Chapter 371 (2/2)
Except the co thirty feet apart, weapons su, thin silver spear, while black iron gauntlets for fro?” Mayla asked, her voice barely a whisper
“Gauging each other,” Deacon muttered, his eyes wide behind his mask “At this level, a careless move could mean instant loss”
Aadaanback his ariso The air distorted around the spear, e wind-spear with the silver sliver at its center At the sa Aadaan and spinning protectively around hiauntlet melted away into dozens of small, black dots, whichhornets, they completely covered the spear, and when they broke apart an instant later, it was gone, and the wind around them had dissipated
“What just happened?” Brion asked breathlessly “I’ve never seen ic,” I answered, keeping my eyes on the battle “Decay type Erosion, probably wind-attribute” The others all looked at me with a mixture of surprise and curiosity “I—”
“Read about it in a book,” Linden, Brion, and Pascal all said in unison
We all laughed for a moment, but the stadium was so quiet, it sounded unnatural, and we quickly turned our attention back to the coiso had already sent the swarh the air toward Aadaan They didn’t even slow as they cut through his defensive cyclones like hot iron through parch There was a silver flash, and he was standing twenty feet away, his grin sharpening into a dangerous smirk
The crowd, silent since the first introduction of the retainers, finally woke up, and the arena exploded with the noise of cheering and shouting
“Wind Runner,” Yanick breathed “His signature regalia…”
The swared direction to follow Aadaan, but, in another flash of silver, he stood fifty feet away, behind Kagiso
But Kagiso hadn’t been just standing around sucking his thumb while Aadaan ran Instead, the Vritra-blooded ascender had been channelingout tendrils of earth mana all over the co, but—
Aadaan vanished in a flash as the sware column of stone laced with veins of black metal burst from the combat field There was a crack, and the coluround with a crash that I felt shake the bench beneathat the speed of wind, had slah force to break bones, but he didn’t even look stunned Instead, a condensed field of shi+ off the broken stu in a nova of pure force
The battlefield was momentarily hidden in a cloud of dust
“What the heck was that?” Linden asked, squinting as he tried to see through the brown cloud below
“Some kind of force redistribution spell,” Deacon answered, following the fight by holding his glasses up over his alia level”
A torrent of wind pushed the dust cloud out of the stadium In the few seconds we hadn’t been able to see as happening, the arena floor had becoiso’s little black motes Aadaan was stuck There was no way he could use Wind Runner to get around in such tight quarters
Kagiso was standing on top of the shattered stu places with Aadaan His red eye gleamed
It see pulled at the air mana all around us, everywhere I could sense the rush of it pouring down into the arena, bo the rabbedit hard, and my stomach fluttered I peeked at her froaze was on the arena, and her expression gave no sign that she was even thinking about holding my hands Linden elbowed ave ht about pulling my hand away, but…I realized that I didn’t want to It felt…nice Really weird, but coed to focus back on the fight, the battlefield was clear of the blackrush ofthe to spin around Aadaan Kagiso held out his bare hand, and the clawed gauntlet refor moment, both warriors wary and confident in a way I found difficult to understand
Then Aadaan grinned and pushed outith the gathering stor
The noise of the crowd ebbed and flowed as the fight stretched on, five asped, and shouted at one another as the pace of the fight continued to build, awed by every new spell cast or rune activated, jeering when one of the fighters got the upper hand only to have the tables turned a moment later by some unexpected reversal by their opponent
I’d never seen anything like it And I’d never had o of iso’s defensive capabilities—his power to erode his opponent’s mana and turn away even the most deadly attacks—outer use Wind Runner to flit around the arena, it was over
Kagiso closed the distance, sh Aadaan’s defensive wind barriers with those heavy gauntlets and crushi+ng hiiso looked to the high box for direction
The crohich had grown quiet again, sucked in a collective, hissing breath, and Mayla turned away, pressing her face to auntlets, and Aadaan rolled over and pushed hi to his sweat-soaked skin, and even fro
The crowd burst like a da the arena with ecstatic cheers Even Yanick ju hi with everyone else “Kagiso! Kagiso! Kagiso!”
I felt a o of my hand as she ju in a way I found kind of hypnotic “That was crazy!” she yelled over the cacophonous cheers
I leaned closer to speak without shouting “I know, they’re really on another level I—”
“Well fought,” the unseen announcer’s voice said, cutting through the audience’s exciteht to the prospects, Kagiso of Highblood Gwethe and Aadaan of Naiso!”
