The enemy team soared from behind the ridge, ready and poised to attack. Mana from their spells blazed in Alex’s senses, growing as they closed the distance. Incantations roared through the air. Alex’s teammates were still scattered; the cloud of dust still filtered around them but as it dissipated, so did their cover.

“Keep moving!” Alex shouted. “If we stay apar-”

“Wait!” a voice shouted from the enemy team. “Everyone hold your spells! I know that voice! Is that you Roth? It’s the Hydra Companions!”

“Y-yes?” Alex froze for a moment before he recognised the voice calling out to him. “Roderich, is that you?”

“Yes! Thank the gods, we thought it might be Goldtooth’s team from all the fire over here.”

Slowly, the Hydra Companions drifted closer while some of Alex’s teammates emerged from the dust. He let out a sigh of relief: it looked like everyone was still…

…no wait.

“Where’s Hogarth?” Thundar whispered, eyeing the sapphire shirted team through the dust cloud.

Svenia swore quietly. “Bloody hell. He got caught in one of those fireballs and was gone before I could pull him away.”

Alex winced.

‘Lost one already,’ he thought, watching the members in their uneasy alliance floating toward him. ‘Things could’ve been worse. We got at least four of those invisible bastards, which means they lost eight points just to gain two. Still, losing Hogarth was a blow.’

He looked at Grimloch, Claygon, Isolde and Thundar.

At least it wasn’t one of their heavy-hitters who’d been eliminated.

“We have a duty to avenge Hogarth,” Isolde said quietly. “But, such talk is for later.”

She turned as the Hydras stopped about thirty feet away and hovered in the air. Najyah circled above them, but if they noticed, they didn’t look up.

Silence hung as each team measured one another.

‘We have a nonaggression pact with them,’ Alex thought. ‘But nothing’s stopping them from turning on us. Nothing but their word…and just how good is your word, Roderich?’

He eyed his Wizard’s Hands, thinking about how fast he could have them crush booby-trapped potions in their ‘allies’ faces if things turned bad.

Finally, Roderich spoke. “You took a loss, I see.”

“So have you.” Khalik kept his hand near his sword. His earth armour creaked as he shifted. Stress cracks had begun to form from the battle.

“Maybe,” Roderich said, non-committedly. “Maybe not.”

Alex scanned the line of sapphire-shirted battle mages. He counted two less team members than he’d seen in the stadium…but that might only mean that they’d left them behind the ridge.

‘Then again…’ he thought, watching Roderich and the others. Their body language was fidgety and their manner tense. It was pretty clear that they didn’t want a fight.

‘They probably have taken losses, but don’t want to admit it,’ he thought.

Tension still hung in the air.

Until Thundar sighed. “Can we stop with this stand-off thing? I’m getting tired of it. Is our pact still good or do we need to start blasting you guys?”

There was a threat in his voice: an edge that promised a world of hurt if Roderich’s answer was anything but, ‘yes.’

“It is still good,” one of the other Hydras said quickly.

“Same on our end,” Thundar called back.

Alex saw relief wash through the Hydras, as his friends relaxed too.

“Then let us compare notes, so to speak,” Roderich said, slowly floating down. The two teams met on the plain, looking around just in case the invisible assailants came back for a second round.

“Who were our invisible friends?” Thundar asked the Hydras. “You think it was Ranier?”

One of the Hydra Companions shook his head. “I have no idea. I didn’t hear any of them talking…but I’m no expert on his voice. Anyone else hear them say anything?” He asked his team members.

“For a moment I thought I might have heard him,” one said. “But now I’m not so sure.”

“It is likely that team was his,” Isolde said. “It would take skill, expertise and a lot of mana to create that illusionary forest while also casting Greater Invisibility on that many people at once.”

“Greater Invisibility,” Thundar snorted. “Makes sense, no wonder they didn’t appear when they started casting spells.”

“They must have been maintaining those illusions for a while,” one of the Hydra Companions said. Alex noticed that one sleeve of her sapphire shirt was singed. “That forest was here when we got here…honestly, I’m shocked they didn’t attack us: we were busy ambushing a couple of other teams from the ridge, so we were vulnerable to them.”

Roderich sniffed. “They were probably waiting for us to lose more members—plus eliminate more of the competition for them—before they tried to wipe us out.” He shook his head, looking at Thundar. “Glad you all came along, and speaking of that-” He looked toward the direction Alex’s team had come from. “-who else did you see on your way here?”

“A couple of other teams, but we didn’t know any of the team members.” Alex said. “We eliminated them and a few summoned monsters.” He looked toward the ridge. “Who have you seen? Any sign of Goldtooth or Hanuman? Or the Outcasts?”

