Jude let out a long sigh. It was time for him to take the stage yet again.

“Morcheron vs. Jude!” he vaguely heard the announcer say. Jude didn’t pay attention to the list of deeds or titles that the announcer continued to spout.

Jude’s only thought was that the previous fight between the two warriors had not lasted long enough. This day had been long, and he was becoming mentally fatigued with all the fighting. But he still needed that stone shard. One way or another he would win this next fight.

After all the pretty words were said, Morcheron faced Jude on the large stage. To Jude’s surprise, the stage had some kind of self-healing ability, and after each fight, it looked brand new. Considering that he had previously turned part of it into lava, it really was impressive.

Morcheron looked at Jude with his proud gaze and haughty eyes, “You’re winning will end here. I will teach you to stay in the place you were born into.”

Jude sighed again. Did these people not know anything except boasting? Where do they get their confidence from?

“You know,” Jude replied, “I’ve seen your fights as well, and I can tell you that Serena would have won against you.”

“It’s hard to say for sure, but she was a high-born of Riwa, so it is possible. But we will never know now since you killed her.” Morcheron replied.

Jude shook his head, “I don’t think you understand. I'm saying that you are weaker than Serena.”

This angered Morcheron, and instead of chatting more he went with action and cast a spell, “Water Form!”

Jude was already familiar with Morcheron’s attacks as he had seen them many times by now. Water Form was a spell that would allow Morcheron to control water by will. He would use the four spurts of water to form a basic Foundation that would support his Raging Sea’s spell, the real attack.

“Disrupt Spell,” Jude cast a spell that no one was familiar with and the four Water Forms turned to puddles.

Shock covered Morcheron’s face, but he cast the spell again, “Water Form!”

“Disrupt Spell,” Jude calmly said again.

This time the water didn’t even form before the spell collapsed.

The crowd was confused about what was going on, except for those who could cast spells. On their faces, a look of worry and fear could be seen. For something to be able to nullify magic was very rare, for a spell to cancel magic was impossible in their minds, yet they saw it right before their eyes.

In their mind, only a non-magic item could disrupt magic. Such a unique item was scarce and quite valuable but had limited uses or charges.

Magic dispelling magic was utterly impossible for the higher realms of thought in the ideology of spells. The general idea was that if magic could cancel out magic, then it would cancel itself out before it could cancel out another spell.

Jude had been saving this spell as a trump card but was now finally revealing it because he had a bad premonition. Something was telling him that he needed to leave as soon as possible.

Morcheron was getting nervous, “Summon-”

“Disrupt Spell,” Jude said canceling the spell before it completed.

“Water-“

“Disrupt Spell.”

“Ice-“

“Disrupt Spell.”

“Water Bol-“

“Disrupt Spell.”

Morcheron continued to cast a dozen different spells to no avail, and unlike Jude, he didn’t have a Legendary item that could cast attack spells. Not that it would have been any use.

“Ice Shot,” Cast a different spell catching Morcheron who was now deliriously off guard.

“Gaaah!” Morcheron yelled in pain as a two-foot-long ice spike pierced his shoulder.

“Give up,” Jude said with pity in his eyes.

That look made Morcheron who was already mad at the situation become even more desperate.

“Summon Water Elemental!” Morcheron forced out his quickest summon in his entire life.

But to Jude, it did not matter. The elemental was essentially a spell. “Disrupt Spell.”

Disrupt Spell reached Rank VI

Disruption Magic reached Rank VI

Gained Disruption Absorption

Disruption Absorption Rank I

All spells in Disruption Magic will now absorb a portion of the disrupted magic.

Magic absorbed: 10%

The elemental dissipated before it could fully form and Jude’s eyes brightened with the advancement of his disruption magic. Maybe he should have been using this more. It would have been a great time to practice it, but then again, it would have made this competition too easy and not very fun.

Now that life and death were at stake and realizing how sadistic these people from Geonar really are, using the Disruption Magic now was the right choice.

“Give up!” Jude said once again.

