Thursday November 3rd, 2018

  While weaving through the bodies of the fighting students Helo is putting in great effort to upgrade his skill ‘Forced Still’. Using the skill in its second state, where he fills it with his bloodline energy, is still difficult. Whatever structure the skill has within his core forces it to go on a cooldown. He has no idea what happens when someone breaks their skills, and he doesn’t want to find out.

  But one thing he can work on is the cooldown between normal uses. Right now, he can coat two appendages or items in the skill. Then he is forced to wait thirty seconds to use it again. In fights like this, where he doesn’t want to kill anyone, it is very annoying.

  Whipping out his fist in a straight jab, the blacksmith’s head rocks back, and the man drops like a bag of rocks. His clothes bulge with muscle and he could have been an impressive fighter. Only, his technique with his hammer was very linear, Overhead swing, overhead swing, overhead swing.

  Helo isn’t surprised. If anything, he is impressed. The man was very accurate and could produce vast amounts of force. Enough force that Helo’s instincts screamed at him to dodge. He was glad for that because as soon as the hammer blow ended, the hammer head practically exploded in flame.

  But stepping into the man’s guard and knocking him out with a quick blow was easy. Even if the blow bruised his knuckles. Bruises that went away in moments. There isn’t any death on this battlefield. But there is still blood loss.

  That blood loss means Helo’s new aura ability, even if he doesn’t have it unlocked yet or any active control over it. It is pulling the vitality from the blood and dragging it back to him. Nobody has noticed it yet, but Helo can see the tiny wisps of energy as they flow around the bodies and into him. It isn’t even enough to turn his eyes golden or interrupt his dark affinity.

  Ducking under a sword swipe, Helo lunges forward and slams his fist onto the man’s chest. The recoil of the blow is sent back to Helo’s own chest making him stumble backward. This is a type of skill Helo has yet to encounter.

  Staying in the man’s guard, Helo starts raining blows down on his body. Unfortunately, he is waiting for the cooldown of ‘Forced Still’ even if he tries to activate the skill with each blow. Each blow that lands sends almost as much force back toward Helo’s chest. This force is constantly trying to push Helo back, which would put him back into a prime place for a sword strike.

  Batting the man’s sword from his hand, Helo sweeps his legs out from under him and kneels over the man. “Just. Go. To. Sleep.” Helo mutters through clenched teeth as he hits the man in the face for the fourth time. Each hit sends force back into his chest. It also seems to reduce the amount of kinetic energy the man takes from each blow.

  Truthfully Helo is impressed by the skill. The man is a perfect tank, if only against blunt force damage. Finally, by the time Helo lands his eighth blow, whatever skill the man has active finally shatters. Helo can feel as the skill cracks. It was like a thin film that covered the man’s body.

  Pushing himself back to his feet with a heavy breath Helo looks around to find Rurgrim swinging his axe with wild frenzy. At the same time Rocco is stopping others from distracting him.

  “Finally done!” Rocco yells after kicking a man in the chest. The blow sends the man through the air and tumbling into his fellow students.

  “Aye! Took you long ernugh!” Rurgrim grumbles out between his sword swings.

  Sitting up with a smirk Helo doesn’t say anything, but he does take a moment to appreciate the two men. While Helo was lost in a one-track desire to knock the Reflective Force Fighter out, they stepped in to stop others from attacking him.

  It wouldn’t have worked. Helo’s aura and instincts would have warned him before anything could happen. But he still appreciates the sentiment. Getting to his feet Helo finds Hinata defending Cody and Aiko. It didn’t take long for the other students to change their focus. They went from trying to surround the party, to trying to overwhelm their backline. Aiko’s new skill ‘Regeneration’ is going a long way toward keeping them in the fight.

  So far, they have knocked out over one-hundred students. Each one is on the cusp of tier 1 or is at the bottom of tier 2. Helo has no idea what someone could have offered to get hundreds of students to attack their home. But it must be worth more than what winning this challenge would bring.

  He is starting to think that this plan isn’t about the challenge, but making their life difficult. With that in mind he can think about a few factions that would want that, the Starhavens, the Carbani, the Lopez, or the Bathory.

