B2 Chapter 40: Sport Worthy

The Captain watched me step into the makeshift arena. His eyes roamed over my armor and cloak. Assessing me to predict how I’d fight. He’d had the benefit of seeing Daisy’s abilities before taking her on. So to him, I was a mystery.

That was good. It meant I’d have at least a couple of surprises waiting for him. One of which might actually give me a chance at winning.

I started to mentally prepare as soon as I entered the circle. From the cold condescension he’d displayed with Daisy, I figured he’d try to end the fight quickly by rushing me. I’d have to adapt to that.

I brought out my Viper Fang knife. With any luck, its poison would work on these creatures. I held off on using my blood powers, though. If my plan works, then he won’t know about them until it's too late.

Once again, the Captain banged his shield to excite the crowd. This was the final fight. The last big spectacle and they were all looking forward to seeing me lose.

The King raised his one claw, and the crowd hushed.

“Begin!” he declared.

I took a defensive stance and held the knife in front of me as the Captain rushed forward. With his large tower shield up, he moved to bash me with it. But its size limited his field of view and I danced around his attack while staying close to the shield. I swung my knife around the shield, but his sword caught it and I had to dip away before he took my head off with his follow up swing.

Even lugging around that big shield, he was damn fast.

I moved back in and repeated what I’d done before except as my knife met his sword, I formed a long blood spike and lunged for his neck. His bracer blocked it, and this time there was no magical red glow.

Good. He couldn’t dispel my blood magic. The bad news, however, came next.

His black tower shield started rumbling. Sensing danger, I leaped away just as a kinetic blast shot out of it. But I wasn’t fast enough and the edge of it clipped me in mid-air. The blast sent me spinning, and I hit the floor hard enough to crack two ribs.

The Captain turned away and said something in his tongue that likely translated to, “he’s finished. Somone toss me a sac ball so that I wrap this idiot up.”

The crowd cheered triumphantly, but that quickly turned into murmurs when they saw me stand up good as new without taking a health potion.

“I didn’t hear no bell,” I said.

The Captain scowled. He charged up another shield blast and fired. I waited until the last moment and rolled away.

Okay, I guess staying too close to the shield is alsoa bad idea. I couldn’t avoid him forever, though. I was a close-range fighter. It was time to get aggressive.

Reaching for Heart of Darkness, I threw a blob of shadow at his face. Blinded, his next shield blast missed. Much like with Daisy, he activated his bracers to burn the shadow away, but by then I had closed the distance. Approaching from his sword side, I reached for the green Shrikon blood.

My eyes widened, and I gasped. It was like my veins had turned to ice. After a second, the feeling died down, but I remained different. More solid somehow. The blood would enhance my toughness and improve my blades.

I slashed with my knife and his sword met it. This distracted him from the real threat. I rammed my blood sword into his shield arm and slashed horizontally. Slicing down his forearm and severing the leather straps that connected him to the shield.

It fell to the floor with a heavy clang, but the Captain was too busy with his bleeding arm to notice. He backed off warily and reached for a health potion while I kicked his shield away, taking it out of the fight permanently.

His wound was bad, and his blood was leaking all over the floor. The shallow water around us barely seemed to dilute it at all, which meant that it was now mine to command.

As he went to drink the potion, a green blood spike shot up from the ground and knocked the bottle out of his hand. The Captain muttered something that I took to be a curse.

He dipped his bleeding arm into the water and tensed every muscle in his body. Wary of some special attack, I kept my distance and watched. It looked like he was putting himself in more pain, but then his body relaxed. He lifted up the arm, and it was fully healed. He held it up and made a show of it for everyone to say that we’re the same, but that was false. There was a tension in his eyes that never left. Whatever healing ability he has with the water is hard for him to use. It cost him something to do that.

Still, he wasn’t ready to give up, and neither was I.

