Death's Favorite Warlock 4, page 21
Seeing the certainty in her eyes that she’d be able to defeat him even though she was barely a Lesser Clay Brick Cultivator, Lars couldn’t help but just smile at the fool. Even if he stood there and did nothing, he was quite certain that, with her ability, she could not defeat him. He didn’t feel even the slightest bit bothered by her words, so he just smiled while imagining what face she would make when she lost.
“If he’s going to lose to you in the second round, then he has to at least win his first match. But isn’t he fighting against Senior Brother Dae-man the Incinerator?”
“The Incinerator?” Lars’s ears perked up. He had heard a lot of names since he joined the sect, but only Laughing Lion the Butcher seemed to have a title built into his name.
“You don’t know? He’s a supreme fire cultivator. They say his father was a fire elemental, and his mother was a dragon. He is Fifth Elder Baek’s disciple. He’s never taken part in the tournaments, but it’s not for his lack of skill. He only refrained because his master was worried about how violent and brutal he is,” the man explained.
“Ah, so his thing is fire, is it?” Lars asked. “He’s just going to, what? Try to burn me?”
“Try to burn you? Forget fighting me. You’ll be fighting the wind so as not to blow away in a thousand pieces of dust after he roasts you so badly that even the vultures won’t have a corpse to feed on,” the woman answered with a laugh.
“Bo-bae, be serious. Surely, he’ll be respectful of Apep and at least give his master a corpse to bury,” the man replied.
Lars couldn’t help but laugh at the ridiculousness of the conversation as he looked over at Dae-man, the so-called “Incinerator,” who had realized he was the topic of their conversation and looked up to them.
“Senior Brother Lars, if you bow respectfully and grovel before the match, then I’ll leave your body in one piece so that your ancestors may have a corpse to look upon!” Dae-man taunted.
“Ah, drats.” Lars smiled as he pointed over at the training field where the next match was to take place. “You said I have to do it before the match, but the match has already arrived. I suppose we’ll just have to go down there and enjoy the barbeque.”
“If you plead on hands and knees and kowtow to me three times before the match starts, I will forgive your insults and give you a clean death,” Dae-man continued with his threats. “If not, then I shall repay this enmity tenfold!”
“What the heck are you even talking about?” Lars replied before he jumped up from his seat and into the air. He soared directly over the contenders and landed perfectly in the ring. “What enmity? Do you really think my not kowtowing and begging for my life is some great insult and offense against you? Have I spat on you or something? Did I sleep with your wife? Did I beat up your child? What is this enmity between us? I thought we were members of the same sect?”
“You!!! YOU DARE!” Dae-man apparently took Lars’s further questioning as an even greater offense, growing madder and fuming back and forth, ready to explode in violence at any minute.
“You may now begin the match!” cried the referee. He was a stage three Qi-Condensing Cultivator whom Lars knew to be one of the people Il-sung had been with in the back room of the tea shop. Lars knew immediately how biased the chosen referee would be.
You see that, right? They’re already stacking chips against me, Lars thought to Ophelia as he took note of the man’s face.
It just goes to show how far Apep’s influence has fallen and how quiet the Laughing Lion’s influence actually is. You have one man who no longer controls his own sect and another who spends all his time as a servant for others, and both claim to be your master. What a disappointment.
You know, you’re forgetting the princess who is still in the Qi Condensation Stage and, most importantly, the purple-eyed goddess. Lars smiled at just the thought of Ophelia. Even though he wasn’t trying to look like he was mocking his opponent, he couldn’t help it. She was the epitome of beauty, and even a recollection of her image was enough to cheer him up.
Lars! Focus! The gnat is buzzing in your direction!
Ophelia broke his happy recollection with reality by reminding him of the fact that he was in a match, and the match had begun.
