"So it has come to this. Very well. If the imperatus chooses to call upon me now, he must have a reason. What does his law ask of me beyond my Dinarii?" The Senator was attempting to draw this out. He didn't have enough pockets to search through.

  Ludere knew he had the lucre. It was a simple matter of convincing the man to make contact with his skin briefly and…

  He pulled out the coins.

  "Does this make you happy, Ludo?"

  Ludere nodded. The man held out his hand. This was his moment. If he could just make contact briefly and steal the skill then, he would be able to do something with it. He could level the force magic skill. He was so close he could taste it. But the man moved so fast, he placed the coins into Luderes hands before he could even activate the skill.

  Ludere conceded this round to the Senator. If he pressed further he might be able to do it, but he also could see the guards eyeing him. He had done everything that the law permitted him to do. Now he will need to try another way.

  There had to be other skills that he could get to even the playing fields. The Senator knew something, at least of that he was certain. The way that he moved, that in itself had to be a skill.

  Was it high-level Athletics?

  He would have to find out.

  He nodded respectfully to the Prefereti and turned on his heel.

  The guards standing there had to be eyeing him up. He could feel his Scan level up from how many eyes were upon him. It was a well-known secret that any Prefereti worth their salt would be able to get their hands on a Scan skill if their family connections couldn't.

  It could have been the entire Octavi section, for all he knew. There were enough of them that had no idea how much of a bump he had gotten.

  He itched to check.

  He moved quickly back to the guard. He was going to have to figure out a way to talk to this man. That was when he could hear the predictable gasp of the crowd. The man died just as he had predicted. Senator Celisar will have lost his bet.

  It was followed by the less predictable, ill-timed opening of the gate.

  "These demons have no sense of decorum. They're always a bit late to the party," Ludere said. "You wouldn't happen to have an extra spear, would you? Thanks."

  The guard handed him a spear with a speed that had to come from practice. It was better than any spear he had ever used.

  "This feels perfectly balanced."

  "It should be. That is a Rigel Spear."

  Ludere, having never heard of a branded weapon, gave it a few thrusts. "This should do well against a hulking demon."

  "You want to take on one of those leaders? You must be a gambler."

  "Unfortunately no. Just a man with vision problems. Where can I purchase one of these?"

  The demons roared a command and began climbing.

  "The gentile prick, but it's bespoke. He does not make them for just anyone. Now we'll see if you're any good with it."

  Ludere tightened his grip on the well-balanced shaft. It felt realer than any of the spears he'd touched before and he never thought about the concept of balance so much as this. It was balanced in every way he could think of.

  This was a weapon made with the intent of turning battle into a sort of dance. With his Spear skill past ten, it felt like he'd met a dance partner for the first time that was able to keep up with him. Now all he needed to do was figure out a way to take down a hulking demon using what he had. Assuming, of course, that he could take down enough of the regular demons for it to matter. He could defeat one or two easily, but there had to be hundreds pouring out. And no matter how long he'd fought so far, he'd never seen an end in the line.

  They just kept coming.

  The first group of demons met them, and rather than pushing him back with the guards, he found the guards were actually repelling them at least as well as he was.

  To his left and right, for the first time since he'd begun with these visions, the humans around him were actually beating back the demons. He'd gotten next to some sufficiently advanced fighters; he would have called that a win, but it wasn't just that.

  The Senator and the Prefereti had all spent a large fortune on security. They were defending against something important. And if their own defenses that they could buy and pay with their own money wasn't enough, then what would be? How much of their own money would have gone to fund such an expense?

  Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

  It was at the very least paying off.

  The many guards next to him were about to be enveloped, though. There were so many demons, and each time they died, more took their places.

  Senator Celisar threw wave after wave of force magic. He looked like he could keep this up all day.

  "How long can he do that for?" Ludere yelled to the guard next to him.

  "Fifteen minutes at most. It drains the soul or something. Prefereti can keep their special abilities. I want to keep what I have."

  Luda didn't have the time to discuss the intricacies of Soul theory with regards to skill acquisition, and if he was honest with himself, he didn't really want to have it with this guard. Maybe in another vision he would. But he had a sense that this guard was only pretending to be normal to have a calm and disarming front. The customer service ethos was alive and well within anyone who worked for a Senator.

  A regular demon came at him, using its speed to try to get close to him. By now, he could match the speed of most of the demons. Unless they were some special running type, they were not ever going to be an issue. Ludere had speed. He just needed his technique to catch up.

