Limitless Path

The Green Stags arrived at the arena early the next morning, their match being the second of the day. They got to watch the first bout, which a lot of other competitors were going to do, judging by all the various dragon clan members present, as well as a few others that had entered with them. The Green Stags, as they were to go by for the tournament, were four members of the Blue Dragon Clan, the young heir and two of his friends, with an Elder brought along to help and watch over them. The three youngsters were all strong Empowered approaching Enlightened, though none of them had managed to make their Mana Physiques early, while the Elder was a strong warrior that had proved his mettle in many battles and was just a step away from advancing to Ascended. Theirs certainly wasn't the only group that had one, or more, nineteen rebirth Elders there to protect the youths, and to wring their own rewards out of the place.

They watched the first match with some interest, noting the strengths and weaknesses of possible opponents before being called to the stage. It was important in this early part to track everyone, as one could be knocked into the loser's bracket and have to face any of the other losing teams at any time. That wouldn't happen to them, obviously, and especially not with their next opponent, who was just a single individual taking the stage.

"What is this? A joke?" the Elder asked the others.

"She's the girl who came back with that whore, Seraphinalla," one of the friends.

"Watch it," the heir hissed. "She's strong enough to beat Barnabas without even trying. Are you that strong?"

"No," the man said, casting his eyes down.

"Still, this must be a prank," the Elder said.

"It's no prank," the heir said. "I heard that, not only did she also beat Barnabas, but there was something else. When Seraphinalla first returned, her parents were clearly not happy. They made that known at the dinner they held. But then, they went back to their quarters with Seraphinalla and this woman and suddenly, they weren't unhappy anymore. They haven't said anything, or so the rumors say, but that also means they stopped saying anything negative."

"Gossip and rumors," the Elder dismissed with a wave. "She beat a strong dragon and is flirting with another. It gave her a big head."

"Don't get too cocky," the heir said, only getting a chuckle out of the Elder.

"Be careful, her equipment is insane," the second friend of the heir suddenly said as they took their places and the announcer was hyping the match up.

"What do you mean?" the Elder asked, looking confused.

"My eye power can see through her gear fully," he said quickly. "I think it's why she doesn't have a sword out or any other weapon. Her gauntlets are at Relic level and they require four hundred to wield. She used a stone or something similar on them to make them wieldable at level three hundred."

"Shit. Special ability?" the heir asked, all four of them immediately getting serious. Even as a clan heir, a Relic-grade piece of equipment wasn't something he could earn or buy, it would all rely on his talent and luck to acquire. Something that required level four hundred was even stronger and more dangerous.

"They can freeze or lock space around them," he replied.

"Shit, even I'll have trouble with that," the Elder cursed.

They had no more time for any small talk or strategizing, as the referee was now in charge and was starting the acknowledgements. He seemed a bit surprised that the White Flames had only sent out a single contender, but he still got them all ready and waiting before counting them in and starting the match. The Blue Dragon Heir immediately moved forward, fast but cautious, acting as the anchor for the team the two friends circled wide while the Elder followed along behind. Contrary to their expectations, the lone girl across from them just watched them, hands on her hips and waiting, seemingly not a care in the world. That was just fine with them, and they continued their approach until they were within a few paces before closing for the attack, accelerating while firing out skills.

The Blue Dragon Heir, Heinrich, didn't expect much more than a solid melee fighter that likely leaned heavily on her gauntlets to surprise opponents with spatial locking. What he did expect was that she would have a tough time fully defending herself, especially when the Elder joined in by throwing out massive lances of ice, something the announcer loved as she commentated the fight. Heinrich thrust straight out with his polearm, hoping that the combination would drive the woman to the side, where his two friends had attacks ready to pincer her. That turned out to be a pipe dream, however, as the woman lazily batted aside the Elders attacks before stepping forward and catching the spike of Heinrich's halberd, arresting his momentum instantly. She took another step and shoved, slamming his own weapon back into him and lifting him off the ground to go hurtling by the stunned Elder and back to where they had started.

He recovered just in time to see her appear beside the Elder and hit him with a hammer fist to the ribs, lifting the sturdy dragon off the ground and sending him exploding into the barrier that surrounded the dueling field. She turned and rushed one of his friends while he desperately charged her, using his Mad Dragon Rush from the maximum range to try to close with her as quickly as possible. He didn't make it in time, watching as she shattered an Ice Wall and directly punched through a Glacial Avalanche before hitting his friend so hard he could hear ribs snapping as the man was teleported out of the arena. Heinrich had no time to curse or even feel fear, as she turned on him with preternatural speed and sent out a series of kicks and punches that he could barely follow. He realized with the feeling of an endless abyss opening in his stomach that she was a Master of Unarmed and, despite their bit of caution, they had still grossly underestimated her capabilities. Despite how hard Heinrich had pushed himself for several decades now, being one of the youngest heirs but still one of the strongest, he was no match for a Master and was quickly overwhelmed.

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The Elder flew in to the rescue just as he took a punch that sent him flying again, the Elder blocking the follow-up hit that likely would have forced the arena to remove him. He couldn't celebrate for long, though, because the woman had turned and dealt with his other companion in that time where both he and the Elder were tied down. He didn't even see what she did, but she disappeared and then re-appeared several times, firing off some kind of golden attack that fully overwhelmed his second companion. As if that wasn't bad enough, she didn't stop there, but started harassing the Elder even while the second of their group was still being removed from the dueling field. The Elder was much stronger and was able to hold out better, but whatever the attack was comprised of was dealing a crazy amount of damage. It was in observing several of the attacks that Heinrich realized they were annihilating everything they touched, making it some kind of annihilating beam attack or something. It was hard to track because she was firing them out while punching and kicking, likely adapting the skill through her high level of competence with Unarmed.

