Chương 274: Just in case

As the world faded around him, Vista realized that he had gotten used to the sensation of the mirage chamber over the past rounds. He could truly understand why they were becoming so popular in the wider world, because while the tempering they provided wouldn't raise one's essence abilities, the practice and experience born out of the diversity of resistance they could offer were invaluable.

And even though he knew there were barely any spectators now, given all the posturing between the sects and general rise of tensions in the last few days, this match was important to him, as would the memory of it be in the history of the kingdom. That his first one on one round was against her on the other hand…

"Young Master Relentless! Fancy meeting you here!" Victory Carved in Storm and Stone called to him from the other side of the stone platform, her conjured tetsubo and glowing horns already manifested.

"Inner Disciple," Vista greeted in turn, his counterpart and opponent frustratingly delighted by the exasperation in his voice.

"We must truly be fated. So many rounds together, and now the first one-on-one too. Almost a shame though, as I had thought it would be in the finals that I snatched victory from you," the woman called with a smile.

"Still, you have to admit that the environment of our showdown is at least suitably impressive." In that, Vista had to admit she was correct. Around the central platform where the competitors appeared, was a valley surrounded by a ring of gargantuan statues that formed an encircling wall.

Each of them depicted mighty warriors in Hua-Xian robes, and each of them emitted some kind of magical emanations from hands, swords or similar features that coalesced into rivers and pools that dotted and crisscrossed the landscape. From liquid flame to flowing lightning to vibrant life, the landscape transcended any place Vista had ever visited, making him wonder where the baseline inspiration came from. Still, it also gave a clear indication as to which type of monsters they would be competing over.

"Just you, me, the smallest arena yet and a small army of elementals. The stage is definitely set to my satisfaction," the inner disciple noted as if reading Vista's thoughts.

"Want to make a little wager of our own?" Apparently interpreting Vista's silence as a sign to continue, Storm continued.

"If I win, you'll come and train with our sect as a temporary disciple for a year. Master has already agreed to let you in on my training. It should really show you what difference a dedicated organization and heritage can make for your path." Given their earlier few conversations, the suggestion was quite audacious to Vista. Enough that he couldn't hold back from making a response of his own.

"And if I win?"

"Well, that's up to you to ask, no?" Inner Disciple Storm replied with a wide grin while shouldering her massive weapon. That grin had worn on Vista's nerves throughout all of the competitions, which made him really want to find a way to turn the tables on the frustrating woman.

"Then something to balance the scales," he said, meeting her eyes.

"If I win, you will depart from your sect for a year and live the life of the outcast; a taste of both freedom and perspective that you seem to sorely be needing."

"Oh? Oh! That does bring a bit of extra tension to all of this. Before Warrior, I accept these terms. It would honestly be kind of interesting to follow you around for a year."

"Wait, wha-?"

"You did say a balanced offer, no? And I did offer a place alongside me beneath my Master. Only fair to reciprocate. So while it won't happen as I will definitely crush you in this round, I would at least be in your care, Young Master." Fate seemed to conspire against Vista in that moment, because before he could attempt a retort or somehow try to regain some control of the situation, the platform beneath them flashed brightly.

And as it had been during every previous one, it was the signal that the round had now officially started. Inner Disciple Storm didn't wait for him either, charging out and away into the elemental valley with a mighty battlecry. Given the smaller area and more tightly packed clusters of elemental monsters that seemed to protect their scattered domains, Vista couldn't dally any more. With an inward curse, he threw himself onto Wimmy's back as the cerberus had already started its loping stride.

If he was to prove himself both to the kingdom and to that infuriating inner disciple, he had no time to spare, and could suffer no interruptions of his focus. Fallen and his companion walked through the corridors of the mirage arena with the confident ease of people who knew exactly what they were doing and where they were going. That there weren't many people around helped, and most of those they met were bronze or even iron rankers who didn't dare do more than bow before the two silvers.

"It seems our plan has at least worked to our satisfaction," Fallen thought, thinking back to the days past and the frustrating interference of the Pathbreaker and his guild. The Tengu's crows were old adversaries of theirs by now, more known and taken into accord already. But that guild had really started to put actual pressure on them, along with that woman with the chains… No, Fallen did not regret his suggestions to rush to the next step of the plan.

