by David Burke
All in all from when Saber started the match it was less than ninety seconds till, they were all down and Kyle hadn’t even moved. He chuckled to himself as he heard the mix of booing and cheering in the audience. Most amusing though were the expressions on the faces of the nobles. They had not expected this.
Saber came out shouting, “Well no one would have believed that, but the underdogs from House Avarda may just know a thing or two. I can’t say we’ve had a team match that one sided here in all the years I’ve been a fighter. Now we will give them a chance to rest before the second match begins.”
The team had moved back to their starting positions, but Lash yelled, “We are ready to go now.”
Saber used his showmanship voice again as he called out, “Did you hear that folks? They are hungry for the win. House Avarda wants to fight each match back-to-back. What do you say? Should we let them, do it?”
He spent some time working up the audience and pretty soon all regular seats were all cheering anxious to see something brutal happen. The nobles still were silent. They didn’t like anything, rocking their expectations apparently. Equally the military officers were quiet, but Kyle could sense their interest and fear about what they had just seen.
For all the excitement that Saber built up though the second team didn’t fair any better. They did have an elf who hurled daggers with deadly precision but since he wasn’t a sorcerer let alone a chosen of the war god, he was no match for Gilthan.
As the last member of the second team fell even faster than the first, all doubt was lost for Kyle. There was nothing more for them to gain here. No challenges or growth opportunities awaited at the arena for him. Two teams were down, and he hadn’t even lifted a finger.
When the final team came trotting out it was obvious immediately that someone had done this homework. This was House Uvarn’s team, and they clearly took scouting reports seriously. The team was composed of a single pure human. The others were all hybrids. A pair of earth elementals who were every bit as large as Kyle. At first glance they appeared to be humans with dark brown skin, but Kyle’s senses told him more than his eyes. Their skin was practically made of stone and Earth Essence swirled around them, but since they were still at least 50% human they qualified.
The last two were a pair of lycan males. Each one was six and half feet tall and very muscular. Their fur was much darker. They exchanged a series of barking sounds at Kierra who growled under her breath. Lash simply said, “Don’t let them get under your skin. Follow the plan.”
The lycan warriors were armed with a trio of spears and small bucklers. The earth elements carried mauls too big for a normal man to handle and closer investigation revealed that the human in the back was a caster of some sort. It looked like Justice Essence was glowing in his eyes.
Lash asked him, “You sure you want to do this alone.”
“Yeah, I’ve been patient. It’s my turn now. Remember shock and awe,” Kyle replied with a smile.
Saber announced the new team on the field. By this point there was more cheering for Kyle’s team. Having watched them take down to opposing teams in nothing flat must have won them some fans. Not that any of this mattered. The real battles were coming, and they wouldn’t be fought in this arena.
Kyle saw Saber’s hand drop signaling the beginning of the match. The other team seemed to expect them to wait as they had before this, but Kyle had no such intention this time. He leapt into the air. His muscles alone were enough to send him long jumping over one hundred feet but add to that strength borrowed from the earth beneath him and the air pushing him along and positively rocketed to the enemy.
As he came down in their midst, he set off a Rage Burst. He had to be careful not to kill the human so sadly the blast wasn’t going to be strong enough to take out the earth elementals. What he hadn’t expected was the shield that the human mage had up. A golden wall flared to life before the mage. It cracked but didn’t shattered when the wave of destructive force blasted out from Kyle in a thirty-foot ring.
The lycans didn’t fair as well. They were both knocked backwards, but Kyle knew their regenerative properties would have them on their feet in nothing flat. Neither of the elementals went down but both were staggered back a couple of paces. It would have to be enough.
Kyle’s soul bound weapon appeared in his hand right as he surged into the closest elemental. He slammed his hammer into the large man’s chest and crushed the breast plate causing cracks to appear in the stony skin and if the man had ribs, probably broke some of those. He couldn’t follow up on the hit though because the other elemental was swinging at him.
Rather than dodge, Kyle stepped into the swing and caught the weapon’s shaft. He knew very well how hard a maul could hit but also that once you closed inside the arc of a horizontal swing that the weapon was much less effective. Kyle squeezed down and sent a single point of War Essence into his hand with the command to break. It was a simple but effective use and the wooden shaft of the maul splintered up and down and then broke in half.
His other arm was already swinging a viscous upcut with his own hammer. It caught the elemental under the jaw hard enough to kill a human but given the man’s durability all it did was knock some teeth loose as it sent him flying backwards ten feet.
Kyle then turned to attack the mage. Each movement was a precise technique building upon the one that came before it. He knew where he was going two moves further into the battle so that each technique opened the way for the next. As he closed the distance with the mage, he could sense the golden shield had been repaired but now that he knew about it, there was nothing the human could do to stop him.
Other than having allies apparently, because Kyle was forced to shift his momentum to spin between the thrusts of spears from both the lycan warriors. They had recovered quickly, and Kyle cursed himself for not putting more into the Rage Burst. His momentum worked in his favor as the essence within him allowed him to move with absolute precision. He was an instrument of war after all.
