Wish upon the Stars chapter 348

The next day saw another round of wishes for Rime, and another round  of elixirs for Jessie. Our healer was up to two hundred seventy eight  Vitality, and with only half of her elixir limit used up. She hadn't  quite made it to the halfway point, but it was close. Sadly that was the  easy part of the day, because after that we had to head in to the arena  for our now daily match.

This was the sixth round,  meaning we had two more after it before we switched to the solo fights.  Upon arrival, we made our way down to the room under the stands to wait  to be called out into the pit.

We sat for about twenty  minutes, approaching the guy who was assigned to wait with us for a  hint, but getting shot down and told to just wait. Finally we were  called out into the arena, and on reaching the sand pit, were greeted by  our next opponent.

"Greetings!" Said the short man in the  huge hat with kelp green hair. "My name as Albai! I am the current  representative of the  Magnificent Fable Forest.  You must be the team  from the Starchaser Pavilion! We were warned about you all, so we won't  be taking you too lightly."

Callie  froze. "Oh shit." I looked at her quizically, and she swallowed hard.  "They have Fable in their name, and they were warned about us. I'm  guessing this is one of the teams sent in by the Faerieland, probably a  legacy team like the Heavensong Tower." She turned back to Albai. "I  take it Celine's sister was the one who warned you, and that warning  came with instructions to show no mercy?"

He  nodded cheerfully. "Of course. Lady Nalia was most displeased at her  sister's defiance. She's instructed me to be extremely rough on you to  prevent such an affront from occurring again. Lady Celine has been  refusing to respond to meeting requests, and Lady Nalia's ability to  punish her while under the purview of the Unity is unfortunately  curtailed, so you'll be the instrument of her discipline, as it were."

The  tiny red haired girl in the ponytail and the blue dress scowled at us.  "I don't see what's so impressive about them that the Lady would be  willing to forsake her family. They seem pathetic to me."

Another  woman to her side, one with literal metallic gold skin and bronze hair,  clicked her tongue. "Don't underestimate them Roxy. They must have  something going for them to get this far. I hear one of them is even a  Master Candidate." I was a bit surprised they didn't have any up to date  information, but then I remembered that we'd been befriending the teams  we went up against.

Sure you could  watch the matches from the stands, but experiencing an attack was much  different than seeing it. Like Alec's Fist of the Red God used golden  fire, and so did Mel, but the two attacks were radically different in  effect and application.

Roxy  snorted. "I call bullshit. You're just too cautious Fiona. If they had a  Master Candidate who was any good we'd have heard of them from before  the tournament. I bet they're just hyping him up for the reputation."

"Enough,  you two." Said the last team member, a huge rotund man with a bald spot  so large he only had tufts of hair on either side of his head. "We're  her to beat them, not insult them. Lady Nalia wants them used as a  lesson, but that doesn't make them less worthy of our respect."

Albai  nodded. "Right you are Garret, they've shown extreme talent and skill  to get this far. We'll do them the courtesy of demolishing them with our  full power." He spread his arms wide. "Now, to begin the match, I  dislike this dreary sand. Let's change the scenery a little bit." He  tilted his head back a bit and whistled.

As  the sound split the air, there was a ripple behind him, and the air  above his head and back a few feet started to swirl. As it swirled,  color began to mix into the nothingness, green specifically. The  whirlpool of color and space accelerated, dragging more space into it,  and the entire field around us blurred momentarily before returning to  normal again after a second of disturbance.

Well...not  normal. Returning to being clear. The area around us was much  different, specifically the whole sand pit had been replaced by what  looked like a giant forest clearing full of colossal mushrooms. Roxy,  who was staring at us, giggled. "Welcome to Wonderland." She said  maliciously. Her eyes, which were shining with ruthless glee, began to  ACTUALLY shine, and they transformed into a deep gold from their  originally normal hazel. As they did, her body shifted, taking on the  form of a massive wolf creature that bounded into the surrounding  treeline, somehow vanishing into the shadows between.

Garret  reached out and snapped his fingers, calling up a humongous caterpillar  beast, and Fiona laid a hand on the monster, coating it in a casing of  solid gold armor that looked much tougher than normal gold. Abel  snorted, stepped forward, and cocked back a fist. He lashed out at the  caterpillar monster and...nothing happened.

We  all froze. "What's wrong?" Said Callie quickly. "Why aren't you  attacking?" She sounded nervous, which I didn't blame her for given the  circumstances.

Abel  growled. "I can't. My ability isn't working and neither is my  manifestation. The space here is being...restrained. I think this is a  Domain ability. I've never actually seen one before. They're much more  common in the Faerieland. This guy's Fantasy stat must be HIGH for it to  restrain me like this. Probably a few boosting Skills between them  too."

Cursing,  Callie started looking around. I triggered Seek Hidden, expanding it to  her through the bond, and looking for the wolf girl. As we searched,  she grilled our mentor. "What is a Domain ability exactly? What does it  do? Aside from..." She gestured around us. "This."

