Paragon of Skills

Chapter 249

Years Prior

The boy was seven when they brought him his first real kill.

And in a nondescript room of dark stone there was an Infernal adult. That much was obvious from the crooked horns and the reddish-grey skin. His hands were bound behind his back with Mana-reinforced rope that the boy had seen before and had used on himself in training.

He was kneeling on the wet stone floor of the long room, and he was shaking.

The boy stood three paces away, barefoot, in a plain white robe they all wore. His blonde hair hung in his eyes because they hadn’t yet trimmed it. His hands were at his sides.

“This one stole rations from the army supply,” the instructor said from behind the boy. His voice was flat and bored. “He confessed. He did not resist.”

The boy looked at the man’s face. The man’s eyes were wet.

“What do you do?” the instructor asked.

The boy took a step forward.

He was small. The kneeling man’s head was higher than his. But the man was bound and trembling and the boy had been practicing on dummies since he could walk.

He placed his left palm on the man’s forehead. Gently. The way you’d check a child for fever. The man flinched at the touch and made a sound—not a word. Just a sound.

With his right hand, the boy struck the side of the throat. He had seen someone do it at the front before. But there, the cartilage would make the man suffocate slowly...

The boy did not find such a thing pleasing.

And so, he hit the side just below the jaw with his claws. He individuated the artery close to the surface and sent a ripple of sharp Mana through it.

For a second, the boy could tell that the man thought he would survive. The boy did not sport horns or any sign that he was particularly strong. Not many Infernals knew about how his kind was raised and trained.

And it wasn’t the first time he crossed paths with someone who would underestimate him.

The boy took a shallow breath as Mana left his fingers.

The man’s eyes went very wide.

Then the light left them.

It took less than two seconds. The body folded sideways and hit the wet stone with a dull, heavy sound. Blood pooled from the mouth and nose, dark and slow.

The boy let the bloodied hand rest by his side, with blood dripping rhythmically toward the floor, and stepped back.

“Clean,” the instructor said. He made a mark on his slate without looking at the body. “Again tomorrow. You hesitated before stepping forward. You’re not going to make a Sacrifice with that kind of hesitation.”

The boy nodded. He had not hesitated. He had been studying the man’s face. But correcting the instructor was not something that earned you anything.

He stood there for a moment after the instructor left. The body was still on the floor. The blood had stopped spreading. The room was quiet except for the faint drip of water from somewhere in the ceiling.

The boy touched his left side with his fingertips.

“How did I compare?” the boy asked.

The instructor paused at the door. He did not turn around.

“Best so far for a first timer.”

The boy processed that. Best so far meant there had been others before him. Others who had stood in this room, barefoot, in the same white robe, and done the same thing to a different man on the same wet floor.

Everyone does this, then.

The instructor’s footsteps faded down the corridor. The dripping continued. The body cooled.

The boy walked back to the sleeping hall alone.

***

The Present

Garros Blackmere is, quite possibly, the happiest person alive at the moment.

He has not stopped moving since Jacob stood up.

He is practically vibrating—bouncing on the balls of his feet, pivoting, swinging his sword in looping, pointless arcs that would have gotten him killed in actual combat but which express, with perfect accuracy, the absolute inability of his body to contain what is happening inside his chest.

“J—Jacob, did you see that? I mean, obviously you did it, so you saw it, but did you SEE it? When you grabbed him by the—and then the FIRE—”

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Jacob is walking through the clearing at a calm pace. The ash of what used to be Cassian Valemont still drifts in the air, catching the forest light.

The crumbled remains of monsterified students lie in shallow craters where his curses ate through the dark sludge and left nothing behind but inert flesh.

“—and the look on his face when your punches didn’t—when his punches didn’t do anything? His FACE—it was like—I wish I could describe it but you were the one doing it so —”

“Garros.”

“Yes?”

“Breathe.”

Garros inhales so hard his entire body lifts an inch off the ground. He exhales in a rush and immediately starts talking again.

“I just—I can’t believe the sword worked. I had no idea if it was going to work. My hands were shaking so bad I almost missed your chest entirely. What if I’d missed? What if the angle was wrong and the healing didn’t—”

“But it did,” Jacob smiles.

Something clearly changed Garros. The young man that had started the trial with him has transformed.

“BUT IT DID!” Garros shouts, pointing at Jacob with both hands, his sword waggling dangerously in his grip. “IT DID AND YOU’RE ALIVE AND I DIDN’T KILL YOU!”

