The arena announcer counted down the final few seconds. Both parties waited up against the separating blue wall.

Aegis cast Bless and activated his aura skills. Hajax activated auras and buffs alongside Zuon. By the time the announcer said Start, everyone’s weapons were glowing.

The blue walls came down, and the 10 players poised to attack each other with tension in their shoulders, yet no one charged, and no one taunted. They followed each other with narrowed eyes, but their mouths did not move.

Slowly, the two sides closed in on one another.

Aegis and Rakkan stood in front with Lina behind, and further back, Pyri and Darkshot. Seraxus led the charge with Hajax and Gambit, Zuon and Sylvia in the rear.

Lina made the first move, shadow-stepping somewhere out of view of their opponents.

Seraxus launched himself into the air with incredible height, then used his charge-strike skill to rush through the space above the arena floor towards Pyri. Aegis jumped with his shield up to intercept him, causing him to crash into Aegis’ shield instead with his shoulder, with a great amount of force that knocked them both back to the ground, their boots skidding across the sand-covered tiles for several feet before stopping. Several converging floating weapons attempted to strike at Aegis from multiple angles. He threw up his guards and activated his Avatar of Eirene skill, making use of his wings, blocking and deflecting.

“Multicast, Cinderbolt - Empowerment, Forcebolt - Empowerment, Haste,” Pyri cast, creating her purple cinderbolts around her. She sent them around Aegis and Seraxus, soaring towards the enemies on the other side of the arena.

Gambit and Hajax positioned themselves around Sylvia. Gambit activated his extra four spirit arms and took a fighting stance beside her, eying Rakkan and his echoes as they rushed across the field.

Zuon remained positioned behind them, focusing on Darkshot. Both had arrows nocked and were looking at each other rather than shooting.

Sylvia covered her body in dark runes, sparks of violet magic flying off of her. A stream of thick dark purple magic fired out from her palms as a beam, but it didn’t move linearly. It zigzagged across the arena, faking going for Pyri, but it curved and shot down at Aegis, passing through him. Pyri attempted to block and redirect it, but her cinderbolts had no effect.

You take 3,325 shadow damage.

Aegis damage mixed in with multiple others he was getting from Seraxus’ attacks. A volley of arrows was fired from Zuon with pink glowing bard magic warping around the arrowheads. Darkshot responded with his own volley, redirecting his arrows to collide with as many of Zuon’s shots as possible, but the arrows were not aimed at himself.

“Aegis!” Darkshot called out to warn him. As he did, the arrows switched to glowing with a dark green energy, indicating that Zuon had swapped them to pinning shot arrows with hand gestures.

Aegis had his hands full with Seraxus’ unrelenting attacks. Lina spotted this and revealed herself from the shadows, throwing a smoke bomb behind Seraxus for her to teleport to. Once she jumped to it, she fired daggers of shadows out of the smoke at the few arrows that Darkshot failed to stop at the last second.

None of this had prevented Sylvia from continuing her channeled black beam. It circled Aegis and attempted to strike him a second time from behind.

Pyri took a deep breath of frustration. “Sylvia’s got cinderbolts figured out. It’s about time I stop being a one-trick pony,” She stuck the bottom of her staff into the ground, canceling her cinderbolts and causing her fingers to glow multiple colors. “Freezing Mist, empowerment: eruption, empowerment: chain lightning.”

The initial spell was misty, but once she used her magelord skill to mix in the effects of two others, its nature changed. The icy mist bolted forward at incredible speed, erupting bursts of ice as it traveled, freezing chunks of the arena floor and nearby pillars and causing sharp shards to explode from the sections it touched.

Sylvia, Hajax, and Gambit saw it coming towards them, and Hajax maneuvered with his shield to block the front of the misty bolt. When it collided with Hajax’s shield, ice erupted out from the point of impact and the ground below, causing a light blue ice to form. From that ice, razor-sharp ice shards exploded outward, forcing Hajax to jump back to avoid them.

The mist didn’t stop. It kept traveling and warped around Hajax to get to Sylvia behind him. This forced Sylvia to finally break concentration on her beam spell to move out of the way and avoid it as it crashed into the ground where her feet had been.

While this happened, Rakkan and Gambit faced off, ready to block each other and contest each other's movements. Rakkan knew better than to spread out his echoes this time and instead kept them close to his main body, ready for Gambit to teleport around him.

