Dee had used the Authority to hide her strength but had allowed her ten tails to show openly. That was for a reason. If the enemy communities could feel her strength, they might be able to glean something about her abilities. The tails on the other hand just allowed everyone to assume she was a normal fresh immortal of the tenth rank. It wasn’t simple to figure out her exact age, but outwardly she appeared to be fairly young, so that too reinforced the impression that she couldn’t be all that powerful as an immortal. Some of them could have seen her fight in the Cauldron of Blood, but she had not been immortal back then either, so that would simply be the largest thing to confuse them.

With an inviting and provocative gesture, she was trying to appear cocky and non-threatening at the same time. It would hopefully work to her advantage tactically, and might also reveal the extent to which the enemy communities were working together. If they only sent a single rank eleven immortal against her, then they were clearly communicating. She wasn’t entirely disappointed as only two of the enemy communities sent a fighter against her. They had clearly judged it unnecessary to waste too many people against her but had at least decided not to underestimate her too badly by sending two people. One of them seemed to be a Saauri warrior at the higher end of rank ten, while the other one was an orc warrior that was also a fairly fresh immortal like she was supposed to be. Apparently, the orcs were not contesting this round against the Saurians and wanted to conserve some of their strength.

As the light of the holy spells flashed around her, the orcs once again started their chanting and a red hue seemed to surround the High Orc warrior. He wasn’t planning on going down easily. The Saauri warrior just scoffed at them. Suddenly Dee noticed something else. ‘Well, aren’t they tricksy. Perhaps they underestimated me less than I thought.’ She thought to herself as a tiny smile slowly grew on her face.

There was no real signal to start the fight, but as if on cue, the enemies dashed towards Dee, ignoring each other. They clearly planned on testing the waters before committing their full power, something that would cost them dearly. Dee pointed her palm at the orc warrior, who was thrown back by a combination of force control and telekinesis. The orc wasn’t injured, but he was thrown back far enough that he would arrive seconds later than the Saauri warrior. A lot could happen in a few seconds in a battle of this level. A dark guandao appeared in Dee’s hand as she used the glaive end to parry the Saauri warrior’s heavy blow to the side, while at the same time stepping past him and using the other end to sweep at the Saurian’s feet with a twist of her own body.

Dee had not used all her speed to do so, so the scaled warrior jumped over the sweeping butt of the guandao fairly easily. Several things happened at once as the Saauri was in the air. The dark weapon disappeared from Dee’s hand, and she seemed to glow with light as she suddenly moved much faster. Her black wing seemed to almost teleport at the air-borne Saauri, who was unable to change directions in the air with no preparation or time to think. He managed to move his weapon to attempt a block and focus his Ki, but still got an enormous gash on his chest for his trouble. The sharp feathers on the wing seemed to ignore the thick and sturdy scales as they bit deep enough to hit bone. As the Saauri was an immortal, such a wound was far from lethal and would recover with a bit of time, but would he get that time in this battle? It was still a heavy wound that slowed him down.

At the same time, a small gnome seemed to appear from the thin air and slashed a pair of daggers at Dee’s supposedly unprotected back. The gnome had been hidden by an invisibility spell from the beginning, giving the impression that their community had not sent anyone to participate in this round. If Dee didn’t have the ability to see the mana surrounding the gnome, she too would have missed her. The idea had been great. The gnome was extremely fast and her weapons dripped with something Dee could only assume to be poison. Unfortunately, Dee was still faster and her back was a lot more defended than the gnome assumed.

Her lavender wing seemed to double in size and bashed the gnome straight into the air, where she seemed to vanish in a flash of light. Still rotating with the momentum of her two wings making their swing in the same direction, Dee turned towards the approaching orc with a spear made of psionic energy in her hand and threw the weapon at the orc. The orc dodged with the minimum amount of movement, hoping to reach Dee as fast as possible, but didn’t expect the spear to explode with power when right next to his head. The explosion managed to penetrate the ki protections around him, but couldn’t really hurt the sturdy orc too badly with the remaining power. It did, however, throw him into the ground and disoriented him for a moment due to the force of the blast.

Meanwhile, Dee continued the rotation of her body as a large and dark claymore appeared in her hand with several small black pearls fitted into the blade along its length. She ended the movement by crashing the blade into the blocking blade of the Saauri warrior who managed to lift his weapon in time. Unfortunately, the weight of the weapon and Dee’s strength overpowered him and the large sword cleaved away his sword arm. Still, the sword would have hit him on the head if he had not managed to alter its path, and the sword appeared in his other hand. Everyone also noticed that Dee’s attack was aimed to kill and she was not giving mercy to her opponents.

