Lurks marched me down the stone pathway to my doom.
My minds were racing a mile a second as I was led closer to the arena. If I had been in control of my body I probably would have been hyperventilating. As it stood I had to settle for having a panic attack within the confines of my mind.
One that Lurks thoroughly enjoyed and luxuriated in.
I had essentially been handed a death sentence. Defeating people at the low to middle parts of tier three had been doable because there wasn’t such a massive gap in stats between tier two and tier three. However, the gap between tier three and tier four was significantly larger. And I had only just made it into tier three to start with, so I had no foundation to work with.
Assuming this champion was at the start of tier four as well, that left a minimum of 100 levels of difference for stats, not including the ascension stat bonus people receive.
That was… Potentially thousands of points of difference between us, and given the fact that they weren’t new to this position? It was more likely that they were a decent way into tier four. So that stat difference was only accentuated.
All in all, I was stuck in a pit with someone trying to push a rock on top of me.
And there was nothing that I could do about it. I couldn’t even try to run because Lurks personally walked me from place to place now just so I couldn’t do that. She had absolutely refused to take any chances with me trying to squeeze out of her grasp. That belief was only reaffirmed for her when she took note of my new classes.
If I’d been in the third tier at the time of my attempt to escape I probably would’ve succeeded. My stats were absurdly high and my skills were well-suited to tactical retreats. The only thing that would make it better is if I could fly.
My anxiety and fear slowly ratcheted up with each step we took towards the arena. It was an all-consuming, gnawing kind of fear. The one that made it hard to see and think straight. If there was one saving grace for Lurks taking control it was that she kept me walking in a straight orderly line so I wasn’t stumbling all over the place.
We eventually made it to the arena and she stood with me off to the side.
Lurks took to standing with me instead of leaving me in the waiting rooms, I assumed there was some proximity basis to her mind control. I wasn’t sure if it was just more powerful with closeness or if she just couldn’t control people from too far away, but she made sure to never let me stray too far from her reach, both physically and psychically.
The fights in front of us went by both agonizingly slowly and way too quickly for my liking. Some only lasted a few blows while others were long and drawn-out heated exchanges between the combatants.
More than a few ended with mutually assured destruction, one of which happened as a mage intentionally self-destructed after losing an arm and a leg. The warrior ran them through the heart and the mage grabbed the warrior, holding on with all their strength as they just… exploded, in a flaming ball of gore.
The warrior came through in slightly fewer pieces, but still very much dead.
It was a little unnerving how willing these people were to take part in these fights. I wasn’t sure how many, if any, were in a similar situation to myself. And I doubt I would ever figure that out either.
Not that I cared to though.
After a while, I realized that I would probably be the last fight of the day, until the next evening. The fights started at around the same time the night shift started and would carry through the whole shift of 12 hours or until they ran out of fighters. Whichever came first.
The fights were then determined by levels, they made an attempt to pair up fighters that were of a similar strength and category. They tried to pit mages against mages and such, but occasionally one of the cell block leaders would want a particular matchup or they would want to mete out a final punishment to a slave and so they would put them against someone they didn’t really have a chance of beating.
In a way, it was somewhat of an achievement that the only way they felt they’d be able to kill me, without doing it themselves, was to make me fight against the strongest fighter in the arena.
That just went to show that there wasn’t really anyone else in the arena who was as powerful as me. I wonder how many people they put up against me to do the same? How many people did I unwillingly take part in punishing?
I didn’t have any qualms about living when they had died, I didn’t have any moral or ethical dilemmas like ‘Was my life worth more than theirs’ sort of thing. If I didn’t kill them, someone else certainly would have. So getting myself killed to avoid taking too many lives was a non-factor in this situation.
But it still wasn’t a great feeling to come to the realization that I had unwittingly been someone's final punishment for screwing up or doing something that annoyed a cell block leader.
“Do you really have the time to spend your thoughts so idly?” Lurks asked, jarring me out of my introspection.
I couldn’t even turn to look at her, but my thoughts clued her into how I was feeling.
She laughed, it was a soft, infectious sound that would have wormed its way into my heart and made me smile in turn if it wasn’t associated with such a nightmarish person.
“You’re not quite as free to think as you believe yourself to be,” She said, correctly deciphering my thoughts and emotions. As she always did.
“But I will allow it in these moments as they are to be your last.”
As bad as it had been, I had finally achieved something of an equilibrium with myself. My sanity was… in tatters, and my independence was essentially gone as well. She had torn me apart to the point I no longer felt safe and secure outside of that cell she kept near her room.
She infected my mind to the point that it felt empty if she wasn’t constantly in contact with it.
I was, as she had once described it, domesticated.
The very thought infuriated me, but the anger quickly sputtered and died. That was another thing she had… trained, for lack of a better word, out of me. I didn’t hold on to anger regarding her for very long.
I let out another silent sigh in my mind as I focused on the fight in the arena again. It was two roguish individuals, flitting about the arena at high speeds, exchanging rapid blows. Before my ascension, I might’ve had a bit of trouble keeping track of them without the assistance from [OWN]. But now I could easily track them with my own eyes.
In fact, I was faster than the one that was slowly, but surely, losing the fight.
He sustained several more wounds as we watched before the faster one achieved a crippling wound on his leg, impairing his ability to move quickly, and almost explicitly ended the fight.
It didn’t take much longer for the fight itself to wrap up, ending with a quick stab to the throat and a twist just to make sure.
There were equal amounts of cheering and jeering as usual as the surviving combatant walked out of the arena on the opposite end after claiming a prize from their fallen opponent. A couple of laborers went in to grab the body and pull it out and take it… wherever they took the corpses of those killed in the fights.
I wasn’t sure I wanted to know what they did with the bodies.
The announcer stepped up in front of the crowd speaking loudly, his voice carrying easily to the corners of the cavern. More than likely a skill of some sort to make it easier to hear him.
“Alright! We’ve got something special for you today! A fight that we haven’t seen the likes of in a long time, something that’s really gonna get your blood pumping!” He spoke in that stereotypical announcer way.
An odd cadence to his words, clearly the result of a skill, in an attempt to pull people in and hook their attention on him. It worked annoyingly well I found, not that I really expected it to not work. Some part of me just wanted them to not be here, to not watch this fight.
“We have one of the fan-favorites brought back after a short rest away, now stronger than ever and ready to fight! I give you, the challenger you all know and love, with 49 fights and 49 wins! THE ELF!”
He flung his arm out in a gesture to me. Lurks unceremoniously handed my sword and dagger to me. And let me have control of my body again.
