The Next Generation

With the horrid, amused, or shocked stares leaking into my awareness, I calmed myself and turned my attention away from my oldest friend and back to the event at hand.

Or, I did on the outside. Internally, uncountable matters were plaguing me.

First and foremost, was what Ev had said. Frankly speaking, Amun didn't strike me as the lustful type. Sir Nojo, perhaps, but not the Grand Duke of Odissi. That said, I would rather it be Amun to take my daughter's hand than anyone else.

Such a trivial matter, that was. But a distraction from the true hauntings of my mind, yet, its importance remained true all the same.

Beyond that was the matter of competence. Or rather, incompetence. Incompetence on the Necro King and I's part or the Guild Associations.

Perhaps it was both of us, perhaps neither. It was very well possible that the new generation was in a league of their own. A previously unseen class of potential granted by some mutation or divinity that permitted them affinities of a higher quality and quantity.

Whatever reason, it was clear that even two Magus' were unable to test these individuals atop this Cast Iron Summit. They needed proper facilities to be tested, if not a proper battlefield. They required an expanse placed far from civilization, filled with empowered and magical creatures that could test them to their limits. They needed the Bodhi Tree. Only then, would they be unchained from these rules and risks of collateral damage.

Only then, could we see their true potential.

I only hoped Roheisa met the expectations set for her.

And I prayed I lived to see it.

The fire within me died a bit when Jonet Fischer was called into the arena. That said, it was replaced by an ember of curiosity upon realizing the young witch was the daughter of my head maid. That said, I was unaware if she could still be considered a witch, as her file had her documented as more a fighter than a healer.

Regardless, I vowed to give Sarah some time off to rekindle and reconnect with her daughter before tossing my thoughts aside to observe her spear my golem with an ice lance and defend its barrage with a simple ice shield.

My and everyone else's curiosity was piqued when she used what was registered as thermal magic to either vaporize the bullets completely or freeze them to their core in midair, leaving them to shatter into bits upon landing. Leaving everyone bewildered and awestruck.

Such bewilderment was compounded once she used reverberating pops and clicks of the mouth to bombard the golem, its bullets, and our ears from afar. Only for it to grow down to such levels to allow for open conjecture upon her usage of poison bogs to slow and corrode the golem's bullets and flesh.

Much like Ev's descendant, I remained silent and open while the Necro King poured a massive amount of mana and yet another demonic soul into the conjuration.

Once Ev returned to his seat however, I leaned back further and leaned to him to subtly mutter. "Hopefully this one meets a challenge."

"Don't get your hopes up." He dryly snorted. "This one's the most ruthless of them all."

"Oho?" I turned towards the glass, frowning in disbelief. Like her mother, she was a naturally quiet girl with a placid and easily ignorable visage. And though her well was potent, she seemed far too aloof and harmless to be as ruthless as Ev claimed.

Unlike with Toril, the demonic necromental crouched low and lunged towards Lady Fischer without as much as a creak of its iron bones signaling its attack.

It closed half the distance within an instant; yet, Jonet stood stark in place with her arm held out towards her opponent, and like she turned a dial, she cranked her wrist counterclockwise and muttered something under her breath, spreading a frigid domain across the arena that had to be upwards of ten meters in radius.

"Was that that a Curse?" I gasped in disbelief. "What was it that she said?"

Though it'd been caught near the outer edge, the necromental met the same fate as the landscape surrounding it. The very stone tiles below and its igneous skin were both caked in a film of dusty frost that formed from a silent cold that was surely frigid enough to make the northern reaches of Deapou feel like a Vaguan summer. Leaving the now-frozen necromental to arc through a rainfall of obscure origin and shatter into uncountable fragments upon landing.

Without skipping a beat, Jonet muttered her somethings again before turning the dial clockwise this time. Instantly pitting the domain in a light that dwarfed that of the sun.

"Seventy-five Kelvin. She said the first time." Ev gasped much as I did. "Then, thirty-six hundred Kelvin. But, it was only half of the equation. Not a true curse."

"Powerful all the same." I chortled dryly at the aftermath. All that was left around her was a molten puddle of rock and not much else. In ten meters in every direction, the very floor had been melted and sent up into the air as ash that caked her in a film of gray-black dust. Yet, she beamed wide and bowed at the crowd on her way out as if she'd just finished a performance.

'And… who is Kelvin?' I wondered.

"Roheisa Deapou!"

Law's announcement served to pry such meaningless inquires right from my mind and force me to the edge of my seat in the blink of an eye. "Finally.' I muttered. "It's time."

If Everandus and the others heard my comment they didn't respond in any way; though, even if they had, I doubted I would've noticed. As every ounce of concentration I could muster had been magnetized towards Roheisa, taking the stage.

Bearing her training clothes with her longsword on her hip, she stood undaunted in the center of the arena. Sneering at the iron golem standing at around twelve meters' distance.

