Dust flew all around the arena obscuring the playing field from view. The swelling sound of the audience’s building anticipation, baying for blood, rang in my ears as I desperately tried to see through the glittering sandstorm below.

  The battle had only started a few seconds ago and already it was so fast paced and ferocious that I could barely keep up with what was happening. Mistress Labia – a creature who resembled a dementor – had flown straight at the weirdo in samurai armour the second the match had begun. I distinctly heard the clash of ferocious steel, but the dust made it impossible to see anything. Even my dragon’s eye couldn’t penetrate the cloak which was cast all around us.

  I knew that the samurai fought with a katana – As if she’d use anything else – but my knowledge of Labia was nil. I wasn’t even sure what she was. I was hoping to get a good enough glimpse of her to trigger a notification but for that to happen I would need to be able to keep up with the actually fighting.

  Steel clashed beneath the blanket of dust like a demented hammer smashing an anvil into oblivion. The clanging was so fast paced that I could barely perceive the separate noises, like it had become a single, stretched out drone of clashing metal; a high pitched, grating gong, penetrating deep into my bones.

  “Look, I can see a shadow!” Bell pointed out excitedly, her teal hair waving in the breeze. She seemed as enthralled by the fight as I was and her eyes glistened and strained as she desperately leaned over the railings of the private box trying to get a better view.

  Following her gaze I could just about make out two figures standing still, just out of reach of one another. The crowd quieted as the dust began to settle and inside the arena were the two warriors, drenched in blood.

  The Desert Samurai held a typical katana pose, the kind you’d see in a kendo match or on TV. She stood with her legs separated, one in front of the other, a slight bend in her knees. Sword clasped in two hands which were held out in front of her. Her body was heaving and her armour had taken some scrapes. Blood splashed over it, glistening in the morning sun.

  Opposite her, Mistress Labia floated, swaying side to side. Her form had been cut to ribbons, blood was leaking from the tattered black shadows that seemed to make up her body. Her face was completely covered by the draped hood which hung low over her head. She held a sickle in each hand, connected by a chain from the hilt of each.

  Despite the rips in her black, tattered form, I still couldn’t see any kind of body beneath the rags.

  You have discovered a new species:

  Moon Wraith

  Now, I know what you’re thinking. “How can a wraith be a species and not a monster?” Firstly, you need to understand that there are multiple types of wraith and the most common is likely the one you’re thinking of. These wraiths are created when a woman dies whilst harbouring strong emotions and is resurrected by a necromancer. Usually a resurrected corpse becomes a zombie, but in these rare cases a wraith is formed. They are incorporeal and can only be harmed by strong mana and only truly killed by severing their bond to this world – often through destroying an item, killing a cheating husband, burning his new wife’s infant child alive whilst the wraith watches with a satisfied smile – that sort of thing.

  Moon Wraiths are different.

  A Moon Wraith is created when one born with an exceptionally powerful soul uses too much of that power prematurely and explodes. The resulting force has the power of an Earth nuclear bomb, ripping the body of the caster completely apart and leaving only the soul intact.

  However, because that soul is so strong, it does not always die. In rare cases it clings to the mortal plain, manifesting into a Moon Wraith. These creatures are semi-corporeal, meaning that certain skills, weapons skills, and mana can and will harm them. They also retain a strong sense of self, being a soul and all, so they are technically a species and not a monster. Though you’d be forgiven for thinking they are monsters, the lines are blurry.

  Here’s looking at you kid.

  A shuddering chill washed over me as I read the notification, thinking of my own soul power and Panda’s warnings when I’d used it previously.

  “Did you know?” I asked him, knowing that he would have seen the same notification I did.

  “No, kid. I only knew about the explosion.”

  This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.

  On the battlefield, the two heaving bodies stood regarding each other. Then Labia struck. Dashing forwards with speed barely perceptible to my enhanced eyes, she slashed viciously with a sickle. The Samurai countered, then Labia wrapped her chain around the blade of the katana and snapped it tightly using the second sickle. The Samurai yelled, then kicked out, but her foot disappeared through the tattered rags that seemed to make up the wraith’s body.

  Off balance, she stumbled forwards and Labia wrenched her katana from her hands, launching it spinning high into the air. The moon wraith slashed down with both sickles, like they were pickaxes, The Samurai a mountain to climb. The blades bounced off the tiered armour which covered The Samurai and she drew a second, smaller blade, stabbing up into the area where Labia’s sternum would have been.

  “I thought tanto were for seppuku?” Bell asked, murmuring as she gleefully watched the fight, pulling her scarlet cloak tight around her chest, guarding against the winds.

  “I don’t know what either of those words mean, but it was a good move if you ask me,” Rex replied.

  Labia staggered backwards and vanished rendering the crowd silent. Only the sound of the howling sand-winds could be heard as we all watched with bated breath. Bell leaned further over the side railing and I noticed that even Rex was gripping it abnormally hard. Was it over?

