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Chapter 241: Welcome to
🕑 Added 2024-01-17 12:00:06 +0000 UTCThe “inspector”—Pike Pinesteel, victor of the third Conqueror’s Tourney, apparently—charged at Ainash, wielding the glowing daggers that’d just appeared in his hands. She instantly readopted her fighting stance, waiting for him to get within range.
But before he even got halfway to her, he planted his foot on the ground and spun around, using the extreme force to thwip one of the knives at her. It moved at lightning speed, to the point where even I, who had two casts of Expedite running on myself to enhance my senses, could barely follow it. In fact, it seemed to move even faster than even his muscular body could throw.
Within a millisecond, it had crossed the several dozen paces necessary to reach Ainash, threatening to stick itself right into her nose. She ducked down barely in time, and the blade soared cleanly through the air above her. Then, from her lowered position, she dashed forward, eager to close the distance between her and her adversary.
Pike charged forward too, ready to meet her. With one dagger left in his hand, he charged. Ainash threw her whip out once he was close enough, and he leapt high into the air to dodge, holding out his dagger to drive the blade into her as he landed. In response, she rolled forward to avoid his counterattack, spinning around and using the momentum to propel her whip into him just as he hit the ground.
But he simply ignored her attack, running straight at her as the thorns of the whip stabbed into his side, dagger ready to tear into her. Seemed like he was willing to take a Health sacrifice here and there in order to land an actual hit on her elusive presence.
Still mid-attack, Ainash didn’t have the freedom of movement she needed to dodge his head-on charge. So instead, with her whip still stuck into him, she closed her eyes, focusing for a moment, and suddenly the whip burst into a bright flame, much more than was provided by the smoldering embers before. Pike stumbled slightly at the sudden damage—not for long, but long enough for Ainash to find her footing and sidestep his attack as he passed by her.
She turned to look at him, clearly ready for another onslaught of attacks, but he didn’t move. Instead, he stared at her. His dagger was out and ready, but he didn’t initiate, this time. Instead, he slowly, cautiously backed away. Maybe he’d ended up taking too much damage before, and was trying to play it a little safer now?
Out of the corner of my eye, I caught something flying at Ainash from behind. I barely even had time to register what it was before it flew straight across her face, slicing all the way across her head and cheek. It was Pike’s knife, the one he’d thrown at the start of the fight. He held out his hand and caught it as it returned, as though it had a mind of its own. Thankfully, Ainash had enough Health that a cut like that wouldn’t draw blood yet, but it still surprised her. And as she caught her bearings, he sprinted at her, once again dual-wielding his weapons.
She leapt back just in time, drawing her whip back and preparing to counterattack, but he was on her too quickly, throwing his arm out to slice at her stomach. She kicked her leg up, colliding with its forearm just before he could hit her and throwing his strike off-course. Then, with her leg still raised, she planted it on his chest, leapt up with her other foot, and then propelled herself off of him into the air, swinging her whip with the newfound range.
He stepped back to avoid the strike, then threw his knife at her again as she landed. She easily avoided it this time, simply ducking low the moment her feet touched the ground. But the moment it passed her, the knife changed direction midair, coming right back at her head. Glancing back, she saw the threat coming at her, and dove to the side to dodge it, the knife passing by her harmlessly.
However, Pike didn’t catch the knife like he did before. This time, he turned his body to let it pass by him, and it changed direction again. Not going fast enough to fly all the way to Ainash, but instead, as he shifted the position of the dagger in his hand, the dagger in the air shifted position as well, curving around his body as though it were orbiting him.
He charged at Ainash, twisting his body and his hand so that the dagger flew in circles around him, and she backed away, clearly unsure how to approach her enemy’s new fighting style. As he came closer, he spun around quickly, the faster turn translating to a quicker knife flying with a wider orbit around him, coming from the side to stab into her skull. She ducked, but then he rushed in from ahead, slicing forward with the dagger still in his hand.
