"What everyone is stepping around trying to say is we need you to do something that might end up getting you all killed or extremely powerful," Miss Grace cut the other two off.
"What do you need us to do? Girls? Are you with me on this? This whole thing is technically my mess."
"Pft, Dave, We are always with you through fire and flame."
"Really? See, I told you all not to worry. Dave is always gung ho to go! OK, we plan on sending you up to the twentieth floor and the dungeon on that level, The Arena. Each of you will have to fight a solo fight and win to move on to the team rounds. There are seven rounds in total."
"That doesn't sound that difficult? What the catch?" Iona asked with a puzzled look on her face.
"Besides dying?" Reginold breathed as he straightened himself on the couch a little farther away from his wife. "If one of you lose the first round, you all lose. After that, the enemies get ridiculously hard, but just from the first round, you should jump 10-12 levels, If you survive. Everyone one of you will be matched with something far stronger than you. That's the catch."
All of us sat in silence, and the color had drained from most of our faces. This whole thing was intense. We were supposed to have more time to train and get ready, not just thrown into the fray. Damn Fate!.
I stood up and turned to face the girls. Each one was deep in thought, so I cleared my throat, and they all looked up at me with a puzzled expression. I turned a bit so I could see Miss Grace and the Duke as well.
"First, will we be fighting at the same time?"
"No."
"Second, can we use magical Items?"
"Yes."
"OK, so there are six of us…"
"No, sorry, Dave. I have to stay and help here," Trinity piped up.
"Really, well then that changes things."
I turned back to the girls and looked at each of them and their fingers. I touched the center of my large black ring, and the four rings on the girl's hands lit. Each glowed their respective powers.
Red surrounded Lavender, Tilly's aura was brown, then blue for Iona and Yellow for Victoria. Each of them realized what this meant at the same time and began to smile.
"Oh? What is this?" Miss Grace asked me.
"These were in the box Grismald was in, ELEMENTAL FORCE BINDING RINGS."
"Wow, and you girls just put them on? Do you know what those rings do, besides trading power?" Miss Grace asked with an amused look on her face.
"No idea."
"Hm, well now you four girls are bonded to Dave and must obey his every command, and if you disobey, is punished with extreme pleasure! Hehehe," Miss Grace giggled.
Iona's face went hot red, and then I remembered the scene when she first put on the ring and then hit me. After the connection, Iona collapsed in what I thought was pain as she was moaning and writhing on the floor. Then when I picked her up and she stopped chest heaving. Ouch!
Iona had kicked my shin and brought me back to reality, and now her face was practically on fire. I coughed into my hand and turned to The Duke.
"When do we start?"
Chapter 59: Pit, Fire, Dragon!
I stood in front of the massive stadium with my four closest friends. Each one ready to give our all, I looked to each one of them and received smiles in return.
"Everyone ready?"
"YEAH!"
We all stepped forward and walked through the front gate. Inside was a long hall with statues of previous winners. Beast-man, robots, and Insects stood frozen in imposing life-like stills of the past warrior. Strangely enough, we were alone in the hall.
"What do you think we will be fighting?" Victoria asked as we neared the end of the hall.
"They will be a lot tougher than us, but we have items that we can trade off each time," Lavender explained.
"And we have the rings. These matches will be hard, but I believe in each one of you!" I told them passionately.
When we got to the end, I pushed open the door, and we entered a six-meter square room. There were two doors at the end, along with a booth in the center. There was a human man behind bars, so we all stepped forward slowly.
"Who will be the first combatant?" the man spoke in a robotic voice.
We all took a step back and then turned into a huddle.
"Who is going first?"
"Let me so that I can get it out of the way," Iona announced while turning from the huddle.
I turned to try and stop her from hugging her or kissing her or something, but Iona just said, "I will," and she was gone.
"What was she thinking! Iona didn't take any Items!"
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Iona teleported into the stadium sand-covered center, but there was no one in the crowds. She looked around until she saw a blue magic circle form on the ground. Instantly a large one-eyed man stood five meters away from her.
The cyclops was almost three meters tall, and It carried a massive spiked glove. Iona immediately started to flood the field with black fog, and the giant gave her no ground as it rushed forwards. The club crash into the space that she was, but Iona slipped into the mist.
"Darkness Falls."
Suddenly, The cyclops fell into a black pit of nothingness, and then it closed up. There was silence until Iona rose from the black mist. With a snap of her finger, the round was over, and she had won without trying.
