Chapter 165

Chapter 165

Torch watched as Quill was teleported out and wished her character wasn't supposed to be so reserved. He had worked so hard on [Sword Rain], and seeing it end the fight so decisively made her ecstatic. She wanted to join everyone else in the stadium and shout at the top of her lungs.

Even Light, as he reappeared, riled up the crowd with an enthusiasm that she felt almost matched her own, If that doesn't make the top ten moments of this tournament, Ill eat my mask. Can we get some other good fights, or did we reach the climax early?

Shadow, even though she was more serious, added, The real question is, can Torch match her partner's prowess? Let's find out as she fights Rewind. If she loses here, they won't be able to both take first place, and their bragging will be for naught.

That brought everyone's attention to Torch and Rewind, who were sitting in the waiting boxes.

Rewind winked and put her thumb down to Torch, who ignored her.

Rewind would be an annoying opponent, but she had her own trump cards ready for any situation.

Any single element user had their counters, and anyone at their level would have counters to the counters. Torch had taken a page out of Duke Waters book, and had selected specific skills to ensure that no one could easily subvert her fire skills.

Stepping forward, she gestured for Rewind to go ahead of her and bowed slightly.

Her stupid supporters started cheering at that, but she ignored them.

Rewind was one of her biggest problem opponents in the tournament, with her fire abilities having little physical stopping power.

Rewind had proven time and time again that she was nearly immune to being burnt or drowned. You couldn't really kill her, and had to trap her long enough for the five minute countdown to take her out of the fight.

Just killing her did nothing, as far as anyone could tell.

Fire skills were bad at locking people down, considering the flames were made out of energy.

Stepping into the ring, Torch withdrew her spear and a flame ran down the haft of the weapon, engulfing the entire spear.

Rewind drew her short sword and dagger combo, and the instant the ref counted down, rushed at Torch.

Not letting an easy opportunity to test how Rewind's Talent worked pass by, she pointed her spear and sent a bar of fire at the charging woman.

As she ran through the flames, Torch watched the woman's exposed flesh on her neck and hands char, then return to normal a second later.

Knowing it was a waste, Torch stopped the stream of flame and launched herself into the air.

Rewind did the same, but Torch was faster, even with her heavier armor.

Torch blocked the first strike with the haft of her spear and flew to the side to avoid the sword aimed at her weaker midsection armor.

She noticed that she was stronger than Rewind, but the woman's absurd Talent made her more than willing to take any hit in order to make her opponent bleed as well.

Sending her spear into the air and controlling it with [Blood Manipulation], Torch caught the dagger wielding hand at the wrist. Using the boost that came from her Blood Alchemy, she squeezed as hard as she could.

Bone shattered to powder. Rewind seemed unbothered, and tried to bring her main weapon around to strike Torch, but that arm was also caught.

Through her gloves, Torch felt the bones that were ground down to fine powder start to reform, pushing even her strength enhanced fist open. Squeezing once again, Torch shattered the reformed bones, but this time, she planted her boot on Rewind's chest and shoved while pulling her opponents shattered wrists.

Flesh tore, and Rewind went flying with a spray of blood that Torch was oh so tempted to grab and wrap around the woman. But she just watched on as Rewinds hands reformed before she even hit the ground.

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Seeing that ripping her to shreds wouldn't work either, Torch tossed the limbs aside just as Rewind pulled out a second set of weapons and charged at her.

She wanted to avoid showing any more of her trump cards than she needed to, so Torch braced herself for her opponents next charge.

She blocked Rewind's chop at her head with her arm, and exploded into a pillar of flame as the dagger-wielding hand drove towards her stomach.

Torch thrust the spear through Rewind's chest, but the woman's Talent kicked in, and it was expelled from her body as the flesh mended.

Before Rewind could react, Torch kicked her in the chest, sending her opponent smashing into the ground for a second time.

Even with the woman's body exploding on the impact, she quickly returned to normal. After recovering, she looked as if she was going to take off into the air, but Torch already had her next attack ready to go.

With [Earth Manipulation], she quickly sent a layer of stone flowing over Rewinds legs, chest, and arms. As the stone covered her head, Rewind made her mask smile up at Torch, who just watched until she could no longer see.