It might not have left as many sects - and more important, gold-rankers - ready to fight one another, but there had been enough to get the process going. Now they only needed to guard and stoke this spark, applying just the right pressure. Too much, and the fires might burn themselves out too soon and not lead to the future they wished for. And too little would mean that reaching the critical mass at the allotted time became unfeasible. Fallen's mistress had seemed content to work with this though, and so would he.

Both silvers gathered their spirits into something more intense as they drew near the entrance to the chamber where the two current competitors were lying while connected to the mirage. While one of them was some nobody from the north that had surprised everyone with a good showing so far, Victory Carved in Storm and Stone was a treasured inner disciple under personal tutelage from one of their sect's gold-rankers.

Her being slain while helplessly connected to the mirage arena by what would ostensibly look like members of the Heavenly Shadow Sect was - according to the mistress - just the amount of pressure needed to force the Iron Howl Sect into some kind of action. And the fates had smiled upon Fallen's endeavors this time, as the pair of guards were merely bronze-rankers.

"Honored Seniors," one of them called while bowing alongside his companion. Both came from the Iron Howl Sect, probably some kind of chosen juniors for the inner disciple inside, and as the Heavenly Shadow Sect ostensibly had only minor tensions with the Iron Howl, their tone was pleasant.

"Greetings, juniors," Fallen called, wearing his usual easy smile; a mask that had kept serving him well so far.

"Apologies for our tardiness. We were asked by the inner disciple to come and stand extra guard over her in these unexpectedly tense times, with our elders agreeing because they wanted to clearly show the mutual respect between the Heavenly Shadow and the Iron Howl. We'll just take our positions inside and hope that the inner disciple can forgive our late arrival."

"I… see," the bronze-ranker replied, keeping a straight face even though Fallen could note both a hint of skepticism and worry in aura. Denying someone of a higher rank and from an important sect was hard enough even before one took the power disparity between them into account.

"You will have to excuse me, honored Seniors, but I think I will need to consult the elders-" His words were cut off though, as Fallen's aura clamped down upon his like a vice, and even though his easy smile was unchanging, the look in his eyes had sharpened considerably.

"Juniors, I don't believe I asked you for permission to do our duty," Fallen clarified, stepping closer towards the door.

"Raising your hands against us would simply be cutting your own paths short, so let's not do anything hasty now." While he wanted nothing else but to simply smite these pests and be done with it, this was an operation where the more witnesses Fallen could have to two members of the Heavenly Shadow Sect entering the chambers, the better.

Seeing that the two bronzes had understood as well, he simply reached past them to open the doors the the chamber housing the incapacitated contestants and- click"Which one of you has the keys, Juniors? Locking this door is really starting to test my patience," Fallen stated simply, turning his smile again upon the pair. But even before they answered, he knew the truth of things.

"I-I'm sorry, Senior. Neither of us. We were given no keys, and that door was unlocked last we checked," one of the pair of bronzes stammered, sensing what might be their impending doom. This… This was suspicious, to say the least. Fallen never enjoyed that feeling, as it meant complications. But some of those could at least be circumvented with haste.

"Then we break the door down," he said, bringing back a glowing fist that slammed into the arrays protecting the closed door, the interlaced formations flaring slightly beneath the sudden onslaught. They should have time enough.

"Oh? Oh! Oh crap~!"

"What is it, Wander?" Kite asked, walking hand in hand with Dragonfly along the tense streets of the capital, both wearing the same kind of obscuring veils from their wide hats, with Kite having gifted his wife one similar to his own half a year back. It felt a bit odd to walk so calmly while another few gold-rankers had started clashing again in the sky above not long before, but it was apparently the new norm now.

"Wait, let me just… Yeah, I knew those guys felt fishy. You need to hurry to the mirage arena. Something suspicious is happening~!" Neither Kite nor Dragonfly hesitated in the slightest, throwing inconspicuousness to the wind as they set off at full speed, with Kite missing Glint's presence even more in that moment.

