Progression of a Magic Fighter Ch. 7

Ch. 7: To Be Truly Challenged

Do not be scared! Jor shouted in his head, banishing the ghoulish fear inside of him. He did so while ducking under the grasp of the grinning ape, its claws snipping at the air above his head.

The arena of ape skulls became a blurry background. The light above Jor’s head illuminated the horrific glory of the tall monstrosity in front of him. Instincts guided Jor to side-step around instead of striking back.

A thick leg taller than Jor’s body kicked through the spot where he’d been a split-second before. The monster presented an opening. The fighter’s instinct told him to circle around some more.

Jor was not hesitating, he was baiting, and he was rewarded for that effort. The ape’s long arm swiped at him and missed. The ape showed its ability to reset after two missed strikes, bringing its kicking leg back down faster than its size would suggest. Jor watched all of this while circling around, staying light on his feet, building momentum, and letting the ape attempt another grab.

Jor ducked below the grab and zipped in, feeling the transitional buff for going defensive to offensive. His first punch packed a wallop that would’ve rocked a Tier 4 ape, striking on the meaty thigh of the arena monster. Magic splashed with droplets digging into flesh. Water and blood rained down, leaving a gory wound on the arena ape’s leg.

The arena ape attacked with another swipe without hesitation. It barely reacted to the hit. Jor lunged in between the monster’s legs to dodge. He scrambled low on all fours to get below another reaching grasp.

The ape whirled after him, flailing its long arms, forcing Jor to duck and step back and weave out of the way. The window to strike again appeared when the ape reached down too eagerly, grabbing air.

Jor’s quickness led to a water crescent kick striking the ape’s injured leg, hacking close to the bone. That should’ve given the monster pause, but it marched on uncaring, whipping out its long arms and sharpened claws.

Its insane bestial grin continued to beam down on Jor, as if the it couldn’t be hurt or stopped, as if Jor was destined to have his skull taken as a sacrifice to please the darkened monsters. That last consideration seemed to ring with truth when Jor observed the monster’s blood was as dark as oil.

The creature’s anatomy might not suffer damage like most of the Mundane Rank, granting it a reason to revel in its inhumanity and gross power. Under such circumstances, it wouldn’t be wrong for Jor to be scared.

But Jor replied to another grab attempt with another water crescent to the same injury. He teetered on the edge, forcing himself to step in for his magic to reach the long-limbed monster and cleave as deep as it could go. Then he danced out, his scarf fluttering in the wind of the ferocious melee as another swing from the ape missed him by a scant inch.

When most people would’ve backed off to recollect themselves from constant near brushes with death, Jor stepped in and dared to face the grinning monster head-on again. Once more, he cleaved into the monster’s leg with a crescent, spraying blood and water all over. But the reaction came out different this time around.

An audible crack like a branch breaking sounded out. The monster dropped in the direction of its broken leg, falling into a dark puddle of blood and water. Seeing it fall filled Jor with thrill, and for just a moment, he nearly forgot himself and tried to capitalize.

He nearly lost his head when the ape readjusted with its working limbs and lunged like an oversized three-legged dog. It even had air time, placing its widening mouth on level with Jor’s face until he bent backward and let the monster sail over him recklessly. Jor stayed on his feet and followed after the monster.

Fortunately, the ape hadn’t fully adjusted to working with only two arms and a leg. Landing back down, the ape skittered about like a confused and hairy bug.

When it turned around to reface Jor, the fighter was already in front of the ape, taking the initiative with water blast punches. The combo was loud. The roar of his attack bounced off the walls, echoing, clamoring, filling the tunnel of skulls with a waterfall of ear-pounding noise!

Jor gave what he could give and no more, lest his overeagerness got the best of him. And even then, he still made a mistake.

While ducking under the three-limbed ape, an horrific pain slashed across the back of Jor’s left side. He tripped underneath the three-limbed ape, turned the fall into a log roll maneuver, and scrambled desperately to his feet as his own blood slicked the stone floor. Looking up, Jor saw before him a sight that would’ve petrified most people of the Mundane Rank.

There was the three-limbed ape with its mangled face, one of its cheeks hanging open and showing more of its sinister grin. If that wasn’t horrible enough, the horror levels rose with the introduction of a second arena ape. The second one was whole and healthy and tall, bearing the same bestial grin as Jor’s first arena foe.

Jor’s time to pick-off his first arena monster without outside interference had run out. Exhaustion was already setting in, and his life was flowing out from a wound where his left kidney should be, digging knives of pain into him for moving around.

By all means, most people would succumb to fear and pain or try to run away. Yet, the human fighter dove toward the darkened mass of death, both hands raised into balled fists.