As she expected, her skill ran into resistance as Rewind used [Earth Swim] to slip through the encasing stone.

The skill was a Tier 14 skill that allowed anyone to move through stone and earth as if they were water. It was one of the most effective ways of escaping such a trap.

But Torch had been faster.

The instant Rewind had her vision blocked, she had cast [Create Water] right over the tomb and flash froze it with a potion. It was an incredibly expensive tincture made from a Tier 13 ice lily, but seeing the ice grow thicker and thicker was worth the cost.

Rewind ran into the thick slab of ice and pounded on it from inside the stone, but seeing that her opponent remained trapped, Torch smiled.

Her strategy almost worked, but Rewind hardly an amateur. She used [Earth Swim] to pass through the remaining stone and under the ice.

Torch tried to slow her down long enough for the still growing ice to cover the entire arena floor, but Rewind was quick, and escaped right before the ice reached the edge of the stage.

Brushing herself off, she called up to Torch, Using ice seems against the archetype, and its really unfair. I was not prepared for that one.

Torch remained standing in the air, and directed her flaming spear at the talking woman.

Rewind dodged the attack and launched herself into the air at Torch, who met her sword with a fist covered in fire.

When Rewind was once again thrown away, Torch charged after her and slammed them both into the now thick layer of ice that covered the arena floor.

Rewind looked like she was going to say something, but Torch used her cloak and unleashed a wave of fire over the now frozen over area.

Steam washed over them and scalded Rewind's lightly armored form, while Liz had her full plate and enchantments to block the attack.

For the first time, Torch heard Rewind scream in pain, but it still wasnt enough to take the woman out of the fight. In response, Torch received a punch to her armored face that rocked her back.

Growling, she returned the favor as flames enveloped them.

Escaping back underground, Rewind fled the overheated water while Torch took back to the sky.

Cursing internally, Torch realized that she would need to resort to another one of her trump cards. She hoped that freezing the arena would be enough to end this fight, and she had been saving this next one for Queen. But at this point, she wasnt sure if she could beat Rewind without it.

The only thing working in her favor was that Rewind couldn't hide forever. Eventually, it would result in her losing the fight.

As Rewind plotted her next move underground, Torch started to extract the blood iron from her body and bring it to gather around her fist.

Super heating the iron to a red hot state was hard, especially when she needed split her attention to maintain [Blood Manipulation] in order to keep control of it. But she had practiced this enough; maintaining several skills was almost second nature.

Luna would only allow Torch to use the attack from Lizs kit under one condition; she had to make it seem like she was simply using a metal manipulation skill. In other words, her timing had to be perfect.

When Rewind came out of the ground, Torch flared up the flames surrounded her now molten metal-encompassed fist, and rushed to meet the woman in mid-air.

When her fist met Rewind's blade, she sent the blood inside the molten metal to swarm over her opponents entire body, just like she had previously with [Earth Manipulation].

Torch needed to send a constant stream of blood into the core of the molten metal to keep it under her control, but the burned blood could be recovered after the fight.

Rewind dropped her blades, and with bare hands, tried to tear at the glowing liquid metal that covered her face. It did little more than help spread the molten iron while burning her hands.

Torch used one hand to direct the metal, and a second to unleash a [Flamethrower] on it to keep it liquid. Sadly, she didnt have an endless mana pool like Matt, and quickly had to cut the stream of flames off. Even with her bloodline making fire spells stronger, the skill was too expensive for extended use.

As the gunman changed bullets to penetrate the wall of ice that Quill put up, he prepared his own attack from behind his cover. But right as he was about to cast the talisman array, he paused slightly.

Fifty-Five changed his bullets to a more penetrative one, yes, but he hadnt been shooting with both guns.

His second gun had shot a number of bullets at Thirty-Four, who had a pause rune to capture the bullets and create a protective shell around his more vulnerable partner.

With his idea to rush the mage no longer a good one, Quill tossed a talisman behind himself so Torch could knock the swamp man into it. The resulting explosion blew the ice wall to powder, and Thirteen tried to pivot and attack Quill, but Torch hit the woman with a flaming fist, and Quill used the distraction to strike the woman with a [Jolt].

Separating as the swamp man stood back up, Quill jumped away and threw out a number of [Wind Blade]s that Torch dodged, but the others in the arena didn't.

