– Era of the Wastes, Cycle 217, Season of the Rising Sun, Day 66 –

Terry and Nash had fought together for days. To Terry’s disappointment, there had been no further opportunity to increase the alliance members until now.

All of their opponents had insisted on fighting. Some appeared to look down on the alliance idea and wanted to prove themselves alone in the arena. Some seemed suspicious of allying with unknown contestants. Most were too full of themselves to consider the possibility of losing to Terry and Nash.

Beating even their own expectations, Terry and Nash had yet to lose.

“You can’t be serious!” Nash vehemently objected.

Terry was annoyed. “Why? We entered an alliance together too. We don’t have to fight him either.”

In the back, a slumped over dwarf was anxiously moving his gaze from Terry to Nash and back. Their current opponent had immediately offered to join their alliance – evidently, Terry’s habit of offering alliance ends had been the talk among some contestants.

“Because you can’t just ally with weaklings in here?!” Nash shook his head as if this was obvious. “There are unwritten rules. No one wants to see boring matches. The higher your win streak, the higher the chance to meet strong opponents. Same for your equipment. Same for the number of people in an alliance. If he joins and can’t carry his own weight, then we’ll set ourselves up for failure! This is idiotic!”

“Fight, yield, or nominate an alliance leader,” barked the match overseer from the sidelines.

“What’s the hurry?!” Terry barked back. These constant interruptions from the overseer had become one of Terry’s pet peeves in the Proving Grounds. He could barely take a moment to think before these annoying watchdogs interrupted with their incessant pestering. “Nowhere in the rules does it say that I can’t try to talk my opponent to death, does it?”

Terry involuntarily recalled how his aunt Sigille had once accepted Vhida as a personal disciple in cookie tasting to skirt around the Tiv restrictions on mana use instruction.

Terry’s reply invited some snickering from the audience and a stern glare from the overseer.

“If you don’t like the choices, I can always declare a draw,” said the overseer with a malicious grin.

“NO!” yelled Nash anxiously.

“Huh?” Terry looked confusedly from one to the other. “I thought there were no draws.”

“There aren’t,” hissed Nash. “A draw just means that everyone gets a loss.” He rolled his eyes. “Fine.”

When Terry thought that Nash had assented to the alliance, he sensed mana instead. Nash’s Shadow Bind activated on their opponent and another chained spell was ready to be ignited.

“What are you—?” Terry narrowed his eyes.

A shadow at the elderly dwarf’s throat extended and threatened to pierce the very same.

“Surrender!” ordered Nash.

Terry gathered mana for a disruption discharge, but before Terry could even blink, the dwarf already stammered: “I s-s-surrender!”

“Leave!” growled Nash. “Now!”

While Terry was still bewildered, the shadow bind effect was released and the dwarf tripped over himself to run out of the arena. Terry turned to Nash with an angry flush in his face. “What did you do that for?!”

“To demonstrate that someone that weak is just baggage!” hissed Nash. “Seriously, which rock did you live under your whole life? Do you believe it’s worth it to drag him along if that is the kind of fight he puts up when it comes down to it? We’ll both face harsher battles and he will surrender the first chance he gets?! You can’t be that dense, can you? This isn’t a playground. If we’re facing the wrong opponent, we die!” He continued in a quiet mumble. “Or worse…”

“The same goes for that dwarf!” retorted Terry.

“And? So what?” Nash looked at Terry as if Terry was speaking in foreign tongues. “What’s it got to do with us? That dwarf is the same as everyone else. He has either chosen to join the battle for recognition or he has been convicted of a serious crime. What’s it got to do with us? The fact that we let him live and didn’t even injure him much is already a lucky battle for someone at that level. He’s either an arrogant fool or a dead man walking.”

“Even so—” Just when Terry had spoken up, he was interrupted again.

“Fight, yield, or nominate an alliance leader,” barked the match overseer.