For a very brief moment, I entertained the idea of trying to make my break for it now, if I could just put enough distance between me and Lurks I could maybe get away.
She immediately crushed that notion by giving my mind a squeeze, a painful one. She wanted me to walk into my death on my own. She wanted me to willingly acknowledge I had no choice.
The worst part? I genuinely didn’t. Either she would cause me unimaginable pain and then make me walk in anyway, or I could forgo the pain and walk in on my own. So there was a choice, technically, neither of them was particularly great ones though.
I tried to keep tears from welling up in my eyes as I took a few stumbling steps towards the cage door, not fully used to walking on my own again yet. The door sat open in between a few soldiers looking at me with expressions I couldn’t really decipher right now. Their faces were hardly more than smudges in my eyes.
My focus and attention were fully dominated by the sight of the door leading inside. I turned back to look at Lurks and to glance around the cavern to see if, just maybe, this was all a sick joke. That maybe it wasn’t real, or that maybe I was dreaming.
Lurks’ smile only grew more malicious before gesturing for me to turn around and keep walking.
I slowly turned around and started to make my way into the cage. The sounds blended together into a dull roar in my ears. The cage door slammed shut behind me as I stepped inside rattling loudly causing me to jump slightly.
I came to a stop a few steps in waiting for the inevitability of my situation to take its course.
“I know what most of you are thinking! ‘But Flimsy, we know about him! He’s good but he’s not necessarily anything we haven’t seen from him before at this point! What makes this fight any different from the other ones?’ And I have an excellent answer for you!”
I’d never actually heard his name before. Although I doubted Flimsy was his real name and not just a moniker he was known by.
My minds was working overtime to deconstruct his words and posture in order to try and psychoanalyze him. Anything to potentially distract me from the here and now.
It wasn’t working very well.
“If I can have your attention one last time for the night, ladies and gentlemen! I’ll direct your attention to the other end! I will now reintroduce someone you know and love even more, someone who has very few reasons to fight anymore and even fewer opportunities to do so, they’ve had so many fights that we’ve stopped counting them! People supposedly stronger than them, they crushed. People weaker than them, they decimated! Everyone, please welcome back, the reigning champion of the Blood Pit Arena! FIREBIRD!”
If I had thought the crowd had been loud and obnoxious before they made sure that I thought that about them now. They were so loud the sound practically vibrated my eyeballs.
The door on the other side of the arena opened up and allowed a woman to step into the cage.
I immediately started scanning her with [Mana Sense], and her entire body exploded into a hue of different colors. Every piece of gear she wore was magical in some capacity. She was so blindingly bright I had to turn the skill back off and blink spots out of my eyes, which had never actually happened before.
I’d had to look away from some people and things, even the wall had been too bright to directly stare at for long, but they hadn’t ever directly impacted my vision this way before.
[Level 33⁴]
Well fuck. How the hell were they at such a high level? Are they even a slave? They were higher than David, hell they were nearly at the same level as Lurks.
My heart slowly started to sink. I’d held out some hope that potentially they’d be close enough in the gap that I might have a chance. Or maybe that Lurks had just been lying to me in the first place. But this really sent it home for me.
I was genuinely going to die here.
The woman before me held a single blade in her right hand. I wasn’t entirely sure what the blade was even made out of, because it wasn’t steel or iron. It was instead a smooth, soft red hue. The pommel and hilt were a pure white with a deep red gem set into the center of the crossguard. Extremely ornate. But it also had sufficient wear to let observers know that the blade wasn’t ceremonial. It had seen its fair share of battles and had consistently come out on the other side as the victor.
She was clad in lightweight leather armor that had a number of insignias and runes stitched into it. Some glowed and others didn’t. A soft fluttering white glow, almost akin to how a candle flame might waver in the wind.
The woman herself had a rugged appearance. Her face was scarred and her right eye was missing, either that or the eyepatch she wore was for show. It wouldn’t have been the most outlandish thing in the world, especially if she enjoyed handicapping herself for some inane reason.
While her face was marred from any potential elegance or femininity it might have had initially, she was not ugly or hideous to look at. Her face was impassive but carried an air of unerring confidence.
She would have been an exceptional beauty if she didn’t have so many wounds on her face, but at the same time, it seemed to bring her to a more human level. Her hair was the same strawberry-blonde that Pennie's hair was.
The thought of her sent a lance of painful nostalgia through my heart.
Would she ever find out? Would she even remember me in a few year's time? Would she think I just forgot about her and abandoned her? Would she come to hate me for never returning?
As a multitude of what-ifs hammered my mind from every angle, they broke my heart just that little bit more. It was just another straw on the back of a broken camel. Another thing I had to carry when it felt like I couldn’t carry anymore.
Something in my face must have been shown to the woman in front of me despite my best attempts to keep it neutral.
She looked deeply into my eyes, in a way that felt like she was staring into my soul.
“So you’re the elf then,” she said calmly. She didn’t phrase it as a question, instead, it was more a statement of obvious fact.
I just nodded.
“I’ve heard a lot about you, I’ll be honest I was somewhat interested in fighting you. Even just getting a chance to spar with you would’ve been nice. But Lurks had you under tight lock and key. You weren’t allowed to leave your block for anything other than fighting in here, and I’m not allowed to leave my quarters for anything other than this either. Although a big difference is that I actually enjoy what I do here.”
I didn’t have anything to say to her. So I didn’t say anything at all, just allowed her to keep talking.
“I wanted to also give you my thanks, for a while there the food quality increased tremendously thanks to you, from what I heard anyway. You were producing like, some fruits and stuff? Anyway, it was pretty good. Made eating actually an enjoyable endeavor for the first time in a long while. Since before I was sent here.”
I just nodded slightly.
Her face softened so minutely that I wouldn’t have even noticed if I wasn’t so hypervigilant about every move she was making, trying to discern any possible knowledge I could from how she held herself.
“I think we both know why we’re here though. There’s no point in watering it down. This is the end of the line for you, I guess Lurks got bored with you or something. I heard about your escape attempt, which probably didn’t endear you to many people. Although I heard you got closer than anyone else has. If Lurks and Larks weren’t here you probably would have gotten away. But that’s kind of why they keep them around in the first place. To pick out on anyone that might attempt to do something like this in the first place. They’re why no one has ever escaped, and part of why I don’t bother to try. That and the fact that I get treated significantly better than anyone else here who’s a slave.”
She let out a long sigh, “Listen… if there’s anyone you want me to pass a message along to here or outside I’m willing to do that. I enjoy fighting and winning and killing people. But I’m not cruel, I don’t enjoy the pain it causes other people. I just enjoy the contest, the rush of the fight. That kind of thing. So, as a final mercy, I’ll pass along any final words you might have to them. Or just at least let them know what happened so you don’t have to worry about them wondering.”
