14-62. Back Into the Arena

Elijah sat silently, his elbows on his knees as he stared at nothing.

Normally, he wouldn’t have been so nervous for a fight, but that was likely because they usually came without warning. Or with little build-up. And certainly, without an audience.

This would be different, though. He’d already fought ten battles in the arena, and he’d never once had to struggle. But his next foe would be a much more difficult opponent to counter.

Okar es Furo.

Son of a Tradesman who, despite only being a mid-tier deity and a serpentor, had managed to accumulate quite a lot of wealth. That afforded him the ability to give his children the best tutelage money could buy. And Okar had responded by showing himself to be a prodigy. A true swordmaster who’d swept through the qualifiers without ever being pushed to his limits.

Elijah had only watched one of Okar’s battles, but he’d come away impressed by the man’s sheer speed and overt brutality. He didn’t so much win battles as end whatever threat stood before him.

He would one day be a nightmare on the battlefield, and everyone expected him to reach deity without issue. Perhaps he would even rise to the peak of the tier – no small feat, considering the requirements to do so. And the will to push through some truly hellish stretches that would tax any man to his limits.

The First Wall had been bad enough, but it was one of many along the way to the peak of the deity tier. Indeed – there were three in the demi-god range as well. One of them, Elijah had already bypassed through the help of the automatically granted levels he’d gained from winning his first ten fights.

Part of him wanted to go out and level between rounds. Maybe then he could game the system a bit and let future tournament victories apply to other walls. But that just wasn’t feasible, considering he’d need to head into towers to do so.

And those were tightly regulated.

What’s more, Elijah couldn’t take the chance of missing a fight because a tower run took a little longer than it should.

So, he was forced to go the long way around.

After spending thirty years at the peak of ascendence, he didn’t mind. He’d learned a little patience when it came to leveling.

“Are you ready, boy?” asked Tura. She was the only person in the room with him. Sara had been banned from his presence because Tura had dubbed her constant fretting as distracting. And Birk had duties elsewhere. What those duties were, Elijah had no idea, and no one was willing to tell him.

Elijah glanced at the old drake. “I suppose. Don’t much care for the waiting, though. I guess patience is a virtue.”

“Bah. Patience – the idea, not the act – just means you don’t want it badly enough. It should burn in your gut, like a tumor of sheer desire. If it doesn’t, you should revisit your priorities.”

Elijah gave a soft chuckle and shook his head.

“What? You disagree?”

“Not at all, actually. But back on Earth, wise old monks would often talk about peace and restraint. About patience as strength and –”

“Bah. Nonsense. Peace will only make you stagnate. Restraint invites challenge. Patience…well, I’ve already spoken of patience, boy. You are a dragon,” she stated, poking him with her cane. “Your heart burns with the surety that you are the rightful ruler of whatever ground you step upon. For such a creature, there is no room for ascetic restraint.”

“You sound like you want me to charge into every battle without thought.”

“Of course not. You do not attack unless you are ready. Preparation is not stagnation. But the need to act should burn within you. The need to dominate and protect, to progress. Controlling that, directing it, and at times, ignoring it – that is necessary. Being a dragon does not make you stupid, boy. But you should not run from your nature,” she explained. “Embrace it. Mold it to your will. Use the fire within to fuel your ascent.”

Elijah frowned.

It wasn’t as if he’d ever really followed the path of an ascetic. He hadn’t. No one on Earth would ever describe him as patient or restrained. But he’d always considered those traits virtuous, largely because that was how humanity saw them. Was that wrong? By trying to emulate those ideas, even unsuccessfully, was he attempting to fit a square peg into a round hole?

What did it really mean to embrace the fire within?

Elijah hadn’t always hungered for advancement. For the longest time, he’d been content to survive on his island. It was only after he became a dragon that things started to change for him. Was that because of the draconic instincts that came with his core? Or was it a natural progression tied to the situation and the positive reinforcement that came with gaining levels, new abilities, and power?

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Maybe it was all tied together.

Perhaps the explanation wasn’t as simple as either-or. It was all intertwined, and making the distinction felt somehow wrong.

Like when he’d completely separated the three parts of his identity. It worked. But now, Elijah could see that the real answer was to weave them all together into a cohesive whole. It wouldn’t happen quickly. Nor would it be easy. If he had to guess, doing so would take every remaining stage of mind cultivation. But in a lot of ways, it felt even more important than advancing his core, body, or soul.

Because his identity was who he was. It affected everything.

Protecting it was of paramount importance.

“Give it no more thought, boy,” Tura said, again poking him with her cane. Elijah had grown to hate that thing. “Your upcoming match will not be easy.”

Right.

Existential questions about his identity and how it related to his draconic heritage had distracted him from the fight against Okar.

“Focus.”

Elijah took her advice and concentrated on the battle ahead. He knew what to expect. Okar’s powers were well-known because he’d been fighting in lesser tournaments for years. He focused almost entirely on body enhancement, with only a couple of activated abilities – and those might’ve been associated with his equipment, which was high quality.

