Lion's Quest: Trinity: A LitRPG Saga

by Michael-Scott Earle

  “Help!” I shouted to the surrounding crowd. I recalled someone saying that there were healers around, but where in the hell were they?

  I used Minor Heal again, and my stomach experienced a chilling punch of mana fatigue. Cesnie’s health only went up 5% though, and it almost immediately dropped down a bit.

  I hit her with another Minor Heal, then another, and a third after that. My vision started to swim, and it felt like a moose was standing on my chest. I could hardly breathe, but the woman’s health was now at about 15%. Her steel-blue eyes were focused on me now, and she coughed out a mouthful of blood.

  “Look out,” Cesnie whispered, and I turned in time to see Tia’tor sprint across the arena toward me. He looked like a giant stampeding bull, and my tunneled vision made it look like he was moving in slow motion.

  “Huhhhttt!” Rodin grunted as his shield slammed into the side of the charging bull-man. I was a bit surprised the knight was heavy enough to do anything to the minotaur, but the two men bounced off each other like billiard balls, and Tia’tor’s sword point missed me by six feet.

  “Moryana the sword dancer is the second challenger to fall!” Sharles’ voice cut across the screaming crowd.

  I turned my head away from the minotaur to find the obsidian-haired woman. She was lying in a twisted heap a good sixty feet from me. Her health bar was at 20% and didn’t seem to be dropping, so I guessed that the amulet had done its job. I was more than a little surprised that she lost to Tia’tor, and I wished I had been able to pay attention to the battle between the two.

  “Let us defeat this brute, Sir Leo!” Rodin shouted to me.

  “Yeah,” I said as I stumbled a few steps toward the knight’s side. I felt like I was running out of air, and every breath I tried to take left me more winded. I really wanted to sit down and close my eyes for a few seconds. How many Minor Heals did I just cast within a minute? Seven? No wonder I felt like shit. Even the thought of using the ability again made the world spin, and my stomach fill with nausea.

  “You don’t look well, Sir Lennox,” Rodin hissed to me as Tia’tor spun around to face us. I doubted the eight-foot tall bull man had heard the knight over the sound of the crowd, but the creature’s deep black eyes did seem to look at me.

  Tia’tor’s armor was a mess. It had been cut open in dozens of places, and the chain shirt half hung, and half dragged on the stone behind him. The monster was also covered in dripping blood. I would have thought him close to death based on the number cuts on his body that leaked blood onto the stadium floor, but his health bar said he was at about 50%.

  If Moryana had inflicted that many wounds and only gotten the minotaur down to half health, how in the hell were Rodin and I going to take him out?

  “I’m fine. I don’t have many protection abilities left though. Can we not engage for as long as possible so I can get rid of some mana fatigue?” It was the only plan that I thought could work. I didn’t know how my cool down looked for using Spirit of Stone on either of us, but I guessed it had been twenty or thirty seconds since I used it. I was going to need at least another minute before either of us could have the enchantment again.

  “I don’t think he’ll wait!” Rodin shouted as Tia’tor charged us again. The minotaur’s shield was almost the size of a door, and he looked like one of those riot police tanks.

  He must have figured I would be an easier kill than Rodin, since he sprinted toward me again. I dove out of the way, but the monster expected that also, and his longsword swung out at the last possible moment to cleave me in half. I got my shield up in time, but the force of his attack lifted me up in the air as if I’d been fired from a cannon. I guessed that I flew up a good ten feet into the air, and I landed on the stone like a sack of armored potatoes.

  Ouch.

  Tia’tor gave me no time to recover from my short flight. Before I could get up, he was making massive overhand attacks with his sword. I managed to roll out of the way of the first one, and his sword shattered the bricks where I lay a split second before. I blocked his second attack with my shield, and I felt the metal bend around my left arm. My shoulder also went numb, but I didn’t think anything was broken.

  The monster grunted and then made another overhand strike with his blade. His arm glowed with a red light when he brought his sword down, and I used Guardian of Fortune as I raised my shield up again to block him.

