7.5

“Madelyn the Conqueror thus told the city of Var'Ah'Bwek: “Surrender, don’t make me come over there and burn you to the ground.”

To which Var’Ah’Bwek responded by sending her a torch.” - Excerpt from the Historia

The golden barriers slammed down around us, pushing everyone away. Crudely house shaped, it trapped me inside with the monk. The secret I Kept was still the Scales, and with it I could see something odd happening. All my accumulated fortune and karma was disappearing, quickly throwing me back into balance. Nearby dimensions flashed around us in a blur. The World was staying still as he activated numerous buffs on himself. Harden Hide, Ability Boost, Bear’s Endurance, Body Strengthening, and Tower Stance were all quickly yelled out.

Bounding steps rushed towards me. Yellow was a bit slow, in an active combat encounter, it couldn’t relay information to me fast enough.

The World entered the range of my manasense.

Immediately the ground erupted with Poison Spores, but that did little to stop him as he slammed a fist into my gut. The changing scenery around us stopped for a moment as I flew. Far farther than he expected. I slammed into the ground rolling before coming to a stop. As I went, I activated all the Sporages in my path.

Coughing and leaning on my staff, I stood back up.

“Swamp Domain,” I muttered, and a small bit of my mana drained. The flashing scenery around us stabilised and my feet sank several inches into the ground. It took a moment of looking, but I found a suitable environment to summon with Fairy Circle.

“What the hell?” I heard him yell. Splashing as he tried to move around in the changed terrain.

“Yellow, you know what to do,” I whispered, letting the wisps leap down my back.

Nothing could be seen outside the range of my manasense, but I didn’t need sight. Listening, I focused on the water splashing as the World moved.

“Poison Spores.” Stepping back as I threw the spell, my senses searched my surroundings. I had mined the entire area with Sporages, each a trap buried underneath. They remained when Fairy Circle activated, some of them were even making the circle. It turned out that I didn’t need to specifically make a circle, but just connect the mushrooms. Covering an entire area with Sporages was enough to meet the requirement. The only problem was that they were all the visual activation type, as I was afraid of hitting bystanders.

This limited me to activations right in melee range, as I could only see them with my manasenses limited, but detailed range.

More splashes heading right towards me. I threw more Poison Spores, before casting Shillelagh on my staff. This time when he entered my sight I blocked his fist with my staff. Yellow spores exploded around us as I activated the underground Sporages. The World reeled back as Sneezing Spores got into his eyes. Taking the opening, I slammed my staff directly into his head, knocking him off balance as I yelled, “Purple!”

The wisp leapt out of its hiding spot in my clothes, and hit us both with a point blank Rot Spores. Its body disintegrated as the purple spores wormed their way into every crevice, my Bracken Polypores started rotting away from the close proximity. The World was suffering as well, his skin turning purple and rotting away.

But it wasn’t enough.

“Hah! You should find that my Constitution is more than enough to resist such effects!” he yelled as he threw his fist. “Heavy Blow!”

I met it with my Shillelagh, but the force of the fist dislodged me again, throwing me back.

“You are abnormally light,” the World commented as he grabbed me by the collar.

“Downsides of my race,” I replied as I grabbed his arm, and casted another point blank Rot Spores.

“Shit!” he yelled as a large chunk of his arm rotted. Pieces of it plonked into the water, followed shortly by my fingers.

That left me almost out of mana.

The World let me go and stomped down on me. Heavy Blow after Heavy Blow rained down on me, cracking my armour.

I responded by activating the Sporages underground, but that wasn’t enough. Holding me in place, he kept beating me into the ground and I responded by covering us with Sneezing and Poison Spores. It was a DPS race, one that I lost as my Bracken Polypores and Bark Skin fully cracked to reveal the bare skin underneath. I lost focus on Fairy Circle, and the arena around us turned to normal. The mud stains bleeding away back to their reality.

“Do you yield?” he yelled with his fist held high.

I looked bloody, ichor running down multiple bruises. He didn’t look much better, Rot Spores had sloughed large portions of his skin off, his right arm was missing several chunks. All his wounds were covered in green spores and his eyes teared from the Sneezing Spores.

“You put up a good fight my man!” The World congratulated, “But you aren’t a match for your lizardfolk friend.”

“You fought Utoqa?” I heard my voice croak out.

“I did, and I lost,” he answered with what appeared to be pride. “He defeated me due to my weakness, but I don’t have that here. Your poison build isn’t suited against me.”

“It doesn’t have to be,” I replied. “Are you aware of what a dust explosion is?”

A moment of incomprehension appeared on his face, a single moment of pause.

“Summon Wisps.”

