Announcement
New Volume 4 Chapter(s) Weekly. Volumes 1-3 now complete!
Niloy vs. Kantan
“Welcome back, ladies and gentleman!” Rallie was a lot more chipper the next morning, having the night to recover from her injury and loss. “We’ve teased you long enough. It’s time to get to the part of this tournament that you’ve been dying to see: the Fiend bracket!”
“Just in case there are those out there only just now tuning in, we’re going to briefly recap the rules. These will be one-on-one, single elimination Fiend fights. There will be four rounds that will leave us with our top two Fiends that will go on and participate in the grand finale.”
“To win, the Fiend needs to knock their opponent out of the arena, incapacitate them to the point that they can no longer fight, or get them to surrender. All weapons and powers are allowed, though the only ammunition for firearms is paralysis rounds.”
“However, if we catch them purposefully trying to kill their opponent or in any way endanger the audience, that’s an immediate disqualification. Additionally, if they are injured to the point that it could pose serious long term health risks or future disability, they will be pulled, even if they have the will to carry on.”
“And lastly, contestants can elect to have obstacles in the arena. If they disagree, it goes to a coin toss. But both of our competitors in the first round chose not to have them, so let’s get right onto the first fight!”
“One last thing worth mentioning! Even now, our two fighters have no idea who they’ll be up against, and that goes for the rest of this competition until the end. They may be able to make an educated guess, or have a preference of who they fight, but they have no say in the matter. Get your gambling apps ready, because bets will go live as soon as the second Fiend is announced.”
“But our first Fiend is a celebrity in her own right, with a huge following online. Her makeup and daily-life videos have been viewed by millions around the world. Even though she’s supposed to be the face of terror, people won’t stop commenting on how cute she is. And she got her start as a Fiend by killing her piece of zjik boyfriend, so as far as we know, she’s single. Give it up for The Famished Flesh-Eater, Niloy!”
The woman stepped out into the fake sunlight and jogged over to the arena. She hopped up onto the stage, but then instead of facing the crowd around her, she turned around, pulled out her phone, and began live streaming. “Hey, hey, Fleshies, it’s Nini! I’m out here now at Fiendish Coliseum. Ready to see your girl fight? I’m gonna melt them dead!”
“Hey there, Rallie!” Niloy got up close and personal, shoulder to shoulder as if they were best friends. “Your hair is looking gorgeous today, girl! And you’re rocking that ringmaster outfit as usual. Bet a few people watching would love to get whipped. So who are we fighting today? Just glad Kada isn’t competing, or they’d totally put me up against her. I hope it’s someone awesome.”
“Uhh, right,” Rallie seemed hesitant to continue, confused as to why she was being upstaged. “Our second Fiend is someone that most of you surely have never heard of before. He’s a freshly made Fiend, and a recent edition to our Wandering Souls Circus. His hands may be icy, but his passion burns bright. Introducing The Zero-Degree Zombie, Kantan!”
“Ehhhh, what?!” Niloy jumped away in surprise and fury filled her face. “There’s someone else stealing my zombie schtick?! How dare they! Bring out the mawhger. I don’t care what the rules are, I’ll kill him right now!”
“Fair maiden, your words are as frigid as the frozen peaks of hell,” the man slowly walked out into the spotlight, one hand on the sword hilt at his hip, and the other tucked into the traditional robes that were flowing behind him. As he spoke mist exuded from his mouth with every breath, and there was a constant trail from his icy eyes and hair.
“But you do not know the true bitter cold, as I, who escaped that nightmare, and became the reincarnation of the great frost demon. Let me show you what it means to be ice incarnate.”
“Uhh, what did he just say?” Niloy was thrown for a loop. “Did any of that make sense?”
“No, not really,” Rallie laughed. “Kantan is in a bit of a unique situation, even for a Fiend. And the reason I will be serving as the main commentator for this fight is so that I can help translate his musings. The man killed his brother by locking the two of them in a freezer at a meat packing facility.”
“It seems Kantan lucked out, his brother dying moments before him. Becoming a Fiend saved his life. However, his Curse froze everything about him in that moment; his body, along with his delirious mind. It seemed he once had a huge passion for animated action shows, where the heroes defeat their enemies with flashy moves. He believes himself to be one of them, though he does understand his situation to an extent. Now he performs in our circus, acting out amazing feats every night.”
“However, due to his limited mental capacity, he’s always spouting new, insane backstories along with naming every move. Also, he picked the name Kantan because he thought it sounded cool. That’s all the backstory we’ll give for now. You’ll just have to see the rest in action. Now then, let’s see a fight of zombie vs. zombie.” Kantan slowly shambled onto the stage while Rallie vacated. “Fight!”
“So, uhh, like, you actually came back from the dead?” Niloy questioned while she fiddled with the trigger on one of her water guns, wanting a few answers before she started blasting.
“I met with the reaper herself,” Kantan boasted, already changing his backstory. “She wrapped her icy hands around my heart and then decided it wasn’t my time. Before she sent me on my way, she gave me a frozen kiss farewell.”
