MrLux

Hey guys, sorry for the delay, this chapter was longer than expected, literally double the average length I do the chapters, and took longer than expected to finish it.

By the way, next week there won't be a new chapter as my college started this week and is already affecting my sleep schedule and screwing up my energy, meaning I don't have energy to do most stuff, even read I don't have the energy to do. I'll use the time to try to at least write some more chapters so that I can continue to post them when my professors inevitably began spewing homework that counts to my grade like crazy, as they have done last semester

As the human, kobold and goblin trio ran towards the ball that formed in the middle of the room I began running as well, even though I wasn't entirely sure what was happening on the field around me. As we were halfway towards the ball, the kobold and the goblin changed directions and each of them went towards the glowing orbs that spawned on the stone pads. I arrived first on the ball as I was larger and faster than the human.

Now that I was so close to a human, assuming he had the average human height of 1,75 meters and that my perspective and proportions were right, I can safely assume I was as tall as a horse and larger than one. If I calculated it right, I had around 5 meters from head to tail.

Remembering what everyone did during the last game I played, I punched the ball with my paw and cast [Fireball] at the same time, but before the spell could appear in the real world, I picked the magic circuit from my mind and pushed it towards the ball. To my surprise, the magic circuit took form right in front of my paw the moment I willed it there and the next moment it was absorbed inside the ball that caught fire as my punch made it fly above the human, going directly at their goal.

I looked at the ball with a smile as I had actually infused the ball with magic instead of just brute forcing it with raw magicules and mana. Unfortunately my hopes of scoring the first point were crushed as a blue ghost hand suddenly caught the ball in the middle of the air, making it stop just short of their goal.

"Wow. You actually pack a punch, huh?" The goblin said.

As I looked over at him, I saw him standing on the stone pad with glowing hands and by his side another of the ghost blue hand that caught the ball.

Before I could say anything to him, he made a throwing movement, and my eyes went wide as I realized the hands were mimicking his movement. I looked at the ball again just in time to see the hand replicate the throwing movement the goblin did and threw the ball directly at my goal. The ball shot like a missile and flew through the air as if cutting the air resistance to nothing in front of it, increasing yet more its speed.

I jumped while flapping my wings to gain momentum and altitude trying to catch the ball, I even raised my arms over my head trying to stop the ball, but my efforts came to naught as the ball passed over my paws, scratching the tip of my claws as it passed by and hit my goal, exploding in a rainbow mist that vanished seconds later.

The trio came together and high-fived each other. I noticed that the kobold had a floating golden ring over both of his arms. I was about to ask him about it but the ball appeared before I could open my mouth. It appeared in the middle of the air right above them.

I thought about jumping straight at it, but refrained from doing so as the ball was so close to them that they could probably reach it, even though my Earth common sense said it was too high to simply jump there I had already saw that it was possible to jump that high when Amity jumped to the roof of a house from the ground. I wasn't dumb enough to think they couldn't do it, as Amity could.

Well, I wasn't totally wrong, I knew they would do something to catch the ball in the middle of the air, I was wrong about how they would do it. Instead of jumping at it, the kobold punched the air right below it and one of the rings flew from its place on his arms and hit the ball, causing the ring to suddenly be absorbed into the ball and it gaining momentum at a high speed, hitting the ceiling and ricocheting back down, where the kobold punched her directly, aiming at my goal.

The ring got instantly absorbed by the ball and shot towards my goal at an incredible speed. This time, though, I was at the perfect height to get in front of the ball. I got onto my hind legs and prepared to pick the ball with both my paws as it came soaring through the air. The ball was so fast I almost missed catching it by a hair's breadth, but my paws grabbed it nonetheless. Unfortunately for me, the force of the speed the ball was coming at was so great that the moment I got a hold of the ball, all the kinetic energy inside it got transferred to me and I was sent flying backwards a few meters.

My body landed right on top of one of those stone pads and I hit one of the glowing orbs that were on top of them. The moment I touched it, information rushed into my head about how to use an already made spell. The information was strange, it felt like it wasn't really in my memories, but like an external memory that my mind had access to. The information was about an electric spell that would summon five electric lightning bolts that I could use to hit the ball with and change its direction and speed.

As I looked around, I saw five lightning bolts hovering around me as if awaiting commands and I instinctively understood what they were… Or better, the information my mind had gained access to had all the necessary information for me to use those lightning bolts as if they were my own spell. Not waiting a second more as the trio was already on the move again, I threw the ball high in the air and sent one of the lightning bolts to hit it perpendicularly and in the direction of their goal. The lightning shot in an arc and hit the ball where I wanted it to hit, causing a small electric explosion that charged the ball and sent it towards their goal.

