Chapter 156 (Patreon)

A 7.1k chapter. Thankfully the others are closer to the 5k I aim for. 

Anywho, enjoy the chapter!

ps: I also figured out what makes the start of the chapter weird. When firefox corrects the spelling of something Patreon shits itself. Good to know going forward at least.

Chapter 156

Allie flopped bonelessly to the floor of their hidden base to bask against the coolness of the tiles, only to grunt as Zack nudged her with his foot.

He sat in a perfect meditation pose, clearly doing some mental shit that she had neither the time nor patience for.

She didn’t even mess with him, so why was he interrupting her decompression time?

“Whaaaaat?!” Allie groaned just the single word and hoped it was enough to express her displeasure.

“Want to make a hot tub? I need a break as well.”

Hearing her stuck-up friend's surprisingly good suggestion, she popped to her feet and carved a new space inside their base.

Rubbing her hands, she watched as Zack created a stone tub in the space, filled it with water, and then flash-heated it. As a finishing touch, he cast some kind of wind spell to froth the steamy surface in bubbles.

Shaking like a dog, she shed her clothes and tumbled headfirst into the tub.

For ten long, glorious minutes, she curled up at the bottom of the tub before finally revisiting the surface.

Zack had returned to his cross-legged sitting position, even in the tub, which she hypothesized was due to the permanent Tier 500 stick implanted up his ass. He must’ve truly been unable to unbend himself. She, on the other hand, sprawled out, intent to enjoy every bubble she could get in the way of.

After another ten minutes of euphoric bliss, Zack did what he always did. He opened his mouth and ruined everything. “What did you learn?”

“Ugggggh! Do we have to do this now? I just want to relax and maybe sleep. Some good eating and a good lay wouldn’t be unwelcome either.” Allie had no problem whining.

Sadly, it didn’t work. “I still need your report, unless you want to pass the report up yourself later?”

Allie let herself dip beneath the surface of the water and started sending her findings through her AI.

“To kick off the active surveillance, I infiltrated a government Maintenance department and got involved with delivering materials to the Pathers making items for the upcoming auction. I was able to get inside and see a few of the upcoming items, along with the identifications of the crafters of each item. I also noted a few dozen crafters who might be amenable to recruitment from outside forces. Nothing solid yet, just the typical flags. It’ll give us a good starting point for the next phase.”

Blowing a bubble of air, she paused to gather her thoughts. “I wasn’t able to get closer to any of the combat Pathers because of the stricter security protocols, but that should change with the auction. So long as I can freely access the site, I should be able to see who is who.”

Zack cut her off. “About that... Management wants us to step away from this spy game for now. I just got the message a few hours ago. Something is about to happen. The orders from above say we’re to pull out in a hurry. It’s not a full burn, but the timeline they’ve given us to scrub the current op is still pretty tight.”

Allie erupted out of the water. “What?!”

She immediately checked her AI and found an order that said nearly the same thing.

“The fuck?! What’s going on?”

She immediately started looking for information from Zack's time undercover as one of the technicians servicing the spatial expansions on the trial planet.

Zack said exactly what was on her mind as she thought through everything. “Something big is in the works, and we’re not the only ones being queued in. All the other cells we have eyes and ears on have gone to ground too. The Emperor’s presence didn’t even warrant a response this immediate.”

Allie grumbled and started combing through information. If they needed to leave immediately, they would have gotten the burn signal. But as they hadn’t, they didn’t need to scorch the safe house and start evac measures.

After finding nothing new, she decided to spill what little bits of information she had managed to find.

“Well, at least I have good news. I’m happy to report I’ve pegged down who Quill and Torch are. I got eyes on one of his runes when I was helping deliver shit. The judges had a copy of that new rune he released. A copy he personally made.”

Zack cracked open an eye, and she smirked. Getting a piece of information before her friend was always a feather in her cap. And this one was one of her best. Quill’s repeated antics had gotten under Zack’s skin a little, leading her partner to get a smidgen obsessed with unmasking the little hellion.

“Remember that journal from the guildy I had found mentioning buying some talismans that performed better than expected? The one where they were trying to reverse-engineer to produce the same effects?”

