I couldn’t help but laugh out loud at her antics. She was jumping over a few steps a relationship should take before arriving at marriage, but I imagine she was eager to secure the bag.
“Thanks for the offer, it’s very sweet of you.”
“So that’s a no…” She sighed.
“There’s something I wanted to talk to you about. I will find you later.”
Her eyes lit up once again as hope returned. “Sure, you know where I live!”
Our conversation came to a halt and with that, I refocused my attention on the fights going on. Once Iris was done massacring her ‘opponent’ a few new faces came from the side of the champions. There was a twin blade wielder who stood out in particular, as well as a large cleaver wielder and a mage who unlocked the rare ice element, becoming a Cryomancer.
There were no outlined ways to make the non-basic elements available to you. It happened or it didn’t, you couldn’t force it. However, mastering the basic element it was derived from definitely helped, thus this ice mage was most certainly specialized in water spells when they were a simple Wizard classed individual.
I call them ‘they’ because I don’t know their gender, same for the twin-bladed person. They both wore masks.
Next came Ambition who killed a lot while doing her utmost to protect her five archers. She stood still and allowed the rat to live. Such meaningless massacres were seemingly below these lithe, beautiful creatures, as Seraphiel also called it barbaric.
Abudha and Cedric also passed their round. Abudha similarly refrained from killing his enemy while Cedric executed his, after which he waved his hand at a woman in the stands, his mother.
“Next up on the side of the rats! Selene, daughter of the mage Malachai! She killed hundreds of people in the first round, but all of them were on her side! She felled no enemies!”
“Hah?!” A man stood from the crowds with pure disbelief on his features. Dearest father, I assume. He seemed like a pretty straightforward man, I wonder how he sired such a sly fox. Must’ve been the work of the mother…
Selene walked into the arena and stared at her father with a fiery gaze. She looked like a woman who was done with it all. “This fight is going to be an ugly one.” I grimaced. She very clearly wanted to murder someone, anyone.
“In the other corner, from the side of the champions! We welcome Torture! A truly hideous nickname she’d chosen for herself, another woman who’s a goner in the head!”
Torture stepped into the arena and her mere presence cast a chilling silence over the crowd. It was not justifiable on Vex’s part to place this creature in the same mental category as Iris. Iris was just a bit of a psycho, but she most certainly fell in the ‘I can fix her’ category. This was best evidenced by the fact that I could hold a normal conversation with her when I let her in on my secrets.
On the other hand, this person was more monster than human. Her frail, scarred figure was draped in blood-stained leather and a cracked porcelain mask painted with a demented smile hid most of her face. Only her manic, glowing eyes shone through which radiated sheer unhinged energy. She dragged a chain with a spiked weight in one hand and held a serrated blade in the other while she was giggling nonstop.
“She’s unhinged…” Jasmine whispered scaredly, after which she hid her face in my chest. I chuckled when I saw her very obvious antics. She didn’t give up on seducing me at all, in fact, her efforts were amplified. I had to give it to her, she was very persevering.
In contrast to Torture, Selene exuded calm fury. She eyed Torture as if she was nothing but a monster to put down, and I couldn’t fault Plump Fox for thinking so. She was dressed in a new, ornately decorated robe, father dearest most certainly kitted his daughter out for this special occasion.
It was no exaggeration on my part to say that Selene and Cedric were bred for this day, so their parents naturally invested heavily, no doubt taking on debt to procure the most worthwhile gear.
As soon as the gong sounded, Torture lunged with her chain whipping wildly, but Selene was more than ready.
Selene aimed her expensive-looking staff at the rabid creature and chanted an all too familiar spell, [Infernal Onslaught].
Her ornate staff glowed with a brilliant crimson color as its tip ignited into a roaring inferno. A sphere of blazing fire spiraled outward, expanding with great speed and intensity as it barreled toward Torture.
The chain-wielding woman tried to whip her weapon forward in retaliation, which just showed how much of a mental goner she was. Fight flames with metal chains…?
The spell engulfed her completely. Torture’s screams were swallowed by the roar of the inferno as her body was consumed in an instant, reduced to little more than a blackened silhouette before turning into ash.
Once the flames dissipated, all that remained was a scorched patch of earth and the faint smell of burnt flesh. Selene raised her smoking staff to her lips and blew at it as if she were a cowboy who just gunned her enemy down. I grinned, thinking, ‘so even this woman could do a bit of acting.’
She looked very strongly in my direction. <Finally, this spell did as it was intended to. I can confidently conclude that it’s not faulty. No nonsensical bullcrap protecting my target’s hide, nor some weak element protecting her…> She finished it by glancing at Shallan, the Anemomancer who dueled her when I was fighting Blackjack and Kai.
I only snickered amusedly at her poisonous words, thinking it below me to reply. When a dog barks at me, I don’t bark back, I just ignore it. Shallan evidently thought otherwise as she gently replied with a <suck it, bitch.> after which her amicable chatting with Plump Fox continued for ten minutes straight.
The first round soon came to a close, evidenced by Vex delivering the news of what the next part of the event would entail. They certainly made this tournament into a strange one…