Chapter 271: Chapter Two Hundred Seventy Two

Sloane had already merged with her companions by the time she reached  the sand. They had somehow restored the arena to its original state,  sans big circle of rock, but I noted with interest that her feet seemed  to skim over the ground without imprinting too deeply. I wasn't sure if  it was some effect of the silver wings, or some kind of light step fox  ability, but it was an interesting detail to note.

I  turned to Mel briefly. "So." I asked. "Who exactly is she fighting? I  don't think they said. Do either of you know?" Having details on the  other fighter for comparison would help give me a better idea of what  Sloane could do. Since we were apparently going to be fighting her in  the tournament. Or more realistically, I might be fighting her. If our  team ran into the Beast Lord Garden's crew, Abel and Mel would crush  them, but the team competition was only the preliminary stage of the  event.

She shook her head. "No, but they usually do some  kind of announcement." Even as she spoke, the announcer who had  introduced us bellowed Sloane's name, mentioning her affiliation, before  moving on to introduce the dark cloth wrapped form slinking from the  other gate. When Mel heard the name, she winced. "Ah. That's not going  to be an easy fight. I've never fought Shale, but I got a quick run down  of the big names from Ceras."

"Shale?" I asked  suspiciously. "That's a type of rock right? Some kind of earth  manipulator? I could see how that might be a pain in the ass." As the  battle started, I saw Slone pivot forward, her wings cracking the air as  she was driven straight at the other fighter almost too fast to follow.  The glow of the wings made it clear there was more at work than just  muscle, and I whistled at the speed on display.

Still, it  wasn't too fast for someone like me to dodge, so I assumed Shale would  move. I assumed wrong. Not only did Shale not move, Shale didn't do  ANYTHING. They just stood there as Sloane smashed into them at top  speed...and bounced off, skidding across the sand with a scream of pain,  holding the shoulder she had led with. She staggered to her feet,  giving a quick jerk of her arm to pop it back into place as she glared  at the other fighter.

The cloth across Shale's chest had  been shredded slightly by the wings, some kind of split second slashing  attack I hadn't even been able to see in the split second after Sloane  bounced off, but the flesh under the wrapping didn't seem to be  bleeding. Hell, it didn't seem to be flesh. Shale shook their head,  reaching up to unwind the cloth from their face and rebind it over their  chest.

The revealed face was masculine and rough. Not  like some people use that phrase to mean worn or hard won, but LITERALLY  rough. Also grey. Because the form under the wrappings was made of  solid rock. Mel snickered slightly. "Earth manipulation adjacent." I  turned to cock my head at her. "He's a golem. It's a relatively rare  racial trait. They're pretty environmentally specific, but in an arena  like this he's going to be a beast to get by. Most of them have a few  earth manipulation Skills."

I winced. "That  sounds...unfortunate. I take it from that blow he tanked that they're  relatively sturdy for their level of Impact?" I knew that some abilities  could make people more durable within their rank. Rock with twelve  Impact was tougher than wood with twelve impact, and they were both  tougher than flesh. That was how defensive abilities worked, and this  seemed like a pretty good one based on the attack he just took.

Rather  than answer, she gestured to the screen, where Sloane was climbing to  her feet. "Ok." She growled. "That hurt." Her voice was rough and  animalistic as she began to slowly stalk forward. "I admit, I wasn't  expecting that. Don't suppose I actually did any damage?"

"Not  much." Shale chuckled. If Sloane's voice was the growl of an animal,  Shale's was the crashing of falling rocks. It was so bassy it was almost  hard to discern the words. "Still, that's better than most manage. You  definitely cut into me a bit. I'm curious to see if you can do it  again." As he finished speaking, he stripped the sleeves off his arms  and knelt down, pressing a fist to the sand. The earth began to crawl up  his grey stone flesh, thickening and expanding his arms and then moving  to his chest, stretching the chest wrapping to the limit but not  breaking it.

I could see why he used the wraps instead of  normal clothes now. The expanded as he did, preventing rips and tears.  By the time he was done and stood back up, his upper body had almost  doubled in muscle mass. The sand had condensed into something halfway  between armor and a body modification. I winced. Mel had been right.  Earth based Skill. Probably his ability before he became a Golem. I knew  racial traits shifted the primary ability to a Skill when the  transformation was activated, just like Jobs.

Sloane  looked a bit conflicted. She was obviously unhappy to just sit and watch  him buff up, but this was such an obvious opening that actually  attacking probably felt like a trap. I knew I probably wouldn't have  closed during that little show, maybe trying some kind of ranged attack.  I didn't know if Sloane even HAD any of those. She seemed indecisive  for a minute, before eventually deciding to just bite the bullet and  attack again, flashing forward in another blur of silver wings.

