I walked back over to where I had been sitting and mulled the encounter I'd had with the Urstnir of Napdid over in my head. 

I no longer thought that the creature had gone from one universe to another, or at least not in the same way that I had. In fact, I had a little bit of a different idea of what the Urstnir of Napdid might have actually been, though I had no real way to confirm the theory. 

What if the Urstnir of Napdid was actually one of the strange void creatures that I had met in the Chasm, one of the species that had given me a chance to exist again in a new world. 

But if that was the case, why did it look like a cloud instead of a big shadowy figure. Better yet, why did the gaseous alien seem so terrified of me when they realised the truth of my origins? These were all questions I wanted the answer to but likely wouldn't get unless I was able to corner the Urstnir of Napdid again. I had a strange suspicion that they weren't exactly going to make that easy to do. 

"Did you receive the answers to the questions you sought, Jacob Lyre?" Yr'Arl asked as I sat back down. 

"Honestly, I left the conversation with a lot more questions than I had when I went into it," I said truthfully. "I'll need to try and corner them again at some point." 

"I wish you the best of luck in your endeavour," Yr'Arl said. 

I looked down into the battle arena, expecting to see another battle already underway, but that wasn't the case. 

"Why haven't they started another fight yet?" I asked. 

"The lightning that The Urstnir of Napdid used against Wolsoff supposedly damaged the structural integrity of the battle arena, even through its manna resistant shielding," Akash explained. "They are giving the repair mites a chance to fix the arena before the next battle can commence. Otherwise, the audience would be at risk of being hit by a powerful attack."

That made sense, though I had no idea what 'repair mites' were supposed to be,

<Oh that's easy, they're little sub-atomic drones that can stitch things back together in no time. I'm sure the next battle will be starting shortly,> BB explained. 

That was good, because I was starting to get restless. None of our trio had been in their first fight yet, and we had to be at least half way through the first round of tournament matches. If we didn't have our battles soon then we would be surely fighting against one another in the first round. 

As much as I'd like to see a showdown between Yr'Arl and Akash, I didn't really think that was a battle that should have been relegated to the first match in a tournament. 

"Thank you to the competitors and to those in the audience for being so patient as we repaired the stadium!" The voice of Squadron Leader Belana rang out. "We've got a real treat for you in our next bout. It's the one and only Akash, last of the Eldrani! His planet was destroyed by the human scourge, now he's joined the Guard to help fight back against their tyranny!" 

I rolled my eyes as Akash vanished in a blaze of bright white light. So much for not stirring the pot with a healthy heaping of anti-human sentiment, Belana, I'm sure that won't come back to bite me on the butt when it comes to my battle, not at all. 

"And fighting against our survivor, we have the terrifying biologically augmented Thiss!" 

Another blaze of white light, and Thiss had materialized onto the battlefield. 

Much like when I had first seen the alien I was physically repulsed by something about them. The wires looping in and out of the creature's body looked incredibly painful to bear, and there was something about its eyeless face that made me shudder deep down inside. It moved with a jerky rigidness as if its body had already started to undergo rigour mortis. 

None of that was helped by the fact that Thiss had a wide tooth-bearing smile on its face, one that never seemed to falter. 

"In three, two, one, let the battle commence!" Belana announced over the itnercom. 

The battle began just like any battle I'd ever had with Akash started. The tree-like alien whipped a branch out toward Thiss with deadly accuracy at lightning fast speeds. I'd only ever managed to dodge those attacks thanks to my propulsion and enhanced cognition, but Thiss didn't even try to dodge out of the way of the attack. 

Instead they caught the vine tendril with one of their hands and allowed it to wrap around one of their freakishly long arms. Then, they pulled. 

Akash was yanked forward, completely unsuspecting of the attack method that Thiss had chosen. Thiss whipped Akash around with his own vine before launching him at one of the walls. Akash crashed into the wall with a heavy thud, but was up again in moments. 

"And I had expected so much more from the famed last of the Eldrani," Thiss croaked. Even the creatures voice sounded like that of a dead man. "Nevertheless, we would be honoured if you decided to join us. It would be our privilege to keep the data of your species alive in our collective. 

Well, that explained that then. 

There was a reason this creature had given me vibes similar to the Borg from Star Trek and the Cybermen from Doctor Who. 

There was a reason that every instinct in my body had been telling me that Thiss was one of the most dangerous combatants of the lot. That somehow they were a dead alien still walking. 

All of those thoughts and suspicions had been true. 

And now Akash was in more danger than any of us had ever been in before, which was really saying something.