Paragon of Skills

chapter 262

The arena is destroyed beyond recognition. There are fuming craters all around whose smoke is clouding the air and making it hard to breathe.

The Sacrifice lands on the stone between Iskara and Jacob Cloud and the impact sends fracture lines spiraling outward from his feet. Varen's technique hollows him out from the inside and each breath brings him one step closer to death.

But he is standing upright.

The monsterified Iskara turns toward him. Obsidian-slick chitin has swallowed what used to be her face. The hollow pits where her eyes were roil with violet void-fire, leaking dark ichor that sizzles against her skin. The bone crown has grown since the fight started, jagged spurs at wrong angles. The fissure across the lower half of her face is split wide, too many teeth crammed into a mouth that should not exist, and from it comes a raw, animal sound with no words in it. Too many joints. Limbs that bend at angles a body should not permit.

Behind him, Jacob's breathing is ragged. The Reverse Domain is still active, necrotic damage crawling up his forearms in black veins.

The crowd has gone silent.

Nimirea's voice cuts across the arena floor.

"Who the hell are you?"

She is standing at the edge of the ring, one arm monsterified, the rest of her taut. Her aura burns at Intermediate True Diamond, amplified by whatever she drank. Her eyes are locked on the Sacrifice.

"Why are you here? This is between us and the Champions."

The Sacrifice turns his head toward her.

The mask is gone.

The painted ease, the charming Devil, and the relaxed posture are all gone.

"I've been known by many names," he says. His voice is level. "Blood of the Devils. Slave to Infernals. Dog. An assassin who did their bidding." He pauses. "I was sent here to kill Jacob Cloud."

The crowd shifts. A murmur ripples through fifty thousand throats.

"But you, Nimirea, Leader of the Dark Champions, like any corrupted follower of an Evil God, made this an unfair fight."

Her monsterified arm pulses once, the corruption surging up toward her shoulder and then receding.

The Sacrifice turns toward the thing that used to be Iskara Drazhal.

"If you'd like a name for me, let it be Baal. You called forth this thing that was a Champion, making it a monster," Baal looks at Cecilia in the first row and smiles at her, genuinely, and then raises an eyebrow at Iskara. "Let then, another first-year student of the Academy, a real monster, be a Champion for the duration of this duel."

He takes a step toward Jacob. The seal's counter-rhythm is loud now, pounding against his heartbeat in a syncopation that makes his vision double at the edges. Bruising has spread from his ribs across his stomach, visible through the torn fabric of his robes.

He stops beside Jacob.

"Cloud."

Jacob turns his head. Up close, the Leader of the Champions looks worse than the Sacrifice expected. The necrotic damage from the Reverse Domain is eating into his chest. His mana reserves are low. The silvery sword in his hand is still glowing but the light is flickering.

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"A lot of people will die if you don't end this fast," Baal says. "The Dark Champions are still on the field. The students in the trap zones are taking damage. The two together can stall you until half of your fellow students die."

Jacob holds his gaze and laugh.

"Our fellow student," the Leader of Champions say. "And can you handle her?"

Baal looks at the void-fire eyes that see nothing and recognize no one.

"Yes."

He moves.

The black sword appears in his hand. Condensed blood magic, dark and smooth, humming below hearing. He closes the distance to Iskara in a single step that no one in the arena sees. One moment he is standing beside Jacob. The next he is inside Iskara's guard, the blade already mid-arc.

The strike connects.

Iskara's right arm separates from her body at the shoulder. The cut is so clean that for a heartbeat the arm stays in place, floating, before gravity takes it and it hits the stone with a sound like wet wood splitting.

Corrupted blood sprays in a wide arc. Black and thick. It hisses where it touches stone.

Iskara screams. The split mouth tears wider, the jaw unhinging past any angle a face should allow, and from the gaping maw comes a raw, tearing shriek with nothing behind it.

The corruption responds.

The monsterification accelerates. Her remaining limbs thicken. New joints crack into existence along her spine. The bone crown extends backward, curving down toward her shoulders. Her aura stops radiating outward and starts pulsing in erratic bursts, each one stronger than the last.

Further. She's going further.

The Sacrifice flicks the black sword and the blood from Iskara's severed arm lifts off the stone. It rises in threads, then condenses. A dozen arrows of black blood form in the air around him.

He sends them.

The arrows strike from every angle. They punch through her shoulders, her thighs, her ribcage. Three pierce her torso and exit from her back, leaving smoking holes.

She does not flinch.

The holes close. Corruption knits the gaps shut in real time. Before the arrows have finished their trajectories, the wounds are gone.

Iskara had incredible talent and a Rainbow Skill. She became a monster beyond Elite Bosses.

Baal assesses the power of the former Infernal Princess and sees her square toward him.

Then, Iskara charges.

She is a roaring nightmare of wrong limbs and flesh that moves with speed and hunger, crossing the distance in a stride that cracks the stone and her remaining arm swings in a wide arc aimed at his head.

He sidesteps.

The arm passes close enough that he feels the displacement against his cheek. His black sword comes up and deflects a second strike, a whip of the new tail she has grown, sending it skidding off the flat of the blade.

She swings again. He sidesteps again. She lunges with her mouth and the new teeth snap shut on empty air because he has already moved, already repositioned, already brought the sword up to catch the follow-through.

But the seal is eating his reserves, and Varen's technique is cannibalizing his flesh to keep the blood magic flowing against the oath.

Iskara adjusts. She stops attacking from one angle and starts attacking from all of them. Her remaining arm splits at the elbow. A second forearm grows from the joint, then a third, each tipped with claws of solidified corruption. Her spine arches and two more limbs burst from her shoulder blades, half-formed but functional.

The Sacrifice deflects the first new arm with his sword. He catches the second with a wall of hardened blood that forms and dissolves in the same instant. He ducks under the third.

The fourth catches him across the ribs.

The impact drives the air from his lungs and sends him sliding three paces across the stone. Something cracks inside his chest. He plants his back foot. The black sword is already up.

"BAAL!"

Cecilia's voice, coming from somewhere in the stands. He does not look. The sound lands on his left side and settles there.

Iskara roars. The mouth opens wide enough to see the corruption writhing in her throat.

The Sacrifice straightens. His vision is doubling again and he holds his ribs, frowning.

"You know," he says, disappointed, "I wanted to wait a little longer for a better spectacle."

Iskara charges.

"But it seems I'll have to end this now."