The Path of Ascension

Matt sipped his drink as he watched the fight going on underneath him, listening to the announcer talk about ‘A Stopped Clock Was Correct Once A Day’, or Once as everyone shortened the name to.

The masked Pather was an oddity in the tournament, being both a crafter and a fighter.

They were hardly the only ones to straddle both sides of The Path, but they were one of the few who did well in the tournament, and the only one still in the running four months in.

However, Matt expected this to be the end of their run.

Their opponent was a dark horse Pather who hadn’t done exceptionally well in any of the rifts in the tournament, but they had excelled at the Pather versus Pather fighting.

Ellie, a light mage, had proven that a single, nearly instant spell was enough to neutralize her opponents before they were able to do anything.

Spells, like everything else, increased in power with Tier, but the progression was relative. At Tier 25, a [Fireball] would move faster than a Tier 10 could blink, but it would still be slower than a lightning attack at the same Tier.

Light-based attacks were some of the faster spells at their Tier, and were just as impossible to dodge as lighting spells.

The only way to counter a light-based spell was to block its damage. Considering that the spells usually packed less of a punch to balance out their higher speeds, it was a feasible plan of action.

Matt was pretty sure that if he was fighting Ellie, [Cracked Phantom Armor] would allow him to just sit there and take all of her attacks without a thought.

But Once was a different matter. They had fought with a variety of disposable items that unleashed incredible damage, but there wasn’t much in their arsenal that Matt figured would counter the light mage.

While it seemed unlikely, there was always the possibility that he and everyone else would be surprised. Crafters were versatile, after all, and even with only a single night of prep time, they could pull of off near miracles.

When the fight started, Ellie raised her hand, readying her signature opening attack, and a beam of prismatic light lanced out at Once.

The masked Pather took the initial hit surprisingly well, despite it seemingly striking the broken clock face adorning their mask. As Ellie’s spell faded, everyone was able to see why.

Once had a small shattered mirror in his hand, and it had trapped the light attack in its shattered shards.

Matt looked to the large screen as it zoomed into the mirror, and as he thought, the beam of light was bouncing around inside one of the fragments of glass.

Once and Ellie were saying something, but their words were blocked by the arena, so it was clearly related to one of their powers.

Ellie floated off the ground before she raised her hand again and a second beam of light lashed out. But this time, she aimed lower, and tried to target Once’s leg. To everyone's surprise, the beam of light curved to land on the mirror, where it was absorbed like her first attack.

Ellie didn’t seem surprised, and shot another three beams of light at Once.

Despite the blinding light, Matt and the rest of the crowd didn’t miss the [Earth Spear] that rose out of the ground right next to her floating form.

The pillar of earth rocketed out and hit Once in the leg.

Matt raised an eyebrow as he saw the attack both land and wound Once.

He had expected the mirror to absorb the attack as well.

Instead, Once looked unbothered as the light attacks ended, and he again said something indiscernible to Ellie.

To everyone's surprise, Once reached into the mirror and pulled out a full-sized sword. Unlike the normal items that Once used, this one looked properly created, without any of the flaws that identified his one-use items.

This sword didn’t explode as he thrust forward, and instead, a pillar of what looked like snow and ice formed.

The attack didn’t hit Ellie, but she was forced to fly off to the side to avoid the attack. Looking off to the side, she cast more light attacks that all landed on Once’s [Mana Barrier]. It wasn’t a talisman, like Quill used, but the proper Tier 14 skill.

Matt squinted as he saw the skill start to turn opaque nearly instantly.

It gave him and his AI insight into the skill Ellie was using, and her Talent. [Light Beam] was a utility skill, unless you had a way to add damage to the skill, and from the way the skill was damaging [Mana Barrier], he had some conjectures.

If his guess was correct, Ellie was adding radiation damage to her spells, which was an interestingly specific Talent. From this distance, he wasn’t able to see if they were neutron, gamma, or x-rays, but his gut said that she was using a combination of the last two options.

The more specific the damage type, the worse a general skill like [Mana Barrier] would hold up, and she was using pure light.

When the skill failed, Once raised up his mirror and unleashed the two captured beams of light back at Ellie. The mage cast a light barrier which blocked the spells, but it lingered in a blindingly bright bubble around her before starting to fracture.

It suddenly exploded outwards in shards of dissipating light, and Ellie stood hovering in the air with a pair of feathery wings made of light given physical form. There was a similar halo hovering behind her head like a backlight.

