Path to Transcendence

Julius felt guilty for some reason. He didn’t know if it was his fault, but he might have influenced Aubrey a little bit. He watched as she pushed herself as she fought the shield warrior with a maniacal grin on her face.
Her clones were powerful, but the way she fought kept her constantly in the midst of the chaos. It was a good tactic, but it was also more dangerous than hiding behind her clones. Still, that wasn’t who she was at the end of the day.
She was the type of person who would drop her sword to the ground so that she could pound her fists into her opponent's skull. He tilted his head in, though. Perhaps she was more like him than he initially thought.
Unfortunately for her, this shield warrior was pretty good. He was sneaky fast, especially for someone his size and with his armor. He also had top-tier strength; that shield must have weighed a lot, and he managed to sling it around like it was a dinner plate.
The sheer endurance and healing made him a monster, though. Aubrey couldn’t pin him down; no matter what she hit him with, he kept getting back up. His healing skill didn’t seem to rely on life mana either. As a matter of fact, it almost felt like it was absorbing mana from Aubrey’s attacks to fuel it.
This meant that the more she attacked him with mana, the more he was able to heal. Julius didn’t know if Aubrey had realized this quite yet. However, it seemed like she had come to recognize that physical attacks worked better on him than her prismatic beams.
Of course, fighting a brute like him in close combat wasn’t something that anyone sane would enjoy. He frowned and looked down at himself, trying to ignore the wave of envy racing through his bones. If he was being honest, he wished it had been him fighting the shield warrior instead of her.
The fight kept going on. The swordsman was out of commission, and blood was leaking out of his body like a leaky faucet. The healing potion he had chugged down his throat had barely done a thing for him. Julius still kept an eye out for him in case he wanted to rejoin the fight. He was more than happy to dish out a little more pain on these scumbags.
Aubrey kept on the assault, but she wasn’t able to find a finishing blow. It wasn’t like her attacks were weak either. With her strong, crystal-like skin, her attacks were extremely hard and carried a lot of force.
It was just that the warrior kept on healing whatever damage he accumulated. Was this what it was like fighting himself? Someone who could heal whatever damage their opponents could dish out?
How annoying...
Aubrey was breathing heavily, and he could tell she was starting to get worn out as her endurance gave out. Thankfully, she wasn’t the only one. The shield warrior was showing some signs of exhaustion as well. His armor was taking a beating as well, which was good.
It had become a battle of attrition, and even Julius didn’t know who would come out on top. But he respected Aubrey’s wishes and stood by, letting her deal with it. If she wanted to test herself, he would be more than happy to keep watch.
He made sure nobody snuck up on them. He had found out that there were a bunch of sneaky bastards participating in this tournament. The number of ambushes he had already experienced was crazy.
He kept his perception as expanded as possible, even concentrating on smaller but deeper probes to make sure nobody was waiting outside his area of perception.
Aubrey was still giving it her all; her grunts had progressively gotten louder as she desperately tried to break her opponent. Her use of clones impressed him greatly. She was demonstrating a level of skill that he hadn’t seen from her before. She had gotten a lot stronger in these few months. He was proud of her.
Too bad her opponent was formidable. Julius doubted there would be many people in the tournament who could take this level of punishment. The combination of quality armor, a shield, a strong body, and a healing skill was a difficult combination to deal with. Fortunately, she had already handled the other swordsman before it had drawn out like this. It might have gone very differently if she hadn’t.
She made another good decision to retreat when the warrior suddenly exploded with power. His shield became a hurricane of destruction and tore apart every one of her clones within ten feet of him. She had barely gotten out of the way in time.
While she had one of the more durable bodies he had faced in Tier 3, that last attack had been dangerous. But he smiled when Aubrey realized the same thing as him.
The warrior looked like he was getting nervous; that last attack screamed desperation. It wasted a lot of mana for a whole lot of nothing to show for it.
Aubrey grinned like a wild beast, and it looked like she had found some hidden stamina, pushing herself even harder. She kept on dancing around the warrior, always one step ahead, getting in and out. She made sure the warrior was punished for every overextension or lapse in concentration.
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Finally, after what seemed like forever, Julius noticed a laceration on the guy's face that was not healing.
Aubrey must have thought something similar, because she started committing to her attacks more. The wounds on the warrior began to accumulate, and he could feel her excitement grow.
But he smiled when he felt what she was doing and internally applauded her.
