Stage, Fight!

They didn’t stand on the stone platform in the next stage chamber for long before the two towering stone doors to the began grinding open.

Wei had just considered whether it was worth it to try and learn the second layer of his hand-to-hand combat technique, and then meditate until he regained a single origin Chi spark, but was glad he didn’t have to wait long. It would have been a worst case scenario if he had expended the spark on the second layer, and then been left defenseless when the doors opened mid-meditation.

However, what he saw when the doors opened shocked him to his core. At the bottom of the stairs was just a single, bloodied boy. He held a lance in his hands. His face, shirt, and hands were all covered in blood.

He said nothing, and slowly dragged himself up the stairs towards the center platform one step at a time. Then he stood, his shoulders hunched, his head hanging down so that his face was barely visible, matted black hair wet from blood.

”The rest of your group?” Hui Li asked, his voice like a command carried across the stage.

”They’re all dead.” The boy said. He was heaving heavy, slow breathes.

”I see. That’s unfortunate. How did you survive?” Hui Li asked.

”Like I’ll tell you how I survived. I guess you’ll have to see for yourself,” the boy answered back coldly.

”Be careful,” Wei said quietly, drawing near to Leah and speaking in a whisper so only she could hear. “In a situation like this, its actually more dangerous than normal. Hui might try to betray us while we are weak.”

Sure enough, as soon as Wei spoke, Hui’s next words confirmed his fear.

”Hmph, I suppose so. However, since it is one versus five, I’ll go easy on you. How about we fight one at a time. If you can defeat my weakest team mate, I’ll let you join us, and then the stage can end.”

”Heh,” the boy gave a laugh. “I’ll take you up on your offer, but don’t you know that switching teams midway is against the rules. The only way I can win is to kill all of you, here and now.”

”Well, that may be the case, but Eliot here hasn’t done much so far, so I’ll let him fight you one-on-one regardless. Like you said, I can figure out what your abilities are on my own!” With that Hui started to laugh maniacally. The other four grimaced, however.

One of their own was being used as nothing but bait to try to understand what the other parties abilities were.

At this, Aaron finally couldn’t stand it anymore. “Forget it, I’ll help you, Eliot.”

”No!” Hui said, losing his cool and raising his sword. “If you try it, I’ll kill you myself. This is a matter of honor. We already promised him a fair, one on one fight, so now we are going to give it to him!”

”We?” Aaron shot back, incredulous. However, Hui’s sword was gleaming with its point held directly towards his face.

Leah moved to intervene, but Wei grabbed her, holding her back. “Careful! Hui has a sword, the only real melee weapon with us, and that boy has a spear. Hui might betray us at any moment, but don’t throw your life away yet.”

”But, Eliot,” Leah said, turning to Eliot, who was slowly realizing he had no choice in the matter. He either had to fight this blood covered youth with a lance, or fight Hui’s longsword. Either way, he seemed nearly destined to failure.

”I know, but right now, there’s nothing we can do. If we get a chance during the fight, we will save him, okay?”

”Hm,” Leah nodded reluctantly.

For Eliot’s part, he grinned sheepishly and retrieved his short sword from its sheath. “It’s okay, everyone. After all, I only got a crafting manual from the first stage, and I haven’t picked up anything worth keeping since we’ve been here today. I always realized my chances weren’t great. I just thought that maybe with all of you, I could manage along. I see now how foolish that was, the weak cannot rely on the strong. Then, I’ll give this one my all, and let fate be fate!”

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Eliot turned and charged toward the lance carrying boy, who stood motionless even as he approached. As he charged, something like a holy light began to shine from the tip of the boy’s spear.

Cultivation method! So, he either had both to start with, or like Wei, he found the missing piece during this stage and was able to put both together. So that’s how he survived! Wei thought as he watched with trepidation. He wondered what power the cultivation method would lend to this lance carryer.

However, before he could find out, from the corner of his eye he watched as Hui raised his longsword, not towards the boy with the lance, but towards Aaron’s back!

”Watch out!” Wei cried, leaping forward towards Hui with a shout and a sprint.

As he went, he circulated the origin Chi from the downed stone giant, and empowered the first layer of the Phoenix Ascending Hidden Flame, burning bright with fire.

With his shout, several things happened all at once.

Aaron looked up and dodged backwards, moving out of Hui’s range. Hui turned with a sneer, directing his blade towards Wei as Wei sprinted in his direction, burning brightly like a phoenix.

Unfortunately, however, Eliot who lacked a real cultivation method or combat technique, and was just relying on a basic short sword with no technique training whatsoever, let his concentration lapse when he heard Wei’s Chi empowered shout.

