173 Riptide (1/2)

I gave Delilath a bow. She bowed back. As we raised our heads, she snapped her tail towards me. I stomped a foot while condensing my weight. I burrowed downwards, her attack smashing a crater into the arena above my head.

I detonated my charged runes, bursting out from the ground. A cloud of white powder surged out with me. Delilath shifted her head, dodging my assault. She snapped her tail at me again, catching me in flight. I crossed my arms, blocking the blow.

My camouflage caved in, the gray armor crumpling at Delilath's might. As our attacks followed through, her tail bounced back, but I kept going forward. With me behind her, Delilath stepped back. With agility defying her enormous frame, she turned around.

She took a short breath. As her chest swelled, a few of the yellow orbs she formed earlier compacted over me. The dense mana sunk into my skin, rattling my brain. I expected pain. Confusion washed over me along with a sense of bliss.

At that moment, all was right with the world. My mouth tasted sweet. The stuffy air in my helmet smelled of light perfume and delicious food. A calming sensation pervaded me from head to toe. I had no problems. If anything, I was glad to have something to do with all my time.

Delilath's deep roar interrupted my sudden intoxication. Her yellow, piercing fire plumed out toward me. I pulled myself out of my drunkenness, snapping an antigravity well between me and the flames. The well pushed me back, the fire billowing outward and away from me.

Delilath lunged back before she burned herself. I landed on my back, crushing the arena beneath me. Before I sunk down, I pulled myself up, looking at my hands. My armor was red hot. I shook my head. My train of thought was muddled.

I didn't understand why I was so interested in my hands in the middle of a fight. Before I figured it out, Delilath snapped her tail at me again. I tried deflecting, but my body moved like I was in a pit of molten lead. I blocked at the last moment, her tail snapping me sideways.

I gasped, actual damage being done to me. If this continued, Delilath would tear my armor off and expose my identity. I didn't even feel like that was a bad thing though. As I argued with myself about the merits of disguising myself, Delilath took another deep breath.

I frowned at the attack, irritated by it. I stood up and dived into the ground. Delilath's flames melted the rock above me. I dug forward, picking up the pace. She kept her blaze over me, creating a moat of magma. I shot out of the ground, sending a telekinetic kick towards her chin.

One of her yellow spheres concentrated into a point. It dashed towards her chin, nullifying my kinetic wave. As it did, my eyes widened. She could counter my magic, influence my mind, and was a behemoth to boot. If she kept this up, I didn't just have to worry about exposing my identity.

I might lose.

She snapped another attack with her diamond hard tail. I blocked it again, the momentum of her attack slinging me straight into the ground. She stepped up towards me, breathing in. Another tail whip smashed into me from above, cracking my facemask.

I closed my eyes. Delilath's magic didn't work like most mages. People generally incapacitated you with pain or injury. Delilath used euphoria against her enemies, making them dull and dumb. Without any experience facing the magic, I wasn't armed with tools against it. Well, not conventional tools at least.

So, I improvised.

I clenched my fists and ground my teeth. I used Mental Adaptability to its maximum, reminding myself why I was fighting. I wanted the mythical compendium. I needed to get good relations with Giess's leaders. Hell, I just wanted to be the best.

With Delilath's magic muddling my brain, they felt like shitty reasons. Using the logical side of my mind, I envisioned the worst case scenario from here. I could expose my identity. I might end up breaking ties with Giess, remaining unknown and hunted. I would lose, which would suck all around.

Bolstered by both line of logic, I stood up. A tail swipe slammed onto me from above, but I smashed it to the side with a swipe of my forearm. With my armor resembling aluminum foil at this point, I narrowed my eyes and sharpened up.

I was back.

Delilath unleashed her yellow fire, singeing stone. I grasped gravity, bending the trajectory of her fire upward. It clashed against the invisible forcefield, parts of Kiki's suit igniting. I shot a palm out, sending a telekinetic bullet at Delilath's chest.

Another yellow sphere darted to save her. She whipped her long limb at me again while I pushed through the mugginess. With a burst of will, I deflected her strike. Using the opening, I shot a blistering combination of kinetic bullets her way.

Four spheres disintegrated, voiding my magic. This cycle continued, each of us picking up our pace. We battled back and forth, each side vying for dominance. Our tactics evolved.

I kept pads of gravity over my arms, preventing my armor from crumpling anymore. Delilath generated mana orbs, drawing from the mana around her. I pulled from my own reserves, dipping into the sea of mana at my disposal. Tension grew. The arena evaporated around us, our conflict disintegrating it.