The flaming short sword in her hand was another new addition to her arsenal. It was one that she immediately used to brutal effect.

With a flap of her wings, Ellie raced forward, leaving an afterimage of herself trailing behind her that mirrored her movements.

She landed next to Once and thrust her shortsword at his neck, which Once tried to block, but his sword exploded as it took the attack. Still, it held for the split second he needed to avoid her blade.

Not letting up, Ellie flapped her glittering wings with powerful strokes, and feathers of light launched out, peppering the ground and Once despite his best efforts to dodge.

As Ellie clenched her fist, the feathers exploded, creating scorched holes in every surface they had previously inhabited.

Once took the hits without a sound, and lunged forward while pulling out a dagger with a clear blade. Ellie floated to the side and thrust with her flaming short sword, landing a hit on the crafter but also taking a glancing cut from the dagger.

It looked like the hit would be ineffective, but from the small wound, Ellie’s arm started to transform into glass and expand.

Matt whistled as he saw that. Once’s Talent must be something special to make a one off item that could overcome the innate spirit and Concept of a same Tier cultivator. Let alone convert their body against their will.

It was as challenging as Liz trying to control the blood inside another living person. A feat only really possible when she had a Tier advantage to overwhelm the spirit's natural defenses.

Ellie reacted to the spreading transformation by severing her arm at the shoulder with her own wing, while driving the other wing into Once’s chest.

With that, the fight ended, to the shouts and cheers of the crowd.

Matt made a note that Ellie had still been holding back, but suspected that the transformation was the start of her going all out.

Contestants were being forced to show their trump cards more and more often, signifying that the end of the tournament was near.

Once had made a good showing. What they had accomplished was unprecedented, considering they were splitting their time between crafting and fighting on the Path. Matt wasn't sure if he would do as well if he needed to complete the demands that the Path required of its crafters.

It wasn’t just a certain number of items crafted, but also keeping your crafting skills above average. It was a bar that only got higher as the number of people in your Tier shrank while advancing.

Even with unlimited mana and his AI, he had no Talent for the specialty, and would be at a distinct disadvantage against those who could make truly unique items, like Once. Matt had no way to create a dagger that could turn someone to glass, even if his life was at stake.

It was an interesting Talent that he wanted to get his hands on. Win or lose, Once had impressed him, and had earned himself an invite to his future guild. Hopefully as an aperologist, but he’d settle for just seeing what oddities the man could invent without worrying about a mana budget.

He looked to his AI and saw that his own end was only a week away.

Queen had finally encountered someone with a skip, and they had swapped opponents to avoid the scary woman. They just so happened to have picked his scheduled opponent. His match with Queen was on Monday, so they had a week of team fights to deal with before his big showdown.

He suspected Luna or one of the Royals to have meddled, but she insisted that she hadn’t had a hand in the change, which left him to believe that one of the Royals had interfered.

Not unexpected, considering they were just inside the top one thousand contestants now. They needed to fall out of the tournament soon if they wanted to avoid garnering more attention, considering they following they had already earned for placing so well in the legacy battles.

Liz was going to fall out a few rounds later, but she would still be ending her competition soon.

Matt was just happy that he got the chance to fight Queen on the big stage. He didn’t really care about the circumstances behind it.

***

Quill and Torch touched down on the arena and raced towards their opponents in perfect unison.

He threw out a handful of [Fireball] talismans that Torch took control of and sent off in arcing trajectories. They smashed into the exposed flank of their opposing team’s front line shield-bearer, searing his armor.

Quill split off to the right and tossed a [Wind Blade] talisman and an [Earth Spear] talisman towards the mage and archer. At the same time, Torch thrust her spear at the front liner.

His [Wind Blade] was blocked by the second longsword wielder, who used a [Mana Slash] to break the skill, but the [Earth Spike] took the mage through the leg.

If the skill had been a normal cast, it might have only punched a hole in their thigh, but Quill had overcharged all of his talismans to the upper limit that his materials could handle. The majority of his talismans were made from Tier 10 monsters, which gave him an upper limit of around 5,000 mana per talisman.

That much mana meant that the skill was stronger, and faster than normal. The unprepared mage didn’t just lose their leg; the appendage exploded in a spray of blood, and the mage was sent tumbling to the ground while screaming.

Their suffering didn’t last long, as the referee quickly removed them from the fight.

