The Roamer

Chapter 14: Prowess

Aeolus was currently soaring through the sky, and heading in the direction of the town where it all began for him with cultivation. After about half an hour of flight, he finally found the town, and landed in it.

He landed on a stone path that this town had everywhere, and looked left and right. He saw the shop that the mysterious person had sent him flying into, and it seemed to have completely repaired.

‘Looks like this town isn’t doing too bad after that incident…’ Aeolus thought to himself, pleased with the situation that the town was in. If the town was still in chaos and experiencing issues, he could definitely get into fights, but not good ones.

Aeolus began to head in the direction of the slave prison, while admiring the scenery of the town around him along the way. After two minutes of walking, he finally reached the slave prison. Of course, him walking was the equivalent of a fit person who didn’t cultivate running, since he always had spirit surrounding his body on the outside and inside, powering him up.

However, the slave prison did not seem like much of a… slave prison, to be honest. The arena was gone, and in its place was a huge colosseum that seemed to pierce the clouds, and many people sitting in the stands watching two people fight. Aeolus saw a guard standing around there, and walked up to him while planning on asking what had happened.

“State your purpose of coming here!” said the guard to Aeolus, in a somewhat respectful tone, expecting Aeolus to say he was a civilian trying to watch the battles.

“I’m new in this town, so I don’t really know my way around places. Can you tell me what the purpose of this colosseum is?” Aeolus asked respectfully, trying to match the amount of authority the guard gave him.

“That’s weird, you seem like a peasant, but you say you came from another place? For you to have been able to reach here, you must have encountered many difficulties on the way here…” the guard mumbled suspiciously, with caution in his eyes. He didn’t know if he could trust Aeolus at this point.

Aeolus, realizing that the guard was raising his guard, hurriedly tried to think up an excuse. After a few seconds of thinking, the best thing he could come up with was:

“I’m a cultivator who came here to fight, so of course I would at least be strong enough to brave the journey of coming here!” Aeolus yelled at the guard, while acting somewhat offended, just like most nobles when people questioned them.

“A-ah, sorry sir, I didn’t even think of that possibility…” the guard said embarrassingly, while also looking at the ground, since he knew that he was the one in the wrong for just assuming he was a peasant. Still, he never suspected that such a feeble looking kid could be a cultivator!

‘Well, he is clearly here to fight, so I guess I’ll introduce him.’ the guard thought in his mind, and began to prepare his throat for the long explanation he would always give to people asking about this colosseum.

“This colosseum was built on top of the ruins of an old slave prison and arena, where slaves would fight to the death for the entertainment of the spectators. A few months back, the mighty vapor nation attacked and took control of this town, and they didn’t like the idea of slavery. For that reason, they destroyed the slave prison and arena, and instead built a colosseum where people could fight if they were to wish it.” the guard said, and then took a heavy breath.

‘I deserve a raise for giving every asking person such a long explanation.’ the guard thought to himself, while also somewhat proud that he could pull off such a feet constantly.

On the other hand, Aeolus had a shocked expression on his face for a bit, which he quickly concealed so that nobody would notice it, especially the guard. Though, even if he hid the shock on his face, he couldn’t hide the shock in his mind!

‘The vapor nation attack that happened while I escaped was actually successful, and this is the result?’ Aeolus thought to himself, while also being displeased. If that was the case, all the slaves were probably set free and were not anywhere near close to this place. Of course they wouldn’t be close, who would want to stay in a town where they had memories of being a slave for months, maybe even years?

‘Still, there should be some who couldn’t think of anything else to do in life and stayed…’ Aeolus muttered in his head, while also looking up to the guard.

“So how do I fight in this colosseum?” Aeolus asked the guard, with a motivated expression on his face.

“You’ll just have to take a simple test first, to see if you even qualify to fight within this colosseum. Besides, we can’t have weaklings fighting in here.” the guard said, with a somewhat disappointed look on his face. This was just a kid, yet he was thinking of getting in here? Still, he would support him as much as possible, since he couldn’t just insult a person who wished to entertain the spectator with a battle.

The guard led Aeolus inside the colosseum, but not into the huge circular area in the middle where two people were currently fighting. Instead, he soared into the sky, and Aeolus directly followed.

“Well, the kid can at least fly, so he should be able to pass the foundation level test…” the guard muttered to himself, while truly hoping that this brat would either back down from the test or succeed in the test, as he didn’t want to see a brat who hadn’t even matured break down in front of him since he couldn’t even succeed at such a test.

After flying for about a minute, they reached a platform that was flying within the sky. Aeolus was a bit surprised at first considering there was just a flying platform way up here, but quickly calmed down his mentality, as cultivation should definitely be able to do something like this.

They both landed on the platform, and on top of it, was a man who Aeolus recognized, while also feared. The man in front of him was the mysterious person who had sent him flying back to this town when he first tried to escape the prison.

“You… why’s someone like you here?!” the mysterious man roared, with anger on his face. He still remembered very vividly how big of a commotion and headache this brat caused for everyone when he tried to escape. Once he heard a direct confirmation from the servant of the manor that he had been killed, he was calmed down.