The healthy ape moved swiftly and lashed out with its claws seeking another pound of human flesh. The hurt ape bounded forward like a dog, its jaw stretched open to sink a bite into Jor.

The best way out of this was to step back and circle to the side, keeping the standing ape between him and the three-limbed ape. It was easier to outmaneuver around the standing one since there was less ground to cover.

But Jor put aside his fighter instincts and placed his entire willpower on a gamble. He glued his feet down on a spot where the tips of the standing ape’s claws could slice across his chest.

Jor could barely hold back his scream of pain as the ape scraped slivers off his ribs and took more of Jor’s life, placing him in a critical condition. As the human wobbled slightly from the pain and sacrifice, the three-limbed ape started to close its jaws on Jor’s head.

The ape’s jaws snapped shut around nothing but air. A gusting force sprayed its side with water like a stormfront blowing across the ocean. Before the ape could even reset after its failed bite attack, a punch more powerful than anything before landed flush on its cheek.

The ape’s jaw broke and half its face flayed off. A furious explosion of water roared against its head and redirected the bulk of its momentum to the side. It crashed down, still alive but unable to reset as quickly as before. It couldn’t even hold its head up properly. Blood gushed from a gaping wound in its neck to add to all the water.

The standing ape paused for just a moment to take in the scene, the bestial grin shrinking as if questioning who held the advantage over who. Standing before the darkened monster was the same human but with a cyclone of power circulating around him, his dreadlocks and scarf whipping from the currents. Beads of water coating his body and swirling in the air glistened with flowing mana.

“Don’t be afraid, man. You can kill me in one solid hit,” Jor said with a feral smile. “If you’re good enough to land it before I destroy you.”

His healing had stopped the bleeding and nothing more. He was still hurting like hell, and every movement with his torso increased his pain. But the extra power made a huge difference.

The buffs for his body helped him move when he should be succumbing to his injuries. Additionally, the air was high in moisture here. The entire arena counted as a watery environment because of the heavy fog presence from before, adding to Jor’s power.

The standing ape’s grin became less insane and more angry, as if it was a crime for the human to stand up against the mighty monster. Ready to dominate, the monster lunged and slashed down with both arms to utterly destroy Jor.

The human became a whirlwind of movement, flowing under the double swipes and past the standing ape without retaliating. Before the ape realized what was happening, Jor whipped up his leg and beheaded the first arena monster with a shining crescent through the neck. The head didn’t even hit the floor yet when Jor planted his foot on the corpse’s shoulder and sprung into the air.

The standing ape lost its grin and stared in surprise as Jor spiraled through the air and swung out back-to-back crescents. The creature barely responded in time to save its neck from getting cleaved through completely.

One crescent hacked all the way to the spine, opening a bloody smile on the neck that sprayed forth a dark blood mist amid the raining water. The second crescent landed on the forearms the monster raised in its defense, cleaving fairly deep and adding to the ape’s pain as it staggered.

It retreated one step before the monster suffered a blast to the side of its leg, wobbling the ape. More impactful punches landed, ripping apart flesh, spraying blood, cracking bone, and soaking the apes’ fur and the stone floor with copious water.

When the assault stopped, Jor took a step back, his fists dripping wet. He let the ape fall pathetically on its back.

It was in the throes of death, but the finisher wouldn’t come.

A third ape rounded the bend and closed in on the fight. Jor moved on to engage the next arena monster, not wasting anymore energy on the second ape as it suffered a slow but certain demise.

Just like that, Jor took down two of the horrific monsters. He found victory against the third soon enough. With barely any time to stop and reassess, a fourth darkened monster appeared. Jor pushed past his exhaustion and pain to deliver death upon it.

Once the fourth corpse landed with a wet thud, Jor checked his surroundings and waited. Nothing else came out, allowing him time to finally rest. He leaned against the wall, gasping like a fish out of water.

With a grunt of effort, he pushed his sorcery to fix him up, using the aura as a big launchpad to do as much healing as possible. Just like prior training sessions, <Aura of Struggle> dismissed itself once he healed a certain amount above critical condition.

The loss of the aura cut off the extra energy. Jor’s suffering rose by leaps and bounds, but his focus saw him through the worst of it.

Recover energy, man. Then heal up. Jor dared not speak right now since he was still unsure if he was in the clear.

The silence was telling, however. No footfalls. No claws dragging across stone.

Jor sighed in relief. He leaned against the macabre wall of ape skulls, letting himself enjoy the moment of respite. He was victorious, and the Game rewarded him for that.

<You’ve slain four Darkened Arena Apes, Mundanes, Tier 8s.>

<You’ve gained three Mundane Loot Orbs.>

Nice. Jor chuckled weakly, happy with what he’d achieved. Tier 8 monsters were the cream of the crop of their rank.

