposing more of my powers to the crowd. If I activated Create Portal I could ambush her, or if I activated Galvanize I could kill her before she knew what happened. I refused to resort to Lock Vector for the apprentice of the master I would need to fight.

A tide of green gas gusted around the ice wall towards me, followed by the three chakrams. I parried the chakrams with my spear, obliterated the cloud with a blast of lightning. The lightning was eye catching, distracting. I fell back on using rapid blasts of lightning on the clouds of gas and chakrams, filling the air with lingering sparks of electricity until I felt certain no one could truly watch what I did. I created a tiny window, barely the size of the tip of Delirium of Ruin, and generated the other end of the window looking up at Anna from the sandy floor.

Thrust, thrust, lightning bolt, close the window.

Gore fountained into the air, a small portion of Anna’s snake body had outright exploded when a Bedlam Bolt had been channeled through my spear into her body. It didn’t finish her, but it did distract her from controlling her chakrams or building an ice wall,. I pushed as much of the black lightning as I could into my spear, then I threw Delirium of Ruin, cranked its power and velocity up with Modify Vector before it sailed free from my hand. I nodded in satisfaction when her human-ish torso exploded from the impact of the overly accelerated, lightning charged spear.

All three chakrams shot at me with the last of Anna’s mental concentration, the life almost entirely faded from her serpent eyes. Delirium of Ruin reappeared in my hand, and I casually batted her chakrams away. They self-destructed this time, but a quick back-hop put me out of their range thanks to Instincts of the Gossamyr.

“What a brutal loss for Anna Anacondrian, and not even a single hair in the Elegant Dragon’s glorious mane was singed! What an absolute legend!” The gnome announcer bragged me up, and the crowd seemed to agree.

“We’ll be taking a fifteen-minute intermission!” The announcer added and got booed by the crowd for delivering the delay news.

I wandered back to the pit, where the other three were waiting.

“How’d you hit her from so far away? I didn’t catch it.” Claire asked the moment I sat down on one of the stools. Her eyes sparkled, and in that precise moment, she wanted the answer more than anything else in the world.

“Emery created a portal and stabbed her through it,” Chrys answered in my place.

“Where’d Sven go?” I asked, noticing he wandered off again.

“He went to run some errands for Sabin, and to put a bet on you, I think.” Remy answered.

“You can make portals that aren’t those big stone doorways?” Claire seemed shocked.

“Yeah. Arx explained it to me that there’s two types of portals, windows and doors. I used a window, and slipped my charged spear through it to give her a few love taps.” While Claire was very curious about the tactic, I didn’t want to talk about it too much. It felt cheap. What challenge was there when you could stab someone from the back without knowing it unless they had a power like Instincts of the Gossamyr.

“You hid it behind the veil of lightning very well,” Remy complimented me. “But I’m certain Miyuki still saw it.”

“That’s fine. I’m still holding my best powers in reserve, and if it gets desperate enough I’ve got unshaped abilities if she’s an unstoppable monster,” I tried to reassure Remy, but my wording made everyone else laugh.

“Unstoppable monster?” Claire asked me bluntly, and I realized she seemed to be pointing out the irony of me calling someone that.

“I’m not a monster… or unstoppable.” I disagreed. I was human, and dealing with Anna had taken far longer than it should have. In hindsight, I should have rushed her, but I’d been afraid she might be faster than me without Galvanize up, so I’d played it safe and gone for a slower, more methodical approach. If I’d gone offensive, I don’t think her defenses could have stopped me, but it would have also revealed how powerful Delirium of Ruin was.

Either way, I needed to have more confidence.

Silence reigned in the pit until the arena announcer called me back out to fight once more. Hours later, I dropped into another bed at the Guesthouse.

The rest of the fights that day were more direct clashes. First there was an orc with a two-handed war hammer and lightning powers. I went toe-to-toe with him and came out the victor. The strength of his arms didn’t make up for his inability to keep up with my speed. Maybe he’d never fought an opponent who could not only parry, but also redirect forces? He had certainly seemed surprised by my ability to trade blows with him.

“You are over-looking other factors in play, my Herald. Fortress Restoration absorbs kinetic impacts and redirects the energy into storage for use in healing you. Even if you are not being healed actively, Fortress Restoration constantly diminishes your fatigue and keeps you fresh and ready to fight. The brutal impacts of a two-handed Warhammer swung by such a potent orc would fracture the bones of most humans arms if they took the impact on directly the way you have.” Arx Maxima explained an aspect of my power that I had never understood.

So, what you’re saying is it wasn’t skill that allowed me to fight that way, but the power of Fortress Restoration? And I’m such a big dumb-dumb that I didn’t even understand it was because of one of my powers? I felt the start of a pity-party coming on.

“If you wish to think in such self-debasing terms, yes. Or you can accept that you should learn more of the inner workings of your abilities such that you can exploit their advantages more fully. There is no shame in someone else being physically stronger than you, but there is shame in losing to them when you could have neutralized their advantage by skill. You did so by ignorance this time, if there is shame in that it is for you to decide.” Arx Maxima didn’t pull any punches, and spoke on regardless of my burgeoning self-pity.

Part of me loved the crystal for that. If she had coddled me, it would only encourage me to embrace my worst self. I still felt dumb for not learning more about my abilities sooner, especially one I had unlocked early on like Fortress Restoration. It also let me focus on something other than the lingering words of Claire, calling me a monster. As if I didn’t know I was a monster now, with a large draconic snout filling my view, my scales ripping beds apart while I slept, or the strong tail constantly letting me shift my balance in inhuman ways, but also stopping me from being able to sit in big comfortable chairs.

I felt a caress go down my soul, and warm breath expel against my ear.

“You’re absolutely beautiful,” the oddly solid shadow of Amaranthine Sadow whispered to me.

“I’m right here,” Arx Maxima declared to the shadow and me. The shadow scoffed, but fell back to the floor, and quit moving and talking.

The loss of Amaranthine’s presence felt like a sun had gone out, taking the warming rays and radiance with it. I didn’t know whether to thank Arx Maxima or scold her.

I settled into the bed and let my senses drift over my concepts and abilities. I could ask Arx Maxima if I was overlooking other abilities the way I had Fortress Restoration, or I could do some poking and prodding myself and then ask. I wanted to find the answer myself.

I wasn’t a monster, nor was I dumb.