“Since you refused a toast, now you shall be forced to drink a defeat!” the so-called “Incinerator” said as he began to charge up his fire move. It was a ridiculous procedure, and if any one of Lars’s fellow disciples at the slaughterhouse had seen it, they would have laughed even harder than their master at how open and vulnerable he was during the entire thing. Then the guy started screaming, his face clearly resembling that of what Lars imagined a constipated elder might look like, while flames began to encircle him. “IT’S TOO LATE NOW THAT YOU’VE SEEN MY POWER!”
Lars suppressed his laughter for a moment as he switched his warlock elemental preference from Master of None to Master of One, selected Fire Qi as his primary elemental focus, and then activated Flame of the Pill God. He then opened his mouth to unleash a dozen tongues of fire that struck Dae-man at the same time. The second they hit him, they lit him up like dried leaves in a bonfire, instantly turning him to dust and small embers that were barely visible in the sunlight.
Congratulations. You have successfully killed Dae-man. You have gained 91,052 stat points. Your elemental affinity with Fire Qi has increased by 37,210.
After the Qi was absorbed into Lars’s body, and ecstasy tingled across his skin, Ophelia’s words broke the silent enjoyment of his thoughts.
For a moment, since it was a tournament, I actually thought you weren’t going to kill him.
He was going to kill me, so how is he any different than the mercenaries I blew up in the woods? If they come to kill me, they have to die. Even as Lars replied, he still felt a small twitch of guilt as he remembered Alyona’s words. He couldn’t deny them. He couldn’t shake the truth of the matter. He just wanted the Qi. And he wanted more.
As the shock of Dae-man's quick death finally wore off for the audience, the referee, who was likely there to help fix the fight, immediately came awake. “Y-y-you can’t do that! YOU JUST KILLED HIM!”
“It does appear that way,” Lar’s replied.
“Bu-bu-but that’s not how it’s supposed to be! If you’re winning a fight, you need to leave room for the opponent to concede before he dies!” The referee’s nervous stuttering was coupled with his sideway glances toward the elders who had clearly put him there.
“Ah, but it’s not really my fault, is it?” Lars asked. “I mean, I just used a single flame attack. How is it my fault he died so quickly? Was he not just bragging about how powerful he was? Don’t blame me for him being so dangerously weak. Blame the pathetic master who failed to teach him and sent him to slaughter.”
“Why, you— You’re courting death!” Dae-man’s master, Fifth Elder Baek, yelled from the stands before flying over to stand right in front of Lars.
“See, now I know exactly where that garbage, loudmouth, braggart disciple of yours learned to speak. Was he your son, by the way? Did I accidentally kill your son? I’m asking only because of how you both seem to share the same atrociously ugly face, and you both seem to look like you’re going to burst a blood vessel when you talk.” Lars smiled ear to ear as he taunted Elder Baek, hoping that the old man would throw a fist. Lars imagined how much Qi he’d be able to siphon out of this old man if the fight broke out. While he doubted his ability to kill Second Elder Bong, Il-sung’s master, he had no doubts he could defeat Baek.
“You dare!! You are but a frog in the well!” the elder cried. “You don’t know how wide the world is! Kneel before me and knock your head three times, and I'll consider letting you live!”
“I’m confused about something, Elder Baek. You see, I am a generous man, and I am known for my good temper,” Lars began, grateful for the opportunity to use some of the skills he had practiced in the week leading up to the fight. An explosion of Fire Qi engulfed him, forming a barrier. “Yet everywhere I turn, people keep trying to kill me. I don’t get it.”
“Then prepare to die!” the elder screamed. He dropped down into a horseman's stance, braced his hands at his waist, and started screaming. Just like with his disciple, fire began to appear all around him. Lars licked his lips in anticipation of a fight with the elder since it looked like the old man was actually going to attack him. But before the elder could make his first move, Apep jumped in the ring between them, creating a barrier with his wings that blocked Lars from even seeing what was going on.
“Calm yourself, Baek. Deaths are common in the tournament. I’m sure you trained your disciple well, but these things happen. Control yourself and just remember: the winner of the tournament gets to fight with an elder at the end.”
