Chapter 193

◈ Chapter 193:

Rain stood on the newly made and worryingly slender tower. The tower wasn't very stable because it was so thin and he could feel the thing swaying alarmingly as he neared the edge and looked down.

The arena was far below and there was Thadeus at the base of the tower. He didn't look like he was doing very well. The centaur was lying unmoving on the sand, a lake of fresh blood surrounding him. As Rain watched a number of men who worked for the Abattoir gang rushed over to attend to him, healing potions clutched in hands. They began frantically splashing him with the stuff. There was no hope of retrieving his eaten arm, that was permanently gone, and Rain watched with interest as skin healed poorly over the stump, and then struggled with the crater that had been made in the Centaur's chest.

After a few minutes, and some worried murmuring from the crowd Thadeus seemed to gather himself enough to stand, leaning on several of the men as he turned and slowly, painfully, limped his way up the ramp back to his private box before collapsing against the table inside.

Concerned conversation went around the crowd. It wasn't hard to guess why. Having a limb cut off wasn't the end of the world, it could be reattached with the right specialist techniques and with minimal lasting effects. …But there was no arm to reattach, Rain had eaten the damn thing.

That made the calculation of just how risky this monster was change dramatically. And that was to say nothing of how it had tried to break down Quistis's barrier, like a feral wolf trying to dig prey from its burrow.

Rain observed the crowd from his high up platform, watched them glance at each other, nervous. He could see Lyra and Opal. The goblin girl was standing at the railing looking up at him. He saw her smile and lift her hand up high forming a thumbs up. Behind her Lyra tilted back her head and peered from under her floppy hat. She looked a lot more worried.

He was only distracted when the sound of scale scraping on stone came from below, and he looked down to see a massive sandy scaled body spiralling around the slim tower he was standing on.

A hiss came from behind and he turned to see the massive snake monster. Triskian was sitting cross legged on its great head, the nubbed horns of the horned snake to either side of him.

"I, we, know that you can speak now monster."

Rain stared. He hoped the drake hadn't decided the best thing to do would be to simply kill him. Even if Quistis disagreed with that decision she would still end his life if he was forced to fight Triskian.

"You said you didn't want the snake to move my cage to the arena. You said that because you were afraid I would kill or injure this monster." He gestured at the great sandy scaled snake the drake was sitting on.

Triskian blinked in surprise.

"What of it?"

"Why?"

"Because it's my monster, I tamed her."

"You gave her a name. I heard you say it. Peirene."

"Yes, because it's convenient for training."

"You don't call her an 'it' either, you call her a 'her'. You don't need that for training."

Rain took a step forward and the snake's head eased back from the platform, wary of him. The entire tower leaned with the shifting weight.

"It helps with my Class. Stop attempting to twist things. How many monsters do you think I have dealt with here in our Abattoir? I know exactly what you are trying to do, trying to elicit doubt and sympathy. It won't work. I, we, are the ones in control here and I am here to tell you that if you do kill one of our clients then you will be killed. Instantly."

Rain remained silent.

"That was Quistis's message. But I am here to tell you I figured out that you were never affected by her soporifics. If you are immune to that idiot of a centaur's damned poisons then a touch of sleeping gas was never going to do a thing. So, just like you pretended not to be able to speak, you also pretended that you were drugged."

That was partially true, he had been drugged, it just hadn't lasted long, same as the poison was nearly all gone. There had been so little poison on the poison tipped needles that his body had burned through and devoured it rapidly.

Getting intentionally poisoned wasn't very pleasant, but it had been a good bet, in the end. The centaur had Skills that he couldn't predict, so he had let the centaur think he was dying and that he only had to wait to win. He couldn't stop the centaur from using his Skills, but he had successfully manipulated him into using solely defensive Skills, making him think he was only playing for time. Because of that he'd avoided the biggest risk the centaur presented: An unexpected offensive Skill. He couldn't predict and stop something like an invisible slice to the throat, or something equally impossible to see coming.

That said, he wasn't sure he liked where the mind of this drake was going, he got the sense this was a growing problem.

"Your… strength too, the way you just peeled away that metal…. you left your cage and—"

"I never left my cage in the ruins. The bars were much much thicker and enchanted, as you know since you keep dangerous monsters in them. But I did see the face of the leveler the goblin and the harpy witnessed, the one who threw a bucket of blood over me and coated me in this horrible gore. I know who was stealing from your Abattoir. They are watching us in the audience right now."

Triskian frowned.

"More lies."

"The harpy and the goblin saw her too."

"Her?

Rain clamped his lips shut.

Triskian looked like he wanted to ask something more, half entertaining the idea that there was some truth to the claim.

But before he could open his mouth a bellowed bid came from below, and then another. It seemed the second round of bidding had begun.

Rain smiled, doing his best impression of a trustworthy person, trying his best to channel Lyra.

He wasn't very good at it, in fact he was hopelessly terrible, and the drake shuddered as he looked at Rain's blood covered teeth.

"You're lucky you make us so much damn money."

He pressed his claws against the snake's scales and they began to descend back down the tower, making it sway alarmingly with their motions.

A voice bellowed up from below.

