Raising the Stakes

The crowd watched silently as the two young men walked out onto the field, after the way that Ben had won the previous fight he was in they were worried that he would do something similar in this one as well.

From the unusually serious look on Ryan’s face they could tell that he was thinking the same thing. The two had clashed more than a few times over the years, Ryan’s abrasive personality meant that he often found himself at odds with Denzel’s students especially Ben who took everything very seriously and Ryan always seemed to know how to push his buttons.

Usually his friends were there to back him up, but this was one fight he would have to do alone. He drew his blade holding it loosely in his right hand as he looked at his opponent.

Ben sneered at the skinny young man, he had been waiting a long time to teach Ryan a lesson and that was precisely what he planned to do.

Ryan glanced warily at the still unconscious Sonia, he knew that if he didn’t use every trick he had up his sleeve he would probably end up even worse off than her.

Yuliah looked back and forth between the two young men, she knew from the way they were staring at each other the minute she started the fight anything could happen. Biting her lip, she considered stopping the fight, but she knew that unless both fighters agreed she would look like she was going back on her word. She sighed to herself and gestured to Thomas who conjured another barrier around the field where the two young men were standing, if she couldn’t stop the fight she would just have to be prepared to be dealing with the consequences.

“Begin.”

At her words both fighters launched themselves forwards, Ben using his longer reach to attack first. His spear whistling in the air as he stabbed at Ryan who flowed around it without slowing down the blade of his short sword sliding along the haft as he tried to disarm his opponent.

Ben snarled and sent a blade of air at Ryan’s face causing him to lean backwards aborting his attempt to disarm Ben.

Ryan grimaced as the spell carved a short channel across his right cheek, he hadn’t expected Ben to be able to fire off an attack like that so quickly. Instead of coming back upright he continued leaning back and flipped over Ben’s spear as he slashed at Ryan with the blade of his spear.

Warm blood trickled down Ryan’s cheek as he came to his feet flicking his wrist another short sword appeared in his other hand. The hilt of the weapon was strangely warm in his hand as he raised the weapon freshly conjured by his Copy Weapon Spell, courtesy of his own magical specialisation, the Conjuration School.

Conjuration Spells often used an item that the caster was intimately familiar with as a base, much like Jerald’s armour or Ryan’s short sword. The higher the user’s Skill with these items the more powerful the conjured item was. At Ryan’s current level of mastery, he could only summon his short sword, but he could create a copy of it with his Copy Soul Bound Weapon spell which would last for a certain number of blows. This was one of his most useful abilities as his short sword was by far his best piece of equipment as well as the weapon he had the highest skill level in using.

Ben’s eyes widened as he noticed the translucent weapon, he hadn’t been expecting Ryan to be able to use the Conjuration School and quickly raised his spear to block the attacks that he was sure were coming.

Ryan complied with Ben’s expectation slashing with incredible speed at his opponent’s spear trying to damage the wooden haft as much as possible, but his conjured weapon couldn’t last for very many attacks and it soon disappeared. Ryan used the timing of his conjured weapon disappearing to turn the slash that Ben was expecting into a thrust that slammed into his right shoulder.

Be grunted in pain and lashed out at Ryan with his foot trying to create some breathing room but Ryan had already leapt into the air and used a glowing blue platform of energy as a foothold allowing him to leap even higher before spinning in mid-air sending a handful of quickly conjured throwing knives raining down on Ben who swore as he was reminded of Sonia’s throwing knives.

Ben managed to deflect most of the knives with his spear, but the damage was done, Sonia had kept him fighting for longer than anyone had before, using her illusions to launch surprise attacks with her knives. If he hadn’t managed to put up his Wind Curtain at the last minute she would have won their fight.

Ben’s hands quivered momentarily as he remembered the explosion that had barely been blocked by his Wind Curtain. Ryan smirked as he noticed the results of his little feat of agility, he hadn’t realised that the knives he had thrown would cause a reaction like this when he used them he had just decided to make the most of his evasive manoeuvre.

The platform he had used to gain the extra height to jump over Ben’s head was in fact a spell known as Mana Barrier, as one might expect Ryan’s speed came at the cost of having lower Constitution and so when he had unlocked Mana Manipulation he had decided to focus on increasing his survivability by picking defensive type spells. These spells included Mana Barrier which conjured a solid wall of Mana when used, when he had discovered that he could use the spell to increase his mobility he had been ecstatic, he only put the minimum amount of Mana in to the spell when he was using it this way which meant that they could only be used briefly but the result was that he could now evade in mid-air.

Taking his short sword in both hands Ryan activated his Flurry of Blades Skill which was a sub-skill common to a lot of one-handed swords and daggers that increased attack speed for a short length of time, the trade off for this increased speed was each attack dealt slightly less damage but the sheer number of attacks meant that he could still deal a lot more damage than normal.