Yet, the brat who was supposedly dead was standing in front of him, and even more so, seemed to be perfectly healthy, maybe even stronger than before! Such a scene angered him down to the bones, and he continually asked himself why he couldn’t kill such a brat back when it was essential.

“It seems like you’ll be the one testing me?” Aeolus said to the mysterious man, with the confusion on his face radiating like a sun. Of course, who wouldn’t be confused after running into a situation? The same man who had sent him flying back to town was now testing him, who exactly was he?

On the side, the guard was also thoroughly confused, as he did not expect the brat and the tester to have some sort of relation with one another.

“Alright then, since I’m forced to do this or I’ll die, I guess you’ll just have to be tested now.” the tester said while gritting his teeth, wishing he could grind them on the bones of this child. However, even with this thought running through his mind, he still didn’t dare underestimate this kid, as he truly was special.

Back when him and the other nine slaves were hunting him down, he had found out that this brat had already formed a layer, even while being so young! The kids cultivation speed was pretty amazing, doing what most people wouldn’t do until they were twenty at an age so young!

“So what am I supposed to do to qualify?” Aeolus asked, while wishing to get this over with and move on. He truly had only bad feelings and memories for this man, so he wished to get away from him. Though, there was also a side to him that wished to beat him down to death.

“Easy, just beat me and you’ll qualify. Of course, you won’t have to beat me at full strength. You’ll have options to pick from, with the weakest option being foundation level, and the strongest being the third layer. Whichever option you pick, I’ll lower my spirit to the realm of that option, and fight with you. If you win, you will be allowed to fight within the colosseum. The weakest option allows you to fight with the weaker opponents, with the strongest letting you fight with opponents extremely strong.” the man explained, with a complicated expression on his face.

“Then I’ll pick the hardest option, let’s get on with this.” Aeolus said, and immediately jumped towards the man, not willing to waste even a second. Such a surprise attack out of nowhere had a chance of paralyzing the opponents brain for a little and giving him an opening, and that was what he was betting on.

Just as expected, number four didn’t know what to do for a while, but immediately sprung into action after a bit. Sadly, it was a bit too slow, and Aeolus had already punched him deep in the guts. He then used his second tier leech attack, and sent three leaches into the man's body.

However, two of them immediately disintegrated, with the last one being weakened. At first, Aeolus was surprised, but he immediately adapted and kept on fighting.

‘Since he is at the third layer, it would be impressive if any attack below that layer had even a decent effect on him, so wonder my leach attack is less effective.’ Aeolus realized within his mind, and completely threw away the thought of using the leach attack.

On the other hand, the man was fuming with anger at how suddenly the brat jumped at him, and prepared to fight with everything he had. He activated his technique, silky web, and set traps all over the fight. The technique basically let him shoot out web during a fight, though it couldn’t do anything if it made direct contact with the opponent. It was meant to only limit the enemy's movements, and nothing more.

However, Aeolus easily avoided most of the web and still moved unhindered thanks to the flowing water technique, though he wasn’t perfect enough to avoid all the web, slowing him down a little here and there.

The times he slowed down were still perfect for his opponent however, as the man easily launched attacks at Aeolus and landed them, one after another. Along with that, even his spirit arm was of no use, as the technique his opponent had used was, after all, made of spirit.

Aeolus quickly jumped back after realizing the chances of directly attacking and working it out were low, but behind him was some big glowing thing that seemed to be ticking. His face fell, and after a single second, the glowing thing stopped ticking, and began to absorb everything.

Aeolus tried to get out of the way, but the force that this weird attack was applying onto him was really pulling, not willing to let him go.

“That right there is an attack with an affinity linked to the darkness. Once you get sucked in, you’ll be sent to the outer layer of hell, the abyss! This attack takes ten years off my life, but is well worth it if I don’t die in this fight thanks to you!” the man roared at Aeolus while laughing maniacally.

In reality, at a certain point into the fight, he had realized that this child was definitely on equal grounds on him, and was likely to even be above him. After realizing that, he realized he would die if this child were to have a bad temper and decide to kill him thanks to all the previous events, unlike all the other contestants that succeeded by just making him faint.

When he realized that, he set the attack behind Aeolus while setting up the web within the fight, knowing that Aeolus would eventually have to jump back thanks to his web.

Unfortunately, this wasn’t very good for Aeolus. He was slowly being sucked into this mini black hole, and after a few seconds, half of his body had been taken in. He roared with a voice that made surrounding clouds back off, but his final stand wasn’t strong enough to resist the mini black hole.

It fully sucked him in after a few more seconds, and nothing was left in the area where it just was.

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ABOUT ME

Name: Abdul Kareem

Age: 13 (Almost 14)

Occupation: Middle school

Goal: Idk, I’m just making a novel for now

Location: Why would I say that?

Relations: I’m not married (duh)

Favorite food: da asian stuf!

Anyway, on a more serious tone, this is my first novel I’ve ever tried writing. Thanks for being with me on this first experience! If you could also somehow get others to read this novel too, I would be pretty grateful!