“No! I will overcome your magic!” Morcheron yelled back. “Water Form!”

“Disrupt Spell,” Jude then quickly cast another spell, “Ice Shot!”

“Water Berrier!” Morcheron tried to defend, but how could Jude let him do so?

“Disrupt Spell.”

“was bolstered!” Once again Morcheron was pierced through with an ice spike.

“WATER…” Morcheron tried to cast yet another spell, but this time Jude didn’t cancel out the spell and instead did the other thing that all wizards fear: melee.

Using Blink, Jude appeared right in front of Morcheron before he could even complete his spell.

“BREAK!” Morcheron tried to force out the spell before Jude could attack. But as the spell was forming a staff came crashing into Morcheron’s head, knocking him out.

A vast tide of water that had just started to form was released causing the two to be pushed away from each other. Had the spell fully developed, it would have been formidable, but Morcheron had not been able to do so.

Much to the surprise of the referee, he declared, “Jude wins!”

But instead of the crowd cheering or booing, there was only silence.

People of the Wizard class were terrified of the existence that was Jude. If there existed someone who could nullify their spells so simply, then wouldn’t they be like puny humans in front of him? Slowly the crowd started to discuss it.

“He might be unbeatable for wizards, but that doesn’t mean a warrior couldn’t crush him. After all, you can’t disrupt a skill like magic.”

Hearing this comment, many people instantly felt better. So what if you could disrupt my spell, I’ll just have my warrior beat you up!

“For a skill to be this powerful, there must be some limitations too. I doubt he could have lasted long with this strategy.”

Now more people felt better. Anything that powerful had to have an equally powerful limiting factor.

“This kind of skill is only useful in a one on one fight anyway, how could he use it against multiple casters?”

Instead of cheering or booing, the crowd slowly picked up conversations like these, and they were all for the purpose of putting Jude down and making themselves feel better.

Jude left the stage and met up with Jorgan first.

“Jude that was…” Jorgan didn’t know what to say or feel for that matter. Jude had proven himself to be the bane for all Wizards and he wasn’t sure how to feel about it.

Jude was not oblivious to the conversations of the crowd and understood Jorgans dilemma. So he decided to comfort his new friend, “Ha ha, what a stroke of luck that I was able to finish of Morcheron before I ran out of mana!”

In truth, he had more than enough mana to spare. The reason he did was that he had a good understanding of Morcheron’s spells from watching them so much. When his knowledge of a spell was high enough, the cost for Disrupt Spell was significantly reduced. It was only when he didn’t understand a spell that it cost a lot to disrupt it.

Jorgan smiled a Jude and cheerfully said, “You’ve beat my nemesis really well and I am grateful for it! Later, you will have to give me some pointers.”

“Sure thing,” Jude agreed, though he wasn’t sure when he would be able to keep this promise.

“Let’s watch the final Warrior fight and see who you will be fighting tomorrow for the championship!”

***

The king tapped his finger on the throne. While he did not show it outwardly, he was very vexed by this Jude character. Wizard fights could last anywhere between fifteen minutes to an hour, yet this one made it match last for but a few brief moments.

Time.

The king needed more time.

While he could not stand being subservient to Guudnash, he had to play the role at least for a little while. And if he was going to take over and advance past Guudnash, the plans had to continue forward.

It was all for his future. No, for the future of Riwa!

***

As soon as night fell, Guudnash mustered his forces.

Geonar was a large city, and Guudnash didn’t have enough forces to surround it fully. However, the west side has recently been evacuated due to the uprising of drakes from the Spineback Mountains. So he focused his forces on the three remaining sides.

The demonic forces under Guudnash’s command had significantly grown in the time since they were defeated in Longdale. Not only had he converted the bandits into demons, but he had also raided a lot of small far out villages. But his most successful accomplishment was the demonification of animals.

Now his army was bolster with demon animals, he was fairly confident in his ability to conquer Geonar. But the true key to his success was the aid that the king himself was providing.

