The Primal Hunter 11, page 29
”You wanted a fast fight, right?” the Battlemaster asked.
”Yeah?” Jake said with hope.
”Well, the Archmage doesn’t,” the Battlemaster said with a deadpan expression. “The match is scheduled to take place in twenty-nine days and twenty-two hours.”
”That fucking sucks,” Jake grumbled. ”Can I just change opponent or fight someone else in between?”
”Nope, the rules are rules,” the Battlemaster said, shrugging. ”And based on what I know about that old crook, he would have scheduled for the last minute no matter when you chose to issue the challenge, so you may as well have the waiting period now. Either way, you should go prepare, yeah?”
Jake just nodded. ”Yeah, I guess I should.”
So, Jake spent the next month training and making preparations for the Necromancer and Lord of the Hunt. Okay, he did also do a little bit to prepare for the Archmage, but honestly, he had already handled all the preparations he needed. No, the only true preparation left was crafting a special little surprise.
Owen stayed with Jake throughout this time, and what’s more, he even had his father actively give advice. The man formerly known as the Lightning Monarch gladly shared all he could about other Champions he had either fought or researched. In the end, he ended up handing everything he had to Polly before he headed home to Owen’s mother and siblings.
His father insisted Owen should stay with Jake, especially after Jake had acted like he was helping Owen train.
Pretty quickly, an entire month passed, and Jake once more found himself entering the arena, this time to face off against the Archmage. This month was the longest period he had gone without a fight since arriving in the Challenge Dungeon, so he was feeling a bit jittery.
After a final ”good luck” from Owen and a hopeful look from Polly, Jake walked into the tunnel leading to the arena.
The announcer once more introduced the two fighters in a very general fashion, still withholding any real information about either of them. This pretty much confirmed to Jake that this lack of information-sharing was intentional and not just coincidental.
When the gates lowered, the two combatants once more walked toward the center of the arena. This time, however, the distance between them was greater than in any prior match. Both of them knew this would be a ranged fight, so there was no need to go in melee from the get-go. Jake also knew that his opponent preferred to have some time to wind up his magic, which Jake was A-okay with.
The first to speak ended up being the old Archmage. “Ho, ho, ho, so you are the little human my dear Pollaystrasirial has been following around these days, huh?” The Archmage chuckled as he stroked his beard. “I do hope the little girl has learned enough from you to make it worth the punishment she is due once she returns for embarrassing me in the arena with her pathetic performance.”
Jake didn’t say anything as he pulled out his bow. The only thing he mentally noted was that he had totally forgotten Polly’s full name.
“How uncivilized… Would you not at least wish to utter some words before your potential demise?” The Archmage smiled, confident in himself.
“Surrender now, or you’ll die,” Jake said in a casual tone. “No second chances.”
”Uncivilized was perhaps too flattering of a word; you are simply delusional and rude,” the Archmage said, disappointed. ”Too bad; I had hoped you would be willing to accompany me back to my mage tower once I had beaten you so I could study your peculiar magic. Alas, it appears you wish to die too badly for that to happen in any reasonable fashion.”
With those words, the Archmage took out his staff.
Immediately, Jake jumped back and reached inside his Ring of Deft Hands. Within, it had four slots. Two were used by katars, and one for when he needed to store the bow, but the final one was something special he had prepared just for the old Archmage.
Out came a giant arrow more than one and a half meters long with a complex design. Jake had spent three full days crafting it, and now was the time to show the Archmage just how stupid he had been to give Jake that long of a preparation period.
Nocking it, Jake’s body exploded in arcane energy as he began to charge a skill-less Arcane Powershot.
On the other side of the arena, the Archmage didn’t sit still. He floated back and took out three orbs at once.
”Spirits of the North, Winds of the East, become one as a blizzard is born!” he yelled as he smashed two gems together.
