Chapter 0171 - Khulman

Hoji stood before the disciple, the crowd cheered, throwing all sorts of things, mostly precious healing herbs and offering to the budding youth. Many families wanted hard working students able to take their craft and teachings into the next level. They were, afterall, the next generation.

He stood there with his arms folded for a moment then raised his hands in celebration and thanked the elders for his chance.

The disciple, Guss. A man with very little to say, but every time he opened his mouth strange things happened. He lost his ability to communicate through words, his voice would send out a massive pulse of energy. He decided that honing his sword abilities would be a more useful tactic. The close combat and use of the disruption that was caused when he made noise from his vocal cords.

Sound effects, strange and trivial to most became weapons.

A gargling noise left Guss' mouth and hit Hoji.

His body filled with shaken, Hoji spat out a battle cry and rushed. He was carrying a a broadsword, it was extremely heavy but enchanted with buoyancy magic, making it float somewhat in the air, taking the weight from it without removing its overall mass.

Guss's sword took the brunt of the Broadsword and he flew into the air over the top of Hoji.

Guss knew the tactic well. He moved forward and thrust his sword down as he moved. Guss was well trained by the Stealth Corp as part of this discipleship. He was well suited for interrogations because of the effects he had, his questions were never asked and always answered by the end.

Hoji pulled a shield from storage, a large kite shield. It guarded the attack, he ducked below it while it absorbed the blow and launched himself in retaliation. A small slit was made in the shield and Hoji stabbed through it.

Guss was struck in the waist and pulled back. Panting he held up his hand. "He has passed, it is his victory.." Then he swayed and waved a healer that was on standby to take him away.

-"THAT WAS AMAZING!" The announcer rang over the megaphone

Several people had gone through rounds of elimination, each of their own strange and powerful creatures were randomly selected from a pool of summons. Each of the summons were hand picked by the sect and with each new fight came a wonderful addition to the next contestants strategies. It was actually progressing pretty fast, their was one incident where a kid lost his foot. It was not retrievable, some of the Greater Healing Mages in the Kingdom were present. After a few minutes they had it attached and ready for use.

When there were only three contestants left remaining, then it would be Hana's turn, she started to really worry. Jeannie hadn't come back and she was directly after Hana.

Drums sounded and the next contestant came across the stage.

He was Phoenixkin, with wings that were bright purple. With the last of his energy, he managed to get into the final stage with one of the disciples, there was much excitement for the second person to be able to make it through the to the fourth square stage.

Nirush battled as hard as he could and gave it a solid run, there were so many things in his mind at the time though. He was fighting a physic that was a direct disciple for the head truther. Though he didn't finish the match, he gave it a good try. Halfway through the match he had given her a good blow but she restrained him where her adrenaline hit a peak.

Hoji, and now Nirush had made it to the fight against a promising Disciple. There were only two fights remaining, Hana was getting the jitters. She held onto Caoimhe and wondered where Jeannie was. The small basket drake was somewhat comforting to Hana.

She watched the next contestant get trounced, it moved her fight even closer. Only one match remained. When he came onto the stage, she perked herself up as best she could. There was no sense in losing her chance, she would find out what happened directly afterward. Surely someone would notice if she didn't make it to her stage.

He strode to the first stage and planted his feet. It was a thunderous sound.

-"Ladies and gentlemen, we have a special guest coming up on stage. Earthsoul Clan, Khulman, Lets see how he stands up to the summons in the first stage. It said the Earthsoul Clan posses the ability to keep themselves rooted no matter the storm."

"GO! .'; YEAH!!" The Cheers from the crowd rose him into a fighting spirit. Pillars surrounded the stage as he slapped his hands together.

The Summons in the first stage was a Shrolem, they were notorious mushroom monsters that hid in the foothills of the Demonkin domains. A Gift to the Sect courtesy of the Ying Demon Prince Ho.

Spores were released, they filled the space. It wasn't going to fight fair, it was a mushroom monster that slowly devoured its prey once they were knocked unconcious. It would be no real threat if he were attacked and knocked out, though, he would lose the match. As first fights go, it was pretty benign but the spores were a difficult obstacle.

the sent out a fine mist of dust himself and let the spores come into contact with small particles of metal. They didn't react well to the Ice enchanted shavings. The Spores were weighted and fell to the floor, somewhat inert due to the low temperature.

A galvanizing effect started to take place. A Hammer of lightning dropped onto the stage, the fine dust was electrically charged and started to gather into a small ball. He pounded it against the stage and destroyed the spores.

Smiling, Khulman waved his hand and collected the debris into a ring, removing it from combat and as a threat.

The Shrolem was still stammering around, releasing more spores, the flew into the air. The smile on Khulman's face was quickly wiped away. He repeated his actions, this time, he aimed his hammer down on the Shrolem's body. It flexed and exploded, sending out a toxic fume into the air.

-"Oh my people, he's done it. He defeated the Shrolem but he did it the hard way. Its going to be hard for him to continue like that, the Shrolem toxin is very potent. He might only have 15 minutes until he needs serious help, lets see how far he is willing to go!

The crowd cheered more at his determination. Khulman gave a thumbs up and popped a strange looking pill into his mouth. The jawbreaker sized concoction was a healing pill, infused with proper energies to restore himself. Some people use to keep blood on hand for special emergencies and transferring and storing energy into a pill was something long since developed.

He consumed five, it seemed to restore him a bit. He got back to his feet and walked to the second stage.

A Mantaren Juvenile. It gave off a deep honing sound as it swam through the air. Floating on the current trapped in the formation. It crashed around inside waiting for something to arrive. Finally Khulman saw his opponent as the fog lifted.

He rushed forward, charging through the shield and into combat.

Blasts, cutting rays came raining down in his direction. Air, sharper than anything came rushing in blades into his path. He flickered around on the ground and advanced until he was underneath the Mantaren. He used a platform to shoot himself into the air. His black hoodie flapped in the wind as he flew.

A blast ran him through the shoulder, but he had a trajectory that would land him onto the back of the beast. When his feet made contact, and energy tried to repulse him. He felt the sting then started dropping stones, one, ten, a hundred, ten thousand. He buried the Mantaren, it twitched underneath the rubble and whined. It was begging for its life.

The judges nodded, not needing to destroy the summons. Khulman advanced to the third stage. It stood fogged, nothing could be seen inside. He was wondering what he would be fighting. It was the third stage. Only a handful of people had made it to the third platform. Things were going as they should. A black tentacle came crashing through and out of the shield. It left a trail of black in its wake.

From a distance, people were making strange faces. There was some sort of design to the mess. It started to take shape near the end, people's faces grimaces and cringed.

-"OH MY! Looks like he's gotta go up against an Ink Demon. This one doesn't look calm at all, in fact.. it looks rather pissed." She held back her laughter, reading the things written by the Ink demon through the Megaphone would be in bad taste.

Ink Demons were extremely notorious for their ability to cover a surface with drawings, most of the time the things they wrote or drew were not only absurd, they were obscene.

-{"*$#&^!)#$G"} It yelled, gargling everything into a deep obscene noise. A jet black spike shot out toward Khulman, it struck him in the face and covered his body. Then, the liquid started to rotate.

It clung to his clothing and started to wring him like a rag. He cried out and surrendered.

Officials and security rushed in to restrain the Ink Demon, it was placed into a shield container while they attended to his wounds on the stage.

Hana was next. She Gulped and waited for the crew. Looking around, she tried one last time to look for Jeannie. The judge walked up and pointed to her and the number in her hand.

"Its time, this way."