The Lone Wanderer

Chapter 641 – First opponent (1)

The first match of Kassorith’s group was held between the man with the mossy beard and a female Ollorian.

Since the Aflegian was one of the rare few participants from a weaker world to have made it to the second round, Percy wasn’t surprised by his skill. Wielding a lava affinity augmented with the same blessing of heat that Gabe had, he was a balanced fighter capable of smoothly switching between scorching attacks and rock-solid defences.

Each spell he cast left rippling veins of molten blue across the arena floor, the air above them warping as if the dense liquid itself was breathing. Even from the side of the battlefield, Percy could feel the faint prickle of heat brushing against his host’s scales.

The moss-bearded mage appeared to possess some kind of speed-enhancing bloodline that made up for the relatively lower mobility of his mana types, allowing him to manoeuvre across the arena like a predator and unleash his spells on his opponent from every direction. His boots barely seemed to touch the ground; one moment he stood at the edge of the lava pool, the next he blurred to the side, reappearing in a spray of sparks and magma.

Had he participated in the regional tournament on Thess’kala, the Aflegian would have probably beaten everyone with ease, including Kassorith and Percy who had been far weaker at the time. To Percy’s growing horror, however, the green-haired man found himself at a severe disadvantage against the disfigured woman from the very start of the fight.

While her malformed left leg with a seemingly stiff knee would normally impair a person’s mobility, the Ollorian shouldn’t have much trouble moving around by relying on her mana and willpower. Only, she clearly didn’t feel the need to bother with chasing her opponent. She stood rooted in place like a crooked pillar, her weight resting unevenly on that twisted limb.

Her plasma mana was hotter and heavier than it had any right to be, easily piercing the blobs of lava even though she didn’t have a blessing of her own. Remaining fixed in the same spot, she merely waited for the Aflegian to waste his resources against her defences, punishing him with a well-placed counterattack whenever he dared to approach.

At first, Percy thought that the lava user could at least withdraw and keep his distance from her if he needed to refill his core, but he was quickly proven wrong. The disfigured woman appeared to possess a bloodline of her own, allowing her to compress and shoot her attacks much faster and farther, sniping through the Aflegian’s barriers regardless of where he tried to escape.

‘Damn, Nergal’s Decree isn’t a joke!’ Micky cursed through their connection. ‘It’s almost worth screwing up your body for that kind of power. Almost.’

Percy mentally nodded, though his attention remained glued to the battle. The outcome of the match was practically a forgone conclusion, but he didn’t care as much about who won as he did about studying the combatants. His thoughts moved faster than his eyes, cataloguing every fluctuation of mana, every twitch of muscle, every subtle shift in breathing.

In theory, his Sage’s Pond could cover about half of the arena at full power. Sadly, that didn’t mean much when he was forced to watch from the sidelines. Especially since he couldn’t send his willpower into the stage without being accused of interfering with the match, further limiting the range of his senses.

Still, he did what he could, slowly building a profile for the two mages. After using Greater Foresight for decades and possessing all sorts of hosts, he was familiar with most affinities and capable of predicting a mage’s attacks after minimal exposure.

However, his understanding of generic mages wouldn’t cut it in this competition.

Percy wanted to go further. To study the strengths and weaknesses of each of his rivals: how fast they could move, how strong their attacks were, how their bloodlines worked, how their abilities interacted with one another, how long they took to activate, how much mana their spells cost…

The better he understood the nuances of his opponents’ magic, the faster he would be able to adapt to their spells during his matches, and the further into the future he would be able to see while fighting them. On top of that, he wanted to spend his downtime preparing specialized enchantments for each battle.

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The match only lasted about fifteen minutes and didn’t teach Percy as much as he would have liked, but it was a start. The good news was that the schedule for the entire group phase was known, and he wasn’t going to fight against either of those two until a few matches down the line, giving him ample chances to spy on them.

Returning to the inn, he worked with his companions to sort through everything they had learned today. In the future, Percy would be splitting his time between preparing for the fights and researching the Void Hand, but he wanted to at least generate an initial profile for all the participants before doing anything else.