At her friend's nod, she grinned. “They noted that the person used an older style when creating their runes. A little like cursive or whatever, I don’t rune. But it's distinctive, and even I can recognize it. Well I got an eye on the rune Quill made himself for the judges. And much to my surprise, little Quilly-pooh’s style is exactly the same. A little more flourishie than normal. Someone got sloppy. If we had been able to get our hands on one of his personal talismans, I'm sure they would be the same. While it can be a coincidence, I’d bet every mana stone I have they are the same person.”

She threw a bit of information she had searched for on the open EmpireNet. A risky move if the Empire was watching for anyone searching for that information, but with it, they had the true identity of a top Pather.

Three down, seven to go.

It would be worth it, even if the kids went to ground.

“Shawn and his spear-toting partner, Jules. I found their travel plans from a few years ago, but they suddenly vanished after selling a huge number of talismans. They haven’t been seen since. Not even here at the tournament, even though they’re the right age to participate this year.”

Allie was proud of her find and gloated.

Zack’s eyes crinkled in what, for anyone else, would have been a scowl, but she took her victories as she got them.

“Well, that is a good bit of information. Odd, but that might be from where he learned to enchant, or possibly his Talent forcing a style of enchanting. We’ll need to push it and see what falls out, but that’s perfect. We’ll have to see if they’re amenable to some outside persuasion before we do anything else, as a character test. If they don’t already have a manager, they will soon. That means whoever makes contact will need to be extra careful.” Zack sighed and corrected himself. “Disposable.”

Mulling it over a split second further, he added, “We’ll want to act quickly on this too, which unfortunately might not be possible right now. Unless we can bury every trace of that journal, someone else is going to make the same connection eventually. That showboating buffoon handed a sample of his enchanting style over to a host of judges from various powerful guilds and noble houses, all of whom want to either recruit or silence him. They’ll be scouring the Empire for possible matches. Idiot kids.”

Allie was still gloating over her victory when Zack jumped out of the tub and rushed over to the screens.

Despite not wanting to, she got up, and with a thought, dried and clothed herself.

Zack grinned at her from over his shoulder. “You might have found that out, but I located one of the Sects’ drop-off points. Coincidentally, someone just left a package there. Want to intercept?”

Allie’s tiredness washed away as excitement flooded her brain.

“Time from the drop?”

“Seventeen seconds and counting.”

Hearing that, she grinned and prepared half a dozen spells. “Location?”

“Port Marigold. A cafe called Bushel of Bagels on the south end of the Bellknots apartment block. At the table to the left of the side door. The package is sealed inside a single-serve packet of apricot jam. It’ll be the only one of that flavor among the condiment packets.”

Allie thought for a microsecond and located the area on the planet. She had a jump site near enough to that location to get there in just two jumps.

They would need to torch one of her networks, but that could be a small price if the package was of enough value. Even if they were going to be benched for now, they would need those networks to quickly get the operation back up to speed again, whenever this mysterious situation passed.

“Possible value?”

Zack instantly shot back, “High to critical. This drop is too rushed and too far outside their normal cycles to be warranted otherwise.”

Hearing that, Allie vanished and appeared in the basement of a bus repair station. Using her Tier 23 physical capabilities and reveling in flexing her Intent, she raced through the open bay door as fast as she could.

She was down the street and thirty blocks away in seconds, but already felt hundreds of spiritual senses pinpointing her location and attempting to prevent her from making a menace of her higher Tier in a populated city.

With a flex of her Concept and Intent, she slipped through their perception and stepped on a rune she had placed on a sewer grate.

Just like that, she was gone and free of any surveillance.

With a thought, she burnt the entire rune network she had used to the ground. Now, unless they had already had a complete copy of the structure, they would find it incredibly hard to track her down soon enough to stop her.

With her Intent to ensure that no one would be able to see her for a while, and while moving at a more normal speed, she strolled down the street of the poorer section of the planet.

People here were weaker, and there were more buses around instead of the more expensive teleporter pads, but there were no signs of malnutrition or crime.

Not even a gang sign was visible.

Allie made a note to see if any of the locals were open to some outside support to change their social status. It probably wouldn't work if things were actually as good as they appeared, but it was worth a shot to see.

