The Embodiment of Evil

The next morning, Tyrannus woke up fully refreshed. He opened the door to his room and looked at the large empty house without any furniture and thought to himself that he should slowly decorate it or something to make it feel more like home. 

He walked to the backyard and opened the door to let the sunlight in. He saw wild flowers growing all over the yard and around the stream. So he decided to pluck several large bunches of flowers, one to give Donna and the rest to decorate his house. 

Just as he was enjoying the peaceful moment, he heard a knock on the front door, so he kept the flowers in his ring and walked to his front door. 

As he opened the front door, he found that no-one was there. Instead, he noticed a pile of beautifully written letters in a myriad of expensive looking envelopes at his doorstep. Picking them up, he opened them to read what's inside. 

One by one, they were all literally the same message. Someone wanted to challenge him to a duel. Some of them came from men, other's from ladies, but even though they were in different writing, and the words differed a bit, the gist was exactly the same. 

He looked up only to see Donna walking towards him from afar with a smile on her face. 

"You've been challenged already? That was fast!" she said carrying several envelopes in her hand. 

"You want to challenge me too?" Tyrannus asked, looking at the envelopes in her hand. 

"No, these are not for you. Now that I am at Peak Level 3, I am challenging the top students who are at the same level, namely 3rd ranked Severus Van Blood, 2nd ranked Aribeth de Mornay and 1st ranked Lancelot" she said.

Thinking that those names sounded familiar, he looked at the envelopes in his hand. Indeed those 3 have challenged him, as had 15 or so others.

"These three?" he asked, showing her the 3 letters of challenge.

Donna gave a displeased look. "So they think you are a threat at acknowledge that you are above them already? Normally it's the lower ranked student that challenges the higher ranked. I guess its normal since your level is so far above theirs that you are automatically regarded as number 1" she said. 

"You are not going to challenge me too, are you?" Tyrannus asked. 

"Maybe in a few years after you train me more. Lets go to the Martial Arena" she said

"Train you to beat me? You sure are shameless about that" Tyrannus thought to himself

They walked for a while before entering the Martial Arena. It was a large stadium with seats surrounding a 1 acre platform.

They took a seat as they watched two students fight to a draw. Both were bloody and one was vomiting blood.

"I'm surprised that they are allowed to fight till they're all bloody" Tyrannus said

"We are allowed to fight until someone submits or cannot continue. But you are not allowed to kill or permanently maim another fellow student" Donna explained.

Another student stepped up onto the platform. He wore black armor and carried a huge sword on his back that looked the same height as him. He had a black cape and helmet with a demonic looking design and horns. 

"It's Damon Hellsong the number 6 ranked student!" gasped a nearby student.

"Damon Hellsong? I think he's one of those that challenged me" Tyrannus thought as he looked at the letters in his hand. Indeed he was one of the challengers, as Tyrannus looked at the black letter with blood red writing on it. 

Damon unsheathed his huge sword, revealing a black blade with red cracks on it, revealing red light from within, as if something was breaking out.  

Then in one swift motion he pointed the large sword at Tyrannus from afar.

"Tyrannus! I Damon Hellsong challenge you to a duel! Do you accept?" he said with a raspy voice.

Tyrannus kept all his challenge letters in his ring and smiled as he stood up and removed his clothes, leaving only shorts on. 

The crowd started gossiping, what was this guy doing? Why is he stripping?

"By the way, I plucked these for you" he said as he gave Donna a bunch of flowers then in one magnificent jump, he leaped over 50 meters onto the stage.

Under the demonic looking helmet, Damon didn't react to Tyrannus' strange acts. His red eyes could be seen blazing under his helmet with intensity. 

"Are you ready?" Damon asked as he demonstrated a powerful move, swinging his huge sword that created a gust of wind with every movement. 

"Ready? I'm done!" Tyrannus said, pointing to Damon's armor. 

Damon looked down and to his shock, he found a flower with it's stem piercing through the front of his armor in two holes, in and out and around to tie a knot leaving the flower neatly placed in the middle of his armor, right in front of his throat!

"H....How? I.... I admit defeat" Damon said. He knew that his armor was crafted from Lezulite Steel that should be hard to penetrate even with high grade weapons. Right now, he has a flower stem that pierced two small holes in it, right next to his throat. He knew that if this fight was to the death, the flower would have sliced through his throat without him knowing it. 

"Anyone else? I have a stack of letters here, but I'm open to anyone, even without a formal challenge" Tyrannus smiled. 

"I want to try!" said a low whisper as a student who looked in his late 20s walked onto the stage. 

Immediately he waved his arms and the air around him began to be covered with a green and purple mist. 

