Chapter 254: Chapter 261: Competition.

“Now that your body is prepared. Your mind can follow. From now until you step on the stage I want you to pay attention to your breath, every time you blink or close your eyes, imagine yourself getting hit, becoming impenetrable. The blows bouncing off of you. You are a stone fortress, impervious to fire, ice, and even metal chains striking you.”

Considering A metal sword had once literally bounced off me, it wasn’t hard to imagine. Imagining myself getting hit though… That was something else entirely. When I thought about all the blows I had taken I felt a heat start to rise from my stomach until my whole body began to burn with a strange heat that didn’t even bring a sweat.

“Good, now remember, no matter what they throw at you, you are invincible. It doesn't matter if they set you on fire, or if they shoot you with a crossbow. The fire will never burn as hot as your soul, and the arrow will never pierce deep enough to reach your heart. You are prepared for war, your body is steel and your will is absolute.”

‘I wonder if this is what she tells herself to… I’d die of embarrassment if someone heard me say that…’ I took a deep breath and closed my eyes, accidentally slowing down time itself as I felt my heart beating. I could sense everything. The birds outside, the dust shifting in the wind around the tint. My breath heated until it turned to steam in the air around me, and my soul… I wasn’t heating up because the dragon was scorching me, but because my will aligned with that of the dragon… A weird connection between stubbornness not backing down, and our shared hatred for pain.

As I waited time suddenly began to pass by faster than normal as if I had sped it up in anticipation. In mere seconds Lily had exited and was now reentering the tint. “It's time. You're up next.”

I stood up, exhaling slowly. Steam came out of my mouth like a cloud. My mind was completely empty as if I was letting the crazy amalgamation of my soul take over my body and lead me out onto the stage, slowly walking behind Lily.

“The first event is called the wall. You must strike a stone wall until it breaks, the number of strikes it takes doesn't matter, but if you slow down or pause, or if you whence in pain or shake out your fist you will lose points.” We made it to the stage. “You're up.”

‘This whole time we've been walking I haven’t breathed once…’ I started to let out another deep breath, but it felt so hot I almost thought it was fire, and quickly snapped myself out of the trance. ‘Ok, just break a wall and look tough, easy.’ My chest rose with each rapid breath as I came back to myself fully, feeling my whole body start to tingle as though it had been sleeping.

‘I can’t just knock it down with one hit or the discrepancy in my strength between events will look suspicious… So I’ll have to stick with something sustainable, a balance between my natural manna regeneration and expenditure. A baseline of strength.’

I walked onto the stage and the judge pointed to the wall, I could hear the crowd cheering for the last girl, but they had fallen dead silent when I appeared, or maybe I was just so focused that I blocked them out entirely.

Everything faded out around me as I looked down at my palms before slowly making fists. It felt all too natural, it felt strong.

“You may begin when ready.”

‘Right…’ I moved a step closer and widened my stance. ‘Not too much strength, and just enough durability to make sure I don’t break anything, maybe just a tad more to make sure I don’t kill my hands either.’

I inhaled, braced my core, and threw my fist into the brick wall. It hurt, but not enough to make me flinch, just enough to leave a scrape and send a chunk of stone chipping off and fracturing. ‘It’s not all one solid thing? It’s cracking like a car windshield…’

I hit it again, this time with my left hand, leaving another dent. I continued on, hitting the wall over and over as the heat rose from within my core. ‘Don’t shake, don’t unclench your fists… Don’t hesitate between blows. Never let up. If I just keep going like this then I’ll come in first!’

My hands started to heat up as well. I felt blood dripping down my knuckles and flowing onto the ground but I didn't slow down. ‘More… I can’t lose. I can’t fail even once…’

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Blood flew back onto the stage and splattered the wall. As my momentum started to whip it off my bloody hands. ‘Don't slow down. Keep fighting…’ As the wall began to give my numbed hands began to feel as though I were punching through undead again, and my whole body went numb.

‘I can’t fail even once or…’ With one final blow the back of the wall exploded outward, the heavily cracked fragments all flying out like shrapnel. ‘Or I’ll die? But I’m literally fighting a wall… Why would I die?’