I looked at her for a long moment. I truly looked at her, taking her in. Her tone, the way she blinked, the way she shifted her posture ever so slightly. She didn’t once look away from me, her voice never wavered and she didn’t once stutter or stumble on a word. She was never unsure of what she wanted to say.
She had done this before. I wasn’t sure if she was actually planning to follow through with it or if she was just saying this to put my mind at ease. But it worked to an extent.
I nodded.
I opened and closed my mouth several times trying to find my voice and get the words out.
I was so…
Just… so damn frustrated.
“I…” I coughed and took a shaky breath, struggling to hold on to my emotions, “ … guess the only people you’d be able to get ahold of… would be the Earth Raiders along with the Silver Maidens. They are both adventurer parties that operate mainly out of Seltas near Vinwood and the capital. My family… isn’t from here, there’s no way to even get in touch with them so there’s nothing to do from there. They’ll just… have to never know, I guess.”
That sent another spike of near-physical pain through my heart. The thought of my parents just never knowing. Waiting and waiting and waiting. For someone who would never come home.
She just nodded, what made it tolerable to even keep talking to her was that her face wasn’t even sympathetic. She wasn’t pitying me like anyone else might have. She stared straight at me, knowing she was going to kill me.
“Outside of them, I guess Jolene? From my cell block. She was nice, there are a couple of other people from there as well, but Jolene can let them know I guess.”
She just nodded as I spoke, waiting patiently until I finished.
“Alright, I can do that for you.”
“Thanks…” I whispered.
“It looks like our combatants have finished their dialogue!” The announcer's blaring voice interjected itself, preventing us from delaying any longer with conversation.
Firebird’s posture shifted ever so slightly as she prepared herself, I could feel the temperature around her shift ever so slightly in accordance with her likely association with the element of fire.
I summoned my wooden armor around myself. It looked vastly different than it had before. Each level and tier I gained had increased the complexity and completeness of its design. Initially, it had barely been more than a hunk of bark that I could wear like something approximating armor.
Going up through levels had improved that design. Increasing tiers had improved its intricacy and complexity.
Now, it looked like a proper set of armor. The wood was smooth, with no errant strips of bark standing out in awkward places giving it an unfinished appearance. It reflected light subtly, almost like it was polished.
Patterned all over the armor were flowing and intricate lines that were a subtle royal green that glowed lightly the same hue as my nature magic tended to take. There was no mistaking this for mundane armor, plain armor. This was a complete set, one that would block attacks that landed on it barring overwhelming force.
It gave me a feeling of confidence I hadn’t quite felt before.
I turned on my two passive skills to enhance my stats and allowed the one hybrid one that I had to start up in preparation for the fight.
Wind and lightning violently erupted off my form, initially the skill had been more like sparks. Occasionally an errant bolt would streak out and strike the ground, doing barely anything other than being visible.
Now it was like I was the center of my own miniature thunderstorm, without the rain. Winds whipped around me and lightning lanced out in regular patterns connecting to the ground and leaving small black scorches on the rocks.
I found that I could control the level of effect it had on the world around me and found that it was set to the maximum. I left it, if I had a chance of surviving past the next five minutes, it would be good to know that I could control it.
As it was now, it wouldn’t matter.
I looked up above me at the roof, standing here was one of the few places I could see the grass above me. I panned my vision upwards with one of my minds to do that now. I looked out across the expanse. In the far distance, I could see the city of Verdanst, but for the most part, it was just open plains.
I took a moment to appreciate the view, it was likely the last time I would ever get to see it after all.
I then brought my attention back down and took a combative stance, sword, and dagger both at the ready to either block or attack, whichever I needed at the moment.
And then I waited.
“Thank you for your patience watchers, now hold onto your seats! The big finale to our fights will now… BEGIN!”
Heat exploded out from around Firebird, or rather, she exploded into flames. The ground around her started heating up as she started walking towards me.
I instantly fired off a few [Web of Lightning] shots toward her, focusing the splinters of lightning to focus on her like a spray of pellets. They almost immediately covered the distance between us. If I had been in her shoes I doubt that I would have been able to move fast enough to block the attacks if I hadn’t known explicitly that they were coming at me.
Unfortunately, she was a much better fighter than me. She swung her sword casually through the air and caught all three bolts of lightning on her blade, knocking them away from her body and into the floor, the rest she dodged with ease. I wasn’t sure that you were supposed to be able to deflect lightning, but she managed to do it.
More than likely a skill that she had access to.
Firebird exploded forward with a burst of speed and flames. The temperature increased to being almost unbearably hot. I only barely managed to snap my sword up in time to block the attack. Despite actually blocking the attack I was knocked backwards from the force of the blow.
She didn’t give me even a moment to rest though, quickly she followed after me with another swing that I blocked again. I stood, supporting my weight more than should’ve been necessary and this time I wasn’t blown backwards from the force of the blow.
I retaliated, swinging at her with my sword cutting through the air at speeds I still wasn’t fully used to after my ascension. She casually caught my attack on her blade and we entered a heated exchange, flames and lightning exploding over the entire arena as we twirled around each other.
Our speed allowed us to cover the distance from one side of the arena to the other extremely quickly. A lot of it was me trying to put distance in between us to get out of her aura of heat that was starting to get to be painful.
It made it harder to see, recover, and breathe. She knew that and was capitalizing on it. I started placing [Storm Points] around the arena as we fought in different areas. I slowly laid a map all around. I also tried to put up a couple of plants to get a view of the surrounding area.
The lilies I initially tried to place shriveled up and died pretty quickly. The mind that handled creating those instantly switched to cacti instead, which handled the absurd heat much better, but still not well enough to fully last out the heat.
I just left that mind on that part of my abilities, constantly refreshing plants whenever we got too close to them and they wilted under the heat.
In a fit of frustration, I spammed out multiple abilities. Creating tendrils I had them fire several [Web of Lightning] shots at her along with some [Storm Explosion] shots that I detonated before she could deflect them catching her in the explosion radius.
The explosions didn’t stun her, but they did make her halt her movements to avoid running into a potential trap. I had wanted her to stop though.
I slammed all ten [Nature’s Ramparts] down around her, fully trapping her in, and teleported with [Ride the Lightning] to one of the splinters of the lightning shots I had fired into the opposite corner of the room.
She stood within the soft green glowing barriers and turned to look at me.
“You’re strong for a tier three,” she said simply.
