Ancient Barons and the Returned Assassin

by Weiqi Wang

  ‘The tide should be arriving soon, next week at the latest. The mission for us is simple — finish them all!’ Gazbell’s words made the older students feel their blood surging up. ‘For those of you who want to participate in the mission, get well prepared. The school has cancelled some of your classes for this week, and we are offering coaching sessions for beast countering so that you can attend them instead. For the rest of you, bear in mind who you are — next time the school summons you, I expect you to arrive much faster!’

  ‘From now on till the beastide, I’m not sleeping for a minute.’ As soon as the event ended, Kardiac made an announcement. ‘I’ll keep practising, and grade up before it comes.’

  ‘Haha, if you can, be my guest.’ Vivarin laughed. ‘You think levelling up is that easy?’

  ‘If you don’t try, how can you know?’ Omifo agreed with his buddy. ‘Kriag, Eric, what do you think?’

  ‘I will definitely try.’ Kriagon instantly answered; but then he saw Ericson scratching his head. ‘What, Eric? Come on, be a man!’

  ‘Well… I actually just graded up a few days ago.’ Ericson looked a bit shy. ‘It’s just that I haven’t done the test.’

  ‘Haha. Kriagon, be a man!’ The girls teased. The friends took time to deal with all the complaints from the three Grade-4 boys, but then they had to discuss another important matter — the final game of the Championship.

  ‘Looks like Casavin is un-flushable, after all.’ Ericson teased. ‘He’s our final rival, and his team is really strong — they just beat the Pathfinders 3:1!’

  ‘Brian’s team lost that badly?’ Dileys muffled her scream. ‘They have two Grade-6s, don’t they?’

  ‘Yeah, but Casavin’s got three Grade-6s, including himself.’ Omifo frowned. ‘Even in the history of this campus, a three-Grade-6 team is a rarity.’

  ‘It’s okay. Numbers don’t mean victory.’ Soarame was not that worried — after all, he was an Expert now. ‘I’ll handle two of them, if not all three. It’s a good pre-game before the beastide!’

  ‘Wow! Listen to that!’ Kriagon barked. ‘Thanks, Jem, it’s all credit to you!’

  ‘You’re welcome.’ Jemario chuckled with shyness and happiness on her face. ‘But Soar, don’t overdo it. Three Grade-6s is unfair to us. We don’t want you to get hurt.’

  ‘Wow wow wow.’ Kriagon was jealous. ‘You don’t want this tough dough to get hurt?’ With that, Kriagon patted Soarame’s belly — the abs were real!

  ‘And the soft dough.’ Kardiac went to pat Kriagon’s belly but got parried, because the duckbear boy was a little sensitive to that…

  ****

  ‘Ladies and gentlemen, today we’re gonna witness the most unpredictable final game, maybe ever in history — the Resurgers against the Victors!’ Three days later, in the middle of the arena, the commentator was shouting in a trembling voice; he was as excited as the audience. ‘As you must all know, the Victors have three Grade-6s and the Resurgers are a dragon-slayer team! Who’s gonna win the final battle today? Let’s watch now!’

  With that, the game started. In no time, all kinds of exclaiming and cheering burst out from the stadium; people were yelling different names non-stop, heating up the air already. Soon enough, everyone realized that this game would be even more intensive and competitive than they had expected. The game hadn’t even reached half time yet, but all the players were sweating and breathing heavily, including the Grade-6 ones.

  ‘Soar, are you okay?’ The Resurgers had to call for time out, because Soarame was really tired after executing his plan of 1v2 — he had been countering Casavin and Dave, a Grade-6 Light wizard in the Victors. Thanks to Soarame’s skilful mirrorface spell, Dave couldn’t do much about him; but Soarame still realized that 1v2 was actually a lot harder than he had thought, especially when he had to keep his Expert capacity secret. The hardest part for Soarame was to save his mind power by using every spell effectively — with so many teachers watching, Soarame couldn’t count on all of them failing to figure out his real power once he showed it.

  As a result, Soarame had to use more of his physical energy as compensation for saving his mind power; this made him sweat the worst, and it worried everyone.

  ‘Soarame, are you sure you don’t wanna fly?’ Alicey couldn’t help asking. ‘You’ve been taking their spells using your body!’