The gnome that had disappeared once again seemed to appear from nowhere and this time at Dee’s front, too close for her to use the sword to block. Unfortunately for the gnome, Dee had four arms, now covered alternatively by white fur or dragon scales, and two of the arms clamped on the gnomes wrists while her blades were almost close enough to scratch Dee. “Not a very good choice that.” Dee commented lightly enough that only the gnome could hear. She then lifted the gnome up by her wrists and slammed her against the ground heavily.

Two large waves of Ki flew at Dee to stop her from taking out the gnome, but neither of the other warriors was really at their best at the moment. She avoided the larger wave from the Saurian and simply blocked the other wave with her lavender wing. The force of the Ki wave pushed her back very slightly but didn’t really harm her. She slammed the gnome against the ground again for good measure, and then tossed her towards the other dwarves and gnomes on the sideline. The dwarven cleric rushed to check up on the gnome, but soon gave a sigh of relief. The gnome was unconscious, battered and bruised, but alive and not seriously injured.

Dee gave the gnome credit. She had moved fast enough that even Dee had trouble keeping an eye on her constantly with the other distractions, and seemed to have the ability to teleport very small distances in an instant. The mages called this rather complex spatial magic ability Blink, and it was quite hard to execute close to an enemy due to the area being saturated with the enemy’s power. It seemed the gnome’s specialty lied in the Blink ability. It was something Dee could not do, so she gave credit where credit was due.

The Saauri warrior had picked up the arm Dee had slashed off, and was using his Ki to try and reattach it. It would take some time, especially since the wound was contaminated by Umbra’s power, but it could be done. “I yield.” The Saauri announced. He knew there was no point in fighting Dee with two serious wounds, so he chose to leave the field and focus on recovery. The orc was still unhurt. “Death before dishonor!” The High Orc announced and dashed towards Dee. He was already clear how the fight would end just from that one brief encounter earlier, but he chose to stick to his principles.

Dee materialized gauntlets in all her four arms and just gave a little “come at me” finger motion. She would gladly help the orc keep his honor. It had to be said that the High Orc was ferocious and stronger than others of similar rank, but he could still not match Dee’s pure strength and speed. Dee simply pummeled the orc to submission, which took a while as he refused to give up. Finally the orc fell to the ground unconscious and beaten to a pulp. If he had not had the strong physique of his race, strengthened by his immortality, he would have died several times over during the severe beating.

Dee’s expression didn’t shift in the slightest as she gave one of the most thorough beatings of her life to the orc. Her serene expression as copious amounts of blood dripped from her gauntlets was almost eerie. As the unconscious orc finally stopped moving, Dee signaled the other orcs to come and get their fallen warrior while they still could. As they carried him away for treatment, Dee still didn’t shift her expression but gave a small warriors greeting to the unconscious orc. She didn’t really fully understand the desire to hold up honor, but the orc had seemed to have done so to the end. She respected his bravery and willpower, while at the same time disdaining him for being an idiot. A typical warrior, but a brave one.

“Ooh, that had to hurt.” Nyx said while making a face. “Absolutely no mercy.”

“That shouldn’t come as a surprise.” Razark stated while looking at Nyx a little weirdly. “Dee might perform an act of kindness if the mood strikes her, but mercy is not in her vocabulary. I assumed you already knew this. It was already slightly surprising that she didn’t hurt the gnome worse than she did.”

“I knew on some level. It’s just a little different to see it happen.” Nyx replied with a faint smile. “She might not look like it, but she is still a demon.”

“Good. We need someone like her. The rest of you tend to be too soft sometimes.” The recovering Anshar representative grunted. His words brought approving nods from the others. They knew their own faults. Unseen by the others, something flashed in the eyes of the Young King. He filed away this little nugget of information for later.

“The next fight will not go as easily.” Kawhena stated. “Now they will be more wary.”

“Well now, I wonder if that really is true.” Nyx disagreed. “She really only showed a small glimpse of her strength. That said, her enemies had the same problem. They too didn’t really get the chance to show off, besides the gnome perhaps. I doubt the Saauri warrior’s abilities were just that. He just didn’t use them at the beginning, and after that he never got the chance as he was already heavily wounded and mixed in a melee with strange allies. The next opponents won’t make that mistake, but I suspect our dear Dee will still have the advantage.”

