“Do you understand the plan?” asked Birk, kneeling so he could look Elijah in the eyes.
Elijah nodded. “Get in. Hit him hard. End it quick.”
“How are you going to do that?”
At that, Elijah hesitated, mostly because he wasn’t sure of the answer. Which presented a little bit of a problem, because the fight would start within the next hour. For the first time since he’d begun, he felt like he was truly in danger of losing.
Because his opponent was an absolute monster.
Ydris el Was’in had charged through the previous rounds like his foes were made of paper. He never had to change tactics. He never even slowed down. Making that even more impressive was the fact that everyone knew his powerset. They knew how he fought. They knew exactly what he wanted to do.
But no one had been able to stop him.
He wasn’t the first seed, but that was as much because of his relatively low status as because of his actual power. Ydris was still a dragon, but his clan was small and, as dragons went, relatively weak. His parents were demi-gods. His family only sported a single deity and no transcendents.
Elijah had done a little research into the Was’in clan, but he’d found very little information. Just some hints at an ancient failure that sundered not only their numbers, but their reputation. They’d been trying to recover ever since.
And Ydris represented their best hope for doing so.
The Tournament of the First Fang was just the start of that journey, and the other participants stood in his way.
Including Elijah.
The dragon’s powerset was no mystery, even if it was slightly more complex than it appeared at first glance. In a lot of ways, he was like a Berserker who gained attributes via attrition. However, in his case, he built momentum the longer a battle went on.
On top of that, he possessed a strong gravity attunement that wore on his opponents, weighing them down by a significant degree. The aura would start off weak, but it would slowly ramp up as he continued fighting.
Most people never even got to feel those, though. Instead, each of his tournament fights had been ended by a single ability known as Gravity Well. From what Elijah had seen, it functioned a little like the cyclical star he’d encountered at the end of the Labyrinth of Mad Gods. Or at least the black hole phase of it.
Elijah had watched as each opponent fought against that intense gravitational pull. Some had been a little more successful than others, but every single one of his opponents had succumbed. The most successful attempt had lasted seven seconds before being crushed by that tiny black hole.
Elijah had a plan for that, but it depended on a few unknown factors. Like how long the ability lasted. But the rest of the fight would rely on a mish-mash of strategies based on incomplete information. Elijah knew the basics, but there was no guarantee that Ydris didn’t have a half-dozen other abilities he’d not yet revealed.
Hopefully not.
But if nothing else, Elijah had proven himself capable of adjustment and adaptation. So, he intended to rely on that. If he came up short, then so be it.
Birk felt differently. He’d been working with Elijah for long enough that he had become invested in his success. And his personality dictated that he be prepared for anything. So, not knowing what to expect left him even surlier than normal.
It would’ve been funny if it wasn’t for the fact that he tended to take out his frustrations on Elijah. Ever since they’d learned his opponent’s identity a few weeks before, Birk’s training had been even more strenuous than normal. And for the first time, he’d allowed Elijah to fight in his various forms.
When Elijah had asked why it had taken so long for them to incorporate his bestial shapes into their training, Birk had given an answer that made more sense than Elijah wanted to admit.
“Everything we have done until this point will benefit you in whatever shape you take. I have been training dragons for millennia. First, we work on the humanoid form because it is invariably their weakest. Gradually, we branch out into the dragon form. For you, there is one step in between – the bestial shapes,” he’d explained. “Mastery of the humanoid form lays the foundation for all other improvement.”
Elijah couldn’t really argue with that line of reasoning, largely because he’d seen the benefits in action. While the actual techniques didn’t really translate, the mindset he’d learned had become invaluable. He still relied heavily on instinct, but even in his bestial forms, his actions were far more intentional. He had learned to read his opponents. He’d learned to control his tendencies.
In short, it was the difference between being a brawler and a professional fighter.
But training in the forms added a layer of expertise that Elijah had never expected. It had only been a few weeks since he’d been allowed to use his forms, and in that time, Elijah had refined his style. He suspected that if he spent a decade under Birk’s tutelage, he would become something truly terrifying.