"Give me back my gold! I didn't even do anything to the monster! I lost too much on this to get only a share! This isn't fair!"

"Actually, sir, you quite clearly poisoned the monster and were intent on killing it."

"Do you see it dead?"

"It is not our fault if you use weak poison. And in anycase, we do not do refunds for failing to harm a monster, that is not part of our policy."

"It's immune, it doesn't bloody count if it's immune! And you failed to protect me, that creature almost broke through, I was inches from dying, again! This level of customer service is unacceptable! and—"

The centaur's voice was cut off as his private box became a sealed private box, a giant stone cube that his muffled yelling could be heard faintly from.

Quistis turned to the crowd, "Pardon the interruption, the bidding will continue now."

As much as the centaur had confidently put down an incredible amount of money, the next to try claim Rain were a lot more hesitant. They had seen what he had done, and they knew Quistis had taken extreme measures to stop him, but also because he had been successfully attacked by Thadeus which would reduce their level gain if they killed him, if only by a bit.

Rain watched as hesitant bidding slowly crawled up the numbers, and in the background, the Abattoir's people ran from box to box delivering messages.

Eventually a guest he hadn't expected to be interested stood from their table and approached the railing. Ravoure, but he wasn't alone. Ravoure and four others raised their paddles as one. It seemed the ring encrusted leveller had built a coalition to kill him. Cowardly maybe, and considering their bid was a little less than half of what Thadeus had won him on, perhaps also very good value.

No one else bid and the bell rang out.

"It seems we have our winners, a coalition of the cautious yet ambitious. Praised guests, please step on down and we shall begin when ready."

The five levelers gathered their weapons, closing helms for who had them, and jumped down to the sands.

Ravoure. Two human twins each carrying a set of daggers. What appeared to be some kind of armoured fish person with tiny blue scales and finned limbs and head. And lastly an elf with feathers woven into his hair, patchwork leathers, and carrying a horn bow.

The odd one out was Ravoure, who still stubbornly refused to wear any clothing apart from a pair of embroidered silver silk shorts.

The five of them began warming up, unlimbering weapons and discussing tactics. Even Ravoure who seemed to be cracking his knuckles as though the enchanted rings on his fingers needed warming up before combat.

They thought they were safe.

Rain's paw came down on the rim of the tower, his claws gripped down on a huge granite stone block. He pulled it free with a scatter of stone dust, palming it in his paw. He held the block out to his side, gripping it in his digits and then in one violent motion hurled the thing down over the edge of the tower using the absolute most amount of strength he could muster and triggering his Accurate Throw Skill to increase the likelihood of a hit. The huge block of granite hurtled down from high above like some kind of earth bound meteor, perfectly on target to obliterate the head of one of the twins.

Of course Quistis was watching, and she flicked out a hand in annoyance. In a puff of smoke the granite block disintegrated into nothing ten meters above the man.

Which was unfortunate for him, as the smoke obscured Thadeus's rib bone that Rain had thrown with it. Bone from a living thing. Something Quistis could not touch. The splinter sharpened piece of bone punched through the cloud of smoke leaving a ring of clear air and shot down like an arrow. The man barely had a moment to flinch before the bone punctured his shoulder and he staggered back with a shout of pain.

As the block had been falling down Rain had lunged back, diving over toward the opposite side of the tower top, turning landing, then digging his claws into the stone, his feet clawing at the rim before with a grunt he drove himself back the other way, throwing his weight around. The tower swayed dangerously, once, twice, and then it buckled in the middle, beginning its slow motion inexorable collapse.

The stone fell away beneath Rain and he fell with it, uncountable tons of granite collapsing outward and down.

Of course, Quistis could not allow hundreds of tons of stone to fall on her clients, so, as expected, the entire great tower became a column of billowing smoke in the centre of the arena.

Rain fell through the smoke, completely unseen, exactly as he wanted. He landed with a boom, feet forming craters in the sand, and dropped into a leap, powerful legs launching himself forward in the moment he landed. Smoke flowed around him and then he was free, the wall of smoke parting to reveal a startled looking Ravoure standing before the column of smoke, looking at the base, and completely unprepared when Rain leapt at him from above head height.

Ravoure did however have time to twitch his hand, and a shield of golden light appeared before him.

Rain brought back a fist, twisting in mid air, then torquing forward, aiming to punch through the thing, just as he leapt on it, doubling down on the impact. Ravoure looked up at him with wide frightened eyes, and then in the next moment, he was consumed by smoke.

The shield shattered as Rain's fist struck it and passed through like it wasn't even there, disintegrating into motes of light the second he hit it, not slowing him in even the slightest.

He fully expected the punch to land, but to his surprise his fist struck solid steel as the smoke parted. The leveler had been placed inside a giant solid steel coffin.

Rain snarled in frustration. Quistis was becoming overly cautious in Rain's opinion. The punch probably wouldn't have decapitated Ravoure. Probably.

Instead of laying into it he opened his paw and palmed the rounded top of the steel coffin and brought his legs in as he landed, feet crashing into its side as he held onto the top. The steel coffin slammed down to the sands and skidded meters as it collected his momentum.

