Chapter 455: Chapter 450: Power of the cards

Left and right, [Light severance], middle, charge!

The templars followed Sofia’s orders, the two on the sides charged their ranged attack while the middle one’s armor started to glow. More walls sprung around the Sunless, forming a sort of protective cocoon.

The middle templar charged ahead, shoulder slamming through the wall and instantly letting himself fall into a disorderly pile of bones. The two other templars jumped to the middle where their shoulders met and they both released their slashes of light through the opening the first templar created. They had a direct line of sight to the Sunless Architect. The blades of light shot forward, and another wall rose to meet them, closer to the Sunless.

She’s trying to wait out the ten seconds. It's possible that the Architect lacks the power to kill the Templars, does she intend to have it escape when the leaving restriction runs out and take the loss?

The middle Templar reformed and prepared to charge ahead again.

All charge one by one! Give it a half second delay, we need to kill this thing fast. If all it can do is raise walls then we just have to get through them.

The templars got in place and charged one after the other, more and more walls were raised in their way.

Bookie chimed in from the side, “Why not have them jump over?”

“Too dangerous. Think about all the things Erian was able to do with his invoked walls. Being airborne against an enemy like this is nothing but bad news.”

While Sofia and Bookie chatted, one of the Templars tried and failed to reach the Sunless, and the ten seconds of mandatory fighting were over. As Sofia half expected, the Sunless made no attempt to leave, it kept creating walls all over.

It’s creating a real mess on the battlefield.

The two other Templars had been ordered by Sofia to stop, spread out to the corners of the arena, and start channeling their [Holy Smite]. It would take twenty five more seconds for the spell to reach completion.

Meanwhile, Sofia was the guide of the one fighting templar, giving him directions and live updates on the Sunless’ position which was now running through his self-made labyrinth of walls.

Keep it occupied at all costs.

With her observation, Sofia had understood one rule of the Architect’s magic, it needed a direct line of sight to create walls. The counterpart to that was that these walls were pretty sturdy and had a ridiculous casting time. Sofia could also tell that the small Sunless was starting to run out of mana as the chase continued.

The Chasing Templar managed to reach the running Sunless. The Templar’s greatsword came down, the Sunless dived to the side, but a bit late, the sword sliced through the Sunless’ left arm.

Another wall rose between the Sunless and the Templar. The templar had no mana left for another charge, leaving him with a single option to keep up the pressure, he jumped over the wall.

No!

As the Templar jumped up, the wall he tried to jump over rose higher, blocking his path, and an horizontal ‘floor’ appeared from the high wall, slamming into the airborn Templar. The skeleton was sent flying out of the arena. The second it was out of the square boundaries of the arena, it froze in the air with a blaring sound, and a red light shone on the frozen templar.

“One down,” Everelle said smugly from her side.

Shit, did I lose a Health point?!

Sofia checked her Sunless effigy, but it still read [10/10] and the fight beneath was still ongoing. The Sunless had a wall rise under itself, and it was running on top of the walls toward one of the channeling Templars,

Only five seconds left, keep casting, ignore him!

The Sunless reached the templar, and since the skeleton was not moving, a wall rose under its feet. Another wall and floor combo sent it flying out of the arena.

“Two down.”

“No, you’re done, [Holy smite]!” Sofia shouted as a violent vortex of mana gathered above the arena.

The vortex unleashed a torrential wave of sticky mana, charged with a curse of [Instant Death].

Everelle saw that and quickly changed her tune. “Retreat!”

A wall propped up under the Sunless Architect, and before the magic could reach it, it expelled itself out of the arena like it had thrown out the two templars. As soon as the Sunless was out of the Arena, it froze and was caught in a bright red light like the expelled templars. A system notification appeared while the templar stood unharmed under the death magic.

[Dungeon Master Everelle has no fighter left in the Arena.]

[Duelists Sofia and Bookie win the first round. Please retrieve your fighters.]

Let’s go!

As I thought, the effects of the blessing persist even with the restrictions. Not surprising when it even persisted into the first trial’s fake world.

The wave of Instant Death mana was contained within the boundaries of the arena and soon stopped.

Sofia and Everelle both threw their orbs to retrieve the summons. Everelle’s giant sunless effigy flinched as if it had received a hit. With the sound of a clock ticking, its health counter ticked down.

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[9/10]

Everelle caught her orb back. “Well played, I did not expect such a strong spell to come out of these weaklings.”

“It was well fought.”

“You don’t get it, Sofia!” Everelle said back, “You’re supposed to taunt your opponent! It’s half the fun! You had it earlier!”

“I… Really?”

“Yeah! Come on! Now draw your cards!”

According to the orbs they had used, Everelle proceeded to draw five cards while Sofia drew three.

[NULL CARD - Better luck next time :p]

[Oceanic Arena - Turns the arena into a watery battlefield until another arena card is used.]

[Showdown - Fighters can no longer exit the arena this round.]

