Chương 262: chapter 257

The crowd is still screaming. A wave of sound made of fifty thousand voices crashes against the arena's floor like an explosion. Students jump to the their feet. Some of them are hugging strangers. Vyrrak walks back toward the Champions' side of the arena. His footsteps leave shallow impressions in the cracked stone. Behind him, Korrath's body twitches once, then goes still. The Prophet raises one hand. A fold of space opens beneath Korrath's ruined form and swallows it.

Jacob watches this from the edge of the arena floor, arms crossed, weight on his back foot, looking at Nimirea.

"One down," he says again. Louder this time, so the crowd catches it.

"Who's next?" The Dark Champions on the sideline do not move. Their hoods are up. Their auras roll off them in sullen waves, uncontained, but none of them step forward. Nimirea grinds her teeth. She stands at the head of her Champions with her back straight and her hands loose at her sides, and she is recalculating. Jacob can see it. He has watched her recalculate before, in the Celestial Tower, in Rafnov's Trials, in every encounter where the board shifted in his favor.

Her eyes move, flicking left to right, assessing her remaining Champions, running numbers.

"I'm waiting, Nimirea," Jacob says. He takes a step forward. Then another. He moves with the unhurried pace of someone walking into his own kitchen, hands still loose, aura still burning at full output, the silvery sword of King Baalrek resting on his shoulder.

"You brought eleven. One's down. That leaves ten." He gestures at the hooded figures behind her. Nimirea looks at him.

"You want a real fight, Jacob?" she says. Her voice carries across the arena without Mana amplification.

"Then bring the rest of your Champions here. I know they're somewhere. You're not stupid enough to show up with two." Jacob's mouth twitches.

"Oh? You want the full lineup?"

"Bring your Champions," she says.

"All of them. And I promise you, this will go very differently." Jacob studies her for a long moment.

"Nah," he says.

"I don't need them yet. You're the Leader of the Dark Champions, right? So lead. Step up yourself. It's you and me in the end, darling." Nimirea's expression does not change.

"You want me to fight you? Now?"

"What, are you scared?" Jacob's voice carries across the entire arena. He's not even trying to provoke her. Well, maybe a little bit.

"Vyrrak just dismantled your guy in one hit. Your Champions won't come forward. And you're standing there asking me to bring more people so you can spread the damage around." He tilts his head.

"Sounds like a chicken to me." The crowd goes quiet. Jacob Cloud just called the Leader of the Dark Champions a chicken.

"Cluck. Cluck," Jacob offers.

"Did he just..."

"Oh no."

"He's going to get killed." Nimirea's aura sharpens around her body, changing in a subtle way that few other than Jacob get. Before she can respond, a voice descends from the raised platform at the northern edge of the arena.

"Nimirea." The Prophet of Asmodeus speaks. His voice is calm, measured, unhurried. The word drops into the arena silence and fills every corner of it. Nimirea turns her head. Not fully. Just enough to show that she is listening.

"Cut the head of the Dragon," the Prophet says.

"Face him." The words carry the weight of an order. The Prophet's dark eyes are on Nimirea from his elevated platform. Then they shift to Jacob. Then back. Nimirea is still for a moment. It's not a good idea. She knows what Jacob is capable of. Forcing a direct confrontation seems to be exactly what he wants. But the Prophet has given an order. She turns back to face Jacob.

"Fine," she says. She steps onto the arena floor.

A new 'person' walks in the VIP box. Every face in the VIP box turns when the Mithril Golem steps through the curtain. He is enormous. King Skaernex decided to bear with his father in order to get a privileged seat at the top of the box. And his yellow eyes narrow immediately. Maelthra Drazhal keeps her eyes on the arena floor. She is seated at the front of the box, her posture carved from stone, her claws resting on the arms of her chair. Two Infernal dignitaries near the back of the box exchange glances.

Liuthkrav does not greet anyone. He surveys the available seats, selects one in the middle row that is clearly occupied by someone's coat, picks up the coat, sets it on the floor, and sits down, making several people flinch. The chair creaks under his weight. Thankfully, it was enchanted by a Vice Principal for, well, big fellas.

"Who," Maelthra says, without turning, "let that in here?" Liuthkrav looks at the back of her head.