Ainash tried to kick back from her ducking position into a backwards roll, but suddenly, Pike was holding yet another weapon in his once-empty hand, having grabbed another of the metal bars from his belt. This time it was a long spear with an icy head, letting cool mist off into the air. He threw it forward without hesitation, and it caught Ainash in the gut the moment she tried getting to her feet. Still having a decent barrier of Health, she wasn’t left with the spear impaling her, but the force of the projectile knocked her back to the ground, splashing into the sand. And, as Pike picked his spear up from where it’d fallen, I noticed leftover frost covering the place the spear had hit, similar to what Ray of Frost did to those it hit. I had a suspicion she was left with a Dexterity penalty after the hit.
Once again spinning around and using the momentum to propel his orbiting dagger, he threw the blade into Ainash as she tried to kick away from him. This time, I could see the slightest mark left on her chest where it hit.
“Hey!” Erani shouted, stepping forward. “Don’t—“
Two of the guards moved to block her from going any closer.
“No interference, ma’am,” one of them said in a stern voice.
“But—“
“Not interrupt!” I heard Ainash’s voice come through, sounding strained. Seemed like she was so focused on the battle that she couldn’t even selectively message one of us.
Pushing her hands on the sandy ground, Ainash leapt to her feet and used on hand to swing her whip at her enemy, forcing him back to avoid her attack. She stepped forward, swinging again and again to force him away from her. Then, between two of her attacks, he ducked in, holding his spear up to throw at her.
But just then, Ainash threw her other hand out, casting a fistful of sand straight into Pike’s eyes as the spear left his hand. The weapon flew just slightly off, and Ainash easily ducked below the orbiting knife that was coming at her at the same time, using Pike’s moment of weakness to lunge forward and swing her whip forward, wrapping it around his neck as she passed by him.
She pulled it tight from behind, forcing him to stumble backward as he tried to rub the sand out of his eyes. But then, he waved his hand that held the dagger, and the one in the air flew straight at Ainash, forcing her to let the whip loosen slightly as she dodged.
In that moment, he grabbed the vine around his throat and yanked hard, throwing Ainash forward as he pulled the whip from around him and cast it aside.
Then, as Ainash pulled herself back to her feet, Pike let the orbiting dagger return back to his hand, turning to throw it straight at Ainash. She managed to tilt to the side, dodging that one, then glanced behind herself, clearly anticipating the dagger’s return to its companion, but it didn’t change direction. Instead, Pike threw the second dagger, as well. Ainash attempted to dodge this one too, but she moved too late, and it managed to graze her arm.
And in his dagger’s stead, Pike drew two more weapons from his belt—this time, a net and a wide-headed hammer.
I groaned internally for Ainash’s sake. I’d sparred against net users back when I was training to be a Swordsman, and they were horrible to fight against. The strategy was simple—trap your opponent under some rope that’s been weighed down by lead balls on its edges, and then stab the shit out of them once they couldn’t defend themself. Though in sparring matches, the stabbing part was usually skipped for the most part. However, I hadn’t ever seen someone combine a net with a hammer. Besides, Ainash would hopefully be strong enough to shrug off a weighted net or two.
A fiery intensity in her eyes, Ainash charged forward yet again, disregarding her opponent’s new set of weapons. She struck with her whip, but was slightly too far away, and Pike easily stepped back to avoid it. She swung again, and this time he lifted up his hammer to block the attack, the clang of thorns hitting metal echoing across the dunes.
Pike, still looking perfectly calm, continued stepping back and conceding more ground. And Ainash, rushing further and further ahead with her flurry of blows, seemed to get more and more aggressive as time passed. She probably wasn’t used to fighting against a single person for this long without turning them into mincemeat.
With a methodical glare in his eyes, he defended against swing after swing. Then, Ainash got just a hair too close, and he took his opportunity. Lunging forward, he swung the one-handed greathammer straight into Ainash’s jaw, and she went flying. I instantly identified the hammer as being Enchanted just from the length she soared away. I guessed it was something force-based, but I didn’t know much about the subject, so I could’ve been wrong. But what I did know was that Ainash was thrown back around forty paces from the single hit, crashing into the side of one of the sand dunes.
“Stop it!” Erani shouted. “She’s had enough!”
