Rise of the Devourer
Book 4: Chapter 21 — Tournament Pt. 8

The third day of the tournament began with clear, cold weather and an aura of excitement that hinted at rising stakes. The eight survivors would face off against each other in the second round, and everyone knew that the bouts would be harder than the day before.

Noah got comfortable in the viewing box when the first match was announced. "Aurelia Fauter versus Korren Drakescale!" The crowd was excited because both combatants had won their first-round matches.

Like many other Drakonian warriors, Korren Drakescale was disciplined, skilled in combat, and had a strong magical background. His earth magic worked well with his sword skills, letting him change the battlefield to his favor.

Aurelia had learned a lot about fighting people who used earth magic, which was bad for him.

Korren's usual opening move was to send spikes of earth flying across the arena to dominate space and limit his opponent's options for moving. It was a good tactical move that had worked for him in the first round.

Aurelia's answer came right away and was terrible. Instead of trying to dodge or get around the stone barriers, she used her Embers of Fury, which let ash and fire whirl around her fists as she smashed through them. Her flames were hotter and more focused than before, but the most important thing was that her berserker powers made her physically stronger, which let her break stone with just her strength.

"She's not messing around today," Vion said from the box where he was watching.

The brawl only lasted a few minutes, but it was really violent. Korren was good, but Aurelia was on a whole new level of intensity. The match's outcome became clear when his stone walls weren't strong enough to stop her mix of fire magic and overpowering physical force, and when her unrelenting attack started tearing through his earth-based fortifications quicker than he could make new ones.

The arena's safety mechanisms whisked Korren out just in time, for her last strike, a focused blast of superheated air, would have burned him badly even if he was wearing armor.

"Victory to Aurelia Fauter!" the announcer shouted, as the crowd went wild.

The arena was ready for the second fight as Aurelia walked back to the viewing box, her face flushed with victory but plainly saving energy for the next round.

"Second match of round two!" the announcer's voice rang out over the colosseum with new fervor. "Noah Brown, the Void Walker, will fight Seraphina Starwrought , the Scholar-Mage!"

As Noah stood up, he felt his heart rate go up. This was it—the match he had been looking forward to and dreading. Fighting a friend was always hard, but fighting someone who knew as much about magic as Seraphina did made things even harder in ways he'd never faced before.

"Good luck," Aurelia remarked.

"Don't die," Vion said with a small smile.

"Don't let her turn your magic inside out," Valeria said with a smirk.

As Noah walked near the arena door, he thought of different techniques and combinations he could use. Seraphina would know what he could do and had planned how to deal with whatever she might guess. He would need to be able to adapt and use skills he had never used before in this fight.

The walk through the tunnel took longer than usual, but Noah finally came out into the hot heat of the arena. The crowd was excited; both boxers had gained fans over the first two days of the event.

Seraphina walked into the arena with the same assurance that she always does. She didn't have any apparent weapons or magical focuses, but Noah could sense complicated spell structures shimmering about her like heat waves. She had been getting ready for this fight for a long time before she got to the stadium.

They gathered at the center for the traditional acknowledgment, and Noah was surprised by how calm Seraphina looked. There was no fear or doubt, just the intense focus of someone who has previously thought through every possible outcome and figured out how to win.

"Are you ready to have your butt kicked?" she said.

"We’ll see who’s kicking whose butt here," Noah replied.

They went to their starting places. Noah called for his spear, but Seraphina only stood there with her hands at her sides while magical energy swirled about her in more and more complicated patterns.

"Are the fighters ready?" said the announcer.

Noah got into his posture and felt the different powers he had humming beneath his skin. Arcane Step was ready, Void Annihilation was full with black energy, and he had put his anchor point near the edge of the arena as a possible way out.

"Start!"

Noah was afraid that Seraphina would do exactly what she did first.

“Universal Magical Disruption. Localized Reality Stabilization."

A shimmering wall appeared around her just as Noah's first attack started. His spear strike hit what felt like solid air, but magic that seemed to absorb and spread kinetic energy entirely stopped the blow.

