A Sinner’s Chance

As I awoke from the Dreamscape I shivered from the excitement and stimulation I had just experienced. I was euphoric as my hands explored my body, slowly moving and savoring the afterglow of a one-sided massacre. It took a moment before I shook the feeling off, while pleasant I had to make sure I didn't fall victim to it as I had in my past life. 

It wasn't that I particularly cared or even remembered the faces of those I'd mercilessly gunned, cut, and burned in my past life, falling into the same predicament as him was something I needed to avoid. This was my main reason for avoiding fighting before, since I, especially as a hormone fueled teen, was easily swayed into making stupid mistakes.

I shook my head a few times as I tried to clear it and calm down, I didn't have that much time before my fight with the lower five of the top ten. The only one I was worried about was Kali as she had serious firepower in both magic and melee. If all five worked together then it would probably be a rather difficult fight, but since they were all from different duke families I didn't imagine their rivalry being set aside easily. Even if they did work together, I was confident that they would exclude at least Kali from their plans, as my ranking boosted the overall prestige of our family, and if I was to win the Eldur family would have one third of the top ten spots. In addition, I didn't plan on stopping at fifth, if I was going to be in the spotlight, I was going to make it as showy as possible.

After a short break I was once again in the Dreamscape arena preparation room. As usual I only took the items I had brought with me and made my way into the spectator filled fighting area. I was the first to arrive and I could feel the gazes of the students who were spectating, some were more intense than others, and I was sure that at least some of them were students that had been beaten not but half an hour ago.

It didn't take much longer for my five new opponents to make their way out of the prep area and into the fighting pit. Unlike the one-vs-one I did with Heinrich I didn't plan on having a talk before the match and had opted instead to simply fight and let them air out their grievances later.

The six of us waited on opposite sides of the arena as the sound of the timer began to tick down towards zero. The moment the signal sounded we all moved simultaneously, I rushed towards the five who split into different directions to set themselves up. Heinrich came straight at me just as he had before, almost as if he hadn't learned a lesson from the last time. It seemed he had however, or perhaps the others had told him what to do, as rather than charge headfirst with no other plan, I could hear him chanting some form of earth magic as we got closer to each other. It wasn't until he was just out of reach and his chant finished, that I realized I had walked into their trap, as massive pillars quickly rose from the ground enclosing me inside.

Such a trap was however meaningless, as the while it was true that it would likely take a while to escape from the ground, the top of this trap was not closed. With practiced steps I leapt as I continued full speed to essentially run up the wall as my carapaced toes dug into the stone. When my speed began to slow I shot a carapace bolt attached with a web as high into the stone as I could before causing the carapace to vibrate and shatter into pieces inside the stone giving me an excellent anchor point to pull on as I continued up the wall.

It took maybe 20 seconds or so until I crested the top, my left hand now extending web as I fell, while my right hand and foot scraped against the stone ready to push off or aside and to make sudden stops if needed. In total I spent around thirty seconds circumventing their trap, as I pushed off, drew my blade and began to sprint towards Heinrich who had backed away and was in the process of creating some sort of stone dome.

Upon seeing me, he cursed and ceased his creation while yelling out that I had made it out before rushing towards me, the stone creation became many stone spears that he shot at me. It was nearly a perfect recreation of our first fight that I almost wanted to laugh, but I knew the other three I could see in my peripherals were planning something while standing still. I wasn't able to see Kalista anywhere but I wasn't going to let a chance to lower the amount of opponents pass me by.

Just like our first clash I gripped onto him and began to prepare Oscillation of Death only to suddenly cease as I threw him on the ground and ran my blade through his chest, leaving it there while I hastily constructed a webbed tent-like structure that I layered in carapace and Flames of Yin. Not a moment after I finished that I felt several types of magic collide with my structure, breaking through the defenses before hitting me as well.

If it hadn't been for Vision of Seshat showing me that the Golas twins and the 10th were preparing an Anti-Dragon spell I would have surely died, been kicked from the Dreamscape and have lost. In addition, if I hadn't used Heinrich's corpse's body fluid to enhance the regeneration and the power of my flames, the structure would have crumbled too quickly for me to withstand whatever made its way through.

I coughed blood as I stood on unsteady feet, the sand around me had been turned to glass from the intensity of that attack. I could feel myself rapidly healing as I moaned erotically while testing that everything I still had worked. The three I could see were completely drained and had fallen over, passed out, or dead, after launching such powerful magic that was far beyond what they'd normally be capable of. 

The problem was that I wasn't in any condition to fight, let alone move and like the grim reaper Kali appeared before me, a spear of pure fire being created in her hands as she looked at me without any hint of remorse before shooting off at me.