"So," I said, "That was a pretty impressive display of power." 

Yr'Arl sat cross-legged in his chair with a wide smile on his face. 

"It was a risky maneuver, but it certainly paid off as I was hoping it would," He replied. 

"You want to maybe explain how you did what you did?" I asked, "I've never seen those electricity fields before."

Yr'Arl cocked his head to the side, "I believed I had explained to you that I had the ability to copy the spells of other beings, correct?" 

He had, and while I knew that the electricity he had used to hover above the surface of the asteroid towards the end had been a display of the power that Ke'Zuc had used, I was confused as to how that same power could have ramped up the rest of his abilities so much as well. 

"Ke'Zuc's power was much more than just the ability to hover," Yr'Arl said, sensing my confusion. "In fact, that was merely an after-effect of the true scope of the power, which was an overall power up to the entity. I used that to supercharge my armour, to levels that I have never before been able to attain."

Well, that made a lot more sense than the idea that he had been keeping some sort of super-powerful form secret from me in our sparring matches. At least this way I knew he had actually been going all out on me in the past. Unfortunately, that meant I'd have to try and figure out a way to get through all of that power if I wanted to get to the finals. 

I still didn't want Yr'Arl to go easy on me in our next match, but seeing just how much strength I was actually up against was more than a little bit daunting. 

<You shouldn't be focusing on the semi finals or the finals just yet, Jacob,> BB cut in, <You've still got another match to get through before you can start thinking about any of that.>

He was right, I did have another battle coming up. Not only did I have another fight on the way, but it was also against the one person that I really didn't want to meet in battle just yet. The Urstnir of Napdid themselves. The supposed otherworlder from a different universe. The otherworlder who knew about the chasm, but seemed so terrified of it that they had promised to choke the life out of me if I ever mentioned it to them again.

I clenched my fist. 

They were supposedly capable of obliterating entire armies in mere moments. With that terrifying lightning attack that they had displayed, it was pretty obvious that they were powerful. It was going to be a tough fight, and I had absolutely no idea how I was going to get through it.

I was going to have to, though. No one else knew that Lara was on her way, not other than the three of us, Fal who was likely somewhere in the Dorms watching the proceedings on a holo-screen, and Belana whose incompetence and lack of foresight would never be able to help us in the battle. I was going to have to win, so I could be there and ready when Lara eventually launched the attack that we were all expecting. 

A flash of white took me from the Initiate waiting room and down into the battle arena. I wasn't going to get the chance to work out my strategy any further, not when the battle was already about to begin. 

"It's the last quarter-final bout of the day," called out the voice of Belana. "Up next we have, once again, the favourite to win the tournament, the incredibly powerful Urstnir of Nadpid! This sentient cloud from another universe was able to take out their previous opponent with a powerful deluge of lightning!

"But how will they deal with Jacob Lyre, the Human with powerful Manna abilities at his back! With a brutal display of physical strength, and some impossibly strong energy assaults, will any of his abilities even be able to hit the Urstnir of Napdid?" 

As he was talking the battle arena flickered once again. 

I was interested in how this was going to turn out. I didn't really have a preferred layout, my abilities were pretty standard and could be used in a wide variety of potential scenarios. 

I was surprised, then, when familiar sights started to flicker into existence. The skyscrapers and streets of central London started to come into view. The Shard and London Eye were both easily visible, as were the houses of parliament and big ben as they flickered into life next to me. Finally, the river Thames crackled into life. 

Of all the places I had been expecting the system to build, home had been the last place I was expecting. 

I took a deep breath and tried to keep the piercing burn of tears out of the corner of my eyes. I'd thought that I would have never been able to return here, yet here I was. Sort of. 

<Don't freak out too much, but look at what the other guy's hologram is,> BB said, knocking me out of my home sickness. 

I was even more surprised when the Urstnir of Napdid's hologram started to form. 

Inky blackness, even blacker than the darkness of space, began to form itself into being, consuming everything in its path. Little motes of twinkling light ripped themselves into being, drifted downward, and then eventually ripped themselves back into the inky black once again. 

Further off, deeper into the dark than I could really see, great shapes moved. Shadowy figures that were darker than the darkest dark, illuminated only by the shadow they cast on the rest of the hologram. 

I swallowed hard. 

The Urstnir of Nadpid's hologram, the place where the gaseous creature felt most comfortable and could be most effective, was the Chasm itself. 

What the hell was going on here?