  Tia’tor surprised me though. His attack changed mid swing, and he stepped away from me as he adjusted the angle of his blade. The sword came down to his right and then swung around in a circle behind him. Rodin had been approaching from behind, and the minotaur’s sword smashed into the knight’s shield. Rodin flew across the arena as if he was a tennis ball and the knight smashed into the far wall with a deafening crack.

  His health dropped down to 40%.

  I still felt like I couldn’t breathe that well, but I had Guardian of Fortune on me, and I didn’t want to waste the precious seconds by not attacking, especially when the bull-man’s back was to me for half a second. I dove toward him and then jumped over the return swing of Tia’tor’s longsword. The blade passed under my leap, and I shoved my broadsword into the monster’s bicep.

  My blade dug into his arm, and the monster let out a thunderous growl. Then I landed from my leap and yanked down with my sword as if I was splitting a log.

  Tia’tor’s arm came off with a firehose spray of blood.

  “Ahhhhhhh!” he screamed as he twisted his left shield arm around to smack into me. I tried to step away from the attack, but he pivoted his shield so that it was horizontal, and the bottom part caught me in the shoulder. Fortunately, Guardian of Fortune was still on me, and the enchantment caught the shield bash. I had still stepped away though, and the minotaur managed to bring his tower shield back to block my next series of attacks.

  Tia’tor started to glow, and I recognized the effect as Breath of Life. The top part of his sword arm and his blade were still on the stone ground of the arena, so I moved my position to prevent him from picking up the weapon.

  It almost didn’t matter that the minotaur had lost his weapon. His shield was massive, and he swung it around his body as if it was a child’s plastic toy. I knew I wasn’t attacking with my best form because I couldn’t breathe that well, but the minotaur was missing a fucking arm, and the injury wasn’t slowing him down at all.

  “Hurhg!” the beast smacked my sword out of the way with a flick of his shield and stepped toward me with a grunt. His entire body blurred, and then I felt his massive boot slam into my chest.

  I tumbled back across the blood-soaked arena. My shield twisted up with my arm somehow, and I heard my elbow snap before I felt that side of my body go numb. Then my back smashed into the wall of the arena, and the air left my tight lungs with an explosion of surprise.

  Breath of Life was still on me, but I saw it only had about 40% of its time left. I didn’t think I could use Minor Heal again and still stand. I was going to need to get away from the minotaur and hope I could buy myself enough time to recover.

  But first I was going to have to stand, and my legs weren’t interested in doing that at the moment.

  Tia’tor dropped his tower shield on the ground with a grunt. Then he reached back over his shoulder with his left hand and pulled his battle axe from his back. The monster’s right arm had stopped bleeding, and I could see that a new limb was starting to regenerate.

  I pulled my knees beneath my chest and then pushed them against the stone ground. The motion raised me up to a kneeling position, and I then leveraged my boot against the brick so I could stand on wobbly legs.

  The good news was that every second of Breath of Life was making me feel better. The bad news was that I didn’t think I’d be able to run away from the massive man-beast if he decided to come after me.

  Our eyes met across the arena, and the minotaur turned to Sir Rodin. The knight was still on the ground where Tia’tor’s attack tossed him, but he looked as if he was also tryin
g to stand. Then the blond man coughed, and it looked like a bucket of blood splattered on the ground. We were about sixty feet apart from each other, and I wondered if I could use Breath of Life on him, almost as soon as I thought about the ability, the knight’s body began to glow with the enchantment.

  Then Tia’tor charged the man.

  My heart filled with relief, but I also wondered at the minotaur’s choice. I was obviously the one with the healing and protecting abilities. Tia’tor should have continued his attack against me and eliminated me from the competition next. Then again, the monster man could have been making a shrewd decision. It was probably obvious to him that I was beat the fuck up and suffering from mana fatigue. He was making a choice between who was going to finish second or third in this challenge. He must have believed Sir Rodin was the bigger threat. He probably was, since the man knew his way around the Castles game, and might place better in the second challenge.

  Then again, if Cesnie was the first one out this round, and she was the worst performer on the next challenge, Chrysa would take the victory in rounds four and five.

