Chương 61: A Battle Overdue [Part 1/2]

Across from Scarlet stood the finally thawed-out Tareth. She had just been pulled from her most recent clearing of the Trial, the notification still flickering in the corner of her vision alongside the numerous others she'd gained over the past relentless weeks of effort. Quickly she went over her Stats.

Stats: Strength: 10 → 25 Dexterity: 12 → 25 Vitality: 12 → 24 Perception: 15 → 25 Intelligence: 13 → 25 Willpower: 16 → 24 Mana: 10 → 25 It wasn't perfect, but she was determined she'd gain those final Stat points today. They were within the training arena beneath the villa, and both Scarlet and Tareth were already within the combat space.

Something that bore a remarkable resemblance to a Sumo ring, only the barrier at the edge was indicated by a glowing circle of mana she had been informed would ensure none of the combatants could exit the ring until the bout was over. Maus was positioned just at the edge of her shadow, a tiny but palpable force of nature. Above them, a balcony wrapped around the entire room, though it was completely empty.

For now, the only other occupant in the room was the Historian himself, his bare, furry feet making no sound as he walked along the very edge of the combat arena.

"You remember the rules of the duel?" Both Scarlet and Tareth nodded, though the Historian went over them once more to make sure there were no misunderstandings.

"There are no rounds. There are no limits. The winner's decided when your opponent's either yielded or died."

"Master," Tareth rasped, his voice gravelly from disuse despite the enhanced nature of his body. Apparently five weeks entombed in magic ice would do that to a guy.

"No interference. None at all?" The look he was giving Scarlet was a unique mix of predatory and hateful that might have phased her if she hadn't spent a majority of her childhood fending off worse. His master gave him a look, then nodded once, slowly. Without the Historian hiding his aura, Scarlet could clearly sense his displeasure, as well as the bite of eagerness underneath it.

"Yes. I will not interfere."

"Good," the disciple growled, his upper lip peeling back to reveal sharp teeth. Tareth had never been difficult to read, but with her new insights into psionics, he may as well have been an open book in large print. He had no ability to hide or mask himself in the same way the Historian was so adept at doing. However, the amount of active malice she could now sense radiating off him in suffocating waves made Scarlet briefly glad that her Perception hadn't been this high when they'd first met.

Though she doubted any of this mess would have been avoided even if she'd known earlier exactly what kind of creature he was. In a way, he'd done her a favour with his question. Not that he'd ever know why, or that she had any intention of thanking him. Scarlet stared down at her little buddy. He emitted subtle, resonating echoes of mana, allowing him to merge almost seamlessly with the shadows.

"On my mark," said the Historian. Meditation churned in the background, all her senses on high alert as she watched the Tier 2 activate his Skills. Basic information about each one flashed through her mind as she compartmentalised them, already mapping out her opening moves. He'd be faster than her. So much faster. But he was not a combat specialist. That was her only saving grace.

While he'd been given training, likely since before she'd even been born, instincts born of survival and hardship brought wisdom to her newfound knowledge and experience. As the Historian teleported out of the ring, signalling the beginning of the fight, both sides exploded into motion. The first thing Scarlet did was flatten herself to the floor, throwing up lights at odd angles in each corner of the room, increasing the number of shadows and the angles at which they were cast.

Now, instead of one long shadow from the overhead light, there were four. While Scarlet had been setting up the battlefield, her opponent had begun the fight with a blitz attack, his earth affinity already perfectly catered to by the dirt floor and stone walls of the chamber. Support the author by searching for the original publication of this novel. It was Maus who set up a spatial barrier in front of them.

Not yet strong enough to displace or stop the attack, but enough to lengthen the distance and give her time to drop. In her time spent fighting, Scarlet had become adept at using surface psionics and immediately set up a kinetic field around herself, harnessing the force of his attack and storing that potential energy for later use. She then used it to blast her prone body upwards and to the side, avoiding the earthen spikes set to pierce through her.

The madly grinning Vulpian across from her still hadn't needed to make a single move, and already she was on the defensive. He wasn't treating her as completely harmless, but he wasn't taking her seriously. And why should he? Right? Why should I. The thought whispered through his mind. His arrogant sneer that had turned into a slight frown when Scarlet first dodged, curved back up once more as he continued to shoot earthen bolts at her.

Their speed was entirely too fast for her to dodge without her Familiar distorting the space around them and her heightened ability to read an action while the energy was still a thought. Tareth upped the ante. Bolts were now coming from all sides. Despite her above-average mana pool and Meditation flowing steadily in the background, greedily drawing in every bit of mana it could, space was a hungry element. If they kept this up, she'd be sucked dry before she ever had a chance to fight back.