By the time the skills duration ended Ben’s once pristine leather armour was in tatters, while he had managed to avoid taking enough damage to activate the protective item he was wearing he knew that he couldn’t afford to take much more damage and quickly cast his Wind Curtain spell which covered him in a blanket of whirling wind.

Ryan backed off when he saw this, he knew that his Stamina was getting low after he had used Flurry of Blades, and he couldn’t afford to stay within range of Ben’s spear while he recovered from using his most powerful skill.

His chest heaved as he watched Ben cast another spell which sent several balls of compressed air hurtling his way, he pushed his body to the limit to avoid the attacks, he knew that they wouldn’t deal much damage on their own but if they hit him he would be thrown off balance allowing Ben to deal a devastating blow with his spear.

He lashed out with his short sword at some of the spells that came to close and was surprised when the air they contained exploded outwards sending him tumbling backwards. Ryan swore as he realised that this was what Ben had been waiting for and quickly attempted to regain his balance even as Ben rushed forwards activating a skill that caused his spear to thrust outwards three times with blinding speed.

Ryan quickly cast his Mana Barrier spell causing the first two thrusts of Ben’s attack to bounce off the hastily conjured defence before the barrier broke under the third which cut deeply into his shoulder causing Ryan to swear as he backed away, he didn’t think that the injury would slow him down all that much but he had hoped that his barrier would be able to withstand the attack.

The two young me stared at each other warily, both were worse for wear with blood running freely from their various injuries, but neither was prepared to back down. Ryan conjured another handful of throwing knives which he sent spinning towards Ben with a flick of his wrist.

Ben smirked as the knives hurtled towards him his Wind Curtain spell was very effective against projectile weapons and sure enough the knives bounced off the defensive spell before shimmering out of existence.

Ryan’s face twitched as he watched his conjured weapons fading out of existence, this was one of the problems with Conjuration Spells the things you could conjure were either single use or had a large Mana Cost, he didn’t want to cast his Copy Weapon spell again for precisely this reason each time he cast the spell he used up a full quarter of his total Mana Pool of 120 MP. While he knew he barely had enough to do so he also knew that if he failed to take Ben down before the weapon disappeared he wouldn’t be able to cast another Mana Barrier powerful enough to protect himself.

Ben smirked at Ryan, he had realised that the other boy was rapidly running out of options, neither of them had particularly high Mana Pools because they neither had Kyle’s advantage due to his Racial Variant or a Class that specialised in magic like Damian or Jess. Ben’s own Mana was starting to get low, but he knew that even though his armour was badly damaged it would still provide him with some protection, on the other hand Ryan was dressed in simple homespun clothes like most of the other people in Farholt.

Ryan gritted his teeth as Ben started circling him, he knew that Ben had realised what he was struggling with and knew he no longer had any real chance of winning unless he used his Copy Weapon spell, the other boy just had too many advantages with his equipment.

Yuliah watched in surprise as the conjured short sword appeared in Ryan’s hand, she knew how much Mana that spell cost and was surprised that Ryan had decided to risk using up that much Mana this late in the fight. She had so far been very impressed with the young man in this fight especially his use of Mana Barrier to dodge Ben’s attack in mid-air, but she was worried that he was placing too much trust in his Copy Weapon spell.

Ryan charged towards Ben raising both of his sword which flashed briefly as he activated a Skill. Ben raised his spear to block the attack, his Wind Curtain spell may have been able to protect him against the throwing knives, but it was far less effective against melee attacks.

The twin blades gouged deeply into the haft of Ben’s spear and Ryan lashed out at his opponent with his foot as he wrenched his weapons which were still stuck in the wooden haft of the spear backwards, wind puffed from Ben’s lungs as the kick slammed into his stomach causing him to stagger backwards, finally releasing his hold on the spear.

Finally it looked like thing were going to go Ryan’s way as he knocked the spear off the blades of his weapons before following up his previous attacks slashing at Ben who back away as fast as possible, using his arms in an attempt to deflect as many of the blows as possible but the razor sharp blades bit deeply into his arms with each blow causing him to grunt in pain.

Summoning the last dregs of his magic as his Wind Curtain faded having absorbed as much damage as it could he conjured the biggest, densest Wind Blade that he could and launched it at Ryan who leapt upwards to avoid it. Ben leapt forwards grabbing at Ryan’s feet.

This was what Ben had been aiming for he knew that if he used a big attack like that Ryan would dodge on reflex, but running as low on Mana as he was wouldn’t be able to conjure a Mana Barrier to protect himself or use as a platform to launch himself higher meaning that if he went airborne there would be an opening to take advantage of which was precisely what had happened.