One spear was shattered by his hammer as he spun and the other lycan took a kick to the chest. At least that had been his intent but another of those damnable golden shields sprung up around the lycan and his kick only sent it sprawling rather than shattering ribs.
Kyle was getting tired of this. He had wanted to show off and these mortals were becoming more problematic than they should have been. If only he didn’t have to restrain his essence, he would deal with them like he had the golem. Still, he wasn’t going to lose his cool and risk alerting one of the other gods to his presence before he was ready.
That didn’t mean though that he couldn’t bump up his essence use just a bit. He began spinning his essence wheel just a bit faster and he felt his senses expand. More than extra strength or speed the greatest benefit was the way that his mind opened up. He could focus on multiple tasks at the same time.
Suddenly the mage’s use of Justice Essence became all too visible to him. Kyle could see the glow of buffs around the entire team. He had buffed them to protect them from damage and promote their ability to get back into the fight faster. Kyle could shatter it all but that would require a bigger outlay of energy.
There was another way though. He could access more power without having to use his raw essence. Dod’s splinter gave him almost as much control of Death Essence as his own natural power but it was less noisy so to speak. He almost passed because there was a part of him that wanted to do this with his own power as the war god but just as quickly as that thought came to him, he rejected it. He wanted to be more than the war god.
If the mage wanted to buff, then Kyle could use Death Essence to debuff. He sent out tendrils of invisible energy. To his senses it was an inky black but to the naked eyes no one would be able to know he was doing anything. The strands of dark power touched each of the shields and Kyle pushed. The mage must have a reservoir to be able to make so many shields this strong, but Kyle poured in his power.
Better yet, he thought why limit himself. Tendrils of Sky Essence shot off of him sucking all of the oxygen around the fighters from the air. He had improvised this from the attack that Gilthan performed in the dungeon. At the same time his expanded mind allowed to weave War Essence into the black tendrils. He became lightheaded for a moment with the amount of power that he was using.
The War Essence did what it does best and broke holes in the golden shields. It was far more efficient than shattering the shield completely. That allowed the Death Essence to snake through and touch each of his foes. It didn’t matter then if they were human, lycan, or elemental. Death was the end of all mortals and so their bodies were sapped of strength by Kyle’s attack.
It was enough that he roared in victory. To the audience it looked like the fight had paused for a brief second and then Kyle went on a rampage spinning quickly from one foe to the next and felling each with a single blow of his hammer. The magi in the crowd might have had some inkling of the power that he used but to most of them it appeared to be nothing more complex than an old-fashioned ass whooping.
Cheering burst out all over the arena and for a second Kyle was too caught up in the moment of victory. It shouldn’t have been such a thrill to beat five mortals, but there was still this conflict within him. Part of him still saw himself as human and part as the war god. So, he enjoyed this victory.
With the cheering things got even more interesting. Saber came running out and gathered the entire team together. He tried to call out to announce their victory, but the crowd wouldn’t quiet down. Eventually he gave up as they just kept chanting Warborn! Warborn! Warborn!
Saber then led them to the end of the stadium where all the nobles had their private boxes. The military men stared on in silence while the sounds of the crowd kept going. Kyle remembered how much he loved an audience. Now though as he stood before the nobles, he could see the hate in the eyes of some. His team had just embarrassed their houses or cost them money in bets.
Equally though he saw a different emotion in the eyes of more than one of the noblewomen. A moment later a small piece of cloth was flung at him with a tiny weight in it to enable it to be thrown. He didn’t realize what it was but suddenly a dozen or more such small pieces of cloth were thrown at him. They all landed at his feet and he noticed that a couple had been thrown at Gilthan too.
Reflexively he bent to pick one of them up, a white lacy piece of silk and then he realized what it was. These were a woman’s panties and the ladies’ favor that Meeka had been talking about. When he picked that one up one of the younger noblewomen squealed in excitement. Then half a dozen other voices called out, “Pick up mine. Take mine. You won’t regret it.”
He couldn’t help but notice the perfume on the panties and a small note folded up within that identified the owner. He felt Meeka’s eyes upon him boring in as if she were trying to figure out if he had intended to pick them up. He looked back at Kierra and Lash as though to apologize for being so crass but neither of them seemed bothered in the least.
It wasn’t like there weren’t fans who mailed panties to a ball player. It was more that he had never had a woman throw them to him in front of an entire stadium of onlookers and then expect him to leave the stadium with her.
Suddenly though that problem became much smaller as he sensed an overwhelming aura approaching rapidly. Even with his limited experience he could tell this was something even beyond Hilde’s power.
He looked up and saw what had a great shadow. Others started to see it and hush fell over the arena. It was a massive dragon with green and gold scales. Apparently, the arena just got a whole lot more challenging.