  The Bathory are a long shot. The vampire that tried to kidnap Hinata was from a separate faction that was supporting the Bloodline Supremacy Group in Japan. They have no official ties to Russia. But it was led by two tier 3 vampires. So, Helo has trouble believing they are not tied to Russia somehow.

  With tired steps Helo, Rurgrim and Rocco push and club their way back to where Hinata is fighting. Once their, Helo slips away again. He can’t get to caught up in the fighting. He still must be available if someone tries to slip in through the other weaknesses in the school’s barrier.

  As the cool down for ‘Forced Still’ finally ends. Helo slips back into the fight and drops two more people. Using blunt force trauma to knock out an extra student that tried to stab him, Helo easily slips out of the fight.

  Running along the wall Helo uses his aura to feel for anyone that might be trying to sneak in. With no one trying to enter over the western wall, Helo reaches the northern cliff face. Looking out over the ocean he doesn’t find anyone trying to sneak in from there. Running to the eastern cliff face Helo does the same, the down to the southern wall.

  Not finding anyone trying to sneak in Helo has now arrived at Alli’s fight. The fighting here is similar to Hinata’s. Only with Arisah on the field they can take control of the battlefield in a way that Hinata’s side can’t.

  Stepping into the fight, Helo drops two students before approaching Alli. Her position is very obvious. While Hinata’s position in a fight is always covered in illusions, Alli is the opposite. Her constructs are loud and bright. Very much like Alli’s personality.

  A glowing ball of blue mana forms over Alli’s staff. She is holding her staff in the air with both hands and channeling vast amounts of her mana into the ball overhead. Helo has no idea what he is looking at. The only thing he can tell is that the mana within the ball is becoming more concentrated with each second.

  “DUCK!” Alli yells just as Helo reaches her. Carl and Gabi are used to Alli’s slight lunacy when it comes to combat. Ducking, they both turn to look at what Alli is doing. Seeing the massive mass of concentrated mana being launched from her staff, they both blanch and drop fully to their stomachs.

  Just as the ball shaped construct passes the front line, Alli uses her second construct to form a wall between them and their enemies. The wall is covered in runes to enforce stability and strength.

  “KAABOOOMMM!” The explosion that rocks the area can be felt from ten mansions away. Even the guards at the gate to the town stumbles slightly as the earth itself is shaken.

  The barrier that surrounds their mansion was created to let anything leaving go, and stop large attacks from entering. So, their wall doesn’t even ripple as the explosion rocks outward. The two mansions closest to them are different. Each barrier becomes visible as the energy surges into them. Then they start to slowly turn more opaque and waver as the massive amount of mana and force is forced upon the shields.

  Still, they are barriers made from tier 3 enchanters. While their mana storages were strained by the attack, the barriers themselves are completely fine. The people are a different story.

  The Twin Heiress Party, nor anyone attacking them could see it. But the two teachers in the area work faster than their eyes can see to grab students as the explosion spreads out. By the time they are done, every student on the other side of Alli’s construct wall is gone. Every student on the other side of the wall to their mansion, and even most of the students on Hinata’s side.

  Thankfully, Alli might seem impulsive when she, as a mage enters a fight with a hammer. Or when she does something like this, but she at least had the forethought to warn Hinata. Not Hinata herself, but Aiko, through Luna. Luna and Aiko have a pair of earrings. The pair are not made for a single person, but for two people to wear. Using the earrings Luna and Aiko can send small messages to one another.

  So Alli had Luna send Aiko a message, ‘COVER!’, through their paired earrings. Because of this an ‘Iceberg’ was created between them and the blast. At the same time the earth beneath their feet was suddenly dropped by Rurgrim.

  By the time the blast is over, and the teachers are considering throttling Alli. The woman of the hour herself is panting, while slumped over on the ground. “Ahhhuuuu, too much mana.” She complains, holding out her arms she pouts at Helo asking to be carried.

  Rolling his eyes Helo picks up the sweaty woman in a princess carry. He and the rest of the party make their way across the completely destroyed ground. Hinata and her own party are finishing their fight by the time Helo arrives.

  “Aiko!” Alli holds out her hand like she is dying. “Need. Energy.”