The trio went each towards a stone pad, and if I understood these stone pads correctly, each of them would give a spell that would act similarly as a power up from a game. Now that I understood how this would be going, I immediately shot two more lightning bolts at the ball, but made them take different paths each, and from an outside perspective it looked like one of them would miss the ball entirely, but that was my plan all along.

The kobold was the first one to get to a stone pad and grab an orb, and I saw as the orb flashed and transformed into some kind of wand. The kobold then waved the wand in the direction of the ball and a wall of water emerged from the wand and blocked the ball from its path, but my lightning got to it first before the water wall could have changed its path too much and the ball was exploded in the other direction, going in parallel to the water wall until it completely left the area the wand affected, and that’s when the next lightning bolt hit it, sending it straight into their goal and exploding in a rainbow mist.

“Looks like someone is catching up” The human said.

I just nodded at him, looking around trying to see where the ball was going to appear next, but the sheer magical power running everywhere made it impossible to see using [Magicule Detection]. Eventually the ball appeared right in front of me and I used the opportunity to test what my new fire spell would do to it and using [Thought Acceleration] I casted it and pushed the magical circuit inside the ball while punching it yet again. The ball went off like a rocket and glowed red-white from how hot it was. The human placed what looked like a white orb in the ground where the ball was headed and from the white orb, ice began forming at a rapid pace, and just before the ball reached it, the ice took on a humanoid form before suddenly moving and putting its hands to stop the ball.

The ball hit the ice golems hand and steam began spreading from its hand like smoke from a fire and covering everything, making seeing a palm over my face almost impossible. I was in doubt whether the golem stopped the ball or what, but my doubts were answered as the steam was displaced and rainbow mist coming from their goal was replacing it.

As the steam dissipated I saw the damage the ball did to the golem. From its hands to its arms and then to its torso, there was a hole dripping water while its entire body was full of cracks that had spread from where the hole passed by.

The ball reappearing pulled my attention back towards the game and I saw that the ball appeared right in front of the human and he was holding a golden ring in one hand, the ball on his other hand and a smirk on his mouth that almost said "I scored". The human threw the ring in front of him and it stopped mid-air and began spinning along itself, forming a vortex. Somehow I felt the vortex stretching towards my goal and another one forming right in front of it. I wasn't entirely sure as to how, but I just knew that the vortexes was a portal and that it connected to the other portal right in front of my goal.

At that moment I realized why he was smirking and before he could actually do it, I used the two lighting bolts I still had and threw them at my goal. The lightning bolts flew away from me like… well, lightning, and arrived at my goal just as the human was finishing throwing the ball through the portal. I made the first lightning bolt hit the ball and as it exploded the ball was sent backwards, much to the surprise of the human as the ball hit him right in the face, throwing him to the ground and the ball in the air. At that moment I made the other lightning bolt pass through the portal as it was closing and made it hit the ball in the right angle to target their goal.

The next thing everyone knew, rainbow mist was spreading from their goal and dispersing as I scored yet again.

"You know, I'm kinda liking this game" I said aloud, grinning.

"I think it's time to pump up the game. Guys, strategy 2-3-5" The human said with a grin on his face as he began running as soon as the ball began appearing on the ceiling.

He jumped at the walls before suddenly beginning to run up with his feet on the wall like it was ground, completely defying gravity. I tried jumping and flapping my wings to get to the ball first, but my lack of experience using my wings to actually fly showed itself as I came a few centimeters away from the ball but didn't quite reach it.

The human arrived next to the ball as I was still falling downwards. He stopped next to it, while still upside down, and then he extended his arms pointing to the ball while putting together both his hands, doing a triangle with his thumbs and index fingers. Suddenly an aim lock similar to those you find in games appeared on the ball, then the human turned his arms towards my goal and the same thing happened, an aim lock appeared right on top of it. The human then jumped and brought the ball with him by placing his foot underneath it… or should I say on top of it, as he was upside-down? It doesn't really matter, what does matter is that the ball was falling with him, but instead of dropping to the ground, the human kicked the ball mid-air and sent it flying.

The ball began spiraling towards my goal, I was confused as to how and why the ball began spiraling the way it was instead of just going straight, but after thinking for a moment it was clear those aim locks were some kind of tracking and guidance magic. I jumped and flapped my wings and got right in front of the ball, if nothing happened the ball would hit me in my chest, more or less, so I prepared and got onto my hind legs and got into a position where I could punch the ball while putting all of my weight into it, but to my surprise the ball changed directions in the last second, passing between my legs and just below my tail.

I turned my head only to see the ball exploding into rainbow mist as it hit my goal. The last remains of the ice golem fell to the floor with a loud cracking sound as it broke into millions of pieces that were beginning to melt and made me look away from my goal enough for the rainbow mist to disperse and the ball to reappear in the middle of the field, completely surrounded by the ice shards the ice golem broke into.