“Begin,” Guudnash ordered. His large muscle-bound figure was framed by the rising of a blood moon. But his red skin and two horns cast an even more evil aura.

The humanoid demons under him were all grey with a single horn. None of them were particularly powerful, but individually, they were still stronger than the average human. These demons he called Scythe, for they were his reapers.

Each of the Scythe commanded a small horde of demon beasts which ranged from the most common, demon wolves, to the least common, demon bears. Livestock from the villages had also been used to bolster his army. The demon bulls were particularly scary, but what was surprising was the craftiness of the demon goats.

At some point, Guudnash would give these different demon beasts better names, but he was reluctant to do it casually. When he first named the Scythe, it put a significant drain on him, causing him to nearly faint. That was when he found out he had a new resource called Domination Points.

Renaming the demon soldiers to Scythe increased their combat power and reduced the difficulty in producing them. However, Guudnash only had two Domination Points left. His only guess on gaining more was to conquer land.

And that was what he was now doing.

His horde of Scythe and demon beasts were quickly rushing towards the city, bounding gleefully as they headed toward the upcoming carnage.

Interestingly enough, a new popup came into Guudnash’s view.

City Conquest: Geonar

34/2,000,000

“It has begun,” Guudnash laughed.

***

To the west of Geonar, Ellie looked out her window yet again. She wondered where Jude could be. But she had yet to truly start worrying. Jude had proven himself time and time again. Plus, she was unsure how long the tournament would last. Something of this scale could easily last days.

Looking around the room, she saw the numerous failed canister lights. She was getting closer, but she wasn’t quite there yet. However, now it was time to dismantle all the failed attempts to reclaim resources.

Divine Smith class felt like a cheat as it had a much higher rate of resource recovering than any other class she had ever heard of, not to mention seen. Even with all of these items being failed creations, she could still salvage 80% of the materials, which was unheard of for other crafters. The base class could only manage a 50% recovery for failed items at best. Elite classes could guarantee 60% and possibly reach 70%. Perhaps only a Titled crafter could reach her 80%, but the information on Titled Crafter classes was so rare it was practically mythical.

Through brute force crafting, she had solved the first error she had gotten when attempting rune inscriptions. But if her guess were correct, she would need to take another approach for the second error. She had already solved the ‘unknown error’, now she had to solve the ‘unknown’.

It wasn’t very descriptive, but she guessed that was why no other crafter had successfully done rune inscriptions before.

She would be the first.

She would make history.

And somehow this would help her find her teacher.

“Theodwin, where are you?” she asked in a soft voice.

Showing her weak side wasn’t like her, but then again there wasn’t anyone around to see.

Very few people still lived west of Geonar.

***

John Sanderson and his son John Jr. where working late in the smithy that Ellie frequently visited during the month before the Elitist Competition.

While the competition raged on, the regular folk had little to do with it. Only those with strength and clout could attend such an event, and since those two things went hand in hand, it was only they who attended. As a result, just the regular people were left in the city as all the elites were gathered in the floating stadium high in the sky.

Ordinary folk like the Sanderson’s could only sigh as they looked up to see the bright and shining coliseum lighting up the night.

Sanderson and his son sat in the back courtyard of the smithy in a rare moment of relaxation between the two. They spent their time in idle chit-chat as they looked up into the sky at the sight that only happened every ten years.

It was a rare moment of bonding between the two.

But this moment was broken as a scream sound far away. While the high and mighty of Geonar lacked many values, the regular folk still held on to them desperately. Both John and Jr. shot up out of their chairs. But their hearts quickly turned cold as one scream turned into two and two into four. Soon there was a whole chorus of agonizing screams.

“Quick, go find you’re mother and sister, I will get some weapons!” The father told the son.

“What about the army?!” Jr. asked desperately.

“I don’t know, but all the leaders are up there!” John pointed to the artificial light in the sky.

He didn't say more. Any more could break the weak will the two had left. They both, however, quickly understood what had not been said.

If the most powerful people were watching the tournament, who was left to defend the people?