Unfortunately,  that didn't seem like it would do us much good. "No clue." He said  flatly. "I only know a bit about it, it's not a common style of  cultivation here. It's not even a universal thing there, as I'm so you  remember your elf friend uses something closer to the Empire's nobility  cultivation. All I know about it is that it can lock down space in a way  that makes it effective against Master Candidates and that to take it  down you need to take out the caster or overwhelm it in some other way  similar to a Domain."

I  scowled. "Well how are we supposed to do that? If you can't use your  ability or your martial art how the hell are we supposed to beat THAT." I  gestured wildly at the massive metal caterpillar. " Nevermind the wolf  thing Roxy turned into?" I was still scanning the treeline. "Speaking  of, Nightstrike, do you see her yet?"

"I  didn't say my Ragam wouldn't work." He said calmly. "I said I can't  make manifestations right now. I'm still a Master Candidate, I'm just  more limited in my range. Starbreaker, take care of the wolf girl, I'll  handle the metal bug. Nightstrike, you and Solomon can handle Albai,  just be careful. I have no clue what he can do in here."

One  of my favorite things about Callie's leadership style was that she had  zero compunctions about letting other people take charge if it was  needed. Abel was by far the more rational choice to come up with a plan  since he knew even a tiny bit more than us, and she had no issues  letting him.

Albai  and the others seemed content to play defense, with one exception. I  felt a buzz through the bond as Callie noticed an incoming attack from  behind me and spun to finally catch sight of Roxy, who had been hiding  but was uncovered by Seek Hidden. She'd already committed to her assault  so she only slowed down for a second before barreling toward me anyway  despite losing the element of surprise.

Callie  and I turned and moved even as Mel appeared in front of her, propelled  forward by her flames like a damn rocket booster in a move so fast I  could barely track it. I DID notice her seeming to tense up when she got  there, presumably unable to handle the strain, but she quickly moved  into a hand to hand fight, mobilizing her massive Might and coating her  punches with flame.

As  we turned to head for Albai, were shocked to see the massive  caterpillar in a crater, with Abel already on top of it, fists driving  into the plated shell like drop hammers as the summoner and metal woman  tried to interfere in a panic. Grinning, I activated Leaf on the Wind,  grabbed Callie, and hurled us forward with a long, low leap, right at  the captain of the enemy team.

We  came in fast, and I once again wished I had a weapon, because this  bastard had somehow used his Domain to expand himself into a series of  illusions, surrounding us and staying just out of reach. Callie lashed  out with a hand, trying to pincushion all of them with her shadows, but  nothing came of it.

I  dismissed and retriggered Seek Hidden, and was pleasantly surprised to  see the glow of a locked on target on one of the bodies, able to alert  Callie through the bond without needing to say anything.

My  girlfriend, well practiced at deception in battle, created another wave  of shadow blades, and I triggered Flurry of Blows, funneling it into  her attack to speed up the stabbing shadows. Since it was an area of  effect attack, Albai didn't notice we were onto him, and I watched him  use his Domain to somehow swap places with one of the illusions.

Once  he did, Callie redirected ALL her shadow spears at him at the last  second, and Albai snarled, agitated for the first time. He clicked his  fingers and Roxy appeared in front of him, the wolf girl seemingly  unsurprised at being summoned as she braced for the blades.

The  giant humanoid beast shifter took all the blades head on, getting torn  apart by the shadows with a snarl of rage, but even as she pulled them  back they began to heal. I planted a foot, activating Stone Limb as  casually as possible, stacking a triple density shifting blow with  Consecration of Flames and Touch of Tears to make a poisoned version of  my Magma Leg.

I  waited for Callie to launch an attack again and Albai to swap out, and  as soon as he did I triggered Double Trouble. I was already whirling off  my back foot and swinging my leg around with the full rotation of my  body when I appeared behind him. Apparently his spatial bullshit didn't  prevent a Skill as weird or obscure as my DS Mastery.

Using  my Balam Skill I'd built up the strongest kick I could manage, and a  Mercy Kill at the last second made it even stronger. I aimed for his  lower back instead of his head because I had no desire to kill someone  over some stupid tournament, especially not someone who had made a point  of mentioning he wasn't aiming for my life (even if he did it by  telling me he wanted to kick my teeth in).

When  the kick landed, Albai let out a low scream as I felt a crack, and he  toppled forward, the domain shattering as the poison fire and damage to  what I was pretty sure was his spine completely destroyed his  concentration. Roxy turned on my to attack, but was unable to do  anything due to the train sized fist manifestation that straight up  smashed her into the ground like a bug on a windshield.

Walking  over to kneel down I looked around to confirm the match was over, and  once I saw everyone subdued I used a heal burst to fix the spinal damage  as I released my Touch of Tears. Albai shuddered, finally going limp as  his pain ended and I sighed. That had been a rough one, but it was over  now. Only two more to go.