Roderich shook his head. “No, we haven’t seen any of them.”

“A pity,” Khalik said. “It would have been nice if someone had eliminated them in the early. Ah, well. And what of our mutual enemies: the Ursa-Lupines?”

“We haven’t seen them either,” Roderich said. “You?”

“Not one thread of their purple shirts.”

“Damn.”

There was a pause.

The sounds of explosions and other spells reached them from the distance.

“Right, we’d better get moving then,” Alex said.

“…going for the mountaintop?” Roderich asked.

Tension slipped back into his body and those of his Companions.

“No, not yet,” Alex said quickly. “Better we stop others trying to get to it before we try and take it. We’ll need an ambush point, like your team has.”

“Right, then,” one of the Hydras looked back up at the ridge. “Well, we’ve already called that spot.”

“And we would not dream of fighting over it,” Khalik said. “We shall circle the mountain and find a hiding point of our own. …you would not know of other teams hiding nearby, would you? We would prefer not to walk into anotherambush.”

The Hydra Companions paused.

Roderich turned and pointed to the east side of the mountain. “There’re some caves over there near the foot of the mountain. We heard a scuffle coming from that direction, but that was a while ago. Can’t say if anyone’s still there, though.”

“We’ll find out, then,” Theresa said. “Good hunting.”

“May we destroy our shared enemy,” Isolde said.

“Yeah, good hunting.” Roderich nodded as the Hydra Companions rose back into the air.

Tension returned and the Hydra Companions floated away; neither team took their eyes off each other until the Hydras disappeared back behind the ridge.

“Let’s move,” Alex said.

“But, let’s keep an eye on our friends for a while,” Theresa agreed.

Slowly, the team moved away from the ridge, keeping watch on the Hydra Companions’ hiding spot until they were well out of spell range.

Then, they could relax…a little.

“I wasn’t sure sure they weren’t gonna stab us in the back,” Thundar said quietly.

“Would’ve been the last thing they ever did,” Grimloch promised.

“…do you mean the last thing they did during the competition?” Alex asked nervously.

Grimloch didn’t answer.

Alex didn’t push.

“It’s good that our peaceful accord still holds,” the prince said. “A quarrel between us would only aid our mutual enemies.”

“Yeah, I’m sure those invisible bastards would’ve loved it if we started beating the hell out of each other,” the minotaur said. He glanced over at Isolde and Svenia. “You two okay?”

“Yes,” Isolde said, sighing. “It is too bad that Hogarth was eliminated…but I suppose it would be too much to hope that we would all pass through the contest unscathed.”

“Yeah,” Svenia said, gripping her bow. “We’ll just have to make sure to knock down a few more bastards for him. So-” She looked at Thundar. “-how did you know the forest was an illusion?”

“Well,” he said. “On one of our trips into the Barrens Alex and I ran into this illusion. He’s the one who saw through it…and not gonna lie, it was kinda embarrassing that the guy who’s actually in illusions class didn’t see it first.”

He glanced back toward the field where the illusion had been. “I got really focused on techniques about seeing through illusions after that. They focused on one thing really hard in my Illusions class, and that was that illusions aren’t actually there; we might hear ‘em, we might smell ‘em, we might see ‘em and we might even feel ‘em, but they still don’t actually have any physical mass. So you might be able to touch them, and if you push on them, it might feel like you’re pushing against something solid…but they can’t support weight. So, when I leaned on the tree, I fell right through it.”

“Really?” Alex asked. “I didn’t see you fa-Wait. Right after you leaned against it…I remember you looked strange…your body looked completely different. Was that the illusion?”

“Yep, probably was, I’m guessing,” Thundar said. “It was tricking you into thinking that I didn’t fall through the tree—so that’s what it showed you—but it didn’t get me quite right: it’s harder for illusions to mimic a living animal than a plant or an object, and even harder to mimic a person.”

“Well, I’m not sure how much I understand of all that,” Svenia said. “But thanks. You saved us.”

Murmurs of agreement spread through the group.

Thundar scratched the fur on the side of his face. “Well, you’re gonna make me blush if you keep that up…but I guess we should quiet down for now.”

“Yes, let’s close our mouths and open our ears,” Theresa said. “We want to make sure that if anyone’s in those caves, they don’t hear us coming from a mile away.”

Alex thought about that and asked Isolde to cast a flight spell on Claygon: that would keep his thunderous footsteps from alerting their enemies that they were coming. The golem floated a little bit above the ground.

Alex scanned their surroundings and flinched.

A column of flame rose in the distance. ‘Let’s hope we don’t lose too many more of us before we meet someone reallytough.’