The invisible shield around us rippled as dynamic forces dispersed out in massive shockwaves. We matched each other, firing off efficient, savage strikes. We gained a flow of each other's patterns, making adjustments throughout the fight.

I burst through my mana, deflecting her with gravitational waves alone. She discovered that I was protecting my armor. She aimed her strikes to cleave it off should I miscalculate. This extended my mana reserves, hundreds of thousands of mana burning each second.

Kiki kept his hands up, sweat pouring down his forehead. He struggled to contain the fight, the monumental forces we generated challenging to deal with. The crowd roared out, amazed at the exhibition of both our strengths.

The struggle stretched on, each of us finding our own rhythm. It was a game of endurance now, each of us fatiguing the other. Beads of cold sweat poured down Delilath's face, a toothy grin spread over her maw. I grinned back, enjoying the intensity of the bout. I hadn't fought like this in months. For her, it might've been years.

After two hours of raging intensity, she ran out of yellow spheres. Without her protection, she blasted through her reserves. She sliced her tail, echoing out a sonic boom as it shot at me from above. The heat from the attack caused my ears to pop from the pressure change of the air.

Before it landed, I dipped into my health pool, sending out a dense, powerful wave of magic. As magic and might clashed, a shockwave ebbed outward. The invisible forcefield wobbled before collapsing, the arena quaking under Delilath's onslaught.

With sweat pouring down my own face, I retaliated with fury. She lunged towards me, snapping her jaw at me from above. I met her charge, firing off a punch with my heels planted. My fist connected just shy of her chest. My hand bounced back, Force of Nature activating in all its fury.

I'd thrown the same punch tens of thousands of times. my body just went through the motions, muscle memory guiding me through the act. Telekinetic augments generated around my fists and feet. The ground around me sinking from my telekinetic extensions. My augments converted the surface area of my punch.

Instead of being spread out over my large fist, it pierced Delilath's chest like needle. This gave my attack tremendous piercing power. The impact punched a hole through her torso, my shoulders creaking under the stress. The energy dispersed from her back, her plate mail ripping out.

Delilath stood there, her eyes and mouth wide open. She glanced down, blood spurting from the wound. She gurgled, blood leaking out of her jaws. She fell sideways, but I caught her before her head clunked on stone. Two gialgathens swung in from the crowd.

A waterfall of blood gushed from Delilath's chest. My heart raced in my chest. I overdid it, big time. At this rate, she'd die. I ran up to her, one of her friend gialgathens hissing at me. Ignoring her, I looked at the tunnel through Delilath.

Blood spurted out each time her heart beat, several arteries ruptured. The medics weren't in a hurry to aid her either. Using several small gravity wells, I pinched the ends of a dozen of her arteries. As I did, the bleeding dropped by over half. It was still more than enough to kill her in minutes.

I turned, shouting at Kiki, ”Know any healing?”

Kiki shivered, gasping for breath. He shook his head, ”I'd love to help, but...I'm...I'm experiencing mana deprivation...Give me a second to recover.”

I dragged my hand down my helmet, ”Fuck. Medics?”

The two medics stumbled up. The doctors pulled out two health potions apiece. I growled, ”What the fuck are you doing with two potions? Use all the potions you have.”

They jittered through their bags, dropping a few vials and patches. With shaking hands, each medic poured healing solution onto the wound. It wasn't anywhere near enough. I opened my dimensional storage, pulling out green health potions from Torix.

These were the kind you dumped directly onto an open wound. Delilath was choking on her own blood. She couldn't exactly swallow. With that in mind, I pulled the elixirs out, handing them to the medics. They poured several of the potions onto the would, which healed it at a surface level. The wounds inside her chest were still raw, internal bleeding running rampant.

Getting desperate, I set several dozen of the green bottles onto the ground without their caps on. The healing mixture gushed from each of them. I lifted the collecting pool of liquid with gravity. There was a bit of dirt in it, but I didn't have time to filter the tonic.

With a blob of green potion, I whipped it around to the other side of Delilath. I forced the healing tonic deep into Delilath's chest, saturating her wounds with the healing liquid. Delilath stuttered, unable to breathe. While maintaining the other wells, I created another one over her mouth.

Blood siphoned out of her mouth, stopping her from drowning. She gasped, coughing in agony. I looked at Delilath and shouted, ”Stay with me, ok? Stay with me. Don't go to sleep, alright?”