It was an extremely dangerous ability because it affected everyone standing in the fog, trapping in the pocket dimension. From there, it was a simple snap of Iona's fingers to make the room disappear. A circle surrounded her, and she was back in the room with the girls sitting while Dave was pacing.
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Suddenly there was a blue flash, and I looked up to see Iona giving me a mischievous smile. I ran over to her and grabbed her up into my arms. Iona didn't fight. Instead, she wrapped her arms around me.
"Don't do that! What were you thinking?! You could have died!"
In response, Iona kissed me passionately, and I couldn't help but embrace her. Suddenly, I was aware of her erect nipples pressing into my chest. As her tongue quested for mine, Lavender cleared her throat. I pulled apart from the hunger trying to devour me and force me to do something in front of the other girls.
"How were you gone for such a short time?"
"That's a secret!"
"I don't think this is the time for keeping secrets!" Victoria snapped.
"Well, it's nothing any of you can do, so it doesn't matter, does it?" Iona shouted back.
"Give me the cape, Dave!" Lavender yelled at me as she pulled the golden pink-rose gauntlet onto her hand.
I pulled the cape off of my storage and walked over to put it around her shoulders. The fire left her as I leaned in to kiss her. Our lips brushed, and then I pulled her into a deep and passionate kiss. I squeezed her lovely bottom away from the girls, and Lavender smiled as she pulled away.
"Be safe, and I love you."
Iona made a rude comment about us, but I walked over and hand-chopped the top of her head.
"That's what you were supposed to do, numb skull!"
"I will be next!" Lavender announced as I argued with Iona.
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Suddenly, Lavender was in a crowd-less and sand-filled arena. Ahead of her, a magical blue circle appeared. Instantly, a huge black praying mantis was looming in front of her. Without warning, its left green streaked arm blade came sailing down towards her.
"Push!"
Before the attack could be completed, Lavender blew the creature back, and she started to run. The Mantis had taken no damage and was getting back up. Rings of magic were already dancing around her arms. Dave had turned the ring all the way up, and Lavender felt the boost as she reached behind her back and pulled out a strange-looking staff that couldn't have been just behind her.
The Mantis was back up now and rushing towards Lavender, but she was prepared now. She pointed the staff at the rushing cr
eature and began to pour the firebolt spell into the staff. The metallic white staff was a simple-looking, with only a crystal on top, but imbued with the magic. It burned with fire like she held a torch.
Lavender released the magic, and three, two-meter tall red magical circles formed. They all began to spin slowly and shrink down, but the Mantis was no more the ten meters away. Suddenly they stop and expand to over five meters tall, and a massive fireball forms.
The mantis skitters to a stop and turns to run, but there is no escape. Lavender releases the fireball, and it tumbles toward and incinerates the giant bug. The other spell circles from her arm were gone. The staff took all her mana for the one spell.
Lavender was starting to feel faint as the blue lights surrounded her.
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I stayed near the exit portal, and after ten minutes, the floor lit up. I stepped back, but then forwards fast to catch Lavender and a strange white staff. Lavender looked up at me as I picked her up, feeling the softness of her and that cute smile.
"Did it!" But then she passed out.
We took the cloak off her and changed the ring's setting in advance this time, but Victoria, who had offered to go next, didn't want the cape.
"I'll be OK! Since I got the golden mark, something has changed in my class, and I want to try it out. I'm just worried that it might wreck the cape."
"OK then, I just want you to be careful."
Victoria came over to kiss me but whispered something dirty about the day before and bit my neck, send shivers and heat coursing through my body. She kissed me and then bit my lip before she turned to go.
"OK let's go!"
———————————————
Victoria was on the sand, and the blue circle was already summoning her foe. Instantly, a gigantic plant with a mouth full of razor-sharp teeth. Longer tentacles sported pink flowers, and it stood over five meters tall. The creature roared at Victoria, but she began to laugh.
The creature became very still as the laughing girl started to get bigger and longer. Victoria's neck stretched, and she sprouted wings and a tail. Her reflective armor from the scales of Greshaha now coated Victoria's body. Victoria became a shining silver dragon and roared back in defiance.
The plant monster shot tentacles to surround and bind her, but she used razor claws to cut them away. Lavender filled her lungs, and the breathed fire and the flailing plant. To her surprise, it uses water magic to stop the fire and launched a counter-attack.
This time she was surrounded and bound by the vine squeezing every part of her morphed body. The plant began to pull her in hungrily, patiently waiting to devour her alive. The vines had covered her mouth so that she couldn't breathe fire, so she used the empowered Air magic to make blades of wind to cut the vines.