  Rolling her eyes at Alli’s joking attitude, Aiko using ‘Regeneration’ on Alli. The skill is still common grade. But Aiko has constantly been using it, the skill slightly increases regeneration of all categories. Aiko has been pushing the skill further to increase how much it can help regenerate.

  Support the creativity of authors by visiting Royal Road for this novel and more.

  Looking around himself, Helo can see that the mansion didn’t come out of the blast unscathed. Every single window is blown out, and the front wall of the building collapsed inward.

  Truthfully, he is surprised that is all. The explosion was massive, Helo didn’t know Alli had so much mana. Helo isn’t the only one surprised by Alli’s mana amount. “What the hell was that?” Gabi says, she like most of the other fighters are sweating and breathing heavily.

  Feeling slightly better thanks to Aiko’s skill, Alli is sitting up on her own. “Well… my father showed me some of the tricks our ancestors have used with their own constructs.” Alli looks around awkwardly and shows off a necklace. The necklace is gold with a dull blue jem in the center.

  “This is an heirloom of my clan. It can store mana and attune it overtime. So, I can absorb the mana and use it in a spell.” Alli looks away awkwardly. “I might have completely drained it.”

  “Kuh! I ain’t surprised.” Rurgrim gestures around them. “Look out our house!”

  Alli looks a little sheepish at Rurgrim’s outburst. Carl looks like he wants to reprimand Rurgrim. Alli and Hinata are their mistresses, he shouldn’t yell at one of them. But before he can Alli speaks up. “Well, the place was already trashed, and I was getting sick of someone using others to try and weaken us.”

  “So, you decided to weaken yourself?” Hinata asks her.

  Alli looks apologetic at that, “Well, yeah. My mana channels are fried after channeling so much mana.”

  Sighing at how irresponsible Alli was, Hinata can appreciate what she did, slightly. “Well at least now the rest of us are still good to go, with Aiko’s Regeneration we might be topped off by the time our opponent regains their will to fight.

  “HAHA! NO SUCH LUCK GIRLY!” Allen laughs as he stomps forward from the wall. By his side he has his gang, along with the party of Henry and Kumar, sans the Archer that Helo kidnapped.

  Allen’s gang has almost fifteen people with a mix of tier 1 and tier 2 members. At the same time Henry and Kumar added another eleven people.

  “Thanks to your efforts.” Allen smiles a disgusting grin at Alli. “All the plants and traps are now gone. That Trapmaker and Dryad of yours won’t be at full strength.”

  Not waiting for them to respond. Allen holds up a glowing finger. The tip starts to radiate mana, then with the sound of whistling wind the mana shoots forward. The mana bullet is heading directly for Alli.

  Not able to do much but sit on the ground, Alli attempts to call her own mana to defend. But she winces as her channels revolt. Carl, Rurgrim, Gabi and Helo all attempt to make it there in time, only none of them have any skills to interpose themselves between someone and an attack quickly.

  Just as the bullet is about to hit Alli they hear a “SHING!”. Then Rocco is standing in front of her with the tip of his sword embedded in the ground. Too each side of him, the mana bullet bursts into two clouds of mana that dissipates into the air. Rocco’s skill ‘Reposition’, is meant to be used to quickly reach spaces to attack from. But mixing ‘Reposition’ and ‘Quick Riposte’ he was able to instead interpose himself between Alli and the bullet.

  Looking up at Rocco’s foxlike eyes glow with an eerie blue fire. That could have killed her. Drawing a slow arc up with his blade he leaves behind a line of blue fire in the air. When he is done ‘Foxfire Cut’ is launched with improved speed and strength.

  The same tank that appeared to block Helo’s attack on the archer earlier, appears before Allen with his shield held in both hands. With a grunt he blocks the attack, even as the fire licks around the edge of his shield and burns his spirit.

  After a few seconds the flame dissipates, and the tank lowers his shield. Then all hell breaks loose. The first to move is Helo, although his actions are not what anyone expects. Even with his anger burning hot, Helo first moves to grab Alli around the waist and dash through the crumbled wall of their mansion.