"I am here," the Mithril Golem says, "to represent my master." A pause settles over the box. King Skaernex shifts in his seat.

"Your master," says one of the Infernals. He is a tall man with horns that curve backward and a thin mouth that looks like it was made for sneering.

"And who would that be? Did someone's blacksmith get lost?" Liuthkrav turns his head and looks at the man. The Infernal's sneer holds for exactly two seconds. Then the golem's attention lands on him, and the sneer dissolves.

"Master Rafnov," Liuthkrav says. The name falls into the box like a stone into a well. King Skaernex's tail goes perfectly still. Maelthra does turn now. Slowly. Her golden eyes find the golem and stay there. The temperature in the box rises by two degrees.

"Rafnov is dead," the thin-mouthed Infernal says. His voice is careful now.

"Has been... forever."

"Yes," Liuthkrav says.

"His legacy is not."

"A golem speaking for a dead master." Maelthra's voice is dry and dismissive. She turns back to the arena.

"How fitting. A puppet representing a ghost." Liuthkrav does not react to the insult.

"I am here," he repeats, "to observe his disciple. My master left instructions regarding this generation. I am following them."

"Instructions," Maelthra says.

"From and about what, even?"

"From the greatest Golem-maker and miner who ever lived, Queen-Matriarch. But I would not expect you to value craftsmanship. Your people have always been this way." The temperature spikes. King Skaernex makes a sound that might be a cough or might be a laugh, smothered quickly.

"Careful, golem," Maelthra says.

"I have melted better things than you."

"I doubt that very much." King Skaernex laughs outright this time.

"Enough," Maelthra says. The word is aimed at Skaernex more than at Liuthkrav.

"Why are you really here?"

"The boy on the arena floor, Jacob Cloud, possesses the qualities that my master has been looking for." A stillness moves through the box. King Skaernex leans forward slightly. If you encounter this narrative on Amazon, note that it's taken without the author's consent. Report it.

"Well, there's some refreshments in the back," the Headmaster comments placidly.

"You're welcome to stay and watch."

Nimirea now stands across from Jacob on the arena stone. The distance between them is twenty paces. The arena floor is still cracked from Vyrrak's fight, veins of shattered stone running in jagged lines beneath their feet. The sun is directly overhead and it presses down on both of them, bleaching the pale stone white. Fifty thousand people are holding their breath.

"You're going to lose," Nimirea says. She reaches into her robes and produces a small vial. It is no larger than her thumb. The liquid inside is dark, almost black. She uncorks it with her teeth and drinks. The effect is immediate. Her aura, which has been steady and controlled since she arrived, detonates. Not outward. Upward. It climbs in a spiraling column that distorts the air above her head and makes the wards around the VIP box flicker.

The students in the lower rows cover their faces as the pressure wave hits them. Intermediate True Diamond Rank. The crowd goes silent.

"She's at Intermediate True Diamond Rank!"

"That's... that's not possible! Her aura wasn't anywhere near that a moment ago!"

"What was in that vial?" Jacob looks at her. His expression does not change. For a moment, every spectator thinks he was caught by surprise. Then he grins.

"Nice trick," he says.

"How about this?" The energy that has been radiating outward from his body turns, reverses its direction, and collapses back through his skin. The air around him goes dark. The stone beneath his feet begins to crack in patterns that look like ribs. Bleached white ribs pushing through the arena floor, arching upward, reaching. The Domain of Ruin and Bones. Simultaneously, a second layer of power activates. The Reverse Domain fires.

The energy that just collapsed inward rebounds through his muscles, his bones, his Mana channels, boosting speed and perception while eating into his body from the inside. Red mana circles bloom across his forearms and chest, faintly visible through his clothes, venting thin jets of vapor. The Devil's Engine, Nimirea thinks. She knows everything about him. His aura stabilizes. It is immense. Nimirea watches this without expression.

"It's not going to be enough," she says. Jacob's grin does not falter. Then his sword starts to glow. It begins at the crossguard. A faint silver light, barely visible, spreading along the fuller of the blade in thin threads that look like veins. It floods the entire weapon until the blade hurts to look at directly. Jacob exhales. His eyes change. His irises shift from the light blue that is given to him by the Devil's Engine. The color drains outward from the pupils like water filling glass. Silver.