Separating from the monster, Victoria backed up and mixed fire and air magic. The plant-beast tried to attack again, but she left a blue fire stream searing into the writhing plant-beast. As the creature fell, victoria shifted back, and the blue circle surrounded her.
Chapter 60: Visitor From Above
Victoria appeared in the ring of blue light, and I grabbed her before she could fall. Another win, but another one that used almost all the MANA they had, after we would all take a chance to level up, and we would be right as rain. I brought Victoria over and laid her between Iona and Lavender, who were both sitting up.
I turned back to my smiling Kitty, who had already told me that she would only use her hammer. I had checked her AVATAR and was extremely impressed with her skill and class upgrade. I slid my arm around her waist and rubbed her nose with mine, and then we share an intimate kiss that earned some nasty catcalls from Iona. Tilly turned away and stepped forwards while I changed the ring settings.
"I'm ready!"
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Tilly appeared in the sand and peering around at the empty arena. This fight would be her first chance to try out her new weird ability. Tilly closed her eyes and opened four more. The view was disorienting like the first time she had tried it alone in her room at The Duke's manor.
Suddenly, Tilly heard a sound and turned to see an arrow flying at her. She stepped aside casually, and the arrow flew by slowly.
That was the eyes. Tilly's reaction speed was multiplied by ten now. The enemy was a four-armed man with two bows.
When their eyes connected, the archer started to fire, but Tilly calmy started to spin her hammer at a blinding speed. The arrows were shattered like twigs as Tilly began to run forward. The archer threw his bows away and pulled four blades off his back, but that was what she had been waiting for.
Tilly stopped her hammer and then drove it onto the ground four meters away from the archer. With the help from the ring, spike shot forwards and impaled the man. As the body melted down, a red core was all that was left.
The thing started to shake, and then the hammer's head morphed into a cat's head. Suddenly, the shaking orb shot into the cat's mouth, and it chewed it up. The head changed back into the hammerhead, but this time it had some jet booster on the back now where the spike had been.
The blue light surrounded Tilly, and then she was gone.
"Ho, Ho, Ho! What a team this is! Maybe I will have some fun with this last one."
The voice came from a man in a deep hooded cloak as he walked down into the arena. He sat down in the place of the next opponent and waited for the last contender.
"Boss shouldn't get too mad if I don't kill him too fast," joked Kento, the demon swordsman boss of the 4th level.
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I was waiting for Tilly, and she appeared holding a changed hammer with an adorable smile on her face, but then I froze. Tilly had six eyes like Sasha, and my stunned face must have made her realized this too, because, within seconds, they faded. Tilly looked embarrassed, but I grabbed her and gave her a tight hug and kiss.
"I think the eyes look good on you," I whispered into her ear, then gave her another kiss with a soft lip bite as I pulled back. The other girls crowded around and proceeded to squeeze the life out of me. I was finally able to breathe after they all let me go, so I turned to go.
"I'm the last one. Let's go!"
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I appeared on a sand-covered area, but there was someone in a hooded robe sitting in front of me. The man stood and pulled his hood back. Inside was an eyeless black face that was covered in the black etched markings.
"So, You got some strong girls with you there! Quite interesting! I will assume you are stronger than them, right?"
"Fair guess, but we are all the same level."
"Mmhmm, let's see how true that is. My name is Kento, and I have made a special trip down here for you from the fourth floor."
Fourth floor? Then isn't this guy way over my level? Like, WAY over?! What was going on?
"You look confused. I know I might be a bit much, but I won't kill you. Right away! AHAHAHA"
With that, a black blade wreathed in black flames dropped into his hand, and he came at me. I had already pulled my LIGHT BLADE out and activated SOUL BRINGER and AVENGER. Golden flames met black ones clashed, and we began a furious storm of attacks.
The eyeless stare started to get to me, so I used three fingers to make Tilly's stone great sword appear in my other hand and then slammed down. The demon dodged back, but the smile was gone now.
I dove at him, massive blades swinging, but he disappeared and then appeared beside me. I was only just able to dodge his sword, but a kick sent me flying. I got slammed my arms down and launched myself up into the air.
As expected, the demon attacked, thinking I would be slow to swing the great sword, but that was his first mistake. When he knocked SOUL AVENGER aside, the stone blade crashed into his side, cartwheeling him into the stands.
When the demon stood back up, he was covered in the black flames.
"W
hat are you?"
"Dave."
"What?"
"I am Dave,"
"I will kill you!" The demon screamed, but before he could move, both of us were frozen in place.
"Enough! You will get your chance to fight this one soon. But I count this as a win for the challenger."
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