CHAPTER 22: ROUND 23 [II]

"Franz! Stop the match!" The healer, Miss Felicity screamed.

"Wait" He replied firmly.

"I said stop it now!"

"And I told you to hold on! Don’t disturb me woman!"

— — —

Karmesínrot gazed at the doughnut sized hole in her upper belly, soaking herself and the arena in blood. ’No, that’s not supposed to be there!’ She looked up at her opponent whose tentacles had dropped lifelessly unto the ground. His face was written in shock and worry, his eyes met hers and was about to say something before she lifted her face to the sky and growled in fury.

Her short red hair glowed and parted at the right side of her head, making space for a glowing red stump that grew and solidified into a brown horn with red lines spiraling from the top to root of the horn. The red spiraling lines shone with a violent red colour, causing a disturbance in the atmosphere.

° Ding

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There is a disturbance in the environment which is causing spiritual energy to be forcefully drawn out of your body!

_________________

Xenon hurriedly dismissed the notification, but not before reading the message. He immediately felt spiritual energy being drawn out if his ousia, it was not a pleasant feeling but there was nothing he could do about it.

He looked around the arena and saw that the same was happening to everyone. Even Professor Franz’ clones faded into green mist for a split second before turning corporeal again.

"Today’s just getting more and more exciting. " He grinned.

Àse gathered around the girl’s horn and flowed into her body through the red spirals. Her body glowed a brilliant red from the influx of spiritual energy. With some effort, she rose back to her feet, red flames burst out from the stump of the severed thigh and swirled around, materialising a new leg.

"I do not care!" Karmesínrot shouted to the bald boy. "If it was a mistake or not!" The empty circle in her chest ignited in red flames and regenerated her skin and internals anew.

"I am going to make you regret your error!" She grunted as she regenerated her right arm. "And feel the same pain I felt!" She screamed, her crimson eyes shone with fury.

She outstretched her newly made right arm and violent crimson flames ignited coalescing into a crimson, plasma, great axe.

The bald boy swallowed, he moved back a few steps in fear. He looked at her horn which was still gathering àse and filling her body with unbridled energy and shivered slightly, his tentacles could also gather spiritual energy from the environment but that was in small amounts and only to speed up their regeneration while still consuming his spiritual energy in little amounts.

He gritted his teeth in fury. ’This was supposed to be an easy win for me, but now the chances of winning are very slim.’ He muttered, then sighed. He focused on his ousia and saw that his àse is almost completely depleted, he wouldn’t last more than a minute if he went all out.

"Are you ready?" Karmesínrot asked her opponent.

She was finding it very difficult not to move as her whole being was being pumped full of energy, she was very sure she would explode if she didn’t start expending some of that energy.

’And I can’t even control this damn horn. This is all that bald octopus fault, I’m gonna make sure I bash his metal gut in’ She fumed, staring at her opponent with murder in her eyes.

Orion, the bald guy with the tentacles dismissed his metal skin and tentacles, stretched for some seconds and sighed loudly. ’I guess I’m going all out’ He muttered, looked at Karmesínrot and smiled.

"Let’s finish this then!" He said to her as his skin turned back to black, unblemished steel, eight steel tentacles emerged from his back, the tips of four split into four sharp blades that started to spin fast, the edges of the other four sharpened.

"As you wish!" Karmesínrot returned the smile, her’s more sinister. She dug he feet into the floor and dashed forward with speed that could rival Xenon’s a month ago.

Orion’s ten tentacles launched forward matching her speed.

Karmesínrot grabbed her great axe with both hands and struck down the first three tentacles she encountered, she wasn’t able to slice through them but hit them with enough force to make them paralysed for a few seconds, the fourth tentacle, this one with spinning blades dashed towards her, she hit her feet on the floor, launching herself 9 feet in the air and landed on the tentacle’s body, denting its metal body, she sharpened the tip of her axe, dashed forward and struck it on another bladed tentacle, splitting the bladed tip into two. She continued forward, striking down all tentacles that attempted to stop her advance towards her target.

She got within range and readied her axe for a strike, but was pulled back by a tentacle that wrapped around her left leg, it’s sharp edge digging into her skin. Without hesitating, she outstretched her left arm towards the tentacle, a sum of crimson flames appeared around her palm and condensed into a tiny, sharp stretch of plasma which shot of her palm and sliced away the tip of the tentacle around her leg away from it’s body.

"Damn you!" Orion grunted in pain as she sliced his last unharmed tentacle. He tried to stop her with the rest of his tentacles but she broke away from them easily, his tentacles couldn’t do very much to her anymore as she had battered them and he couldn’t afford regenerate them anymore as he was using the spiritual energy they gathered to keep himself going.

She closed on to him, he swung his left leg to deliver a kick to her head, she blocked it with her axe and was thrown to the ground from the weight but rolled to her feet immediately and bashed into him with her left shoulder.

"Arghhhh!" She screamed as pain enveloped her shoulder, nevertheless she didn’t pause her actions but raised her axe high over her head to strike him.

Orion, who was thrown off his feet by her shoulder bash, saw her violent, crimson, plasma, great axe come for his shoulder, he retracted one of his tentacles to block the axe but was cut cleanly. The edge of the plasma axe sharpened, his eyes widened.

The axe struck and separated his left arm completely from his body in one clean cut at the shoulder joint. Orion fell to the ground screaming, he rolled over and tried to stand up but his face was greeted by a bright, crimson club that crushed his nose and threw him backwards, before he could regain his footing, Karmesínrot swung a mace at his right arm, denting the metal skin.

He looked up to her as she screamed and dug a great sword into his torso lifting his body off the ground. He spit blood unto her face and screamed in turn as the plasma, great sword burned his insides.

"I surrender!" He screamed. "I surrender" He repeated, in a lower voice, his vision growing dim.

Karmesínrot threw him to the ground, dismissing her sword. The impact jolted Orion awake. He grunted in pain, his skin reverting back to normal, he bit his lip continuously in order to stay conscious. Karmesínrot stood still on the stage, blood streaming from various orifices on her body, including the pores on her skin -the backlash of the enormous energy streaming into her body.

Miss Felicity didn’t waste a second and immediately raised them off the arena, bringing them towards her for healing.

Karmesínrot felt herself moving through the air, towards the fifth floor and decided to surrender to the extreme weakness that enveloped her body, she could have sworn she heard her bones creak under the pressure of the energy filling her body as she passed out.

Her horn receded into her skull and stopped assaulting her body with spiritual energy drawn from the environment.

Professor Franz and his clones clapped lightly.

Professor Arkham stood to his feet. "Now that was something". He muttered before calling the next round of contenders.