Four wisps were called upon by my spell. I only needed one of them, the fire wisp. And it lit up all the spores I had been spreading.

A massive explosion rocked me, searing my flesh. I was at least somewhat insulated, being on the floor, however the World was fully thrown away, his entire body burning. Quickly I rolled on the ground to put out my own flames, before I stood up. My entire body was beaten and burned.

“The moment I saw you lay down your domain, I came up with this plan,” I told him. “An enclosed space where I don’t have to worry about collateral. Where I could freely spread my spores.”

He looked up at me. His hair had been seared off by the fire, and his wounds were charred horribly.

“In exchange for this, you have fully drained my mana,” I said. “However, that is not a problem, Greenie.”

And the wisp peeked out underneath my cap, climbing to stand on top of it. Without another word, it sprayed Poison Spores towards the wounded World.

The monk groaned, he rolled to the side, dodging the cloud.

He stood up, still within my manasense range. “I made the same mistake of hesitation.”

He suddenly yelled, “Do not fight him, he is still mine!”

The barriers dropped.

One of his arms hung uselessly, but that wasn’t a problem for him as he rushed me. Wounds slowed him down, but that was true for me as well. His remaining arm grappled and slammed me into the ground. Greenie exploded into more spores, covering both of us in poison. Pain wormed its way into my entire body. The sun was out, and it was glaring down at me. My armour had long been stripped from me, so I was bared to its cruel light as I felt myself weaken.

“Celine,” I silently murmured.

My strength and mana surged back.

“Rot Spores!” I yelled.

The cloud of purple spores exploded out. The World almost dodged, but his leg stopped as it was held down by silvery threads.

As ordered, Yellow had delivered pieces of the World’s rotted arm to Celine the moment the barriers fell.

The spores ripped through the both of us. What flesh was left on our skeletal frames fully sloughed off. The World collapsed, barely more than a skeleton that was already dissipating into light.

“If this was a fair fight, I would’ve lost no matter my tricks,” I murmured.

A melee fighter with strong body stats, he was almost my complete counter, my spores did very little to him. While my Fungal Body granted me Bludgeoning Resistance, allowing me to shrug off most of his hits, he had more than enough health to make it a slog of us trading hits and wearing each other down. I would’ve lost, I ran out of mana far faster than he ran out of aura.

“So it was a good thing that what we agreed to was a fight ‘using all means’.”

There wasn’t a lot of leeway with my skill for true fuckery, it required agreement without duress by all parties. But it wasn’t my fault if he didn’t read it properly.

The fight also could’ve gone better, if I had more time I could’ve finally swapped my secret away from the Scales. Any one of the others were more useful. Glancing upwards, I saw that I was perfectly in balance. Was it spent to ensure my win? No, it had completely evened out before the fight.

My fortune was spent on the opportunity to fight the World under my own terms, with my own contract, but not on victory. That was mine alone.

The World was a significant threat. This was obvious now that I’ve fought him. His build almost perfectly countered mine, and perfectly countered Noam. He could’ve forced Noam into a one on one situation where his numerous buffs could not take effect. Then defeating him with his own superior stats. Similarly, if he isolated me, I wouldn’t be able to play to my strengths in a large group encounter.

He had lost against Utoqa, but that wasn’t a surprise. Their builds were similar, isolating Utoqa with his barrier wouldn’t have done much compared to Noam and I.

And now I had a contract on him.

My knees gave out, and I fell to the ground. Sun Sickness was a more dangerous racial trait than I realised. This was the first time I had a serious fight under the sun, and once my armour was broken off I weakened quickly. It effectively limited my durability to whatever my armour could endure. I reached for my staff, and found the thing carved with numerous eyes right beside my hand. It was not there before.

Steps hastened towards me. I could barely see who, my manasense was shutting down. But I had a good enough idea.

The enemy Travellers were trying to capture me alive. Metal shackles clattered, iron undoubtedly. That might trigger the World’s contract, but an eye for an eye wasn’t enough here.

“Celine, sneak out the church, link up with Tai and Johnny, this has exceeded our capability. Use Noam to contact me, I’ll be respawning elsewhere,” I murmured.

“We just abandon them?” I heard her whisper.

“They aren’t attacking the church directly. It shall remain safe for them. We need to regroup, far too many of our cards have been shown today. That monk has been removed as a threat, but the rest of them remain dangerous,” I said before I casted Rot Spores on myself.

You have died.

I woke up on the respawn island.

It had been a while since I was here. Checking the timer, it would almost be an hour before I respawned. The Wayshard was undoubtedly locked down by the enemy, so I could not return to the city proper. I had to respawn somewhere else. A few minutes later Noam confirmed that Celine had gotten out, to which I took a deep breath and logged off.