Spaceships and Magic, What Could Possibly Go Wrong?

"We've got two more Initiates who we weren't able to introduce coming up next," Belana said over the intercom as two more flashes of light lit up the arena. "On one side we have the legendary Urstnir of Nadpid, a gaseous entity who supposedly comes from an entirely different universe than our own!" 

That caught my attention in an instant. 

Another being that supposedly came from another universe? A being that was like me? Did that meant that they had been taken by the creatures in the chasm and given new life, or had they found their way into this universe by some other means? Better yet, why had they manifested in this new world as some kind of gaseous entity. 

<All valid questions, unfortunately, there aren't any answers that I can give you,> BB weighed in. <There are a ton of rumours about the Urstnir of Nadpid, and no one has the slightest idea of what the truth behind those rumours actually is.>

I'd been paying attention to all of the fights so far, but this one was going to capture my interest from start to finish no matter what happened. I had thought I was the only one who had arrived in this world from another universe, now I knew that wasn't the case. I needed to speak with this so-called Urstnir of Nadpid. 

"Then we've also got Wosloff. They are a member of a composite hive mind, meaning that while they may only appear to be a single entity, we understand that up to twenty of Wosloff's race currently inhabit the form, lending it their powers!"

Wosloff was an almost equally interesting alien. For all intents and purposes they looked fairly ordinary. They had two arms and legs, and even a face that looked vaguely human. The only telltale that the creature wasn't in fact a human in disguise were the eyes that kept opening and closing all throughout the composite being. I wondered how strong it actually was, with so many individuals inhabiting the same form.

<With 20 of their species, give or take, that vessel should actually be pretty overwhelmingly powerful at the moment. Though, the rumours about the Urstnir of Nadpid all say that they can take down an army in mere moments, so this should be an interesting fight either way.>

"Akash, what do you think about this one?" I asked the tree alien, he'd had opinions on every match so far and this was by far the strangest of the bunch. 

"I don't really know…" Akash said, "It's hard to gauge either of their true strength levels. How do you even measure the strength of a gaseous life form, moreover, how do you even knock one out?"

Now there was a good question. The rules stated surrender or a knockout blow. How did you knock a creature who was entirely comprised of gasses out?

"I must concur, this battle could truly go either way, though thanks to their strange composition it may lean toward the Urstnir of Nadpid," Yr'Aarl weighed in their opinion. 

"Let the battle commence in three, two, one… and go!" Belana yelled. 

The gaseous form of the Urstnir of Nadpid streaked across the battlefield in a blur of movement, so fast it was impossible to keep track of. Yet somehow, Wosloff was able to react in time and dove out of the way into a roll that landed them back on their feet. If the Urstnir could move that quickly, it was no surprise that they had been able to take out an entire army in just a matter of seconds. 

Wolsoff took a deep breath and then blew outward with a force so strong that it rattled the very windows that kept us away from the battlefield. I supposed that was the power of twenty powerful sets of lungs working in tandem if that was how the amalgam alien functioned. 

While we were safe from the hurricane-force breath, the Urstnir of Nadpid wasn't so lucky. The attack caught the gaseous life form with the full force of its impact, ripping the gas asunder and whirling it around the stadium. It looked as if the gaseous entity had been entirely obliterated, but considering no alarm had gone off and the fight hadn't been put to an immediate end I could only assume that the Urstnir of Nadpid had survived the attack somehow. 

Wolsoff cut off their breath attack as quickly as they had begun it, but instead of preparing for some kind of counter-attack they just started flexing their muscles to the crowd. This was one arrogant alien, and had clearly been lulled into a false sense of security after literally blowing away their opponent. 

"So much for a being that can take out entire armies in mere moments," I snorted, "That's got to be the quickest open and shut match we've had so far!" 

"And yet no bell has been rung, Jacob Lyre," Yr'Arl said, "Which means we can only assume that the Urstnir of Nadpid is still perfectly capable of continuing the fight. It would not do to underestimate our potential opponents, it did not end well for some of the previous initiates."

Yr'Arl was right about that. Almost every fight had twisted in unexpected ways so far, all because the Intiate who was ahead had started to take their opponent less seriously. Well, almost all of them, the fight between Ke'Zuc and Klatissi had been pretty one-sided. 

Meanwhile, behind them, the Urstnir of Nadpid had begun reconstituting itself at incredibly fast speeds. I could see the tendrils of purple gasses in the air being sucked into a single point, which was forming into what I assumed was a very angry cloud of gasses.

A universe hopping cloud that could supposedly take out entire armies in moments had just been blown away, literally. If I were that gaseous entity, I wouldn't be very happy with the one who had done all the blowing. 

I didn't want to be in Wolsoff's shoes for whatever came next.