  Maybe the beast was only getting paid to score the most points in the first two rounds? Then his decision to change his mind and go after Rodin made a lot of sense. There was also the factor of the Breath of Life I had just cast. If the minotaur wasted time attacking me, it meant Rodin would heal. That was probably Tia’tor’s main reason for attacking the knight. Rodin wasn’t in good shape right now, everyone must have guessed that I couldn’t output anymore heals, and all Tia’tor would need to do is put a single axe cut into the knight to end him.

  That was exactly what the minotaur did.

  Rodin got to his feet half a second before Tia’tor hit him, and the blond man managed to get his kite shield up in time to block the horizontal axe swing. Tia’tor’s left arm glowed red when he attacked, and Rodin’s shield glowed orange. They shouted, there was a sound of a sharp crack of thunder across the coliseum, and both men stumbled away from each other. Rodin’s shield was still glowing with an orange light, but Tia’tor’s axe blade had ripped free of the thick wooden shaft, and the hunk of metal spun on the stone floor like a confused ballerina.

  The crowd gasped with a unified intake of air. I would have guessed that the minotaur would have fallen back to grab the longsword out of his cut off arm, but the eight-foot tall man surprised me again by jumping high into the air and kicking downward into Rodin’s face. It looked like a clumsy attack. It was slow, telegraphed, and Rodin should have been able to get out of the way easily, but the knight was still recovering from his block, and the big monster’s boot connected with his face.

  Rodin’s neck snapped back, and his health bar instantly dropped down to 15%. The blond man flew back again, but the minotaur caught his leg in mid fall, and he swung the armored man up into the air before driving his skull into the ground like a mallet strike.

  Rodin’s body glowed the rainbow colors, and his health moved up so that he was at 20%.

  “Sir Rodin Worred is the third challenger to fall!” Sharles’ voice called out.

  Tia’tor let go of the knight’s leg and then turned to glare at me.

  We both sprinted toward his longsword.

  My lungs screamed, my left arm howled, my vision spun, but I knew I was going to lose if Tia’tor picked up his sword, so I forced myself to sprint as fast as I could. I was great at running. It was how I got around in Astafar Unlimited and I’d once done a 200-meter dash in 20 seconds. Then I’d done a 400-meter run in 45 seconds.

  The same day.

  I wouldn’t say I was the fastest guy in the world, but I was probably pretty damn close, and none of the men who were faster would have lasted ten seconds with me in the ring.

  But none of my speed mattered now. Tia’tor got to his sword before me and scooped up the blade with a sliding move that was straight out of a kung fu movie.

  He swung his weapon out with a horizontal cut, and I lifted my own sword to meet his. The steel blades bounced together with a banshee-like screech, and the larger man’s arm was thrown back. I hacked my broadsword across his chest, and the tip of my blade tore off the remainder of his armored shirt. It also cut the top half of his chest open, but the man already had too many cuts to count, and his 75% full health bar only dropped a tiny amount.

  He twisted his sword back with a grunt and our blades connected again. My right arm, shoulder, and back numbed from the impact, and I wished that my left arm would hurry up and heal so I could use my shield. Then again, the hunk of metal was bent in the middle, and I doubted it could take more than a few hits from his sword before it was useless.

  I flicked my sword down to cut the man on his thigh. My blade took a huge slice out of his flesh above the knee, but his health only went down a sliver again. Shit, this guy was so tough. I started to guess that he hadn’t beaten Moryana through swordsmanship. The hulking minotaur may have just endured all her attacks and then gotten lucky with one or two. He must have put one zillion points in his Brawn attribute.

  Tia’tor twisted his hips again, and I raised my sword to block. The base of my weapon collided with his and there was a deafening crack sound. Both of our weapons broke where they met, and the blades spun free of our struggle to each skip across the stone floor of the arena.

  I was still fuzzy. I was still tired. I still couldn’t breathe. However, I’d endured plenty of agonizing training to be world champion, and I knew what to do. Tia’tor might have been a foot and a half taller than me, outweighed me by eighty pounds of bone and muscle, and had the head of a fucking cow, but there was one martial art which didn’t care about how big, or strong, the opponent was.