In that split moment, he paused his foot just long enough and turned his head to see what the shout was, and the boy with the lance immediately shot forth like a beacon of holy light, his lance piercing Eliot’s heart.

Blood splashed into the air as the lance continued straight through Eliot, impaling him and killing him instantly.

”No!” Leah cried, and notched an arrow in her bow.

Hui launched out towards Wei, electricity lining his sword. He stabbed first, and Wei’s feet launched him backwards. However, unlike the first round, Hui knew what he was doing. Before Wei had a chance to get a kick or punch in, he followed up with a surprisingly fast slash.

Against a sword, all Wei could do was backpedal further.

The boy with the lance charged straight. Aaron was the next closest target, and he moved in quickly. Like Wei, Aaron had no weapon, but unlike Eliot he at least did have a cultivation art.

”Earth bearing circle!” He cried out, bringing his arms up in front of him. His entire body became hard like stone, and incredibly he caught the lance in his bare hands.

Together, he and the boy carrying the lance slide backwards several feet until they came to a stop, both panting hard.

A ‘twing!’ noise cried out, and the next moment the boy with the lance lurched backwards, his back straight, and coughed up blood. There was an arrow directly in his back, piercing towards his heart.

Hui turned his blade over and cut down against Wei again, but this time Wei dove forward under the blade point, and with a right kick brought his right foot up and connected solidly with Hui’s ribcage.

Lightning rippled and fought back against fire, and for a moment it seemed that Hui would withstand the blow with minimal damage.

Finally, however, he was knocked to the side, and slid several feet before coming to a stop, sword grasped in his hands heavily before him, bent over, panting hard, a look of pure hatred in his eyes as he stared back at Wei standing tall and proud before him.

Two breathes passed in silence, and then a brilliant white energy began to encapsulate them. With the death of the lance carrier, the stage was complete, they had passed.

——-

Awkwardly, they landed in that same configuration back on the second floor of the tower, exactly where they had started. They were some of the first to arrive back, but scattered here and there other groups had already returned and were looking around to see who else made it.

With Hui’s blade drawn and pointed towards Wei, and Wei standing tall and proud in a fighting stance, it was obvious something was wrong.

”You two! Stop it! No fighting here!” The beautiful female judge stormed over before either could make another move. “What’s going on here?”

”Nothing,” Hui replied smoothly. “The enemy just happened to be directly between us when he died, and neither of us had time to react.”

With that, Hui stood up and sheathed his sword, wiping the sweat from his brow. Wei scowled, and Leah gave a shout “You!” But Wei waved for her to stand down. It wasn’t worth it to keep fighting him, now. What was certain was that he would be their enemy in the future.

“Anyway, I don’t really think this team is up to my standard, so after this match concludes, if you’ll excuse me,” then he turned and walked off without saying so much as goodbye.

“What a jerk!” Leah said.

”It’s okay, we’re better off without his type,” Aaron said.

”Hm, its sad about Eliot. I guess with him gone, that means we need to recruit two others,” Wei said.

“You three, report on everything that happened in your match to the judges table, now!” The beautiful woman said.

Obediently, the three remaining team members followed her back to the judging table and began to tell them what happened.

They reported everything truthfully. It turned out that the right and left paths at the beginning had been very similar, but that to the left Hui had taken the flame, resulting in him having two cultivation techniques instead of just one. If he had given that technique to Eliot instead, they would have been that much more powerful, and Eliot probably would have been able to survive.

They told the judges about the giant and the final fight, and after that were dismissed. Because they had been betrayed, the judges told them that they would be placed at the top of the list for a bye round, but that things like that couldn’t be guaranteed. They would only get a bye in the event the numbers were odd, and that came down to how many participants were left after teams consolidated their losses. Since that’s how it was, it was possible that they wouldn’t get a bye even if they were down one or two members.

They could only hope to find two more members, maybe from a team that lost three and then ended up winning their fight.

Time passed, and the three of them watched as contestants returned hopelessly. However, most teams that made it back did so with either a full party, or just one person missing. It seems like it really was the strong against the weak, and most teams were either much stronger or much weaker, so there weren’t many cases of teams coming back with just one or two members left.

It seemed like after everything, they would just have to split up after all.

However, just as some of the last teams were teleporting back to the second floor, two boys dressed identically and who looked to be identical twins teleported back, all alone. They were wearing blue, and stood back-to-back, looking out at the gathering crowd.

Not only that, but they were both dual wielding medium length sabers!

In that instant, Wei had already decided to try to recruit them to his team.