The archer attacked Quill, but a simple [Mana Barrier] blocked the encroaching arrow, even as the longswordsman tried to rush him.

Quill just pointed off to the side, where Torch had shish kebabbed the shield wielder, and was running down the longswordsman from the side.

The man tried to deflect the tip of Torch's spear, but she was stronger than him, and she quickly added a second person to her skewer.

Quill looked at the remaining archer and asked, “Want to give up easy?”

The man launched an arrow at Quill for his question, but he had already prepared a [Mana Barrier] to catch the attack.

Shrugging, he threw out four [Wind Blade]s at the final member of the team.

The archer was able to dodge the first wind blade, but Quill had spread his net wide, and the second and fourth attacks cut deep gouges in the archer’s lightly armored flesh.

In less than a minute, the fight was over.

Quill wasn't impressed. Neither with his opponents, nor their own showing.

It was like bullying toddlers.

The solo fights had more time allocated than the team fights, so the weaker teams had already been weeded out.

That wasn’t to say that this team was necessarily weak, but they weren't up to the level of competition that was demanded by the Pathers tournament.

Quill was looking forward to the two of them actually being challenged.

***

Tur'stal looked off to the side. Her spirit had noticed something going on in one of the rifts. The world slowed to a crawl as her perception of time increased to its normal high Tier speed.

The Flowers masked team had gotten themselves into danger in one of the rifts.

They had tried to challenge a Tier 13 rift alone, and were suffering the consequences of taking on such a risk.

One mistake was all it took to kill you at that power difference.

Still, this was a protected area, and she wouldn't let any of the children die under her watch.

Delving in the off hours of the second half of the tournament wasn't something that the top one thousand teams would do, but the Flowers were trying to eke out every scrap of power they could to rise to the top.

Sadly, it only took one mistake. Just one.

Hoping they might be able to salvage the situation, she watched as a lava bear raked its paw at Daisy. As she expected, the young woman was slightly out of position, and their frontliner, Thorn, was unable to block the attack.

When the scorching paw had already passed through half of Daisy’s body, Tur'stal flexed her will and teleported the girl out and to safety.

With their mage down, Primrose and Carnation, the melee fighter and archer, respectively, were quickly overwhelmed. Tur'stal watched as they were mauled and badly wounded before she interfered and teleported them out one by one.

Thorn, the frontliner, screamed his rage and pain out at the monsters, but emotions weren’t able to hurt them, no matter how much everyone wished they could.

She nodded in approval. Thorn didn’t lose himself completely in the dire situation and tried to retreat, but it was already too late.

With four Lava Bears there to surround him, he stood no chance, and was eventually cooked inside of his armor.

She made sure to protect his actual brain, but she let him burn before she flexed her will and pulled the final member of the team out.

A pity, but their time on The Path of Ascension was done.

They were just lucky that they had made that mistake here, and not in the wilds.

Leaving behind a clone to oversee the competition, she bent reality to allow her to step into their hospital room.

She had kept the healers at bay until her arrival and said, “Heal them enough to be able to hear, see, and speak.”

They were experienced, and healed the bare minimum that would allow her to converse with them.

Pain was sometimes the best teacher.

“I’m sorry, children, but your Path ends here. But that does not mean your lives are over. I interfered to save your lives, but now you must figure out your next steps.”

As she paused for a second, Thorn, despite his flesh being melted and fused to his armor, managed to ask, “Where are the others? Are they ok?”

He had only just managed to open his one healed eye, but was otherwise unable to move.

Hearing their friend’s voices, the rest of the team made various grunts and whimpers, but Tur'stal silenced them with her will.

Handling the children after such a traumatic experience had to be done carefully, and long experience had shown that they needed to hear some things before being allowed to process too much.

“I saved all of you, yes. But that isn’t important right now. Right now, you are all dead men. You may choose to take this experience and leave combat altogether, but that is something you need to decide later. Right now, I need you to understand what happened.”

“You have died. This isn't a question of if. You’re all dead. Without me, you would be no more. If this happened on another planet, I’d be saying this literally. I want you to realize that a second chance is a miracle. It is a gift from someone strong enough to break the rules, doing so to watch over and protect the weak.”

None of them said anything, to which Tur'stal nodded. They weren’t panicking, which was a good sign that they would make it through this ordeal mentally intact.

