Merrick has a huge smile on his face as he faces us. “I’ll give you guys a few minutes to recover while I warm up and explain the rules.” He starts doing light exercises and stretches. “To make this a somewhat fair fight, I won’t be using any external skills or mana to fight you. The rules for winning have also changed. You lose if I take this from you.” He takes out two black strips of cloth and hands them to us. We attach them to our waists so that a firm pull removes them. “All you have to do is last ten minutes to win, or draw blood. And don’t worry about lethality. You guys couldn’t kill me if you wanted to.”
Daniel and I look at each other and nod. A mutual understanding passes between us as he takes the forward position and I step back behind him. I start creating mana projectiles, making them as sharp as I can without applying a spatial edge. Next, I start making a teleport spell with three potential exit rifts and keep it primed. I push more mana into [Concentration] and start adding a hidden rift to my potential teleport locations.
After about two minutes of preparation, Merrick stands up straight and faces us. He doesn’t use any skill or release any mana, but when his eyes lock onto us this time, something is different. A shiver runs up my spine, and my heart starts rapidly beating faster as my fight-or-flight instincts kick in, telling me to run and to do it fast. In response I push [Concentration] as much as I can, getting back to a clear and focused state of mind.
I see that Daniel is also affected by whatever it is, but he’s seemingly able to just endure it as he keeps on preparing projectiles and storing them in his pockets.
After a few more moments, Merrick speaks to us. “That should be enough time, ready?”
Daniel and I give him a nod in response, and he just continues smiling at us. Daniel and I are both watching him like a hawk until finally, Merrick takes a step forward. His steps are easily the fastest I’ve ever seen, and he reaches Daniel in just a moment using only the power of his body. His fist is aimed for Daniel’s gut but slams into the shield that gets in the way just in time, sending Daniel backwards a few feet before he comes to a stop. I launch a few of my projectiles at him through a rift, which causes him to dodge backwards and give Daniel some space.
Daniel launches a shot of his own, to which Merrick just sidesteps. I create a column of gravity going up and float up to about ten feet in the air before I stabilize myself. I start creating and launching more mana projectiles, sending some through rifts at varying distances while some get sent straight at him instead. All of them miss as he starts running again, easily outpacing my attempts to hit him.
He reaches Daniel again in a flurry of movement, but when he gets in range, his foot sinks deeper into the sand, up to his knee. He looks down at his trapped foot and then back to Daniel, the smile never leaving his face. “Good move. I didn’t even sense it.” He says.
Four of my rifts pop into place around Merrick. Each of them has several projectiles flying through them with the absolute maximum power I can output. I see Daniel launch two projectiles of his own as well, the sonic booms echoing in the domed arena. A burst of sand flies into the air around Merrick just before the shots hit, and when it settles enough to see him, I realize that this strategy won’t work.
Merrick stands over a small crater where his foot used to be stuck. In his hands are both of Daniel’s projectiles, while all of mine lie in the sand around him. His clothes have holes where our attacks clearly landed, but his skin underneath holds no blemishes or any indication of damage at all. We’ll never pierce his skin like this. It’s probably tougher than any of the monsters we’ve fought so far.
A new plan starts to form in my head, one that should guarantee our victory, at least for one of us. I start to shape a javelin, pushing mana into a four-foot-long pole and making a point on one end. I use [Concentration] and [Space Control] to make it as dense and sturdy as possible while also adding a spatial edge to the point, pushing all my skills as far as they will go.
Merrick sees what I’m doing and switches his target to me with an excited smile on his face. He primes one of the metal darts in his hand and throws it at me like a baseball pitcher, the force behind it many times that of what even the best pitchers could hope to achieve. The dart whistles as it flies toward me, but a small flex of [Space Control] to warp space causes it to veer off target and crash into the barrier, falling back to the sand.
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Merrick's next step takes him halfway to me, who he is still locked on to, but he stops and is forced to dodge before he gets to me from several sand spears that appear in his way. He could just run through those without issue. He’s clearly just toying with us.
Daniel manages to catch up to Merrick and reengage him in melee, trying to take the initiative this time. I can feel Daniel’s mana soaking the sand around him, constantly making his footing more secure while making Merrick’s worse, and it seems to be helping him. He never manages to land a swing on Merrick, but he does keep him busy for about a dozen seconds, enough time for me to finish my current attack.