Pure, liquid silver, the same shade as the sword. His aura climbs until it matches Nimirea's. Intermediate True Diamond. The arena goes silent.

"How..."

"He's matching her. He's actually matching her."

"What is that sword? What just happened?" Nimirea frowns.

"That sword," the Prophet says. He is on his feet now, hands at his sides, dark robes still, shoulders tight.

"That is my father's sword." Fifty thousand people hear him say the word father.

"It was shattered," the Prophet continues. His voice is not loud but it fills the arena the way it always does, like weather.

"The blade was broken by him rendered useless. No smith in this world could restore it. The alloy cannot be reforged." Jacob turns his head and looks up at the Prophet.

"King Baalrek rebuilt it himself," Jacob says.

"And then he gave it to me. I told you before. Weren't you listening?" The Prophet is very still.

"Furthermore," Jacob says, and now the grin is back, wider, sharper, with too many teeth, "your old man didn't just hand me a broken sword. He told me what it could do. And it took me a long time, a lot of Star Metal, and a process that almost killed me twice, but I managed to fully unlock the First Seal." The Prophet's aura flickers. It is a small thing. A ripple, a distortion, a momentary loss of the perfect control that defines his presence. It lasts less than a second. But Jacob sees it. Nimirea sees it.

The Headmaster sees it.

"You didn't know," Jacob says.

"You thought it was still broken. You thought whatever your father left behind was gone. But he rebuilt it, Maerek. He rebuilt it before he died." Jacob raises the sword. The silver light burns.

"The First Seal of King Baalrek's sword. Do you know what it does? Maybe you don't. Maybe he never told you. Let me explain." Jacob speaks to the Prophet but his words are for the arena.

"The sword requires Living Mithril. When given it, the blade rebuilds the veins of the person wielding it. The entire Mana vein network is reconstructed. Imagine the most painful thing you've ever felt, multiply it by a thousand, and stretch it over days. That's what it does. That's also why it took me a little to finish the process." Nimirea's eyes are on him. The frown has deepened. He rebuilt his talent. She understands the meaning of that instantly. Nimirea is an Alchemist who deals with Mana veins every day.

But even a deaf person would understand what Jacob just said. Jacob's veins have always been his weakness. His mind is transcendent. His Grimoire is unparalleled. But his body's capacity to channel Mana, the raw architecture that determines how much power a warrior can hold, is average. Good, not great. A structural ceiling that means he always needs strategy to compensate for what his body cannot deliver. That ceiling is gone. The sword has rebuilt his veins from scratch.

He finally has what he always needed, Nimirea thinks. Talent. He has rebuilt his own talent from scratch. She almost smiles at the absurdity of it. Then she lunges. Nimirea crosses twenty paces in less than a heartbeat. Her right hand is empty but her aura wraps around it and shapes itself into a blade of compressed Mana that burns dark blue at the edges. She strikes for his throat. Jacob's sword meets her. The impact cracks the air.

A shockwave fans outward and blows dust and loose stone chips into the lower stands. Students cover their faces. Nimirea strikes again. A flurry, three hits in rapid succession, each from a different angle, each targeting a joint, a gap, a structural weak point in his guard. She has fought him before. She knows where his openings are.

She knows the way his left shoulder drops when he transitions from high guard to low, the way his footwork favors the right side, the half-second delay in his riposte after a horizontal parry. Jacob blocks every one. Not just blocks. His swordsmanship is different. The movements are fluid, faster, cleaner. His sword meets her blade at the exact point of contact every time. Nimirea disengages and resets at ten paces, looking at him. His breathing is even, his stance relaxed. He has not broken a sweat.

His body moves better than mine. The thought arrives clinical and unwelcome and true. She activates Eye of the Prophet. The world shifts. Time fractures into branching paths, futures overlapping like transparencies stacked on a light table. She sees the next three seconds in twelve variations. In variation one, she feints left and strikes low; he reads the feint and punishes with a counter-cut that takes her wrist.

In variation four, she accelerates to maximum speed and hammers his guard with brute force; he gives ground for two steps and then his Grimoire finds a flaw in her technique and the counter ends her. In variation nine, she uses the terrain, launches a stone slab at his face with Mana; he cuts through it and is already where she was going to be. In all twelve variations, he wins. He's reading every flaw in my attacks with the Grimoire. It's as if the Grimoire itself upgraded. She tries something different.

