Free Web NovelChapter 27: Results
"Ethan Algar."
The Demi-human referee called his name without looking up from the clipboard in his hand, standing at the edge of a circular wooden platform that had been assembled with practical and temporary ease, its boards had uneven underfoot, its edges shook at the application of pressure.
Ethan stepped into position and looked across at his opponent.
Tier 8, same as him. But not from his generation. Most of the people who had gone through the summoning ritual in the past month were probably still sitting at tier 9, grinding through the requirements their own evolution demanded. The man opposite him had crossed into tier 8 long before that.
"Hm."
The man gave a short nod, his brow creasing slightly as he tried to place Ethan’s face and came up empty.
Among the older tier 8 summoners there was very little mystery left between them. Old friends, old competitors, old rivals running through the same exchanges they had been having for years.
A tournament format between people who had watched each other fight a dozen times was like playing a cassette tape that had already worn through its best moments.
A newly ascended was different.
Everything Ethan had was still unknown. No history to reference, no pattern to predict from, no account of how he moved under pressure that anyone in this camp had filed away. He was a blank that the man across from him had no idea how to read.
—woosh
The older summoner moved first, his body cloaking in darkness as he covered the distance, a silhouette flickering at the edge of Ethan’s vision as the summon appeared beside him, teeth bared, poised.
"Black Hive Panther."
Ethan didn’t dodge.
He read the angle and summoned the moon blade in the same motion, swinging directly into his attacker rather than away from him.
Clang!!
The blade met a dagger mid-air and the force behind the block pushed back against Ethan’s grip harder than the man’s frame suggested it should. Surprise registered in the older summoner’s eyes for a fraction of a second.
—woosh
Ethan dissolved.
The swarm moved through the space between them in a disorienting spread, scattering across the platform before pulling back together behind his opponent. He reformed with the moon blade already descending.
This time it connected.
A deep gash opened across the young man’s back, blood spreading immediately through the fabric of his shirt in a wide dark stain. The bleed effect from the blade settled into the wound without fanfare, quiet and persistent, doing its work on its own timeline.
"Skilled."
The Demi-human referee said it without particular enthusiasm, his eyes tracking the sequence with the detached attention of someone cataloguing rather than watching.
The precision in Ethan’s movement had registered. Even now, a silhouette had broken away from Ethan’s position and was pressing toward the panther, working to close that front simultaneously.
That kind of layered thinking under pressure didn’t come from raw talent alone. It came from either years of accumulated experience or a mind that had been built for calculating violence and had found its natural environment.
The exchange continued, Ethan holding the advantage steadily, the bleed accumulating in the background while he controlled the space.
Then
a second summon appeared,
a giant wolf
His eyes widened.
He pulled back several steps and burst into the swarm before the beast could fully orient, the cloud scattering across the platform in every direction, the wolf snapping at shapes that dissolved before its teeth could close.
Ethan came back together on the other side of the confusion and drove a clean strike into his opponent’s chin.
The man went down.
Both summons disappeared a second later, the bonds dropping as consciousness left their summoner.
,,,,,,,,,,,,,
Ethan stepped off the platform and looked at the medallion in his hand as it registered the win with a faint pulse of light.
"One step at a time."
He said it under his breath, already looking toward the next stage.
That night he fought five fights.
Five different opponents, all tier 8, all carrying more years of experience than he had months of existence in this world. He won every single one, but almost barely keeping his life.
When morning came, he crossed into the cage and his legs simply stopped cooperating.
He hit the floor face first and stayed there.
"How was it?"
Zack appeared beside him, crouching down, a small container of red liquid already open in his hand. He began working it across the worst of the surface damage on Ethan’s arms and shoulders without asking permission.
He had watched the fights from inside the cage. Most of them, anyway.
The boy was talented, that was obvious from a distance, even through the bars. What was equally obvious was that the talent was raw.
No formal structure behind the instincts. No training that had shaped his approach into something repeatable and efficient.
He was winning on sharpness alone, and sharpness had a ceiling when the body underneath it couldn’t keep pace.
"Exhausting."
Ethan managed the single word without lifting his face from the floor.
His eyes moved sideways toward Hela, seated a short distance away.
Not a mark on her.
"You need to learn how to manage your output," Zack said, settling into a cross-legged position above him as the cage jerked and the caravan began to move again. "Brute force is a tool. Not a strategy. Used in timed bursts it’s devastating. Used constantly it just drains you until you can’t finish the last fight that matters."
He stroked his chin as he worked.
He had no idea who the girl was. Hedidn’t carry the Algar surname, which meant the clan’s internal intelligence on personnel had never reached him properly. But watching her fight had made certain things clear. The precision, the economy, the particular way she moved like someone who had been trained by people who expected a great deal from her.
White Tower.
It was the only place that produced people who moved like that.
"Most summoners never seriously develop their weapon work," Zack continued. "They lean on their summons and the magic those connections provide. It’s not optimal. It leaves gaps." He paused. "I can give you a few pointers, if you’d like."
He smiled, the expression carrying a helplessness he didn’t try to hide.
If the girl was White Tower and she was managing herself this carefully, she was either preparing to signal her organization or she had already written the caravan off and was working toward a direct exit. Either way, Ethan was part of whatever came next.
Strengthening him was straightforward logic.
"Scoot over." freeweɓnovel.cøm
A Demi-human guard’s voice cut through from outside the bars, sharp and dismissive. He was standing at the cage entrance with a young man beside him, still chained from neck to ankles, the links heavy enough that moving required deliberate effort.
"Mad dog, this one." The guard delivered the warning like it was an afterthought and kicked the young man through the opening. "Don’t get too close."
The chain rattled as he hit the floor of the cage.
Ethan lifted his eyes from the ground and looked at the new addition.
He recognized the face.
He had watched this person fight the previous night from a distance, one of the tier 8 matches running on the adjacent platform. The memory of it had stayed with him not because of the result but because of the method.
Vicious was the only word that fit.
This person was called Psycho Fin
