The Roamer

Chapter 4: Decisive battle

“Today, we have the rookie who has been rising through the ranks, Aeollus, along with one of the angels of this prison who has risen to fame, Klatra!”

yelled the announcer in an excited tone. Of course he would, just the rank of Klatra within the prison would bring in a lot of money from the spectators.

“Alright, let’s begin already!” yelled some old man with a beard.

“No need to stall, begin the battle!” Yelled another hidden within the crowd.

Many people within the arena couldn’t wait anymore, as battles with the top five hundred included in them were above average, both in combat standards and blood!

“Oi rookie, wanna turn ‘round before you piss yourself?!” yelled some drunken geezer in the stands.

‘They’re always like this, I wonder how they’d react if I were to really win’ Aeollus thought to himself, truly fed up with all the criticism from the people.

“Oi Aeollus, may I peak into your cultivation?” asked Klatra who was opposing Aeollus.

“Why would you want to do that? Trying to steal from my soul?” countered Aeollus, as he wasn’t willing to let Klatra look into his cultivation.

“Fine, I’ll stop trying to peak…” muttered Klatra, clearly let down from not being able to look at Aeollus’s soul.

‘This… is quite the weird opponent I stumbled upon today.’ Aeollus muttered in his own head, while wondering if the top five hundred were all weird.

“The battle may now begin!” yelled the announcer in a dominant tone, while floating away.

As soon as the announcer said that, Klatra disappeared from the eyes of the people.

“What?!”

yelled out Aeollus, not willing to believe that someone can just disappear.

Suddenly, from his right, he got punched and sent flying, his left arm hitting the wall extremely hard. Fortunately his bones still seemed fine, and he could move it.

‘How does this work, how can a man just disappear while still hitting?!’ yelled Aeollus in his mind, not knowing how to counter this.

“Brat, you still have not entered the realm of true cultivation, you’re still just a newbie who doesn’t understand anything yet.” said Klatra in a calm tone from who knows where.

“As of right now, you don’t have the abilities to step into the top five hundred, much less move deeper into the prison by much.” Klatra muttered in a voice that everyone could hear.

“I…”

Aeollus was flabbergasted and truly didn’t know what to say, only replying with that.

‘Is it true? Did I truly try to rival people who were way above me in standards and mindset?’ was replaying through Aeollus’s head over and over again.

“Brat, the most powerful thing you have isn’t even a first layer attack, much less a technique. Right now, I’m using a first layer technique, so of course you can’t rival me right now.” said the man in a obvious tone.

“I see… the difference between someone who has reached into the layers of cultivation and someone who hasn’t is truly too big, I can’t make up for this that easily…” muttered Aeollus, who was beginning to understand why he was being overpowered so easily.

“Continue the battle, don’t just stand there muttering!” yelled some woman holding a baby.

“It seems that the audience wants the battle to continue, so we should please them!” yelled Klatra in an overbearing tone, knowing that someone who hasn’t even delved into the layers couldn’t compete with him.

Right after Klatra yelled that, some golden light flashed Aeollus’s eyes, disabling his vision.

Klatra appeared right in front of Aeollus after that, and pulled out a dagger which would end up digging into Aeollus’s stomach.

“GOD DAMN IT!”

yelled Aeollus, who knew he couldn’t do anything, but still tried.

Aeollus suddenly thought of something he had read in one of the books, which said that he can give up some of his spirit temporarily to form an attack that could turn out to be any level, but there would be side effects.

‘This… I have to go with this or I won’t even have a soul to give up in a bit!’ Aeollus steadied himself to give up a part of his soul for now, in hopes of getting it back and the side effect not being too bad.

He closed his eyes, and reached deep into his soul. He reached the outer edge of his soul, which was a green tinge hazy mist.

The soul would be as strong as the person, and the deeper you went in, the stronger it would be.

Since Aeollus didn’t even know a first layer attack, the outer layer was extremely weak, only being the basics. If he were to sacrifice this part of his soul for now, at most, only a foundation level attack would come out, which wasn’t all that useful to him.

He wished that he could form techniques using something like this, but the soul didn’t give you techniques for sacrificing it, only attacks.

While he was searching in his soul, the dagger in his stomach went out, along with some of his guts.

*BLEGH*

Aeollus vomited, but was still trying desperately.

Finally, he realized that his soul had turned into a yellow tinge, which he assumed was the mid-layer. Since his body was weak, this would at most summon a first layer attack, but only if he was lucky. It was only a bit of an upgrade from the outer layer of his soul.

He kept moving deeper and deeper, until he finally reached the center of his soul. Even though he was weak, the center of any soul would at least guarantee a first layer attack, and that applied to everyone. Although, the sacrifice at the center would be the biggest, and there were higher chances of getting a really bad side effect here.