I  was confused as to what she was going to do, but she seemed to have  taken into account the new information. Instead of slamming into Shale,  when she got in close this time, she juked sideways, spinning out on her  wings to circle around behind him. As she pirouetted in the air her  wings lashed out like blades, scoring along the exterior of Shale's new  enhanced body and flitting away too quickly to grab.

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Despite  the wings versatility, I was ninety percent sure that some of the  movements Sloane was making shouldn't be physically possible. Not for  lack of power or anything like that, but because the smooth shifts in  momentum were antithetical to how force and inertia should work. In some  strange way, it reminded me a bit of the weird lack of impression her  feet had left when she entered the arena. While the wings clearly gave  her some kind of massive speed boost and could carve into the stone that  way, I was pretty sure the fox aspect of her transformation was giving  her access to agility and maneuverability that shouldn't be possible.

The  combination was absolutely brutal, and despite his incredibly powerful  form, it made her functionally untouchable by Shale as he lashed out at  her with short, precise jabs and grabs. Despite the huge disadvantage of  his speed though, the Golem was doing an amazing job of keeping himself  from being damaged too much by assuming an extremely tight defensive  stance and focusing the slicing attacks at non vital areas.

I  could see grey metallic blood begin to leak from some of the slashes,  but only a trickle, and Shale remained as composed and unmoving as his  rocklike exterior implied as he patiently waited for her to show some  kind of opening. Sloane, for her part, was starting to look a bit tired  after a few minutes of the stalemate. She began to slow down, and  finally, after three minutes of the attack blitz, she desperately dove  for a low sweeping cut that left her open to the Golem's retaliation.

He  lashed out with all the speed his immense Might could manage, snapping  out a grab at her wing with the speed of a striking snake. Unfortunately  for him, she had expected that. Her 'accidental' slip hadn't been an  accident at all. She'd been setting up an opening to exploit in return.  As he dove forward in a split second grab, the wings turned into silver  mist in his grip.

Eyes the color of granite widened in  shock as he overbalanced slightly when he grabbed nothing but air. It  was only a split second, but it was enough. As the wings faded, birdlike  talons tore free of the shoes on Sloane's feet as she planted her hands  in the sand and lashed out at Shale's exposed body. One claw raked over  an eye, another opening his throat, both vulnerable spots he'd bee  protecting with his defensive stance.

The gouges weren't  crippling or life threatening, she didn't have enough force for that.  But they were distracting and painful and kept him preoccupied enough  for her to swing around and start lashing out with more blows. The claws  were much better suited for cutting than the feathers, and they tore  holes in several vulnerable places, cutting into the under arms, the  pecs, and even the thighs as Sloane unleashed a blistering storm of  slashing kicks on her enemy, who stumbled back blindly to get away.

A  back handspring up to her feet followed by a scything flip that brought  her legs up and over again in another assault pressed the attack, and  Shale desperately tried to regain his footing to defend. It looked like  she was going to pull off the win for a minute, until Shale managed to  find a small gap in her attacks and post up again.

With  his defense in place her attacks did far less damage than they had been  up to this point. No vitals on display meant no obvious strike points,  and aside from being durable, Golems were apparently tough as nails,  because the damage he'd taken up to now didn't seem to be slowing him  down much. While her earlier exhaustion had been a feint, Sloane had  been going all out in this attack blitz, and after another minute or two  she actually started to flag for real.

Having  learned his lesson, Shale didn't go for the opening, he just stayed  posted in place, feet sunk deep into the sand as he endured the slowly  flagging wave of attacks. In the end, Sloane just wasn't able to put him  down, and after she had thoroughly exhausted herself and slowed down  immensely, he started taking cautious shots at her. She avoided some of  them, but not all, and slowly but surely he chipped away at her until  she left herself open for a finishing blow.

The  punch that he landed to her jaw snapped her head to the side sharply  and she was unconscious by the time she hit the sand. Mel cursed. "Shit.  I should have quit while I was ahead." She shrugged guiltily. "Sorry  about that. You want me to cover the bet? I didn't ask you so I won't be  too bothered to handle the payment."

Callie  just waved her off. "Nah. It's fine. You won us seventy five chits on  top of the loss, so we'll cover it. Cost of doing business." Seventy  five G-rank chits was a decent windfall anyway, so I wasn't too worried  about it either. Glancing at the screen she winced as some guard hopped  into the pit and started dragging Sloane out by her ankle. "Wow. She's  going to have sand in so many uncomfortable places."

That  surprised a laugh out of me. On that note we headed for the tunnel to  meet Sloane when she was dropped off. Might as well save her some  annoyance by picking her up. I was a guest elder after all. Once that  was done we headed back up to meet with the rest of the Beast Lord  Initiates, who all seemed a bit sulky, probably having bet on their boss  to win like we had. I tried my hardest not to snicker at the  expressions. At least Doomtown hadn't been boring so far.

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