Gambit created his circular area of spiritual energy of which he could freely teleport, but he did not use it to flank Rakkan once it had finished forming. He instead used it to teleport beyond Rakkan and across the arena in front of Pyri. Pyri canceled her empowered mist spell to disengage and avoid several spiritual fists to her face.

Gambit teleported behind her, and she cast an instant spell with her hands that created a wave of fire between herself and Gambit to block the first. He teleported to get at her from another angle.

Rakkan paused for a moment, considering running towards Pyri to help her out, but saw that Darkshot was pointing his bow in the direction of Gambit already, so instead turned to face Hajax. Hajax was in the midst of repositioning himself to protect Sylvia while Sylvia was preparing another spell.

Rakkan rushed toward Hajax with his echoes and clashed with him, moving his copies around Hajax’s flanks to get at him from behind his shield.

Hajax used his guard skill in combination with his mace and real shield to protect himself and hold Rakkan back, keeping Sylvia safely behind him. Lina threw a smoke bomb at Sylvia and jumped to her with Shadowstep, appearing behind her and striking her with her daggers.

Red damage numbers popped up all around the arena, over the heads of multiple targets.

Aegis was taking a constant stream of damage from Seraxus, which he was offsetting with his aura of healing and defenses.

Pyri and Gambit were exchanging blows. Both were playing aggressively and regularly gave up on defensive maneuvers in order to inflict more damage.

Rakkan was dealing damage to Hajax, while Hajax was retaliating with several hits of his own. Lina was striking out at Sylvia, but Sylvia stopped trying to cast channeling skills and instead formed several runes on her hand, causing black blades to form over each hand, outlined in a deep purple magical glow. It was with these hands that she began striking out at Lina in retaliation, landing some hits herself, though dealing less damage than Lina. Hajax, unfortunately, was close enough to Sylvia still that he was able to throw healing spells at Sylvia to offset the damage that Lina was dealing.

Hae-won, up in the stands above the arena, had her mouth moving a mile a minute. She was announcing the skills each player was using, their targets, and, if possible, the reasoning and cleverness behind each decision. For anyone watching the match unfold from a distance, she was doing an incredible job of making sure everyone knew where to look. This, in turn, helped Shinji focus his editing efforts on the vital parts of the fight so that he didn’t miss any key moments.

Aegis’ viewership continued to climb over the other ongoing broadcasts, as the Fanta-See networks team was delivering a much better viewing experience than the competition.

Darkshot and Zuon remained relatively out of the line of fire and stood back, analyzing the situation. Both of them had fired several arrow volleys at their enemies, but they had little to no impact on the current engagements. Darkshot had shot at Gambit to try and pin him down as he teleported around Pyri, but he easily avoided the arrows.

If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.

Zuon fired arrows at Lina and mixed in disorienting bard spells to try and break up her attacks against Sylvia, but was unsuccessful.

Almost in unison, their mouths began to move, but their voice traveled only through their party interface, both consulting with the rest of their teams.

“Aegis, what should I do?”

“Seraxus, what’s the play, yo?”

Aegis and Seraxus eyed each other, frustrated by their abilities to negate one another in this five vs five match. They inadvertently gave each other a brief reprieve as they both eyed the situation of their teammates around them, and Hae-won picked up on it.

“Both teams have engaged most of their chosen targets, save for Zuon and Darkshot. Whoever they choose to engage will likely create a snowball effect. This match is looking like it will be decided in a matter of seconds, don’t blink or you’ll miss it…” Hae-won announced, gripping her voice-amplification staff tightly.

“Multishot. Pinning shot.” Zuon and Darkshot both cast in unison. The two glared at each other across the arena for a brief moment, their multishots fired straight into the air. Both had been instructed on how to aim by their party leaders just milliseconds earlier, but the direction of the volleys made it hard for the enemies to predict their targets.

It wasn’t until targets broke off from their current opponents that it became clear.

Seraxus dashed away from Aegis towards his side of the arena, where Zuon, Hajax, and Sylvia were fighting Lina and Rakkan.

Rakkan disengaged from Hajax to strike at Sylvia alongside Lina, while Darkshot’s volley of arrows soared through the sky towards her as well. Sylvia created runes on her feet to empower her mobility, jumping around incredibly fast and waving the black blades on her hands up in all directions to deflect some of the arrows, but this left her vulnerable to Lina’s daggers and Rakkan’s echoes.