Desperate people were perfect for manipulation.

If Tur'stal actually treated her people as well as she made it appear, they would have a hell of a time finding anyone willing to risk their lives for social stability. Nothing was ever quite as it appeared though, which warranted more investigation. Now that she thought of it, she made a note of it to pass up to higher management.

Anything that appeared ‘good’ was doubly suspicious. You either learned that very quickly in this field, or died walking into a trap.

As she reached the coffee house, she saw the pile of condiments on the table and started to move in that direction. Then, she paused as a man with a bag of freshly-bought bagels walked up to that exact table, grabbed a massive handful of the jam packets from the bowl, tossed them into his bag, and then headed straight out the side door. A quick scan of the table revealed that the apricot flavored packet was among those grabbed.

Allie would have had to be brain dead to not realize that had been the pickup. Seeing that it had already happened, she followed the man and located where the target packet was in the bag of pastries. Luckily, one packet had notably more empty space inside it than the others, which were actually filled with jelly.

When he was about to send the entire bag into a spatial ring, Allie reached out with her Talent and snagged the contents of the packet.

A single, small roll of paper appeared in her hand. She unfurled it one-handed and glanced down long enough to read the message, before reflexively incinerating it.

Her AI took a few seconds to decode the message using the cypher they had copied off a known Sect agent a few days prior. Before the smoke from the burned paper fully dissipated into the air, she heard that satisfying ding signaling that Brainy Bot was done and had the real message ready for her.

Only her training kept her from stopping dead in the middle of the street, shellshocked.

She immediately sent the emergency burn order to Zack.

Light and Shadow were coming to East Flower. Not only that, but an inside source found hints that they would be hunting spies during their stay.

How the blasted Sects, of all the powers at play, found word of this before they did was a matter of discussion for later. When they were both much more secure.

Information like that would have been top secret, which made her wonder how it was leaked. She and Zack hadn't found a trace of info even halfway confirming such a rumor in the networks they had infiltrated, let alone that the pair of soon to be Ascenders would be running counter-espionage operations. Sure, they heard the commonly repeated gossip about the duo coming to the planet, but those popped up every tournament. Even if they did show up, no one expected them to be doing more than taking a break from delving, and at most, acting as the occasional celebrity judges and propaganda mouthpieces. That was all Lila Worldwalker seemed to be doing after all.

This short leak changed the whole game. For now, they, and at the very least, the Sects knew it.

Right now, Allie and Zack needed to move.

***

Rusty sighed as he looked over the paper and then to his other Royals.

Meetings were nothing new to him, but he still hated and avoided them whenever he could.

Assigning the Managers to up-and-coming Pathers was one of the easier tasks, but it still rankled that he had to sit through the tedious discussions.

Thankfully, this was mostly the job of The Seven tribunal. However, the Royals were officially needed to settle any disputes.

Normally, the Royals were only needed for the first few dozen assignments, where a number of managers were fighting over a few of the best kids.

He sighed and listened as Silver, acting as the Arbiter, introduced the first kid. Hearing it was the illusionist Adam, he tuned out everything and peaked over to Leon, trying to entice the man into a high stakes game of rock-paper-scissors. Unfortunately, Mara caught them and lit her husband’s pants on fire.

Seeing that his only opportunity for fun was stuck dealing with an unusually persistent fire, he looked over to the managers and huffed.

Half a dozen of the top professionals in the field jockeyed over the slippery little twerp, arguing with the colors as to why they were the best suited to train him.

He saw Luna sitting off to the side, at the bottom of the seating area in what was considered the worst spot, and smiled internally.

So far, no one had noticed the cat lurking in their midst, and she seemed just as annoyed as he was at the inane bickering.

Finally, Jasper claimed the role of Adam's manager, being somewhat uniquely qualified for this type of build. Thankfully, as the others finally withdrew their claims voluntarily, Rusty and the other Royals didn’t need to intercede.

Pause was a more interesting debate. Two different managers both refused to relinquish their stake.

As the tribunal could only give the prospective managers the collected information about her Talent, they could not precisely pin down her abilities and who would best train her.

That was where the Royals came in.