  The Samurai looked just as confused as we were as she stood up hesitantly and caught her sword as it careened down from the sky, catching the light in a sparkling flash like a lighthouse, warning ships of nearby danger. She looked around. I glanced up at the gods who were watching impassively. Chrysus hadn’t said a word, so it couldn’t be over, could it?

  Phonoi hadn’t moved an inch since the start of the match – a smug, half smile plastered to her half-covered face. Loki was the first to move, leaning towards Nyx and talking animatedly, gesticulating with his hands, his chest bouncing the dance of laughter as his impassive counterpart grew deep frown lines.

  “Die!”

  Out of nowhere, six rag-wearing copies of Labia burst into reality, surrounding The Samurai in a circle of spinning, slashing death. They struck as one and Chrysus’ champion dropped to one knee, dodging most of the sashes, and parring another. She had adopted a different stance now, holding the katana in one hand and the tanto in another.

  “How are there six of her?” Bell asked.

  “Wraith mana,” Havier said with a growl, then spat on the floor like the words sullied his tongue with a foul taste.

  Spinning, parrying, dodging, weaving, The Samurai moved like a delicate blur, an ice skater swirling rhythmically with an insurmountable defence as her furious blades searched for even the slightest opening.

  She found one, slicing an apparition in half which vanished in a puff of black smoke. Then she performed a pirouette and forced the tanto through the neck of the Labia behind her. Interestingly, the fake Labia seemed to offer resistance against the blade as if it was made of real flesh and bone. It also disappeared, but as she was distracted, the other four variants moved in. Their speed seemed to increase as sickle and sword collided, a crashing frenzy of iron strikes. The Samurai was being beaten back, slowly but surely. Her face betrayed her frustration but I never saw her lose her grip on her clanging blades.

  With a frustrated growl she flipped her tanto so that she was holding it by the blade’s edge and flung it at one of the apparitions which disappeared. At the same time, she managed to block two of the remaining three assailants. The third moving into her blind spot and breaching her defences.

  An agonised scream, which devolved into an angry grunt, rang out across the silent arena as a sickle finally found purchase. It bit through her armour, sliding through the gaps in the tiering, blood splashing and flowing through the gaps. Breathing heavily, she crouched down and the Labias moved backwards, obviously wary of a special attack. All three of them moved their grip to the middle of the chains connecting their dual sickles and began spinning them like lassos. They began to advance on The Samurai who was still crouched on the floor and with a jedi-like flip, she jumped out of the circle and sheathed her weapon.

  For a moment she was stood completely still, bending forwards, one leg stretched out in front of the other, one hand on sheath, the other on hilt. The air around her coalesced as she took a deep, calming breath. Then she struck.

  It almost looked like teleportation as she leaped forwards, slicing through two of the three Labias in a single, swift motion. Her katana was back in her sheath before my eyes could transmit what I’d seen to my brain. It was devastatingly fast, and powerful. As if on a delay, the moment her sword went back into its sheath a powerful force of dust was thrust out in the direction she was facing, buffeting the crowd - many of whom were holding onto their seats to prevent themselves from being blown away.

  “Holy shit,” Bell breathed and my mind echoed her words.

  Holy shit.

  “That was heavenly slash,” Taylor breathed, “it’s a rare skill, devastating in the right hands.”

  “Makes me glad I fight from a distance,” Jack replied.

  “With that kind of speed I doubt it’d make much of a difference,” Gonzo added and Jack frowned at him, then shrugged.

  Without missing a beat, Labia dashed in front of The Samurai, putting her blade to the girl’s throat. The warrior was breathing heavily and looked like she was about to keel over. I waited for the sight of blood splashing onto the ground, the death exhale of a slashed throat, but it didn’t come immediately.

  “It’s over,” Labia said in a voice that mimicked a manhole cover sliding across concrete.

  “Only for you,” The Samurai replied, an evil, thousand-yard stare in her unyielding eyes.

  In a flash, her sheath disappeared, it must have been pulled into her inventory, and she slammed her blade backwards, pushing it with both hands on the hilt, seemingly into thin air. It found purchase behind her and suddenly another materialised in the space behind her. She was stood behind The Samurai, sickle hovering near her throat, blood dripping from multiple wounds that must have been inflicted earlier in the fight – Maybe when they clashed in the smoke? She could turn invisible too. How did she know she was there?

  “That explains why Labia hesitated,” Panda said.

  The real Labia staggered backwards a few steps, blood dripping from her punctured chest. She clutched at it with skeletal hands and then dropped to the floor. The apparition standing in front of The Samurai vanished in a puff of black smoke as blood pooled at the victor’s feet.

  “The one in front wasn’t real, she had to buy time for the real one to get into position to deal the finishing blow,” Panda continued. “That was her mistake.”

  And just like that, the match was over.