I threw a series of blood spikes at him from every angle. The Captain managed to block or deflect them but he was also moving. Slowly, he sidestepped his way towards a pillar. The spikes were challenging for him, and he was trying to get to cover.

Fortunately, while he was on the defensive, I was free to move around. I made sure he never got that far and cut him off.

We renewed our sword fight. Mine was fast, but he was faster. We traded blows, but I never got close enough to use my knife. He was always quick enough to keep me at a distance.

At mid-strike, I lengthened the blood sword to trick him, but he ducked under the attack. I made several attempts after that with making it shift from solid to liquid to confuse him, but it never worked. Every move I came up with, he had a counter for. I thought I had him on the ropes when I took away his shield, but something was off. His speed and poise now didn’t add up to how he was before. It was like the longer we fought, the better he became. I needed to bring out my ultimate ability and end this. All I had to do was stay close to him for another fifteen seconds.

But then his sword started cutting me.

Small slices and knicks mostly thanks to my enhanced toughness. But it was getting worse.

This wasn’t working, so I switched tactics by putting my knife away and creating a second blood sword with my bracer cache. The Captain’s eyes flickered to the bracer then back to me.

Come on, just a few more seconds.

The Captain’s attacks suddenly became ferocious. Attacking like a mad man with wild, heavy swings. I couldn’t avoid any of them. I could only block. The force of which jolted me until my concentration slipped and one blood sword fell away.

That was what he was waiting for. He seized on the moment, and with his free hand, grabbed my arm. I tried to stop him, but he punched me in the jaw while still holding his sword. It was like getting hit with a hammer.

I was dazed for a moment and then came a terrible pain. I screamed and could only watch in horror as he tore my arm off and threw it away.

Two seconds left. Don’t think about it.

I dashed towards him and activated Crimson Domain. Blood spread out from my feet quickly, but the Captain jumped backwards, clearing twenty feet easily. The blood only spread out a few feet, catching nothing, and then darkness followed.

Oh no.

I was in my domain, but there was nothing in there with me. He’d beat my best attack and had taken my arm.

I looked down in dismay. The hole where my arm used to be was pumping blood vigorously. That much blood loss should’ve made me pass out, but my passive healing had kicked in and I was magically replacing my blood as fast as I was losing it. Inside the Crimson Domain, that was fine because the supply was limitless, but I couldn’t stay in here forever.

I stared at my wound. I’d never controlled my own blood before. But if I could push myself to control other unfamiliar blood sources, then who's to say I couldn’t do this? The blood in this domain wasn’t my enemies. I’d created it and if I can control it, then what was in my body should respond the same way.

An image then flashed in my mind of me accidentally stabbing myself in the heart with my own blood.

I shook my head. No, my control was better than that and in here there were no distractions.

I closed my eyes and concentrated. The blood all around me was mine. I felt it become mine the moment it hit the pool at my feet like vibrations. I honed in on that moment. Dedicating my focus to it until everything else went away.

Then I felt something before the vibration. A weak connection that strengthened until suddenly I could feel my own blood coursing through my body in a way I never had before. I focused in on my wound and tried to think of a way to stop it. My body responded to my mental command, and the bleeding stopped.

*DING!* [Sanguine Projection Skill] Increased to level 4

*DING!* You have gained [Hemostasis] – Congratulation, you have discovered a partial way to control your own blood. By coagulating your own blood and turning it from a liquid into a gel, you’ve managed to stop your own wounds from bleeding via sheer will. By removing blood loss as a potential factor, you have increased your combat effectiveness as grievous wounds become less of a distraction.

Good, now I wouldn’t faint from blood loss as soon as I’d left the domain. Fighting one handed still left a lot to be desired though. What else could I unlock in here through experimentation?

At first, I tried to focus on healing to see if I could regrow the arm. Nothing seemed to happen, and I was growing impatient. How long could I hide in this space until the King declares that I’ve run away, and forfeited the fight?