Nyx’s guess turned out to be fairly accurate. As the previous warriors had not done a very good job, all three of the other communities sent people with more complex abilities against Dee this time. Another gnome walked out from one of the camps, his robes clearly signaling his status as a mage. The orcs sent a shaman that started performing a ritual as soon as he entered the ring. The Saurians still sent a warrior, but not a normal one. It was one of the thinner lizardfolk, and a large ethereal form or a spirit warrior materialized behind her.

“I see. This one will be entirely at range when the previous one was a quick melee.” Shioko commented.

Nyx laughed. “That was such a bad choice. They would have done much better with at least one person closing in trying to distract Dee. They’re clearly not planning things together in detail.”

Kawhena grimaced. “I’m not so sure. Despite their alliance, they’re not used to working together. A melee fighter might get in the way.”

“It’s starting.” Amarog pointed out simply. He felt a little weird that the girl they had saved such a short time ago was now more powerful in a battle than he was. He had known the day would come, just not so fast. The chances of his son capturing her heart seemed to be disappearing, if they had existed in the first place.

The gnome mage made a gesture and a dozen magic circles appeared beside him. They all started spewing out hundreds upon hundreds of spears seemingly made of shadows. The orc shaman seemed to be finishing his chant as a large elemental brought forth from the plane of air seemed to be materializing around him. The spirit warrior conjured by the lizardfolk warrior grew in size and slashed towards Dee, following the female Saurian’s gesture.

“Wait, seriously?” Dee asked rhetorically as she looked dumbly against the gnome mage. “They sent a shadow mage of all things against me?” She could feel that the shadows around her started to try and capture her as the mage tried to exert control over them.

She gathered Umbra’s power and made a simple gesture. All the shadows rushing towards her seemed to shatter and disappear. “That was just silly.” She mumbled as she flew up in the air to avoid the attack from the spirit warrior. The spirit warrior could follow her into the air, but it moved slower than she did.

Her expression was mirrored by some of the people among their team, specifically those aware of her skill with the shadows. “So, were the gnomes allied with us or the enemies?” Nyx asked sarcastically. This made Razark and Shioko chuckle while the Phoenix and Young King had a questioning look in their eyes. They had no idea how Dee had just stopped the attack. She certainly didn’t block it, and the attack just seemed to disappear.

As Dee gained a little altitude and distance from the spirit warrior, she looked back down. “That’s not how you use shadows.” She announced a bit more loudly than she intended. “Let me show you how to do it.”

The shadows on the ground suddenly seemed to lengthen. The air elemental was one of the high ranking lords of the plane of air, but it suddenly felt a shudder as it felt the life in the shadows reaching out. Dee pumped a lot of Umbra’s power into three of the spirits that eagerly answered her call. As an afterthought, she added some of the death element to two of the spirits, just to test it out. Three dark beings rose from the growing shadows.

The first one was a large four-legged beast that looked like a mix between a panther and a wolf. The most notable feature of the being were a pair of large wings and a pair of long and thick whiskers sometimes seen of serpentine dragons. The more knowledgeable individuals recognized the being as a Darkhunter, a beast of shadows that were almost immune to magic that wasn’t either of the light element or powered by the deities of light. The beast lunged towards the gnome mage that elected to get out of the ring immediately. He was one of those more knowledgeable individuals, and as a shadow mage had no way to fight the beast. It was an ignoble surrender, but a Darkhunter truly was the worst type of enemy to him. He avoided the Darkhunter for a short while, buying time, but eventually exited the ring.

The spirit warrior faced a mixed being of shadows and death. The roughly humanoid shaped being was clad in a plate armor made of some dark metal and was wielding a sword that glowed with Umbra’s power. No features were seen as the beings head was covered in a black hood, but everyone doubted the being actually had any features. In fact they were fairly sure it didn’t. The being Dee intuitively knew to be a Doomsept was a creature of shadow and death and matched the spirit warrior fairly equally in combat. Normally the spirit warrior would have the advantage due to support from the Saurian master. The only problem was that the spirit warrior seemed to be losing strength while the dark being seemed to be getting stronger. The Doomsept was a being of death and the spirit warrior was essentially a type of dead spirit brought back as a weapon. Another very bad matchup.