Tareth had an advantage at a distance, one he was making ample use of as he stood rooted to a single spot, blasting her with compressed stone bolts that screamed through the air faster than the speed of sound. Vitality and her psionic healing technique worked as hard as they could to reinforce her body as the tremendous kinetic forces she was using to dodge created microfractures in her enhanced bones and tore muscles and ligaments.

A necessary, if excruciating, technique if she wanted her body to move at the speeds she needed. Despite her body screaming in pain, her expression revealed nothing, and her instructions to Maus were clear. Instantly, the spatial shielding dropped. In the time it took him to blink towards Tareth, she had already taken several wounds.

The small mouse let out a bark at point-blank range that pushed Tareth backwards just enough for Scarlet to shift the flooring beneath him with her psionics while disguising the action by yanking on the shadows around his ankle. Only she knew his subsequent stumble couldn't have been caused by the tug, as her shadows simply didn't have that much strength at Tier 0 It was only a single step backwards, but the vulpian who had been rooted to the earth suddenly found the earth itself no longer so cooperative.

With her psionic enchanting disguised and Tareth disoriented, Scarlet was able to sever the earth affinity caster's grip on his element. Maus's Resonant Shout directly targeted the soul, and had disrupted not just Tareth's internal processes, but his connection to the energies around him. Maus took that stumble as his moment to go in for the bite but hadn't even come close to landing any damage. That split-second disconnection came back in full force. A basic mana shield. No.

The info layer told her he was using a more advanced version. Investigate (her upgrade from inspect) told her it was a passive Skill called Earthen Mana Coating, an upgraded version of Mana Coating. The earthen coating prevented even Maus's strongest attack from gaining purchase on his skin. Tareth whipped his hand through the air so quickly that, if they hadn't already accounted for this, Maus would have been splattered into a paste right then and there.

Instead, he blinked upward and, using Scarlet's connection to her storage bag, dropped several crystalline marbles. The Tier 1 soul grenades all exploded at once, bypassing physical mana protection and targeting his very essence. Again. They were the strongest level of artifacts she could make at this point, not due to a lack of skill or even materials, but because enchanting was as much a battle of Will as it was of precision. Coaxing Tier 2 materials with a Tier 0 body and mind was a good way to ruin both.

Instead, she used that disruption to blast herself forward, crossing half the distance between them in less than the blink of an eye and nearly closing the gap in a heartbeat. That was all the time she got before a fist blasted towards her chest. Once more, space distorted. Once more, a kinetic field went up. At point-blank range, and with so little time between her charge and his counterattack, it was impossible not to take damage. She felt something in her chest crack.

The right side of her clavicle, a bit of her sternum if she wasn't mistaken. Her mind catalogued the specifics with the unwavering efficiency of a brain accustomed to processing under heavy strain. However, she hadn't just placed a barrier in front of her, she'd placed one behind her as well. The kinetic field cushioned her. Despite the horrific damage and the devastating force of impact, Scarlet was neither pushed back nor put out of commission. Panting hard, Scarlet and Maus watched Tareth.

His breathing was easy, but his emotions were far more turbulent than they should have been if this was the easy victory he'd assumed it would be. She can't be this strong. No, she isn't. Look at her. His thoughts told him. For Scarlet's part, while her body heaved in air, her mind was calm and her emotions steady. She knew it would be like this. Her limitation was neither her prowess nor her mentality, but the simple reality of rank.

He was two tiers above her, and even though she stood at the very threshold of Tier 0, she was a fundamentally different being than the Vulpian, and not just in terms of being a different species. Tiering up didn't just mean your metabolic functions improved. The advantage wasn't simply not needing to eat or relieve yourself for long periods of time, but a genuine remaking of body, mind, and soul. Hollow gold was the term the Historian had taught her for people like Tareth.

High Tier; low Stats, and usually, poor training. These were people who had been handed levels, or lucked into them, and so had progressed despite their mediocrity, or complete lack of talent or ambition. Still, while Tareth may have been hollow gold, he was still gold. She on the other hand might as well have been squishy clay in comparison. Mouldable, sure. Valuable, sure. But nowhere near the same baseline as her opponent in terms of the fundamental materials they were made from.

He had better atoms than she did. And whatever other submolecular mumbo jumbo made up beings in the greater System. The moment of mutual regard lasted maybe a second before the fight resumed.