Marked Ones: Advent of the Demon Prince

A wave of blue light painted the ground beneath all four fighters' feet. It originated from the man known as Titan, who stood calmly while three warriors, supposedly in the same weight class as him, charged his position.

The ground itself seemed to radiate mana, and that made two of the three elven warriors cautious enough to slow down. The final one, whose name escaped Lucius at the moment, continued their charge and for their troubles, received a massive shock of electricity coursing through their body. The man's body convulsed and twitched violently before he fell to the ground, unmoving.

A few gasps escaped some of the members of the crowd, but before anyone could say anything, Lucius snapped his fingers, and the blue light vanished. Gett roared in response, "[Berserker Arts: Rage]! [Berserker Arts: Iron Skin]!"

The elf grew slightly larger and a golden light washed over his body before he resumed his advance. The elf named Neshia followed quickly behind Gett and held a shield protectively in front of her while also pointing her sword slightly downward, as if in preparation for an upward swing.

Lucius was intrigued that Gett did not already have the [Rage] ability activated. He had originally assumed the reason the large elf looked strange was because he was prepared before the battle started. As Gett grew closer, he smelled something strange coming off of him. Some sort of chemical was being exuded along with his sweat and mingled with his natural scent.

"Well, that's not fair. You get a weapon and an enhancement potion of some kind? A strong one too." Lucius clicked his tongue and stepped to the side to avoid an overhead swing. "Meanwhile, I get to fight with my fists…"

Gett's axe planted into the ground and became stuck for a moment. Somehow Lucius believed this was not the first time the idiot had done something like this. Neshia, meanwhile, approached from Lucius's blindspot and attempted an upward swing. "[Sword Arts: Heavy Slash]!"

Lucius had heard her approach and decided to wait for her to initiate an attack before countering with a palm strike to her sternum. Neshia was stunned that Lucius was able to avoid her swing by stepping closer into her space, and that created the opening for him to hit.

Neshia skidded back several feet but stayed standing. Spittle dripped from her chin, and she looked as though she might have cracked a rib or two from the impact. Gett freed his axe from the ground and made another wild swing at Lucius from behind.

This time, he was prepared for the man to dodge and rapidly changed the direction of his swing with the help of an Art. "[Axe Arts: Tornado Swing]!"

Right as the axe moved past Lucius's body, Gett initiated the Art, and the axe forcibly changed direction, bringing with it all of the previous momentum. The rapid change caught Lucius slightly off guard, but it was a non-issue. There was a fundamental barrier that the two elves needed to overcome. They were too weak.

"[Tempestas: Thunderclap]"

Lucius empowered his gauntlet with the spell the instant before he let Gett's axe touch the palm of his hand. If the elf was an Advance Ranker or higher, the attack would have destroyed Lucius's hand. However, Gett wasn't and instead, the spell triggered and a wave of force slammed into the elf's massive frame.

Tearing skin and crunching bones arose from Gett's body as his arms were torn to pieces. Blood splattered across the ground and Lucius's face. Neshia looked in horror at the perpetrator and several members of the audience vomited, though it seemed odd considering what they paid to watch…

"Mmm, right. [Tempestas: Lightning bolt]" Lucius casually flicked a spell at Neshia, who attempted to hide behind her shield while dodging. Unfortunately for her, lightning hit faster, and the spell struck her in the center of the forehead, leaving behind a smoldering hole and the smell of burnt flesh.

The gates of the arena opened once more, revealing two more opponents. These were of the Advance Rank, which meant that Lucius would have to play a little more seriously.

"Amazing folks. Without a sweat, Titan took out three of our Intermediate Rank Champions! It seems that some rumors are true, but can Titan survive the second challenge? Welcome to the arena… two Advance Rank fighters. Eron of the Flame and Hetha the Silver Dagger!"

Lucius could tell that the announcer was telling the truth about his new opponents' ranks. He could see the mana flowing from them as well as feel the general strength from the way they carried themselves onto the battlefield. It seemed these two were well acquainted with working together as well.

Eron was clearly a mage. His attire was a simple set of robes that allowed for freedom of movement and were only supplemented by a few random pieces of armor that gave only a scant amount of protection.

Hetha, on the other hand, was an assassin-type warrior. She was adorned with skin-tight clothes with metal plating along her arms, legs, chest, and abdomen. The metal was thin and light but looked durable. It was also polished to an extremely fine shine, likely to help sell the name she was given.

Hetha only carried the single silver dagger that was also part of her namesake. Lucius deduced this was likely because she had some sort of additional magic that she used alongside the weapon. She did not seem to have any other weapons on her, so that meant he was likely safe from any throwing attacks…

"[Flamma: Fireball]!"

"[Umbra: Dark Lance]"

A massive ball of fire nearly the same size as Lucius himself launched toward him. Alongside it was a long bolt of Dark Magic. If it touched him, it would pierce right through him and also carried the potential of leaving him with some sort of status ailment.Nôv(el)B\\jnn

As he was up against two Advance Rankers, he could no longer hold back. On top of that, he was without a weapon, so some of his Arts were unusable. He quickly imbued himself with a [Lightning Charge] and launched across the arena in a single step to avoid the spells.

Lucius made sure to keep one foot on the ground during his movement and threw up a massive cloud of dust that was empowered with mana thanks to his [Sand Veil].

Though he did not have a weapon to use his Arts with, that did not mean he could not use at least some of them. Under the cover of the [Sand Veil], Lucius was able to listen to the movements of the enemy. He purposefully willed the dust cloud to surround them, but not blind them, creating a cloud of dust around them that was visually impenetrable to the naked eye.

This allowed him to quickly move to Neshia's corpse to steal her sword so that way he had at least something. He also snapped the hilt of Gett's axe to have a makeshift staff as well. Neither of these were his forte, but they were workable…