My heart pounded; a heavy plate of living iron thrumming against a bone cage, longing to be set free, desperate to escape and yet excited for what was to come.

  Standing solidly in the middle of the arena I felt elation, but also a strange nervousness. I’d never done anything like this before, never truly stood in front of a crowd of thousands ready to face an opponent. Ready for the inevitable kill or be killed moment that could result in my death. This could be the end of everything, the end of all of my hard work thus far.

  Usually in a fight I didn’t have much time to think about it. They’d mostly been organic in the past. This was different. As I stood before a crowd, baying for blood, the seconds felt like hours, the minutes like days. And yet the thing that concerned me the most was the small creature standing before me.

  Aethis: a racoon dog. A literal anthropomorphic tanuki standing before me with a calm, unreadable expression and eyes that seemed so confident they barely acknowledged my presence. My dragon’s eye told me nothing. I had little information to go on. The only thing I knew for sure was that despite all appearances, this was a dangerous foe.

  “Welcome back for day three of my High Priest Tournament!” Chrysus yelled and the crowd responded with the kind of bloodthirsty cheering and cruelty which I had come to expect over the past few days. “Today marks the final battle of the semi-finals. The winner will join my champion: The Desert Samurai, and Baccus’ esteemed warrior: Brodir, in the final battle to see who will be crowned the ultimate champion of the gods.”

  Aethis smirked. I hadn’t taken my eyes off her the entire time, yet her facial expression was not aimed at me.

  “Standing before you are two unknowns, making their debut on the world stage. Firstly, the champion of Loki, a small but deadly foe. I for one, cannot wait to see how she fights. It’s AETHIS!”

  The crowd screamed and applauded; the noise was deafening. Somehow it seemed louder down here. I could feel the arhythmic thudding of their claps and stamps deep in my chest like an off-beat war drum.

  “And facing her today, the champion of Diako, Kaleb Akabane. Though, without his dragon to protect him, who knows how he’ll fare? I guess there’s only one way to find out. Say it with me now, everyone…”

  This bellend has developed a real flair for the dramatic, what does he think this is, a game show host?

  “FIGHT!” The audience and Chrysus announced the start of the round as one roaring entity and immediately the world slowed down around me.

  As Aethis stood before me, an unknown quantity, I knew that the only way to ensure my victory was to assume that she was better than me: stronger, faster, harder to kill. So therefore my opening move needed to be a big one. I couldn’t afford to waste time or stamina testing my opponent and I didn’t need to conserve my strength like when I fought monsters.

  I’ll go all out from the start and blitzkrieg this tanuki.

  With a mental click, my daggers of empirical darkness manifested in my hands and without delay I upended both of the blades, clutching them by the pointy end, and flung them to either side of the tanuki’s position. This was a move I’d practiced countless times in the training zone and it drew on a single feature of the daggers.

  Empirical Darkness (unique)

  Stick your daggers into a surface, the space between them becomes an abyss causing blindness and confusion to all trapped within.

  This skill can only be activated once per day.

  It was a gambit to open with such a bold move, but the skill – unique to these daggers – was perfect for a skirmisher like me. Whilst Aethis would not be able to see anything, I could see her perfectly.

  The moment both daggers left my hands, I clicked in my inventory on my longbow of the giant goblin and it appeared in my hands, string already drawn, multiple arrows nocked as I activated my acid rain skill and allowed a sickly green stamina to flow from my fingertips into the arrows. I released the hailstorm of death high into the air.

  But that wasn’t all.

  As the acid rain arrows soared high into the sky I equipped a single arrow, pulling the drawstring to my cheek and began to channel a soul shot. With this attack, I aimed at the centre mass of Aethis’ tiny frame, not wanting to risk a head shot, and loosed the arrow which flew truly into the shadows which surrounded her.

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  All of these attacks were flung at my opponent in less than a few seconds. This was a practiced move I’d honed over the course of my time in the solitary world Diako had gifted me, training for this very moment. Panda was the architect of this string of attacks.

  If you can learn to string multiple skills together one after the other, then there will be no way for most opponents to dodge it, kid, he’d said. That’s the real strength of a skirmisher: speed. If you want to get better you need to learn to use it.

  As one, both of my attacks appeared to hit their target, dust cascading and floating in the air, obscuring my vision as the crowd fell silent off the back of a mutual gasp. Aethis didn’t even have time to move. I wanted to smile, there was no way they’d have expected this, but I couldn’t be certain of my victory until the smoke cleared. Until I saw the blood of my enemy soaking into the ground. It sounded callus, but there could only be one winner and I had no intention of dying today.

  WHOOSH.

  Instinctively I turned my head to the side just as a bolt darted past my cheek, slicing a thin line into my skin as a few tiny droplets of blood formed like a delicate bracelet.