  ‘I’m fine. I’m waiting for a window.’ Soarame waved his hands. Thanks to Dileys’ healing spells, the tough dough could still take it. ‘But I don’t understand; why is Dave still here? He must know I can counter his Light spells.’

  With the open question, the game continued. The Victors had been pushing most of the time, so the dragon player had made several attempts at their base. The dragon player had a familiar face — Matt, the captain of the Furyflame. He was supposed to be good at sneak attacks because of his Fire and Darkness capacity, but all his attempts had failed so far because a Grade-6 had been leading the defence — Adam. Surprisingly, Adam was another male Water wizard; his Grade-6 Water spells really taught the dragon a lesson. If Soarame wasn’t also defending the Resurgers’ base, Adam really wanted a 1v1 against the so-called Water Captain. But they were too far away, so right then Adam had to be patient and watch, though he was yawning. Casavin and Dave, come on! It’s the second half already! You two can’t even handle a Soarame?

  Hmm? Adam suddenly felt something uncomfortable approaching. With a Light minor, he was sensitive to Darkness magic, as all Light wizards are; so he knew that the ghost gust must be wandering around his base. That made sense, because Ericson was nowhere to be found just then. Adam wanted to use his Light magic to expose Ericson, but his minor Light capacity was not powerful enough to do that. So he had to be patient and pretended to be blind-minded, until —

  ‘Dragon!’ Sophie, Adam’s only defender teammate, shouted all of a sudden. Right then, the Victors had five players involved in a storm attack on the Resurgers base, leaving only two defending their own base. So Matt, the dragon player, certainly wanted to try his luck, especially when he saw the other defender was a slim Earth girl. However, he didn’t know that Adam had been waiting for this to happen, because only in this case would Ericson try to get closer and do something. So Adam let the dragon approach for a close fight, but meanwhile he cast a beam of light towards the Resurgers’ base. Matt noticed this odd action but wasn’t sure what it was for — why not just yell for help?

  In contrast to Matt, the prowling Ericson suddenly realized something. He instantly decided to abort his sneak attempt and tried to fall back from the Victors’ base. However, it was already too late —

  ‘Get him!’ Adam threw several ice-plates into the grass, circling around his base at different angles. At the same time, a beam of strong light shone from the Resurgers’ base on to one of the plates, causing reflections in all of them and exposing a retreating Ericson in no time.

  ‘Mirrorface?’ Ericson was expecting something to happen, but he didn’t expect it to be this bad — the secret weapon of the Victors was actually to counter him!

  ‘Too late!’ Seeing Ericson suddenly speed up with the help of his Wind spells, Adam swung his wand. A blast of frost covered the nearby Ericson and froze his legs. The next moment, Sophie cast a spell that surprised everyone even more than Adam’s combo shot —

  ‘Lightning?!’ Matt screeched as he was hit. Fortunately, the Lightning spell didn’t knock him down, so he hurriedly flew up and escaped with a trembling body.

  ‘Sophie is an Adept Lightning?!’ Everyone was stunned to see this. Obviously, not many really knew about this girl. ‘How many secret weapons have the Victors prepared?’

  The audience screamed loudly for this. Lightning wizards were rare, and even if one possessed the gift, it was very difficult to improve, due to the unbridled nature of Lightning Elements. Therefore, the entire campus only had a few Adept Lightning students, and they all tended to bury themselves in their studies, seldom having much of a social life — Sophie included. S
o far in the Championship, she was the only Adept Lightning player, and no one even knew about it.

  ‘Bears, Fire!’ Ericson, the famous ghost gust, had to yell for assistance for the first time too. The two bears instantly cast a wave of firebolts — taking their rivals’ hard attack with their bodies at the same time. Unfortunately, the firebolts could hardly travel across the entire arena to help. On the other hand, Adam had frozen Ericson again, and Sophie finally shot him down with a Lightning spell!

  ‘The Victors have executed the Resurgers’ Darkness player.’ A referee hastened forward for a double-check and reached his conclusion immediately. ‘He leaves the game for ten minutes!’

  ‘The Victors have scored!’ Another referee’s announcement sounded almost at the same time. ‘1 to 0 for the Victors!’