“Good . . . Good! Then when that happens, I shall teach that boy through death the very manners that his master failed to teach him in life!” Baek shouted before flying back to his seat.
Apep turned and gave Lars a weird look that he didn’t understand before his eyes shifted over toward Nari, who was seated in a private booth at the front of the stands.
Lars followed his gaze and saw Nari for the first time since the day of the tea shop incident. She was no longer dressed in the robes of a servant or even the robes of a disciple of the sect but clothed in pure white robes adorned with beautiful gold and emerald-inlaid jewelry.
“She insisted on watching this,” Apep explained. “And she insisted on telling me to tell you to drop by in the future. You two have much to discuss.”
“I see . . .” Lars left the words hanging. He actually wanted to see Nari, desperately so even, to make sure that she was okay and nothing weird or bad had been done to her, but the excitement that came with that desire was tempered and dulled by the one who delivered the invitation. As Yumi had taught him, Lars knew he was neither the cleverest nor the most cunning person in this world. Apep, who had years of experience manipulating people, would surely have his own schemes—schemes that Lars knew he had to be careful of.
“We’ll discuss things after your victory,” Apep said, “but seeing your performance just now, that shouldn’t take long.”
Lars put on his cordial face. “Of course. Don’t forget the contract.”
“I won’t,” Apep said before flying back to his seat with the elders and not with his own daughter.
With the referee no longer even trying to speak much less dispute Lars’s victory, Lars followed Apep’s example and returned to his own seat, plopping down between the two people who had been threatening him and talking about how guaranteed his death was.
As Lars looked left and right, he noticed that, even though they both looked just as angry as they did when he left, neither of them was commenting now. “So, our match is my next?” Lars said, addressing the girl next to him. “You’re as excited as I am, right? What did you say you were going to do to me?”
“Nothing, senior sect disciple. I said nothing. If you think I said something, you must have misheard. I would never dare to speak to someone as powerful as you without permission first,” the woman replied timorously, turning her head so she wasn’t even facing Lars as she spoke.
“No, that can’t be. Why are you acting so humble now? I can clearly remember you talking about . . . What was it? You’re going to break and grind my bones into the sand of the training grounds so that all future generations can stand above me and learn their place from my arrogance?” She seemed to get more and more uncomfortable as Lars repeated what she had said, reminding her exactly how detailed and aggressive her threat had been. Her face drained of color, and she stared at Lars in horror.
When she didn’t respond, Lars turned to the man who had also threatened him. “That is what she said, right?”
“Y-yes. Yes, senior sect . . . master . . . She did say that.” His cowardice became evident when he readily agreed with everything Lars said. He had previously been tight on the woman’s side but was now eager to swap to Lars’s after Lars’s display of might.
“By the way, what was it you were saying about how only an idiot would use fire to hurt a fire cultivator?” Lars asked the side-switching sycophant.
“Well, I mean, of course, if the person is as strong as you are, then you could even drown a fish in the ocean, young master.”
The man’s quick wit actually astounded Lars. He had met people who could switch sides and coat words with sugar in the past but never one who could do it so shamelessly. “Relax,” Lars replied with a laugh. “There is no match between us. Why are you being such a sycophant?”
“Kenji is like a well-cut jewel: the moment things turn, a new face appears that’s even shinier and more appealing than the last,” the girl answered. “Look at him now. He shows you this face, but if someone stronger appears, he’ll have a whole new one.”
“Are you any different?” Lars asked with a mischievous smile growing across his face. He watched her panic and fear continue to build. “No, don’t answer that. It’s clear you are. I don’t have to fight Kenji, but you and I will get a chance to dance in the ring in a few minutes. We’ll see how well you grind my bones then.
“I’m sure your match will be glorious!” Kenji blurted out. Then, seeing no other chances to lick Lars’s boots, the man fell silent.
