The fight between Phoenix and War-Machine lasted barely a minute, as the man was terrified shitless when Phoenix started casting her fire tornado. Of course, it was a normal reaction.
No one would react well to being engulfed in swirling flames, with no exit in sight. The feeling of burning alive must also be quite excruciating.
The next one in line was Athena versus Khalor, and the former was sweating buckets. She already knew how that would end, but wanted to at least give her all, maybe land a few hits.
As both of them were being teleported, Astaroth glanced at Khalor.
“Don’t forget our deal.”
“Same to you. Make it to the finals and you will see,” Khalor replied, smirking.
When he reappeared in the arena, Khalor looked across at his adversary. The poor Elven girl was looking at him with a mix of fear and disgust.
“You obviously don’t like spooky stuff,” Khalor said.
“I’m terrified of zombies,” Athena responded, looking at him with apprehension.
“Then I’ll do you a favor and not summon them. But don’t get me wrong. I am not going easy on you,” Khalor said, giving her what was supposed to be a smile.
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But he also kept his word of not going easy on Athena, as he summoned his raven, the death knight, and something most had not seen yet, the undead manticore.
Athena gulped at the development. She knew the strength of that specific undead, since she had already fought it, though it was alive at the time.
Khalor smiled at the fear in her eyes. He wasn’t particularly evil, but he wanted everyone to know he was true to his word, and that he was powerful.
Athena was no doubt feeling this, right now, facing down three undead beasts that could most likely kill her on their own.
She ran with all her might, making sure never to follow a linear path, lest she makes the same mistake as Azamus, and fired as many arrows as she could toward Khalor.
She shot curving arrows, Piercing Shots, Impact Shots, Multishots, and a multitude of other skills, all hoping to hit Khalor at least once.
But it was in vain, as all her attacks were intercepted by the three undead, time and time again. The only thing her struggle gave her was more time to struggle.
Khalor eventually ended her misery. He dashed in, slipping through his undead servants, and pinned Athena into the back wall with his bident.
His death knight did not wait before using her as target practice, slamming his halberd into her body repeatedly. It was over before she knew it.
When she reappeared on the loser’s side, she was sobbing. I’die went to comfort her, as he glanced over to the opposite side, where Khalor was sitting, emotionless.
He gave Khalor the stink eye as he rubbed Athena back awkwardly, talking to her in a low voice. Astaroth saw this and looked at Khalor with disappointment.
“You could have ended this sooner and faster. Was there a need to torture her mind like that?” he asked Khalor.
“There was. She needs to toughen up her heart if she wants to be useful in what’s coming,” Khalor replied coldly.
“I don’t like your methods,” Astaroth said, frowning at him.
“I don’t need you to like them. I need you to understand they are necessary,” Khalor said, turning his emotionless eyes to look at Astaroth.
“I will be a tough pill to swallow for most of humanity, but I am a necessary one. Do you understand?” Khalor asked.
“We will see about that. When you show me some proof of what you claim,” Astaroth responded, turning to look back at the arena.
The next combat had started already, and by the looks of it, it wouldn’t be quick. Both players were gauging each other, never fully committing to an assault.
This ended up dragging the fight on for a good fifteen minutes, as every player watching grew bored. Astaroth had stopped paying attention after a few minutes, going instead to sit near Phoenix.
He talked with her about how their fight was next. They both agreed to not make it a boring one like this one, and to give it their all.
Khalor looked at them from meters away, deep in thought.
‘She still hasn’t used that. Hmm. I wonder if she’ll use it against him,’ He thought, scratching his boney chin.
‘Last time, she was in the finals against that stupid gnome sniper. I wonder how this will affect the future power structure. Only time will tell,’ he thought, looking at the sky.
He still directed his anger at the chairwoman. Had she spoken earlier, nothing that was going to happen would have happened at all last time.
When the fight in the arena finished, chairwoman Constantine made an apparition once again. She was mainly doing this for the PR of her talking to the competing players.
After all, people from around the world were watching the tournament live streams. The more she made the game look good, the more new players she could reel in.
Khalor wasn’t against what she was doing, because they indeed needed more players. But he found her methods to be insufficient and a waste of time.
In his opinion, giving the right time of day right now would probably be more useful. But he also knew that it would cause a massive wave of panic, making things worse.
So he swallowed his discontent. He knew what he had to do, and when he had to do it.
The only thing that had changed in his plan was the emergence of a ripple. And that was the player Astaroth.
He hadn’t even been present in the last tournament. Khalor was still wondering what had caused that ripple to form.
But it wasn’t that important for now. The reason he had given Astaroth a few details was that since he was a butterfly effect, he would use him to the fullest.
That, and the fact that Astaroth had been one of the good guys and talented players in the last run-through.
‘I hope he turns out like this again this time,’ Khalor mused.