All of her clones started to close in, using sheer numbers to subdue the guy forcibly. Her opponent was being completely suffocated with attacks from all sides. There was no way for him to block everything, and he turtled up desperately trying to survive. However, just as the attacks were reaching a peak, her opponent exploded with aura and mana.
A weird golden field erupted from his core. All of his wounds healed within seconds as the golden light covered his entire body. He suddenly moved way faster than anything he had displayed up to this point.
The golden field also seemed to have some kind of debuffing effect, as well as a lockdown aspect to it. The clones weren’t able to leave the edges of the field. It was like a barrier that kept everyone inside. Aubrey’s clones that had closed in were sent staggering to the ground, and the armored warrior didn’t let his chance slip past him. With his increased speed, he used his shield to slaughter almost all of the clones in the blink of an eye.
His eyes brightened with victory when he snatched Aubrey by the throat. She was the only one who wasn’t as debilitated by his field, which was how Julius suspected he had narrowed down the options.
It was just too bad that the warrior had been played for a fool. The Aubrey that was in the hands of the warrior dissolved into particles of mana, and Julius relished his look of bafflement.
Then he glanced over at the spot where he felt the real Aubrey watching from outside the barrier with a proud smile. She hadn’t fallen for the trap and had successfully baited out the guy’s last-ditch trick.
Not only had she gotten stronger, but she had gotten more cunning as well. However, he wanted to take some credit. He felt like he was partly the reason why she didn’t fall for it. He had already used that particular trick against Aubrey during the days they had sparred for hours on end.
She had quickly learned that just because he didn’t heal a wound, it didn’t mean his healing no longer worked. That experience has paid off big time here.
Julius looked at her opponent, who was gasping for breath, barely holding himself upright, and nodded his head. The fight was over. Julius could barely detect any more healing energy, and each movement of the guy’s mana was strained to the limit, not to mention how tired his body must have been. Even his aura was stretched to the limits.
Julius smiled when Aubrey finally went in for the kill and ripped apart the completely spent warrior.
When she was done, she slouched to the ground with a tired groan, but she was chuckling to herself, happy that she had come out on top. He was delighted as well.
***
Julius walked up to her as she stood over the beaten enemy. It was upon closer inspection that he noticed what had been bothering him ever since he had seen this group of people. The shield warrior also wore a ring that he sensed connected to all four of them. This ring was likely the reason they had been able to find each other and team up so early in the second stage.
He wondered whether it was something truly special or a common enchantment. If it were the latter, he would have been confused why House Zenith didn’t give Derek something similar. It seemed pretty helpful for anyone part of a team. He wished he could have taken it from his body.
Aubrey seemed like she had the same general idea; she was already trying to loot the groaning fellow. However, no matter how hard she tried, the ring wouldn’t come off his busted fingers.
“It won’t work,” he said to her.
“What? What do you mean it won’t work?” She asked in confusion, dropping her hand to the ground.
“I tried it earlier. Apparently, you can’t just steal people’s things.”
“That is dumb.”
“I agree. But I assume they do it to protect anything too valuable hidden in their rings from being stolen,” he pointed out.
“They can always just keep their stuff somewhere else for the tournament,” she scoffed as if that was the most reasonable choice, and to her credit, he agreed with her. However, he also hadn’t done any of that, keeping all of his belongings on his person. He hadn’t even thought about losing or dying in this realm.
While she continued to try to rip the ring from that guy, he went over to the others he had taken care of. Unlike their friend, they weren’t alive. But he wanted to check something either way and let out a sigh of relief when he was right.
Lying on the ground, exactly where he had dealt with the archer, was a glowing white orb. He walked over to it and carefully touched it with his fingers. The orb flashed, and suddenly he was holding two items.
One was a token, exactly like the two he already had. The other item was a pitch black knife. It seemed high-quality, and he carefully examined it. There was a similar energy coming off it that he had sensed from the archer. Something death-related.
Julius wanted to inspect it further, but he put it away into his storage ring and went over to the mage he had imploded. The mage had one of these orbs as well. Julius reached down and touched this orb, curious as to what kind of items it had.
He was somewhat disappointed not to have found a token. All he found was a necklace that emanated ice mana. Julius suspected it was a treasure they had found that helped ice mages.
On the bright side, he already had four tokens. He only needed one more to reach the required amount to undergo the trial.
If Aubrey’s opponents had tokens as well, then she would have three tokens to her name. With several more days to go, they were in a good position. Julius just hoped that he might find some other interesting things along the way. Maybe something that would help develop his flames.
That, or maybe he could come across that mage again. Either way, things would have been fine with him.