A few dozen minutes later, we found out that we would be competing against Karon and X in the final match of the category.

The organizers of the tournament were generous enough to give us all an hour-long break after Karon’s battle ended, so by the time we were supposed to go back out there, Cerion would have healed from most of his internal and external wounds. It was impressive how effective the liberal use of potions could be. Not as impressive as healing skills, but still.

After the match had ended and the adrenaline left my body, I had fallen unconscious from the excessive blood loss. Dark form revived me a few minutes later, though, so I had nothing to worry about going into the finale.

“How are you feeling?” I asked my partner, who was lying on a stretcher, covered in bandages.

“Like a sack of shit. Still, I’ll recover in time for the match, don’t worry.”

“That’s not what I’m worried about, though.”

Cerion sighed.

“I’m fine, Arthur. Stop acting like everyone but you is made of glass.” he replied frustratedly.

I lifted my hands in surrender and left him to his grumbling. To be fair, what he had said hadn’t been wrong. I did need to work on that. There’s always something to work on these days.

~scene transition~

“Dear people of Roa and visitors from abroad, in a moment, the first finale of the tournament will take place! It’s the first of the nine categories, the tier 2 doubles finale! Whichever team of two wins this match will prove that they are the strongest tier 2 duo in the kingdom, and will receive a prize worthy of such a title!”

“Please welcome our competitors, team A3 and team A2! These teams are destined rivals! On one side, [Oil neomancer] Karon and his mysterious partner, the [Faceless] X! This duo uses their broad versatility and impressive dynamic teamwork to play to their own strengths! Karon’s surprisingly powerful oil-based skills allow him to trap and burn opponents before they even see it coming. X’s stealth and speed make him a dangerous opponent to ignore! He had used his well-practiced skills to knock many other contestants out of the tournament.”

“On the other side, we have [Tidal swordsman] Cerion Rass and his partner, [Overloading Death Knight] Arthur! Their team has overwhelming prowess in every category! Cerion’s powerful ranged attacks can take opponents out of the match in one blow, and Arthur’s unique disposition makes him near impossible to defeat!”

“I can honestly say that this generation's finalists are the strongest to enter this stage in the past 50 years!

Please applaud our competitors one final time, everyone!”

As the lengthy announcement finished, my blood was starting to boil from the excitement. On one hand, I felt like Arcellus would have been a more climatic opponent to face in the finale, but on the other, I felt like the doubles tournament should have two proper teams as finalists, not ‘one and a half of a team’, like Arcellus’ had been.

Before the match, Cerion and I had agreed to go for Karon first. He had the most diverse powerset and was the one that gave X commands. With some luck, X’s own tactical prowess was underdeveloped, meaning that his battlestrength would be crippled as well if Karon was out of the picture.

“PEOPLE OF ROA, ARE YOU READY TO RUMBLE?!!!”

The crowd cheered in reply, the stadium practically shaking in excitement.

“3…2…1…START!”

As the signal to start was given, time seemed to slow down. For a moment, I heard my breath and noticed the rhythmic thumping of my heartbeat. I felt my feet dig into the dirt as I leaned forward and activated my aura step, catapulting myself across the arena.

Time sped up again, my surroundings flashing by as I flew through the air. I saw X draw two daggers and prepare to defend, but he wasn’t my target. I made a foothold in the air and stomped down on it. The resulting explosion almost mangled my leg, but it healed in just a few moments. More importantly, it redirected my momentum to the left, sending me at the arena’s wall, where I repeated the process and launched myself at Karon from his side. Finally, I drew my sword mid-flight, and swung it horizontally.

I saw Karon’s eyes twist in panic and his mouth move as he told X something. I couldn’t make out what he had said, but it didn’t matter. Karon moved to erect a shield of oil from the ground, but it was too slow to stop me from passing.

Before he knew it, I was on top of him. Before I knew it, a deep gash appeared on my shoulder, causing me to falter. The sudden loss of muscle strength caused my swing to go off target and narrowly miss Karon.

I flew past him and turned my body, using my feet to stop my momentum, leaving trails of dirt where they had dug into the ground. I felt my shoulder’s flesh knit itself back to my torso, and assessed the situation. That wound had been left by X, but I hadn’t even seen him move. Sure, I could see him now, but either his movement itself had been too fast for me to react to, or he had turned invisible during it.

The next attack was made by Cerion, who launched a giant pressurized water ball at Karon. This would be impossible for X to stop, but he didn’t need to, because Karon summoned another dome of oil around himself, while X just disappeared. The water ball surged into the dome, but had no effect, unfortunately. It exploded and created a giant splash, but Karon’s barrier remained standing.

I went out a few sword arcs to test the robustness of his defenses, which actually succeeded, this time. The bubble of oil collapsed the moment my strike made contact, revealing that it’s mana wasn’t that stable.

Karon cursed and summoned three globs of black tar, before throwing it in our general direction. We dodged, but the pool of oil left behind started to spread and burn, limiting our movement. Smoke started to spread in the arena, limiting our vision as well.