Ryan yelped as he felt Ben’s hands close around his ankles, before the world seemed to spin as his head was slammed brutally into the ground causing the watching villagers who had mostly been quiet until now to let out a collective gasp. Once again things were getting out of hand as Ben crouched over Ryan and began raining blows down on his face, so far, the fight had been very frustrating to the young man and he had decided that he would take out his frustrations by pummelling Ryan’s face until the young man was drifting in and out of consciousness. Ben didn’t have the Unarmed Fighting Skill which meant that his blows didn’t do as much damage as Kyle’s would however the punches were still enough that Ryan’s protective charm was about to activate.

Now that Ryan was unable to fight back Ben stood up and walked over to where his spear lay on the ground determined to finish him off once and for all, however as he reached down to pick up his weapon crowd gasped once more and he turned back to see that Ryan had managed to stagger to his feet and stood there swaying slightly as he glared at Ryan, most of his face was swollen due ton the beating he had received earlier, as far as those watching were concerned it was a miracle that he was still conscious let alone able to stand and face Ben once more.

Even Ben stopped briefly to admire Ryan’s tenacity, who would have expected that Ryan, who was known for being a troublemaker throughout the village would be able to take this much of a beating and come back for more, most people had assumed that he would fold as soon as Ben hit him, the only ones who didn’t were his friends who knew that behind the young man’s excitable personality and tendency to make bad jokes was someone who wouldn’t give up until there was absolutely no way for him to win, of any of them had to name one person that they hated fighting it would be the young man who was facing Ben right now, his one good eye burning with anger.

A feral grin appeared on Ben’s face as he raised his spear, it wouldn’t have been as fun if Ryan hadn’t gotten up, but he knew that there was no way that Ryan could beat him in his current condition and charged forwards activating his Impale Skill. Impale was the same Skill that he had used to defeat Sonia and dealt increased damage as well as a certain amount of armour, Ben didn’t need to use such a powerful Skill to defeat Ryan but he though using the same Skill that he had used to win his fight with Sonia to win this one was fairly poetic.

Seeing the attack coming his way Ryan moved with surprising speed for someone who looked like he was almost dead on his feet. He attempted to knock the spear thrust to the side, biting his lip in pain as its tip sliced into the bicep of his right arm and lodged there when Ben attempted to abort the use of his Skill, even as Ryan reared back and punched Ben in the head with the last of his strength. Ben’s head flew backwards as Ryan’s fist made contact but unfortunately Ryan was too injured to put enough force behind the blow to so much as make Ben let go of the spear that was still embedded in Ryan’s arm.

Ben slowly turned his head back towards Ryan’s pale face with an unmistakable look of rage on his face, gripping his spear tightly he twisted it, so the bladed head was horizontal and ripped it out of Ryan’s arm sideways severing the muscle.

Ryan dropped to his knees screaming in pain as the protective item he was wearing activated, even as the crowd gasped in horror at the sight of the young man’s arm dangling limply at his side. Ryan’s family and friends rushed onto the field as Ben turned and walked away ignoring the angry looks sent at him form all sides. Yuliah ran out onto the field she knew that neither she nor Thomas were skilled enough healers to heal an injury like the one Ben had inflicted on Ryan completely, her face twisting as she started blaming herself for allowing the fights to continue when she knew what Ben was capable of.

Ryan’s parents wailed as they reached their son’s side, blood pooling around him as he lost consciousness his body slumped to the ground.

Ben’s mother Anna stood silently watching her son walk away from the other young man he had maimed. It had been ten years since Denzel had turned up on her doorstep to tell her that her husband who had been Denzel’s second in command in the guard had been killed in the line of duty. Denzel had promised to look after Ben and train him after his Soul Companion was summoned. She had been cautious, while her husband had trusted Denzel she didn’t agree with how he felt about non-humans but had eventually caved. As the years went by and Ben started being trained by Denzel she noticed her son becoming more and more withdrawn, he no longer talked to her like he used to, and he often came home with torn clothes and covered in bruises. When she asked about had happened to him he usually said that they happened during training, but when she asked around town she had discovered he was getting into fights outside of the training he was doing with Denzel and the other students.

All of this had culminated today when she realised that she no longer recognised the young man who walked towards her, blood dripping from both his wounds and the head of the spear that he had used to grievously wound a boy that had grown up in the same village as him. Her face hardened as she looked at Ryan’s parents as they stood over their son as Thomas and Yuliah did what they could to repair the damage to his arm, she knew that they wouldn’t be able to heal him fully and that his parents would likely blame her for what happened as well as her son and Denzel. Turning she looked at the man who had turned her son into a monster and started walking in his direction.

Meanwhile Kyle stared silently down at his friends’ unconscious body with a blank look on his face as he tried to understand why Ben felt the need to do all of this. First Sonia who even now lay not that far from him still unconscious and now Ryan whose arm had been completely ruined when Ben had ripped the head of his spear out of it.

The only conclusion he could come to was, that Ben was doing this to get to him.

Fi suddenly screamed as she felt her control over Kyle’s Skills forcibly ripped away from her causing those nearby to look at her in shock even as they felt a sudden pressure descend upon them.