I shrugged, “I wasn’t given much of a choice.”
I then activated several of the [Storm Points] in the closed portion she was standing in, trying to catch her by surprise. She smoothly lifted the one leg that was in the line of the electricity to avoid getting shocked.
I hadn’t managed to land a single attack on her yet. At least not one that actually did anything.
She detonated with nuclear force, shattering all the barriers hemming her in and once again closing the distance between us. I quickly swung out with my dagger to block her attack and fired [Web of Lightning] at her from behind.
Her blade connected with my dagger.
And then proceeded straight through it, melting the metal down into slag. Her blade continued straight for my neck. I panicked and immediately activated [Dodge] my perception slowing everything to a crawl and I finally got a glimpse of Firebird's sword in motion properly.
Even now the blade was still blurred in my perceptions. I had given myself extra time, but I was still cutting it close.
Using my increased capabilities I jumped to the [Web of Lightning] quickly closing in behind her and started working on creating a dagger to use out of my wooden prosthetic.
I swung into her back just as [Dodge] wore off and activated [Lightning Stream]. Firebird almost seemed to skip through time and was instantly facing toward me instead of away from me. Our blades flashed with blinding speed.
I attacked with the most ferocity, strength, and speed I could possibly muster.
Firebird calmly met and blocked each of my attacks with minimal effort. Almost like she was putting on a show.
No… that’s exactly what she was doing.
The realization set in. The only reason this fight hadn’t ended yet was because she was trying to push me to my limit, giving the people watching something to be entertained by.
It frustrated me. But I also understood why she was doing it, it was what she was expected to do, and if she didn’t they would wonder what was wrong.
I understood, but I didn’t like it.
I deactivated [Lightning Stream] as it was slowly starting to take a toll on my mana reserves. My attacks slowed but kept up with a degree of precision and fluidity as [LBG] started to take more and more effect as I dispersed lightning mana into the air around us.
The air slowly started to become electrically charged, but was having to fight against the heated aura Firebird was putting out.
But my skills were fighting it. I was starting to block her attacks with more precision, pushing them off to the side. Each time I redirected one of her attacks it got slightly easier.
Firebird's eyes widened slightly as she picked up on what was happening and her speed increased. She started placing more and more attacks against me, in more and more awkward areas that were harder to stop and redirect.
Her blade snapped through the air, her body skipping again making her attacks come out even faster than they would have normally.
But I redirected them anyway thanks to [LBG]. It took a majority of my minds to keep up with her and I could tell she was still holding back a lot. But I was pushing her further than she thought I would.
I started spewing out more attacks from different angles, tendrils sprouting up behind her to try and catch her unaware but she just flung her arm out and lances of fire blasted from her palm and intercepted any ranged attacks I sent against her.
Even [Bind] was useless, getting hit by one of her lances immediately turning it to ash.
I growled in frustration as she started pushing me back slowly into a corner. I tried to dart out but she hemmed me in slowly. Anytime I tried to create a tendril she immediately destroyed it.
She was trying to finish this.
Her eyes narrowed when she realized I caught on to her and she pushed harder. Attacks started coming more and more quickly. I couldn’t even activate [Lightning Stream] in a vain attempt to keep up with her because it was focused on offensive speed not defensive.
And if I stopped fighting defensively I would die.
She landed the first real attack on my leg. She cut through the armor like it was made of paper, carving deep into my leg and immediately cauterizing the wound with the obscene levels of heat coming off her sword.
She didn’t even slow down, instead, she sped up even more. More and more of her attacks kept slipping past my guard as I worked desperately to try and keep up with her and block her attacks. Anytime I tried to summon something behind her she did the time skip movement, where it looked like she was skipping frames in a video game, and would fire a lance of fire into whatever I summoned and destroy it before turning back to face me faster than I could react.
More and more of her attacks pierced through my armor and I was forced to spend mana on fixing the damage and repairing the armor.
Our blades exchanged blows at a ferocious pace, explosions of fire and lightning rattling the entire cage and the ground, dust and pebbles fell from the ceiling where they were shaken loose from the fighting.
We kept this pace where Firebird slowly overwhelmed me for what felt like an eternity.
For every five attacks I sent at her, she sent ten back at me. For every one wound I tried to land on her she placed three on me.
I was getting completely overwhelmed. I was outclassed, out-skilled, and out-leveled.
In a burst of that stuttering movement, her blade flashed cutting through my prosthetic arm and stabbing through my leg before she kicked me in the stomach sending me hurtling into the bars of the arena cage.
I slammed into it with so much force it shook the entire cage violently.
I felt several ribs break from the impact of her kick. I fell to the ground struggling to breathe, tears welling up in my eyes from the pain.
I barely even felt Firebird pushing me over with her foot to lay on my back.
I looked up at her, her fire aura gone as she looked down on me.
Her face was a mask, hiding whatever emotions she might be feeling.
“You fought well, Alex.”
I could barely think… but that was fine. I didn’t need to fight anymore. I had wanted to die anyway. I had even tried to kill myself before. I was given explicit consent to die this time, I didn’t need to fight anymore.
I panned my eyes up to the roof again. I smiled, I could still see the swaying grass on the surface. So close yet so far. If only I had a way to teleport I could easily escape.
Maybe if I had a skill that could reach the sky, I’d be able to jump to it and achieve my freedom, but I didn’t…
My eyes snapped open startling Firebird and she jumped back expecting some last-ditch attack.
When one didn’t come she straightened looking confused.
I just started laughing.
Silence covered the cavern outside of my laugh. And I laughed and laughed and laughed and laughed. I pushed myself to my feet slowly, healing the damage I had taken from Firebird.
I then slammed my fist into the bars of the cage, I punched it over and over and over again until my fist turned bloody.
I then picked up my sword and turned to look at Lurks.
And I pointed at her.
It was probably a stupid thing to do, I should just leave. But I needed her to know that her actions would have consequences.
“I hate you. I will kill you. If it’s the last thing I ever do, I will fucking kill you.” I spoke, every word laced with the cold, dark, seething hatred I felt for her.
I felt her tendrils coat my mind in an attempt to figure out what I was talking about. I didn’t give her a single moment to even try to figure out what I was talking about.
I roared out the name of my skill as I cast it,
“[STORM CALL!]”
Above me on the surface lightning erupted down from the sky covering the plains in the absolute destruction the skill caused.
And I jumped through the skill.
MasterEnvi :3 how many of you predicted that he would escape like this? I actually had this planned out from the beginning of this arc. At least the method of escape, not necessarily the nitty gritty of the circumstances surrounding it.