Two powerful streams of energy were released and began merging as what looked like a small, localized blizzard appeared around the Archmage, obscuring his form. This blizzard gathered quickly, clearly having some level of autonomous control. Even if it wasn’t a fully born elemental, it was close, and Jake felt like he was facing two beings rather than one.
”Soil of the Deep, embrace my form and grant me strength!” the Archmage yelled before he crushed the other orb in his hand, brown energy beginning to emanate from his body.
Right as the Archmage’s preparations finished, Jake made his move.
With a deep exhale and an explosion of arcane energy, he loosed the arrow. The icy winds were parted in an instant as the Archmage reacted by smashing his staff into the ground, making a wall of sand shoot up before instantly turning it solid.
The massive arrow flying straight at the wall exploded the very next moment, sending two dozen arrows flying around the stone barrier and attacking the Archmage from all sides like heat-seeking missiles. With a yell, the man erected a barrier all around himself. Every single arrow hit at once, exploding upon impact.
A massive explosion, far beyond what any level 0 should be capable of causing, rocked the arena and sent sand flying everywhere. The icy wind elemental had completely scattered in an attempt to protect its master. And from the looks of it, it had succeeded. From the center of this explosion, a weak, haggard voice emerged.
”I sur—”
No more sound came out, as an arrow hit him in the side of the throat and drowned the word. Through his sphere, Jake saw the mage feebly reach for it right as a second arrow flew in and struck him in the eye, penetrating his skull and ending the fight for good.
The crowd and announcer were both silent as Jake put away his bow and fell onto his ass. Blood was dripping from his eyes and ears, and his right shoulder was nearly entirely blue, with several visible blood vessels ruptured within, giving birth to plenty of internal bleeding. Shooting those two follow-up arrows definitely hadn’t helped.
As the dust cleared, the body of the Archmage was revealed. His lower body was covered in an earthy shell, as he had tried to cover his entire body with stone. Sadly for him, his upper body hadn’t had time to be affected, and whatever emergency barriers he had put up—including the protection from his elemental—had been far from enough, resulting in his entire body dripping with blood. Most of it was from wounds caused by all the explosions, but a good portion of the blood also came from the hole in his neck.
After a few more seconds of silence, the cheers began, along with the announcer excitedly declaring his victory. Jake just stayed sitting for a bit as he looked at the mage’s body before sighing. ”I did tell you to surrender when you had the chance.”
Jake got up after a bit of struggle and walked out of the arena, once more raising a fist to the cheers of the crowd. They were eerily joyful despite the corpse with an arrow in his throat and eye lying there in the center of the arena, but by now, Jake was honestly used to it.
Right after exiting the tunnel leading out of the arena, he went straight to the Battlemaster to report his win and get a pat on the back that hurt like hell. A few minutes later, Owen and Polly arrived to escort him back to his little townhouse so he could rest.
In this fight, Jake had once more gone in with a plan. Polly had repeatedly said the Archmage was never in a rush when fighting, gladly taking his time to use his spells to buff himself up. Jake had taken advantage of that by creating an attack far more powerful than any other he was capable of.
The quasi-Protean Arrow had been made up of a faint layer of arcane energy on the surface, with weak destructive energy right beneath. In this weak destructive energy, Jake had put twenty-four stable arrows that he had painstakingly created, and during the creation process, he’d tried to push in as much Willpower energy as he could to make sure they would curve upon exploding the weak destructive energy. Ultimately, he’d still had to control all the arrows when the big arrow exploded, hence the bleeding from nearly every orifice.
It had worked out as he wanted, and Jake was more excited than ever to get out of the Colosseum and upgrade some skills. He had gained a lot of inspiration, and he was more sure than ever that the true purpose of this entire Challenge Dungeon was to help people upgrade skills and train concepts… which often led to upgrading skills.
Walking back to his small townhouse, Jake checked his status.
Bonus objective gained: Defeat the other Champion to become the Grand Champion.