On the second day, the female Denyte with the time affinity fought against an Inimit with an ice affinity. Percy was excited to see how the Inimits’ faux-runecrafting Decree worked, though he would probably have to find another opportunity to do that.

The “battle” barely lasted fifteen seconds, and not much happened in that time. The moment the Inimit tried to approach the woman, all the mana in her immediate vicinity – including her opponent’s – flew into her body seemingly of its own accord.

With his core dried up, the winged man plopped down weakly, hitting the arena floor with a muted thud. He avoided any injuries by wrapping his domain around his body, but he was in no position to keep fighting without mana, so he promptly surrendered. The silence that followed felt heavier than any explosion.

‘What the fuck just happened?!’ Kassorith asked.

‘Beats me,’ Percy replied with a mental shrug.

He’d kept a large part of his attention on the Denyte, scanning her body from head to toe, yet he was still unable to say with any certainty what she had done. She had clearly used some combination of time mana and a bloodline, though it wasn’t clear which component had done what.

Percy and his host left the stadium in an even worse mood than the previous day. The female Ollorian from before had looked like a tough opponent, but one that they could potentially beat with a good strategy and sufficient preparation.

The Denyte, on the other hand, was not only impossibly powerful, but even gathering information on her might prove difficult if all her fights ended this swiftly.

On the third day, it was Kassorith’s turn to fight.

Luckily, his first opponent wasn’t one of the two-cored mages, but rather a male Denyte with a head of milky-white hair that was indicative of a steam affinity. Leaving aside his female compatriot that Percy was rightfully wary of, it was actually fortunate that they were facing a Denyte in their first match, as their ancestral Decree was arguably among the least dangerous.

The Ollorians’ Decree directly empowered their spells, as did the Inimits’ – in addition to infusing them with all sorts of unpredictable effects. Meanwhile, Denytes and Maradorians probably only had an advantage in endurance.

That was still nothing to scoff at, but Percy and his host also excelled in prolonged fights, as they could slowly build their enchantments up and adapt to their opponents. Outlasting the steam mage wasn’t going to be easy, but it certainly sounded better than getting eliminated in the first couple of seconds without even being able to react.

Reality proved more brutal than Percy’s expectations, however. The Denyte wasn’t able to use his extra mana to directly raise the quality of his spells, but he could still spend it lavishly to increase the number and size of his projectiles, putting pressure on Kassorith from the get-go.

The Thess’kalan only managed to avoid the initial barrage of steam because Percy used his Violet-grade domain to yank him out of the impact zone. Willpower clamped around Kassorith’s body, dragging him away from the incoming blasts mere heartbeats before the hissing steam swallowed the space he had occupied.

Not giving up, the Denyte consumed more mana to propel himself toward the scaled man, his hair shrinking in real time as he left a thick plume of steam in his wake.

‘We were wrong! He’s not going for a prolonged fight at all!’ Micky noted.

The Denytes’ Decree gave them a head-start that would slowly lose its value over the course of the fight, so it was in their best interest to go all-out from the beginning. Sure, they could also play it safe and try to outlast their opponents, but it appeared that the steam user found the former strategy more effective.

Not wasting time, the Huehuan coated their host’s body in a thin layer of steel, stamping it full of rudimentary lightness runes and structural integrity enchantments. There was only so much that he could do with so little time, but Kassorith should be faster and slightly better protected with the runes than he had been without.

Too busy to reply to his friend, Percy kept flying away from the steam mage using solely his willpower, trying to buy time for the others to do something. Each second stretched thin, measured by the pounding of Kassorith’s heart and the relentless roar behind them.

The Thess’kalan spent some additional mana to enchant a few flying longswords of his own, launching them toward their opponent. The runework on the blades wasn’t any better than what Micky had managed to carve onto their armour, but it should give the constructs enough power to pause their pursuer’s assault.

Right as the weapons were about to reach the Denyte, however, Percy felt the runes deactivate and the constructs grow slower and duller. They slammed onto an invisible barrier around the Blue, failing to penetrate his domain. The impact rang out like striking glass, followed by the dull clatter of lifeless blades dropping to the floor.

‘What is it this time?!’ Kassorith asked with a grimace. ‘Some kind of anti-runecrafting bloodline?!’