The Fourth Gate: Chapter Eighteen

“Welcome, one and all, to the next round of the spellbinder division of the Elysian Mastery Tournament. Today, the sixteen greatest fighters of the upcoming generation will compete for the top eight.” 

Our short bit of training after Dusk’s event had flown by, but having told me she needed to tell me something, she at least seemed more relaxed. She’d also apparently spoken to Meadow about it, which had likely helped. But, our preparations were done, and it was time for what might have been in the top three most important fights of my life. 

The River Lord, Patriarch of the Silent River Sect, floated over the crowd, his voice rolling out with a degree of seriousness that was even firmer than the previous round. The crowd seemed to eat it up, however, going even more wild by contrast. 

“Unlike in previous rounds, these matches will be the best two out of three. Simple mana restoration potions will be provided between each match, alongside the services of a third realm healer and a fifteen minute respite. The services of The Healer will only be provided after the victor is decided. Plan accordingly.”

I bit my lip and swallowed thickly, running my mind over the contingencies I had. One soul mana infused Arcanist-grade firebomb, with two more normal overcharged firebombs. Three overcharged acid bombs. And, of course, my three Occultist-grade disintegration arrows. Within me, Hannah and Arthur burned. Hannah wasn’t a huge fan of fighting, but this was a duel, not a real fight, and it fit well enough with her theme of wishing she’d experience more before she died. Arthur was simpler, ready to help protect me. 

“Without further adieu, our first match.” 

Overhead, the dome began to shift, until Ivy’s image appeared. It played the footage of him obliterating someone last round with a single strike. A moment later, the woman with dark-tinted desolation magic and powerful barrier-based abnegation magic appeared, and the images of the moth person and her battle began to play. Both of them vanished from the box, and appeared on the field. I braced myself for a single blast elimination. After all, her Dreamcloak would be useful in many ways, but stopping Ivy wasn’t one of them. 

I was proven wrong, at least in part. The instant the spells around them faded, and the match began, she slammed her hands together, and a tiny blue light appeared in front of Ivy. She fell to her knees, clearly exhausted, while he looked confused. Confused or not, he’d already gathered power for his dragon’s breath, and it tore through the space with the ferocity I’d come to expect from one of his blows. I knew even with the adaptations my Fungal Armor had made to forest dragon spells, I wouldn’t be able to take the hit.

The tiny blue light apparently could. The streaming amber light vanished, and the spark turned from blue to the same color. The woman was on her feet again, and she raised her left hand, a beam of black lightning poured out of it. Ivy swept to the side, dodging it, only for the blue-gold mote to land on the woman’s hand. She tilted it, then flicked it up her sleeve. In the midst of the fight, I didn’t think Ivy noticed, already unleashing another breath. The woman dodged, retaliating with a spray of acidic needles, and they continued to trade blows. It was clear that Ivy was barely trying, just letting her wear down her mana for the kill, and so when she used a series of lightning, acid, and flame bolts to forcing Ivy to the left, he didn’t pick up on the fact that he had landed right where her other hand was pointing. 

Ivy’s own spell erupted from up her sleeve, the blue magic added into the gold, making it even more potent. Some sort of delayed spell reflection? That had to be a major trump card for her. But it was worth it, as Ivy vanished the instant the beam struck him. 

I raised an eyebrow and sat back, expecting to need to wait, but to my surprise, after about three minutes, the dome began to swirl again. I supposed that it made some sense to stage fights like that. Few enough people would fight for fifteen minutes straight without a decisive victory, if there was nothing to see the crowd would get bored, and if each match took fifty minutes we’d be here for ages. 

Kiran appeared on the board overhead accompanied by the images of him taking out Kamal, and then of him wielding thorny whips of blood in the prior round. Across from him, the image of a white haired man with a long dragon’s tail appeared, tearing through competitors with blows that landed like avalanches. When the commenter mentioned his name, I realized it was Aput – a dragon I’d met before. He had battled Kamal to a standstill, and had been stuck in dragon form last I’d met. 

The pair appeared on the battlefield, and Kiran thrust his hand out. He shouted something, probably naming Aputharax, but instead of blood magic, symbols appeared around the arena. A ward was being created, utilizing the shape of the arena and its dome. My eyes widened as I realized that, while the power was coming from Kiran, the structure had mostly come from the existing arena wards – he’d hacked into them to create his own magic running off their infrastructure. They clicked into place, and the light that had been building around Aput vanished, one of the runes popping and fizzling. Aput had likely been working up for a snowstorm, but this ward prevented the casting of that spell. He opened his mouth for a dragon’s breath, only for another sigil to fizzle. Kiran was moving now, lashes of blood lancing through the man’s side, and Aput’s blood spurted. Kiran seized control of the dragon’s blood and incanted again, then brought his hand down like a hammer blow. It was some sort of will or mind effect, because Aput’s body was fine, but his eyes rolled back and he vanished. 

“The judges will need a moment to deliberate on the use of the arena’s own wards,” the patriarch announced. “In the meantime!” 