"That's 3rd Ranked Severus Van Blood, the poison user" clamored the crowd. 

Severus had immediately activated his poison arts in response to Tyrannus' speed, so that he cannot even get close. 

Tyrannus stood still, watching as the mist slowly moved closer and closer, covering every inch of the ground. 

He took out a flower and extended his right hand. Just as the mist touched his extended hand, he snapped his finger. 

*Poof* came a small explosion and suddenly blasted all the mist out of the stage clearing the stage in a split second. 

Severus stood still in his poison pose, in shock as Tyrannus was suddenly in front of him with a rose held out and touching Severus' nose. 

"Put your stinky mist away. Here's a rose" Tyrannus said. 

Severus put down his arms and shook his head. "I've lost. You're incredible" he said. 

"Thank you" Tyrannus smiled, then turned around to face the crowd. "Anyone else?"

Most of the crowd were still coughing as the mist was blown into the crowd. Many had fallen asleep as Severus used a sleeping poison. 

Aribeth walked up, still covering her face with a cloth. She threw her cloth down and drew her sword. 

She was a half-elf and had pointy ears, wearing a mithril armor and an elven sword. She was 22 years old and cultivated in the power of light. Her sword immediately glowed bright white as she twirled her sword around in preparation for battle. 

Tyrannus smiled and walked towards her, his hands moving in extreme speeds as if he was forming hand seals. 

Aribeth shot out sword lights, one after the other at incredibly fast speeds that in seconds, several tens of sword lights were shot simultaneously in waves at Tyrannus. 

Tyrannus continued walking forwards as if they didn't exist, and seem to be dancing and swaying in a strange manner. However, to everyone's shock, even though it looked like there was barely any space between the sword lights, Tyrannus was able to move safely between all of them and was completely unharmed. 

Aribeth started panicking as Tyrannus walked closer and closer, and she attacked with more sword lights and took out her shield with her left hand and got ready for Tyrannus' attack. 

Just as Tyrannus got close enough to reach her, he extended his hands. Aribeth instantly defended with her shield and retreated several meters. 

But nothing happened. She looked up and Tyrannus was already back to his starting location, standing there calmly with his hands behind his back.

"What....??" she wondered and was just about to attack again when she noticed a necklace made of flowers around her neck. 

"How... when.....?? I.... I've lost" Aribeth admitted. Placing a necklace over her neck was an effective way to prove that he could have cut her neck any time he wanted.

She curtsied gracefully and walked off stage. There was nothing embarrassing about losing to an opponent much higher ranked than youself. It's just that they wanted to see really how good he is. 

"My turn. I'm probably the last one" said a noble sounding voice as a handsome man who looked in his mid 20s walked on stage

"My name is Lancelot" he bowed, then brandished his spear. Then his weapon started crackling with lightning as did his eyes.

"En garde!" he yelled as lightning crackled around his whole body and he charged forwards in an instant.

A trace of lightning could be seen and he was instantly attacking Tyrannus with his lightning covered spear.

Tyrannus didn't dodge or even move. Instead, he smiled and started moving as if he were dancing. His hands moved in a strange manner that was too fast to be seen but still graceful that it matched his dance like movements.

Lancelot started attacking faster and more intensely, lightning crackling and exploding with every miss that hit the floor. 

The crowd gasped at the scene as they were in awe of Lancelot's power. But then again, all Tyrannus was doing was dancing?

Lancelot swung his spear into the air and in a big movement smashed it onto Tyrannus, missing him but creating a large explosion.

As the air cleared, only Lancelot stood there, still with the spear touching the ground in his attack pose.

"Damn it! I've lost... badly" he said as he stood up, then bowed.

Lancelot looked ridiculous with several rings of flowers tied around his spear, a crown of flowers on his head and flowers sticking out of his armor shoulder pads and out the front of his shirt. He had flowers tied like a ring around his biceps, his thighs and even a flower sticking out of each shoe. 

He looked so ridiculous as if he was going to a fairy wedding or something with flowers everywhere. 

"Thanks. It's been fun" Tyrannus said as he jumped off stage. 

Lancelot shook his head and with a gesture, burned all the flowers off his armor with lightning, then walked off stage. 

"Wow, you really showed them" Donna said.

"Well, I'm done. Wanna go?" Tyrannus asked, putting on his clothes. 

"Not yet. It's my turn" she answered. 

"You're challenging the top 3?" Tyrannus asked.

"No. I'm challenging 2nd, 3rd and 4th. It's not as if they're tired after fighting you" she laughed. 

"Good luck then. I'll stay root for you" he said. 

"Yeah, you better!" she teased.