But before it got far, Rain bunched his legs and then sprung from the thing, his feet kicking back and sending the dented steel coffin shooting back across the arena where it smashed into the arena wall sending a fracture shooting up the stone.

The next pale faced leveler gawped up as tons of wolf monster fell on him from out of the air, hammer slamming him to the ground. This one was the twin with the centaur's rib sticking out of his shoulder. Injured prey. Injured prey instantly put a predator's blood up and Rain was no different. He opened his maw, and his teeth descended on the screaming head of the leveler, entirely engulfing his skull.

The screams were abruptly cut off, but not because of Rain's teeth.

Rain blinked as his mouth touched down on something smooth and glassy with geometric surfaces and perfectly cut sharp edges. Had she… had she put this levelers head inside of a giant diamond???

His maw moved on its own, the urge to bloody his teeth too great, and powerful jaw muscles drove wolf fangs down into the perfect surface. Pressure, and then more pressure, as he snarled and bit down, eager to crunch through the hard exterior to get at the soft tasty interior, muscles bulging and straining applying more and more strength, lips rising to show wolf teeth as the tips bit into diamond.

Fine lines shot across the surface.

Crunch. The surface started to fracture.

His paws wrapped around the levelers arms and crushed them under his grip, bones and muscle pulping as he stubbornly bit down on the man's literally diamond encrusted head.

The faint sounds of screaming could be heard through the cracks in the diamond now, one second more and the entire thing would shatter and his head would—

An arrow thumped into his side, sinking six inches deep, and knocking him out of carnivorous instinct.

He was so lost in the predatory need to bite through the prey that he had momentarily forgotten what that would mean, certainly having his lungs shredded. The arrow instead of killing him had saved his life. He wrestled with the predatory need to end the prey's life and finally managed to get the feeling to back off, his jaws easing, too long spent watching fighting and killing from the audience he—

The giant snake's head collided with him at incredible speed. The impact felt like being hit by an out of control boulder rolling down a mountain, and Rain was lifted off his feet and launched into the air with a choked gasp of exhaled breath, a number of his ribs at least fracturing, probably breaking.

He had badly underestimated that snake. It was fucking strong!

He came down rolling and tumbling across the sand, the arrow in his side snapping free, arms and legs flailing, trying to arrest his motion.

Unfortunately, one of the levelers seemed to see an opportunity. The fish girl strode up and stood in his path, both arms raised.

A blade of sand shot up from the ground and cut into him as he tumbled, and then another. He grunted with the impact and twisted, finally regaining control he lunged for the fish person in his path.

A dozen blades of sand shot up, lacerating and cutting into him.

Or at least they would have if they were sharp enough to cut. Instead all of the blades failed to cut his flesh, or even damage his fur. It wasn't that they weren't sharp, but they were just less sharp than even a normal sword, and hit with not much more power. Not enough to worry him anyway, the flaw with a group of weaker levelers attacking him instead of one stronger leveler.

Hers was a hopeless attack. His fist came down to crush the fish girl's head into her torso.

Instead the fish girl yelped, and previously unnoticed runes set along the surface of her armour glowed a brilliant yellow.

Ah. That was always the problem with levelers. They were as unpredictable as he was.

The sand below his feet burst wide and a hurricane emerged.

One moment he was reaching for the fish girl, and the next everything was sand, a miles wide sand storm concentrated and compressed down into the small space inside the arena. Wind took hold of the large area his body provided and launched him backwards.

A small dissatisfied thought at the back of his mind remarked on how he had done rather a lot of being flung around in the last few moments.

He came down rolling and bounced to his feet, sand howling around him, getting in his eyes, his mouth. It was unpleasant to say the least.

He spat a phlegmy blob of sand filled blood from his mouth and squinted, trying to see into the sand storm.

The storm filled the arena, a whirling maelstrom, limited sight. Yet still his sharp eyes could just about pick up blurred motions stumbling through the storm nearby, the eddies of the blown sand shifting around figures. It was them. He took a step forward toward the nearest one and they flinched, seemingly noticing him. They skittered back and were lost from view.

Well, maybe that wasn't that surprising, he was over ten foot tall, he must appear as a huge and alarming night black shadow in the blown sand whereas they were much harder to see.

As it was, there was no real way he could approach any of the levelers, while they all could easily hide from him.

He wasn't sure if this was the fish girl's intent, but whatever the case it was a problem… Unless.

He considered what he had recently gained, and then after a little hesitation, activated his Camouflage Skill.

Immediately, every blown grain of sand that struck him became glued, fixed in place, sheets and washes of sand, sand, and more sand, pouring over him, becoming a thick layer of clothing that completely covered him with two holes for his eyes.

He looked down in dismay to find he had been turned into some kind of crude sand wolf golem with sand sheeting down his sides. His paws had become crudely shaped approximations of paws, like a clumsy sand sculpture. He had an unfortunate recollection of being trapped in a bear costume and scowled with annoyance at the memory.

Great. Now he was covered in not only horrible gore but a layer of sand too. He fought down the urge to flee, running away to find the nearest bath.

Still, maybe this would work.

He stepped into the storm.