He pointed upward, and this time it was Corra’s face and my own that appeared. The shepherd’s power enveloped me, and I appeared on the grass. Across from me, Corra appeared, and I could immediately feel and see the difference radiating off of her. She’d left her labcoat behind, but had leg straps now. They weren’t the sort for fashion, but instead, were covered in spikes of metal. Each spike was covered in spellforms, and all of them glowed with peak fourth gate or false Arcanist levels of power. She had on a necklace with a mineral that looked like cat’s eye, and had three beads on it, each one glowing with abnegation mana. Her gun was already in hand, and there were more cartridges on her belt. It felt like she’d loaded a sunmetal round into it. Finally, there was a thin chain shirt over her chest, nullsteel, and clearly enchanted to the level of a false Arcanist.

Her spirit was far, far stronger than it had been before. She’d felt dangerous before, but lightly so. Now, my winds of resolve were whispering that she might be able to kill us. She’d gotten ten years, same as I, but she’d had a perfect match in mineral magic and enchanting. But the biggest difference was in her arm. It had always been impressive, but there was something new within it, and as soon as I saw what it was, my heart sank. Crystal mana, cut into a teardrop shape, had been integrated around the shoulder socket region. 

Her simply having that particular item from the vault was problem enough. In its raw state, it was capable of absorbing a single fatal attack of eighth gate or below. That would have meant that one of my three arrows was countered. But she’d changed it. In her integration with the arm, she’d etched tiny enchantments all over its surface. There were multiple functions, and I couldn’t tell exactly what all of them did. Perhaps they gave her multiple uses to block an arrow. There was one function, however, that was as clear as good glass. A bubble shield of magic, completely invisible, but present nevertheless, was flowing out from her arm in a steady wave. 

I licked my lips nervously and eyed her, slowly starting to cycle Mantle Dragonfyre. 

“We don’t have to do this,” I said. “I can help you escape from One.” 

“What do you think I’m fighting in this competition for?” she asked, a sardonic smile playing on her lips. 

“Begin!” the Patriarch barked, and chaos erupted. Wait, no. It wasn’t true chaos, but rather, sensory chaos. One of the cat’s eye beads on her necklace had dissolved to dust as she’d detonated the mineral, producing an outsized effect. I threw myself back as Corra was already in the air above me, firing down. The bullet missed, but the sunsteel exploded, erupting into a ball of fire. I was forced to conjure my Fungal Armor, and was grateful for my enhanced telluric resistance as I teleported slightly to the side. My control was hampered by the cat’s eye detonation, though, and Corra was in front of me. 

Her metal arm was crackling with lightning, and she had one of the metallic spikes in her hand as she threw a punch at my face. I dodged easily enough and slammed an overcharged ball of Foxfyre into the shield with a tiny pulse of soul mana, hoping that it was only a barrier of forged mana. If it was, then I'd have a relatively easy way to bypass it. To my disappointment, though not my surprise, the flames simply washed over the shield, dealing minimal damage.

Corra's hand twisted and I dodged again, but when I tried to teleport and gain distance, I realized that she’d thrown the spike into the earth, and it was projecting a teleportation ward. Between the sensory chaos and the ward, I wasn’t able to teleport in time to stop her next fist from landing on my armor. At the same time, Corra wasn’t able to stop Dusk’s magic, which flared up around her, giant hands of earth grabbing Corra’s legs and locking her in place, while the snowglobe spell created freezing slowness around Corra. 

As I was flung back in the air, my mind was whirring. She’d put ten years of training into Enhance Mineral, and mineral detonations were always extremely strong, which doubtless meant I couldn’t overcome the effects in a contest of raw power. The bubble shield around her would be hard to break through, and I didn’t want to waste an arrow on something like that wouldn’t even net me the win. 

As I landed, outside of the range of the teleportation ward, I activated my Ghostmind, and let Arthur take over my armor, his dominion serving to further empower it, while I handed Hannah the tools to something else. That freed me up to concentrate on cycling my mantle dragon’s breath faster, as well as to pour soul mana into the spellto power it up. 

Corra shot suppressing fire at me with one hand, while tearing through Dusk’s spells with the other, but I was able to push through the cat’s eye resistance enough to teleport left, then right, dodging the fire. Then, I used Spriggan Step and exploded forward, cutting the distance down with a Foxstep. I thrust my hand out and unleashed the soul mana infused Mantle Dragonfyre, which impacted the shield. It shook, and became visible for an instant, cracks running through the surface. I swore under my breath. If a three-cycle, soul mana infused dragon’s breath couldn’t crack that thing, I wasn’t sure what could. 

I felt a tug on my mana as a spear materialized over my shoulder with four boneshards. All of them impacted into the bubble shield, and the attacks widened, growing even larger. Dusk’s hands of earth pounded against it. One of the cracks caved in, and I summoned an arrow to my hand. 

Then Corra raised her hand, and even through the distortion, I could feel how she’d poured power into functions in her arm. Her fingers folded back, transforming the arm into the mouth of a mana canon, and a lance of force so thick it was nearly solid exploded through the air. I teleported away the best I could through the chaos, leaving a Material Echo, and kept reforming it, using my Mold Aura to make it feel like I was just there, toughing it out. As I landed in a crouch and let my Material Echo fade, I reached for one of my last remaining trump cards.