Gatekeepers Book 2: Galeforce

Draycos checked up on Clyad’s stats displayed in the spherical monitors floating above the center of the arena.

Wow, those are some pretty impressive stats the guy has.

Name: Clyad Hemah

Race: Human

Attack: 5

Defense: 2

Speed: 4

Magic: 4

Endurance: 4

Total: 19

Crime: Assassination

Assassination? Who did this old-fashion samurai take out that was important enough to land himself in the Dragon King’s prison?

Clyad stopped walking once he reached the center of the arena and quickly turned around to face Draycos. Draycos halted his steps and returned the silent stare.

“Ya know,” Clyad started, sticking the blade of his katana into the ground and pulling the stalk of grass out of his mouth with his right hand as if it was a cigar. “You’re probably thinking about who I took out to land myself in prison right now, aren’t ya?”

Surprise flickered across Draycos’s face, and he showed a nervous smile. “Damn, that’s creepy,” he commented. “How’d you know?”

Clyad sighed, looking completely unmotivated. “Everyone thinks that whenever they see me,” he yawned. “Truth be told, though, I didn’t actually kill anyone. I used to be a mercenary, or a sword-for-hire. I was assisting a client under a contract for treasure hunting when he got the drop on one of the former Dragon Council members and killed him in cold blood. I don’t take jobs for assassination requests, so I was ready to void the contract then and there. But my client knocked me out and handed me over to the guards, saying I was the one who did it. I realize now that the bastard only wanted someone to be a fall man for him. It’s been three years since I ended up here.”

“Am I supposed to believe that?”

Clyad sighed, then stuck the grass back in his mouth before retrieving his katana. “Ya don’t hafta believe me if ya don’t wanna. I understand you’re in a similar situation, though, so I thought I might as well talk to ya to see what kind of person ya were before I cut ya down.”

Draycos narrowed his eyes at this comment and glared at the swordsman as he rested the back of his blade on his shoulder once more and spread out his legs as he took a stance. “You sure are confident that you’ll beat me, aren’t you?”

“Of course,” Clyad answered simply as the gong was struck, signaling the beginning of the match. “I came here to win this time. I’m not about to let a greenhorn like yourself beat me.”

With that comment, Clyad vanished.

Shocked by the sudden development, Draycos quickly started up his Mana Focus state and glanced at his surroundings, trying to discover where Clyad had disappeared to. The hairs on the back of his neck tingled, and he looked over his shoulder to see Clyad already swinging his katana in a low horizontal slash in an apparent attempt to cut Draycos’s legs. Relying on his reflexes, Draycos jumped as he tried to avoid the long blade.

“Do you really think I didn’t expect you trying to avoid my attack like this?” Draycos heard Clyad whisper in a hushed voice.

The blade of the katana flashed dimly, and a small blade of bluish-white light extruded from the very tip of the blade, as if the blade had extended its length. Clyad continued with his slash without changing the trajectory.

Draycos performed a backflip through the air and landed on both feet a few yards behind where Clyad stood keeping the same stance after finishing his attack. Draycos immediately fell to the ground upon landing, grimacing in pain. A small pool of blood quickly formed around his feet from where two identical cuts had been made in the back of his ankles. Draycos attempted to slow the blood flow with his hands, but to no avail. He tore off the lower half of one of his pant legs and tore that in half as he quickly wrapped up his ankles.

Clyad had turned around, his katana resting on his shoulder as normal, and watched in silence as Draycos finished tying the makeshift bandages. “That’s not going to help you now, ya know?” he commented. “You know as well as I do that you’re in no condition to stand right now. I completely severed the tendons in both legs.”

Draycos ignored him and attempted to stand up, only to fall back to the ground with a grunt of pain. “Doesn’t matter what you say,” he grunted as he attempted and failed again. “I’m also here to win these games. I can’t afford to lose after getting this far.”

Clyad eyed Draycos in silence for a few moments before letting out a long sigh. “From what I’ve seen so far, you’re not very adept at the Enhancer spells you’ve been using. Are you a conjurer, by chance?”

“And what does it matter to you if I am?” Draycos retorted.

“Shut up and listen to me,” Clyad spat. “I’ll only say this once, so ya better keep those ears open. Conjuration spells take a strong imagination. You have to visually see what you want your magic to do. And instead of focusing your magic inside your body like you do during your Enhancement spells, try visualizing your magic taking form outside of you body.”

Draycos was utterly confused by the random explanation he had been given. He tilted his head to the side. “Okay? What’s with the lecture?”

“I get no satisfaction out of beating opponents who have potential they don’t use,” Clyad responded. “I’m giving you this one chance. If you can’t stand up in one minute, I’ll knock you out. That should be easy, considering you’re unable to walk right now.”

Ah, I get it. Realization suddenly dawned on Draycos. From what he’s said so far, he probably sees a bit of himself in me; that’s why he told me that stuff just now. Let’s see... I won’t be able to stand unless I have some braces on my legs now, right? Let’s give this a try.