Lurks marched me down the stone pathway to my doom.
My minds were racing a mile a second as I was led closer to the arena. If I had been in control of my body I probably would have been hyperventilating. As it stood I had to settle for having a panic attack within the confines of my mind.
One that Lurks thoroughly enjoyed and luxuriated in.
I had essentially been handed a death sentence. Defeating people at the low to middle parts of tier three had been doable because there wasn’t such a massive gap in stats between tier two and tier three. However, the gap between tier three and tier four was significantly larger. And I had only just made it into tier three to start with, so I had no foundation to work with.
Assuming this champion was at the start of tier four as well, that left a minimum of 100 levels of difference for stats, not including the ascension stat bonus people receive.
That was… Potentially thousands of points of difference between us, and given the fact that they weren’t new to this position? It was more likely that they were a decent way into tier four. So that stat difference was only accentuated.
All in all, I was stuck in a pit with someone trying to push a rock on top of me.
And there was nothing that I could do about it. I couldn’t even try to run because Lurks personally walked me from place to place now just so I couldn’t do that. She had absolutely refused to take any chances with me trying to squeeze out of her grasp. That belief was only reaffirmed for her when she took note of my new classes.
If I’d been in the third tier at the time of my attempt to escape I probably would’ve succeeded. My stats were absurdly high and my skills were well-suited to tactical retreats. The only thing that would make it better is if I could fly.
My anxiety and fear slowly ratcheted up with each step we took towards the arena. It was an all-consuming, gnawing kind of fear. The one that made it hard to see and think straight. If there was one saving grace for Lurks taking control it was that she kept me walking in a straight orderly line so I wasn’t stumbling all over the place.
We eventually made it to the arena and she stood with me off to the side.
Lurks took to standing with me instead of leaving me in the waiting rooms, I assumed there was some proximity basis to her mind control. I wasn’t sure if it was just more powerful with closeness or if she just couldn’t control people from too far away, but she made sure to never let me stray too far from her reach, both physically and psychically.
The fights in front of us went by both agonizingly slowly and way too quickly for my liking. Some only lasted a few blows while others were long and drawn-out heated exchanges between the combatants.
More than a few ended with mutually assured destruction, one of which happened as a mage intentionally self-destructed after losing an arm and a leg. The warrior ran them through the heart and the mage grabbed the warrior, holding on with all their strength as they just… exploded, in a flaming ball of gore.
The warrior came through in slightly fewer pieces, but still very much dead.
It was a little unnerving how willing these people were to take part in these fights. I wasn’t sure how many, if any, were in a similar situation to myself. And I doubt I would ever figure that out either.
Not that I cared to though.
After a while, I realized that I would probably be the last fight of the day, until the next evening. The fights started at around the same time the night shift started and would carry through the whole shift of 12 hours or until they ran out of fighters. Whichever came first.
The fights were then determined by levels, they made an attempt to pair up fighters that were of a similar strength and category. They tried to pit mages against mages and such, but occasionally one of the cell block leaders would want a particular matchup or they would want to mete out a final punishment to a slave and so they would put them against someone they didn’t really have a chance of beating.
In a way, it was somewhat of an achievement that the only way they felt they’d be able to kill me, without doing it themselves, was to make me fight against the strongest fighter in the arena.
That just went to show that there wasn’t really anyone else in the arena who was as powerful as me. I wonder how many people they put up against me to do the same? How many people did I unwillingly take part in punishing?
I didn’t have any qualms about living when they had died, I didn’t have any moral or ethical dilemmas like ‘Was my life worth more than theirs’ sort of thing. If I didn’t kill them, someone else certainly would have. So getting myself killed to avoid taking too many lives was a non-factor in this situation.
But it still wasn’t a great feeling to come to the realization that I had unwittingly been someone's final punishment for screwing up or doing something that annoyed a cell block leader.
“Do you really have the time to spend your thoughts so idly?” Lurks asked, jarring me out of my introspection.
I couldn’t even turn to look at her, but my thoughts clued her into how I was feeling.
She laughed, it was a soft, infectious sound that would have wormed its way into my heart and made me smile in turn if it wasn’t associated with such a nightmarish person.
“You’re not quite as free to think as you believe yourself to be,” She said, correctly deciphering my thoughts and emotions. As she always did.
“But I will allow it in these moments as they are to be your last.”
As bad as it had been, I had finally achieved something of an equilibrium with myself. My sanity was… in tatters, and my independence was essentially gone as well. She had torn me apart to the point I no longer felt safe and secure outside of that cell she kept near her room.
She infected my mind to the point that it felt empty if she wasn’t constantly in contact with it.
I was, as she had once described it, domesticated.
The very thought infuriated me, but the anger quickly sputtered and died. That was another thing she had… trained, for lack of a better word, out of me. I didn’t hold on to anger regarding her for very long.
I let out another silent sigh in my mind as I focused on the fight in the arena again. It was two roguish individuals, flitting about the arena at high speeds, exchanging rapid blows. Before my ascension, I might’ve had a bit of trouble keeping track of them without the assistance from [OWN]. But now I could easily track them with my own eyes.
In fact, I was faster than the one that was slowly, but surely, losing the fight.
He sustained several more wounds as we watched before the faster one achieved a crippling wound on his leg, impairing his ability to move quickly, and almost explicitly ended the fight.
It didn’t take much longer for the fight itself to wrap up, ending with a quick stab to the throat and a twist just to make sure.
There were equal amounts of cheering and jeering as usual as the surviving combatant walked out of the arena on the opposite end after claiming a prize from their fallen opponent. A couple of laborers went in to grab the body and pull it out and take it… wherever they took the corpses of those killed in the fights.
I wasn’t sure I wanted to know what they did with the bodies.
The announcer stepped up in front of the crowd speaking loudly, his voice carrying easily to the corners of the cavern. More than likely a skill of some sort to make it easier to hear him.
“Alright! We’ve got something special for you today! A fight that we haven’t seen the likes of in a long time, something that’s really gonna get your blood pumping!” He spoke in that stereotypical announcer way.
An odd cadence to his words, clearly the result of a skill, in an attempt to pull people in and hook their attention on him. It worked annoyingly well I found, not that I really expected it to not work. Some part of me just wanted them to not be here, to not watch this fight.
“We have one of the fan-favorites brought back after a short rest away, now stronger than ever and ready to fight! I give you, the challenger you all know and love, with 49 fights and 49 wins! THE ELF!”
He flung his arm out in a gesture to me. Lurks unceremoniously handed my sword and dagger to me. And let me have control of my body again.