Chapter 24 - Barak’s Round Two
The crowd that had been cheering moments before was now screaming in terror as people tried to flee the arena. The nobles’ guards tried to fight to get their employers out, but the threat of a sword paled compared to the creature overhead who’s head was the size of a wagon.
The dragon seemed to enjoy the terror it was causing as it lazily wheeled its way around the arena. Lash called out, “We aren’t ready for that. We need to get out of here.”
At the same time Meeka was calling out, “Kyle take me with you.” He could see her up in the stands. The crowds were packing the exits behind her and she only had two guards with her. He might not trust her entirely but then again; he didn’t fully trust Lash either. He wasn’t going to leave a woman to die here, not one who’s life he had already saved once.
“Gilthan go and bring Lady Meeka down here. We will escape through the tunnels under the arena,” Kyle ordered.
But the elven sorcerer was straining against some invisible weight. The veins on his forehead were bulging and Kyle felt the essence within him churning. The entire reservoir was emptied into him in a rapid exchange as his body started to swell. At first Kyle didn’t know what was going on but then his expanded senses explained it. Gilthan’s bloodline had gone into overdrive and the dragon part of him was taking dominance.
“Lash, get Lady Meeka. Bring Saber or any of the others who were kind to us with you. We need to get out of here. I will hold that thing off.”
Kierra said, “I will fight by your side alpha.”
Kyle wheeled on her, “No, you will obey. You and Skrug go to the nearest tunnel. Wait for me there and make sure the tunnel stays open. Kill anyone you have to keep our escape route open.”
He saw her growl but then move to follow his instructions even as Lash leapt up onto the wall of the arena to get Lady Meeka. He saw that Saber and some of his trainers along with the old fleshmage, Selma, were tending to the fallen team. Kyle needed to buy them some time. Them and all the little mortals stampeding their way out of the arena.
He might be starting to think of them differently, but he still remembered his purpose. What good was it to be a god if those who followed you couldn’t count on you. That was what had angered him about Krig and all the others.
Apparently, Gilthan wanted to try his hand at it though first because he had now fully transformed and flung himself into the sky. The elven sorcerer was gone and in his place was a throwback to his ancestor. A fifty-foot-long storm dragon with scales in a deep blue hue marked by stripes of brilliant yellow.
He wasn’t nearly as large as the green beast in the air but that didn’t stop Gilthan. With all the grace of a true storm dragon he owned the sky. Lighting leapt from his open mouth as he closed on the larger dragon with extended talons. The current danced over the green scales calling the great beast to spasm once but then it was shaken off.
The two began rolling in the sky above the arena. Gilthan whipping around the larger beast. He lashed out with tail and talon, even daring to bite the brute’s flank. All the while he had to dodge the great tail that sought to sweep him out of the sky and the brilliant golden flames that spewed from the larger dragon's mouth.
The aerial battle was a sight to behold, and Kyle found himself fixated on it. Something was nagging at him as he watched the fight. There was something more going on. He could sense Gilthan controlling the air around them in subtle ways to aid his movements and hinder his foes but there was more. The larger dragon was slowly gathering essence for something and Kyle didn’t know what.
There was a tugging on his arm, and he saw Meeka. Fear was alive in her eyes and she pleaded, “We have to go now. We can’t survive that beast.”
Kyle shook his head in disgust before snapping to Lash, “Get her underground. We aren’t leaving a teammate behind.”
Then as Kyle looked back up, he saw the manifestation of what he had felt building. The green and gold dragon called out in a deep voice that sounded like thunder, “You are judged. You are found unfit. You are not a true dragon but a pale imitation.”
Suddenly a huge amount of Justice Essence took shape. Kyle didn’t know what to make of it for it was beyond anything he had felt. Certainly, more than thirty essence in a single attack. But for that to be possible this dragon mu
st be in the Demi Tier, which could only mean one thing.
The power of his judgement took the form of a cross in the sky. Bands of golden light snapped out and pulled Gilthan’s body up against the cross as it floated there. For all of his dragon strength he couldn’t resist this power. It was staggering.
Gilthan was held helpless, his chest exposed and the larger dragon, no Kyle thought, the demi-god, lazily reached out with one call extended. His wings beating only enough to keep him in the air even as there was some magic at work holding them both up. That massive talon drew a line down Gilthan’s chest. Ripping through the scales as though they were made of clay.
Gilthan screamed as the assault was more spiritual than physical. Kyle could stand by no longer. He crotched and gathered his strength to leap into the air. Just before he moved, the air exploded in fire. Brilliant flames of orange, red and blue danced all over the greater dragon who shrieked in pain from the unexpected attack.
He saw Hilde, wielding a six-foot-long flaming claymore. Her body that was normally on display in her diaphanous clothing was covered in red and gold armor that matched the set Krig had worn, the ones he had worn inside the mantle. She dove and slashed with the great blade at the dragon’s wing. It cut into the membrane.