He absorbed some of the orange tinge mist, and sent it flowing through his arm. He could feel something throughout his whole body dimming, which was probably his soul.

“Wait… something’s going on with your body!”

Klatra yelled out loud, realizing something was off while backing off.

“Since I’ve already sacrificed some of my soul, you’re not getting away now!”

Yelled Aeollus in a determined tone, while chasing after him to put an end to his life.

Attacks from the soul would not have an affinity with anything such as wind, fire, or other elements. Instead, just a hazy mist tinged in whatever part of your soul it came from would appear, and the hazy mist would have some sort of power.

The power it released would feel like a fist was hitting a person in the foundation layer, so he wondered how it felt as a first layer attack?

As Aeollus released the hazy mist to chase after Klatra, he immediately backed up and left the mist handle it, while trying his hardest just to stay awake, as he still had injuries.

‘This is my final attack… if this fails, this just means it was as far as I could go’ went through Aeollus’s head, as his whole body realized this was an all or nothing situation.

As the hazy mist approached Klatra, he tried to deflect it with his own first layer attack, which was a mere fireball, while using his first layer technique to dissappear from everyone’s eyes.

Surprisingly, the hazy mist went right through the fireball, not being affected by it at all and continued to go towards Klatra, even though he had disappeared from the human eye.

In truth, the technique he learned did not allow invisibility. All the technique taught him was a breathing and foot pattern that would force the human eye to not notice his body, but it couldn’t fool the hazy mist as he literally looked like a monkey jumping around to it.

*AHHHHHHH*

The hazy mist hit him head on, and he released a toe-curling scream. His whole left side of the body was extremely mangled, and only his right side was somewhat ok, except for some toes and fingers that fell off.

“STOP THE PAIN, STOP IT!”

Klatra yelled out loud, truly seeking some way to stop this.

Meanwhile, Aeollus had slumped to the ground, and was about to faint. The blood loss was extreme to him, and losing his guts didn’t exactly benefit him.

One of the rules of the Arena was that as soon as someone fainted or got knocked out, that would count as a loss, but it was a way to escape death. The only way to still die if you got knocked out or fainted was if your opponent were to still attack you, or if you did it on purpose, which the rules did not allow.

Aeollus truly couldn’t hang on any longer, and closed his eyes to sleep.

--- Sequence 2 ---

Aeollus woke up, back in his cell. He tried to sit up, but he felt a blasting pain down near his stomach.

He looks down, and realizes that the hole where his guts were coming out from were closed, and there was no bloody sight, but it still hurt terribly.

“This… how did the battle turn out?” wondered Aeollus, as he truly had no news as to how it turned out.

“Youngin, you were the first to faint, so you lost the battle and were returned here. The guards didn’t even bother to patch you up, and left you to die. You’re lucky I’m such a nice man and helped you out.” said the old geezer who was always across from him, while winking at him.

‘So I lost? Not only did I sacrifice some of my soul, though it may be temporary, I also had my guts falling out, yet I still lost…’ muttered Aeollus in his head, truly disappointed at how this turned out.

“Oi geezer, do I still get to keep your second layer attack?” asked Aeollus, wishing to know if he still had a chance to cultivate what was on the parchment.

“Youngin, I’ve learned that attack long ago, so it’s no longer of use to me. Besides, I’ve already read one of the books you gave me fully, so I can’t just take it back with only me benefitting and you getting nothing.” said the geezer, allowing Aeollus to keep the parchment.

“Thank you old geezer, I’ll learn this attack and reach into the top five hundred!” yelled Aeollus, with a wistful look in his eye, truly regretting the end of the battle.

Suddenly, out of nowhere, a purple liquid dropped in front of him, and on it were words.

He remembered that in the book he read about sacrificing the soul, the side effect would be shown to him through some outside force. This purple liquid seemed to be it.

The liquid began to spread out through the floor, enlarging the words on it.

However, as soon as Aeollus set his eyes on the words that came with it, he was flabbergasted at them. The words said something that would forever cut off his future, stopping his rise to glory.

The purple liquid stated this very sentence:

THE RISE THROUGH CULTIVATION WILL CEASE HERE, YOU ARE NO LONGER ALLOWED TO CULTIVATE ABOVE THE THIRD LAYER

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ABOUT ME

Name: Abdul Kareem

Age: 13 (Almost 14)

Occupation: Middle school

Goal: Idk, I’m just making a novel for now

Location: Why would I say that?

Relations: I’m not married (duh)

Anyway, as a side note, this is my first novel I’ve ever tried writing. Thanks for being with me on this first experience!