“Shut the Wastes up, will you?!” Terry discovered to his surprise that he had developed a temper in this forsaken coliseum. “You’re even more annoying than the Alricks.”

Fortunately for Terry, the overseer didn’t realize that Terry had basically called him worse than a ghoul.

“Alliance.” Nash yelled quickly to deflate the overseer before he could display his own temper.

“Who gets the alliance win?” asked the overseer indifferently.

Nash turned to Terry. “What—”

“I don’t give a shit anymore.” Terry grumbled before realizing that he was speaking out loud. This wasn’t the kind of alliance he had thought of when day-dreaming about the Veilbinder’s story. He took a deep breath. “Nash gets the win.” He looked at Nash. “Until you get your equipment privilege, then we can switch so that I can earn mine.”

***

Once again, Terry stepped into the arena of the Thanatos Proving Grounds. He noted that Nash was abysmally pale even though neither of them had been severely injured in their previous battles of the day.

What’s going on? Terry wondered silently.

“Look who’s here.” A human man sneered at Nash. “Little Nashie, long time no see. I hope you still know how to behave in front of me.” Next to the speaker, two more contestants had entered.

Three against two? Another alliance? Terry clenched his teeth and darted towards Nash. “Do you know them? What are their abilities?” He turned towards their opponents and shouted: “We don’t have to fight.”

The leader of the other alliance laughed out loud. “That’s right, we don’t have to. You can just surrender and bugger off with your tails between your legs.”

And, of course, he’s an asshole. Terry lamented in his thoughts. He could sense a slightly cloaked mana signature that contained the air, metal, and poison aspect. The other two contestants were a canine man with a weaker life-aspected mana signature and a human woman whose mana signature carried an emphasized light aspect.

Vanguard canan. The woman is likely a healer. The asshat seems like the type to give orders from the back. Wait, is that…?

Terry spotted mana from a ring on the hand of the opponents’ leader. It was hard to make out from a distance, but Terry was reasonably certain that the ring contained an imprint of a personal barrier spell variant.

“Nashie, Nashie, Nashie.” The leader taunted. “Am I mistaken, or are you not showing the proper manners?!”

Nash hesitated for a moment with a glance at Terry, but then he shouted: “I surrender.”

“Wait, what? No, we don’t!” objected Terry with an aghast expression. “What the—”

“I surrender!” hissed Nash and looked at the match overseer.

“Oh my.” The enemy leader sneered. “It seems someone doesn’t know their place. Nash, I’m afraid I can’t accept your surrender in that case. Not just like that. You know the drill.” He looked at his two companions. “Get them both.”

Terry was still trying to process what was going on, but the moment he saw the enemy vanguard and healer get ready for battle, he switched into battle mode as well. Terry focused on the mana movements from the enemy group. An instant later, Terry’s side was slashed by a pair of shadow claws that left behind a deep and bloody gash.

“Wh—?” Terry’s mouth was quickly filled with blood. He held his side and tried to suppress the bleeding while he dropped down on one knee. He could still see the blood dribble from Nash’s shadowy claws. Terry's blood.

“You…” Terry became flooded with rage.

“Hahaha, that’s right,” jeered the enemy leader. “Now, you are free to bugger off, Nashie.”

“I surrender,” shouted Nash again.

Oh, no you don’t! Terry’s mana pressed into his mana channels, into his blood vessels, and into his muscles. He kicked off from the floor while still pressing down on his wound.

Nash retreated from Terry and tried to use a Shadow Bind spell. However, the two were standing close to begin with and Terry’s burst acceleration was too fast for Nash’s spell control.

“Back off!” shouted Nash. He retrieved a small bottle that had been hidden in his clothes. “Or I’ll use this!”

An item? Terry stopped, not because he was afraid of the item, but because the realization of what the item meant had hit him. Evidently, Nash had already earned the privilege to wield at least one item. “You dung-gobbling—”

“Oh grow up,” spat Nash. “Of course I would get a life-saving trump card first. Back off. I surrender. You should too. If you can. If they let you.”