  ‘Time out!’ Soarame hurriedly used his captain’s privilege. Due to being distracted by Ericson’s plight, he hadn’t managed to stop Casavin, and had let him score. Everyone was shocked to see this — it was very rare that anyone got “executed” — as rare as that a dragon player got knocked down.

  ‘Oops, I’m sorry, Soarame.’ Casavin laughed. ‘Looks like we were too hard on you. My bad.’

  ‘Eric, are you okay?’ Soarame ignored Casavin and ran towards his friend.

  ‘I’m sorry, Soarame.’ Hearing the screaming and uproaring all over, Ericson looked vexed. ‘It’s my fault…’

  ‘No it’s not.’ Soarame patted Ericson’s shoulder. ‘Their combo was a really good one. There’s nothing for you to feel bad about.’

  ‘Good that you are not badly injured.’ The team gathered to Ericson. ‘But what now? The game is going to finish in about 15 minutes, and we’re losing our only Darkness for 10!’

  ‘That, indeed, is going to be our biggest weakness.’ Soarame frowned hard. ‘Our bench is short; we’ve been lucky to have got this far. The Victors certainly know it too, and I guess this has always been their plan — to take out Eric.’

  ‘I’ll take Eric’s place!’ Vivarin bit her lips. ‘I know I can’t do what he’s capable of, but I’ll try my best!’

  ‘No, let me!’ Catheray hurriedly followed up.

  ‘We’ll take turns.’ Jemario said. ‘We must hold 10 minutes together! We need the soulcore award!’

  ‘Let’s do it!’ After the agreement, Vivarin was the first to enter the game. However, as a Water wizard she couldn’t hide herself in the shadows for a sneak attack, regardless of how hard she tried. Therefore, the Victors made a seemingly crazy decision — they sent Sophie out to the attacking team, leaving Adam all by himself for the defence.

  The audience were excited to see the Victors’ bare aggression. They were wondering if Adam would battle the dragon player 1v1, just like Soarame had done to Ben. But it didn’t happen in time — just a couple of minutes later, Sophie’s Lightning spells knocked Vivarin down. The Victors therefore took the opportunity to dive all in, and they managed to get another score.

  ‘No, I can still fight! We must win!’ Vivarin struggled as the friends carried her out of the arena. The friends sighed — the girl’s entire body was shaking badly due to the Lightning spells.

  ‘Catheray, don’t go!’ Even before they’d set Vivarin down, they saw an indignant Catheray already in the arena. Yes, she was afraid in some ways, but seeing her best friend get crushed by a haughty Lightning girl, whose nose was still turned up at the Resurgers, Catheray just couldn’t bear it. So she entered the game, and stood proudly against Sophie. However, courage didn’t improve her ability; Catheray was also quickly taken down. Fortunately, though, she had managed to freeze Sophie’s wrist, so that the Resurgers just about held the defence this time.

  ‘Swap!’ Ericson instantly shouted. Soarame looked over to Jemario anxiously, not sure what to do. Now that Vivarin and Catheray had both tried and got hurt, there was no way Jemario would stay out of it. But look at those two poor girls — their bodies were still shaking out of control, and they were gritting their teeth against the remaining pain!

  Wait… wait… Soarame suddenly froze when he looked towards the girls. They seemed to be sobbing? But that was not why Soarame had frozen; he had frozen because the girls were sobbing for a reason —

  ‘Soar, guys.’ A most familiar figure was walking towards the arena. Watched in disbelief by the entire Resurgers team, the figure passed the two girls with their red eyes, passed the magimals with their naïve roaring, passed Ericson with his locked eye-brows, passed the Victors with their clueless mind, and finally approached Soarame — for a big, hard bearhug!

  ‘Hal… HALG?!’

  ‘I’m late… Sorry!’

  HALGON’S SECRET

  ‘HALGON?!’

  ‘HALGON!!!’

  The entire Resurgers team was screaming like mad. The figure almost hadn’t change in appearance; it was indeed the same boy from years ago, Halgon!

  ‘Time out!’ Soarame would have forgotten about the game if the referee hadn’t reminded him. ‘Halg, how have you been?’

  ‘What happened to you?’

  ‘What took you so long to come back?’

  The friends couldn’t help bombarding him with all kinds of questions.

  ‘Let’s talk about this after we win.’ Seeing his friends crying with joy, Halgon’s eyes became watery too. ‘Soar, let’s plan for the last 10 minutes. We can still make it.’