"Barrier magic that stops physical force," Seraphina said casually as she shot a pressurized beam of water at Noah's chest, making him slide back. "Your improved physical abilities are impressive, but they still have to follow the rules of physics."

Noah tried Void Annihilation, and void-lightning crackled toward her, but she said another word in the old dialect, and his attack just went away without hurting her.

"Void magic theoretical framework: Entropy manipulation through dimensional interface. Counter-theory: Localized reality stabilization prevents dimensional breach formation."

He thought this would be easier than it was going to be. Seraphina seemed to have a specific counter ready for every skill he tried.

Noah tried to teleport. Arcane Step turned on, but it took a while, so he was still partly stuck in the elemental storm. Lightning struck his right side and ice froze his left arm. He fell to the arena floor, and his health dropped quickly.

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The crowd gasped at the first attack, which was too much for them, but Seraphina wasn't done.

"Spatial Analysis: Teleportation patterns found. Countermeasure: Predictive Positioning Matrix."

Noah tried to teleport again and showed up behind her with a spear thrust. But Seraphina was already turning, and a wall of pure force stopped his weapon while counter-magic messed up his follow-up attempts.

"You like to attack from behind at your opponent's seven o'clock position," she said casually as she cast another spell. "Probability says that the next teleportation will be to my three o'clock to make up for the pattern I think I see."

Noah transported her to nine o'clock instead, but apparently Seraphina's protective spell was already there when he got there.

"Psychological analysis suggests a contrarian response to stated prediction," she went on, as if she were giving a lecture and methodically taking apart his tactical alternatives. "Which can be predicted by the secondary probability matrix."

It was like fighting someone who knew what he was thinking. It felt like he knew what every tactical option he made would be, and every ability was countered by strategies meant to take away his advantages.

Noah turned on Void Annihilation, and lightning from the void crackled from his hands toward Seraphina. Instead of trying to block or avoid, she said another word in the old language, and his attack just fell harmlessly to the ground.

"Void magic theoretical framework: Entropy manipulation through dimensional interface. Counter-theory: Localized reality stabilization prevents dimensional breach formation."

People in the crowd were really interested in what Seraphina was saying as she broke down Noah's talents step by step. It was like watching a skilled chess player describe their moves while taking apart the strategy of their opponent.

But Noah was also learning.

He started to change his routines more unpredictably, using Cosmic Vault to get weapons while he was teleporting and attacking from angles that were hard to predict. He turned to fire when Seraphina got ready to use void magic. He attacked her from all sides at once with Runeforged Armaments when she got used to his teleportation patterns.

When theoretical magic met actual adaptation, the conflict turned into a stunning light show. Seraphina's spells were like works of art: they were complicated, beautiful, and very powerful. Noah's answers were like free-form jazz—wild, unpredictable, and fueled by pure willpower.

"Fascinating," Seraphina said as she deflected a lot of ethereal weaponry and cast a counter-spell that converted the arena floor into quicksand under Noah's feet. "Your magical integration shouldn't be stable, but you're keeping coherent spell structures even though it's theoretically impossible."

Noah teleported to solid ground and was out of breath. His health was dangerously low. Seraphina's magical strength was so strong that every strike she delivered inflicted a lot of harm, yet his attacks barely scratched her defensive walls.

She messed up at that point.

"Your void magic is very interesting," she added, starting to weave what seemed like her most complicated spell yet. "I think I can get the same result by controlling entropy—"

Noah didn't let her finish. He teleported right into her guard, giving up any pretense of tactical subtlety for a straight-up physical attack. His spear thrust wasn't driven by magic; it was fueled by the raw speed and strength that his improved Constitution gave him.

Seraphina's barrier stopped the strike, but the force of it made her stagger. For the first time in the contest, her spell-weaving was broken.

"Ah," she remarked, sounding really surprised. "Physical superiority. I might have not thought about that enough."

The tide was changing, but not very quickly. Seraphina's magic was still too strong, and her barriers seemed like they were made just to stop his magic and physical strikes. He was running out of choices before the arena's safety systems would send him somewhere else.

But Noah had learned something from studying Aurelia's past games. Sometimes the best way to beat your opponent wasn't to find a smart way around their defenses; it was just to hit them harder.