Heinrich had basically lost all hope at this point, though he wasn't going to stop trying, and he moved to assist the Elder, combining his charge with a rapid-thrusting skill. It was a signature of his to move from that to a long-range slashing skill, the transition allowing him to play with distance and disorientate his opponent. It was a good combo and worked on many standard opponents in duels, but he quickly came to find that he wasn't the master of space here. As he tried to manipulate distance and movement, he found himself getting struck by attacks, even some that looked like the Elder had blocked them. It wasn't the annihilating properties of the golden attacks, either, but something very weird that was happening with space. Heinrich tried to freeze the area around them while the Elder threw out an onslaught of ice-based spells, but none of it so much as slowed the black-haired woman by even a slight fraction.

It was clear she had, to an extent, been testing them, as the ending suddenly came about swiftly, both Heinrich and the Elder getting eliminated in a matter of seconds. First, the woman fired a dozen attacks at Heinrich in less than a second that confused him and got the Elder on the defensive. Suddenly, she was there, beside the Elder, her fists and feet slamming into him over and over again, no mana being used at all in the assault. The Elder, strangely, barely moved, simply taking the assault head-on before getting pulled out of the dueling field by the arena controls when the damage became too much. Heinrich regretted, he so greatly, greatly regretted, taking this opponent lightly. They had thought she was far too arrogant and overconfident, but as her heavily armored fist drove into his face and he remembered her spatial-locking abilities, explaining what had just happened to the Elder, he so much regretted that they hadn't given everything they had right from the moment the ref's hand dropped. As the world went black, he thought that maybe she was going to be teaching an awful lot of arrogant dragons what overconfidence really meant in the coming days.

Beth, meanwhile, had thought the fight just a bit on the boring side. Beyond not using her Ideal, she was trying to really limit herself in the opening fights, not wanting to display all her cards right away. She hoped that would allow her to go through some fights before the other teams could adapt or, especially, before her team wanted to step in and at least send somebody else into the ring with her. At this rate, maybe by fight four she could have an interesting experience, though she was hopeful one of the other teams would show her something more. Not too hopeful, considering the others' scouting had all but confirmed that nobody entered in the tournament, even the dungeon-generated teams, had anyone that had expressed anything that could be an Ideal. If there was nobody with an Ideal, then Beth alone could likely win the whole tournament. At worst, they would have Blood or Sera go in with her for a tough fight and beat the second best team with just two of them, but Beth wanted something fun, and she hadn't been doing many arena fights recently. Trying to win the whole thing alone would be a good challenge.

Beyond that, it was clear there were plenty of hidden objectives in this run, maybe even more than normal, which was a bit of a surprise for such a simple tournament structure. The king himself was having issues, though nothing that threatened his reign, but it seemed he had some family troubles that he needed help handling. If Beth's team could get to the bottom of what was troubling the king, they could stand to earn a significant sum of bonus points from their efforts. On top of that, there was plenty of room to mess with the other sponsors and teams, as well as the other nobles attending the tournament. Beth was far less interested in that backroom intrigue, but if the rest of the team could track some of that down, they would be racking up even more points. It was doubly convenient, then, that not only did the others not need to fight, they didn't even need to go down to the arena other than as part of their own espionage efforts. With Beth able to handle all the battles by herself, that left the other three totally free and clear to do all the spying and sneaking and backstabbing they wanted during the day.

Beth didn't have another fight that first day, the whole day dedicated to the opening fights of the main bracket. The second day was much the same, and the other girls told her to just go out and be a people person at the arena, whether that was chatting with people or getting in a few side-duels for bets, it was all fine. Beth was totally fine with that and did her part, maybe even too well, as she talked and fought all day and through the next night. Day three was where the matches for the first set of winners would be taking place and Beth wasn't really impressed with any of the other teams. She had watched and dueled the last two days and nobody really held a candle to her, even the fill-in teams the dungeon had generated.

She wasn't against one of those fill-in teams in the second fight, though, but a full team of six that had three Enlightened as part of it. She would like to say this fight was more challenging and thrilling, but that would be a bald-faced lie, and she didn't like to lie to herself like that. The fight was almost pitiful, even with all the restrictions that Beth had put on herself and with how she had won several fights the day before. The enemy team certainly took her more seriously, but none of them had Ideals, they all had weak Mana Physiques, and either their humanization was low-level or their general strength was just weak. Beth beat the six of them into the ground, literally in two cases, and was declared the winner in two minutes, still without having used her fire dominion, space domain, or several other powerful skills. She was, in fact, hiding even more cards than she had revealed so far, so if any team thought she only had a single ace up her sleeve, they'd be rather disappointed.

The fourth day was a day of rest, which was pretty clearly just a time for them to work on some of the extra-curriculars, as her team thought of it. They had a huge advantage in having had three of them just focused on that for three days, and they already had some rewards for their efforts. The king was worried about his youngest child, his second daughter that was sick with some kind of illness that needed a complex medicine made from rare ingredients. It wasn't the only thing troubling him, but it was likely the most pressing, and if they could even lightly contribute to helping with the cure, their bonus would be massive. Beth thought they could just get the ingredients and find an alchemist to do the work, but that would be easier said than done. It was allowed, however, for them to use their own materials, and they had quite a lot of junk, as Beth thought of it, in their spatial storages. That, combined with Beth being able to go out and kill just about anything for its parts, or to get a plant or item that was being guarded, meant getting materials wasn't going to be an issue. They just had to find a good alchemist to get the cure brewed.