Current rank: Champion (2/7)
Colosseum Points: 1,882,910 (2,882,910).
Lives remaining: 10
Jake hadn’t been entirely sure before, but now he was: Each win as a Champion rewarded 500,000 Colosseum Points… which made all the points he’d gotten in lower ranks feel so damn meaningless, especially considering how “easy” his first two Champions fights had been. As the Battlemaster had said, he didn't actually have these points yet—he would only get them after all the Champion fights were done—but at least it told him how many he would get.
He did know that the Lightning Monarch and Archmage were the easiest. Not just because he had seen and felt the auras of all the other Champions, but because that just made sense from a design perspective. These two both had Challenge Dungeon natives related to them and storylines associated with them.
No, he was sure that the next five had to be the truly challenging ones. At least strong or not dumb enough to let Jake charge his quasi-Arcane Powershot together with his quasi-Protean Arrow, right? Not that he wasn’t going to prepare some anyway.
Jake even went to the shops to see if he could buy a better spatial storage, but sadly found that none of the ones on offer would allow him to store his arcane constructs. None of the non-legendary items, at least, and Jake really didn’t want to spend nearly a million Colosseum Points on a ring. Not before he lost a few of his ten lives, at least.
By now, he was beginning to wonder if he would even lose any lives at all during the Colosseum of Mortals…
Well, that was entirely dependent on his opponents, right? And if anyone could grant him death, it had to be the Necromancer who literally dealt with it.
Chapter 32
Necromancer
Polly cheerfully insisted on cooking for their group that night to celebrate the death of her teacher. It was a bit odd to have her tell stories of how her teacher had taught her and how much he had sucked in between happy humming because he was now dead and buried.
Speaking of death, Jake issued his challenge to the Necromancer two days after he had beaten the Archmage… and was once more told the guy wanted an entire month of preparations… So, yeah, another thirty days for Jake to prepare tools to increase his chances to win. Of course, he also needed to gather a lot more information on this guy compared to his two prior opponents, as he didn’t have anyone related to him to spill the beans.
Even before the Archmage fight, he had already gathered a lot, and with another waiting period, there was no reason not to get more. Jake also began to feel like one of the reasons Show Matches weren’t a thing in the Champion rank was to remove the potential plot hole of none of the Champions ever doing Show Matches. Sure, it would make sense if some of them didn’t, but wouldn’t someone like the Lightning Monarch have welcomed the training?
Anyway… the Necromancer was pretty much a warrior with some poison and death magic. There was also a bit of dark magic in there, but he usually won through prolonged battles where he wore down his opponent, and from Jake’s research, he had to admit the guy could be a problem.
He usually played defensive the entire time while creating a field of miasma all around him. This miasma would slowly spread and begin to inhabit the entire arena, putting anyone who fought him on a timer. Jake did question how the hell the guy had mana to pull off something like that, but he assumed it was just more equipment-powered bullshit.
So, the best strategy would be to take him down fast. That was where him pretty much just being a warrior became an issue. He wore heavy armor, wielded a warhammer, and had several spells to defend himself and buy time for the poison to spread. Shit, he often won without having to spread his field of death, relying only on his normal spells and a good smack with his hammer.
For this fight, Jake prepared another powerful quasi-Protean Arrow and worked on covering his body in a small layer of stable arcane energy to keep the miasma out. He also went to the shop to see if he could buy anything to help with breathing it in, but the best he could get there was a bandana or something to cover his mouth. Gas masks were sadly not on offer.
To counter it, Jake began working on a better method of eliminating this miasma before it had a chance to reach his lungs. Ultimately, he settled on just circulating destructive arcane energy through his body to try and eliminate the miasma, covering his mouth with some torn-off cloth, and hoping he could win before it got too bad. Jake was confident in his offensive prowess, after all.