"Tell us more, Wander," he urged once they were on the move, praising Fortune that the somewhat emptier streets at least made them easier to navigate at speed.

"Okay, so a pair of silver-rankers just went up and started demanding entrance to the chamber where Vista and that inner disciple are lazing about while doing their thing inside the mirage arena. I thought they looked fishy, so I had my bodies I have left watching over Vista lock the door from the inside. Good thing too, as I don't think any sensible would-be helpers and guardians would suddenly find it worth to start battering the doors down to get through~."

"Wander, you are truly heaven-sent," Dragonfly said from where she ran beside Kite.

"The others?"

"I just told them too, River and Little Crow are on their way. Gah, why did the arena need to be on the other side of the city? Even with their speed, I suspect it will take at least half an hour for them to catch up. More if they need to circumvent those sect people roaming around just looking for an excuse to fight."

"It will just be us for the time being then," Kite noted as the mirage arena came into view in the distance.

"Come, my love. Let us conquer the final stretch at speed!" The main entrance to the circular arena wasn't guarded, but that did not keep a few nearby people from casting odd looks at the couple as they charged up the final sets of stairs at speed before turning and rushing in towards the innards of the complex. Fortunately, Kite already knew where to go even without Wander's guidance, leading to a hectic couple of turns and a quick rush up a flight of stairs before they reached the final corridor.

It was as if the world slowed down just as he turned the corner, Kite's mind desperately trying to take in and coordinate all the details of what he saw: a door broken open, with one wounded bronze-ranker to one side still reeling from the aftermath of some kind of attack while another was fending off something illusory that only he could see.

Inside the threshold, two figures wearing the robes of the Heavenly Shadow Sect had just entered, only to find themselves accosted by a fierce half-dozen rats that threw themselves against the pair with wild abandon only to be brutally and swiftly dispatched.

"Ohheavens- Wall!" The rodents' sacrifice bought another two seconds however, as walls of force then suddenly appeared inside the smaller chamber to box in the invading pair while covering all of the alcoves where the competitors lay suspended. From their distance and at that angle, Kite could not see exactly which one Vista occupied, so he had to take a chance and shield all of them.

And as one of the people inside then conjured a familiar hooked blade that he started to swing towards one of the nearby alcoves, Kite suddenly felt very sure about who he was dealing with. This narrative has been purloined without the author's approval. Report any appearances on Amazon. Dragonfly seemed to recognize it by description too, and as one the pair shot ahead in a pair of empowered leaps. But where Kite's was simply a side-function of an essence powers, Dragonfly's was a lot more directed and powerful.

And given the amount of practice she'd gotten with the power over the years, shooting almost straight ahead with a powerful warcry was no trouble.

"Kyyyyaaaaah!" Her newly gifted axe in hand, Dragonfly entered the room with all the subtlety of a hurricane as the poleaxe left a trail of flames that billowed out to fill the whole room. Ever since receiving the gift, she had let Kite carry Piece of Heaven - her old axe taken from the fallen leader of the dissolved Descending Star Sect - in his dimensional storage to have a spare available if her own dimensional bags were lost.

But even without the former artifact's slight boost to her fire damage, Kite still felt the strain on his barriers from the fan of flames, but fortunately his wife had remembered not to use her essence-power that added disruptive force damage to the conflagration. Without hesitation, Kite let his own momentum carry him into the still expanding cloud of flames, the searing reduced to mere discomfort by the spear in his hands.

Said spear was also soon directly aimed at the first of the opponents that became visible in the bright inferno; the agent of Discord with the hooked sword. Having apparently already sensed Kite's approach, he had already begun dodging the spear with that uncanny serenity of his that somehow shifted his body a lot faster than it had any right to, but while Kite would have appreciated first impaling the man on his spear before what followed, the reserve plan would also do.

After all, while fighting in such an enclosed space was usually something which fit him well, doing it while the person he wanted to protect was lying helpless nearby was not ideal. Therefore, the agent of Discord - probably having expected Kite to shift his footwork for additional jabs with this spear - was taken by surprise as Kite kept the moment of his charge going, reaching out with his left arms as well as a pair of spectral arms from his mantle to grab his foe. And keep going.