“Despite what you just went through, I want you to understand, to really understand, that there are no more second chances. The cost of this gift is that you are no longer qualified to continue on The Path. But, don’t look at this as if it is all bad. You have an advantage few others have. You know what it is to die. What it is to make a small mistake and lose everything. Take that experience and pain and forge onward in whatever you choose. Choose to take this pain and make your team stronger, or do the opposite, and languish at Tier 15 forever.”

Daisy was starting to fade, but Tur'stal flexed her will and forced the young woman's body to keep functioning. A low Tier body was as malleable as clay to someone of her power. If Tur'stal chose so, she could end the woman's life with a thought, or keep her alive as long as her brain kept functioning. Honestly, at her Tier, Tur'stal could manually force even that delicate organ to keep working well beyond when it would naturally want to give up.

She let her voice turn gentle as she said, “The Path of Ascension isn’t the only thing to do in life.”

Tur'stal nodded to the team of healers who had been standing by, and they rushed forward to begin healing them.

“If you never want this to happen again, ask yourselves why it came to pass, and take measures to prevent history from repeating itself.”

Seeing the four of them grind their teeth or clench their fists, even despite their horrific wounds, Tur'stal started to lay out their next steps. “Officially, your Masked identities have gone missing, and will be presumed dead after a week or two. What happened to you happens to enough people that we have a procedure in place. You’ll be given letters which roughly outline your capabilities and powers, but not your exact Masks. Should you wish to join a guild, corporation, or noble house, with your abilities, most will welcome you. That, I know for certain.”

Tur'stal sipped her wine to give them the healers a moment to work. “If you wish to join the army, there is the Cadets Corps, which will take and train you until Tier 15, where you can officially join the service. That has its own perks, like a higher starting rank of Private First Class, but you have to make your own way.” She paused for half a heartbeat to give emphasis to her next words. “And you should do so soon. If you don’t get up and move soon, it can become a mental block, and prevent you from ever standing back up.”

Sighing, Tur'stal added the bit she hated, “When the healers have cleared you, you will be teleported to East Flower, and you will be on your own.”

Tur'stal reached forward and gave them a gentle caress on uninjured parts of their bodies. “Don’t forget to talk to someone about this, whether it be a therapist, with family, or just amongst yourselves. Dying is traumatic, and you need to process it. A therapist will be made available to you at the highest priority, if you feel the need.”

As she stepped back through space, she added one last encouragement. “Good luck.”

***

Matt stood to his side of the stage as he finally came face to face with Queen.

Their arena was a perfectly plain, flat expanse, which suited both of them.

When the referee called the start of their match, Matt dropped into a defensive stance, but Queen didn’t immediately attack. Instead, she called out, “When I saw that we were matched, I looked up your history. Not too shabby. Not the best, but not bad either. I saw your battle during the longsword Legacy after I recovered. You’re pretty good. Your innate skill makes you strong and durable. This might just make for an amusing spar.”

Queen tapped her greatsword on the ground twice before continuing, “If you’re amenable, I’d like to face you with everything you have to offer. I will do my best to not just beat you down, but kill you. I hope you’ll do the same to me. The best way to push ourselves is to fight against opponents that push us. I’ll help you improve some and maybe, just maybe, you can help me improve a little bit too.”

Despite his surprise at the woman actually speaking more than a handful of words, Matt swished his smaller sword back and forth before settling back into a ready position. “You might be better than me with a blade, but I have more to rely on than just pure swordsmanship. If you can’t counter that, you might be the one getting yanked off the stage here.”

Queen’s mask didn’t change, but Matt heard the new amusement in her voice. “Perfect!”

With all the speaking out of the way, they simultaneously threw themselves at each other.

Not having a weapon Concept, Matt kept Shen Ruogang’s lessons in mind as he charged up and launched a [Mana Slash] ahead of himself.

Queen mirrored his action. A larger version of his own spell erupted out in a crescent of light blue.

As the two spells collided in the air, the resulting explosion washed over both of them as they charged to meet each other.

Matt took the damage on [Cracked Phantom Armor], while Queen relied on her physical armor. In the glowing remnants of the explosion, their blades clashed for the first time.

The impact forced Matt to lock himself down with his Concept to keep his footing, but he transitioned his willpower, and used that leverage to push through Queen’s blade.

His advantage only lasted for a second before he felt her strength shoot up to match his own. Stalemated, they both disengaged and reset, only to immediately lash back out.

Queen thrust forward while Matt sidestepped the attack to chop down at her flank.

