Life Hunter

"How do you know that?" Arima was surprised at Night's statement.

"Beast souls can see each other even if they are in the soul of their summoners. Last time, I didn't notice it because I didn't pay attention, or maybe because he wasn't in her soul at that time. But now, she is using her mana so I can clearly see it."

"I see..." Arima paused. "Wait, you can reside inside my soul?"

"Yes."

"Then why didn't you say so when I asked you of a way to hide?"

"Because I don't want to go in your soul," Night answered without batting an eye. "I feel like a small fish alone in an ocean in there. It's depressing."

Arima blinked once and sighed. He focused on Aria again. "[Anima Oculum] (Soul Eye)," his left eye glowed with a blue light. "It looks like her soul is split in two. Yeah, you're right…"

"Anyhow, let's return. We still have a day to master our resonance. It's harder than I first expected," he said and turned around. He jumped off the wall, over the crowd, and landed lightly directly in the middle of the city. Night followed him afterward.

At the end of the day, the sixteen competitors were set and Arima had to use his remaining gold to pay the rent for a few more days at the 'Wing's Nest'. Aria laughed madly because she forgot in the action that Arima was a client of her Inn.

***

The next day, the order of the fights were decided. The second round was divided into eight fights apparently. Surprisingly, Arima got paired with the archer who broke Night's shield.

"I'll admit that your magic back then was pretty eye catching. But it was too slow and it definitely won't be enough to defeat me."

Arima stared at him with a raised eyebrow. 'That magic was meant to be long-cast, I was testing it. And I did that because I knew that no one would be able to harm me. Also, that magic was just a shock wave on steroids, if I wanted, I could have made it strong enough to cripple you. Why are you saying that to my face? Is it supposed to give you confidence?' He snapped in his mind. He didn't talk because angering his opponent would bring no good.

"Are you ready?" Like before, the voice of the suit guy resounded. We'll call him James for convenience. "3, 2, 1, Fight!"

The archer moved first. He jumped and retreated by a few steps. He took out an arrow from his quiver, placed it on his bow and pulled the string in less than second. At the same time, two small magic circles formed in front of the arrowhead.

'Enhancement circles, huh?' Arima thought.

Circles are an important aspect of magic. There are three different types of circles.

The first type is enhancement and as the name suggests, it enhances a certain aspect of whatever or whoever passes through it. In this case, the two circles in front of the arrow enhance speed and penetration.

The second type is the range type. Basically, it's for casting magic from a different place than where your body actually is. For example, if you conjure a fireball to hit a target which is ten meters away, it will lose some of its momentum before reaching the target. In contrast, if you use a range circle, you can fire that magic just next to the target and inflict the most damage possible.

The third type is usually called the auxiliary circle. Its function is to help the mage when casting the magic, to either reduce the chanting time or improve its efficiency. For example, when Night shapeshifted, he used an auxiliary circle.

Its function was simply to cast the magic allowing a physical change to be bigger or smaller with the mana provided, while Night focused on the process of transforming a dragon into a wolf. If he had not used the circle, it would have taken more time, spirit, and mana.

'Hm? Wait. Now that I think about it, if I use circles, I might be able to cast those compressed spheres faster.' At that moment, Arima began to seriously consider that possibility, totally disregarding what was happening around him.

Meanwhile, the archer fired his arrow, it reached Arima in no time but the latter's figure became a bit fuzzy with a few black sparks in addition. In the end, the arrow went through him as if he was a ghost.

"What!?" The opponent shouted and nocked two more arrows at the same time, he then added a new layer of enhancement circles. He fired again but the same thing happened. The two arrows passed through their target before piercing the ground.

"What the hell is that?!"

That shout seemed to wake up Arima as he looked at the guy in front of him with wide-open eyes.

"Oh, sorry. You said something?"

"You! Why can't my arrows hit you?!"

"Can't hit me?" Arima glanced at Night who was lying in a corner of the arena and the wolf yawned and nodded. 'Can't hit me? Oh, I see. I used Wild Spark in instinct… my bad,' he suddenly realized that he had used magic reflexively. "Um, you can call it DBZ style."

"What is that supposed mean?"

"Don't worry, you're not supposed to know."

He gritted his teeth. "Fuck, [Triple Enchant, Burst]." Three magic circles formed in front of the arrow with the third being clearly bigger than the two others.

'An explosive arrow,' Arima analyzed the circles, it was speed, wind, and fire. 'A crude blast.'

This time, the arrow was aimed at the ground just in front of Arima. "[Scintillam Feram] (Wild Spark)," he disappeared and reappeared twenty meters away when the arrow hit the ground and fissured the arena's ground.

Before the opponent could say anything, Arima drew a green magic circle in front of him that looked a lot more complex than the average kind. "[Spaera]," a few spheres the size of a marble formed above Arima's hand. With a swift motion, they flew through the circle and landed at the feet of the archer.

"Huh?"

"[Lacero] (Break)," Arima snapped his fingers and the green marbles exploded immediately. The four spheres instantly shrouded the archer. These were a lot smaller than the previous one during the eliminations and only lasted for half a second, but they seemed to be stronger in contrast. When the magic stopped, the archer had fainted whilst standing.

"W-winner! Arimane Blade!" James concluded the fight.

Arima stared at his hand while walking out of the arena. 'As I thought, circles are more important than I thought. I should study them a little bit more.'

Night looked at the fainted participant. 'Poor guy,' he bowed his head a bit. 'Rip.'