They were stronger and had more experience, and even if they didn’t know exactly how the Talents worked, they usually were able to make better guesses. As they were responsible for protecting the kids’ spirits from casual inspection, they generally had a more nuanced view of how their Talents worked, and could settle debates like this.

At least, most of the time.

Rusty looked to Frederic, and then to Mara and Leon, who were leaning forward and listening intently. Both Harper and Tur'stal were off doing their own things and playing hooky, which left only the remaining four of them. Tur'stal used the fact she was hosting the tournament as an excuse to get out of the meetings, while Harper was reportedly dealing with a security leak.

Blocking off the area so no one could hear their discussion, he began, “Kestrel has a better track record with time-related Talents.”

Mara shook her head and disagreed. “Arguably true, but Saladin has a much better record with kids who need to avoid vital restrictions, like her. He also specializes more in melee combat compared to Kestrel.”

Rusty conceded that, but still felt it was better to hone the girl's Talent than her melee skills. If Pause could expand her Talent to reduce some of the penalties, instead of simply avoiding the restrictions, she would be an unkillable frontline fighter and a solid damage dealer.

As of now, she was dealing half as much damage as everyone else with any spells, and was pigeon-holed into non-magical melee skills to cope with her ability’s limitations. Seeing someone so restricted like that was like having a thorn in his foot to Rusty. He hated the thought of a potential adversary being wasted due to such bindings. It would take a while, but she was another prospective challenge that he had his eyes on— if she could negate some of the negative effects of her Talent.

Finally, he, Frederic, and Leon convinced Mara to side with Kestrel. They needed to present a unified front to settle these matters, or else these meetings would grow increasingly and pointlessly political. None of them needed to learn that lesson again.

If they still could not agree, they would bring the kid in for a final call. That was a waste of time that they all hated resorting to. It would be fine if the kids were ever experienced enough to make a properly informed decision, but at Tier 10 and maybe half a century old, that was asking too much from most of them.

With that settled, they fell into a lull where the managers and tribunal settled everything they possibly could.

When they came to Quill and Torch, a flurry of requests rang out, with half the managers standing up and shouting.

Rusty audibly laughed as Luna deafened everyone by tisking softly. In the shocked silence that followed, she casually announced, “They’re mine.”

That quiet lasted for a full second before they all started clamoring for her attention like kids meeting a celebrity. A few moments later, the cat lost her patience and grumpily waved a paw. They all quieted down again.

Not even a single protest popped up, which was unsurprising.

Every manager aspired to achieve even half of her track record. Seeing that the supposedly retired legend had been sitting inconspicuously amongst the lowest rankings of managers caused quite the commotion. Everyone had their eyes on her and it disrupted proceedings for a long hour.

Rusty, at least, found it a very entertaining hour.

The woman might not be the scariest fighter in the universe, but she had trained more Ascenders and near Ascenders than anyone else.

The managers feared and respected her abilities to churn out monsters. Even her failures were strong enough to earn two Royal positions through their combat prowess.

Their fear was not misplaced.

Those two words from her quickly strangled what would have been days of circular arguments.

It was an annoying scene that he still got to experience when Queen's name was called next.

Every eye in the room turned to Luna, who just sat there examining her nails without a word. While she preferred to focus on only one team, she had made an exception once before, when multiple exceptional geniuses appeared in the same generation. Queen certainly fit that bill as much as Quill and Torch.

Seeing that she had no intention of claiming another top Pather, the pandemonium started anew.

Rusty cast an illusion of him sitting upright and slumped in his chair. “Wake me up when we need to make a decision, or something interesting comes up.”

They were not even done with the top ten Masked ranks yet.

This nightmare was going to take weeks.

***

Matt stood with everyone else in the crowd as Light stalked across the stage. “Today, we start the team battles, but there are just too many applicants to easily rank and seed the bracket with. To help us lock in the starting rankings for both the solo fights and team fights, we’re going to have a friendly little competition first.”

As he turned, his axe cast a shadow from the overhead light. Shadow stepped out of the darkness and continued, “We’re keeping it simple for you kiddies. Everyone gets a number. Evens go first. Odds go second. Yay math!”