X disappeared again, so I readied my sword to block any incoming strikes. A moment later, I heard a pained groan from Cerion’s direction, causing me to grimace. X had dug one of his daggers into Cerion’s left shoulder, causing it to hang limply at his side. He had given as good as he had gotten through, because X was trapped in a bubble of water himself.

I took this chance and charged at Karon, sending sword arcs as I ran, which he hastily defended himself from. Several newly erected barriers of oil sprung up, each blocking one attack, sometimes not even that. Similarly to Cerion, he tried to escape by jumping on a surge of oil, but I cut that off, too.

“Is that it?” I taunted.

“Shut up, you monster!” he shouted back desperately.

Just before I managed to land a strike on Karon himself, I heard Cerion shout in a panic.

“Arthur, incoming!”

Before I could turn around, I saw a dagger pierce through my gut. The tip of the blade pierced through my skin, poking out of my stomach.

I grinned. This was exactly what I had wanted. I took my greatsword and stabbed it through my body, right next to the dagger’s wound. I heard a pained grunt from behind me, letting me know I had succeeded, and withdrew my weapon as I felt the dagger leave my body.

I turned around and saw X holding his bloody side. It didn’t look like a serious wound, but I had achieved my purpose. I had activated my [Curse mark(guide)] as I had stabbed into him, which meant that he had nowhere to run. His invisibility wouldn’t save him.

The next few minutes turned into an all-out brawl, with hardly any tactics involved. I stayed on X’s case, so he couldn’t take out Cerion, while my partner tried to face the flighty Karon in close quarters.

Everytime X disappeared, I sent sword arcs in a circle around me, which homed in on his general position as he moved, leaving him unable to aim for me or Cerion. When he wasn’t running, I littered the arena with overloaded orbs, which caused the terrain to turn into a giant pit. The burning oil didn’t help much, but at least it boxed in our opponents as much as it did us.

In the end, the constant mana use became too much for X and he fell out of his invisible state mid-movement. His cursed wound drew in all of my ranged attacks forcefully. After an onslaught of attacks, only X’s mangled, unconscious body was left. It was teleported to the medbay moments later.

Karon, who I was starting to call ‘Karon the coward’ in my head, didn’t take this development well.

“That useless servant is already out?!” he screeched, as he ducked under one of Cerion’s water spears.

“Don’t think you’ll get rid of me so easily!”

He lifted both hands to the sky and made a giant black ball of oil, which burned like a black sun. Then, he heaved as he lifted an imaginary object into the sky, sending the black ball, the size of a house flying into the sky.

We stared at it in wonder for a moment, before the ball blew up, setting the sky adobe the arena on fire.

Then, flaming balls of oil started to rain down to the arena like a heavy downpour. Everywhere, the oil spread and set the earth on fire. Cerion created a bubble of water around himself, to walk over the flames, and I thought I could just ignore the heat, since it was nothing compared to Arcellus’.

Unfortunately, the heat turned out not to be the main point of the attack, because Karon cackled as he dove into the oil and disappeared.

Randomly, he shot out of the oil like a mole, sending dozens of flaming balls of oil at us every time he did so. Either his mana capacity was really large, or he was regenerating mana while in the oil. I tried to send overloaded orbs at the oil to destroy it, but the empty patches were quickly refilled by the rain of fireballs that was still forcing us to dodge left and right.

Cerion screamed in anger.

“I’m fucking sick and tired of being USELESS!” he shouted, before a massive wave of water carried him into the air. The wave spread to all sides of the round arena, carrying so much mana that my [Weak mana sense] picked up on the powerful skill.

I had to brace myself as Cerion released control over the water and let the wave cascade onto the arena, crashing into everything that stood in its path.

The water covered all of the oil and I had to swim to the surface to get some air, because the newly created lake had filled up the arena. As I breached the surface of the water, I heard Karon desperately trying to stay afloat.

“You damn.. guh i-ingrate! Get . rid of this w-water!”

Cerion wasn’t impeded by his element. He surged out of the water and covered Karon in a whirling ball, trapping him in a water prison.

He clutched at his throat, unable to breathe.

“Give up. You’ve lost.” Cerion said.

From his face, it was clear Karon wasn’t about to agree to that proposal. Cerion sent out some spears of water and slammed them into Karon’s immobile form, finally knocking him unconscious, causing his body to be teleported away.

As the water flowed out of the arena, I heard the announcement of our victory.

“And that’s it, folks! The winners of the Tier 2 doubles tournament have been decided! Team A3 dominated the second round, overcoming various teams, ambushes and challenges. In the third round, they either overwhelmed or outlasted their opponents, proving their resilience and perseverance! They have more than earned their victory! Please congratulate Arthur and Cerion on their incredible performance!”

Cerion was still breathing heavily from the exhaustion, and it looked like that last attack hadn't been wholly intentional, because he was staring listlessly at the sky. I walked up to him and put my arm around his shoulders.

“Look alive, partner! We fucking won!” I said with a bright smile.

Sure enough, he couldn’t withstand my peerless charisma, because he joined me as I screamed at the sky in exuberance.