Like I'd seen her do many times before, she effortlessly parried the bullet spells with steel-reinforced arms before taking a step forth and piercing the golem with a conjured lance. Seeming to be as eager as I was to see what she was made of, Roheisa raced on with an obvious flair of boredom to repeat the same processes with her crystal magic and other affinities.

Prompting Ev to proceed with the ritual and begin the long-awaited moment.

I knew not the specificity of the nature of souls Ev imbued into these conjurations. Only that they were filling them to the brim with raw mana and given sentience through some sort of demonkind's essence.

Monstrously powerful creatures, they were. When in their natural flesh.

With the start of the match, the necromental rushed in much the same way as Jonet's version did. And Roheisa drew her sword to meet it head-on.

With her body imbued with steel and some strange type of magnetic spell coating her back, Roheisa clashed with the necromental in a bright flash of sparks and heat.

She blocked the golem's hook with nary a foot of ground lost on her end and countered by reeling back to conjure a steel mace in her left hand and strike the golem in the jaw. Thus ensuing the slugfest.

They went blow for blow, toe to toe for a few minutes straight. Acting in line with its nature, the necromental unleashed its fury on Roheisa without pause, and Roheisa met it in kind. With each block, blow, parry, and dodge, Roheisa's movements became sharper and quicker and the steel covering her grew to glow hotter and hotter; meanwhile, the magnetic field behind her spun faster and faster with each passing second. Imbuing her with a curious energy that resonated with a small part of me.

It wasn't until Roheisa's swung widely and missed that I realized what it was.

As she followed through with her attack, a blinding blue light arced from the head of her mace to splay across the necromental from head-to-toe. Showering the necromental with sprawling fingers of lightning and torrenting the arena with more thunderous booms.

Capitalizing on the stun she inflicted, Roheisa sheathed her sword to reach out with both hands, expelling a domain that encapsulated the golem in a blistering sphere of lava.

As one would assume, the necromental flailed in mad protest. Flinging massive chunks of smoldering lava and iron every which way; yet, Roheisa remained undaunted and simply flexed more mana into her arms, conjuring a field of steel spikes around the domain that were sent lunging toward the glowing sphere at a moments notice.

As if she weren't already done, she magnetized the being inside and the spikes impaling it, lifted their combined mass, and hurled it towards the ceiling.

On both its ascent and after its impact, smoking clumps of solidifying lava were sent across the arena as if it were flung from afar by an unseen volcano. Then, the sight was repeated as she slammed the thing back into the ground. Sending a notable quake throughout the entire structure that grew to repeat again and again until all that was left of her opponent was a decoration smoldering chunks a mending craters.

"She's as mad and unmerciful as yourself, old man." Everandus chuckled from my left.

"But of course." I chuckled. "I trained her myself."

"Then what the hell were you worried for?" He lightheartedly chided through the shadows in my ear.

"That she wouldn't be angry enough," I whispered back.

"Ah." He silently nodded. "So then it goes without saying that she intends to be a Berserker, like you?"

"Is it unnatural for a lion to birth a lioness?" I chortled back. Then took a moment to gaze and listen upon the many spectators lined around the arena, whispering and commenting and conversing about the night's main event. "The real question is." I turned back to them. "What is the nature of the Emeric's seed? Everyone is more than eager to see the Archduke and the Necro King's prodigy in action."

"Prodigy." Ev snorted.

Meanwhile, Emeric chimed in by whispering into my other ear. "If he's anything like his mother, Your Imperial Majesty, he's a Cleric on top of being a Sorcerer. Otherwise." He dejectedly sighed. "I don't know what he is."

"I've fought with him enough times to see the beast that dwells within him." Ev grimly stated. "Amun of Odissi is a divine beast in humanoid form, stricken with curiosity and boredom. That has remained true since he was a young boy. Now that he's successfully Assimilated his Well, however, I'm sure he has power that rivals the gods."

"Surely you talk big because you trained him." I laughed, beckoning the attention of the nobles scattered throughout our booth.

"I only taught the boy the fundamentals of elemental manipulation and how to use his shadow and death magic." Ev spat in a way that suggested that he was nothing but serious. "He was given a single tome to learn, I taught him lesser necromancy, made him and his vassals the Tower's executioners, and had him fight the Necro Army for four years. His prowess is a result of his innate talent and years of hard work, and nothing more."

'The Tower's executioner, eh?' I internally grinned as I pulled as much mana as I could allow to form a golem. "Then, this should be very interesting indeed."

Upon reclining into my throne, I turned on a whim to gaze through to the adjacent booth. Where I saw Grandmaster Gysil Vilignin perched on the edge of her seat, anxiously shaking her legs while she intently watched Amun enter the arena with an all-too-casual air.

"Very interesting indeed."