She looked me in the eye. Seconds later, her irises relaxed. All tension left her body. The sputtering stopped. The gialgathen that hissed at me earlier was crying, large tears pouring down her face. I stood up, grabbing the sides of my helmet.

I heaved several breaths. I looked at my hands, blood all over them. I peered back down at Delilath. I raised my hands, not knowing what to do with myself. My eyes widened with horror as both gialgathens now wept over her. Like a lost child, I stood there not knowing what to do.

My mind raced. I killed so many things before. Hell, I've killed innocent people without meaning too. Seeing the impact of death was different. The two gialgathens looked like her family. Their chests quivered. Their racking cries loudened. Delilath was a great fighter. She helped Lehesion free millions of slaves. She didn't deserve to die like this.

As that dawned on me, I reached out a hand to the gialgathens. I tried saying something, but they growled at me before I could think of something to say. One of them looked at me, the gialgathen's face crinkled up. With snot and tears pouring down its face, her glare pierced right through me.

I took a step back and shook my head. Something about the way she looked at me was terrifying. Before it sunk in, Kiki chugged several mana potions from his dimensional storage. He wiped off his forehead with a handkerchief,

”And here is the victor everybody! He's the first person to ever defeat Delilath, the Lady of Yellow...At least in Yildraza. He's definitely the first to end her reign for good. Come on everybody, let's hear it for Daniel Hillside!”

The crowd had been silenced by the carnage from earlier. The horde revitalized, cheering for me. I looked around, astonished that anyone could clap for what felt like murder.

I caught glimpses of concerned espens. Some of them teared up and cried even. The vast majority cheered with elation, however. It caught me off guard. Kiki clapped his hands, ”And that concludes Yildraza's tournament in dramatic fashion. Do have a good day everybody, and enjoy yourselves!”

I found myself staring at the weeping gialgathens. Kiki floated right beside me, his hoverboard humming,

”As part of tournament policy, you're not guilty of anything! Plenty of people have died in the tournament despite a Speaker's protection. It's inevitable. Delilath's death is my responsibility.”

He grinned at me, ”So I'll be the one to take the fall for your mistake! Isn't that just great!”

I glanced up at him. ”But...she's so frail? Her level is high? How did she die? I don't understand.”

Kiki scoffed, ”Gialgathens aren't integrated into Schema's system. You may not know this, but creatures without access to the system have stunted healing capabilities. When they bleed, they die!”

I blinked. Kiki's explanation was so obvious but I didn't even remember it. Gialgathens weren't like eldritch or like system goers. They were more like bears or sharks. If something crushed a hole through their chests, the animal died.

That's why I was able to make it out of my first dungeon, BloodHollow, in the first place. Schema's system helped me heal through the grievous wounds that hit me. Otherwise, I'd have died a few minutes after being integrated into Schema's system. The gialgathens didn't have that. This kind of blow was death.

Kiki patted my shoulder, ”Surprising, isn't it? You probably have never experienced the world without Schema's system, but this is the reality of it. Don't take it to heart.”

I centered myself, getting myself out of my mental fog,

”I'm fine. I didn't want to kill her. That's all.”

Kiki nodded, ”It won't hurt your fame or how the people are behind you.”

I frowned, ”I couldn't care less.”

Kiki grinned, ”Now that's a rugged hero! I hope you're ready for the final portion of the tournament! Good luck there. Considering Delilath took hours for you to take down, you're going to need it!”

I ripped my gaze away from Delilath's corpse, walking away from the scene. I gripped my hands, letting out some nervous energy. Kiki was right in a way. Each combatant put their lives on the line every time they fought. Referees protected competitors, but they weren't perfect.

That was an excuse though. No matter how I rationalized the situation, I killed someone without meaning too. Delilath might not be the last one I murdered either. If I made another mistake, I'd end Kessiah, Torix, maybe even Althea.

That's what scared me. In that sober state of mind, I found myself walking out to the stadium's lobby. People swarmed me, asking for autographs, photos, and answers. I raised a hand and shouted,

”I'm tired. Fuck off.”

I used several of my skills to enhance my voice's impact. A wave of silence rippled over the amassing crowd, my words commanding them. The mob let me walk out in peace. Right before I walked out of the stadium, a hand gripped my arm.

I glanced over, my voice hard as stone, ”Who is it?”

Thisbey grinned at me, patting my arm, ”Why, I'm just here to congratulate the victor. I wanted to invite you to lunch with me if you wouldn't mind.”