“Okay, well it seems that the part about brain damage was true at least,” Niloy admitted. “Makes me feel a bit not great about fighting you. Are you sure you want to be here? They’re not tricking you into this, are they?”
“I go wherever my blade leads me,” the zombie insisted. “Now tell me, what crimes have you committed? Depending on the purity of your heart, it will dictate how much mercy I show.”
“Uhh, I don’t know, a few, I guess?” Niloy didn’t pretend like she hadn’t. “But they are usually horsehonkey! I do what I do to help people! Most of the time. Sometimes I do bad things if it means I can have fun or get discounts at stores!”
“Very well, I will give you a chance!” Kantan pulled out his resting arm and held it out to his side. “I will judge your character by how you attack. The pain you inflict will be read by my soul.”
“Ooooookayyyyyyy?” The woman was still hesitant, but wouldn’t waste a free shot. Though she took his actions in good faith and only attacked what he had offered, spraying a stream of acidic and slightly boiling water at his extended arm. Her hope was to maim it and make it unusable for the rest of the fight, because based on the sword hilt’s placement, it would be his primary arm for combat.
But what Niloy didn’t expect was for his arm to melt away entirely in the blink of an eye—not even a bit of flesh remaining. Whatever had been there was now mixed with the rest of the water that puddled on the floor. Even the sleeve that had covered his arm vanished instantly. And then something even more unexpected happened. Some of the water on the ground started to rise, sliding up the man's body, back to where his arm had been. And on top of that, it looked like moisture was pulled from the air as mist swirled around the area.
《Rallie: So what I said about Kantan shouldn’t be taken lightly.》
《Rallie: I said his body was frozen, which is true. But what I really meant was that his body is entirely made of ice. His skin, his organs, his hair, even his clothes. The man is actually just living ice. Only the hilt on his side is the real deal.》
Kantan grabbed the aforementioned hilt of his sword and tugged on it slowly. “Now I see the kind of woman you are. To think you would try and melt away my very existence. You must be the reincarnation of the sun goddess. As the herald of darkness, I shall put out your flame. Face my blade, the legendary Ice Sickle!
The man drew his weapon, but there was no blade to be found. It was just an empty hilt. But then mist started to swirl around the tip. Ice formed and jutted outwards, more and more until a weapon was forged. But an elegant blade, it was not.
“What in the zjik is that thing?” Niloy spat in confusion. “That’s not a cosdamned sword or even a blade of any kind. It’s like a giant club that cavemen used!”
《Rallie: Yes, even though he’s obsessed with swords and katanas, he doesn’t actually know how to use them. And whenever he tries to make one out of ice, it’s too fragile and breaks immediately when he tries to hit something with it. So instead, he just uses a giant ice club but calls it a sword.》
“This guy’s really mawhged up,” Niloy didn’t know whether to be annoyed or simply pity him. But either way, she wasn’t going to treat him differently than any other foe. “Guess I just need to end this quickly!” She grabbed her biggest water gun and began firing a strong blast of water right at him. If his arm melted so easily, surely she could dispose of all of his limbs and that sad excuse for a sword.
“Ehh, what? Why isn’t it melting?!” There was an initial blast of mist when her water made contact, but now that it had cleared, she saw the water spraying off in all directions, wrapping around Kantan without a single drop hitting him. The stream was blasting directly against his ‘sword’. And even though it was made of solid ice, the weapon wasn’t melting in the slightest.
“Foolish madam!” Kantan laughed. “My previous vulnerability was just a deception from a past life. Your pitiful water can never melt my strong will. When I give it my all, the hottest magma will turn to stone!”
《Rallie: Translation: Earlier when you attacked him, he let his body be melted. But in actuality, he can control the temperature and strength of his ice.》
“Got it, so I just need to crank up the strength!” Niloy altered the flow of water, increasing both the temperature and acidity. For a moment, her relentless water torrent started carving into the giant club, but then all progress was lost as the ice resolidified. And not only that, the weapon started getting larger than before.
“No matter how hot you get, I can go colder,” Kantan took a deep breath that shrouded him with mist. He then adjusted his weapon and then recited, “Millenia have passed since the sun took its reign. It is time for a new era. Ice Age! Negative One Million Degrees! Glacial Rending!”
Kantan slashed his oversized weapon and all water hitting it suddenly froze into ice. The splashes morphed with it, until only a giant sculpture that looked like a lotus was left standing. But it didn’t stop there. Ice traveled back up the stream of water, freezing it with every inch. Niloy couldn’t shut off the gun in time, and the ice froze up the nozzle.
Fortunately, the gun itself didn’t break, or that could be extremely problematic. Given how much water was compressed into the tank itself, it could easily flood the entire coliseum. But thankfully, the weapon was made of sterner stuff than the typical plastic of a store-bought water gun.
But Niloy didn’t take any chances, disposing of the weapon in case it was a ticking ice bomb. However, imagining the sudden flood did give her an idea. “No matter how cold you get, ice will always melt in water if there’s enough of it!” She pulled out her two water pistols and started spraying. Instead of targeting Kantan himself, she aimed randomly around the arena, soaking the floor with water.