Unfortunately, he didn’t have a decade.
He didn’t even have a year.
Just three short weeks that were now gone.
Elijah looked up and said, “I’ll be good, Birk. I’m better at improvisation than you think.”
“I know your strengths.”
“Just have faith in me.”
Birk grunted.
Elijah chose to interpret that as encouragement. There was a language to Birk’s grunts. Meaning behind them that wasn’t always evident. Elijah had taken it upon himself to learn that language.
Or maybe he was just imagining it all, and a grunt was just a grunt.
Either way, Elijah knew when the discussion had run its course, so he spent the next few minutes, just staring at the floor and going over his intended strategy in his mind. Then, finally, an attendant came to fetch him.
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Birk gave him a grunt of encouragement before Elijah made the now-familiar trek from the staging room to the door leading to the arena. There, he waited, adrenaline pumping, as the tetradrak Chronomancer created his anchor point. And finally, the door opened, revealing a muddy mess.
Rain descended from storm clouds above, half-flooding the arena and turning it into a slippery morass. Elijah stepped out, and in moments, he was buffeted with driving rain and swirling winds. It felt like he’d entered a hurricane.
But oddly enough, Elijah found it comforting.
He’d always liked the rain, after all.
The crowd was no more subdued than during any of Elijah’s other fights, and their cheers rose to a crescendo as the Curator introduced the fighters. Ydris stood a few hundred yards distant, his posture rigid as his deep indigo scales shimmered in the rain.
Unlike most other dragons, his humanoid form looked almost drake-like, with almost no skin showing.
Was that a statement? Most dragons had some modicum of control over their humanoid form, at least at first. They didn’t choose it. Not intentionally, at least. Instead, their humanoid forms were created subconsciously, then refined over a couple of decades until they settled into it.
So, Ydris’s appearance was at least partially intentional, and it represented the façade he wanted to present to the rest of the world. After all, by necessity, most dragons spent most of their time as humanoids. Their true forms were just too large, and their presences too weighty for any city to accommodate them. Even most planets would shudder under the pressure they exerted, especially at higher tiers.
In any case, their humanoid forms often became an accurate representation of what they valued. What that meant with Ydris and his overtly scaley form was anyone’s guess, though.
Those thoughts ceased the second the Curator completed his introductions. Elijah took a deep breath, preparing himself to act quickly and decisively. Then, the silver dragon announced the beginning of the fight.
And two things happened at once.
The first was a tiny pinprick of darkness manifesting in the center of the arena. Even as it formed, Elijah felt himself being dragged forward. He activated Absolute Grasp, but his feet still skidded across the ground.
At least until they tucked into his body, and he transformed into the World Serpent. By the time the transformation completed, the pull had become irresistible.
Vaguely, Elijah could feel the arena shuddering under the force of that single, powerful spell. The walls cracked. Mud flew across the intervening distance, disappearing into that tiny globe of darkness.
Elijah didn’t try to resist, veering slightly off course as he pushed himself to top speed. He knew he couldn’t escape the gravitational pull of even a tiny black hole. What he hoped was that he could use it to power a slingshot-style maneuver that harnessed the spell’s pull to add a little extra speed when it eventually dissipated.
For that, he needed every ounce of velocity he could manufacture.
Fortunately, Elijah had been practicing.
In addition, he’d gained a not-insignificant number of levels since arriving in the Empire of Scale. The result was that his previous top speed had only scratched the surface of his current capability. He had no way of measuring how fast he could go, but he suspected that it far exceeded two thousand miles per hour. The sheer force of that speed pelted his face, but the combination of the World Serpent’s unique biology and the effect of Scales of Infinity protected him.
It still wasn’t pleasant, though.
Elijah pushed even harder.
In the blink of an eye, he covered the distance between himself and the singularity. Without the instincts that came with the for, he never could have maneuvered at such high speeds. And even with that, he relied heavily on the improved reaction time that came from his buffs and the Girdle of the Wild Revenant to give him just enough time to shift his path into an elliptical orbit.