For a very brief moment, I entertained the idea of trying to make my break for it now, if I could just put enough distance between me and Lurks I could maybe get away.
She immediately crushed that notion by giving my mind a squeeze, a painful one. She wanted me to walk into my death on my own. She wanted me to willingly acknowledge I had no choice.
The worst part? I genuinely didn’t. Either she would cause me unimaginable pain and then make me walk in anyway, or I could forgo the pain and walk in on my own. So there was a choice, technically, neither of them was particularly great ones though.
I tried to keep tears from welling up in my eyes as I took a few stumbling steps towards the cage door, not fully used to walking on my own again yet. The door sat open in between a few soldiers looking at me with expressions I couldn’t really decipher right now. Their faces were hardly more than smudges in my eyes.
My focus and attention were fully dominated by the sight of the door leading inside. I turned back to look at Lurks and to glance around the cavern to see if, just maybe, this was all a sick joke. That maybe it wasn’t real, or that maybe I was dreaming.
Lurks’ smile only grew more malicious before gesturing for me to turn around and keep walking.
I slowly turned around and started to make my way into the cage. The sounds blended together into a dull roar in my ears. The cage door slammed shut behind me as I stepped inside rattling loudly causing me to jump slightly.
I came to a stop a few steps in waiting for the inevitability of my situation to take its course.
“I know what most of you are thinking! ‘But Flimsy, we know about him! He’s good but he’s not necessarily anything we haven’t seen from him before at this point! What makes this fight any different from the other ones?’ And I have an excellent answer for you!”
I’d never actually heard his name before. Although I doubted Flimsy was his real name and not just a moniker he was known by.
My minds was working overtime to deconstruct his words and posture in order to try and psychoanalyze him. Anything to potentially distract me from the here and now.
It wasn’t working very well.
“If I can have your attention one last time for the night, ladies and gentlemen! I’ll direct your attention to the other end! I will now reintroduce someone you know and love even more, someone who has very few reasons to fight anymore and even fewer opportunities to do so, they’ve had so many fights that we’ve stopped counting them! People supposedly stronger than them, they crushed. People weaker than them, they decimated! Everyone, please welcome back, the reigning champion of the Blood Pit Arena! FIREBIRD!”
If I had thought the crowd had been loud and obnoxious before they made sure that I thought that about them now. They were so loud the sound practically vibrated my eyeballs.
The door on the other side of the arena opened up and allowed a woman to step into the cage.
I immediately started scanning her with [Mana Sense], and her entire body exploded into a hue of different colors. Every piece of gear she wore was magical in some capacity. She was so blindingly bright I had to turn the skill back off and blink spots out of my eyes, which had never actually happened before.
I’d had to look away from some people and things, even the wall had been too bright to directly stare at for long, but they hadn’t ever directly impacted my vision this way before.
[Level 33⁴]
Well fuck. How the hell were they at such a high level? Are they even a slave? They were higher than David, hell they were nearly at the same level as Lurks.
My heart slowly started to sink. I’d held out some hope that potentially they’d be close enough in the gap that I might have a chance. Or maybe that Lurks had just been lying to me in the first place. But this really sent it home for me.
I was genuinely going to die here.
The woman before me held a single blade in her right hand. I wasn’t entirely sure what the blade was even made out of, because it wasn’t steel or iron. It was instead a smooth, soft red hue. The pommel and hilt were a pure white with a deep red gem set into the center of the crossguard. Extremely ornate. But it also had sufficient wear to let observers know that the blade wasn’t ceremonial. It had seen its fair share of battles and had consistently come out on the other side as the victor.
She was clad in lightweight leather armor that had a number of insignias and runes stitched into it. Some glowed and others didn’t. A soft fluttering white glow, almost akin to how a candle flame might waver in the wind.
The woman herself had a rugged appearance. Her face was scarred and her right eye was missing, either that or the eyepatch she wore was for show. It wouldn’t have been the most outlandish thing in the world, especially if she enjoyed handicapping herself for some inane reason.
While her face was marred from any potential elegance or femininity it might have had initially, she was not ugly or hideous to look at. Her face was impassive but carried an air of unerring confidence.
She would have been an exceptional beauty if she didn’t have so many wounds on her face, but at the same time, it seemed to bring her to a more human level. Her hair was the same strawberry-blonde that Pennie's hair was.
The thought of her sent a lance of painful nostalgia through my heart.
Would she ever find out? Would she even remember me in a few year's time? Would she think I just forgot about her and abandoned her? Would she come to hate me for never returning?
As a multitude of what-ifs hammered my mind from every angle, they broke my heart just that little bit more. It was just another straw on the back of a broken camel. Another thing I had to carry when it felt like I couldn’t carry anymore.
Something in my face must have been shown to the woman in front of me despite my best attempts to keep it neutral.
She looked deeply into my eyes, in a way that felt like she was staring into my soul.
“So you’re the elf then,” she said calmly. She didn’t phrase it as a question, instead, it was more a statement of obvious fact.
I just nodded.
“I’ve heard a lot about you, I’ll be honest I was somewhat interested in fighting you. Even just getting a chance to spar with you would’ve been nice. But Lurks had you under tight lock and key. You weren’t allowed to leave your block for anything other than fighting in here, and I’m not allowed to leave my quarters for anything other than this either. Although a big difference is that I actually enjoy what I do here.”
I didn’t have anything to say to her. So I didn’t say anything at all, just allowed her to keep talking.
“I wanted to also give you my thanks, for a while there the food quality increased tremendously thanks to you, from what I heard anyway. You were producing like, some fruits and stuff? Anyway, it was pretty good. Made eating actually an enjoyable endeavor for the first time in a long while. Since before I was sent here.”
I just nodded slightly.
Her face softened so minutely that I wouldn’t have even noticed if I wasn’t so hypervigilant about every move she was making, trying to discern any possible knowledge I could from how she held herself.
“I think we both know why we’re here though. There’s no point in watering it down. This is the end of the line for you, I guess Lurks got bored with you or something. I heard about your escape attempt, which probably didn’t endear you to many people. Although I heard you got closer than anyone else has. If Lurks and Larks weren’t here you probably would have gotten away. But that’s kind of why they keep them around in the first place. To pick out on anyone that might attempt to do something like this in the first place. They’re why no one has ever escaped, and part of why I don’t bother to try. That and the fact that I get treated significantly better than anyone else here who’s a slave.”
She let out a long sigh, “Listen… if there’s anyone you want me to pass a message along to here or outside I’m willing to do that. I enjoy fighting and winning and killing people. But I’m not cruel, I don’t enjoy the pain it causes other people. I just enjoy the contest, the rush of the fight. That kind of thing. So, as a final mercy, I’ll pass along any final words you might have to them. Or just at least let them know what happened so you don’t have to worry about them wondering.”