[Concentration], [Space Control], and [Mana Shaping] are all being pushed to their absolute limits for this one attack. A trickle of blood starts to drip from my nose as the pressure in my mind is nearly too much to handle, but I only need to do one more thing. Daniel and Merrick disengage from each other for a second, and Merrick looks in my direction with curiosity during the lull in the fight. I start building up a huge burst of gravity, pushing [Gravity Shift] as far as I can.
[You have leveled up multiple active skills]
[Concentration] lvl 17
[Space Control] lvl 23
[Mana Shaping] lvl 22
[Gravity Shift] lvl 7 > [Gravity Shift] lvl 9
Our eyes meet just before I launch the attack, and in that moment Merrick understands my objective and immediately moves to grapple Daniel in an attempt to stop me, but it’s too late. My portal underneath Daniel opens and causes him to fall through just before Merrick's hands can get around his ribbon. My attack launches next, not aiming for my opponent, but rather in the opposite direction, at the dome that’s keeping us locked in here. This fight has only lasted about a minute at this point. We’ll never survive another nine. This plan has a much higher chance of succeeding.
My javelin flies through the air and reaches the dome in just a fraction of a second thanks to the speed I launched it at, the spatial edge meeting the barrier with a flash of mana. I worry for a second that the barrier will hold up to the attack, but my fears are proved unfounded as my javelin punches through the barrier after meeting fairly heavy resistance. The barrier around the impact cracks, and a decently sized hole is made in it. It starts to repair and reconfigure itself almost instantly.
Due to how fast the barrier is closing and how fast Merrick is charging at us, I only have time for one teleport before he reaches us, so I lay my hand on Daniel’s shoulder and try something new. I use [Space Control] to target Daniel and myself and start making a teleport spell, the same as I always do, just bigger and a little more stable.
Even through all of the sand spears and traps Daniel put in his way, Merrick still somehow makes it to me just as the teleport goes off, grabbing my left arm and pulling hard. I just stop the enchantments that hold it secure to my stump and let him keep it as the teleport brings Daniel and me just outside the barrier. Daniel falls to his knees and pukes from the disorientation of teleporting.
Merrick is still in the arena. Only now he’s laughing. I can’t hear it due to the barrier, but it’s safe to say he didn’t expect that when he challenged us. He looks at me through the barrier and continues to laugh as he holds up both of his hands, showing ten fingers. He then starts lowering them, as if he’s counting down.
“We need to leave.” I say to the still puking Daniel. “We still have like eight and a half minutes.”
I snap a portal into place and usher Daniel through it, appearing on a city street. A few seconds later a loud cracking sound comes from the direction of the Baradia compound, which causes me to open another portal, this one even further away.
“Doesn’t this feel like a bitch move?” Daniel asks as we step through the eighth portal in about a minute.
I’ve since lessened the amount of [concentration] on my mind, giving it some sort of rest, at least until Merrick finds us. “The bitchiest of all moves. But I’m a space mage. There’s no fight I can't run away from.”
After a few minutes we decide to sit down at a nearby restaurant’s outdoor seating to finish off the challenge. We’re halfway across the city by now. We should be safe for the last three minutes. After we order from the waiter, Daniel and I keep a vigilant watch on our surroundings for our hunter.
As the time left reaches about a minute, both of us visibly relax some but still keep a lookout. I have several teleports primed and ready to go just in case he shows up. A kid walking by drops his ball, and it rolls under Daniel’s chair next to me. Before I can grab the ball for the kid, he’s already on the ground retrieving it, so I ignore him. As the kid stands up, I feel a slight tug on my waist and look down. The kid is holding both of our ribbons with a smile on his face.
“You lose!” he says in the mocking tone that gloating kids love to use.
Merrick then walks out of a nearby alley and up to the kid, taking the ribbons as Daniel and I look at each other with humor in our eyes.
“It would be something stupid like that.” Daniel says.
I shrug my shoulders and sigh. “It’s us who are the stupid ones. We should have just hidden on the roof of some building.”
“Agreed, but it wouldn’t have helped you much. You should have fled the city or kept moving.” He sits down at the table with us. “Anyway, I heard you're taking my sister out on a date?” He says in a serious tone right after dropping his trademark grin and looking me in the eyes.