Paragon of Skills

Chapter 235

High above the roaring crowd, in the suspended silence of the VIP box, the Headmaster leans forward slightly, his spectacles catching the sunlight as he observes the figure in azure robes down in the arena.

“I must admit, Queen Matriarch,” the Headmaster says, his tone light and conversational, though it carries easily over the noise of the stadium. “I have rarely seen one of The Sacrifices come out in public like this. To allow him such… theatricality? You must have really opened your mind.”

Beside him, Queen Matriarch Maelthra sits like a statue carved from obsidian and hate. She does not turn to look at the old man. She simply nods stiffly, a movement so rigid it looks painful.

She watches The Sacrifice comb his hair, watches the way he plays to the crowd, and a cold spike of irritation drives itself into her chest.

I should have been more specific, she thinks, her claws digging imperceptibly into the armrest of her chair. I should have just given him an order to finish everything early. And why would he even bother? Did the Minotaur hurt his pride? But a slave has no pride.

* * *

Horgak does not wait for the Academy official to walk between them and start the match to show off some more.

Horgak plants his greataxe into the stone and throws his head back with a roar.

Flames burst to life around him.

“Behold!” Horgak roars, his voice a thunderclap that drowns out the crowd.

The flames go from a normal color to a deep crimson, spiraling upward in a pillar of scorching heat. They coil up his massive frame in thick spirals.

Horgak is enveloped in an inferno that makes his muscles swell and pulsate.

"You were unlucky, pretty boy," Horgak says, looking at the puny man in front of him. "If you had just surrendered, I wouldn't have destroyed you. But you dare unsheathe your sword in front of me, Prince Horgak, and believe you can leave this arena unscathed?!"

The Academy official, a stern man with a magical barrier shimmering around him to withstand the Minotaur’s display, steps between the two and sighs.

He looks from the towering, burning mountain of a Minotaur to the slender, golden-haired youth who looks more like a scholar than a warrior.

“Combatants, ready!” the official exhales and raises his hands.

Horgak tenses, his muscles bulging as he rips his greataxe from the stone, the massive double-headed blade instantly wreathed in the summoned fire. He looks ready to cleave the world in two.

The Sacrifice merely shifts his weight, his pitch-black sword held loosely at his side.

Part of his senses, the sharpest and most dangerous part of his perception, stretches out like a fine thread through the chaotic noise of the arena. He bypasses the screams of the crowd, the crackle of the flames, and the thrumming of Horgak's aura. His focus anchors itself to a small, broken figure leaning over the railing in the stands.

The official brings his hand down like a guillotine.

“Begin, Horgak! Begin, The Sacrifice!”

The words boom through the stadium.

But they do not reach the blonde youth in that form.

In the silence of his own focus, filtered through the specific frequency he has tuned his world to, the official’s voice is overwritten.

He hears a cracked, excited voice screaming from the bottom of her lungs, filled with a belief he knows he doesn't deserve.

“Go, Baal!”

The Sacrifice smiles.

For a moment, he almost regrets that he has to die to kill Jacob Cloud.

Let's give her a show.

Horgak charges forward.

One can see on his face that below the bravado, from the absolute lack of openings, he's taking this fight seriously.

He's not a full-blown clown, then. It's an act, The Sacrifice thinks.

The stone beneath Horgak's hooves turns to molten slag.

“Burn!” Horgak screams, the sound tearing through the air.

The axe strikes.

The impact sends a shockwave of fire and pulverized debris slamming against the magical barriers protecting the stands. The wards ripple violently, glowing white-hot.

A mushroom cloud of dust and fire billows upward, obscuring the center of the arena in a chaotic storm of destruction.

The entire stadium shakes, the vibrations rattling the teeth of those in the front rows.

For a split second, there is a stunned silence, and then the crowd erupts into a frenzy of noise that rivals the explosion itself.

“Did you see that?!” a student screams, eyes bulging, gripping the railing until his knuckles turn white.