The two con and Scythes were, veiled beneath thick shadows, then left the co after him, his eyes downcast
“Ssanyu the Stone Eater and Bivrae of the Dead Three, return to the field and prepare yourselves”
Ssanyu entered the arena first He was tall with bulging e of his runed spine exposed, along with steel plates covering ed his shaved head
After Ssanyu reached the center, a greeninto a worotesque, twisted stance, like her bones were put together in the wrong shape As if to accentuate the grossness of her figure, the black robes she ere sheer and cut in places to reveal her ribs and spine, which stuck out of gray, sickly skin
She snarled at Ssanyu, revealing teeth filed down to points
Both coh box, then faced each other Vo around Bivrae’s inhu of the fight
“Wait, what’s he doing?” Mayla asked, standing and shi+elding her eyes fro…” I one down on one knee, his head lowered to stare at the ground under Bivrae’s clawed feet Her lips pulled back like an aniitated sort of way before being drawn back into her body
She turned to the high box, straightening as best as her twisted frame allowed
“Ssanyu the Stone Eater yields,” the voice said, it’s tone perfectly flat If the announcer was surprised, they hid it pretty well “Victory goes to Bivrae!”
There was so for Bivrae as there had been for Kagiso, but the adults around us kept their complaints and conversation quiet, and I knehy Below, Bivrae cast a challenging stare around at the audience, al anyone to voice their displeasure at the result loud enough for her to hear
After a few seconds, she stalked out of the arena to a s-believable,” Yanick said gruht That was stupid Is Kagiso just going to roll over and show Bivrae his belly, too?”
Deacon snorted “We’ll have to wait a bit to find out He’ll get a break to rest and recuperate, so we’ll see the battles to replace Dragoth’s retainer next”
Brion clapped Yanick on the back “Everyone knows Scythe Dragoth Vritra is the rabbed his stohed
But before anything else could be said, the announcer began speaking again “Twelve ed for the position of retainer of Vechor under Scythe Dragoth Vritra Sovereign Kiros Vritra welcoan listing off the challengers, all powerful ascenders or war heroes As each name was spoken, the prospect stepped onto the coh box As the last of the challengers stopped, the line bowed in unison
“Challengers Echeron and Lancel, please relanced at Linden, then at Mayla She looked as confused as I felt So
“Hey, what’s that?” Pascal asked, pointing into the air “Do you feel it?”
A black speck in the sky was quickly growing in size Otherto notice it now, and thousands of voices echoed Pascal’s question A few even conjured shi+elds, others shouting, leaving their seats, or channeling ic into runes in preparation to face what they obviously thought was a threat
For the umpteenth time since the Victoriad started, my breath was crushed from my chest by the sudden presence of a powerful aura
The prospects on the field scattered, activating their powers and preparing to defend themselves A jet black comet landed in the center of the arena an instant later with an explosion of dark energy then sent thes Tens of thousands of people screa now The entire audience see except watch
The arena beloas coh box, all four Scythes h they ht of theether at once like that—ht pass out
Mayla’s hand on ht me back to myself I put my own hand over hers and squeezed
A nova of black fla a slender man—a boy, really, not so much older than most of us—with short black hair and sharp features, ale in his eyes…
He stepped up out of the crater he hadthe coliseuround with every step, and dark flaic—so iso’s—filled me with dread
Scythe Viessa Vritra spoke first, her voice carrying effortlessly through the dead-silent stands “Nico Explain yourself! What in the High Sovereign’s name do you think—”
“Grey!” the newcomer—Scythe Nico Vritra of the central do “I know you’re here! I accept your challenge, you bastard! So face me!”
Mayla’s eyes ide as dinner plates, her lips tre “Did h-he—”
“Grey?” Linden choked out “Like…Professor Grey?”
My mind raced as every wild theory about the professor’s weird h it, scattered like leaves on the wind I’d thought my classmates were completely nuts, the way they’d come up with more and more unlikely explanations for e’d seen But this…
Who was Professor Grey, really?
Scythe Dragoth Vritra smirked down at the other Scythe “You’re out of line, little Nico This isn’t hoe—” His head suddenly snapped to one of thedown into an angry frown
So toward Scythe Nico A man in a fur-lined white cloak and Central Acade aura, golden eyes shi+ning from behind his mask He walked with such confidence and purpose, hislike a sickness fro in my brain wouldn’t quite accept that this could be the same person I kneho I had first met in the library before the season started, who had spent soa thin, weak, sickly kid into a half-decent fighter, despite looking atrumpy, mysterious, emotionally distant Melee Enhance Scythe Nico on the field of battle as if he weren’t stepping toward death itself? I couldn’t make sense of it
But it was him
Even the other Scythes didn’t intervene further as Professor Grey and Scythe Nico came to stand nearly toe to toe
“Nico,” Professor Grey said with a se, old friend”