The arm wouldn’t grow back. Much like when I’d lost my hands, I’d have to find my arm and reconnect it. But maybe there was something else I could do to tide me over?

I gathered blood and set about creating my most ambitious object yet. More than a sword, stick, or spike. As it came together in front of me, I received new messages.

*DING!* You have gained [Cardinal Prosthesis (Rare)] – Congratulations, you’ve managed to use your blood powers to create an artificial limb. Note: This requires more blood than the simpler constructs and actively burns through blood magic just by existing.

*Item Identified!* [Cardinal Arm, Rare: F-Grade] – Created by Lucas Hudson in a moment of sheer desperation after misplacing his original arm. Luckily, this superior creation comes with modifications and its power scales with the owner. So maybe forget about that feeble lump of flesh you used to have and embrace this an upgrade?

Yeah, this was definitely temporary, and I was definitely getting my real arm back.

The Cardinal Arm floated over to my should stump and connected to it perfectly. I flexed the arm and the fingers before mentally turning them into claws.

Yeah, this would do nicely. I had to hurry, though. Even in the domain, I could feel the arm was burning through the magic at an accelerated rate. I’d have maybe only a minute or so out in the real world before I completely emptied my reserves.

I collapsed the domain and sprinted for the Captain. He was standing in front of my dismembered arm like he was guarding it.

A dark green spear formed in my hand with the last of the Shrikon blood around us and I lunged at him. He blocked, but I didn’t slow down, and the spear shortened as I got closer. I kept stabbing until we were face to face. My short spear became a sword and locked against his.

My Cardinal Arm claws sank into his belly. The Captain’s eyes tightened, but he didn’t wince and his strength never wavered.

The King, who’d been silently watching on his throne, suddenly yawned. “I think that’s enough for now,” he said. “Finish this.”

The Captain shoved me so hard that I flew backwards. Where had that strength come from?

I managed to land on my feet, but as soon as I hit the ground, he was there.

He put his sword away and punched me over and over again. I felt my Cardinal Arm dissolve as the blood I had access to was gone. There was no hiding from the pain as the Captain beat me using only his fists.

Dimly, I realized that he’d been holding back his true power this whole time in order to put on a show for his King.

When the beating finally stopped, he dragged me bloody and broken across the floor, where I was dumped at the foot of the throne. The Shrikon audience cheered and clapped. Meanwhile, The Captain was so confident in his victory that he went and retrieved my arm. As soon as it touched me, my connection to the bracer returned and there was enough in there to fully heal my arm.

I then tried to form a blood blade. The Captain sneered and kicked me in the face before a set of manacles were slapped onto my wrists. He then grabbed my head and yanked it up towards the King. I tried to look, but one of my eyes was swollen shut. The other one could just about make out the King that was looking down at me.

I felt so weak and powerless. I didn’t feel anger that these people were going to kill us or even fear. No, it was a quiet disappointment that there was nothing I could do to save my friends.

“Do you know what this is?” the King asked me. He was holding up a dull metal key.

I didn’t respond, but he took my blank stare for a no and continued. “No offense to my Captain, but I almost wished you’d won. If only to see the look on your face when you reached the Golden Door and saw that it required a key. This key, in fact.”

Damn it. There’s always another complication that the System neglected to mention.

“But you lost your trial by combat and, as trespassers, I’m within every right to execute you. Except…” he paused to draw out the moment. I could tell that even his own people didn’t know what he was going to say next. They stood in rapt silence, eager for his words.

“Some of you did put on a good show. Worthy of more, I’d say. So instead of killing you all, you get to walk away with a conciliation prize. You will all be taken to the islands and dumped in separate locations. Once there, you will have a ten minute head start before one of my men hunts you for sport. It will provide us with some lingering entertainment before we’re teleported back home, and this Tower locks itself down.”

A sac closed up around me before I could respond. The last thing I felt before losing consciousness was being dragged away.