“Now, let’s start!” Lyriss shouted cheerfully as water gathered besides her, forming into an enormous blossom. “As you should know, the beginning of the tournament starts with the first species to lose their dungeon in the last world.”
Behind her the blossom began to change, the petals glowing in a myriad of color. “As today’s guests,” she paused a moment, trying to make things more dramatic, “we have the goblins, along with their dungeon monsters.”
Shouts rang out from the audience, screaming things like ‘not again’, ‘just kill them off already’ or ‘waste of time’. The mermaid took a sullen expression in return, her voice laden with faked sadness.
“I know how you’re feeling. I was also quite saddened to hear about them returning so quickly, especially after their last lord was so eager to create a safe haven for them, even though his strength was barely enough to survive here.
In his struggle he even entered the tournament, only for his species to be eliminated at the very beginning once more.” With the last words all hints of sadness left her voice, replaced by pure bliss. “And you all know what follows the second failure in a row.” She bent forward, lifting her hand towards her ears, inciting the audience to answer.
Gleefully roaring, those who enjoyed the demise of others began to shout. “Battle for Life! Battle for Life!” But there were also those whose expression darkened, fearing the loss of another race.
“That’s right,” her body straightened up once more as she linked her hands, tilting her head slightly to wink at the audience while smiling. Behind her the blossom lost her glowing ambience, turning darker as the petals were tinged in tones of red, brown, grey and pitch black.
“Now then, shall we see what awaits them in their last moments?”
“Yeaaah!”
“Alright!” She jumped up, twirling around towards the blossom. She bent forwards, inciting another few to give her precarious looks as she blew towards the blossom. Petal after petal ripped off, disintegrating into nothingness, all until a last one was left, glowing in a vermillion color.
“Damn, a miss! Still enough for those guys though.” A shout of disappointment rang out.
“That’s not a nice thing to say.” Lyriss scolded the shouter, but the playfulness in her voice let everyone guess that she didn’t mean it. “Well then, let’s see how they fare.” The darkness beneath her rippled, revealing the chosen stage.
My head hurt, throbbing with each second. Opening my eyes, I saw a red sky glaring down on me, its light blindingly bright.
“Gather around! Stay together or die alone!”
Shouts rang out from somewhere near, but I couldn’t care less about them right now. As I tried move sharp pain rang through my body. I held my hand before my mouth, starting to cough heavily, blood spilling onto it only to sizzle immediately, crumbling of in dry specks.
“What about the murderer?” Another shout rang out, this one far nearer than the other.
“Leave him be. His majesty told us to honor those who fight for their species. Even in his death he shall live on in our hearts, along with his teachings.”
“But he killed so many of us!”
“I said leave him be!” He roared out. “He’s going to die either way. If his injuries don’t get to him the stage will do the rest.”
The voice near me clicked his tongue, after which I only heard footsteps rushing away. Did it mean me? My head began to throb once more, blocking out every thought that could have come. I closed my eyes as the sky only aggravated my headache, though the light still glared at me through my eyelids.
But I couldn’t rest, shouts and screams disrupting any chance at sleep, the earth trembling beneath me, sending even more jolts of pain through my body. “Fuck off.” I cursed at nothing in particular, enraged with the situation altogether, but something seemed to take it personal.
As the light receded, I opened my eyes once more, staring at a worm at least ten foot in diameter and who knows how long. There were no eyes or anything remotely discernible as an organ that would allow it to perceive its surroundings. Still I could feel it looking down at me, the only opening, a gaping maw filled with rows of pointed teeth, fixed at me. As if that wasn’t enough insect like arms made their way out of it, ending in sharp blades that were bending my way.
“Stay away, you disgusting thing.”
It didn’t seem to like my words as one of the claws pushed downwards, stabbing towards my face. Tilting it lightly towards the side the claw barely scratched my cheek, easily sinking into whatever I was lying upon. Lifting my hand, I grabbed the chitinous appendage.
Before my eyes fire crawled upon it, making it scream in terror as I looked at it bewildered. It tried to pull away, but my grip was steady, making it wiggle around without a place to run to.
Realizing that it wouldn’t shake me off that easily more of the insectoid arms rushed downward, trying to stab my body all over. A circle flashed through my mind, energy flowing out of my body to form it, creating a translucent barrier which stopped the claws dead in their tracks.
The fire from the ablaze claw instead passed freely, continuing onwards as it made its way to the maw, the monster panicking as it felt a part of its body burning without any sign of stopping. It made up its mind and the burning appendance stopped moving before it fell down, cut off to stop the fire from advancing any further.
As the burned end of it fell down beside me the worm lifted itself upwards, once again allowing the light to glare into my eyes, blinding me momentarily. While I felt another throb in my head, clouding my already hazy consciousness even further, the cry let out by the worm didn’t make it any better by threatening to burst my eardrums.
There’s no way I’m ever going to rest this way. I pushed my hand into the ground, trying to stand up only for it to give out beneath me, making me roll over. Another shock ran through my body as every inch of it started hurt once more. “Fuck!”
I fell face first downwards into the ground, tasting small iron-like grains. This time, pushing both hands into it, I lifted myself up from the ground, realizing that I laid on sand all this time. Red sand, discolored by blood.
I tried to stand up, my legs shaking as if I was a young fowl, walking for the first time. But before I could take a look around another outburst rang out behind me. Turning around I saw the worm, its mouth wide open as it tried to swallow me whole, the first row of teeth already passing by.
“Don’t you fucking dare.” Cursing it I lifted my arm. I saw things I wish I never would again, before my vision was distorted by the heat, not making it better in the progress. Then the fire started to ravage, blocking out everything with its white-golden hue. Green liquid sprayed towards me, nearly giving me another thing to regret, before it evaporated quickly.
When the fire faded everything went silent. In front of my eyes was the rest of the worm, still twitching around, spraying the green goo everywhere as its insides melted down. Now, together with my headache, I started to develop a serious nausea as the sickeningly smell reached me.
I felt the worms staring at me, along with some green-skinned fellows, but I just held a hand at my head, trying to stop myself from throwing up without even caring about why I knew how to control these flames or why they didn’t burn me. Silently they waited for my next move.
“Listen here, bastards. I have a serious headache, no idea where I am or even why I’m here. I just want to get some rest while trying to remember anything so stay the fuck away from me.”
The silence stayed for another moment, before a cacophony of cries rang out, the worms ignoring the green things as the rushed towards me. I sighed. “Of course, they don’t listen.”