Crash While the chamber was mostly constructed from wood and stone, the wall facing inward towards the arena itself was almost completely made of glass. Enchanted glass, sure, but not durable enough to keep a charging Kite in his plate armor and with Implacable Motion active from crashing through it.

Both Kite and his grappled, unwilling passenger burst out into the center of the actual mirage arena that was mostly empty space around the central illusory pillar showing what went on inside, which was in this case a depiction of Vista shredding a group of fire elementals with whirling blades of wind and water. The stands rose like a circle around that central, open area that was likewise open to the skies above.

And while they weren't visible, there were also translucent array barriers between the stands and the arena floor to prevent easy access from the audience side of things. While sailing through the air with his foe, Kite also noted two things while preparing his next move. The first was how his quarry managed to twist in his half-grasp and kick off with frustrating ease, separating the pair mid-flight towards the arena floor. As for the second…

"Where are all the people?" part of his mind had the time to wander as his expanded field of vision took in the almost completely empty stands.

Kite knew that less and less people attended the actual matches now that there were other fights and standoffs happening so frequently around the city, but he had expected more than some few token low-rankers who also seemed more busy staring daggers at counterparts on the other side or making their way towards the exits than care about the actual battle that suddenly spilled out into what they were supposed to be spectating.

His foe soon proved deserving of Kite's full attention though, with the man twisting in the air and somehow subverting his own fall to take him back towards Kite in a spinning swing. This left Kite little choice than to suddenly arrest his own fall with a conjured pane of force that turned leap into charge at a different angle than expected.

This caused the attempted strike to miss, but a burst of deathly energies still erupted from the illusion-clad man that forced Kite to lean more into his barriers than his own attempted counter to the counter. The wave also caused the barriers keeping Kite aloft to crack and break, but instead of arresting his fall Kite let himself drop to the floor below, the pull of the earth assisting his dodge.

No more had he landed before swinging his staff and a pair of Matra's descendants, a trio of projected attacks chasing the man through the air. One of the rippling strikes managed to clip the operative's blade enough for the dispelling force to unbalance and shatter the conjuration, forcing his opponent to go in unarmed as the man's momentum through the air suddenly sped up in a surge of corrupting mana.

Given the pale glow of the hand that managed to shatter one of the arms of Kite's mantle as well as the barriers it touched, Kite was unsure how much of a disadvantage it would be. A few quick exchanges later, and their rhythm from before was back, odd and unpredictable tranquil motions meeting the firm stance of Kite's defense that was also his means of countering.

As before, Implacable Motion let Kite power through the field of sluggishness that his foe tried to impart around them, but another surge of mana from the man had the effect pressing in on Kite in earnest for a few moments.

"Dancing with you isn't my task this day, Pathbreaker," the man noted in a tone where confidence was tinted by slight frustrations as he turned to sprint back towards the chamber where the contestants lay helpless. Even hampered as he was, Kite was already preparing to send out a series of new projected attacks in order to halt him before Dragonfly - bless her fierceness - solved the situation for him.

Another crash and shattering of glass resounded from above at that moment as another man dressed in what was no doubt a mere illusion of sect colors came soaring out from the room above as if launched by a catapult. Dragonfly was right on his heels too, already spinning into her Descending Sunwheel as she made her aerial pursuit through the flickering illusory pillar that sparked and distorted from the interference.

And with the other pair of combatants gone, it took Kite nothing but a mental command and a nudge of mana for his remaining barriers in the room to shift and layer themselves across the windows and seal the room away from the outside much more thoroughly than before. He did not get another comment from his opponent on the matter, but felt some satisfaction as the frustration in the motions of his opponents grew.

Then he broke through the momentarily restrictive domain, letting his charge take him closer in an attempt to further pin down his foe and prevent him from breaking through the protection now surrounding Vista and the other competitor. Staff met blade, as the agent of Discord brought out a spare sword from a spatial bag, and the duel was back in full swing.

While their battle was quite mobile, with Kite's steady advance in pursuit of his more nimble foe, Dragonfly's engagement with the other disguised agent was a frantic chase. Kite knew how much his wife hated illusionists as her path had no direct way of circumventing them. In this, Dragonfly instead compensated with speed, ferocity and judicious use of her jets of flame.

