Layla…
Over a month ago she was relaxing in the fields and looking up at the stars after a long and exhausting day of working the fields with her family. Everyone else was at home and probably asleep, but not Layla.
Every night in the summer, she spent lying in the grass and looking up at the beautiful stars.
She dreamed that one day she would be able to soar high enough into the sky to touch them.
For a latter part of her life, she studied everything she was allowed to about going into space. Unfortunately, the study of outer space beyond the sky was heavily restricted or outright forbidden because of the risks involved.
However, she did not care. It was still a dream that she looked forward too. In fact, she wanted to be the first person to walk on the surface of one of Erebus’s moons.
Living in this farming village made it more difficult than it already was to try and learn more about reaching past the sky, which is why she was saving up money to travel to the Southern Union of Kingdoms. She wanted to go there and attend one of the many academies and schools that could give her even greater knowledge to achieve her dream.
In fact, she was so close to being able to afford the fare to the SUK and the tuition to attend a school. She would need only about a week’s worth more of pay to make it there.
Layla stood up from her comfortable spot in the grass, breathed deeply in through her nose, and out through her mouth. She then clenched her fists together as she felt confidence well up within her.
Very soon she would achieve everything she ever wanted.
She let out a small yawn as she realized how tired she was and said to herself, “I should probably go to bed, otherwise I won’t be able to make it to work.”
Yet just as she was about to turn around and head home, an ear piercing roar cut through the air, making her blood run cold with fear.
She had never heard anything so terrifying before in her life, and she knew that there was only one thing that could have possibly made that sound.
The Archdragon of the Abyss, Malthael.
While Layla had no memory of seeing it during the Mordrinite War as she was too young, she had ready stories about the beast from books and old veterans of the war.
A dragon so massive that it towered over mountains, and with scales as pitch black as a moonless night.
The fear settled so deeply into her heart that she was nearly frozen in place as if waiting for death, but she wanted to check and see if her family was still alright.
It took her nearly five minutes to get within eye’s view of her home, but as soon as it came into view, a beam of black fire swept over it, along with the entire town of Siligo. Before she even had time to shout out a word of warning to her family, everything was soon razed to dust.
The flash of light blinded her temporarily and the shockwave knocked her off her feet as she fell to the ground.
Her ears rang and her eyes hurt from the flash but she managed to get her bearings, though she wish she hadn’t.
As soon as she could properly see and hear again, she was met with the sight of black flames and charred Draugr all around her, with their pained and inhuman groans.
“No...oh god,” she cried as she noticed the familiar faces of her family and friends among the walking dead.
Scared for her life and knowing she stood no chance of laying them all to rest on her own, she fled Siligo and used up what little money she had on her person for a fare to Lycenea.
She couldn’t understand how such a tragedy could have happened.
What had Layla done for her whole family to be so mercilessly killed before her eyes? How could Malthael even been revived when he was killed by Dean Smith himself?
Nothing made anymore sense to her.
Her family was killed, nearly every bit of savings she had for the future were destroyed, and she had no idea what she was going to do with her life now.
But then she heard a story, one telling about how the man Marcus Wright fought the dragon Malthael and managed to kill it.
When she heard about it from two old drunkards leaving a bar, she approached them and asked, “Where is this man Marcus Wright at the moment?”
The two men looked at each other until the one on the right shrugged in confusion.
The one on the left decided to answer instead, “Not sure. I dunno where exactly the man lives, but I think he stays somewhere here in town since I’ve heard he joined the Darkmoon Knights Brotherhood. Though I’d say its best to stay away from him. I hear he hangs around that Selene woman often. I wouldn’t dare go near either of them if that’s the case.”
The man on the right then said, “Even so, I feel like I can sleep a little easier at night knowing that the dragon is dead for good. A lot of people were scared that one day he would wake up and start terrorizing the world again. I feel rather grateful for that Marcus fellow.”