During that fight, Arima actually revised his compression process. He chose to create a marble-sized sphere first and make it go through a hybrid circle; an enhancing circle combined with an auxiliary one. So, in the end, it became a circle that would cast a pre-set magic on whatever passes through it. This time, the circle infused a great density of wind inside the sphere while maintaining its stability.

After that fight, for the rest of day, the four semifinalists were decided. As expected, the remaining challengers were Arima plus the three he had marked the previous day.

***

The next day, the first fight was between Arima and the tamer.

"Hello, my name is Valdo Aldar, pleased to meet you," the tamer greeted Arima. He looked like a well-educated and calm youth.

'Someone who is polite and mannered. I feel like it's rare in this world,' Arima smiled. "I'm Arimane Blade, nice to meet you."

"Groa!" A brown bear on the side entered the conversation too.

"Nice to meet you too," it was Night who replied to the large beast and Valdo chuckled.

"It's time to begin! Are you ready!" James announced. The two participants nodded.

"3!"

Arima summoned Karma this time around. Night still stayed behind though, seated like a well-behaved pet. Though he would certainly refute that analogy with all of his might.

"2!"

Valdo prepared a staff and the bear stood beside him with a sharp look.

"1! Fight!"

"[Scintillan Ferram]," Arima moved in an instant. He rushed behind his opponent and gripped Karma, ready to draw it, but a shadow appeared in his vision. Surprised, he jumped to the side and just needed a glance to recognize the figure. 'That bear has good instincts.'

While he was still in an evasive action, two figures attacked him from both sides. He drew Karma and cut the incoming figures in one swing. When he regained a stable vision, he saw that the two figures he cut were actually transparent white wolves. 'Summonings…'

When he was about to rush forward again, the ground shook and the arena's floor trapped him in a sort of stone cocoon.

"What a pain. [Sicarius Umbra]," he chanted quietly. His coat glowed dimly and his body turned into a shadow. He quietly got out of the cocoon and hid in the shadows nearby.

'So, he uses earth magic, huh? I need to take care of the bear first, but...'

Arima jumped out of the shadow and charged toward the tamed beast. Valdo seemed to have been startled by the fact that he got out without breaking the stone.

Arima unsheathed Karma and swung it at the bear with the flat edge of the blade, but when it was supposed to hit, it phased through. The bear was cut in two but he vanished afterward like fog. Behind that, the real bear was revealed, already swinging his claw.

'I knew it. Illusion? No. Projection,' Arima said internally. He planted the scabbard of his sword in the ground and used it as a pivot. He evaded the bear's strike and revolved around the sheath.

"[Sunt robore] (Strength up)," he kicked the beast. The bear was blown away for a few tens of meters. Meanwhile, two huge summoned boars charged from the front and a wall emerged from the ground behind Arima to block his escape path.

"Alright," he sheathed Karma. He extended his right arm and two auxiliary circles formed above the two boars. Arima clenched his hand into a fist, raised his thumb, and pointed down.

"[Gravitatis C Temporibus] (Gravity, Times 100)."

The boars instantly crashed on the ground because of the pressure and created two new craters. Arima struck the wall behind him with Karma and easily destroyed it.

He looked around and his pupils dilated. The aura of the bear was rising continuously. His height which was already around three meters now grew to be five meters.

"He actually broke through level 5… and he seems to be a physical enhancement magic variant too."

Valdo was already standing next to the bear. "Thanks for helping him breakthrough."

Arima lightly laughed. "Fine. You did well. But I'll stop playing around now. If I continue it would just be rude," he declared. Because he still had not dispelled Wild Spark, his voice sounded a bit double toned. "Sorry, I'll finish this in one attack."

He took an Iai stance and exhaled. Valdo furrowed his eyebrows and turned toward his partner.

"I know you just broke through but prepare yourself to avoid or withstand anything that he will throw at you!"

The beast roared and reinforced his body to the maximum. His entire body's muscles tensed and he grew in size one more time.

On the other side, Karma was already emitting a staggering amount of energy.

"[Five Gates of Ra]!" Valdo chanted and five golden gates were constructed in front of him. On each gate, a sun had been drawn in a different position in the sky for each. One at midnight, one at dawn, one at the peak, one during fall, and the last one at dusk.

Arima inwardly praised the magic. He added even more mana to his sword right before drawing it. "[Aeterna] (Eternal Night)."

Karma unleashed a flying slash, darker than the night. It pierced through the first gates easily but found resistance at the last one. Arima's eyes shined and the wave of lightning inevitably breached the last defense before reaching the bear. He crossed his paws to take the blow since it was too fast to dodge.

When Aeterna was an inch away from hitting its target, Arima chanted, "[Praemium] (Explode)."

The flying slash exploded into a black sphere. Thunder rumbled as dark lightning covered everything in a twenty meters' radius. It looked like a powerful lightning bolt had struck the place.

The explosion calmed down after a moment and left the tamer-beast pair unconscious and injured in the middle of a scorched crater.

"Be thankful. If I hadn't ruptured my attack, you would have died," Arima murmured. "Let's go, Night."

The dragon in a wolf form came over. "I don't like this. I feel like a side character right now…"

Arima laughed. "Don't worry, you'll participate in the finals. I just wanted to have fun a bit."

"The winner is Arimane Blade!" James declared the end of the fight. "The next fight will be conducted in block D. The fighters are Aria Carta and Rehard Lens."