Faster than he believed possible, Queen spun around in nearly a full circle, bringing her larger sword around to cut him down.

Frantically twisting his attack into a block, he intercepted her greatsword and had to flood [Mage’s Retreat] to parry her attack. He was now pushing up against the limits of what his restrictions would allow him to show, but he needed every advantage he could get against this opponent.

While this would be a losing fight, he needed to walk a careful line between appearing as a top one thousand Pather being knocked out on time, instead of a top five hundred or better fighter losing early to an unlucky matchup. Matt needed to show that he had grown during the last few months to not be suspicious, and he needed to showcase abilities he had publicly shown in the Pather war as organically as possible.

There needed to be no questions about this fight in the public eye later, when news stations went over these clips. He had been beaten over the head with that by Luna.

Still, Matt had some advantages over Queen, like his physical strength. The Root of Perfection and his strength-boosting armor ‘Talent’ were well established, after all. Even with his physical armor directly limiting the amount of strength he could show, he still had more raw muscle than the smaller woman for his cultivation, along with enhancements to work with.

Queen laughed, “You’re actually stronger than me?! Wonderful!”

Matt dual charged a [Mana Slash] and a [Mana Charge] into his weapon and lunged forward with the tip of his longsword leading the attack.

Queen rolled under his thrust and kicked his blade upward along the flat, sending his attack amok, and used her lower position to sweep an attack at his hip.

Unwilling to accept the hit, Matt leapt into the air and unleashed [Flamethrower] at his still mid-strike opponent.

Continuing the deluge as he descended, Matt's eyes snapped wide as a [Mana Slash] cleaved his spell and crashed into his chest, instantly shattering through the maximum mana he was allowed to power [Cracked Phantom Armor] with. His physical armor kept him from being severed in two, but the thundering impact whipped him backwards.

Having been sent flying, Matt crashed and skittered along the arena floor for nearly half the remaining distance, before he finally caught himself and scrambled to his feet. Queen had not done him the favor of waiting. Looking up to see slightly scorched armor hurling his way, Matt realized that she was nearly upon him already, forcing him to ignore his cracked ribs and battered chest.

The crowds might not be able to see it with [Cracked Phantom Armor] back up, but Queen had drawn first blood with that hit.

Honestly, Matt was impressed. Even if he maxed out [Cracked Phantom Armor]'s first layer, he doubted that he could have perfectly tanked that blow. Queen’s spells had the advantage of being cast by a bigger weapon, true, but they hit far harder than just that fact would suggest. On top of that, they were far too early in the fight for that to be the apex of her power. She was sure to have stronger attacks ready to unleash.

All of Luna’s dossiers about his opponents researching and strategizing against him had pointed to the same conclusion; expect that a powerful opponent would continually advance on him until he was forced to be retrieved by the watchers. No matter how damaged, his armor could clearly reform back to full strength if given the opportunity, so they needed to deny him that at all costs.

Meeting Queen’s blade with his own, Matt leveraged his greater physical strength to push through her attack, and with a small [Mana Charge], he detonated a burst between their weapons.

Queen seemed wholly unbothered by the attack, and reengaged immediately before Matt could squeak out any kind of advantage.

After the next few exchanges, Matt was ready to openly admit that Queen truly outshone him in pure swordwork. He had hoped that with his time spent in the Legacy, he would be more her equal, but she had improved just as much, if not more, than he had.

Every counter and feint he tried, she predicted and punished to devastating effect. With every attack, she sliced through both [Cracked Phantom Armor] and his physical armor underneath to reach his flesh. He minimized the damage as best he could, but the strikes still landed over and over again. Her weapon's greater reach was slightly offset by her shorter stature, but not enough to compensate for the difference.

Recognizing he had to play to his few advantages, Matt switched tactics. He would need to combine his greater strength and more versatile arsenal to force her on the defensive, if even for a moment. Standing around and getting whittled to death was not how he wanted this fight to go. If he lost without using all of his publicly known skills, it would look far too suspicious. It needed to seem like he was pulling out all the stops.

He started with [Hail], but Queen had no issues with the footing obstructions, and her armor easily shrugged his skill off. After letting the skill run for a few seconds, he cut it off and shifted tactics again.

Using [Air Manipulation], he gathered a burst of air to punch her in the side. Manipulation skills by their nature were versatile, and were hard to notice spirituality, but they suffered from much higher mana costs for the same effects. With a publicly-known Concept that fed him bucket-fulls of mana, the expenditure would still be well within expectations.