Grateful…? She thought to herself as memories of seeing her dead friends and family flashed in her mind.
What was there to be grateful for when her entire life was torn apart? Its because that man was so incompetent that he failed to kill Malthael fast enough before anyone could fall victim to it.
Layla’s hands were both clenched into fists in anger at hearing these two men drink their woes away and laugh as if the threat of such a dragon was something to brush off.
Perhaps this was some kind of curse that came with a society that has seen peace and prosperity for long enough that it becomes their norm.
Regardless, it filled her with anger and resentment towards that man Marcus.
Perhaps if she were strong, maybe she would have done a better job of subduing and putting that beast down.
As that thought crossed her mind, her eyes landed on a slip of paper nailed to a wall that said advertised the contest of champions taking place in roughly twenty days.
The two men followed her eyes and said, “Are you interested in the tournament? I hear that Marcus will be participating as well. Maybe you’ll be able to meet him.”
Maybe I will…
Every day until the start of the contest, Layla spent that time training. She worked hard to improve her technique, her magic proficiency, anything that would make her stronger.
Now the day has come to test whether or not her well honed strength was enough to compete against some of the strongest people in the world.
Walking onto the arena floor, she tied her hair into a tight braid so that it wouldn’t distract her or get in her eyes. She then tightened her gloves, fitted with black iron studs and arm guards. She then kicked the toes of her boots against the ground to see if they were tight enough and when she was satisfied, she looked her opponent in the eyes.
The man before her was named Drahmin, another warrior monk from the temple of Ordovis. Much like the man Orsted who fought Moyako, he wore white robs and sandals. However, he had two scimitars strapped to his back, to which he unsheathed both.
She saw her reflection in his blades as they stared each other down and waited for the announcer to call the start of the match.
“Begin!”
As the spatial battlefield expanded around them, Drahmin raised his swords into the air and stabbed them into the ground. As he did, the ground began to shake as sand burst forth like a geyser and began to surround the area all around them.
When it started to encircle her feet, she stomped on the ground and release a wave of fire so intense that it turned the sand around her into glass.
She then pulled back her leg as she focused her magic into a single point as she kicked at the ground around her where the glassy sand was and blew it apart. The explosion sent fragments of sharp glass flying towards Drahmin and would have torn him to shreds if he didn’t slash the air in front of him in an upwards motion. The sand around him rose into the air and absorbed the glass shards.
Before he could drop his guard and see her next move, she crouched before leaping up into the air with a fire boost from her feet.
She watched as he looked around for her, confused as to how he had disappeared only to see her shadow darkening around him at the last second.
When she landed, she punched the ground with flames from her fists and nearly managed to knock him off his feat.
Using the sand around him, he reinforced his posture and remained standing before swinging his scimitars at her body.
She knew that those scimitars not only controlled sand, but also released it from their edge.
Rather than dodge it, she raised her arm up and blocked the strike with her arm guards. With a small touch of fire, she turned the sand released from his sword into glass.
With one of his swords stuck on her arm guards, he tried to stab her in the chest, but she parried it away with her right arm. She tried to get his other sword stuck on her right arm but in his last attack, he decided not to use his sand.
In doing so however, the force from her flames being released from her arms was still more than enough to knock it out of his hand.
She then kicked her leg out at his knee and, fracturing his and making him shout in pain.
As she was pulling back her arm to punch him in the face and end the match, he raised his hand and tried to overwhelm her with a mound of sand so large that it would cover her entire body and suffocate her or cause her to choke to death.
He let go of the sword in his left hand as he tried to get away but she grabbed it with her right and held on tight even as she was being buried under the mass of sand.
She refused to let go of him even after her whole body was covered. She could feel him struggling to break free of her grip but she just smiled.
They were both submerged in sand, and even though he could make it so that he had enough freedom to move and breathe, she still had him right where she wanted him.
She started releasing heat from her entire body as all the sand turned to molten glass.