“That’s the most power we've witnessed so far! No contest!”

“He’s clearly Champion material! That pretty boy must be dead!”

The cheers are deafening, a wave of bloodlust and awe washing over the arena. In the eyes of the spectators, the match is already decided.

Yet, in the arena...

"Not too bad," a voice comes from the billowing smoke and a slender body moves with tremendous speed toward Horgak, who's immediately forced back by a slash of the black sword.

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The impact is heavy, jarring Horgak to his very bones. The Minotaur’s hooves screech against the stone floor, carving deep trenches as he is shoved ten, twenty feet back by a boy who weighs a tenth of him.

Horgak stabilizes himself, his chest heaving, his eyes wide with a mixture of shock and fury. He looks at his greataxe; the metal haft has a deep dent where the black sword struck.

Now, the Minotaur drops the facade and looks with narrowed eyes at The Sacrifice, clearly aware that he has a threat in front of him.

The crowd is stunned into silence and only the tapping of The Sacrifice steps moving toward Horgak can be heard.

"He... he pushed Horgak back?" someone whispers.

"With one slash?"

Horgak briefly gazes at his axe and then flexes his massive thighs before springing forward again.

"Purgatory."

The axe gets covered in an ocean of crimson flames and descends like a falling star toward The Sacrifice.

Time seems to dilate for the blonde youth. The roar of the fire, the screaming of the mana tearing through the atmosphere—it all fades into a dull hum.

Through the chaotic noise, his heightened senses pick out a single, discordant note.

“No, Baal!”

It is Cecilia. Her voice is ragged, terrified. He can hear the way her breath hitches, the frantic, erratic rhythm of her heart hammering against her ribs like a trapped bird. She thinks he is about to die.

A strange, sharp pang shoots through his chest. It is a sudden pain that leaves an ashen taste in his mouth.

What is happening?

It annoys him that her fear affects him.

Don't close your eyes, Cecilia, he thinks, a frown touching his lips. Watch.

The massive, burning blade of the greataxe fills his vision.

Clang.

The Sacrifice’s black sword meets the haft of the greataxe just below the blade, at the exact moment of Horgak’s wrist rotation.

With a flick of his wrist that looks almost insults in its casualness, The Sacrifice redirects the kinetic energy.

Horgak’s eyes bulge as his weapon is guided harmlessly past the youth’s shoulder, smashing into the arena floor with a cataclysmic boom that sends magma spraying outward. The Sacrifice doesn't even blink as a glob of molten stone hisses past his ear.

"Sloppy," The Sacrifice whispers.

Horgak roars, wrenching the axe free and spinning in a horizontal cleave meant to decapitate his opponent.

The Sacrifice ducks. The blade passes a hair's breadth above his messy blonde hair.

"Too wide."

The Sacrifice jumps up and snaps a kick into the Minotaur’s gigantic quad. Everyone expects Horgak to sneeze at it, but the giant Minotaur actually buckles and grits his teeth in pain.

"Who are you?"

The Minotaur Prince howls, scrambling back to regain his footing, his face a mask of confusion and rage. He swings again—a diagonal chop.

The Sacrifice parries.

Clang.

He strikes.

Slash.

A thin red line appears on Horgak’s forearm.

Horgak bellows and thrusts the pommel of his axe. The Sacrifice sways like a reed in the wind, the heavy metal passing through the space he occupied a millisecond ago.

Slash.

Another line, this time on the Minotaur’s thigh.

"He's pushing him back!" a student yells, his voice cracking with disbelief. "Look at him go! He's going to win!"

"That speed... that technique..." another whispers in awe. "Is he the next Champion? I've never seen anyone fight like that!"

There are several people in the crowd that seem to agree with such a sentiment.

Now that The Sacrifice is toying with Prince Horgak, even though the Minotaur seems to be going all-out, the spectators have turned to his side.