A surprise elemental assault was also a solid tactic against most melee fighters.

To his mounting horror, Queen simply turned just as the gathered air wave was about to hit her, and split the mass apart with a single attack.

If he felt that right, the woman hadn't even bothered to use a skill.

His gut told him that it had something to do with her Concept weapon, but he didn’t have the faintest idea how to do something similar with his own Concept.

Matt speedily made a note to ask her how she managed that after the fight. For now, he pressed his attack again with another offensive combination of metal and magic.

Queen didn't allow that to continue for long, and she quickly went back on the offensive. She threw a [Mana Bolt] from her off-hand while spearing forward with her greatsword by using [Mana Thrust].

Matt jerked sideways to dodge, but took the [Mana Thrust] on the side of his blade, which slammed it back into his body. He was caught off guard by how quickly she had closed the gap, not expecting her to have that Tier 14 skill.

He tumbled back from the force, with the skill’s mana washing around his blade to rupture [Cracked Phantom Armor]. More of his physical armor crumbled away from the damage.

Matt wrenched himself back up on his feet and saw the bloody streak left in his wake across the arena floor.

Feeling that it was time to pull out his trump card, Matt cast [Sword Twin], the nickname he had given his unique [Sword Doppelganger]. He felt the skill no longer fit its past name and description.

This was the first time he had cast the weapon skill publicly, and to give it justice, he pulled mana from his rechargeable mana stones, filling his mana pool to its maximum 1280 mana before dumping it all into the skill.

From his sword, a light blue, twin copy swept forward to intercept Queen’s careening blade. An autonomous blade would be the extent of what he revealed here. According to Luna, the ability to merge the sword construct with the original was more than a Pather would normally squeeze out of a Legacy. That would hint at abilities greater than a mere top one thousand Pather should have.

Not pausing for even a second, Matt threw himself into the fight, joining his copied sword. Together, they forced Queen back and into a defensive, circling retreat, splitting her attention.

His [Sword Twin] had learned from their battles in the Legacy, mirroring both how he fought on his own, and how he fought as part of a duo. Together, they formed a nigh seamless team.

While Matt probed Queen directly, the other blade tried to entangle the woman's greatsword to create an opening for him to exploit. Queen played it safe, always retreating at a set pace and denying both of them the opportunity to do more than scratch her armor. With every step, his opponent adapted more and more to his final trump card. Desperate to break the stalemate, Matt traded tactics, and when his attack was blocked, he twisted his blade to pin her greatsword on the ground with his guard.

The hold only lasted an instant, but that slight opening provided more than enough for his sentient blade to thrust into her side.

Matt couldn’t help but feel surprised when the blade finally drew blood from the top-ranked Pather. Yet, his opponent casually disengaged and danced back a few steps more.

Matt let her go. Something had changed in her demeanor.

Queen slid back slightly to inspect him before poking at her wound and eyeing the bloody finger. “You know what? You’re annoyingly hard to kill. A real chore.”

“So I’ve been told.”

Matt hardly considered himself prideful, but her words stung a bit. She was wiping the floor with him, restrictions or no. She was the last one that should be complaining about injuries. Matt knew that he had to maintain his cover, but the part of him that trained so hard for decades wanted to throw it all to the wind, and have a true fight with the greatsword wielder. But he was doing this so he could live a normal life without the mask on; he couldn’t afford to give in to his competitive instincts.

That fleeting thought helped settle him. Matt was more than his impulsive desires. Especially since he would be gleefully evening the score as Quill anyway. Showing too much here was like strapping a sign onto his back for everyone to target. The entire idea was to fade away into obscurity after Tier 15, when they ‘officially’ fell off The Path.

This was just part of that plan.

There would be plenty of time to fight all-out once he finished The Path too.

Having aired her complaint, Queen nodded to him before catapulting herself at him with a chopping overhead swing.

Matt sent his [Sword Twin] to block while he skirted around the descending blade. Unfortunately, the floating weapon lacked the mass and stopping power to halt the combined momentum of woman and sword. On contact, the construct went reeling back. Having already moved, Matt stood slightly outside the length of her swing, not needing to dodge further. Or so he thought.

Suddenly, her sword’s arc was longer than anticipated.

The edge crashed down on his chest.