“Use the bottle!” ordered the enemy leader. “I don’t remember allowing you to get an item. It’s good that you chose a consumable though. Use it against the upstart and I’ll overlook your offense.”

Terry would have been eager to find out what was the backstory between these two, but he was too occupied with the fact that he was bleeding out. He could already see where this exchange would go and he charged at Nash.

“This is your own damned fault!” cursed Nash and he hurled the bottle towards the ground. Contrary to his expectations, the bottle never hit the floor and remained immovable a short distance away from the floor.

Terry smashed his fist into Nash’s face.

“Stop it!” Nash yelled. “I’m not the one you need to be worried about here. Do you really want to waste your mana and time on me?! Even with your mana pool— damn.” Nash gulped when he sensed Terry’s uncloaked mana for the first time. “Even so, you’re not going to last long in this state. I surrender.” He glanced at the three enemy contestants. “I surrender!”

A part of Terry screamed that he didn’t care. Even if it meant less chance of surviving the battle, he wanted nothing more than to pulverize Nash’s skull. However, another part of him felt the rebuking glances of his family and friends – of people that would not want him to throw his life away for nothing.

“Just bugger off already, Nash.” The enemy leader spoke haughtily. “I don’t want to be accused of entering an alliance with someone like you, so go away. You’ve done well enough, I’ll let you live for the day. Until next time.”

Terry warily noted the match overseer moving to escort Nash out of the training grounds. Nash would be gone unless someone insisted on continuing the battle with him. Terry did not have long to consider his options, because the life-aspected canan was already charging over with bursting mana.

Terry dodged one claw but when he attempted to pick up Nash’s bottle, he was kicked violently into the stomach. Terry was not used to fighting with only a single arm and with a bloody gash in his body.

“I surrender,” shouted Terry.

The canan looked at the leader of their alliance.

“No, no, no,” said the leader. “You see, surrender is a privilege for those that know how to behave. Like little Nashie. You, however, made the insanely stupid choice to challenge me. Naturally, I’m a reasonable person.” He sneered at Terry. “Since you’re alone now, you have to pay the price yourself. Leave behind an arm, and I will accept your surrender.”

Once more, rage welled up in Terry. This time, he could not feel the rebuking gazes of his family on him.

I believe in choices… Terry swallowed the blood in his mouth. “Piss off.”

Terry was already too dazed to hear the reactions from the audience.

“Spitting on the kindness of others.” The enemy leader shook his head and turned to the canan. “Kill him.”

The canan nodded and charged at Terry once more.

Terry dodged to the best of his abilities. He even managed to land a well-placed kick into the canan’s knee, but the canan was too muscular and too empowered with his life-aspected burst to take much permanent damage.

Terry was forced to evade a slash of the canan’s claws and instead took a kick onto the arm he used to press down on his bloody gash.

Terry rolled on the floor feeling pain all over. Worse than the pain was the realization that the pain was growing more numb with each breath. Terry knew that he was losing too much blood. He was running out of time. He was circulating his mana rapidly, cycling between different burst techniques to buy more.

Terry lied on the floor and lifted himself up with one arm. He could already sense the canan’s mana signature approach from behind. He heard the battle roar of the canan. Terry’s gaze sharpened on the floor. His hand grabbed the pebbles underneath his palm.

With a burst of mana, Terry jumped up and dexterously threw a pebble into the canan’s mouth. Before the canan knew what was going on, an immovable pebble combined with his own momentum had ripped a bloody hole into his nape. His spine had been broken in the process.

The canan collapsed while Terry was dashing to pick up a small item from the ground. Terry was in no mood to take chances with the canan’s life-aspected mana or with the healer around and proceeded to immediately rush back and to stomp onto the vanguard’s head.

Terry could sense a healing spell target the canan, but he did not sense a successful activation, which likely meant that the canan was beyond healing.