Pike glanced at her, then back at Ainash. Slowly, I watched the sand dune in the distance shift, then Ainash sat up from her position, laboriously getting to her feet. She gripped her whip tightly, and the flames running across her body burned brighter than ever.
“I don’t think she has,” Pike said.
In that instant, Ainash came dashing forth, running straight back at her opponent. He hefted his hammer once again, preparing to intercept.
She was on him like a hurricane, instantly swinging her weapon what felt like several times all at once, dashing from side to side, ducking down and leaping high to attack from all angles. Pike was given a run for his money, forced to block as many hits as he could as he bobbed and weaved, backing away to try and avoid getting caught up in the storm of vine and thorn. And even then, he was constantly grazed and sliced by the whip, and I even began to see marks being left on his skin as his Health was depleted more and more.
But then, Pike seemed to spot another moment of weakness. I couldn’t even see when it happened—Ainash was moving much too fast for my mind to keep up with—but in an instant, he stepped forward again. Though, he didn’t swing his hammer like before. Instead, he swung his other arm out, flinging the net out so that it cast wide.
With no recourse against the sudden attack, Ainash could do nothing but duck down and shield her head from the metal balls lining the edges. It wrapped around her, and for a moment, it looked like she was going to be relatively unaffected by the weapon, able to just throw it off without much worry. But then, in a single instant, she suddenly collapsed to the ground, like the net had become a completely immovable object. She was crushed beneath the ropes, struggling to even rise to her knees as Pike walked up to her, greathammer in hand.
Wait, I thought. That hammer and net were a deadlier combo than I thought. With a powerful force Enchantment on his hammer, the weapon would obviously deal more damage, but most of the additional force it applied would just be translated to harmless movement, throwing his opponent away. But if his opponent was trapped beneath something that didn’t let them move and he hit them with that, no movement allowed to translate the force into, it would all become additional damage. It wouldn’t be like the net usually worked, with it trapping someone while you stabbed away at them until they eventually died—it’d only take a single hit to kill.
He reached his hammer back, ready to smash it into Ainash’s skull, and Erani seemed to realize the same thing I did.
“Don’t you fucking dare!” I shouted, mentally reaching to throw all of my curses onto the man.
At the same time, Erani reached out with her hand. “Stop it now!”
He froze mid-swing, looking over at us. “Ah, whoops. I think I got a little too into the fight, my bad.”
“Drop your weapon,” I said, walking forward.
One of the guards stepped up to stop me. “Don’t threaten—“
“I’ll kill you too, dude,” I said to the guard. “Stay out of it.”
“Hey, hey, no worries,” Pike said, raising his hands and dropping the hammer to the ground.
He glanced over at the net and it seemed to lose all the weight it had suddenly gained, Ainash throwing it off of herself and looking wildly around, breathing heavily. Letting out a sigh, he rolled his shoulders and cracked his neck.
“Phew. Your monster put up a solid fight. Haven’t had to go through so many of my weapon sets like that in a while,” he said, reaching down to lend a hand to Ainash, who was still lying on her back.
She didn’t take it, looking at him with fear in her eyes and staying on the ground, unmoving.
Instead, Erani bent down and gave her a hug. I could see her clothes smolder slightly, as Ainash still hadn’t turned down the temperature of the flames on her body. “You did wonderful, baby.”
“So.” I looked at Pike. “Does she pass?”
“Hm?” He looked back at me. “Oh, yeah, for sure. I’ve let in much weaker monsters to compete. Though, a lot of them were pretty much just let in to be beaters. Y’know, pad out the rounds. But this one’s actually got potential, I’d say, if luck is on her side.”
Erani helped a still-stunned Ainash to her feet. I frowned. She really looked messed up from the fight—not just physically, but mentally.
“You okay, kiddo?” I asked. “You did really well, don’t let a single loss get you down. He was stronger to begin with, so you were fighting with a disadvantage.”
She didn’t respond.
“So,” Pike said, looking at her, “thanks for the fight. Welcome to the Barinruth Empire. Welcome to Precipice. And welcome to the Conqueror's Tourney.”
