“Welcome, esteemed guests, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome. We are here today for a one-of-a-kind performance. The fighting pit has been an indispensable part of our daily meal for excitement, relaxation, and entertainment. Today, right here, we will bring it to a whole new level, one that we will speak of for many months to come. Today, it is no longer fighter versus monster. Today, all the battles are between fighters!”
Based on the voice, Zalanir was certain that Harkon was the one speaking. Not too shabby in hyping up the crowd. The man even paused for a bit, likely to let the thrill build up, before raising his voice louder.
“Then why did we move out here? Because it is no longer restricted to 1-on-1. You heard it right. Today, many fighters will fight at once. Today, we feast on the diversity, quality, and the brutality of the battles. But that’s not all. We as the spectators, the enjoyers of combat, always want more. But what about the fighters? What’s in this for them? Rejoice, my dear fighters. Today, you can carve your way with your strength. With your hands, you have the chance to prove your worth and join our esteemed guests. That’s right. TODAY. YOU FIGHT FOR YOUR FREEDOM!”
The cheers from the audience kept getting louder and louder with every word Harkon spoke, and reached the peak when the man finished, with even the fighters joining in with some of the most feral, full-throated roars that Zalanir had ever heard.
The volume produced by the maybe 3,000ish crowd here had put even a full stadium of 5,000 that Zalanir attended in a concert before to shame. Even for him, who wasn’t fully bought in with the freedom stuff yet, but just by absorbing the atmosphere, his heart was burning with raging fire and his muscles were pumping up to a visible level that they looked like worms were having a party there.
“Everyone under level 30, stay where you are. The rest retreat to the back,” Vitius commanded.
Harkon had pulled back, probably returned to his seat. It just wasn’t possible to see what was happening up there from Zalanir’s spot. Vitius, though standing on the ground and speaking normally, had somehow made his voice heard in the midst of all the noise.
Zalanir did spot that the sound got magnified after maybe half a second or maybe less after leaving the man’s mouth. He couldn’t really tell how, but there was a slight desynchronization between the sound and the movement of Vitius’s lips. Neat magic trick right there.
Around two-thirds of the fighters remained in the arena. Zalanir still stood with Lithma and his group, which now included another man, making them a group of five.
Then came a line of twenty-two people. One would need to be quite forceful to spot common features among them, since they wore all styles of armor and weapons. But if taking into account their expression as well, smug would be the first word that came to mind. All of them looked cocky as fuck.
“Standing before you is a renowned mercenary squad from Zerkshi. It’s going to be them versus all the fighters in the arena. 148 in total, if you might ask. The first show will be a battle between qualityyyyy and quantityyyyy. Which side is going to win? Make your prediction now!” The familiar announcer took the stage to do what he did best: hyping up the match.
It was 7 against 1 on average, huge odds in their favor. Or so Zalanir initially thought. However, some fighters looked frightened, including a guy with a sword and shield setup in his group.
“What’s the matter?” Zalanir asked.
“Zerkshi. That is the name of the biggest and strongest mercenary guild in the nation. There are rumors that they are one of the parties running the nation in the back,” the man gulped.
The news spread like wildfire among the fighters, sowing silence and fear among them. It was a complete contrast to the unending shouts from the grandstands. Zalanir quickly used Identify, and even though their levels weren’t too out of reach, the result wasn’t helping at all. The question mark sight was never good, and it appeared on several of his Identify’s targets.
[Human — Level 36]
[? — Level ?]
[? — Level ?]
Only twelve of them showed their level. No one’s level was higher than 40, so at least the gap wasn’t too big. Zalanir knew for sure that the basic math 1+1=2 didn’t apply here, as he doubted two level 20 fighters could take on a level 40 opponent. Higher stats and stronger skills unlocked at higher levels — if that was a thing, just his guest — could make the battle rather one-sided.
However, here the odds weren’t just a meager 2-on-1. They outnumbered them greatly. If that was all it took, then Zalanir would be somewhat confident. But the question marks in both the race and level displays on some of them hold the potential to turn the tide in their favor if they were something too dangerous to display, for example.
A missile took to the sky from under the VIP box — Zalanir felt like it was a good fitting name — and lingered there for a few seconds before exploding into countless smaller missiles, which after lingering on the air for a couple of seconds, exploded again, and again. The chain stopped after five times, lighting up the sky with red, yellow, and wood colors.
The Zerkshi mercenaries acted first. Ten of them moved back and formed five groups of two, while the rest rushed into the throng of fighters staying on the edge. The sound of colliding weapons and moans of hurt signaled that the show had already begun.
While he couldn’t really see the melee combat in the front, it wasn’t hard to say that the opening attack was some kind of planned practice, as balls of fire and mud bombarded those staying in the back. Zalanir stepped back to avoid one fireball and cast Energy Barrier to block another.
Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.
To his surprise, his shield held on well. He had sort of expected his defense to get destroyed by the attack, but the power of the enemy’s spells was rather lackluster. He and the man who had notified them about the Zerkshi mercenaries stood side by side, turtling on the spot. Though they lost sight of the whereabouts of the other three in their group.
One particular combination did make their life harder. If the fireball hit the ball of mud, it created an explosion of pushback force and smoke that was rather tricky to deal with, as they were destabilizing their bodies, impeding their vision and thus making it harder to dodge the next attack. Took them a while to get used to the situation to set up their guard better.
