The Runic Artist

Kiri danced over the sand, circling Myles ‘Flash’ Lebas. Their daggers clashed in sparks of steel, every slash made by her opponent cutting off angles of attack as he left floating nigh invisible echoes of his movements. She wasn’t going all out. Not yet. She’d learned her lesson from their initial exchange that even with their tier difference, he wasn’t to be underestimated. The cut on her arm had finally healed but the loss of soul energy was going to continue throughout the fight until she eventually had to drop Soul Imbuement. If that happened, Flash would be faster than her which would put her at a severe disadvantage.

That wasn’t to say she didn’t have at least one very obvious advantage. Flash was clearly focused on Agility and Perception with a little in his Magic Stats. She considered for a moment if he might have a boosting skill. To test it, she dashed to the side, committing all three ‘arms’ on that side to attacks. A wisp of soul energy was released so she could Soul Shift if he took the bait. The opening was one Flash could take advantage of, but only if he was a little faster than he was showing. Instead, her opponent deflected one of the attacks, dancing out of the way of the other two.

That was reassuring. She’d leave a few more openings but it was doubtful that he had a boosting skill. That meant he would need to wear her down, and she was confident in a battle of attrition, she could come out on top.

As they continued to exchange blows she came to a second realisation. He was only truly dangerous when he was on the defensive. His blade echoes, as she decided to call the weird mana creations he left lingering in the air, did not move. That meant that as long as she kept her distance and didn’t try to chase him down, she only had to worry about her physical body. The blade echoes did interfere with her mana arms but it was almost effortless to recreate them.

With a smirk at him to rile him up, she settled into a rhythm where she moved around him in a circle, keeping at a constant distance so she didn’t come within range of his blade echoes with her body. It meant reducing her ‘arms’ from six down to four as she kept her flesh and blood arms away from his blade echoes. Now would’ve been a good time to have a sensory or awareness skill but all she could rely on were her eyes. Her Perception was good, but even so, it was easy to miss the blade echoes as they were razor thin and could only be seen from certain angles.

Flash had started to grit his teeth as he weathered her attacks but was unable to counter as she refused to close the distance. His footwork continued to be perfect as he matched her while she continued to circle him. She was wondering if he would do something to break the stalemate or accept that she was going to whittle him down till he was too worn out to fight back, or better, had run out of mana for his blade echoes.

She flashed down from above with two of her soul energy arms as the other two came in from below. Rather than deflect them he stepped back from the attacks, the cage of blade echoes behind him evaporating as he released the mana keeping them in existence.

Shaking his head in displeasure, there was a hot burning anger in his eyes when he looked up to glare at her. “I was saving this to surprise Null. You’ve just guaranteed me fourth place by forcing me to reveal it. But at least I will get the satisfaction of watching you hand over a rare item to Coralie. Let me show you why she gave me the name Flash.”

Kiri felt something in the air around her change. A moment later Flash vanished. She immediately activated Soul Shift, teleporting across the arena. As she landed, all she could see was a storm of sand covering the middle of the arena. From behind her came a whispered voice.

“Too slow.”

The force from two daggers entering her back made her gasp quietly in surprise. She barely felt the next six they were so fast. The rain of attacks continued but all she felt was pinpricks in her back as her mind struggled to keep up. She did however feel the blade that cut across her throat. Saw the blood, her blood, spray into the sand in front of her. She could hear her opponent panting, as she tried to lift her head to look at him. Her eyes slowly creeping up the leather armour of his legs, over his metallic belt, his leathered chest to his green eyes. She could see it then. He looked almost as bad as she felt. Blood trickling down her chest from her torn throat as her back continued to leak from so many wounds she couldn’t even count them all.