Good. Terry was covered in blood, but he was smiling madly. He looked up towards the two remaining contestants, who still appeared slightly stunned. “One down… Hehehe…”

“What the— Useless,” spat the leader. “Finish him!”

“What?! You know I barely have any offensive spells,” protested the human woman.

“Finish him or I’ll finish you!” growled the leader and soared into the sky.

Terry cursed inwardly when he sensed the leader flying. This meant ranged combat and Terry didn’t even have his equipment with him. Fortunately, Terry had focused on the healer to begin with.

The light-aspected mage disappeared from sight but despite her camouflage, she was tackled by Terry half-a-second later. Terry snapped her arm in half, which elicited a blood-curdling scream.

“I surrender! Spare me! Spare me!” The woman pleaded with Terry. “He forced us to enter an alliance with him. Please!”

Terry had ignored her earlier pleading, but when she brought up the fact that they had been forced into battling for the leader, he hesitated. Different thoughts echoed in his mind.

‘Do you care for the reason a beast bites?’

‘Mercy to the enemy is cruelty to yourself.’

‘The time for mercy is when you are in complete control of the situation.’

‘Follow the kind of person you want to become.’

Terry's thoughts wrestled with each other. Terry’s initial view of the Proving Grounds when he had looked down on the death game aspect and the unnecessary killing still lingered in his mind. He remembered the feeling when he had killed the mana martialist, who had already been defeated. He remembered his own conflicted emotions when the audience cheered the killing.

DAAAMNN IT! Terry shouted in his mind and decided he did not have time for this. He smashed a disruption discharge right into the woman’s body and followed up with a quick succession of punches and kicks. He did not kill her, but he quickly made sure that the woman was not in a condition to fight.

Terry sensed the finished priming of a large poison-aspected spell structure. Terry almost spat in disgust because this supposed leader obviously did not care about involving the human woman in the spell as well. This led some credence to the woman’s story, but Terry did not have time to dwell on it. He flipped back onto his one good arm and then unleashed a layered dual discharge from his feet to shred the spell structure apart before the enemy leader could ignite it.

Seeing the spell structure he had spent so long to prepare eviscerated in an instant caused the enemy leader to quiver from shock, rage, …and fear. He could only calm himself with the reassuring fact that he was airborne and Terry was not.

After the poison-aspected spell that had required a long preparation time had turned out to be a bad strategy, the enemy leader switched to attacking Terry with Wind Blade spells.

Terry almost laughed with contempt when he sensed the awkward casting. He was comparing the man’s wind blades with the rapid and powerful casting from the Captain and found his opponent severely lacking in the comparison. Unfortunately for Terry, he was already bleeding out and was not in a position to sneer at anyone.

The one silver lining for Terry was that he could easily dodge the incoming attacks, but this provided little comfort. Terry was pressed for time. He felt himself weaken with every breath.

No choice, all out. Terry knew that he needed to get the enemy leader out of the sky if he wanted to have a chance at getting through this. He took a deep breath, cycled his mana, and then he stopped pressing onto his wound.

The next scenes had everyone in the audience confused at what was going on. It looked as if Terry was grabbing onto air and pulling himself with rapid bursts and with enough force to propel himself further up into the sky. When the enemy leader hurriedly dodged the strange charge of Terry, the audience could see Terry flipping his hands and then stepping onto air.

Terry was making use of his Immovable Object spell and his stockpile of pebbles to approach the flying enemy leader. His hands and bare feet were already bruised and bloody from violently smashing into the little immovable objects.

The airborne enemy mage moved mana into his ring and a barrier appeared around him.

Terry sighed when his opponent stopped moving. He had hoped that the enemy mage would move the barrier against one of Terry's immovable pebbles and that the barrier would shatter. Terry considered using a disruption discharge when he got a different idea.

Terry awkwardly moved around in the air and then hurled a little object towards his opponent. The small bottle collided with an immovable pebble.