It felt like a building dropped on him. His all-too-limited [Cracked Phantom Armor] exploded under the force of her attack. Even his physical armor parted before it like butter, leaving his chest with a canyon of a line cut through his torso.

Not letting up, Queen ripped her sword back upwards and tried slicing Matt in half from below, but [Sword Twin] had already repositioned itself between him and the blade. Sadly, that blow finally proved too much for the mana construct, and it fragmented and dissipated in a burst of mana.

Matt cursed and used his Concept to lock down space with the time that [Sword Twin] bought him. While he could take the opportunity to go down here, as Queen had undoubtedly showed her Legacy for the first time, not displaying more skills could still leave questions in the eyes of the viewers. It would be too suspicious for him to fail to use half of his famously versatile kit, but still go down after this long.

Matt needed to keep this fight going until even the most incredulous viewer believed that he had fought with his all. Every well known card needed to be played and then shredded. Including his signature durability.

While he had no idea what skill she was using to extend her blade, the effect sort of felt like spatial manipulation. Firming up space was well within his repertoire, so he tried it without hesitation. Anyone who watched his fight with Talous in the dueling arena during the vassal war would have a good idea that he could do this. Not using it here in response to a spatial skill would raise eyebrows.

As Queen stepped in with a cross-cut, he flexed his Concept and concentrated on locking down the space around them.

He felt a resistance to his working, but he succeeded in keeping her sword the normal length.

Queen cocked her head slightly, but he didn’t bother to explain. He’d trade information after the fight if she really cared that much.

Queen didn’t hesitate as she swiped her blade at Matt again.

This time he felt a mountain crash on his Concept, but he again resisted the pressure. Queen looked unbothered as she closed in for a proper melee engagement. Unwilling to let her get her way, Matt cast [Flamethrower] once again with his off-hand, but Queen seemed almost nonchalant as the inferno surged into her armor.

He needed more distance to refill his mana pool to cast [Sword Twin], but [Flamethrower] was ineffective at rebuffing Queen. If that was all, Matt might have been able to muddle through the fight for a while longer, but with every sweep of her blade, Queen smashed her will against his Concept. Wild flailing quickly became refined strikes as she rapidly experimented and learned how to systematically dismantle his Concept’s control.

All of that added together put Matt firmly back on the defensive. He could feel the tide of battle resolutely turning against him as the fight dragged on longer.

Feeling his Concept starting to give way, he ducked and gave up on the tactic. He had no intention of personally training his opponent any more than he had already. As it was, he estimated that he could block two or three more blows before she fully learned how to fully counter the spatial lockdown.

With a weapon now reaching several feet further than it should, her greatsword’s range advantage became an insurmountable obstacle.

Matt mentally sighed, shrugged, and started his final retreat.

If he couldn’t match her in melee, he would swap to magic and try to beat her there. He still had a few tricks up his sleeve, and it was time for a convincing finish.

Even despite the restrictions, Matt felt himself enjoying the fight. Everything else had faded from his mind except the duel and trying to overcome his opponent. It was a puzzle, a challenge, and a test.

The world narrowed down, and Matt felt himself become free.

The restrictions didn’t matter. The separate identities didn’t matter. The Royals, who might or might not have evil intentions towards his mana, did not matter.

Nothing mattered except the fight he was currently in.

Charging his weapon with as much mana as he could, Matt let loose a supersized [Mana Slash] that Queen cut in half with her blade.

She threw her own skill at him, and this time, the attack was faster. It almost struck Matt cleanly, but he managed to deflect the attack with his own blade, and took the leftover energy on [Cracked Phantom Armor] without the skill breaking.

Casting [Mana Bolt] to momentarily stall her, Matt created the largest [Hail] he could before charging his mana stones and emptying his mana pool into the initial cost of the spell.

Unlike the usual, several feet wide hail storms he usually cast, this one was large enough that it brushed the sides of the arena and met a greater power that contained it.

Instead of a pattering of ice, this time, Matt put nearly half his mana generation into the skill, and a wall of ice poured down on the arena. If Aster was here, she could have easily entombed Queen. But she wasn’t, and he didn’t have an [Ice Manipulation] of his own. He now regretted relying on Aster alone for that skill. He really should have just bought the shard earlier, but he didn’t feel the need to add yet another manipulation skill to master when his bond already specialized in it.

Still, that was a part of his strategy. Cutting off the skill after a second and letting a few Tier 1 mana stones dissipate into dust in his clenched hand combined to give the impression that he had burned most of his mana for the spell, and had just recharged manually.