  If he had to kill every single demon by beating his head against the wall, he might. He didn't want to, but he might. How many people had he thought that he might be able to save? If he was fast enough? If his Athletics got to a level where he might be able to save everyone, he would definitely be some sort of hero.

  But he worried because he had never seen a hero come in and interrupt any of the proceedings again, despite how much death there was around here; the first ten rows of the arena always died quickly.

  It was when the demons had to expand their circle of influence further that they slowed down. That combined with the amount of people that were able to actually leave the arena through some way meant that the human counter-attack had at least a basis in reality. It was rough and uneven, but they were fighting back.

  With his help, they might actually defeat the horde that was coming. Then he'd have to figure out a way to close off the gate. If he could do that? Then perhaps this vision might end.

  He ducked under a blow that otherwise would have killed him.

  No longer content to just land on him and squish him, the hulking demons were now moving after him. Their speed did not match up to their size. It would have been great if they were slow because they were large, but that was not in the tiles.

  What was in the cards was a fast, large demon that made a lot of the other demons look like they were slow. This in itself wasn't a problem. He could deal with a demon that was a little bit faster than him.

  But when it started throwing things at him, that became a problem.

  One of the guards suddenly passed him in mid-air, ripped to shreds as he contacted a wall. Ludere blinked, and turned in the direction he had come from.

  One of the hulking demons bellowed at him.

  He saw what was happening before it hit him. The demon slammed the ground and dislodged dozens of stone shards. It then made those same shards fly in his direction. He wasn't the first victim by any means.

  His dodge was impeded by the amount of demons that were trying to end his life. He ended up with an arm shredded off. The hulking demon was taken down by a large Force bubble.

  He looked around for Senator Celisar. Finding him, he began to move, leaning on his bad side. The Senator was still standing, but only just. Half his body was bloody. Either he had taken one of the force attacks and survived by imbuing himself somehow, or he had lost some measure of his soul.

  Both of his personal guards were gone or dead. Ludere didn't know if he had the time to check.

  "Senator, do you require some assistance?" Ludere yelled.

  "I could use another spear!"

  Ludere smirked.

  "I'll be your spear!"

  Hopefully that was enough of an exchange to give him the ability to swap his spare skill for whatever skill the man had.

  There was no better time than the present to back himself up to the senator, keeping his dominant arm on his spear, pointing it at the demons that were trying to rush them. He put his other hand on the side of his shoulder, finding his neck and just brushing a finger against it. That was enough.

  He had Will Magic at level thirty. Without looking through any of the other skills, Ludere immediately took that one.

  "Good luck with the Spear skill!"

  Senator Celisar immediately stopped casting whatever it was he had been casting. "What?"

  Ludere fired the skill off. Attempting to gain a skill level before his vision was over, Ludere found a spot in the line and made a mad dash to try and force his way through.

  Each of the demons felt like a little blip around him and he tried to do something with his skill. It wanted him to push.

  That explained the circle, and how immediately upon his departure, Senator Celisar was overwhelmed. He had been holding them back with his willpower. Through his force of Will, he had been pushing back at least twenty demons.

  Ludere struggled to push one out of the way. It felt like getting off after a particularly tough day when he didn't really want to.

  Sure, he could do it.

  He would complain the whole time, though.

  Moving one demon gave him the space he needed to get out of the circle, and into the relative safety of another area where demons weren't entirely in control. Humans were not all in control, but the demons hadn't gotten that far off yet.

  He just needed to keep using the skill until he got it to level two. If he could just do that, then he might be able to use it in a further vision, and keep moving through them.

  There felt like there was some sort of hard limit on how much he could use the skill, and he didn't know if using it in combat would have the same effect as using the Spear skill in combat did. It felt like a multiplier, because he got so much more out of fighting in an actual life and death encounter. This encounter? Moving one of the demons slightly to be out of his way so he could throw the other one next to him if he had to?

  It was important, but it wasn't life or death. Without the skill, he would have a much harder time surviving these loops. He knew that it was just going to be a matter of time either way. He didn't know if any of the loops would actually resolve into reality, or if this was just reality bending in on itself.

  There was a sickening crunch as he felt the lower half of his body give way.

  One of the hulking brutes, for the first time, had landed upon him without delivering a killing blow.

  He didn't know whether to be thankful or furious.

  Ludere poured his Will into the beast, pushing it ever so slightly.

  "Oh, Will you look at that," he said before his head was smashed in.