Matt’s AI pinged and he found an odd number. Meanwhile, the portion of his AI dedicated to running Quill’s system received an even number.

Shadow pointed into the sky while Light copied her.

“And for today’s class, we’re playing King of the Hill, or a special version of it. I will be casting pillars of darkness in the city while Light casts pillars of light. Everyone will continuously earn points while they stay inside a pillar. The more points you earn, the better your starting seed and the chances for earning a bye during the first few rounds. But that isn't the only prize. In each of the two rounds. Those that take the top five slots in each category will be awarded a single ‘nope card’; an opportunity to choose who you are going to fight instead of who would have gotten in the random brackets. It’s the perfect answer to an opponent who badly counters you somehow. Though, they’re only valid up until the top ten placement matches. Good luck, little chickies!”

As Shadow finished speaking, Light took over. “Sadly, there’s a twist that my darker half neglected to mention. My pillars will be awarding points for the solo battles, while Shadow’s will award you points towards the team bracket. You’ll need to decide on how to prioritize each category.”

His white mask smiled, and he dropped two nuggets of information. “However, points are shared between teams— sorry, solo fighters.” He chuckled as if screwing the solo Pathers over was the funniest joke, and continued, “And the pillars will equally divide the points between everyone in the pillar. So it's best if you can single-handedly hold a pillar the entire duration. Do note, each pillar will only stay in its place for so long. Once they reach the end of their life span, they will randomly relocate.”

Matt felt himself shift in space as his location changed, and had to deal with the disconcerting feeling of moving places.

He was standing where Kurt and Luna were pretending to be Quill and Torch, and upon seeing the shimmer of the wrong side of an illusion, started to strip out of his Matt armor and clothes and change into his Quill identity.

In seconds, they were dressed and masked, and he felt his limbs be subtly shifted into matching the illusion.

They were fast enough that he didn’t even miss Light's next words. “Shadow and I have asked Queen Tur'stal to create a barrier to prevent any outside surveillance. So those who can rest? Prepare yourselves. Everyone else—”

His mask smiled, and he pointed upwards, casting a spell that shot a sphere of blinding white light into the sky.

When the light reached its apex and created a shadow directly under everyone, the human form of Shadow blew away like smoke. At the same time, Quill felt the darkness underneath him turn spongy, and like every other even-numbered competitor, he sunk into the ground, then fell into the sky above the central stadium.

Light and Shadow stood above the blue dome that appeared over the stadium. Light pointed his finger into the sky once again, and fifteen pillars of light shot down from the atmosphere, with an orb of light hovering at the top of the pillar.

Shadow mirrored his actions, and an equal number of pillars of darkness appeared, intermixed through the city with balls of darkness hovering overhead, mirroring the balls of light.

Quill tried to move, but felt something restricting him.

“When I say zero, you are free. Five… four…”

As Light continued the countdown, Quill looked to Torch and asked, “Do you want solo or team points?”

She shrugged and responded through their AI, “You’re probably better suited to face the teams who want to skip a solo fight for their weaker members. The middle rankings are going to go buck wild for that chance. It’ll be quantity over quality.”

With that settled, Quill tensed as he listened to Light continue his countdown. “Two… One...”

Light paused, and when everyone thought he was going to say zero, he said, “Point five… Point four… Zero point three...”

Hearing ‘zero’, Quill rushed forward while half the contestants failed to realize that he was messing with them, and that the game had already started.

Quill had enough training with Luna and literal rules to catch what the man was doing.

As he flew with his ankle bracelets, he started pulling out a number of talismans and casting them as fast as they could leave his hand.

Giant clouds of elemental mana appeared and forced everyone who was trailing him to veer to the side.

One man who thought that he could fly through an ice cloud was nearly a quarter the way through when he felt the ice freezing his clothes solid, and his flying device stopped working.

He landed on the ground with a scream and a crunch of bones, but got up without the refs pulling him from the competition.

Quill was nearly at the first pillar of light when he noticed a familiar figure flying over to it, with a giant sword brandished and at the ready.

Not willing to give up the closest pillar of light, as the ball that was at the top was already descending at a steady pace, Quill advanced towards the dangerous adversary. His AI calculated that it would take the ball of light ten minutes to reach the bottom, when he expected the pillars would move.