Hmm. None of my skills. And an empty card… I see the point of drawing more than three cards… Oceanic Arena is fine. I think I can use it to get rid of the walls the Sunless left everywhere, that’s a good draw. [Showdown]

can be pretty powerful. It’s good to learn this card exists before it gets used against me.

On her side, Everelle discarded two cards to follow the rules. Both of them having drawn their cards, a message appeared, telling them they have thirty seconds to choose their next fighter.

How do I best make use of these?

I can throw Pareth out right now and have an almost guaranteed win with the [Showdown], but I have to keep in mind Everelle also has three cards… And if I get a guaranteed win with Pareth now, she will know I no longer have him and can freely use her own Orb 1 summon for a free win next round without even needing to use a card.

“Having trouble choosing already?” Everelle snarked, her next orb already in hand.

Sofia completely ignored her as she focused on her possibilities.

I should play around the [Oceanic Arena] instead. And the blank card is not totally useless, Everelle knows the cards so even a blank card will restrict her actions as she wonders what I’m holding back.

Alright, I know what to bring out.

Orb 5 : 5 Card draws - 1000 Mana Capacity

“I’m ready for round two. Prepare to lose another health point!”

“That’s the spirit!”

Sofia grabbed her fifth orb, and the countdown showed up again.

[THROW!]

There were two flashes of light in the arena, and the orbs flew back from where they came.

On Sofia’s side, twenty small floating destroyer skulls appeared in the corridors of the maze of walls the Sunless Architect had left behind. Parts of Sofia’s testing with the orbs included trying to fit the skull choir inside. It worked, and it even froze the skulls’ mana upkeep. Since each Skull cost 50 mana per second to maintain, the 1000 mana orb could hold twenty of them. Relatively speaking, Sofia’s 1000 mana summon was stronger than her 25 000 one, but there was nothing in the rules preventing that.

On Everelle’s side, what came out of the orb was a very big Sunless blob with no visible white eye anywhere, in terms of volume, it was several times the size of the regular Sunless amalgams.

[Orb power 3 - 50 000 Mana - lv. 299 Sunless Primordial Sludge]

“That’s a lot of skull, let me join the fun!”

As soon as the restrictions were lifted and the fight started, the Sludge exploded into a rain of black balls. Hundreds of Sunless drones rose from the splatters.

Holy! Attack, fast!n/ô/vel/b//in dot c//om

As always with the drones, they weren’t so scary the skulls for the choir could destroy them in one hit. But the arena was wide, and the walls made it hard for the skulls to navigate.

At this rate we’ll have to fight tens of amalgams!

Sofia picked the arena card and raised it, infusing it with mana as per the instructions she got in a tiny system window when she first drew the cards.

“I play the [Oceanic Arena] card!”

Movement in the arena instantly stopped, once again the fighters were all prevented from moving or doing anything, and the arena started to change. The walls broke, the floor sunk, leaving the fighters suspended in the air, and tons and tons of water started filling the hole.

“Not bad, to think you’d get rid of my walls so easily.”

“I have to thank you for designing this card. Are there many Arena cards like this one?”

“Eh eh eh, there are a decent few. Wait until you see the fun ones.”

They kept talking as the arena slowly filled up with water.

“Interesting. What are you going to do now? There’s nothing left to stop the skulls from destroying all the Drones before they can fuse.”

“You think this is all my precious sludge can do? Wait and see.”

The hole where the square arena used to be was completely filled up, and to Sofia’s surprise, it did not stop. Contained by the magical boundaries of the square arena, the water kept rising in the air.

“It’s not going to stop?”

“The water goes as high as it’s deep, the Oceanic arena is a perfect cube of water. It stops at the arena’s upper boundary.”

“Good thing Skeletons don’t need to breathe, but I hope the cards aren’t all that slow to take effect.”

“This is one of the slowest ones. I think you can guess why.”

“I thought the fight would continue during the change, though,” Sofia confessed.

“And have the round be over before the arena transition ends? We can’t have that. The faster arena transitions do happen live, but not this one,” Everelle explained just as the water stopped rising and the fighters were freed

Immediately, the skulls flew through the water. The Sunless Drones were nowhere nearly as mobile in water compared to their speed on the ground, and they were defenseless against the Destroyer skulls.

Seeing things were not going in her favor, Everelle also played a card.

“I cast [Showdown]! This is now a fight to the death!”

A depiction and description of the card appeared before Sofia’s eyes, but she already knew what the card did.

What?! While she’s losing? Not good! Either the sludge has another ability or she’s going to play another card.

But I can’t do anything, the skulls need to keep preventing the drones from fusing, I can’t play around her cards no matter what I can imagine them to be.

Everelle picked another card from her hand and raised it high.

“I cast [Black hole] targeting all Sunless drones!”

The card appeared before Sofia, it depicted a flat black circle.

[Black hole - Forcefully attracts all entities of a chosen type toward the center of the arena, the effect lasts for five seconds]

Oh, shit. How many drones are there left? Seventy?

A black ball appeared in the middle of the underwater arena.

How do I save this?

This round is going to be tough…