I looked at her for a long moment. I truly looked at her, taking her in. Her tone, the way she blinked, the way she shifted her posture ever so slightly. She didn’t once look away from me, her voice never wavered and she didn’t once stutter or stumble on a word. She was never unsure of what she wanted to say.
She had done this before. I wasn’t sure if she was actually planning to follow through with it or if she was just saying this to put my mind at ease. But it worked to an extent.
I nodded.
I opened and closed my mouth several times trying to find my voice and get the words out.
I was so…
Just… so damn frustrated.
“I…” I coughed and took a shaky breath, struggling to hold on to my emotions, “ … guess the only people you’d be able to get ahold of… would be the Earth Raiders along with the Silver Maidens. They are both adventurer parties that operate mainly out of Seltas near Vinwood and the capital. My family… isn’t from here, there’s no way to even get in touch with them so there’s nothing to do from there. They’ll just… have to never know, I guess.”
That sent another spike of near-physical pain through my heart. The thought of my parents just never knowing. Waiting and waiting and waiting. For someone who would never come home.
She just nodded, what made it tolerable to even keep talking to her was that her face wasn’t even sympathetic. She wasn’t pitying me like anyone else might have. She stared straight at me, knowing she was going to kill me.
“Outside of them, I guess Jolene? From my cell block. She was nice, there are a couple of other people from there as well, but Jolene can let them know I guess.”
She just nodded as I spoke, waiting patiently until I finished.
“Alright, I can do that for you.”
“Thanks…” I whispered.
“It looks like our combatants have finished their dialogue!” The announcer's blaring voice interjected itself, preventing us from delaying any longer with conversation.
Firebird’s posture shifted ever so slightly as she prepared herself, I could feel the temperature around her shift ever so slightly in accordance with her likely association with the element of fire.
I summoned my wooden armor around myself. It looked vastly different than it had before. Each level and tier I gained had increased the complexity and completeness of its design. Initially, it had barely been more than a hunk of bark that I could wear like something approximating armor.
Going up through levels had improved that design. Increasing tiers had improved its intricacy and complexity.
Now, it looked like a proper set of armor. The wood was smooth, with no errant strips of bark standing out in awkward places giving it an unfinished appearance. It reflected light subtly, almost like it was polished.
Patterned all over the armor were flowing and intricate lines that were a subtle royal green that glowed lightly the same hue as my nature magic tended to take. There was no mistaking this for mundane armor, plain armor. This was a complete set, one that would block attacks that landed on it barring overwhelming force.
It gave me a feeling of confidence I hadn’t quite felt before.
I turned on my two passive skills to enhance my stats and allowed the one hybrid one that I had to start up in preparation for the fight.
Wind and lightning violently erupted off my form, initially the skill had been more like sparks. Occasionally an errant bolt would streak out and strike the ground, doing barely anything other than being visible.
Now it was like I was the center of my own miniature thunderstorm, without the rain. Winds whipped around me and lightning lanced out in regular patterns connecting to the ground and leaving small black scorches on the rocks.
I found that I could control the level of effect it had on the world around me and found that it was set to the maximum. I left it, if I had a chance of surviving past the next five minutes, it would be good to know that I could control it.
As it was now, it wouldn’t matter.
I looked up above me at the roof, standing here was one of the few places I could see the grass above me. I panned my vision upwards with one of my minds to do that now. I looked out across the expanse. In the far distance, I could see the city of Verdanst, but for the most part, it was just open plains.
I took a moment to appreciate the view, it was likely the last time I would ever get to see it after all.
I then brought my attention back down and took a combative stance, sword, and dagger both at the ready to either block or attack, whichever I needed at the moment.
And then I waited.
“Thank you for your patience watchers, now hold onto your seats! The big finale to our fights will now… BEGIN!”
Heat exploded out from around Firebird, or rather, she exploded into flames. The ground around her started heating up as she started walking towards me.
I instantly fired off a few [Web of Lightning] shots toward her, focusing the splinters of lightning to focus on her like a spray of pellets. They almost immediately covered the distance between us. If I had been in her shoes I doubt that I would have been able to move fast enough to block the attacks if I hadn’t known explicitly that they were coming at me.
Unfortunately, she was a much better fighter than me. She swung her sword casually through the air and caught all three bolts of lightning on her blade, knocking them away from her body and into the floor, the rest she dodged with ease. I wasn’t sure that you were supposed to be able to deflect lightning, but she managed to do it.
More than likely a skill that she had access to.
Firebird exploded forward with a burst of speed and flames. The temperature increased to being almost unbearably hot. I only barely managed to snap my sword up in time to block the attack. Despite actually blocking the attack I was knocked backwards from the force of the blow.
She didn’t give me even a moment to rest though, quickly she followed after me with another swing that I blocked again. I stood, supporting my weight more than should’ve been necessary and this time I wasn’t blown backwards from the force of the blow.
I retaliated, swinging at her with my sword cutting through the air at speeds I still wasn’t fully used to after my ascension. She casually caught my attack on her blade and we entered a heated exchange, flames and lightning exploding over the entire arena as we twirled around each other.
Our speed allowed us to cover the distance from one side of the arena to the other extremely quickly. A lot of it was me trying to put distance in between us to get out of her aura of heat that was starting to get to be painful.
It made it harder to see, recover, and breathe. She knew that and was capitalizing on it. I started placing [Storm Points] around the arena as we fought in different areas. I slowly laid a map all around. I also tried to put up a couple of plants to get a view of the surrounding area.
The lilies I initially tried to place shriveled up and died pretty quickly. The mind that handled creating those instantly switched to cacti instead, which handled the absurd heat much better, but still not well enough to fully last out the heat.
I just left that mind on that part of my abilities, constantly refreshing plants whenever we got too close to them and they wilted under the heat.
In a fit of frustration, I spammed out multiple abilities. Creating tendrils I had them fire several [Web of Lightning] shots at her along with some [Storm Explosion] shots that I detonated before she could deflect them catching her in the explosion radius.
The explosions didn’t stun her, but they did make her halt her movements to avoid running into a potential trap. I had wanted her to stop though.
I slammed all ten [Nature’s Ramparts] down around her, fully trapping her in, and teleported with [Ride the Lightning] to one of the splinters of the lightning shots I had fired into the opposite corner of the room.
She stood within the soft green glowing barriers and turned to look at me.
“You’re strong for a tier three,” she said simply.