He wanted to maximize every second of time in the pillar, instead of flying to a more distant, and more easily conquered pillar of light.

It was a shame that Queen had the same idea.

Still, he refused to give up so easily.

As he entered the pillar of light, he felt the light seemingly condensing on his flesh like water soaking into his clothes.

Queen arrived a heartbeat slower than him, and wasted no time in bringing her greatsword down and unleashing an oversized [Mana Slash]. Quill flew to the side, dodging the attack while throwing two [Fireball] talismans at her.

She easily sliced the balls of mana apart in a single stroke. Before they could re-engage, a swarm of other Pathers rushed to join their circle of light.

Neither had to speak to know that splitting the points two ways was far better than a dozen, and instantly turned to expel the newcomers.

Quill withdrew half a dozen [Fireball] talismans and threw them while flying back to the center of the city-block-wide pillar of light.

Queen flew forward and stood directly in the path of the tide while Quill picked off anyone who tried to fly around her.

As he was throwing around [Fireball] talismans like confetti, he started to also load his expanded staff with talismans too.

When he had the array prepared, he cast his hail storm directly in the center of the pillar of light, and watched as the sky darkened slightly. Fist sized hail started to fall, just as lighting started to arc out from the dark clouds.

With the top portion of the pillar protected from people flying over them, he slid to the side as he dodged a team that had entered the pillar from the opposite side.

The mage cast an ice spell at him while the archer followed up with a splitting arrow technique.

Quill withdrew and activated two barrier talismans, tanking the hits while setting up a small three talisman array.

The wind slashes he summoned cut deep furrows into the backline fighters' armored limbs, but the melee fighter, in his full plate armor, was unaffected in his charge.

Quill used his staff to deflect a glancing blow, and flew back to avoid the spell-infused shield bash. The mana spikes on the front of the shield screamed to his spirit, so he didn’t dare risk being punctured.

Sinking down a few feet, he hurled a [Jolt] talisman, and as it arced to the metal armor, prepared his follow-up.

Before he could get the second attack off, he instinctively dodged as an arrow whizzed through the space he had just occupied.

His long experience in battle helped him to anticipate the attack, but the mage was no slacker themselves. They immediately had their own [Jolt] cast right to where Quill’s momentum was carrying him.

Casting another barrier, he took the hit and finished his attack on the melee fighter. Unfortunately, they had already recovered in the extra moment, and already had their shield ready to defend themselves.

Before he could attack them, another team assaulted him from the edge of the pillar of light. Every team was rabid for the chance to earn a free skip, and many were joining together to snipe the top threats first.

Growing irritated and cursing, Quill flew up as fast as he could into the hail storm and cast a five talisman array that summoned a tornado-like swirl of wind. It grew in size and strength as it fed off the ambient mana.

That attack took out half a dozen people trying to break into the pillar of light, but didn’t even phase Queen, who seemed to know exactly where the next wind blade would come from. She easily sidestepped them while fighting off the more persistent teams who refused to find another pillar.

Without outside interference, Quill was able to blast through the melee fighter's defenses with a coordinated ice, then fire attack, which overwhelmed the durability and repair runes on the shield, causing the item to explode.

That was enough for the refs to intervene, and without their melee fighter, he was able to easily chase down and finish the archer and mage.

Seeing the inside of the pillar was clear, he turned to take out Queen, but saw her attacking a team trying to disrupt his spell from just outside its range, but while still inside the pillar of light.

Readying himself, he threw out twenty [Fireball] talismans and let the wind spell suck the attacks up, spreading their flames over a wide radius.

It was a temporary measure, but it bolstered the defenses of his barrier, and forced the team trying to break in to change their methods of attacking.

A woman from that team screamed at him. “All you can do is throw money at problems, you fucking coward!”

Hearing the often-repeated complaint, Quill took out a stack of talismans and started fanning through them. “So I have been oft informed. Unfortunately, the simple-minded masses seem to forget the part where you need power to make money, and money to make power— perhaps that’s why you lot are so far beneath me and my few actual peers here? We’re the real point of The Path, while you’re the consolation prizes.”