It is the first time for The Sacrifice to experience something like that. It's a weird feeling. Throughout his existence, he has been looked at with pity, with disgust, or with the hunger of a predator eyeing a piece of meat. He is used to silence, or to the jeers of those who are glad it isn't them down in the sand. But this... this vibration in the air, this sudden, heavy expectation of victory rather than death... it is foreign. Yet, he remains cold until he starts hearing...

"Champion!"

It starts with a single, cracked voice.

She pumps her fist into the air, screaming the word like a prayer.

"Champion!" she shrieks again, her voice breaking on the last syllable. "Baal is the next Champion!"

Then, a student in the row behind her—a first-year who had been watching the fight with wide eyes—stands up.

"Champion!" he yells.

"Champion!" another voice joins from the left.

"CHAMPION!"

It spreads like a contagion. The sheer absurdity of the situation—a nameless slave dismantling a Minotaur Prince with the elegance of a sword saint—has captivated them. The mob mentality suddenly flips.

The chant grows louder, stomping feet joining the rhythm until the entire arena vibrates with it.

“CHAM-PI-ON! CHAM-PI-ON! CHAM-PI-ON!”

Horgak, panting and bleeding from a dozen shallow cuts, looks around wildly. The crowd that was chanting his name just minutes ago has turned on him. The adoration he feeds on, the fear he commands—it has all been stolen by the slender figure standing calmly in front of him.

"Shut up!" Horgak roars at the stands, swinging his axe blindly at the air. "I am the Prince! I am the Champion! SHUT UP!"

But near the front row, a sneering, high-pitched voice cuts through the rising chant.

"Don't be ridiculous," a tall student with the crest of a noble house on his chest spits, looking down at the commotion. "Champion? That thing? It’s a Sacrifice." He says the word like it’s a slur. "He’s cattle. He’s a slave bred to feed the Infernals' war machine. Slaves can’t be Champions."

Cecilia, whose hands are white-knuckled on the railing, whips her head around. Her eyes are ablaze.

"He is not a slave!" she screams, her voice shrill and trembling with rage.

The noble blinks, taken aback by the sudden aggression from the cripple. "Excuse me? Do you know who—"

"I don't care!" Cecilia interrupts, tears stinging her eyes but refusing to fall. She points a shaking finger at the arena. "He is not cattle! He is a hero! He is a Champion!"

"He doesn't even have a name, girl," the noble scoffs.

"He does!" Cecilia shouts, her voice carrying clearly in The Sacrifice's ear, fueled by sheer, desperate conviction. "His name is Baal!"

Down in the arena, the world slows again.

The name reaches him.

Baal.

It isn't his name. It is a lie he constructed to give a dying girl hope. But hearing her scream it against the mockery of the world...

I'm bound to leave this world soon, but before I do, let me show you something.

The Sacrifice briefly closes his eyes, gathering his Mana. His grip on the blackdr sword tightens.

Horgak summons a sea of fire above the axe and slashes at him.

The Sacrifice steps onto the haft of the axe, balancing for a split second on the weapon itself.

"Get off!" Horgak screams, shaking the weapon.

The Sacrifice leaps. He twists in the air, his black sword spinning in a deadly arc.

Slash. Slash. Slash.

Three grievous wounds cut Horgak’s chest, forming a perfect triangle. The Minotaur stumbles back, blood misting the air, his eyes rolling back in the eyesockets.

The Sacrifice slowly sheathes his sword, making it disappear.

He looks around and his gaze lingers for the briefest moment on Cecilia. He barely raises the corners of his mouth before walking off.

Then, as soon as his face is hidden from Cecilia, he feels the burning gaze of Queen Maelthra on his back.

This is going to hurt. But she knows she she can't hurt me too much. I don't know what Jacob Cloud has been up to. But I won't make the mistake of underestimating him.

Maelthra will not make the mistake of breaking him, and what's some pain to him?

The Sacrifice exhales, still composed.

Nothing. Pain has always been nothing.