  Setting Alli down in her room Helo activates the protective features. While he was doing so a completely drained Lelai staggers into the room herself. “Oh. Good idea.” Helo says to the fox before dashing off and grabbing Inka. Setting her and Lelai down next to the completely drained Alli, Helo activates the protective features and heads back outside.

  While he was gone the fight kicked off between the two groups. Twenty-six fresh attackers versus eleven tired defenders. Still, Helo would place his bets on his team. At the same time, he keeps in mind that Henry and Kumar showed high levels of skill and teamwork.

  Hinata gets her large party ready before trusting everyone to do their part. As a front-line fighter herself, she doesn’t get much time to direct her party’s moves. In the center Allen is charging with his own gang. Flanking to one side Henry is attacking with his party and Kumar with his own.

  Rocco and Hinata are front and center taking on Allen. On one side Carl is defending against Henry and Rurgrim has Kumar on the other. Each of the three groups are trying to push past the defender in front of them to reach the backs of their opponents.

  In the middle of the half circle that Carl, Rocco, Hinata, and Rurgrim are making. Gabi is putting on a spinning dance as she twirls with her axe to stop anyone that tries to make it past. In the center Luna, Aiko, Arisah and Cody are doing their best to assist their front-line and make sure they are not overwhelmed.

  They are doing quite well, especially when the safest place to be is to put yourself between Cody and whoever is on defense. “Walking retreat.” Hinata calls out. All at once her party starts taking slow steps back.

  This puts them on the back foot, but it also reduces the amount of effort Arisah has to use to keep control of the large numbers against them. Allen was partially right when he said that with no plants around Arisah is weaker.

  It isn’t that she is weaker, but she must use more mana. Her special seeds are just as strong. The only weakness is that she isn’t able to become a conduit for extra plant vitality in the area. So, she must supplement that with her own and her mana.

  “NO!” Someone shouts as they get pushed just a little too far by an ‘Earth Spear’. Just as he tries to duck back into the safety of his own tank, a pure white arrow takes the man in the shoulder. Dropping to the ground the man’s body starts to stiffen as the ice mana freezes his body.

  “Stay behind the defender!” Kumar’s bellows deeply. Reaching out he grabs his party member by the foot and drags his back into safety. With a sigh Kumar pulls out an expensive potion from his bag. Pouring the fire attuned potion into his teammates mouth the man’s body slowly starts to thaw.

  On the other side Carl is basked in the glow of ‘Knight’s Spirit’. He moves like a veteran warrior as each blow is meant to incapacitate or kill. If he is about to overextend he shifts his killing blow, to be something that would be debilitating. This is the experience of his grandfather’s spirit guiding him to not only be deadly but stay safe.

  Drawing a bloody gash on a woman’s leg she cries out in pain as she falls to her knee. Before Carl can finish her off. The tank on Henry’s team is there with his shield between them. Unfortunately, it isn’t enough. Instead of a sword strike taking the woman, a vine reaches out and starts to drag her away.

  Before she can get far, Henry is there using a sword skill to slash the vine, but before he can get back to safety Bibbin arrives. It isn’t like Bibbin is invisible. But it is his skill ‘Outa Sight, Outa Mind’ that keeps people from really noticing him. When he is in the middle of a battle, he is so small and defenseless that people ignore him.

  So, stepping out from behind Carl, Bibbin causally tosses an orb at Henry. Holding up his own small buckler, Henry tries to bat it aside. Only just before the orb and shield make contact Bibbin uses ‘Detonate’.

  The orb explodes into countless threads that wrap Henry’s arm. Yanking his arm back Henry is alarmed as the threads are pulled taunt. At the same time, they are wrapping the bleeding woman at his feet and are stuck to the ground. Before Henry can find an adequate response more vines start to grow around him.

  The whole fight shifts as Henry is pulled out of position. Arisah burns mana to keep Henry contained, forcing his party to break formation and attempts to defend him. This lets Carl step in to help Rocco, leaving Rocco free to go on the offensive.

  “HOLD!” Hinata shouts as she casually parry’s a subpar sword strike. Her entire party stops their slow retreat almost ten feet from the front steps of their mansion.

  “Hinata. Switch.” Rocco calls out. The words that they have been using are the words that they trained in their Party Battling class with John Arkson. Only Hinata and her party spend part of their morning training working practicing these moves.