Having riled them up, he watched as the ball of light neared them and found himself gently pushed down. Resisting it, he found if he went above the ball of light, he accumulated no more points and let himself be pushed down with it to the ground.

Once the ball of light reached the ground, he shot to the sky with everyone else and saw fourteen new pillars of light appear in various locations in the city.

With all the speed his flying devices could manage, he flew to the nearest pillar of light. Thankfully, Queen picked a different pillar. There was no reason to share this early in the competition, if they could avoid it.

He had brutalized his way inside the newest pillar of light, and was starting to clear out the competition, when a rain of arrows started to pour down inside the pillar.

With a prepared barrier, he blocked the attack to see the Gem trio pushing their way into the pillar.

He was prepared to share the pillar of light as he had with Queen, but the three of them immediately locked onto Quill and charged.

Sighing at his awful luck, he readied a storm array in his staff while tossing out a trio of [Fireball] talismans.

Emerald Blade flew right behind Sapphire Shield, while Ruby Wand stood to the back with her staff in bow form, gathering a truly massive amount of mana.

As the two melee fighters pinned him down with an ensnarement spell, he swapped out his storm array for a shield array, and as Ruby cast an attack, he quickly activated it.

The barrier of mana took the oversized arrow directly on its spherical shell, but with five barrier spells cast in conjunction and linked, he withstood the initial hit.

To his surprise, the attack wasn’t just a single attack. There was a channel portion of the spell, and the energy lessened in intensity, but continued to hammer his shield.

Preparing an attack, he readied himself for when the shield would break.

His calculation showed that his barrier wouldn’t be able to outlast the spell, but it would be close. He would take that opportunity to strike back.

Right before he expected the shield to break, his barrier was slammed by two attacks coming from where Emerald Blade and Sapphire Shield had just been.

As the shield shattered early, he felt the mana scorch the bits of exposed flesh that weren't covered by his light armor and coat. Even those defensive items struggled to protect him under the assault of Ruby Wand's attack.

Smoking, he swung his staff forward and cast his own array.

A dozen fireballs appeared in the sky and started to fall.

If Torch had been there, they could have taken the opportunity to direct the attacks, but Quill didn’t bother, using the opening to rush at Sapphire Shield.

From under her helmet, he saw her eyes widen at his smoking scorched form as he flew out at her.

Reaching with his off-hand, he grabbed her shield and wrenched it forward. The move was less effective, as they were in the air, but it still caused her to stumble forward in an effort to prevent him from taking advantage and leveraging her arm.

She was well trained, and twisted to keep her shield between him and her back, but Quill rushed past her to the open air, dodging the occasional descending fireball.

Sighing, he said, “I really didn’t want to use this yet. But you forced my hand. Good luck with the healing cooldown.”

With a flick of his hand, he tossed his long coat off to the side, and from his spatial bracelet, pulled a long cloak made entirely from talismans out of his storage device.

Even from half the light pillar away, he saw the fear in their eyes as he slung the cloak around his shoulders.

With a thought, two talismans lit up in the layers of parchment, and he cast [Mage’s Retreat] at nearly his full mana regeneration under that disguise.

Now empowered, he burst forward with incredible speed and punched Sapphire Shield’s tower shield. Right as his fist was about to impact the shield, he activated a talisman on his cloak, and a gauntlet of lightning appeared for a brief instant.

The entirety of the discharged energy was contained in the single, empowered punch, and it zapped through her metal armor with a bang.

Emerald Blade tried to rush forward, but his shield-wielding teammate was already rocketing to the ground in a smoking ruin.

Quill was internally shocked that she hadn’t been immediately pulled from the competition after that blow, if not before, but didn’t have time to question it as he chucked two [Fireball] talismans out. Following them up, he rocketed toward Emerald Blade while tracking another arrow from Ruby Wand, simply letting the cloak activate a barrier and take the hit for him.

Emerald Blade used his weapon of choice, which Quill could feel was empowered with the man's Concept, to strike out at him. To counter it, Quill used a metal gauntlet and his own Concept to suppress the effects of Emerald’s strike.

As the spell-infused blade and gauntlet impacted, the energy blew them apart, but Quill just laughed.