While subtle attacks and warping spells landed on her, Kite's wife simply burned hotter as she sliced and spun her way through the not-realities that her foe created to confuse her and land their own attacks. Still, what kind of husband would Kite be if he did not try to lend her a helping hand or three?

Leaning into a reversal his foe made, Kite sacrificed some of his own momentum and another of his spectral arms to backpedal a few steps while making a few sweeping strikes with his staff to ward off direct pursuit. And as the man then used his odd power to find speed from the slowness of his domain and flank Kite, the pair had already drawn close enough to the others." Dissolve the patterns of power!" Ripple of Cancellation burst from Kite in a sphere that covered a fair share of the arena.

While Dragonfly's presence increased the cost, that was well worth it as the dispelling wave washed over her without effect. The pair of assailants, however, found their illusions torn apart as well as a boon or two forcefully sundered, and even the much larger pillar in the middle rippled and screeched as its sound and light collapsed momentarily.

Dragonfly, used to the path of her husband and long-time companion, immediately pounced and managed to deliver a devastating strike to the side of the true body of her foe who once again found himself - at least that was what Kite thought the person to be beneath the illusions, masked and garbed as as he was - sent bouncing away over the hard stone floor by the force.

But before she could pursue again, an arrow suddenly struck Dragonfly from above; the black shaft piercing her shoulder before detonating into ominous black smoke that seeped into her body to no doubt deliver some kind of affliction. She dodged the next, though, glancing up alongside Kite to note the silhouette of an archer up at the roof of the circular arena that covered the stands. The intervention also had their two foes renew their counterattack, intensifying the already rising tempo of the battle.

But there was nothing to do for Kite and Dragonfly but to meet that tempo, moving closer to one another as flame and barrier started moving more in unison. As the melee was joined again, Kite even thought that he saw Vista somehow glance towards him from the illusory pillar at the center, even though that surely was nothing more than a coincidence.

"This again?" Vista swore under his breath as the world somehow shifted and distorted around them in odd ways that made even his silver-ranked mind a bit dizzy. The early stages of the round had gone about as expected, with him utilizing Wimmy for mobility and his elemental blades to add extra efficiency against whatever foe he stumbled upon while he let his rising, ramping boons gather momentum. But then these disturbances had begun, whose source Vista had yet to discern.

Was it some kind of hidden monster with dimensional magic? An added challenge to the round as a hazard? He was leaning towards the former and stretching out his aura senses as far as possible in order to find said monster when another ripple in their simulated reality came, this one much more pronounced than before. His mind awash with the dizzying sights, Vista tried his best to push through it only to come to a complete and stunned stop the next moment as he finally computed what he was seeing.

"Is that… Kite?" This more powerful distortion seemed more localized around a vague, pillar-like shape not too far from Vista where he saw his friend, tattoos aglow and all of his arms weaving a furious mix of offense and defense as he battled some masked assailant. While hard to make out properly, Vista also thought that he saw Dragonfly in a similar situation as well as a barrage of arrows fired from above.

"By the heavens, why are they fighting in the mirage arena?" he asked Wimmy, the familiar looking up at him with one head and shrugging even though the question had been rhetorical. The distortion then dimmed, but did not disappear entirely as it sometimes let glimpses and half-seen images through. Still, it was too much for Vista to simply disregard. Far too much.

With a mental command to Wimmy, the cerberus turned its loping gait somewhat and set a new course through the elemental valley, noses sniffing the air furiously even though it was quite unnecessary as their goal was already announcing herself quite thoroughly in a series of golden explosions in the distance.

"Inner Disciple! Something is wrong!" Vista shouted as soon as he drew closer to where Victory Carved in Storm and Stone was crushing a vast swarm of ashen elementals into a rising cloud of obscuring grey. Through the din of her calamitous path, it took the other silver-ranker a few moments to notice though, but she eventually turned to him with questioning eyes.

"Yeah, obviously. Why aren't you fighting? Can't overtake my lead with an attitude like that," she countered, already moving onto the next group of monsters in the distance that had been drawn in by the commotion.