He stopped pretending that magic was complicated and put all of his energy into pure, overwhelming force. Arcane Step pushed him right into Seraphina's guard. Instead of trying to break her barrier with skill, he just started striking it with everything he had.

His spear attacks got faster and faster, and each one was stronger not because of complicated magic but because of his draconic body. When his weapon hit the barrier again and again, sparks flew, and for the first time in the duel, Noah saw real shock in Seraphina's eyes.

That's when he felt it: a familiar feeling growing across his chest.

Wyrmblood has increased to rank Elite.

The information came just before Seraphina's last attack would have put him in a very bad health state. Instead, draconic energy flooded his body, healing his wounds and giving him back his strength at an amazing rate.

"What—" Seraphina started, but Noah's abrupt recovery messed up her spell calculations.

Noah took advantage of his repaired physique and moved with increased strength. Wyrmblood wasn't only curing him; it was also making him stronger than he normally was, with draconic strength running through his blood and bones.

"What's your goal?" Seraphina inquired, her typical confidence waning as fractures began to show in her barrier. "My barrier stops both magic and kinetic force. You can't break it with brute force!"

But Noah kept hitting it, and the mystical structure started to break apart. Steam rose where the energy from the barrier met his body heat, and the ground below them started to break from the blows.

"You're right," Noah said between hits. "But you think your barrier can take in unlimited energy? Everything has a limit."

The big moment came when his spear, which had been heated up by numerous hits and strengthened by fire, finally located a weak spot in the barrier's structure. The magical object broke into pieces like glass, and Noah's next blow sent Seraphina falling back.

The finale came out of nowhere.

Seraphina tried one more, terrible spell: a theoretical framework so complicated that it would have changed the rules of physics in the area to make sure Noah lost. But to cast the spell, you had to be perfectly focused and on time.

Both were interrupted by Noah's teleportation-enhanced tackle.

He got inside her guard just as she said the last syllable, and they both fell to the ground. The tip of his spear touched her throat, and she could feel the heat of void-lightning crackling along its edge.

"Yield?" Noah questioned, panting.

Seraphina glanced up at him, her silver hair spread out over the floor of the stadium. Noah could see the frustration in her eyes before she let out a sigh and resigned.

"You win," she said firmly. "I guess I’d underestimated you.”

When the barriers came down, the audience cheered. Both warriors had pushed themselves to their limits, putting on a show of magnificent fighting that people would talk about for years.

Seraphina shook her head with what seemed like appreciation as Noah helped her up.

"I didn't take your healing into account. A big factor I didn't think about."

“Sometimes the best theory is knowing when to throw theory out the window," Noah said.

"Maybe," Seraphina responded with a small smile. "Or maybe I just need to work on it even harder.”

Noah thought about what he had learned from the match as they walked together toward the arena exit. Seraphina's methodical approach had gotten closer to beating him than any other opponent so far. He was only saved from being sent out by the timely upgrade of Wyrmblood.

But he had also learned something essential about how pure magic theory might go. No matter how beautiful the structure was, magic came down to will, instinct, and the ability to change when things went wrong.

As he walked back, Noah pulled up Wyrmblood’s description.

[Wyrmblood (Legendary, Elite) - lvl 50]

You possess the blood of ancient life wyrms. Your healing abilities are unparallel, turning your blood into an elixir of life. Your blood now stores distilled life-force up to 500% of your totsl constitution. You are immune to all toxins and corruptions, and most advanced rots.

Noah let out a breath, smiling as he walked back in. His companions in the viewing box greeted him with smiles of relief and congratulations.

"That was amazing, both of you were,” Aurelia said. "Seraphina almost got you. If your healing hadn't started when it did..."

"I know," Noah said as he sat down in his chair, feeling both happy and tired. "She's probably the most dangerous opponent I've faced so far when it comes to pure magical power."

Noah's mind was already on the semifinals even though the arena was getting set for the following battle. If he won two more times, he would be in the finals, where he might confront Vion and her enigmatic new powers if the brackets stayed the same.

The tournament was at its peak, and things were only going to grow more competitive from here on out.