I began to run and flapped my wings to gain momentum as I dashed towards the ball, only for it to be taken away at the last second by an ice harpoon. I stopped dead in my tracks as I saw the harpoon pulling the ball in an arc towards the kobold, who then kicked it to the goblin. The goblin spun on its axis as the ball approached, and when it was about to hit him, he suddenly raised his leg and hit the ball with the top side of his feet. The force of the kick was so much the goblin stopped spinning altogether and a gush of wind propelled the ball as a jet, I only was able to see the ball flying and hitting my goal because the world was slowed down to half the speed thanks to [Thought Acceleration] and even still the ball was almost too fast for me to see.

I turned back again to the trio and saw they were each catching more of the glowing orbs on the stone pads that had reappeared after the ball exploded into rainbow mist. Oh, so they really are using this as power ups, well in that case I thought as I waved my tail on one of the glowing orbs that was close to me. The moment my tail made contact with it, information became available to my mind as to how to use the thing I just got my paws on, quite literally as the next moment an axe with a bright blue edge appeared in one of my paws. I held it with my paw and waited for the ball to reappear.

The moment the ball reappeared and I saw it was a little far from any of them, I raised the axe above my head and swung it down, hitting it on the ground hard. As the edge of the axe met the hard stone floor the axe shattered and magical energy rushed from the broken axe into the cut I've made in the stone. The small cut suddenly grew and then a barrier that went from the floor to the ceiling appeared above it and blocked the trio's path of reaching the ball. I used the opportunity to jump in the air in the direction of the ball and glide through the air to get to it faster. As I got to the ball, I began drawing the circuit for the [Ice Spear] in the air using my fingers the same way I had first drawn the [Fireball] circuit under Amity's guidance. I timed the moment where the barrier would drop to push the circuit into the ball, and the moment the ball absorbed the circuit, I felt a mental connection to the ball the same way the power ups did, unlike the power ups tho my mind didn't suddenly gain information of what and how to do something, it was more something akin to a Bluetooth gadget that I had connected my mind with. 

It was a rather odd feeling, but I thought it was probably something to do with the way I had casted the spell considering the way the connection felt after it was established was the same I feel every time I cast my fire spells using the [Fire Magic]. Not really doubting if this was really the situation or not and as the barrier was already down and the goblin was running straight at me, I willed the ball to shoot upwards in an angle, and it actually did.

The ball flew through the air leaving a tail of ice that froze when the water in the air touched the freezing ball as it soared through the air, it honestly almost looked like a comet from how fast it moved and the tail it left behind. I saw the human and kobold moving to use whatever power ups they had, and I couldn't let it. I used [Parallel Processing] to cast a few [Ice Spear] modified to the fire version, I guess I could call it [Fire Spear]? Doesn't really matter, anyway, I had cast a few of them and held some and only shot two, one at the ball and one in the direction I had calculated the ball would be after I hit it with the spell.

The moment the first [Fire Spear] hit the ball, it created an energy explosion that launched the ball at the direction opposite of where the spell hit it, just as I had predicted, what I didn't predict was the energy explosion would give it so much speed that the other spell almost missed it. In the place where the ball fist was hit with the spell, space distorted and swapped places with a spot in front of the human, who had used another spatial power up to teleport the ball to himself but the sudden change in direction had made him miss the target.

The kobold was probably counting on the human being able to teleport the ball, as he looked surprised when he used his power up on an empty space and water washed over nothing and shot towards my goal. I wasn't too preoccupied with the water as the ball was still under my spell's influence.

That energy explosion didn't eat up all of the magical energy I had poured on the spell circuit when feeding it to the ball, so when the second [Fire Spear] touched the ball, another explosion happened and the ball was sent flying again in the opposite direction of the explosion, in other words, it went straight into their goals and explodes in rainbow mist.

Blinking lights suddenly appeared on their goal in a pattern. The pattern was simple, the lights on the edge would light up then turn off and the next roll of lights would turn on and then off, following this pattern until it arrived near the goal, then the pattern would repeat itself. It was pretty obvious the lights were being a target, but the reason why it did only now was oblivious to me.

The trio was running to get more power ups as they appear to only respawn when either team scores a point. I was looking over trying to see where the ball was going to reappear, but the goblin found it first, or rather, tripped on it first as the ball appeared right where he was going to step on, falling head first on the ground. I used the opportunity to finish casting the other [Fire Spears] spells I was holding up and launched them to hit the ball at the same time. A series of five solid fire spears appeared around me and flew in high speed towards the ball and the goblin, who was still recovering from the fall.

All the spears hit the ball at the same time and sent it to the air. The other two looked over and saw what happened, but they didn’t have the time to get more power ups before the ball entered their goal again and exploded in rainbow mist. The moment the rainbow mist spread from the ball exploding, everything went black.