  That martial art was Ju-Jitsu, and I was a fucking master at it.

  I let go of what was left of my sword and felt my left arm slide back into place as my Breathe of Life healed the broken limb. My hand flicked the shield free, and I felt a surge of power flow into my shoulders.

  I stepped into the man and hooked my right arm over his left bicep as I grabbed the back of his right tricep with my left hand. The big man hadn’t expected me to grapple with him, and he also didn’t expect me to knee him in the balls. He howled with outrage and forced his weight down to smother me. I guessed he would do that though, and I twisted my hips in while I threw my left arm across his bloody chest to grab his other arm. His feet came free of the ground when I threw him over my back, and he let out an annoyed grunt when his shoulders slammed into the stone. I still had possession of his right arm, and I twisted the limb back against my right shin to break the elbow.

  He howled, and I stomped him in the cow face.

  He howled again, and I stomped him once more. I felt his teeth break under my heel, but the fucker’s health bar was still at 60%.

  I stomped him again, but he turned his face to the side so that my foot slid off him. He pivoted on the ground by kicking out one of his massive legs, and I fell on top of the man. He tried to tilt his head up to head-butt me with his cut off horns, but I twisted my face out of the way and then slid my left leg over his chest to put him in the grappling “mount” position.

  Tia’tor tried to hit me with his half-formed right arm, but that was exactly what I wanted him to do. I pushed the thick arm against the man’s neck, reached my right arm down over the other side of his throat, and then dug it behind him so I could grab my left arm. It was an arm triangle choke, and my head was protected from any bites or head-butts the minotaur might have made against me by his own bicep; which was now choking him.

  I squeezed.

  He started to huff, and his massive stinky body thrashed from under me.

  I squeezed.

  He tried to roll, but my feet were based out, and he couldn’t get any leverage.

  I squeezed.

  He still had his own Breath of Life running, and I was a bit worried that it would heal his broken left arm so he could punch me, but the seconds ticked by, and I could feel the monster’s massive heart struggle to push bl
ood to his brain.

  I squeezed.

  Then Tia’tor passed out. His body glowed the rainbow color.

  I stood from the bull-man and felt the sky start to tumble.

  “Tia’tor Barta is the fourth challenger to fall! Sir Leo Lennox is the winner of the first challenge!” Sharles’ voice screamed across the coliseum like a blast from a thousand French Horns.

  I raised my hand in the air, smiled at the roaring crowd, and then sat my ass back down.

  Quest Completed. You have been awarded 10 attribute points. You have 14 unspent attribute points.

  It took all my willpower not to close my eyes and log out.

  Chapter 16

  “By the Light! You won! Leo! This is amazing! You were amazing!” Chrysa didn’t seem to mind that my armor was covered with Tia’tor’s blood. The beautiful young woman threw herself against my chest, wrapped her arms around my neck, and pushed her full lips against mine.

  “Yay! I keep telling everyone Leo is wonderful!” I thought I heard Allurie say. My brain and chest were still fighting against the mana fatigue, and it had been somewhat difficult to walk out of the arena and into the wide hallway where I met my waiting friends. The space was packed full of guards, servants, and the families of the girls competing for the position of Sanduport’s ruler.

  Chrysa’s kiss was rather pleasant though, and my mouth unconsciously parted so that our tongues could flick against each other. I felt her moan a bit into my mouth before she released my neck. My eyes met her large brown ones, and her face turned bright red.

  “I am, uhh. My apologies, Sir Lennox. I was carried away by the moment.”

  “That’s okay. You are going to need a new dress though,” I said as I nodded at the front of her teal satin gown. It was now covered in a mix of mine and Tia’tor’s blood, and if it smelled half as bad as I did, the thing needed to be burned instead of cleaned.

  “That’s okay. I can buy a new--”

  “Sir Leo Lennox!” I heard Sharles call from behind my friends. The fat herald was running down the hallway with a group of yellow-robed men and women. “I have brought the healers!”