He coiled, protecting himself from the force inflicted upon his body. At the same time, he continuously cast instances of Wild Resurgence. Over and over, healing any incidental damage incurred from the gravitational force. But that wasn’t the main point.
No – Elijah was about to do something reckless, and he wanted to be as prepared as possible for the aftermath.
According to his research, which had been extensive, Ydris’s spell couldn’t last more than twenty seconds. Using the ethereal signatures from his previous fights, it was more likely that it would reach its conclusion at fifteen-point-three seconds.
Elijah hadn’t done the math himself. Some Scholar hired by Tura had taken care of that, and they’d used projected footage from Ydris’s previous battles to calculate the most likely outcome.
And he was banking everything on them being right.
The World Serpent didn’t fly like other creatures. It was entirely magical, which meant that he had complete control over his velocity. He used that to adjust his speed so that when the spell ended – at fifteen-point-three seconds – he would exit his orbit at the exact right moment.
The calculations took up three entire leaf-clusters in Elijah’s emerald mind.
After five seconds, the gravitational pull had reached its peak. Elijah coiled even more tightly, ready for it to end at any moment.
He passed the ten second mark.
Fourteen.
Fifteen, and he rounded the bend of his orbit. Less than half a second later, the spell ended, and with it, the gravitational pull ceased. He uncoiled, throwing himself forward. Elijah rocketed across the arena at nearly three thousand miles an hour, covering the distance in less than an instant.
Everything became a blur, but he did see Ydris’s eyes widen the moment before Elijah smashed into him.
That’s when everything went white.
It only lasted for the time it took for Wild Resurgence to tick, but even then, when Elijah came back to himself, he was bearing down on the wall encircling the arena. He used Dimensional Leap. Not to cover ground, but rather, to take advantage of the void’s odd physics.
When he exited less than a second later, he’d returned to the center of the arena, and his momentum had dissipated entirely.
Ydris slammed into the wall hard enough that it shattered. A spiderweb of cracks erupted from the resultant crater, spanning nearly fifty feet in both directions. The dragon’s body fell free, where he pitched face-first into the ground.
Elijah slithered forward, already transforming. By the time he reached Ydris’s fallen form, he’d resumed his human shape. Thorn leaped into his hand.
He stabbed the unconscious dragon, the blade entering at the nape of his neck and destroying his brain stem.
And just like that, Elijah had won.
Another pulse of Wild Resurgence reminded him that he hadn’t escaped unscathed. His face was destroyed, with much of the skin having been ripped free. It was agonizing, but by that point, pain had become Elijah’s long-familiar companion. He shifted the torment into its own cluster of leaves, then got down to the business of healing the wounds.
In the endeavor, he had a new tool. A spell evolution he’d received after winning his last fight and getting to three-twenty-five:
Bough of the World Tree
Shelter beneath the World Tree’s embrace.
Initial surge of vitality provides a moderate heal, followed by nine smaller bursts of regeneration. Each endured attack harnesses the bark of the World Tree to protect the recipient.
Potency of heals based on core cultivation. Durability of bark based on ethera attribute. Cooldown based on regeneration attribute. Current: 3.9 Seconds.
Elijah hadn’t even considered any of the other options. Instead, he’d gone with the most direction upgrade to Nature’s Bloom. His reasoning was that it already did everything he needed it to, so there was no reason to change its nature. He was pleased that it had added an additional component to the spell, but he was still getting used to that added benefit.
Shattered pieces of his skull fused, coming together as if they’d never been broken. Then, muscle reformed. Skin, next. Only then did Elijah realize that his eyes had been destroyed, too. He’d been relying entirely on Soul of the Wild, and he hadn’t even realized it.
The orbs rebuilt themselves as well.
For a second, he basked in the mingled rain from the ongoing thunderstorm and Blessing of the Grove. Then, he took a deep breath and strode back to his exit. He’d just made it to the final eight.
Only three more fights to win, and he would be crowned the victor of the Tournament of the First Fang.
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