  Rocco holds out a gloved hand and launches a weak ‘Foxfire Spear’. The condensed beam of spiritual fire forces the man he was fighting to grunt in pain and fall back. Taking the opening Rocco steps right and attacks the man Hinata was fighting.

  Taking a smooth step back, Hinata is in a good position to take command of her party. Everyone rallies as the battle shifts in their favor. With Hinata and Gabi in position to defend the back line, they are able to spend more time charging and focusing on their attacks.

  Cody’s arrows come harder and as he stands in place start firing more rapidly. Aiko’s heals have more power and last longer, Luna is able to buff her team and weaken the enemies more. Lastly, Arisah is able to concentrate on her power. Instead of creating vines to snake the ground she makes hedges comprised of twisting vines and poisonous flowers.

  It is at that moment that Helo steps back into the fight. For a few seconds he waited within the shadows of the house for the right moment to step in. His party was making a walking retreat, and he saw no reason to interrupt them. Interrupting might have just made things worse.

  Stepping in Helo focuses his attack on Henry and his party. There are to the left and struggling as Arisah’s plants continues to grow around them. Their leader is wrapped in vines and one of their party members is bleeding from a wound on her leg.

  Stepping in Helo reveals himself from a swirl of shadows as he jumps off a broken wall and into the air. From there Helo draws both of his kukri. Holding them up like plunging fangs Helo lands on Henry’s tank with two stabs.

  The tank manages to get his shield up in time. Instead of stabbing the shield Helo adjusts his grip and uses his knives to hook the top of the shield. Landing on the shield itself Helo flips over the tank and into the middle of Henry’s party’s formation.

  Flipping forward, Helo dodges a mace and is forced to parry a sword. Hitting the ground, he lands next to the woman with the leg wound. Throwing his blade at the mage in front of him, Helo interrupts the spell casting. The mages ‘Fireball’ erupts in his own face and sends him stumbling back.

  Kicking back up to his feet Helo reaches out and casts ‘Dark Hand’. Grabbing his thrown blade, Helo yanks it back and into his hand. As soon as the blade touches his hand, it disappears into his necklace. Flicking his wrist, Helo pulls a blade from his bracer and uses ‘Forced Still’.

  Tossing the blade to the side, the mace wielder is forced to block the blade. Giving Helo enough time to dodge the tanks ‘Shield Bash’ and use his other hand to jab the Tanks thigh with a ‘Forced Still’ infused punch.

  With a stiff thigh the tank wielder stumbles and Helo uses the knife in his other hand to slice open the flash from his back to hip. Kicking out, Helo is barely able to budge the Tank, so instead of kicking the Tank, Helo flips off the Tank and into the air. There he lands outside of the party’s formation, just as the mage gets dragged to the ground by Arisah’s vines.

  With the mace and sword wielder left, the two teammates look at one another. In the mace wielder’s gaze he wants to flee, while the sword wielder wants to bargain.

  Talking for the first time Helo says. “Ah… So, what are your classes?” He asks the two befuddled men while scratching his jaw.

  Helo isn’t too worried about finishing quickly. Hinata has things well in hand and the vines that Arisah makes have the poisonous flowers that keep people unconscious. So, he isn’t too worried about the mage, tank, Henry, or the woman getting up.

  Looking between one another the mace shrugs to the sword. “Soooo. I’m a Short Sword Warrior.”

  “Ohhh. So does that mean all swords that are below certain size. Or just the sword called Short Sword?” Both men look at Helo, and he shrugs back at them. “What people rarely talk about their classes, but I find them so interesting.”

  “Um… Just Short Swords.” The man replies.

  Nodding to him, Helo says. “Nice! Must give you some kind of boost while wielding your blade then. With a specific name like that you must have some unique skills.”

  The man smiles as he nods back to Helo. “Yeah man. I got this… OWE!”

  The mace draws back his fist from where he clocked the Short Swordsman. “Dude! Don’t tell your enemy your secrets!” Both men turn back to Helo with accusatory glares and Helo holds up his hands.

  “Hey. I see you guys as fellow students.” Pointing over his shoulder at where Allen is fighting, he says. “He might be an enemy.”