Queen was buried up to her knees in the hail, but she jumped out of the ice and flew into the air without a second's hesitation.

Exactly where he wanted her.

Matt took off and flew away from her, launching [Fireball]s and [Mana Bolt]s at her approaching form. Now that Queen was forced into the air, her concentration was again split between maintaining her Concept-based flight and fighting. He wouldn't give her time to pull out her flying device to ease the strain. Like him, she had used a flying sword in the Jungle, after all. With his greater experience flying, he hoped that he could dogfight better than Queen, and that her focus on flying would hinder her ability to accurately use that spatial skill.

Matt was sorely disappointed.

Queen seemingly had no issue flying with her Concept while simultaneously extending her blade to reach out and dice him.

A heavy hit shattered his left leg, but he landed a [Mana Charge] on her hip in return.

This time, her armor finally dented, cracked, and splintered under the force, but Queen didn’t let loose even a single sound of pain as she continued to viciously exchange blows with him.

Locking down space again to create an opening, Matt threw himself into a lunge and heaved his weapon through Queen's side. His attack landed, but before he could wrench his blade free and eviscerate Queen, she drew a rondel dagger and jammed it through his neck.

That unempowered attack on its own wouldn’t have penetrated [Cracked Phantom Armor], but Queen simultaneously brought her greatsword around and slapped the flat of the blade against his body.

The two attacks coming from two directions overtaxed his armor instantly. Matt felt the bones fracture, and the blade punctured his windpipe at nearly the same instant, and the world went red with pain.

As he plummeted into the ice field below, Matt growled internally.

He didn’t want the fight to end here. Not like this.

With a cut neck, he only had seconds before he was removed, even with [Endurance]. He refused to go down so easily. Matt was known for his tenacious fighting will. He always went down swinging. Simply lying down was not an option.

Despite all the broken bones on his left side, he teetered to a stand in the ice and unleashed the largest [Mana Slash] he could, aiming up to where Queen hovered.

He would have roared if his throat wasn’t slit and bleeding out. It would have really sold the act.

In hindsight, Matt felt dumb. He should have expected her to have a backup, close-range weapon with such a long blade. Even the orphanage had recommended that fighters always having a dagger as a last resort. Forgetting that was a massive mistake. He couldn’t even blame the restrictions for such an oversight.

Queen seemed pleasantly surprised to see him still standing, and reacted a second too slow to dodge the crescent of mana that clipped her leg. Spun head over heels, she went tumbling into the ice on the other side of the arena.

Matt tried to lift his legs to wade through the ice, but his vision closed in and began darkening. The last thing he saw was a blurry, distant figure hop up and brandish a glowing weapon.

***

Luna nodded as she watched Matt finally go down.

The boy had pushed hard and dug deep without exposing too much more power than he was supposed to. The analysts would place him a bit higher than her original target, but not concerningly so. She had worried that he was going to push too far at the end there, but he kept it just inside the acceptable limit for a top one thousand Pather. Though it was only because the competition was so strong this year.

He had mostly reigned in his pride, and she was proud of him for that. This was the greatest potential failure point in her plans for this tournament. It was all too easy for battle maniacs like that boy to throw away decades of work for a single fight. She had been ready to restrict him if he started to use too much power, but she hadn't needed to.

He had given an excellent showing, but kept it inside the proper limits, if just barely.

Matt had power and restraint, though he would have far more of both when she was done with him.

Luna couldn't think of a better combination. She was even more certain of her decision to push the kids.

She peered towards Queen and wondered how the feisty little girl would handle her protige’s other half, who could swamp the entire arena with endless spells and area effects.

That would be an almost opposite match-up between the same kids, and Luna was curious to see how the budding spatial manipulator would handle a crushing defeat.

Still, both of them impressed her a bit.

She jotted down a few notes for Queen’s manager. The girl had, in seconds, learned how to bypass a very advanced spatial locking ability. That was worth devolving.

If she was younger, she might have regretted not snapping the girl up, but she believed that Carol would be an acceptable alternative for Queen. The woman had trained Duke Waters in Luna’s absence, and he fully relied on his Concept. For a child who couldn’t use her Talent in a fight and relied on skill and a Concept manifestation, Carol would be a fine match.

Luna’s pen scrawled across the papers until half a dozen were full.

Queen needed to hurry up if she was going to be useful.

Luna had plans.

So very many plans.