She tries to create openings. And so, she strikes again. A three-stage combination that definitely... Jacob blocks the first. Parries the second. Lets the third slide past his guard by half an inch, close enough to cut a single strand of hair from his forehead, and then his counter-cut forces her back four paces. Nimirea lands and her feet crack the stone. She is breathing harder now from the effort of fighting someone whose defensive capability exceeds anything she has encountered at this rank.

The Grimoire, she thinks. It's always the Grimoire. He sees everything. She straightens. I have to destroy him. Nimirea reaches into her robes again. This time, the vial she produces is not dark. It is green. A sickly, luminescent green that pulses in her hand like a heartbeat. It moves against the glass in patterns that suggest sentience, pressing against the walls of the vial as though trying to escape. It's poison. The upper stands cannot see the vial. But the lower rows can, and several people start moving.

Nimirea holds the vial up.

"You've been wondering," she says to Jacob. Her voice is calm. Too calm.

"About my other Skills. You've seen the Eye of the Prophet. You've seen Devouring Ocean Eating the Heavens." Jacob's eyes narrow.

"That's two Rainbow Skills," she says.

"This is the third." She uncorks the vial. The Headmaster suddenly moves his hand and a barrier snaps around the entire arena, a shimmering wall of golden energy that seals the fighting floor from the stands. The wards are so dense that the air inside them hums.

"The fumes," the Headmaster says. His voice is not loud but every student hears it.

"Would kill half the people in the stands." The crowd recoils. Inside the barrier, Nimirea looks at Jacob. Jacob summons Mana to protect himself. Then, Nimirea drinks. She tilts the vial back and the green liquid pours down her throat in a single gulp. The glass cracks in her hand afterward and she lets the shards fall. For a moment, nothing happens. Then her skin starts to change. It begins at her throat, where the poison entered.

Thin lines of luminescent green spread outward across her skin in patterns that look like veins, or roots, or the branching paths of lightning frozen in place. They crawl down her arms, across her chest, up her neck, across her face. Her eyes, which have been dark, flood with green. Not the whites. The irises. They turn the same sickly, pulsing green as the liquid in the vial. Her aura climbs higher. Rainbow Skill. Constitution type, Jacob reads in his mind the information given to him by the Grimoire.

Body of the Myriad Poisons. A Constitution-type Rainbow Skill. The body stores toxins in specialized channels. Each new poison is absorbed, indexed, integrated. The more lethal the poison, the greater the boost. Nimirea's aura settles finally and it surpasses his. Then she activates her last Rainbow Skill, Devouring Ocean Eating the Heavens. The air inside the barrier turns to water, pressing against Jacob from all sides, crushing weight that tries to compress his body and his aura simultaneously.

The stone floor beneath them dissolves. Particles of arena stone float upward in the thick Mana, suspended and spinning, and the space inside the barrier stops resembling an arena and starts resembling the floor of an ocean. Nimirea stands in the center of it. The green veins are burning across her skin. Her hair floats in the compressed Mana. Her eyes are twin points of sickly light.

Her aura is so vast that it fills the entire barrier and presses against the golden walls like a living thing trying to escape containment. She is looking at Jacob with the expression of someone who has just stopped playing.

"You're done," she says. Her voice carries through the dense Mana as though the laws of physics no longer apply to her.

"Credit where it's due, Jacob. The sword. The veins. The Star Metal. Against anyone else, it would have worked." She steps forward. The dissolved stone parts around her feet.

"But I have been preparing for you since the Celestial Tower. I knew, I knew, that when we fought again, your talent would not be the thing holding you back anymore. I could see it in you." Another step. The gap between them closes.

"So I prepared for the version of you that has no weakness." She stops five paces from him. The green light in her eyes pulses.

"Our karma is intertwined now, Jacob." Her hand rises. The Mana around it bends and distorts.

"When I kill you, your Rainbow Skill becomes mine. Four Rainbow Skills, Jacob. I will be unstoppable." She smiles. Her green eyes stay flat.

"This time," Nimirea says, "I'll take your life."