Chapter 158 – Arrogance

“Why do you keep your eyes closed?” Iblis’ question resonated in Helial’s head, while he was standing alone in the middle of the arena. “I’m listening. Can you hear them?” he replied.

Slowly, some noises started to emerge, at first faint and then growing stronger.

“You windbag!” screamed a Goblin from the stands.

A smile formed on Helial’s face.

“Arrogant twat!” snorted another voice, a woman’s this time, full of contempt.

“Where are your team members?”, screamed another viewer, “I made a bet on you! Why are you throwing away your victory?”

In that moment, Helial could not only hear the voices of those surrounding him, but also feel their eyes on him. But there was something else, forces different from the others, that let him sense the presence of Immortals in the midst of the audience.

Through the grate behind the gate leading to the arena some people were looking, perplexed, at Helial. Helial standing with his eyes closed in front of about fifteen people.

“That moron decided to go alone. Bah, he wanted to keep all the fun for himself”, grumbled Snowflake; in fact, the cat wasn’t really angry because Helial had promised to organise a feast in his honour, after the end of the three matches.

Lumia had a complex look about herself, as if something wasn’t right. As if there was something amiss in everything that was going on.

Frankenstein didn’t really care about their leader’s behaviour. He had already seen Helial’s power many times and he thought that, if the decided to face them all alone, he had to know a way to win.

“You’re ignoring the reason why he is alone in the middle of the arena”, said suddenly a voice behind them. Everyone turned, but all they could see, in the tunnel dim light, was a reddish outline.

The shadow passed his fingers in his red hairs and opened his eyes, looking at Helial.

“What?” asked Lulu.

“See for yourselves, this is so much more than a simple fight.”

In the sky, hidden by their own Mana, two Immortals were sitting in mid-air, curiously watching the match taking place beneath their feet.

“Who do you think will win?” asked Aule all of a sudden, laughing.

“I don’t know. I just hope the guys aren’t taking this fight to the death too seriously”, said Cesar shaking his head, clearly disappointed by Aule’s attitude.

“When you were younger, you too requested more than one death match. Actually, there were probably more death matches you took part in than nights you passed in bed with your own wife!” Aule laughed out loud, wiping an invisible tear from his eye.

“When we’re young we make all sorts of mistakes, but that doesn’t mean we have to keep doing them” replied Cesar, still shaking his head. “I don’t mean to ruin your day, but if I had killed less people, Orma would probably be a much less chaotic city.”

“In fact, I have to admit that I admire your young disciple’s attitude. He has the guts to challenge the Sect of the Worthy, even though he seems to know he doesn’t have your complete approval. He really has what it takes…”

Changing the subject that Aule had tried to force on him, Cesar smiled and looked at his friend, somewhat surprised: “I never thought an old one like you could be so optimist.”

Aule immediately raised his hand, shaking them in mid-air.

“No, no. Do not misunderstand me. I’m not saying a Human will ever be welcome in Orma, just that if he were a Goblin I would have done everything in my power to make him enter the Sect of the Worthy and wretch him away from you.”

“Sadly, he’s not a Goblin”, said Cesar with a hint of regret in his voice. As much as Cesar didn’t care about the difference in race between him and Helial, nonetheless he felt some kind of melancholy. If only Orma ever had a Goblin as remarkable as Helial…

“Sadly, he’s not a Goblin”, echoed Aule, disconsolate.

They both remained silent, ready to enjoy the match.

Beneath them, Helial was standing still, his eyes closed, ready for the fight.

“Can you hear it?” repeated Helial, this time slightly opening his eyes and receiving the visible impact of all those noises, as if he had suddenly smashed against the barrier created around him by all that ruckus. “They’re trying to understand if I’m mad or just overestimating my ability.”

Iblis was lying on a hammock hanging between two palms, with a glass of orange juice standing on his chest and wearing sunglasses. A funny little straw hat was shading his head, leaving just a small gap for his fringe.

“Aha”, replied Iblis, clearly occupied in reading a magazine whose title Helial coundn’t really make out. But again, where had he found a magazine inside his Soul?

If in heaven or earth there was something Helial couldn’t understand, it definitely had to be that Devil. Helial had been wondering for quite a lot of time what, even if he was so bored by his eternal existence trapped in a magic sword, could be the absurd reason behind Iblis’ passion for cuisine. Helial shook his head and let that thought slide away, clearly aware that he would never receive a decent answer.

“Where are the others?” asked Medea suddenly, screaming toward Helial. He must have been pulling a stunt to humiliate all of them.

The other members of the Tristia team still hadn’t showed up and the audience on the stands was starting to grow impatient, too. What the hell was going on the arena?

Did they really believed that they could win against the current champions in a death match, just because they had defeated two teams of good-for-nothing? Even if all the team had fought them, winning woudn’t have been easy; so how could they think to succeed with one fighter only?

All members of the Team of the Executioners had drunk a Fury Elixir, risking the destruction their own Mana Waypath, to gain temporarily the power of a fighter at the Second Stage.

They couldn’t understand how Helial had dared to challenge them in that condition. He must have noticed they suddenly had become much stronger. He couldn’t not have noticed that sudden enhancement. Even if he hadn’t thought about the Fury Elixir, he should have seen the change in they Auras by now, shouldn’t he?

Medusa was watching her sister from the stands, frowning.

“Who do you think will win?” Comodo asked her, his chest leaning forward, over the balustrade of the box reserved for the big shots in the Sect of the Worthy.

“Medea, obviously”, replied Medusa with a hint of contempt in her voice. “You forced her to drink a Rage Elixir. How could that brat even hope to win against her and the others, now temporarily possessing the strength of a Second Stage warrior? I’m already amazed he had the guts to show up down there all alone. Mpf.”

Comodo looked at Medusa with a strange glint in his eyes, but he didn’t reply. His lips twitched in a nearly invisible sly grin.

Helial’s Aura, even so much fainter than his own, still made him shiver awkwardly and felt like some kind of threat. Comodo knew very well that that boy must have many more cards up his sleeves than anyone else could imagine, but he still hoped that his body would be torn to bits to punish him for his arrogance.

Unlike his father, Comodo didn’t suspect at all the real reason why Helial challenged the Sect of the Worthy to a death match. He couldn’t kill Goblins in cold blood, or his Mana Oath would make him a cripple. If he had violated the bond created by the Mana Oath, nobody could have saved him. And yet, if he had killed the members of the Sect of the Worthy without consequences, wouldn’t that mean that the Sect had something to hide?