She was growing colder with every passing second. Her eyes drifted beyond him to see Lord Evindal, standing as though ready to heal her. Deverell stood next to the elf, hand on his chest. That made her smile then, frothy with blood from her punctured lungs. Her mentor believed in her. The hollow feeling in her started to grow warm at the sight. Her eyes flicked back to Flash’s ragged appearance. Whatever he had done to boost his speed so much, his body clearly couldn’t handle the strain from the effect. But hers could. She wasn’t just a Soul Slayer. She was a Reborn Soul Slayer. What did it matter if she died? She’d just come back. Again. And again. And again. Soul energy flooded into Soul Imbuement as her throat knitted itself back together, the wounds on her back sealing just as quickly. All the internal wounds sealing themselves as her organs reverted to their normal healthy state and she climbed to her feet. Drenched in blood, all her own, she grinned at Flash before spitting blood to the side.

“Good fight,” she said quietly before using most of her remaining soul energy to activate Soul Shift. Appearing behind him she could see his speed was gone as he tried to dive forward on shaky legs to put space between them. He didn’t even get halfway before she had pinned him to the sand with two daggers. The other four followed in quick order as she aimed for non-vital areas. She didn’t want to kill him after all. With all six daggers planted in his back she finally indulged in a small amount of Soul Drain replenishing a small fraction of her almost exhausted stores. After he had failed to get up for ten seconds, golden light finally enveloped the Edgedancer, restoring him as her daggers were literally forced out of his body.

She ignored them for now, turning to raise her arms to the crowd who finally let go of the breath they had been holding, screaming and shouting their support. At first it was just one voice, but the chant was quickly taken up until most of the crowd was chanting Ki-Ri in unison. Smiling, she collected her daggers.

Glancing at Flash and his sand covered face she offered her hand. It had been a good fight after all. He looked at her offered hand for a moment before taking it and muttering, “I should’ve cut your head off.”

She snorted and raised an eyebrow, “What makes you think that would’ve been enough?”

She enjoyed the look of shock that appeared in his eyes as she turned away, heading for the sidelines. Top four. Only one more fight and then it would be her and Nate. She just had to wonder, would it be Coralie or Null she had to face next.

*************

Nate glared towards the Prefects. Kiri may not have noticed when they were drawing names, but it would take more than a Rare enchantment to hide from his Awareness of the Runic Artist. Those two were handpicking the match ups. There had been nothing random about it. He wasn’t sure if they were wary of pitting Kiri and himself against Coralie and Null, or if Aisling had brokered a deal with the Prefects, but he was almost certain his next match wouldn’t be either of them. That meant it was either going to be Britt or one of the two who originally hailed from Gashana. He didn’t really have a preference. If he was being honest with himself, he was less concerned with his upcoming match and more the one that came after.

Unless there was an upset and Null got defeated, his match after this one was going to be Null. Kiri was already through to top four and Coralie was almost certainly to follow, being the only confirmed Epic Classer left. Null might’ve been an Epic Classer too, but he couldn’t tell for sure due to the man's ability to nullify any mana that tried to interact with him. There was no way the Prefects would pit Coralie against Null in the semi-finals. Not if Prefect Allais wanted her daughter to take second place. That meant Null would have to face either Kiri or himself, assuming he could win his next match. He was the clear choice out of the two as Null’s skillset seemed far less capable of countering Kiri.

“Boss, stop worrying about it. The plan will work. Probably. The theory is sound anyway. Just focus on our next match. You got a plan for all of them, right?” whispered Frick in his mind.

His Familiar was right. He’d done all he could to prepare for Null. He just needed to focus on his next match. Pushing down his nervousness, he stopped rubbing the bracer hidden beneath his robe as he looked at his possible opponents. Kiri finally joined him and he congratulated her before she was dragged off by Evindal for a more thorough check-up. He could understand the reasoning. The elf had promised to make sure all the competitors were fighting fit. That meant he needed to restore Kiri. He listened into the quiet heated discussion as Deverell joined them, before Kiri was whisked away to somehow restore her soul energy. Something beyond Evindal’s skills apparently.

Turning back to the Arena, he was too far away from the Prefects to tell if they were handpicking the fights again as they pulled out the silken bag with their names in it.

“Coralie Allais versus…Karima Nazari,” boomed Prefect Raoult.