Emerald Blade tried to close the distance, sensing something was wrong, but Quill flew backward and tapped his chest.

Directly where he had placed a talisman on the melee fighter's armor.

The explosion was so large, it created a sound wave that blasted through the entire city from the impact zone.

He was about to turn and take out Ruby Wand when he saw that Emerald Blade was still flying in the air. A massive portion of his armor was blown away, and the flesh underneath was gone, with his left arm only attached by a few sinews of muscle and skin.

The man chopped off his own arm with a casual swing of his blade, and the pumping blood that was squirting out from his stump slowed with each beat of his heart, before stopping altogether.

Quill made his own quip. “Oh my, so you're not useless? How interesting. And completely unexpected. Though, is taking that level of healing cooldown worth a single fight? That’s a rhetorical question, by the way. This is whole new level of stupid for you three, which is saying a lot, honestly.”

He was surprised that the man was willing to risk such levels of damage before the tournament even truly began. It was an anomaly he had no answer for.

As he spoke, Sapphire Shield flew up to rejoin her team, despite her armor still smoking.

Huh. They all have increased defensive abilities or some healing factor. That's the only way to explain them not being removed, let alone still able and willing to fight with such injuries. Maybe they can share injuries like Fen and his bonds?

Sapphire Shield surviving his lightning punch was explainable, if unlikely, with armor and enchantments. But when combined with Emerald Blade surviving the devastating injuries caused by his bomb, it made Quill reconsider the team’s abilities.

Emerald Blade shrugged his one good arm and rolled his neck before saying, “I’m going to do my best to cut your head off for pushing us this far. You’re lucky that there are watchers, or I'd guarantee it. Now, I’ll just do my best to hurt you as much as possible.”

Quill flared [Mage’s Retreat] while illuminating another pair of false talismans, and rushed forward while casting a [Jolt] and seven [Fireball] talismans to overwhelm the two melee fighters.

As he neared them, a [Mana Slash] lashed out at him, and he slid to the left while punching the [Shield Bash] projection that Sapphire shield cast at him.

The impact of a metal fist and mana barrier caused a surge of energy, but Quill pushed through it, taking the damage necessary to close the distance again.

Before he reached the shield wielder, he activated two of the talismans in his cloak, and a sphere of wind burst out from him, slamming into both the attacking Emerald Blade and turtled up Sapphire Shield.

With his coast clear, he rushed the final member of the team, who was still shooting magical arrows, but nothing that was skill-based.

Quill assumed that she had spent most of her mana on the arrow rain and large attack that she’d hit him with.

As he closed the distance from her, he ducked down as the bow began glowing, and a cone of arrows crackled through the air towards him.

He took one glancing blow along his chest as he twirled, but his armor took most of the damage.

Facing upward, he threw out two [Wind Blade] talismans and severed Ruby Wand's leg in a spray of blood.

Sadly, he was unable to finish her off before she hobbled over to her teammates. They all hunkered behind Sapphire Shield and started to pull out healing potions and [Bandage] talismans to staunch the bleeding, preparing for his next assault.

He was going to put them out of their misery, but the ball of light descended to his level, just half a minute from the ground. He laughed while leaning into his melodramatic persona and said, “You pups can have the last few seconds. My scraps are all runts like you are worth, after all. You’re lucky that I don't have more time to play, or I’d show you how a real predator collects heads. Gardeners or no, they can't stop me. Not when I’m serious. That's the real difference between us. You worry about the punishment; I am the punishment.”

Flying off as the light touched the ground and reset, he soared over to one of the thirteen new pillars of light.

Sporting only a few light wounds that were little more than scratches, he turned his back without a care while the Gems were teleported out of the battle. Whatever kept them in the fight despite their injuries either ended, or they decided to take the excuse to leave he had handed them before they incurred more injuries. The middlings teams were still like ravenous dogs trying to take any scraps they could, and would fall upon the wounded trio to remove strong competitors.

Quill didn’t care. He had more light to gather.

Having already revealed his cloak, holding a pillar on his own would be easy enough, unless Queen or one of the other top Pather teams showed up.

The masses of mid-level teams were a threat, but he excelled at culling the herds.