I shrugged, “I wasn’t given much of a choice.”
I then activated several of the [Storm Points] in the closed portion she was standing in, trying to catch her by surprise. She smoothly lifted the one leg that was in the line of the electricity to avoid getting shocked.
I hadn’t managed to land a single attack on her yet. At least not one that actually did anything.
She detonated with nuclear force, shattering all the barriers hemming her in and once again closing the distance between us. I quickly swung out with my dagger to block her attack and fired [Web of Lightning] at her from behind.
Her blade connected with my dagger.
And then proceeded straight through it, melting the metal down into slag. Her blade continued straight for my neck. I panicked and immediately activated [Dodge] my perception slowing everything to a crawl and I finally got a glimpse of Firebird's sword in motion properly.
Even now the blade was still blurred in my perceptions. I had given myself extra time, but I was still cutting it close.
Using my increased capabilities I jumped to the [Web of Lightning] quickly closing in behind her and started working on creating a dagger to use out of my wooden prosthetic.
I swung into her back just as [Dodge] wore off and activated [Lightning Stream]. Firebird almost seemed to skip through time and was instantly facing toward me instead of away from me. Our blades flashed with blinding speed.
I attacked with the most ferocity, strength, and speed I could possibly muster.
Firebird calmly met and blocked each of my attacks with minimal effort. Almost like she was putting on a show.
No… that’s exactly what she was doing.
The realization set in. The only reason this fight hadn’t ended yet was because she was trying to push me to my limit, giving the people watching something to be entertained by.
It frustrated me. But I also understood why she was doing it, it was what she was expected to do, and if she didn’t they would wonder what was wrong.
I understood, but I didn’t like it.
I deactivated [Lightning Stream] as it was slowly starting to take a toll on my mana reserves. My attacks slowed but kept up with a degree of precision and fluidity as [LBG] started to take more and more effect as I dispersed lightning mana into the air around us.
The air slowly started to become electrically charged, but was having to fight against the heated aura Firebird was putting out.
But my skills were fighting it. I was starting to block her attacks with more precision, pushing them off to the side. Each time I redirected one of her attacks it got slightly easier.
Firebird's eyes widened slightly as she picked up on what was happening and her speed increased. She started placing more and more attacks against me, in more and more awkward areas that were harder to stop and redirect.
Her blade snapped through the air, her body skipping again making her attacks come out even faster than they would have normally.
But I redirected them anyway thanks to [LBG]. It took a majority of my minds to keep up with her and I could tell she was still holding back a lot. But I was pushing her further than she thought I would.
I started spewing out more attacks from different angles, tendrils sprouting up behind her to try and catch her unaware but she just flung her arm out and lances of fire blasted from her palm and intercepted any ranged attacks I sent against her.
Even [Bind] was useless, getting hit by one of her lances immediately turning it to ash.
I growled in frustration as she started pushing me back slowly into a corner. I tried to dart out but she hemmed me in slowly. Anytime I tried to create a tendril she immediately destroyed it.
She was trying to finish this.
Her eyes narrowed when she realized I caught on to her and she pushed harder. Attacks started coming more and more quickly. I couldn’t even activate [Lightning Stream] in a vain attempt to keep up with her because it was focused on offensive speed not defensive.
And if I stopped fighting defensively I would die.
She landed the first real attack on my leg. She cut through the armor like it was made of paper, carving deep into my leg and immediately cauterizing the wound with the obscene levels of heat coming off her sword.
She didn’t even slow down, instead, she sped up even more. More and more of her attacks kept slipping past my guard as I worked desperately to try and keep up with her and block her attacks. Anytime I tried to summon something behind her she did the time skip movement, where it looked like she was skipping frames in a video game, and would fire a lance of fire into whatever I summoned and destroy it before turning back to face me faster than I could react.
More and more of her attacks pierced through my armor and I was forced to spend mana on fixing the damage and repairing the armor.
Our blades exchanged blows at a ferocious pace, explosions of fire and lightning rattling the entire cage and the ground, dust and pebbles fell from the ceiling where they were shaken loose from the fighting.
We kept this pace where Firebird slowly overwhelmed me for what felt like an eternity.
For every five attacks I sent at her, she sent ten back at me. For every one wound I tried to land on her she placed three on me.
I was getting completely overwhelmed. I was outclassed, out-skilled, and out-leveled.
In a burst of that stuttering movement, her blade flashed cutting through my prosthetic arm and stabbing through my leg before she kicked me in the stomach sending me hurtling into the bars of the arena cage.
I slammed into it with so much force it shook the entire cage violently.
I felt several ribs break from the impact of her kick. I fell to the ground struggling to breathe, tears welling up in my eyes from the pain.
I barely even felt Firebird pushing me over with her foot to lay on my back.
I looked up at her, her fire aura gone as she looked down on me.
Her face was a mask, hiding whatever emotions she might be feeling.
“You fought well, Alex.”
I could barely think… but that was fine. I didn’t need to fight anymore. I had wanted to die anyway. I had even tried to kill myself before. I was given explicit consent to die this time, I didn’t need to fight anymore.
I panned my eyes up to the roof again. I smiled, I could still see the swaying grass on the surface. So close yet so far. If only I had a way to teleport I could easily escape.
Maybe if I had a skill that could reach the sky, I’d be able to jump to it and achieve my freedom, but I didn’t…
My eyes snapped open startling Firebird and she jumped back expecting some last-ditch attack.
When one didn’t come she straightened looking confused.
I just started laughing.
Silence covered the cavern outside of my laugh. And I laughed and laughed and laughed and laughed. I pushed myself to my feet slowly, healing the damage I had taken from Firebird.
I then slammed my fist into the bars of the cage, I punched it over and over and over again until my fist turned bloody.
I then picked up my sword and turned to look at Lurks.
And I pointed at her.
It was probably a stupid thing to do, I should just leave. But I needed her to know that her actions would have consequences.
“I hate you. I will kill you. If it’s the last thing I ever do, I will fucking kill you.” I spoke, every word laced with the cold, dark, seething hatred I felt for her.
I felt her tendrils coat my mind in an attempt to figure out what I was talking about. I didn’t give her a single moment to even try to figure out what I was talking about.
I roared out the name of my skill as I cast it,
“[STORM CALL!]”
Above me on the surface lightning erupted down from the sky covering the plains in the absolute destruction the skill caused.
And I jumped through the skill.
MasterEnvi :3 how many of you predicted that he would escape like this? I actually had this planned out from the beginning of this arc. At least the method of escape, not necessarily the nitty gritty of the circumstances surrounding it.