The man’s words piled onto the woman’s predicament, causing her to uncomfortably yet silently squirm in her chair. Finally, when it was her turn to fight, Bo-bae escaped the awkwardness by getting up and walking to her bout. To her credit, Lars was actually impressed by how quickly she disposed of her opponent, who had started to charge up a Qi attack only to have Bo-bae attack before the charge could complete by punching him right in his solar plexus. The blow was so hard that he immediately fell over onto his knees and started coughing up blood.
“So, do they call the match in her favor and send medical help for him now?” Lars asked as he watched the man struggle to stand up.
“No, young master,” the sycophant replied. “He just took a blow; he’ll be perfectly fine.”
“What do you mean ‘perfectly fine’?” Lars asked incredulously, looking over at Kenji like he was an idiot. “He’s coughing up blood. He’s clearly going to die.” Lars even felt bad for the man as the contestant teetered from side to side weakly after managing to get back onto his feet.
“He has fighting spirit, young master,” kiss-ass Kenji continued. “Just you wait: soon, you’ll see a second round of attacks, and he’ll try his best to—”
The man’s words were cut off as the contestant who had been struck fell down once more with a stream of blood spewing from his mouth.
I have no idea what he’s talking about, but I’m quite positive a new guest is about to appear at my special realm’s doors.
Lars blinked again in shock as he looked around at everyone else, all seeming to expect this man to get up and battle on. I’m as confused as you are. What the heck?
“He can’t end it here! This isn’t even his final form!” Kenji commented, looking rather concerned for once. “He has to show what he’s made of!”
“Why? Did you bet on him lasting a certain number of blows or something?” Lars asked first as a joke, but after seeing the man’s expression, he knew he had hit the proverbial nail on the head. “Where did you even go to bet?”
“There’s a . . . uhh . . . There’s a table outside,” the man answered, scratching the back of his head innocently as he turned away from Lars.
Lars, I think we should stop talking to this weirdo. “Final form” talk? Coughed-up blood being countered with fighting spirit? Let’s just mind our own business and ignore him.
That’s . . . probably for the best, Lars agreed as he turned back to the competition and waited to see what would happen. Rather uneventfully, although perhaps for the better, the man finally passed out, and one of the sect’s older gentlemen rushed onto the stage, picked him up, and then rushed off to what Lars could only hope was a medical treatment facility.
As the man was being hauled off, Bo-bae walked up to the judge and whispered something in his ear before bowing and returning to her seat.
When she returned, Lars couldn’t help but take a stab at trying to figure out what she had said. “Did you tell him how you needed to make sure there were two medics on standby for me as well? How considerate.”
“No, I forfeited my next match,” she replied.
“What?” Lars stared at her in disbelief. Even if he knew he had scared her, he had half-expected her pride to manifest that fear in the form of stupid rage. He hadn’t realized she was so truly terrified to the point where she would throw away that pride to stay alive.
“There is no need to gloat. You’ve won your next match,” she stated, leaving Lars disappointed. If he hadn’t said or done anything, she’d have tried to kill him, and he’d have had another boost of Qi.
“If you say so,” Lars sighed, leaning back in his chair.
“She just understands her place in this world, young master,” Kenji said.
“Whatever,” Lars grumbled, turning his attention back to the matches.
His first match was over, and not only had his second opponent forfeited, but also his third and fourth, so the only match he actually had left was the finale against Il-sung. This left him incredibly bored as he watched one match after another take place without any of the contestants standing out.
As the fights droned on, Lars discovered his thoughts were drifting. During a particularly boring bout, he couldn’t stop imagining the many ways that Alyona could dismember the combatants. When a fire cultivator took the stage, he thought about the dragon’s flame breath. Then, when a moonlight cultivator appeared, he thought about Su Ryeon’s skillful execution. The more he thought about how they manipulated Qi, the more he wanted to test things out himself—to fight battle after battle until he perfected combat methods he had witnessed unleash destruction first hand.