That was all Jor knew from his research, and even then, he figured he had holes in his knowledge. He had no idea if a mundane human was supposed to be able to solo four Tier 8s.

Then again, with the way Jor was feeling after nearly killing himself for extra power, he imagined he wasn’t supposed to be doing this alone. Monsters were the stuff of nightmares. They were things a party of adventurers handled together from what Jor knew.

“This arena experience is going to haunt me for the rest of my days,” Jor said to himself. “But at least I’ll be a mighty one.”

Jor smiled, waiting for the Game to concede to his official victory. He found no notification of the challenge coming to an end.

Feeling anxious and confused, Jor stood shakily and looked around. The tunnel remained silent, its monsters dispatched. All was darkness outside of the glow of light above Jor’s head.

Something warm and icky plopped on Jor’s shoulder. He reached for it without thinking when a sudden realization hit him. It’s above me!

Jor dove forward into a desperate roll. Just in time, too, because something immense landed on the stone floor behind him. The wind of its sudden appearance fluttered the end of Jor’s scarf as he stood and faced a horrendous monster mightier than the last ones.

No, not just mightier. It’s way out of the league of the last ones! I can feel it.

Jor stared at the monster filling up a large space in the tunnel.

It was more like a primeape than an ape, but many times the size of the normal animal. A thick muscular tail undulated like a snake behind it. Each of its fingers and toes ended with claws while flexing with a level of nimbleness the prior monsters lacked.

The size of it was mind-boggling. It was as big as a rhinoceros. No, maybe even bigger; it had long limbs that put the arena apes to shame. And on that face surrounded by a shock of wild dark hair, two void-like eyes and a menacing fanged smile speckled with drool beamed at Jor.

“Adept Rank,” Jor muttered. “The Game expects me to beat something mighty.” Without the necessary rank, gear, and magical techniques.

The monster made rumbling sounds, laughing at him before licking its mouth hungrily. The two looked at each other, then the inevitable action broke out with Jor trying to attack first, losing his nerve.

It was a short and unfair battle.

It ended predictably with Jor screaming in pain and horror.

Right when everything became black, Jor’s eyes snapped open to a familiar scene.

Moist earth. Green forest. A cloudless blue day with sunlight shining through the gaps in the treetops.

He was whole and fine, having his old clothes back on. When he checked underneath his shirt, he found no scars.

Sitting up, Jor looked to the side, eyes widening.

The silver bell hung from its post, shining under the sun. The clapper and rope dangled mockingly in front of Jor’s face.

Jor shot to his feet, letting his emotions get ahead of him. He broke out into a run and followed the same trail as before, rising up hills, dropping into valleys, crossing through basins, and never stopping until he heard some all-too familiar sounds.

“Ooh! Ooh! Ooh!” It started with one. Then more voices sounded out. Everything was the same as before. Jor had restarted from the beginning.

A chill passed through Jor’s body, and he pulled up one part of his profile. He only needed to check his experience levels to confirm if he maintained his progression.

<Experience: Level 5>

Jor let out a big whoop of air. He hadn’t regressed, or it would’ve been Level 0.

Staying as a Level 5 meant everything that had happened was real. He hadn’t been dreaming. He had faced a monster way above him in power, which meant the challenge was impossible.

Collapsing into a seat against a tree trunk, Jor felt the crushing weight of doom.

A mundane person couldn’t hope to beat an adept monster, which Jor felt was the boss of his challenge. He’d never heard of such a situation before.

The ascension challenge for a Mundane Rank was supposed to have mundane issues. Even one of those Tier 8 arena apes would’ve been a hard boss for a normal mundane challenge.

“Why would you do this to me, Game?” Jor asked.

The Game didn’t respond.

Jor threw himself a pity party for two days. He considered ringing the bell lots of times. Then, slowly but surely, he reconsidered his situation with an altered mindframe.

Was this challenge truly a bad thing?

Jor drank water from his fist in between eating some foraged berries. As his mood tempered, his focus flowed. As his focus flowed, his logic sailed grandly with an entrepreneurial spirit.

“I cannot truly die in this challenge,” Jor said. “And while I can’t level up further, I can still train my sorcery more and try different tactics with each redo. This way, I can sharpen my abilities, slay the monsters faster, and manage my energy better.”

He could also gain more loot orbs and stats and other things.

Perhaps this was a blessing in disguise, depending on if Jor was willing to lose parts of himself. If he did win this challenge once and for all, his mind wouldn’t come out unscathed.

“Look at the bright side, I’m going to get loads of loot and powers when this is all done.”

Jor smiled regardless of the painful and sanity-crushing grind he was going to face. After all, this was for the sake of his progression. And to punch the smile off that damn monkey!