The Lone Wanderer

Chapter 653 – Remlat vs Zurvanai

Technically, watching the battle between the two-cored Inimit and the female Denyte wouldn’t help Percy much in the tournament. His host had already faced Remlat and lost. He was unlikely to fare much better against Zurvanai, regardless of his preparations.

However, this would still be an important match to observe, as it could greatly alter the course of the entire group phase. On the off chance that the Inimit managed to win, he would climb back to first place and put Percy’s team in a really rough spot.

Outside cheering for the Denyte to keep the leaderboard in order, Percy also had an almost academic interest in watching two of the Void Hand’s most promising talents go at it without reservations.

Standing at the designated spot by the edge of the arena along with a bunch of other curious participants, Percy allowed his Sage’s Pond to unfold as much as possible, enveloping a decent chunk of the stadium. Both combatants possessed rare affinities that vastly boosted their mobility, and he didn’t want to miss out on more details than necessary during the high-level battle.

Remlat was located a few hundred metres away from Zurvanai, his expression atypically grim. He had already unfolded his wings, his mana rolling and tumbling wildly inside his cores – a sign that he was planning to go all out from the very start.

A wise decision.

Even the Denyte appeared serious, a rare hint of caution evident inside her large, mirror-like pupils. Her glowing hair swayed gently in the wind, the thick mana it contained creating all sorts of nauseating mirages in the air. Zurvanai was still the favourite in this fight, but she clearly had no intention of letting her guard down.

“Let the fight between Zurvanai and Remlat commence,” the arena’s automated voice said, causing the combatants to break into action.

The Inimit used both of his mana types to move away from the woman. A powerful flap of his wings combined with a violet burst of steam propelled him backwards, space itself twisting and warping to shorten his path. Within mere moments, he was well outside Percy’s admittedly limited range, hovering close to a different edge of the arena.

At the same time, a few enchanted feathers coated in a layer of space mana appeared behind Zurvanai, slicing soundlessly through the air as they shot toward her neck. Remlat had obviously used his strategic retreat not only to protect himself, but also to distract and eliminate his opponent early.

Unfortunately for the Inimit, the black substance vanished from the projectiles before they so much as touched their target. Even the Decree-fuelled enchantments seemed to be robbed of their power, causing the soft objects to fall harmlessly against Zurvanai’s small back, barely tickling her.

‘Scary,’ Kassorith muttered. ‘I doubt she even noticed the feathers. She just activated her bloodline by instinct, and it was enough to completely negate Remlat’s sneak attack.’

Percy echoed that feeling. From what little they’d managed to piece together about the woman’s abilities, they knew that her bloodline allowed her to drain every mote of mana that fell within her range, rapidly and efficiently converting the resource to her own affinity.

It was simultaneously the ultimate defence and offense. In terms of mana regeneration and conversion, it was far more effective than even Percy’s boosting art, though it didn’t seem to affect the potency of the Denyte’s spells, nor her physical strength.

‘What an overpowered bloodline…’ Percy groaned, feeling a little envious of the petite woman.

‘You’re one to speak,’ Kassorith snapped back, sounding almost offended by the comment.

Whatever the Thess’kalan thought, Zurvanai’s bloodline was undoubtedly one of the strongest that Percy had ever seen, as well as one of the main reasons she had done so well in the tournament thus far, to the point that Percy was genuinely unsure whether Clone was better.

Granted, his ability was more flexible and had granted him many unique opportunities. It was definitely better for a Red-born from a lesser spring, as he would have never stood a chance at attaining divinity without it. Had he been born with a Yellow core in a peak faction like the Void Hand, however, he might have been better off with whatever the woman had.

Still, Zurvanai’s bloodline wasn’t without its limitations.

Percy guessed that it could be beaten with enough brute force. He doubted that the Denyte could just stand and absorb a barrage of spells fired by an army of demigods. There had to be an upper boundary to the rate of her absorption, so being attacked with too much mana at once would quickly overpower her.

It was unclear what the exact limit was, but the talented Blue had found a rather interesting way to extend it.

Using her time mana lavishly, she slowed down any projectiles or opponents that entered the range of her bloodline while accelerating her own body. The discrepancy allowed her to consume foreign mana several times faster and even seemed to extend her range slightly.

The expenditure was enormous, but the combination of the mana she consumed and the resources stored inside her magical hair allowed her to keep the technique operating for much longer than expected, essentially creating a deadly feedback loop that rendered her opponents helpless.

Percy had initially struggled to get a proper read on her abilities precisely due to how seamlessly she had combined them into a single, coherent spell.

Seeing Remlat fly away, Zurvanai shot after him, using her time mana to accelerate her flight. The petite woman was upon the winged man within seconds, forcing him to warp space around his body once more to escape her bloodline. Like that, the two combatants whizzed around the arena rapidly, the Inimit tunnelling through space itself while the Denyte followed behind him.

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‘They can’t keep this up forever,’ Micky noted.

Percy agreed with his friend. Zurvanai had her bloodline and ancestral Decree, but couldn’t maintain this insane expenditure merely by consuming the ambient mana around her. Remlat was extremely careful not to leave any of his mana in her path for her to steal.

On the flipside, the Inimit was also draining his reserves like crazy to stay away from the dangerous woman. His twin cores gave him more resources to work with than the average Blue, and his feathers allowed him to use them more efficiently. However, his steam mana wasn’t nearly as effective at keeping him outside Zurvanai’s reach, and left more traces in his wake for his pursuer to absorb, so he didn’t favour it.

‘Such a bizarre battle. Remlat doesn’t even have the time to voice an incantation to empower his spells,’ Kassorith pointed out.

‘What difference would it make?’ Micky asked. ‘Anything he throws at her would be consumed anyway.’