The third being looked like a dark horse with sharp teeth and claws added into its hooves. It looked like a fairly standard Nightmare, except normal Nightmares had fiery manes and tails. This one seemed to have a mane and tail made of grey energy, as the death element settled on it. It dashed towards the air elemental with lightning speed.

“Huh. That third one was not as good of a match as I assumed.” Dee mumbled. The forms of the three spirits had been partially random, though she had affected them somewhat. It seemed the Darkhunter was a big success while the Doomsept did its job well enough. The Nightmare seemed insufficient to face the elemental lord though.

Her thoughts soon proved to be true as the Nightmare was slowly but surely turn to shreds by hundreds of wind blades slashing towards it, while the shaman sent several spells towards Dee still in the sky. The Nightmare was quick but not quick enough to match a lord of air. “Better lend a hand.” Dee mumbled even though the Darkhunter seemed to be dashing that way as well. She instead directed the dark beast towards the lizardfolk warrior and decided to act personally against the elemental.

She formed a large lance made of pure psionic energy and threw it towards the elemental. The lance drilled straight through the elemental’s form, doing surprising amounts of damage. What really surprised everyone was that the weapon seemed to have much more mass and power than Dee’s usual psionic weapons as it drilled through the ground as well, causing a minor earthquake and creating a large crater in the ground.

“Dee, stop destroying our new home!” Nyx yelled angrily from the ground.

The air elemental was not defeated just yet, but Dee had no trouble finishing it off while her two spirits kept the spirit warrior and the Saurian busy. Dee finally realized that while she wasn’t allowed to kill the shaman, the same didn’t apply to the elemental or the spirit. She pointed at the two with a single finger and everyone felt more than heard the dolorous sound of a bell. The two creatures seemed to become frozen in place as a dark energy of death invaded them and made them collapse on themselves. Dee could have tried catching the souls that were released but decided against it. It was better to allow the elemental to return to the plane of air and the spirit to return to the Saurian warrior. Consuming either would not have yielded much but would have caused a lot of anger in the other communities.

As she landed back on the broken ground, she looked at the other three teams. “So who’s next?” She asked. Her form slowly expanded as she assumed her dragon form. Her large serpentine form loomed over the makeshift arena, as she prepared to use her Domain in the next fight. She doubted she would be allowed to continue any further, so she decided to put her all in the last fight and go out with a bang.

----------

“Hahaha, that last dragon breath really sealed the deal for us!” Shioko declared with a laugh.

With all the points Dee had gathered, they easily managed to gain the victory in the competition. The enemy communities had gone all out in Dee’s third fight, but the combination of Dee’s Domain and dragon breath had cleared the field before she gracefully exited before someone had the chance to defeat her. Dee had absolutely no shame for getting quick points and then running away. The Four Winds had sent the flamboyantly dressed man into the ring next, and his victory had broken the wills of the other communities. They had given up at that point. A combination of a dragon and a Phoenix taking part in the battle had been too much for them.

“I still wish you didn’t wipe out such a large piece of the area with that breath. Our earth mages will have to work extra to fix all the damage.” Nyx grumbled. She didn’t actually mind the damage; she simply wanted to poke at Dee a bit.

“Well, you’re free to go up first the next time we do this.” Dee fired back. “If you handle the fight as well, then I don’t have to go up at all.”

“Still, I had no idea that the Threads of Fate had a Phoenix among them.” Kawhena suddenly stated. It had not been an accident that they had sent the flamboyant man to fight. They wanted to test the strength of the help the seers had provided. The result had been a surprise though.

“They don’t.” The Anshar representative replied curtly. “Phoenixes are strictly seen in the first circle, mostly serving the Celestial Court. Something has changed with the seers.” The leader of the Four Winds wasn’t stupid.

“Is the shadow behind them finally stepping out?” Shioko asked. Everyone well versed in things had at some point wondered where the Threads of Fate seemed to gain strength at critical moments. They had solved several large problems in the past with power they shouldn’t have. Usually they kept to themselves though and only interfered when things got really problematic in the lesser circles. “Why now, and why here?”

“Well…” Nyx gave a quick glance towards Dee. “I can imagine a reason or two. It might be good for us, as they seem to be working together with us. Still, we should keep our eyes open.” She had also noted the increased involvement of the seer’s new representative. Her guidance was subtle but effective. If they were not careful, they might learn to rely on that guidance. It might be benevolent but still something that left them in a dependent position.