It took blocking 15ish of these spells before Zalanir sensed that something was wrong. Considering their reputation as the strongest mercenary guild, as well as their high levels, this shouldn’t be all that they were capable of. It seemed more like they aimed for annoyance and disarray rather than dealing damage. But why bother doing this? Unless …
“Move. We are fooled. Their targets were the ones in the front, not us,” Zalanir screamed into the face of his guard-mate, then ran into the smoke shroud. A translucent barrier formed ahead of his face.
The risk of running straight into the smoke field without any sight was palpable, but he still rushed in. Hopefully, the barrier was enough. If their main targets were those on the other side, then this should be safe.
The sight unveiled before his eyes when he got out was a nightmare. Fighters losing a limb or suffering some deep, terrible wounds here and there lay on the ground howling and wailing. Those who were still standing were being pushed back and played with by the mercenaries. A quick glance told Zalanir that they had lost maybe twenty to thirty fighters just several minutes into the battle, with more to come if the situation remained the same. All of them were either fighting individually or simply dodging, looking to protect themselves from the blades of the enemies.
“On the right,” the man who came with him shouted and pointed.
Moving his eyes accordingly, Zalanir saw Lithma and another man in the group, who had three scars on his right cheek, struggling under the assault of a middle-aged mercenary. The fact that the attacker retained a cocky smile on his face all the time made the scene look rather creepy.
Six other fighters moved up to join the front group, so apparently Zalanir wasn’t the only one who saw through the enemy’s ploys. He targeted a fire area and fired off two fire bolts before rushing in.
Their arrival did disrupt the attacker’s rhythm. The man who came with him was obviously a warrior type, so having him occupy the enemy allowed Zalanir to focus solely on the offensive. He cycled through fire, earth, and metal — the three hardest hitting affinities that he had found so far — but none of them did any significant damage yet. The enemy was one of the peculiar, unidentifiable mercenaries, after all.
“How’s your situation?” Zalanir asked Lithma when he finally arrived at the Mohawk’s place while continuing to annoy the enemy with his bolts.
“I’m almost ready to go. Did you handle your part already? I didn’t see you around.”
“No, I’m stuck at the back. Came straight here after breaking through. The initial bombardments were just bait to separate us so that they could focus on the front,” Zalanir shared his thoughts.
“I see. Thanks for the help. If they resorted to this strategy, maybe they aren’t that confident in taking us on.”
“Exactly. With others coming, we can show these rascals that we aren’t soft persimmons for them to pick however they like.”
Zalanir refocused on the mercenary. Something was off about how the man kept a cocky attitude all the time. He sure loved his smile, didn’t he?
Soon, Lithma and the scarred man rejoined the fight, which helped to turn the tide in their favor. Zalanir had to admit how sturdy the man who was with him at the beginning was. He had been tanking and disrupting the mercenary all by himself, and from the look of it, he wasn’t at his limit just yet.
Except for two mercenaries who still had the upper hand, the rest of the field was now in favor of the fighters, as more and more came up from the back. Some even ignored the twelve in the front and assaulted those staying behind. From an organized, targeted split, the arena had now turned chaotic. Everyone was busy with their own fight, whether solo, in groups, or with injuries. The sounds of shouting, crying, mocking, etc. further added fuel to the disorganized battlefield.
“Hang in there. We could win this.”
“Haha, the freedom will be mine. Those bastards won’t even know what hit them.”
“Take mine and heal. Don’t worry, I’m okay.”
“Just one more.”
Even when fighting against four of them, the mercenary still swung his big hammer with offensive intent. His armor was just freaking durable, as neither Zalanir’s bolts nor the scarred man’s sword could find a way to penetrate or tear it apart. Zalanir had even shifted to use air and sound bolts from time to time, the two with less power, in the hope for some surprise effects, but the result remained the same. On the other hand, Lithma seemed rather tired, so his attack lacked its usual explosive power.
The fight took a major turn when a stray purple projectile hit the group’s tank in the back. With a temporary room for maneuver, the durable mercenary brushed aside a slash from the man with the scars, and went straight to Zalanir’s spot.
In a quick sequence of motion, Zalanir glanced at Lithma — who was now behind the enemy — and then quickly shifted his attention back to throw two successive bolts at the enemy’s foothold. The attacks were enough to unbalance the man, causing the huge hammer to slam slightly to the left of the downward angle of the newly formed barrier and skid off onto the ground. Catching up at almost the same time was a thrust penetrating through the man’s chest. The jade winged-spear pierced the man’s armor, leaving two-thirds of the spearhead in the open.
With the Mohawk’s extreme precision, Zalanir had no doubt the man had killed the enemy with the attack. That thrust went right through the heart. It wasn’t what he meant when signaling Lithma, but whatever, what happened already happened. Consequences be damned.
No one batted an eye when they mercilessly cut off some of the fighters’ limbs, so it would be ridiculous if Zalanir’s group got punished for being too caught up in the heat of the moment. Though selfishly, and even cowardly, Zalanir was glad that it wasn’t his hands that delivered the killing blow. He wasn’t feeling ready yet to—
A head rolled onto his viewport, clacking and bouncing on the ground until colliding and stopping by his right leg. The images from his first encounter with the tank to when they were turtling the bombardments up to just a moment ago when the man was hit by a random projectile flew through his head, one by one. The man’s eyes remained wide open, as if he himself were unable to fathom what had happened.
Lifting his chin, there was another mercenary with a cutlass on his lips moving toward him. Red blood clung weakly to the edge of the weapon, undulating until slowly dropping onto the dirt floor, droplet by droplet.
Without even realizing that he got no notification for the kill of the first mercenary, Zalanir hurled bolt after bolt at the conceited bastard. Consequences truly be damned now.