  ‘I’ve got a plan, but tell me yours first!’ Soarame wiped off his tears and held it back.

  ‘My plan is simple.’ Halgon looked around. ‘I’ll go get their gem, and you guys help me do that!’

  ‘Yes!!’ Kardiac was just waiting for this. ‘I knew it! I just knew it! That’s Halgon style!’

  ‘But how many of us do you need?’ Soarame was also excited to see Halgon come back. ‘And what if they try to get our gem too?’

  ‘I only need one.’ Halgon’s confidence instantly affected everyone, lighting them up like wild fire. ‘But that one is Soarame.’

  ‘It’s fine!’ Omifo roared. ‘They took advantage of three Grade-6s, we should make full use of you two! Soarame, go attack! We’ve got the base!’

  ‘If they wanna take our gem, they’ll have to step over my dead body first!’ Kardiac really became a mad bear. ‘Soar and Halg, go beat the shit out of them!’

  ‘We will!’ Soarame rubbed his palm with his fist. ‘Plus, I now have a way to counter their execution tactic…’

  ‘Who’s that boy anyway?’ On the other side, Adam was confused to see Resurges roaring all up in high morale. ‘How come he cheered up their whole team just like that?’

  ‘An old roommate of Soarame, no big deal.’ Casavin could barely remember Halgon, because this boy had always been low-key. ‘Oh, I see; he’s a Darkness player! Ha-ha-ha, that’s the reason? How pathetic!’

  ‘The game continues!’ With the referee’s announcement, the clock started to tick away the last 10 minutes. This time, the audience saw immediately that the Resurgers had completely changed their style — they started to push like crazy. After a brief round of ball-passing between the whole team, when they reached the mid-line of the arena, Soarame shot up into the air and pounced towards the Victors’ base, after passing the ball to Halgon!

  At the same time, Halgon disappeared.

  ‘Dave, spot him out!’ Casavin hurriedly made arrangements. ‘Adam and I have got Soarame! The rest of you, get ready to strike back!’

  Dave wasted no time at all. A beam of light was reflected between the ice-mirrors, and spotted a large area in front of their base — the same combo shot that had caught Ericson — but Halgon was not there. So Dave went to make another attempt, but the mirrors suddenly broke into pieces — hit by Soarame’s windblades.

  ‘Dave, do it again!’ Adam was prepared for this; he set up another matrix of ice-mirrors as fast as he could. But Soarame was also prepared; he destroyed all of them in the next second. This upset Adam — he could not insta-cast mirrorface but Soarame could insta-cast windblades. ‘Soarame, I
thought you called yourself a Water Captain?’

  Plonk plonk plonk! For that, a blast of hailstones hit the entire Victors team — Soarame wasn’t in the mood to argue in words. With his special eyes, he could see Halgon was already approaching the Victors’ base so he had to keep them busy. Thanks to the flying spell, attacking was easier than defending for Soarame — without having to worry about protecting the team’s chest, he could easily dodge most of the attacks. That said, Soarame was still under terrible pressure, since most of the Victors were aiming at him.

  ‘Ahh!’ Soon enough, Soarame got hit by Sophie’s Lightning. He could easily dodge spells like firebolts and icearrows, and reflect Light spells, but he just couldn’t do much about Lightning spells — they were as fast as light, yet could not be reflected. The Resurgers had been trying everything to get at Sophie, but the Victors would by no means let them — the Lightning girl seemed to be the best weapon against Soarame. Even Casavin started to act like her bodyguard, so that she could focus on attacking!

  Fortunately, Soarame also possessed Lightning gifts — and at a superior level. That gave him the ability to dispel some of the invasive Lightning Elements after they hit. It still felt as though his entire body was being pricked by needles, but at least Soarame could bear it — clenching his jaw and gritting his teeth.

  ‘Aww!!’

  ‘Ahh!!’

  Two painful screams sounded almost at the same time — Soarame got hit by Sophie’s Lightning again, and Adam was knocked over by an emerging Halgon, with a hard kick on the stomach. The kick was so hard that it made Adam fly several feet away, so there was no one between Halgon and the Victors’ chest anymore. However, Adam was surprisingly quick; he managed to freeze Halgon’s standing leg as he was being kicked.