Indrajit Hanuman’s eyes narrowed as he watched The Outcasts of the Divine Wind make their way toward the mountain.

“Shhh,” he whispered to his companions. “Wait for my mark.”

His team glanced at each other and lowered their bodies deeper in the tall grass. They didn’t make a sound, and that brought a smile to Indrajit’s face. He and his comrades had trained hard for this: their silent movements were a testament to the time and effort they’d spent honing themselves.

‘Like a master weaponsmith’s swords,’ he thought. ‘Still, we need to be careful.’

The Grand Melee had been a bit of a catastrophe, even though they’d started off well enough by eliminating several teams early. Then they’d run into that trio: the two cultivators and the warrior-wizard.

They’d let themselves get surrounded then allowed themselves to be beaten.

Indrajit shook his head. ‘Foolish. Arrogant. We should not have permitted the competition to swarm us. But, in this event, we will be the ones who do the ambushing!’

They’d not only eliminated several teams so far, but they’d also defeated a few summoned monsters by striking from the grass like cobras, crushing them, then quickly melting back into the tall sea of green.

Now,, they were about to face the champions from the previous year. Indrajit held his breath. They would wait for their foes to come close.

First-

Splooortch!

Indrajit’s eyes narrowed as he peered above the tall blades of grass.

One of the elemental knights was spraying a black, viscous substance onto the grass from the end of her sword.

“I don’t like the look of that,” he said quietly.

Still, she was spraying it far from his team’s hiding place. And the rest of her team was still too far for his team to attack them: with those centaur archers and elemental knights, the Outcasts would have the greater advantage from a distance.

“Steady…” he whispered.

‘Come closer,’ he thought.

Then another elemental knight also pointed his sword at the grass.

Fwoosh!

Flame gushed from it and the black substance suddenly erupted in an inferno. One of the mercenaries glanced in their direction.

It was only for an instant, but Indrajit’s enhanced senses caught it.

“Shit!” he swore, leaping to his feet. “They know we’re here!”

Whooosh!

Another elemental knight pointed his sword in their direction; a great wind blasted across the plain, stoking the inferno, sending it racing toward his team like a hungry swarm of locusts. They leapt up and ran forward, trying to rush around the flame while shouting incantations.

Whoosh! Whoosh! Whoosh!

Arrows slammed into his teammates with the precision of a surgeon’s blade. Arrowtips pierced through gaps between their chainmail and force armour, wiping out three of them. Even through the fire and billowing smoke racing toward Hanuman’s team, the centaurs found their marks like they were standing mere feet away.

Calling upon his enhanced life-force, Indrajit charged, spitting an incantation.

Five illusionary replicas shimmered to life around him, creating a confusing mass of six bodies.

‘Shoot me now!’ he thought, conjuring spears of bronze and firing them at his enemies.

They whistled through the air.

One of the elemental knights swung his sword up and-

Riiiiip!

-a wall of stone burst from the earth.

Crack! Crack! Crack!

Indrajit’s spears hit the wall.

He spat out a Haste spell and surged forward at double speed. His team and the illusionary copies split into two and rushed around the wall from opposite directions, looking to overwhelm the Outcasts.

Whiiish! Whiiish! Whiiish!

Arrows pierced Hanuman’s illusionary copies, but he and his teammates still reached their enemies.

A vicious melee broke out: his team’s life-enforced forms, their training and magic skills let them tear into the Outcasts, sending several mercenaries vanishing from the fight before the elemental knights jumped in.

Hanuman’s tulwar clashed against a diamond-encased longsword as he rushed an elemental knight with blinding speed and power. The knight pushed right back—her enhanced strength—and the weight of her diamond-coated blade dealt crushing blows. Her armour turned away his cuts when they slipped through her guard.

He was still gaining the upperhand: she stepped back as his aggressive flurry broke down her defences.

“Get the archers!” he shouted to his team. “I’ll-”

The words died in his throat.

His team was gone.

Sometime during the moments he’d been fighting this elemental knight, his team had vanished.

The centaurs were turning toward him, drawing back their bowstrings.

Twang! Twang! Twang!

Their arrows flew true…too true.

They curved through the air like they were sentient, weaving around his opponent, coming directly at him. He struck one from the air, but the other two swerved straight for the gaps in his force armour.

It was impossible.

He’d sensed no mana and they’d spoken no incantatio-

Indrajit froze just before the arrows slammed into him.

‘So that’s how you’re doing it,’ he thought. ‘Very sneaky. The chancellor won’t approve, I think.’

Then the arrows reached him and he was catapulted from the battlefield.