Moreover, the Necromancer was many things, but fast was not one of them. Jake should have a good window where there was no miasma around him, allowing him to bombard his foe with arrows. Besides that, he spent the month working on more general stuff and even had a few spars with Owen, who was still quite a bit away from Champion material, but fine for a sparring partner.
Soon enough, another month had passed, and without further ado or delays, Jake found himself back in the small opening area of the arena, facing a tall man across from him.
”Welcome to yet another Champion’s Match in the Colosseum of Mortals! Today, the Doombringer will attempt to continue his march on the Gauntlet of the Grand Champion and take home his third win! The Lightning Monarch and Archmage have already fallen to him… but will the Necromancer meet the same fate? Or shall he be the Deathbringer to the Doombringer? Well, I guess we should find out! Lower the gates!”
Jake watched the gates lower, but he didn’t move forward much, keeping a good distance. He observed his opponent from afar, and he had to admit… the guy looked pretty damn strong.
His heavy armor was ivory white with black patterns all across it, with bone adornments here and there. On his head, he wore a helmet with antlers, both of which gave off eerie auras of death. The hammer he wielded was entirely black and had a long handle and a medium-sized head; one side was blunt, the other a sharp pick. By the way he wielded it, Jake didn’t doubt the Risen before him was strong enough to swing that bastard around fast.
His opponent walked into the arena with heavy and steady steps, a slightly dark footprint left wherever he walked. Jake felt and studied his aura closely, and the conclusion was clear:
This man was the strongest being he had faced in the Colosseum yet. Though Jake was excited to face him, he minded his distance while edging closer to have the customary first-meeting talk. The Necromancer was the first to speak in a deep voice, slightly distorted by his helmet.
”I apologize for the wait before I could accept your challenge. I have been absent from the arena for too long, and I had to refamiliarize myself with the place before I felt ready to face you with the respect and honor any who dare attempt the Gauntlet deserve.” His words had an odd sense of calmness to them. He sounded old. Like, really old.
”No worries,” Jake answered. ”I cannot criticize anyone for using their allotted preparation time when it is perfectly in line with the rules. Especially if you were not active in the arena.”
”Your understanding is admirable,” the old Necromancer said, nodding.
”I am curious about something, though. What is a Risen doing here? You are the only Risen I have seen in the entire Colosseum, even counting the audience.”
The Necromancer had not made any moves or begun to release his miasma yet, and Jake saw no reason not to try and tease out a bit of information. Who knows—maybe he would even say something useful?
”Oh?” the Risen said, surprise clear in his voice. ”I had not expected someone to recognize my kind around here, much less when I keep myself covered. But if you are curious, I did not end up here by choice. I was exploring an ancient ruin in my homeland, and in ways I do not recognize, I ended up in these lands. Alas, all I could do from there was make the best out of my situation, and as a Death Knight of my home, I welcomed the familiarity of the Colosseum. It is a glorious place, filled with battle and death.”
A Death Knight, eh? Jake mentally noted. That was pretty much the only semi-actionable piece of information he gave out. The rest was just a throwaway explanation by a lazy writer to justify why a lone Risen was in the Colosseum.
Anyway… Death Knights were pretty much the paladins of the undead race, and Jake did know a bit about them. Ultimately, though, his biggest question after learning he was a Death Knight wasn’t anything related to his abilities.
”If you are a Death Knight… why is your title in the Arena of Mortals Necromancer?” Jake asked very pointedly.
”That is… due to my own hubris. In the early parts of the Colosseum, I found this place far too easy, so I never bothered to battle myself. Instead, I raised weak bone constructs and unleashed basic magic to win my fights, and before I knew it, everyone called me the Necromancer. By the time I showed my true prowess, the name was already stuck in the consciousness of all.”
Jake felt immense sympathy as he nodded in understanding. He knew the pain…
”Now, while exchanging words with you has been a delight, we are not here to speak, are we?” the Necromancer, who should really be called the Death Knight, said after a few moments of silence, wanting to get the action started.