Luckily for Draycos, he had always had a strong imagination, so it wasn’t too hard for him to visualize his legs wrapped in magic braces. He closed his eyes, hand on his pendant as he tried to focus.

Concentrate. Instead of focusing your magic into a body part like flexing a fist or a leg like I usually do, try to expel it outside of your body.

Draycos focused on his ankles, where he needed his magic to manifest. A small flicker of what appeared to be black smoke flickered and quickly died out, but a pitch black aura quickly seeped out of his body at his ankles like ooze. The ooze quickly hardened into a metal-like shell. With a loud grunt, Draycos managed to get back on both feet, dusting his pants off.

“Well, I’ll be damned!” Draycos looked up at Clyad to see the swordsman staring at him with bug eyes in an expression of pure shock. He composed himself and shook his head in disbelief.

“What the are you, a monster?” Clyad asked, spitting the stalk of grass to the ground and scratching the back of his head as he looked away. “I wasn’t kidding about knocking you out after a minute, but I never expected you to actually stand up in less than half. This is your first attempt using Conjuration-class magic, right?”

“More or less,” Draycos replied casually with a shrug. He was indifferent to being called a monster at this point. “I am a conjurer by nature, remember? Guess it just comes naturally.”

“To hell with ya being a natural. This just shows that you’re a bona fide freak.”

“Shut it,” Draycos snapped, his expression going dark. That comment got under his skin.

“Seriously, though,” Clyad went on, readying his weapon. He pushed his left arm up and through its sleeve and grasped the hilt of his katana with both hands as he stared at Draycos intently. “Normally, it would take an hour or so for any magic caster, regardless of their race, to grasp the basics of their natural class. You did it in half a minute, though. What else are you but a freak?”

Clyad’s katana suddenly flashed with a bright light, and Draycos was forced to cover his eyes with his arm from the sudden onslaught. He lowered his arm after a few seconds and noticed that Clyad’s katana had gone through a somewhat drastic change.

It had been split into two identical katanas that he held in each hand. The katanas were identical to the one he had been using to this point, expect their size was average now. One noticeable change Draycos observed was the fact that the tip of each katana had a slight sharp hook on it, making the blade look like an overly large needle or maybe an arrow.

“Well, now, since you’ve finally decided to start using your native magic class, I guess I’ll have to fight for real now.”

Water appeared out of nowhere at the guards of each katana and worked its way up the entire length of the blade, surrounding each katana in a watery sheathe. At the tip of both blades, the water shaped itself into the image of a dragon head with yellow eyes. The back of Draycos’s neck prickled as he felt a clear change in the air pressure around him. He instantly broke into a cold sweat.

Shit, this is not good! That’s some serious magic power he’s putting into his blades. I’d be dead if those hit me head on!

Draycos backstepped quickly to put some distance between them, but Clyad made no attempt to pursue him. He crouched low and held both katanas out as far as he could.

“It doesn’t matter if I’m close to you or not. This spell is as adaptable as the water element used in its creation.”

“Aqua Dragon Slash!”

Clyad swung his swords down in a X-formation, and the water dragon heads flew off the tips of his blades, quickly closing in on Draycos’s location.

Draycos was standing with his back against a large rock that had been dug up during his fight with Falmento in his second match. The rocks still littered half of the arena, although most had been smashed or destroyed in previous fights. Draycos sidestepped the attack and watched the two dragon heads hit the rock. There was a large splash as the dragon heads lost their form against the rock.

Before Draycos had a chance to savor his apparent escape from this spell, the water that still clung to the rock suddenly leaped off the rock’s surface and flew at him, the water dragon heads already completely regenerated. Draycos took an instant to glance at the rock only to see water on both sides of the rock; the spell had apparently bore through the rock and worked its way back up the hole it drilled before going completely through the rock. That large splash had actually been the dragon heads penetrating solid rock.

Unable to avoid the attack, Draycos could only watch as the heads opened their jaws lined with sharp teeth. The water dragon heads clamped their jaws around Draycos’s stomach and remained there. Draycos didn’t feel any pain and was puzzled for the first second as he tried to figure out what was going on, but he realized what was happening the next second. The dragon heads began withdrawing back to where Clyad stood waiting, both swords at the ready. The water dragon heads were still connected to the katanas by the long threads of water that acted like their necks.

The speed as which Draycos was getting pulled in increased exponentially, and he was sent flying in Clyad’s direction. Not showing the greenhorn any softness, the aged katana-user stashed both blades in an X-formation across the boy’s torso.

The dragon heads vanished, and Clyad flicked droplets of blood off of his katanas as blood erupted from Draycos’s wounds. Not bothering to turn around to face his defeated opponent, Clyad turned the two katanas back into one and attempted to walk back to his room.

“Where...the hell...are you...going?” he heard a raspy voice gasp behind him.

Stunned, Clyad froze for a second before he whirled around to see who had spoken. Draycos stood with his back to Clyad, still on both feet even after having been gravely injured. He hadn’t even fallen to the ground after receiving Clyad’s Aqua Dragon Slash.