‘Yeah. But she’s going to run out of mana first,’ the Thess’kalan replied with a mental shrug.

‘She is. This is what Remlats wants too, which is why he didn’t bother to hide with his invisibility bloodline. He needed to bait her into emptying her core,’ Percy concurred. ‘It won’t matter though. Even if she stands still without a drop of mana in her sternum, there isn’t much that he can do to her. There’s a good chance that this match will end in a draw.’

Even if Remlat managed to outlast his opponent, trying to attack her would only provide her with more fuel to resume her chase. Had this been a different battlefield, he could have possibly ripped out chunks of mundane stone from the environment to throw at her, hoping that they would be heavy enough to overpower her domain.

Sadly for him, it wasn’t possible for mere Blues – even the elites participating in the void tournament – to rip out the enchanted metal of the arena floor. The Inimit’s arsenal also seemed to lack any powerful attacks that didn’t contain mana.

Had it been Percy facing Zurvanai, he could have maybe tweaked his formations so that they would only release beams of concentrated heat, being extra careful to filter out any unconverted specks of lightning mana from his blasts. However, he doubted that he and Kassorith could outrun or outlast the Denyte long enough to even prepare their constructs.

Just like he had predicted, the female mage was the first to exhaust her reserves, despite her multitude of advantages.

She was no longer able to chase Remlat, but she didn’t seem very worried. What little ambient mana she could still draw from her surroundings was more than enough to protect herself when combined with her willpower.

From then on, Zurvanai only maintained a thin film of time mana around her body, probably so that she wouldn’t completely lose the benefits that came from the temporal acceleration.

Surprisingly, the Inimit borrowed a page from Percy’s book, taking advantage of his opponent’s immobility to prepare formations of his own. It took several minutes, and he was interrupted a couple of times by Zurvanai who recovered enough mana to momentarily resume the chase, though he eventually managed to put something together.

Combining his enchanted feathers with a rudimentary runecrafting language, the winged man created a rough, two-layered heating formation fuelled out of steam mana. It was a poor substitute for Kassorith’s attacks, though Remlat was clearly hoping to snipe Zurvanai from afar with it.

It was a commendable effort, though the spell wasn’t destructive enough to pierce her defences. The fact that the Inimit struggled to completely filter every trace of fire mana from the beams only made things worse, as it allowed Zurvanai to destabilize the attacks and boost her acceleration.

Percy sighed in relief, honestly glad that Remlat was unlikely to win. A tie would still give him one point – which wasn’t ideal – but it was better than the alternative. About an hour into the battle, the Inimit actually suggested that exact outcome, though Zurvanai surprised everyone by declining the winged person’s offer.

The stalemate continued for hours, with Remlat constantly tweaking his formation to the best of his ability in an attempt to get through his opponent’s invisible barrier. The female Denyte used whatever mana she recovered to make the Inimit’s life harder, slowing his progress down.

Eventually, the organizers were forced to postpone the next day’s match, and later the one after that, recreating a situation similar to Kassorith’s first fight on Thess’kala.

‘Why is she being so stubborn?’ Micky eventually asked. ‘Is she that confident that he’ll pass out first?’

Percy and Kassorith had only won that battle due to the Insomnia trait – which they knew that Zurvanai didn’t have. If anything, Remlat was more likely to have given himself a mindset with a similar effect before the match, and the female Denyte had only made her situation worse by repeatedly accelerating the flow of time around her own body, thus exhausting herself faster.

Thinking about something, Percy couldn’t help but gasp. ‘Don’t tell me? Did she plan for this outcome?’

Paying closer attention to the film of time mana hugging the woman’s skin, he noticed that it seemed to shift subtly whenever Remlat attacked her, only to switch back to its previous state as soon as the Denyte resumed resting.

Percy hadn’t spotted the change sooner, as he wasn’t that knowledgeable about the time affinity, but he grew increasingly certain of his guess as he continued to observe the female mage.

‘She’s switching between acceleration and deceleration!’ he told his companions, before elaborating. ‘She’s speeding herself up whenever she has to chase after him or absorb a large amount of mana, but she’s actually spent most of the battle in dilated time!’

To Remlat and the spectators, the battle had raged on for nearly four Maradorian days, but Zurvanai probably hadn’t experienced more than a couple.

It was ingenious.

The match continued for several more days. After the first week, the Inimit started yawning frequently, his eyelids drooping as his formations grew sloppier. Zurvanai also showed signs of exhaustion, but they were far scarcer and less pronounced.

‘Is it me, or is she more skilled at slowing things down than speeding them up?’ Micky asked. ‘The incoming projectiles get decelerated more than her own body accelerates, despite her having to spread the mana thin to cover a larger area.’

‘It must be a function of her blessing,’ Kassorith agreed.

Either way, the Inimit appeared to have realized that his opponent had played him for a fool, though there wasn’t much that he could do. Zurvanai was really good at switching between the two states of her mana, and her bloodline was always active since it didn’t seem to cost anything to maintain, thus constantly protecting her from sneak attacks.

Remlat only had two options: he could harass her more frequently, but her ability would consume a barrage of weaker spells even in her decelerated state. Alternatively, he could fire massive attacks to force her to accelerate, but that would only cause him to run out of mana himself, thus giving her a new way to end the battle.

About nine days after the start of the match – a mind-numbing length of time for most spectators, yet one that Percy found rather informative – Remlat was finally forced to admit defeat. The Inimit fell another two points below Kassorith, making this the best possible outcome, though Percy no longer harboured any hope that his host would fare better against the talented woman.

Zurvanai was clearly the sort of opponent that he would only ever defeat with his main body. And she was going to grow even stronger once she received her second rare affinity.