The gunman tried to shoot at Torch, but Quill sent a barrage of [Earth Spear]s at him, bringing his attention back to Quill.

They were fighting fine, but they were stifled by the anti-fire effects of Thirteens Talent, which removed most of the fire from the arena. At that point, the path to changing the tide of the battle was clear. They needed to take the mage out of the picture, so they could then shift focus to the element nullifying melee fighter. Quill activated his strength-increasing talisman and rushed Thirteen with a fist encased in metal mana. The numbered mask smiled as Quill approached, and the rune for halt dissolved right in front of him. Suddenly, all of the captured bullets that had been suspended in air resumed their momentum.

Right as he was about to dodge, he felt air and space try to restrict him as a second rune appeared. However, he had long practice with breaking such restrictions with his Concept, and his momentum didnt even slow. Powering through the resistance with his willpower, Quills gauntleted fist crashed into Thirty-Fours chest, and he felt their ribs shatter under the impact.

He was unable to effectively follow up with another attack, as Fifty-Five rushed close and unleashed a barrage of bullets that all grew in size as they approached. Quills defensive spells were quickly overwhelmed, and he needed to stop and withdraw another set of protective talismans that were effective against physical attacks.

The mage struggled to their feet, but coughed up blood twice before they created a healing rune. It was almost amusing to see his [Bandage] rune being used by his opponents.

Needing to stop the seemingly unending stream of bullets that Fifty-Five kept sending at him, he threw out two [Create Water] talismans and then froze them once the arena was covered in water.

It forced all of them into the air and stifled most of Fifty-Fives acrobatics, allowing Quill to focus on him. He quickly overwhelmed the man's defenses and cut through his coat and thin armor.

He was going to cast a [Hail] array to trap the gunman, but the wounded mage cast a disruption rune that interrupted Quills talisman casting.

Cursing, Quill changed his target to the gunman when Thirty-Four unleashed a massive torrent of cutting wind. Quill thought little of the gusts, and only used a single earth talisman to block them.

Treating the attack lightly turned out to be a mistake, as the condensed wind attacks carried a trace of void mana, and sliced right through his defenses as if they weren't even there.

Growing tired of this fight now that he had been bloodied, Quill wished he had more copies of [Sword Rain]. He only had two more at his disposal and he wasnt willing to use them here, since he couldn't be entirely sure that the mage couldn't use his own runes to interfere with the attack again. He was just happy that he had forced the man to stop his earlier [Hail], which was only made with his more plentiful Tier 10 materials.

If he had lost a [Sword Rain] like that, he would have wept at the waste. Tier 16 enchantment ink wasnt cheap, even with his Talent, and he couldnt make it himself, like the lower Tier versions he normally used.

The only good thing was that the wind attack only contained the barest hints of void, and most of it had been used up while punching through his defensive layers, so his injuries were minor.

Turning to Thirty-Four, Quill let his staff slip in his hand while rushing the mage with all the speed he could muster with his flying devices and Concept. Instead of trying to trap him, the mage retreated, but Quill cast [Jolt] twice, forcing him to spend energy on defensive runes instead of speeding himself up.

Even with Fifty-Five shooting him from behind, Quill quickly closed the gap and landed a [Jolt] on the man, causing his body to spasm in pain. An [Ice Spear] talisman took him in the hip, and spun him around as he plummeted to the ice-covered ground.

Before the mage could gather himself, Quill tossed a [Shatter] talisman on the ice, which exploded, taking the mage out of the fight when the referee saved him.

Quill turned to Fifty-Five and cracked his neck. Interesting true power sets, but its not enough. He nodded to where Torch was fighting Thirteen and Twenty-One, and the two looked much worse for wear.

He was about so say more, but Fifty-Five shot another wave of bullets at Quill, who was forced to dodge and trash talk at the same time. Torch is about to take out Thirteen, and then youll all immediately lose. So tell me, why the golden ratio? I can't make heads or tails of it. I half expected you guys to be the same person, but only as strong as the last two put together, or something like that.

Fifty-Five shrugged as he paused his barrage and nodded with one of his guns. We thought it would confuse people who think they're smarter than they really are. Seems like it worked.

Quill nodded at the comeback, and then raced away from the gunman towards Twenty-Ones unprotected back.

