Scarlet

When I reach the Plaguebearer girl, neither of us say a word before we begin our fight. Which I very much appreciate, and the girl seems to as well.

The reason I chose to go after her first was because there isn’t much she can really do with her section of the arena. After all, we’re all Class I Guardians, so none of us can really directly manipulate our magics. In fact, most people can’t. The only people I’ve heard being able to directly and freely manipulate their magics are a few Class V Guardians, one or two of the Demon Lords, and the Demon King himself. Everyone else may be able to indirectly manipulate it at like Class II or Class III, but even those are rare skills. And rather limited too.

My blood bank though is a rather useful skill as it makes use of a loophole.

Speaking of that skill, I coat my claws with more blood than I’ve ever used before as I match the girl claw for claw. But she quickly finds that not only am I stronger than her by a fair margin, but my blood claws are stronger than her plague claws.

And I’m not worried about her corrupting me because my regeneration should easily take care of that issue. Especially since the corruption takes place in the blood first and foremost, if Tar’s to be believed at least.

Tar snorts at that last bit.

I smirk as I continue pushing the girl back further and further into her section, the both of us avoiding the poisoned ponds until out of nowhere the girl does a backwards flip, disengaging with me before pointing both of her open palms towards the pond we’re closest to, bringing my attention there for a moment. And what I find has my mouth dropping open in surprise.

Five creatures suddenly rise from the poisoned marsh, each of them being some sort of spiderlike monster literally dripping in poison.

Oh shit. Didn’t know she could do this.

“Yeah, you never can tell when a Guardian’s holding back,” Tar mutters.

Makes me feel a little awkward that I didn’t hold back when I fought.

“Don’t,” Tar says, giving me the feeling of him shaking his head. “While holding back can end up helping, you don’t exactly have the luxury of holding back in the Fractures when you’re constantly in danger. These guys only did because they all had instructors from the very beginning tutoring them and teaching them the most efficient way to gain Skill Points. Meanwhile you just slaughtered your way through demons and leveled up very quickly instead.”

Wait, so fast leveling is a bad thing?

“No, not really,” Tar says, making me frown as I watch the spiderlike monsters slowly stepping out of the pond. “It’s a tradeoff. Leveling up faster grants you better achievements, which will unlock more and better skills in the future. But leveling up slower gets you more skill points that you can use now, allowing for a larger variety of skills that you can both use and level. Although not as much larger as you’d expect, purely due to the achievements giving a lot of skill points as well. So it’s a matter of trading quantity for quality in slowing down your leveling.”

Oh. That makes sense. Then I don’t feel any regret in what I did.

And I’m guessing they were instructed to level slower for this tournament in particular? Because even with Predator’s limitations, it’ll still give them a few percent increase with a level one difference. More than a single level’s worth of stats at least. So technically level 99 would give more than level 100 in terms of stats thanks to that. Even if not by much.

“Yeah, probably,” Tar answers, not entirely sure himself. Likely because he wasn’t around for the previous tournaments.

It sounds right though, so I’ll stick with that reasoning. Not that it matters much when it gives them less achievements. And achievements are what I need to make sure I get a skill in the future that can stop me from becoming a full blooded demon.

Anyways, I give a quick order to my blood shadow, making it jump out of hiding while launching the spear in its hand straight at one of the spiderlike creatures, distracting all of them while I focus on Plaguebearer again.

“Can’t really poison me with those things if they’re not fighting me,” I comment with a smile, making her grimace slightly.

A plan that I’d come up with the moment I considered the possibility of her having any sort of summoning skill. Not that I actually expected her to have one. I was mostly just expecting to have my blood shadow pop out at the last moment to strike a killing blow on her or something.

Guess it was a good idea to plan ahead for this possibility after all.

My thoughts are cut off at the sound of a firework exploding in the air at the corner of my vision, following which an announcement echoes through the arena.

[Rebound has been defeated by Shifter, leaving four participants remaining. The semifinals will conclude after two more are defeated.]

I blink in surprise.

Already?

That was fast.

An awkward silence ensues for a moment between me and Plaguebearer with the only noise being that of my blood shadow and her spiderlike creatures fighting, neither side having much of an edge despite the spiders having an advantage in numbers. Probably because their offensive prowess focuses on poison with isn’t exactly useful against a clone made of nothing but blood and shadows.

Then we both turn against each other again and begin fighting claw for claw at incredible speeds, destroying the swamp trees around us in the process and once in a while scoring a hit against the other. But the difference between us is that my hits on her don’t heal, while her hits on me do. Although we’re both kind of tearing apart the others armor in the process of our fight. To the point that I feel the pressing need to repair it after a while, and she does the same.

Guess neither of us want to deal with the perverts on the internet. Good thing repair is as cheap as dirt in terms of mana now that I’m a higher level.

Our back and forth continues for several minutes before I finally start using my blades of blood against her, having waited till now to tire the girl out. And judging by how she fails to dodge the first strike, the blade piercing through her armor and into her leg in the process, I’d say it worked.

I smile while spreading my claws again.

This is fun.

“I’ve been meaning to ask,” Tar suddenly says as I rush forwards to attack the girl while she’s kneeling on the ground. “Why do you all wear armor if it’s just going to get damaged like that?”

Huh? Because our armor scales to our own mana. Duh.

I ignore whatever else he says as I reach the girl and tear a long streak of bloody marks across her front before leaping out of the way of her own claw strike at my legs and then jumping over her head, landing on her back with one foot and the other foot on the ground, pushing her into the mud. I then reach down and grab her neck to raise up into the air where I quickly crush it, making another announcement sound out into the arena.

[Plaguebearer has been defeated by the Scarlet Wolf, leaving three participants remaining. The semifinals will conclude after one more is defeated.]

I glance over to find her summons vanishing into a smog of poison, leaving my blood shadow to hit nothing.

And success.