Rakkan’s echoes were able to reach Sylvia, but his main body did not. Hajax had identified the real Rakkan and positioned himself to limit his movement, using his guard skill to hold him in place so that Zuon could easily hit Rakkan with the pinning shot.

The result was that both Zuon and Darkshot’s pinning shots landed on their intended targets. Vines burst out of Sylvia and Rakkan’s bodies. Lina threw a smoke bomb directly on top of Sylvia to block her vision of any further attacks, causing more hits from Rakkan’s echoes and Darkshot’s arrows to get through.

“Shadow dance, flurry.” Lina cast.

Meanwhile, with Rakkan pinned, Hajax attempted to strike out at his main body with his mace, but Rakkan could easily deflect it. The only real threat to Rakkan was going to be Seraxus, who promptly used a charge-strike to clear across the arena and reach him much faster than Aegis could.

Aegis was not in a position to intercept the Charge Strike and instead formed a guard in front of Seraxus to try to cut him off. Seraxus anticipated this and cancelled his charge the moment a guard appeared in front of him, then grabbed the transparent form of Aegis’ shield projection to launch himself over it and recast Charge Strike.

A second time, Aegis used his advanced shield mastery skill to block the next charge with another shield projection, and Seraxus did the exact same thing, completely outplaying Aegis’s attempts to defend Rakkan.

Aegis could only sprint as fast as he could, propelling himself forward with his wings quickly. Rakkan saw Seraxus closing in on his main body and Aegis’ inability to keep up with Seraxus, so instead of continuing to fight against Hajax’s scepter attacks, he let the scepter swings hit him and turned his spear to the vines binding his feet, to cut himself loose.

Rakkan got himself free of the bindings at the last second and jumped to the left to avoid Seraxus’ black sword of hatred as it plunged through the air towards him. A shield projection from Hajax was created in the direction Rakkan had attempted to dodge, preventing his movement and guaranteeing the attack to land.

Combatant Rakkan has been defeated.

Aegis looked to the cloud of smoke behind Hajax, where a volley of Darkshot’s arrows had flown in, and Lina continued to strike at Sylvia frantically. To Aegis’ relief, another message from the arena announcer followed the first.

Combatant Sylvia has been defeated.

Hajax spun around and threw out his light magic at the smoke bomb that Lina had been teleporting around in, revealing her standing over Sylvia’s disintegrating body. With Seraxus at his side, Hajax wound up another spell of glowing light on his hands and erupted into a bright, blinding flash, removing all shadows surrounding Lina.

Seraxus aimed his black blade at her and used a charge strike towards Lina, revealing his second target. Aegis was still too far back to catch up to them, the mobility of charge-strike proving to be too much for his class to handle---Harbinger’s of light had no mobility skills save for the wings on his back.

Aegis saw the look of panic on Lina’s face as she desperately glanced around for a shadow to jump towards as Seraxus’ next charge strike closed in on her at incredible speed. He had only seconds to decide what to do. He considered trying to create more shield projections in front of Seraxus, but he already knew it was useless. Instead, he recalled his very first interactions with Lina and her shadowstep skill.

“Guard!” Aegis angled the shield off to the side of Seraxus’ charge, so that it blocked the light of Hajax’s illuminating holy spell to cast a shadow behind itself. Lina saw this, then quickly flipped up her cloak to cast a shadow of her own big enough at her feet to allow her to jump from.

As Seraxus’ black blade of hatred pierced into Lina’s cloak, she was able to shadowstep into the shade of Aegis’ shield projection and avoid the strike.

Aegis closed in on Hajax, and Seraxus glanced around to spot Lina. So long as Hajax was glowing, Lina couldn’t use her skills properly.

“Pin 'em!” Seraxus and Aegis both shouted in unison, both glancing towards their bow-wielding teammate. Aegis did a head gesture for Darkshot to aim at Hajax, while Seraxus did it to Lina. Both fired volleys and were weaving their arrows through the air towards their intended targets.

Hajax jumped away from Aegis and raised his shield up to defend against the pinning shots. Aegis flapped his spread holy wings outward to block vision, allowing Darkshot to sneak a pinning arrow in from underneath Aegis and hit Hajax in one of his calves, causing the vines to branch out.