Slapping an explosion talisman on the man's back, he flew around to the side to avoid the explosion.

Thirteen was distracted just enough for Torch to grab the hand that held her rapier, and pulled her into a heavy punch that deformed her helmet, and the face underneath. The damage was so bad, the ref pulled her out of the fight before Torch could land the second punch she was pulling back.

Without Thirteen and her Talent, Torch flared up as if an accelerant had been poured on her, spelling the end of the fight.

Twenty-One and Fifty-Five tried to fight, but now that it was two-on-two, Quill and Torch quickly dominated the momentum of the battle, preventing their opponents from making any kind of comeback.

When they exited the arena, the crowd was going wild, especially the civilians who had been brought in.

Quill paused as everyone cheered for them and said, Beating them was as easy as 1, 1, 2, 3. He shot a glare over to where Page and Diego sat and added, Maybe I should partner with the masks and make my own news studio.

With his corny joke out of the way, the two of them made their way into the healer's tent. Torch had made it through the entire fight without taking anything more damaging than a slight cut to her elbow, where Thirteen landed a thrust.

That was leagues better than Quill, who had three large cuts through his abdomen.

Thankfully, the fact that there was void mana was hidden in the attack meant the cuts were clean, leaving easy-to-close incisions. It was unfortunate, but it didnt push him into healing cooldown territory any more than a broken bone would have.

As they listened to the announcers, along with Light and Shadow, comment on how their fight went, Quill sat back down in his chair to watch the next bout.

Diana's team was going to be a serious challenge, especially with their greater numbers and well-rounded abilities, so they needed to get everything they could out of observing them. They could only hope that their opponents could push them into show a few trump cards.

***

Shadow cursed as she waded through the sewage-holding tank as if it was the realm's most foul swimming pool.

It was a good thing her mask could filter out things like water, and whatever was floating around inside of it, or she would do this the hard way.

Not needing to breathe didnt mean that she wanted to dive in sewage.

Tracking down spies entailed going wherever they went, and they had just found a lead suggesting that one of the Federation's spies had been using the sewer system as a base.

This particular tank had been out of the normal cycle for no discernible reason. Normally, the sewer tanks were filtered and extracted of any viable fertilizers before they were sent into low Tier rifts maintained for waste disposal.

After the tanks were dumped, they were cleaned and returned to absorb trillions of peoples crap.

But this tank was, for some reason, taken out of the cleaning rotation, despite being full.

The counter-espionage team had noticed the traces of the Feddies' presence, and pointed them at the problem.

So she, Light, Stick, and Stone had the pleasure of swimming through the vile tank to find any spies who might or might not be lurking inside the filth.

To the counter-espionage team's benefit, they had already found obscuring runic formations etched into the steel walls. They most certainly weren't a part of the normal spatial expansion formations, which meant that someone had been there who shouldn't have been.

Shadow had just wanted to cut the bottom of the tank out and then fish out anyone inside as they flowed out, but management had rejected that, saying that the waste disposal tanks were too valuable to destroy on a whim.

They only gave the spies a ten percent chance of still being inside, and they considered that too small a chance to be willing to destroy the tank.

So, they had to swim through shit.

Stone called out over their AI channel, Found a rune here that I'm pretty sure is the start of the entrance sequence.

Swimming over to her position, Shadow started making bargains with any Tier 50 who could read her mind, begging that the spies were still inside so she could force feed them all of the excrement theyd traversed and then some.

When they set up their entrance protocols, they triggered the rune, ready for combat, but found themselves inside a pure white room with a message scrawled on the walls in Federation common.

Please dont dirty the floor. We just had it cleaned. Shitty people not welcome.

Shadow clenched her fist as she counted down from ten. She wanted to destroy the entire place but if she set this trap up she would leave memory crystals hidden around with useless data so anyone who broke them regretted it as they could have never known if they had destroyed anything useful.

Reporting into management, she used her Talent and cut a hole in their shadows back to real space from the pocket they were currently in, and deposited the four of them in a shower room.

When she found the spies who had set this little trap up, she was going to get them back for their little prank.

Once she reached Tier 25, and didnt have a time restriction, she was going to go take a walk through the Federation's known spy hives.

She was going to make them pay.