"Or was the opportunity to come join me at the sect for a year so tempting that it's starting to affect your will to fight? Wimmy could keep pace with her though, loping alongside as Vista pointed around them.

"Haven't you noticed the distortions?"

"Well, sure. I bet I'll find the source of them before you, too, as it got to be worth a lot of points!"

"I thought so too, first, but then I saw- there, look!" As if on cue, another wave rippled throughout the space where the air warped and showed glimpses of the arena beyond, as if something was disrupting the arrays outside and projecting the outside within rather than the intended reverse.

"Huh. Advanced illusions, perhaps?" Inner Disciple Storm noted, seeming not at all as concerned as Vista thought proper.

"Or perhaps something is happening outside. Those are the people from the guild fighting outside, while we're here and basically helpless!"

"In case you didn't notice, Young Master, there is a lot of fighting going on here now. Plenty of grudges to settle after all. I even had a few good ones myself, so things are looking up for the Iron Howl Sect. You'll really enjoy it there, I swear!" the inner disciple proclaimed proudly.

"I…" Vista began, stunned.

"You're not worried?"

"Sure, but I trust that my sect will watch my back out there while I bring glory to them in here. That's what being part of a proper organization is like. Me winning this part of the Proving will bring us great benefits in the years to come." Another set of ripples had Vista glance that way, only to be met with a confusing mess of images that coalesced into Dragonfly being hit by a trio of black arrows that darted in from different directions.

The fiery woman only seemed to ignite further from the impacts, but no path could shrug off damage forever, and there were more arrows incoming even as the brief vision disappeared. The last thing Vista was able to glimpse was Kite backing into view while still engaged with the same blade-wielding foe even while part of his attention seemed to be directed towards dispelling what illusions he could from the foe clashing with his wife.

"Well…" he began, resolve coalescing in his heart," I for one have no such formal loyalties, but that matters little when those outside are my friends. Consider this bout your victory." Another mental command had Wimmy whine slightly, with all three heads looking up and back at Vista with 'Really?' written all over their canine features. But Vista's mind was made up, and as he conveyed more of his intentions through his bond with the familiar, it seemed like Wimmy agreed.

The cerberus then turned sharply from loping beside their competitor, their new trajectory pointing straight towards a small lake of roiling lightning nearby. There was one surefire way to be expelled from the projection of a mirage chamber, after all, as it seemed like there was nobody present outside who had deemed it fit to pull Vista out of there.

"Wait? What? You're giving up?" Inner Disciple Storm called disbelievingly from behind him, and as Vista did not respond but simply crouched deeper where he balanced on Wimmy's back, she continued.

"Well don't think that this will free you from our wager! You hear me!" To that, Vista only sighed inwardly, both at the inconvenience he was about to impose upon himself if he was to keep his honor intact and the dream and goal he was now about to sacrifice. But given what he had learned in the recent years and the journeys he had undertaken, that dream honestly felt pretty small now, compared to the rest of it all.

Then, as one, Vista and his familiar soared out over the lake of lightning, before disappearing into its churning, fulminating depths.

"Hmm?" Black Wood Mask intoned softly as part of her splintered mind was torn away from the vast majority of her network of subtle, shifting light to focus on one particular place. An unseen thread had managed to sneak into the mirage arena to follow Fallen's progress, and it seemed that her disciple had stumbled into unforeseen complications. But seeing just who these complications were, Black Wood Mask also found it an opportunity.

No wonder that Fallen had not yet disengaged now that he might have the chance to punish their little interlopers who had pushed their plans to such a concerning degree. But Fallen was also one of the very few silver-rankers of their church in Hua-Xi who knew the broader strokes of their grand undertaking. It was necessary if he was to properly coordinate things, but also a potential weakness if things turned dire enough. Dead would be one thing, but captured? No, that was unacceptable.

Still, given their three to two advantage where Fallen, another of their operatives and an ally from the church of Deceit seemed to be pressing the pair of adventurers quite hard by threatening what they were no doubt trying to protect, things seemed to be under control. Still, Black Wood Mask left that invisible construct of light there to keep an eye on things. Just in case she would, against all odds, need to intervene personally.