Limitless Path

She was interrupted from her dreams of becoming a great thief when the king got to their weapon, which was ranked third overall. Even with all the subterfuge going on behind the scenes, they had managed to place third, which was a great result in her mind. They had been against a number of Masters and one Grandmaster, so beating out a few of them, even with their underhanded tactics, felt great. The king handed out the prizes personally, and they had Val move up to receive it alongside the other two top winners. The granted them a ring for their victory, which was a bit strange, but it made a lot more sense when Beth inspected it and found it gave almost no stat boosts but had two built-in skills.

"Who wants the ring?" Beth asked.

"Well, I could use it…" Val said, hesitant for the first time in a while.

"Keep it," Beth said with a shrug, glancing at the other two, who both just shrugged without a care.

"Thanks. This'll be a big help," Val said, slipping the ring on right away. The two skills the ring gave were an ice skill, Frozen Realm, that would attempt to lock every enemy around the caster in ice. Even if it failed, it would slow and injure any being it latched onto, making it a powerful area control skill. The second skill, Glacial Lance Array, created a group of large ice lances that the skill user could perfectly control, even attacking separate targets repeatedly with each lance. The two skills didn't really have any demerits, other than being somewhat mana-intensive to cast and being bound to the ring. Since they were skills bound to an item, they wouldn't level with use, but if a person used such skills long enough, they could learn the skill themselves, though it would start at a lower level than the skill was in the item.

The next day was another part of the losers' bracket, but that was going to be the last day of that for now. The plan was to then run the semifinals, after which the last of the losers' bracket would operate, and finally the finals match would happen. Of course, that left plenty of time for sabotage, espionage, accidents, and so on to take out teams or earn more points depending on what the teams got up to. Beth was already sure that they were getting the most points by a longshot, and they might even be setting a record, considering they had to be getting bonus points for her having soloed all the fights so far, but more points wouldn't hurt anything.

Beth watched the penultimate day of the losers' bracket and she had to say, well, they were losers. Nothing that happened surprised or impressed her, and she could beat any of the teams that had climbed again to the top alone without being in danger. She still had her hardest two fights yet to go, based on the three other teams left in the winner's bracket, but she wasn't worried about them, either. Really, what the Grand Palace had made her feel was a desire to get in the arenas and mix it up with some exceptional opponents. Along the way, she would likely win quite a lot, even without displaying her Ideal, and that would help build her a good reputation in the CRA and the larger community. Despite all their advancements, current intergalactic society loved their staged fights and reveled in the rise of a new champion. It was really a great two birds, one stone situation for her, as she could fight and experience challenges to her hearts content while also winning favor and renown.

Her dreams of greater glory were interrupted by her having to participate in the semifinal round, which turned into a bit of a change of pace. Blood showed up, apparently bored, or busy on some business, or running a distraction. Beth wasn't really sure which and she was still leaving most of that to the other three, but the wolf wanted to fight, and who was Beth to deny her? That meant, for the first time in the tournament, their team fielded a whole two people, which really made the other team swell up a bit, as they gained some confidence in thinking that Beth's team needed to field a greater force to contend with them. Beth wasn't going to say anything, but she would be laughing when Blood went out of her way to disabuse them of that notion, something she expected to happen rather fast. After they had walked up on stage, she pulled a wooden chair out of her necklace, something with a slightly tilted back and a sturdy construction that she used to recline a bit sometimes, and placed it down behind Blood before sitting in it. The ref was a bit confused by what was going on, but he still went through the standard procedures and both Blood and Beth acknowledged they were ready.

Her act didn't amuse the opposing team, who threw out several insults as the referee was counting them in for the start of the match. Beth just crossed her legs at the ankle and crossed her arms below her ample chest, not giving the team's foul language the time of day. The crowd had been a little unsure at first, but Beth's carefree attitude had them talking, and laughing, which certainly did nothing for their opponents' moods. The ref finished counting them in and signaled for them to start, at which point the opposing team launched a frenzied assault from their position on the opposite side of the arena. The team was still a full team of six, rather surprising considering all the espionage and dirty dealing going on, and they had all chosen to start with ranged attacks, though Beth knew some of them were much better in melee. It was likely they were trying to overwhelm Blood while forcing Beth to get off her chair and act, but they had made a very grave miscalculation.

Blood, while acting lazy and indolent, wasn't a trusted member of the team simply because she was Beth's bond, though Beth did look highly upon her because of that. Many people didn't realize that Blood was almost as scary in her own right as Beth, though Beth's Ideal had propelled her ahead when comparing the two. It hadn't shot her that far ahead, contrary to what some might think, and that was because Blood was incredibly good with her humanization. It had progressed even further on her tenth rebirth, and she could cover around a quarter of her body with runes when she exerted herself, as she was about to now. The deeper a sapient beast went into their humanization, the more power they had in general; the equivalent in other species was their Presence, which sapient beasts lacked. Some species got that burst of power that elevated their strength to the next tier but was exhausting to use, and beasts got a smaller, but constant boost.

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Smaller, however, was a relative term, and Blood's boost was very large. It wasn't just that her increased humanization led to her getting vastly increased stats per level, which it did as it helped counteract that sapient beasts didn't get classes but instead inheritances from the legacy of their bloodline. Her stats were extraordinary, it was true, but humanization applied a constant boost to her power, increasing her raw strength, agility, acuity, proprioception, reflexes, kinesthetic sense, and even her ability to finely control the release of her mana. Blood displayed all of that now, only showing slight signs of the level of humanization she was operating at as her wolf ears and mantle of fur disappeared along with a few runes appearing around her neck. That was the least of things to observe, however, as Blood moved at a speed that simply beggared belief, slashing out so fast that even the Enlightened present could only detect a faint blur.