“Imbecile!” Kantan laughed again. “You are only adding more moisture, and I’ll freeze whatever you produce!” The liquid around him started to solidify, freezing the arena’s floor, and would soon turn it into an ice skating rink at that rate.
“That’s what you think!” Niloy hadn’t just been randomly soaking the area. She’d been testing the waters, rather literally. The Flesh-Eater increased the output on her water guns to an insane amount. It was so much that it blasted her backwards at first, almost knocking her off the stage, but she managed to adjust the angle just in the knick of time, flying into the air.
After a bit of frantic adjustment, Niloy managed to stabilize herself, and was now floating high in the sky above the arena. This was something she’d had Xard personally train her in, making her now one of the few Fiends capable of flight, though her use was rather limited.
She could only take advantage of it when flying over an area that wouldn’t be damaged by a sudden downpour of rushing water, so mostly rivers or the open ocean, meaning it was something she hadn’t used very often. However, it left her rather vulnerable in the air, and her adjustments with it were pretty clunky, so she’d only dare use it against an opponent who was stuck on the ground.
With the absurd output from her water pistols, it was like two raging waterfalls were pouring down on the arena, and the stage started to fill up quickly. What she’d tested before was making sure that the water wouldn’t escape the barrier, or otherwise she’d just flood the entire place and be disqualified, even with the secondary barrier that existed right at the edge of the stands to protect the crowd.
At first, Kantan started to rise with the water, but Niloy quickly changed the density, making sure he sank right to the bottom. Soon, it was above the undead man’s head, submerging him entirely. Niloy started her melting attack, the usual blend of acid and heat, but this time it was all encompassing with the intensity cranked up.
But then there was swish in the water, and a spiral of ice carved out around the man, freeing him from his watery prison. “Foolish naive!” The Zombie started boasting again. “You will never be able to seal me away with such a technique! As long as my heart freezes cold, your warm embrace shall never seduce me! You’re six thousand ye—blarahahgrh!”
The hole of ice that Kantan had carved out for himself was quickly refilled with water, garbling his words once his face was resubmerged. This time, instead of another slash, he pressed his icy club towards the ground and made a platform of ice. He froze the area just beneath him, pushing himself skyward on an icy column. Once he reached the top of the water, he froze around himself to make a solid floating platform.
“A clever tactic, to make use of my boisterous nature, but I won’t let it happen a sec—ahahabhbh.” This time Niloy aimed the water directly at his face and it went right into his mouth before knocking him off the platform and back into the water. She then altered the density once more, sending the man and the platform sinking back down into the now much deeper water that had started rapidly boiling as Niloy increased the temperature.
From under the surface, it looked like Kantan’s body had begun to dissolve, starting with his legs and moving up his torso. But he didn’t seem perturbed. Instead, he mouthed something long-winded down in the depths which bubbled up to the surface, forever unknown what he actually said. Then his body was instantly restored, and he leapt back above the surface with a spiraling slash that completely froze the giant pool of water that the arena had become.
“I see your tactic! But it will never overcome the strength of my will! As long as I have my friends beside me, we’re unstoppable. Time to unleash my ultimate technique. Nine Souls Frozen in T-!” Water splashed over his face again, silencing him as he prepared his attack.
“Nine Souls Frozen in Time. Ultimate—” splash.
“Nine Souls,” splash.
“Nine,” splash.
《Rallie: It would appear that Niloy has discovered Kantan’s fatal weakness. He can’t attack without fully saying the full name first. That has nothing to do with his power, it’s just how he operates.》
Over and over, Kantan tried to say the name of his attack, starting from the beginning every time he was interrupted. He held the initial pose of his move without as much as a slight fidget. And as he stood still, the ice plateau beneath him started to melt again and he was submerged once more.
“Ehhh, did I actually kill him?!” Niloy started to panic once the man had vanished and didn’t show himself again for some time. She stopped filling the massive tank and landed on the top of the water, adjusting the buoyancy so that she could stand firm. There wasn’t a trace of ice anywhere around her, so she adjusted the rest of the arena, trying to bring anything she could up to the surface.
But all that came up was the lone sword hilt which really filled the woman with a sense of dread. However, since she’d stopped messing with the temperature and acidity of the water, a few seconds later, a small thin sheet of ice surfaced. Indented in the ice was the man’s face, making one of the doofiest, brain-dead expressions she’d ever seen. But at least he looked happy.
“And the winner is Niloy!” Rallie announced. After going through a bit more of her spiel, she mentioned, “There will be a short interstitial while the arena is drained and then we’ll be right back with the next Fiend fight. This was only the first, and with how crazy it was, imagine what’s to come!”
Grates opened up on the arena floor and the water steadily started to lower, having planned for such an eventuality. Once it got low enough that Niloy was comfortable jumping, she hopped out of the barrier and onto the solid ground. After it had been drained entirely, the medical team went onto the stage and picked up Kantan who had managed to reconstitute his entire head and part of his neck at that point, but was still blissfully unaware of his surroundings.
~Unfulfilled Wish~
Kantan: To defeat the sun!