Similarly, Zuon hit Lina. He did so by causing several arrows to explode with deafeningly loud musical notes that disoriented Lina briefly. That, mixed in with her inability to shadowstep and the pursuing Seraxus and his floating weapons circling her, gave her nowhere to run. Her daggers could parry several strikes, but not enough.

Aegis glanced between the pinned Lina and the pinned Hajax and had to make a decision. There was no guarantee he could save Lina, but there was a guarantee he could take out Hajax, and he made the choice.

“Virabhadra!” Aegis cast next to the pinned Hajax. The red arms of Shiva formed out of his body as the dome of energy encapsulating Hajax, bypassing his defenses and transferring the damage that Aegis had taken from Seraxus and Sylvia onto him. Simultaneously, Seraxus closed in on the pinned Lina and pierced her with the sword of hatred.

Combatant Hajax

has been defeated

Combatant Lina has been defeated.

During the flashy, distracting lights of their engagements, Zuon had suddenly broken into a sprint across the arena towards Darkshot and fired several arrows. Aegis tried to turn and look to see what was happening, but he wasn’t given a chance to look long as Seraxus turned his blades onto him.

Seraxus and Aegis were isolated on the side of the arena that Seraxus’ party had started on, while Zuon was rushing towards Darkshot on Aegis’ side, and Pyri and Gambit were continuing to duke it out along the back wall.

Zuon fired multiple multishot volleys at Darkshot, and Darkshot responded with his own, the arrows colliding in a mass, some getting through. The distance between the two closed, and more arrows were fired, the pair dealing equal amounts of damage to each other until nearing melee range.

Once close, Zuon snuck a pinning shot into Darkshot, while Darkshot managed to do the same just as they’d gotten several feet from each other.

“Everything you can do, I can do!” Darkshot shouted at Zuon. He threw out a ranger mark at the pinned Zuon, several feet away. “Except this, right, bard?” Darkshot smirked.

“Or this,” Zuon grinned back. He turned his head towards Aegis across the arena. “Mimicry: Virabhadra. Virabhadra!”

“Sh– RAIN OF ARROWS!” Darkshot shouted, dumping his mana into the spell to form a thousand arrows from his bow and aiming them at Zuon. The dome of light from Aegis’ spell was unfortunately milliseconds faster than Darkshot’s attack. It copied Aegis’ spell and the damage it had absorbed, killing Darkshot instantly and removing both him and his arrows from the arena, keeping Zuon alive.

Combatant Darkshot has been defeated.

“That’s my queue,” Gambit winked at Pyri. Pyri was getting into a good flow of blocking his teleportation movements and six fists, but he became completely reckless and grasped out at her through her magical defenses. He took massive damage in the process, but managed to grab Pyri to hold her in place.

“Spiritual Release.” Gambit cast. His entire body became translucent, taking on a light blue hue, exactly like his four extra arms. Once the spell finished, his extra arms were indistinguishable from the rest of his body, but the glowing light of his body continued to get brighter.

“Mom, that’s a kamikaze skill!” Aegis shouted across the arena once he’d heard Gambit’s words.

From studying Seraxus’ party and their skills, he knew the ability. It would take the remaining health of Gambit and deal triple that amount of damage to any targets he was touching with any of his six arms, and in turn reduce his health to 0. He willingly sacrificed himself to take Pyri out of the match.

Pyri heard Aegis’ words and registered the danger of what Gambit was going to do, but this only made him tighten his grip on her with his other arms, grabbing her wrist and biceps in multiple spots. She released a burst of magic to attempt to make him let go, but he wasn’t going to do so.

Seconds later, a blast of spiritual energy erupted from the pair, engulfing Pyri.

Combatant Gambit has been defeated.

The announcer's voice carried as Aegis, Zuon, and Seraxus turned to look at the explosion of energy, confused. The message for Pyri’s defeat never came, and a few seconds later, the dust and light from the explosion settled to reveal why. A calm, strange-looking pigeon was settled onto Pyri’s shoulder, letting out an anxious coo.

Darkwing had negated the damage from the attack.

After seeing this, Seraxus and Aegis both disengaged from one another and backed up to their last remaining teammate, turning the 5 vs 5 match into a 2 vs 2.