If not for the rune formulas written on her body which gave her an extreme resistance to heat, she would have died while within the molten glass.
While muffled, she could hear him screaming in pain as the molten glass melted away at his skin and set fire to his body.
Within seconds, his entire body was flailing in agony until he stopped moving as a charred corpse on the ground. As she blew apart the molten glass around her body, she looked up to the announcer to call the end of the match.
With such an effortless display of strength, she was crowned the victor. Yet she took little joy out of winning against him.
She hoped to use these flames to burn Marcus into a humiliating pile of ashes.
The roar of the crowd died down as Layla made her way through the hallway as her match came to an end.
After this bracket of battles finally ends, she would face off against Marcus next.
Truthfully, she was curious to know what kind of person he was and what he looked like. She wanted to know the face of the man that she hoped to crush.
She had seen illustrations of the man and heard descriptions of him from others. In fact, she should have been able to see him in the early part of the tournament when all the contestants were presented before the crowd, but she wasn’t able to see him.
All she knew was that he was tall, with black hair, bright blue eyes and carried a black sword.
Distracted by her thoughts, she failed to pay attention to the man who had walked past her as she bumped into his shoulder.
It was like running into a pillar of stone as she fell to the ground when she walked into him. He didn’t bother stopping to help her as he kept on walking.
“Watch where you’re going,” he said in an annoyed tone without looking at her.
She stood up abruptly as she shouted, “What the hell asshole! Couldn’t take a moment to move out the way?”
He stopped in place as he slowly turned his head to look at her and said in a deep and uncaring tone, “Do you have something you want to say to me?”
When she saw his face, she froze up.
Not out of fear or shock, but out of anger.
This was the man she was looking for and hoping to fight.
This was Marcus Wright.
Her anger got the better of her as she started spouting off words.
“Actually yes. Do you remember that day when you killed Malthael? Your fight with him caused his fire breath to hit my town and kill everyone I ever cared about. Because of you and your incompetence, my life was ruined.”
Rather than look shocked or guilty, or even angry with her terrible attitude, he looked at her with pity.
“Do you think you could have fared any better? You seem so angry, yet you direct it at me because...I didn’t kill him fast enough for you? Well forgive me, I didn’t know that I had a deadline to reach. Maybe you should have made a reservation ahead of time for a dragon to be killed before your life was ruined rather than after.”
His words were so...callous and rude, and it disgusted her to hear him dismiss everything that she said so easily.
“How can you...how can you be so heartless?” she said through gritted teeth.
“If you want to cast blame on someone, I’d say blame the person who brought him back to life in the first place. Except he’s dead now. The way things are now, you’re just looking for someone to take your anger out on.”
Without thinking, without saying a word, she ran up to him and punched him in the face.
Breathing heavily from anger, she was able to ignore the stinging pain of her hand breaking upon his jaw.
Without allowing her to strike him once more or say another word, his right hand was already wrapped around her throat as he slammed her against the wall.
His grip was so tight that no matter how much she tried to claw and pry open his hand, it would not budge. He then squeezed his fingers around her neck and she could feel herself struggling to breathe.
He then moved in close and said, “This is not the place to release your anger out on me. At least have the decency to wait until our match begins. Then you can whale on me to your heart’s content.”
As it became harder and harder for her to breathe, her vision started to dim. Just as she was about to pass out, she blinked and then...then she could breathe again. Not only that, but Marcus wasn’t standing in front of her like he had before, pressing her up against the wall.
He was standing in the same place he was when she punched him, in the exact same stance.
She then looked down and realized that her own hands were wrapped around her throat.
He looked back into Marcus’s eyes and noticed the small spark of electricity from them.
He could have killed me at any time he wanted...without even lifting a finger…?
What kind of monster is he?
She asked herself these question in her head as she watched, with trembling legs, as Marcus turned his head away from her and walked to his first match.