The crowd cheered as Coralie entered the arena followed by the Earth Mage. Out of the corner of his eye he noticed how Prefect Porter bumped his hat up slightly to watch the proceedings. The Prefect had ignored almost every battle so far, at least from what he could tell.

Nate wasn’t sure what he was hoping to see but the battle had been a decisive victory for Coralie. Karima was, in Nate’s judgement, a skilled Earth Mage. His attacks had been fast, strong and varied. But in the end, anything thrown at Coralie slowed down till it was completely sapped of momentum. Some of the lighter earthen spears had even hung frozen in the air as if gravity itself couldn’t override the freezing effect. Nothing had the required force remaining to get through her ice barrier after that and her Frozen Domain, or whatever she called it, eventually reached Karima. After that, the Earth Mage had slowly frozen.

Nate wished he was closer so he could sense what had happened, but the match was called not long afterwards. Whatever Evindal did with his golden light was enough to restore Karima, though Nate could see the disappointment on the Earth Mage’s face. Adding a Concept to a Skill seemed to be incredibly powerful and he was starting to wonder if Epic Skills were normally that powerful. Or if the Skill was actually even Epic. He’d evolved skills up tiers and he wasn’t about to assume he was some sort of genius or peerless talent.

Coralie actually gave him a small nod of acknowledgement as she exited the field. Was that because he was Kiri’s teammate and Flash, her own teammate, had been defeated by her? He wasn’t sure, but before he could spend more time thinking about it he heard his own name called.

“Nathaniel Weber versus…Brittany Lavaud!”

It was time. Walking out onto the field he did a quick check on his opponent’s Classes again with Awareness of the Runic Artist.

Brittany Lavaud

Stalwart Defender (R) (32) / Stalwart Hammer Novice (U) (8)

She was clearly on her way to embodying the Concept of ‘Stalwart’, whatever that meant. If he remembered correctly, it could mean loyal, hardworking or a few other interpretations. Did Brittany embody one of those, or all of them? Her Classes were easier to parse. She used a hammer as her weapon alongside a large metal shield and wore full metal armour, including a helm. Finally, she possessed a Class called Defender. He thought that should honestly make this easier. Sure, he would probably struggle to harm her unless he had time to prepare some nasty runic arrays, but she was unlikely to be fast. He could probably just bury her in the earth like his previous opponents.

Meeting at the centre they faced each other and Brittany lifted the facemask on her helm to smile at him.

“Best of luck, Nathaniel. I’ve really enjoyed your matches. But don’t think that means I am going to go easy on you. Let's give it our best!”

He smiled in response and gave a nod, not sure what to say in the face of such an honest and friendly exchange.

The referee yelled for them to begin. He immediately tuned out the noise of the crowd as he activated his bracer. They’d finally finished it and the barrier rune imbued into the Legendary material bloomed around him, anchored to the ground for a change instead of his location. He didn’t feel like getting punted around again and he was finally confident that there were very few attacks that could dislodge this particular barrier.

Britt hadn’t wasted time either and he could sense mana flowing into her armour within his sphere. At first, he thought she was just reinforcing it, but there was something else at the edge of his awareness. He’d experienced it enough lately to know when Runic Knowledge - Concepts was nudging him and he tried to feel what was going on more deeply. More mana flowed into Awareness of the Runic Artist as the flow and intent behind Britt’s mana was slowly revealed. There was ‘barrier’ in the mix of mana. He could sense that clearly. And something that might have been ‘reliable’ or ‘stalwart’. But that wasn’t what was bothering him.

There was something else in her Skill’s working that he didn’t recognise. Mirror? No. Copy? No. Mimic. He smiled as the whispers in the back of his mind quieted. That just made him wonder, why Mimic? What did that have to do with an armour enhancing skill? He got his answer a moment later as Britt rose off the ground, standing encased inside a mana construct of herself. The construct mimicked her armour, except over twice the size. She’d gone from being a little under two metres to almost five metres tall, the silvery mana making her visible as the mana construct raised its now two metre tall hammer and strode towards him.

Maybe anchoring his barrier to the ground hadn’t been the best idea after all…