Beth wasn't one of those Enlightened, though, as her Platinum Mana Physique, high stats, powerful skills, and Ideal allowed her to track Blood's movements quite precisely. Beth watched as the wolf slashed dozens of times in under a second, multiplying to hundreds of times in just a few seconds. Every single movement of her arms produced waves of blood that were multiplied by blade waves from her Master-level weapon skill. The result was a surging tide of blood and destruction that filled the entire dueling arena with the scent of death. The opposing team's attacks were obliterated on their way to Blood and Beth, unable to punch through the endless surge of destruction that poured forth from the humanized wolf.

Beth pulled out a drink, sipping on something especially alcoholic as Blood continued to fire off attacks, perfectly happy to go wild with her skills. Beth knew she was just stretching her legs, so to speak, and would eventually move forward at a blinding speed to engage the other team in melee combat. That would only happen provided the other team could even hold on, which Beth was giving about even odds to right now. The opposing team had gone from launching a furious and infuriated assault to furiously trying to intercept Blood's assault to frantically trying to defend themselves and that was all in the span of…Beth checked the arena clock to see nine seconds had passed. Well, she hadn't held out any real hope that this group was going to be able to fight her, but they were still managing to survive an assault of blood by Blood without getting knocked out, so she couldn't entirely dismiss them. They weren't looking great, however, as they were very clearly throwing most of what they had into stopping the relentless wolf.

Funny thing about fighting a team of sapient beasts, especially as a sapient beast; humanization level tended to be a big deciding factor in who won. There were all kinds of things to consider, of course, and something like one person having achieved their Mana Physique while the other hadn't could dramatically shift the balance of power back in their favor. That wasn't a factor here, though, as Blood was at the same level or ahead in all other aspects as compared to the enemy team. Beth thought it quite likely they had most of their skills in Gold with only a couple in Platinum across the team, and she was pretty sure the best of the six was a Master with their weapon. That might have made things more even, but all six of them were, quite frankly, atrocious with their level of humanization, and it wasn't like one could have a really good level of humanization and then get worse at it. That meant that, despite being behind almost all six of them in rebirth count, Blood likely had far higher stats than any of them, and then her quite high humanization multiplied those already massive stats even further. On top of that, Beth was willing to bet Blood's Mana Physique was at least a bit better than any of theirs, and it was rather likely that it was far more than just a bit, which was a big difference in power.

It wasn't a guaranteed win for Blood, not in the same way it would have been for Beth, but the other team was fighting uphill to try to contend with the wolf. Fighting uphill and clearly struggling to even stay on the incline, let alone not fall back down to the base, to extend the metaphor a bit too far. The ranged battle had continued for several more seconds and Blood was clearly coming out on top, even when fighting against an entire team. The other team wasn't waiting anymore, and they launched an all-out assault as their frontliners charged forward to try to get into melee range with Blood. Well, Blood wasn't a ranged fighter herself to begin with, and she met them head-on with relish, moving forward as little more than a blur as she engaged with the enemy team. Beth's whole team had long experience, far longer experience than fighters many times their age, with fighting against larger numbers, if not in fact overwhelming odds. A lot of tactics that might have worked on others, to trap or outmaneuver them and injure them before going in for the kill, just didn't work on Blood. The other team would have loved to move around Blood and knock Beth off her chair, but that was also not an option, and once they were engaged in melee combat, that went right out of their minds.

Blood moved among them like a wraith; speed on a level they couldn't compete against, attacks that came from odd angles, overwhelming power that shattered their defenses, and a sense for the flow of battle that they couldn't match. Blood terrorized them in a way many of them had never experienced, not within dueling fields or without, and it was everything they could do to hang on for another few seconds. It was never in any question, at least from Beth's perspective, but it was interesting for her to watch as everyone else, from the audience to the ref to the opposing team, realized that Blood was a beast of another level. The way she tore the other team apart, kicking it into high gear now and shredding them as they just tried to hang on for another few seconds. It was a pointless effort, though not quite as pointless as it would have been if Beth had been fighting them, even alone, but it wasn't much better. Blood ripped them to shreds in about twenty-five seconds, and considering that it was one Empowered and five Enlightened versus one Enlightened who had just hit rebirth ten fairly recently, it was a bit of an embarrassing effort on their part. Well, a combination of that and a heroic effort on Blood's part, but she had defeated the whole team in a couple minutes, and done it in a way that Beth wasn't even disturbed where she was sitting in her chair.

The referee finally called the match when the last Enlightened was so shredded they were more meat than man. It was a good thing that the arena repaired equipment to perfect or near-perfect state when a fight was done, as the butcher's bill in terms of gear for that fight would have bankrupted the other team. Blood gave the crowd a series of bows while Beth smiled and waved from her chair before they were ushered off the stage. They were now one of two finalist teams, and they were treated with a great deal of respect by everyone in the arena, including the workers. Blood ignored it all, ready to go and lay down for a bit of a nap, and Beth dealt with it all with a false smile and a lot of internal sighing. It was only going to get worse as time went on, and if she were to start making a big splash in the arenas back out in the Milky Way proper, she would have to learn to deal with the fame.