Before I knew it the wall crumbled in front of me… After a moment of hesitation, the judge directed me off the stage…

I couldn’t say about how it was during the event… But as for after, the crowd was silent again. ‘I was right… This is nothing like how competing is supposed to feel… I feel sick…’

As I passed the girl next in line a part of me wanted to awkwardly wish her luck… But her face was painted with abject terror… So I decided it would be best to just keep walking…

Lilly took me back to the tint and bandaged my hands, I bled through the bandages and she rewraped them with some medicine. And as soon as she finished I started using magic to close the wounds. ‘The skin broke, and I actually clawed away at my palms too, but the bones, tendons, and muscles are all still perfectly healthy. I was just careless with my reinforcement magic… No… It’s more like I wasn’t focused on anything.

“You did good…”

I stared at the ceiling, ignoring the pain. I blocked it out entirely to the point that the only pain I felt was that of undead gnawing at my skin... “What's next?”

“The next event is called the shield. In this instance, they are going to load a small catapult with several small rocks and barrage you with them. You lose points if you are taken off your feet, or if anything but your feet touches the ground, and also, if you try to dodge any of the stones.”

“If one comes to my face, can I block it?”

“Yes, as long as you don't turtle. You have to stand tall. Also, moving your feet docks you points.”

“And if I doge without moving my feet?”

“You lose points.”

I sighed… “How long till I'm up…” ‘No matter how showy I am, I doubt Kai will count it if I'm quite halfway through.’

“I would give you probably around 20 minutes. Focus your mind again, if your hands hurt, ignore it, they aren't seriously damaged. The skin is broken, but your bones are fine.”

‘If Airsidh was back here… I wonder… What joke would he make now? No… He’d probably just tell me not to get into the habit of zoning out like that…’ A faint smile crossed my lips as time accelerated again.

“Siya you're up.”

‘Time for round two… I said I’d compete… But I’ll do it my way…’ I felt a slight bellowing in my chest like the rumble of a dragon's roar, as if it was agreeing with me.

Walking onto the platform, I faced the catapults. With a downward signal of the judge's arm, the catapults began launching. Rocks were thrown like tiny knives and for a moment it was as if I had been transported through time. How many times had my father thrown things at me, knives… Or other things to “test” me? And when I finally threw one back he took it to the chest on purpose…

My mind jumped back to the present where time had stopped dead in its tracks, my father's words echoing through my mind. “Take it like a man.” My dull annoyance with how stupid that comment sounded was just as strong as it was when he first said it. ‘How about I move like a girl instead…’

I knew it was against the rules to dodge, but that just made my soul burn stronger, wanting to prove a point. I let time slowly begin to move forward again, carefully and elegantly weaving my body between each rock without so much as lifting a foot from the ground. The judge lowered his arm again and a particularly large boulder suddenly came flying right at me. I couldn’t dodge it… Not without moving my feet. But if I blocked it the chance of its weight forcing me back wasn’t zero either… Suddenly it felt like a real battle, and in the face of danger I recalled my mothers words from training.

‘You’re too slow to dodge… And to weak to block… So you have to learn to pary.’

As the boulder flew right on track to hit my whole body at once I braced myself, squatting down and lowering my hips. Right when it struck me I wrapped my arms under its weight and extended my whole body, heaving the boulder and rolling it over my shoulder, somehow keeping my balance due to my freaky new dragon senses.

The judge signaled me off the stage and Lilly followed me back to the tent as everyone around me cheered and screamed… Although, I was pretty sure I got 0 points in the end anyway…

“How is your body, are you feeling alright?” she asked “How many fingers am I holding up?” she raised three fingers in front of me, moving them back and forth in front of my eyes.

“Three.”

“Ok good, and you feel fine?”

“There's a pit in my stomach… but I'm not hungry. I can feel my blood pumping through my veins like fire… But I feel cold…” Adrenaline shot through my entire body and I didn't feel any of the pain. My hands began to feel dull and stiff, but I could still move them well enough.

After that was an event where they lay massive weights over my chest until I struggled to breathe… in my case, I reached the maximum score… By just not breathing at all.

Then they tested how long we could sit in an ice bath without shaking… A particular specialty of mine at which I also won.

After that, we walked across burning coals, and after that, we showed off our flexibility, nothing crazy.

“Next is the bloody chain. Basically, you just try not to move while the judge hits you with a chain for two minutes straight.”

‘How do we go from an ice bath to getting whipped with a chain…’ I groaned. ‘Dodging will be a lot harder this time…’

“You lose points for flinching, blocking, or dodging.”

‘So then… they really intend to make abuse into a sport…’ “And what If I grab the chain and strangle him with it…”

Her face fell flat as she hesitated to respond. “Uhm… Is it ok if I say I don’t know?”

I sighed. “Yeah… It’s fine…” ‘I’m sure it would just doc you points, like everything else…’