Like all the other fights, the goal wasn’t just to win. It was to do so without revealing his entire suite of abilities. That made it even more challenging than it should have been.

Either way, Elijah eventually stood and paced back and forth until, at last, an attendant came to let him know that the time had come. After giving Tura a nod, he followed the pale serpentor into the adjacent corridor. The trek to the arena took less than a minute, but the short journey felt simultaneously eternal and as if it was over in the blink of an eye.

Before Elijah could examine that odd dichotomy, he found himself stepping out into the light. His entrance was predictably accompanied by the Curator’s booming introduction. Elijah ignored it, every ounce of his focus on the person standing hundreds of yards away.

Okar looked like a beardless dwarf. Maybe four feet tall, with smooth cheeks and softer features than the comparison would suggest. His shoulders were slightly too narrow, as well, and he moved with a lightness that Elijah usually associated with elves.

He was also barefoot.

An oddity that drew Elijah’s attention and invited comparisons to small, ring-bearing creatures from famous fantasy books. No hair on those toes, though, ruining the image.

To Elijah, Okar looked like a blend between an elf and a dwarf, which would have been an odd pairing indeed.

The serpentor wore all black leather, a hooded cape, and black iron bracers. Strapped to his back was a pair of crisscrossed swords, curved and wide-bladed. What’s more, he looked entirely at ease. As if he’d fought thousands of duels and won each and every one of them.

Which was precisely the case, Elijah had learned.

Okar es Furo might have looked a bit like a child, but he was a dangerous foe. Elijah knew better than to underestimate him.

Elijah summoned Thorn and planted the butt of the spear into the sand.

Then, he waited for the Curator to finish his introductions. The crowd faded into the background, barely noticed and wholly unimportant. Instead, Elijah zeroed in on Okar, who looked like he was about to take a walk in the park.

Slowly, he drew both of his swords and took a fighting stance. Elijah raised his spear and bent his knees, shifting one of his feet a couple of inches back. He braced, tense and ready.

The Curator shouted for them to begin.

Okar exploded forward, tearing across the intervening distance in an instant. But Elijah had been training extensively with Birk for the past few months. He was ready.

Thorn snapped out in a blur, blocking one sword strike even as Elijah leaped over another. Cloud Step let him gain some altitude, but Okar quickly pivoted and sprang after him. He ascended like a rocket, and Elijah barely managed to slap the following flurry of attacks away.

He flipped backward off another Cloud Step, leaving the now-descending Okar behind.

He landed in a cloud of sand. Elijah touched down a couple of seconds later, though across the arena.

Okar wasn’t deterred.

The half-dwarf serpentor threw himself across the arena, once again engaging. Elijah held him at bay for a couple more seconds before he was forced to retreat. Two clashes, and the reality was clear – Okar was better than him in a melee.

But Elijah was a Druid, not a Warrior. He had other advantages.

The third clash went the same as the first two, with Elijah using his wings to cross the arena. Okar could have followed. That probably would have been the smart move, because it would have kept up the pressure. But he chose a different tactic, hanging back for a few seconds.

Was that part of the strategy?

Did he think he could wear Elijah down?

Or was there another reason? Maybe Okar could only maintain his self-buffs for short durations. Perhaps he was letting them cooldown.

Elijah landed, suddenly wary. Because there was another explanation. The fight had barely even begun, and it was more likely that Okar was just testing him out. Probing. Looking for a weakness.

Maybe he’d not even used his self-buffs yet.

A scary thought, considering that Elijah could barely keep his head above water as it was.

He planted his feet, readying himself for another furious exchange. But Okar surprised him by taking his time. He stalked forward, cautious and measured. Then, when he was only a few dozen feet away, he made his next move.

He covered the ground in less than a second, and to an untrained and unenhanced eye, he probably looked like he teleported. Elijah managed to block the first strike, but the second came too fast. It slipped between his ribs, obliterating his heart. A second later, lightning erupted from the sword, sending him into convulsions.

Okar twisted, then ripped the weapon free.

Elijah fell to his knees, still seizing.

He shifted the resulting disorientation to its own cluster of leaves within his mind, then released the spell he’d been holding since the very beginning of the battle. Then, he let loose the second. And finally, the third.

Even as vitality swept through him, courtesy of Nature’s Bloom, Wild Resurgence settled upon him as well. At the same time, lightning lashed out in a wide arc, throwing a shocked Okar backward.

Elijah’s wound mended.

His heart rebuilt itself, and he pushed himself to his feet. Then, he spat blood upon the sand and prepared for the next clash.

Meanwhile, Okar picked himself up, shook his head, and followed Elijah’s lead.

“Strong heals. Didn’t think you were that kind of Druid,” said the half-dwarf serpentor, his voice higher-pitched than Elijah would have expected. Almost childlike.

“I’m not,” Elijah admitted, twirling his spear.

“Interesting,” Okar said.

“Not really.”

“Fair enough.”

Then, without warning, Okar charged again. This time, Elijah was ready. The sound of clashing weapons sang across the arena as the battle continued.