*BOOM* An intense violet flame raged at the location where the bottle had smashed into pieces. The flames licked at the barrier and it shattered. The flames continued to assault the enemy mage for a brief period of time.

Before the enemy leader could recreate the barrier, Terry was already grabbing onto the man's arm. Terry realized that his opponent had kept another spell active: Metal Skin. It had not protected the mage from the flames, but it was enough to cause Terry further headaches. There was little point in punching metal skin and self-target spells that were shielded by the mage’s own body were notoriously hard to disrupt.

Terry clenched his teeth and moved his mana. He furiously smashed his fists into the enemy mage – even though the skin felt as solid as soft metal.

And that wasn’t all that Terry was doing with his mana…

The enemy leader felt like vomiting when he sensed the imprint in his precious barrier ring collapse. The ring was shielded. This was not supposed to happen. The ring was a cornerstone of his battle style. This was disastrous!

“YOU—” The enemy mage was shouting with mad fury.

Terry used the chance to flick a pebble into the mage’s mouth. He smashed an upwards palm into the man’s chin to close his mouth and pulled himself up to grab onto the man’s head and chin.

Terry was reminded of his old gymnastic ring exercises, but he pushed the thought away to focus. He flicked two pebbles above the enemy mage and then pressed his feet against them.

Topsy-turvy, Terry was pushing the enemy mage down. The mage discovered that his metal skin effect did not extend to his palate. An excruciating sensation spread throughout the man's body as the immovable object was forced further up his head while Terry was pushing him down. He tried to resist but his flying magic was not able to summon the same force as Terry’s mana burst against immovable footing.

A moment later, the enemy leader was falling from the sky. Terry was not far behind and he landed roughly on the floor. To Terry’s surprise, his opponent was still alive despite the obvious brain damage. Alive, but barely so.

Terry was about to finish the man off when an empowered fire spear arrived. Terry nearly unleashed a spherical disruption pulse, but he realized in time that the spear was not aimed at him.

“HAH!” exclaimed the woman with glee. “Now the streak is mine!” She laughed and then turned to Terry. “Surrender!”

“Wasted…” Terry felt like cursing again. All this and then he was being asked to surrender by the opponent he had spared before.

“Surrender, please.” The woman implored him. “I killed him, which means that I’ll get the wins he had before. I won’t give that up. The bastard took every single win we earned. You’ll lose nothing if you surrender, but I would lose everything. We’re both severely wounded, but with my healing spells, I can outlast you.”

“We could form an alliance,” suggested Terry without being sure if he really wanted it.

“I’ve had enough of alliances,” spat the woman. “I’m not being dragged into continuing to battle anymore. If I’m on my own, I can choose to stop after a day. Alliances are a trap to begin with. It’s a game within the game to trap naive outsiders. Continue to ally with everyone and what then? Whom are you going to get wins from? Everyone rots together until the infighting starts? Or a few take the wins, leave, and then the rest is back where they started? No thanks. Surrender!”

A part of Terry wanted to kick her teeth in. The rest of Terry admitted that he was at the end of his rope and that he now had an out. He could surrender. It tasted sour.

“I surrender,” said Terry weakly.

“Accepted!” WIthout a moment’s delay, the woman limped towards the match overseer.

“Idiot.” One of the overseer’s assistants sneered at Terry. “You’re going to die anyway, why not take out the last one too?” She shook her head.

“What do you mean?” Terry’s face was ashen and he pressed again onto his wound.

“With a wound like that…” The woman pointed at the gash. “You’re not making it through the night unless someone patches you up. If you were able to use healing magic, you would have already used it, no?”

Terry gulped when he remembered that there was no customary healing assistance in the Proving Grounds. It had been his last battle for the day, but that did not mean anything unless there was someone around that would agree to heal him.

Terry had been injured before in the coliseum, but never this bad. This was the first time after his battles that Terry was at the mercy of others if he wanted to survive the night.

***