  What the hell?

  I heard the soft patter of feet before I saw her.

  Turning sharply, I swept my foot across the ground as Aethis – who had somehow attacked me from behind – threw a punch in my direction. Deftly, she hopped, landing atop my leg like it was some kind of balance beam. She ran across it and hit me in the stomach but not before I managed to grab her by the scruff of the neck and throw her to the side. She felt heavy, much heavier than a racoon dog should have been.

  How did she get there? I thought, also surprised that such a small creature would opt to fight with their hands. It was only after I’d flung her across the arena that I felt the gut-wrenching, stabbing pain in my stomach. Looking down, I saw blood. Following her trajectory and focusing on her hands, I realised why.

  She was wearing an odd pair of knuckle dusters with tiny spikes poking out. When she’d punched me, she’d punctured through my armour and into my skin. My health hadn’t drained too much, but it certainly did sting.

  Landing on her feet she rushed back towards me, legs moving like a tornado, I knew I would not have time to fire off an arrow so instead I activated one of my three new skills.

  Perfect Recall (common)

  Summon any bonded weapon into your hands, even if it is not currently in your inventory.

  With my daggers back in my hands, I moved one leg backwards and crouched slightly, adopting a fighting stance and readying myself for the fast little racoon dog as she scurried towards me. Then, with a flash of smoke, suddenly there were three of her all heading in my direction.

  She uses illusion magic too? I thought. What happened to it being a rare skill?

  On a split-second decision, I decided to take a different approached. I threw one of my daggers at the tanuki on the right. It pierced her chest and she disappeared into a puff of smoke. My dagger reappeared in my hand and I was about to throw the second on but I ran out of time, she’d closed the gap. As the two remaining tanuki charged, I gambled, throwing myself forwards and slashing at both. My dagger scraped the one in the middle which also vanished.

  So they disappear with only a slight touch, that’s good to know.

  As I swung my second dagger, Aethis jumped, kicking off the blade like a springboard. She backflipped through the air and suddenly a myriad of throwing-stars were hurtling towards my face. Relying on my enhanced perception and agility skills I released a plethora of varied and purposeful slashes, blocking all but one of the throwing stars which landed flatly on the ground. One managed to get through my defences but it missed my throat by less than an inch, flying off towards the stands somewhere.

  How many weapons does this bitch have?

  Not wanting to lose my momentum, I dashed forward to where Aethis was about to land and thrusted with my forward dagger. She caught it on her spiked knuckle duster and twisted, forcing the dagger out of my grip but only for a second before I activated my perfect recall skill and replaced it. At the same time I slashed low with my other dagger but she threw her stomach backwards like some kind of exotic dancer, narrowly avoiding the acidic attack that would have devastated her body in moments.

  “Too slow,” she said with a sadistic smile, throwing a spiked punch directly at my face.

  Relying on all of the speed granted to me by my increased agility stat, I performed a pirouette, pulling a dagger away from her other hand, which was locked with my blade, and blocking the punch at the last second. The sudden displacement of my weight forced Aethis forwards, putting her off balance, and I used that advantage to follow through with my second dagger.

  “Wanna say that again?” I said with a smirk as my second blade dug deeply into her collar bone.

  She didn’t even grunt with the pain, smiling up at me with wild eyes as a small, handheld crossbow appeared in her off hand. The bolt touched my upper thigh and she pulled the trigger. Warm, sharp pain shot through my femur as the bolt ran me through, popping out of the other side as if my skin were a balloon, and imbedding itself into the sand.

  My knee gave way and I dropped onto it, hard. One of my daggers was lodged into her shoulder, the other locked with her spiked fist.

  “It’s over,” she said darkly, pulling the crossbow back into her inventory and pulling her fist back for the finishing blow. My health was now in the red and dropping as blood gushed from my wound. I only had time to press on one thing in my inventory before this match would be over.

  Healing can wait!

  As she threw her punch I clicked on my quiver of the infinite, drawing an arrow into my hand just as I let go of the dagger: firmly lodged into her collar bone. My hand dropped just below my dagger and, throwing myself forward with all my remaining strength. I thrusted the arrow into her neck, through her palette and into her brain.

  “Maybe for you,” I said, gasping for breath as the silent audience stared on, their eyes glued to me like tiny burning ants burrowing into my skin. I felt their gazes as if they had a physical presence.

  It was over. Wasn’t it?

  Aethis disappeared into a puff of smoke.

  Glancing up at Chrysus, floating high in the sky, I saw an evil, serpentine grin on his scaled face. Arms crossed, he looked at me, eyes glinting, fangs on full show.

  Why hasn’t he called it yet?