Jacob looks at the boy dancing in circles around him and smiles.

“You were very brave, Garros.”

Garros stops mid-spin. His face goes through several expressions at once, settles on something between pride and the urgent need to cry, and then he resumes spinning.

“I’m going to throw up,” Garros announces cheerfully. “Not right now. But soon. Definitely soon. My stomach feels like it’s trying to leave through my throat.”

The tree line shifts.

Jacob feels them before he sees two auras, both enormous, approaching from the northeast.

Vyrrak steps into the clearing first. His massive frame parts the undergrowth. His Platinum armor is scratched and dented, and there is dried blood on his forearms.

Behind him, the Sacrifice glides through the same gap in the trees without disturbing a single branch.

Vyrrak stops. His eyes sweep the clearing: the ash, the craters, the crumbled remains, the scorch marks where fire consumed everything organic. His nostrils flare.

He looks at Jacob.

Jacob looks back.

“I heard the crowd,” Vyrrak says.

“It was loud,” Jacob agrees.

Vyrrak’s gaze drops to the white ash still drifting upward from where Cassian stood.

“Who?” Vyrrak asks.

“Cassian Valemont.”

“Your cousin.”

“Yeah.”

Vyrrak says nothing for a moment. Then he gives a single, slow nod.

“And these?” He gestures at the crumbled bodies.

“Monsterified students. The Dark Champions’ work. Cassian handed out those Dark Seeds on their behalf, I believe. I would guess he was the main one handing them out,” Jacob’s voice is calm, but something underneath it is not. “Have you met any more?”

“Several. We killed them all.”

Garros has stopped spinning. He stands off to the side, sword held awkwardly. His eyes dart between Vyrrak’s towering frame and the Sacrifice’s still, beautiful face.

The Sacrifice has not spoken.

Twelve paces to Jacob Cloud.

He stands at the edge of the clearing in his azure robes, immaculate despite the forest, and he is looking at the bodies.

The crumbled monsterified students, or at least what remains of them after the dark sludge has been burned or cursed away. The human shapes underneath the monsterified sludge are young. Some of them cannot be older than sixteen.

His golden eyes move from one body to the next with mechanical precision.

Children.

His gaze stops on the nearest body. The student’s face is still partially visible beneath the cracked, flaking sludge — a boy, maybe sixteen, his mouth frozen open in a scream that no longer has a voice behind it. The dark coating has peeled away from his cheeks and forehead, revealing the skin underneath.

Pale.

Normal...

Human.

The Sacrifice’s jaw tightens ever so slightly. It is the only movement on his face.

“Waste,” he says quietly.

Vyrrak glances at him.

The Sacrifice smooths his expression back to its usual painted warmth and turns away from the bodies.

Then, suddenly, a voice comes from everywhere.

“That will be sufficient,” the Headmaster says.

Every sound in the forest stops. The insects. The wind. Even the settling of ash seems to pause.

“The second phase of the tournament ends here. All competitors will return to the arena immediately. Scores have been tallied.”

Jacob looks up.

“First place,” the Headmaster continues, “goes to Jacob Cloud and Garros Blackmere.”

There’s a small pause.

“For the defeat of the highest-threat creatures encountered in this phase, and for their conduct under extraordinary circumstances.”

Garros makes a sound, or he tries to. He immediately starts choking.

“Details of the next stage will be provided shortly. Return to the arena.”

The voice fades. The forest resumes.

Garros is staring at Jacob with his mouth open, eyes wide enough that the white shows all the way around.

“First,” Garros whispers.

“First,” Jacob confirms.

“FIRST!”

The Sacrifice watches the boy scramble and shout.

He is still weak... but something changed.

The boy is laughing now, gripping Jacob’s arm and shaking it while Jacob stands there and lets him, smiling.

The Sacrifice heard the offer. His magic brought the exchanges that happened in this grove to him before Vyrrak and him reached the place.

He was offered power and he said no.

The Sacrifice does not smile.

But something behind his golden eyes, very far behind, shifts.

Interesting boy.

He combs the blonde lock back from his forehead with one hand. He has trimmed it yesterday after Cecilia told him they were growing too much. He had the girl help him... well, she told him she would help, but that almost made him go bald.

The Sacrifice almost smiles.

His left hand drifts to his side. Fingertips brushing the fabric of his robes, just below the ribs.

He does not notice he is doing it.