"You seem apprehensive."
I turned to the triton with a more than contemptuous snort. "You're fairly strong, right?"
"Fairly?"
"Tell me, have you ever struggled with deciding how to go about a battle? Right now, I'm struggling to decide if I should use my fists and feet or my weapons. Or should I use my magic? My summons maybe? What do you think?"
As pride dictated, Zohnos met my amiable smile with a demeaning sneer as he strode across the lift with a regal sweep of his hand. "This is no mere battle, Amun. This is a duel. To be fought on equal terms. As our best selves."
"If you say so." I turned away with a sigh. "I have better things to do anyway."
Within a few seconds, the distant sound of lapping water trickled into my ears. Looking up, I saw the grayscale roof open up to reveal an expanse of calm waters surrounding a comparatively small island. Freshwater by accounts of the smell, or lack thereof.
Though it wouldn't be for long.
A deep rumble signaled the completion of our transit. Bringing us to a wide dais of tiled stone surrounded by an even wider ring of grassy fields. Which in itself was but the peak of a tower that loomed deep to the basin of the egg-like arena.
"We have our challenger, Zohnos Lagunath!" Zeff's voice rang around us. Yet the triton simply stared in disbelief- almost longingly at the small sea around him.
"And the challenged, Amun!"
"To fight as my best self, huh?"
"Ten seconds! Get ready!"
Either my words or Zeff's announcement pulled Zohnos' attention to me. He stared, brows like algae raised high with expectation.
Or curiosity.
"Nine!"
"I am a Shadow Necromancer."
"Eight!"
" You have to make your way through legions to fight me at my best self."
"Seven!"
"I'm also a Devil."
"Six!"
"So I'll make it as hard as possible."
"Five!"
"Then I shall treat you as such!" Zohnos sneered.
"Four!"
"And slay you as I would a foul devil!" Zohnos whipped his coral-made trident overhead.
And Zeff shouted. "Three!"
Between then and two, I split a stream of arcana through my cores and immediately meshed them back together to form a dense ball of crackling energy that flickered between black and white.
Just before one, I poured more arcana into it. Pushing it to the point of sending jagged arcs of Black Lighting in random directions.
Zohnos stepped back at the last second, his eyes darting around to the small craters of lingering darkness scattered in a ring around me.
And then his eyes darted to me. Particularly to my finger, where I was certain he felt a small but not insignificant portion of some type of dark energy building.
Rising in potency until Zeff finally shouted. "Fight!"
Zohnos leapt back at once, aiming for the seas behind him. And I mirrored his actions almost perfectly.
While he spun about to face the water and dive in, I sent my sphere of umbral electricity flying into the air with nothing more than a small mental 'push.'
As it ascended, I fell into the depths with a spiritual body drenched in EM arcana tuned to the infrared. Even without slowing my perception of time, I saw my flesh change from its usual dark brown to a burning red before it glowed with a solar radiance.
And in a great flash of light and steam, I made contact with the water and fell.
Like a skydiver, I dropped. Plummeted through stream after jetstream of ascending steam until I spun and slowed to a grinding halt by the pull of an Artificial Well.
Far above. Black and white flashes could be seen stabbing at the roof in a maddened frenzy, illuminating the raging umbral clouds around them as if a strobe of pale light had been placed within. While initially still, they tumbled against the rising pillars of steam. Rapidly condensing it into an inky liquid that rained down on the swiveling head of scales.
Pit pat. The rain fell on his head and mixed with the seaweed-like strands of his hair, causing him to flinch immediately. Cursing under his breath, he swept his arm in a crescent motion overhead and left a wall of water trailing in his wake. Half a meter thick at the center and shaped like a domed shield, it was a barrier of pure that strangely pelted off my Black Rain, like water on a hydrophobic skin.
Before he could ask, I rounded the pillar to casually lean against the stone and rest a cigarette in my mouth. Then allowed my voice to meld with the darkness as I said. "Your first opponent is yourself."
While he was over a hundred meters away, he may as well have been standing in front of me when he wheeled about in search of my voice. Darkvision or not, he couldn't see that far. And unluckily for him, his eyes were away from both me and his shadow as a flash of lightning illuminated the abyssal tempest I created.
Behind him, his shadow coalesced into a pristine copy of the trident himself. Upon rising from the ground, it condensed a mass of ambient darkness into the same likeness of Zohnos' weapon. A trident made of gilded metals, barnacles, and corals alike reared back and pushed into Zohnos' back without mercy.
Sensing something, Zohnos wheeled around just before the weapon connected. Leaping back just in time, he managed to mitigate the damage by guiding an end prong into the side of his stomach and kicked off the ground in the next moment. Reaching forth, Zohnos grabbed his clone by the throat and sent ripples of bright blue electricity coursing through its umbral body before he grabbed his trident by the base of the prongs and sent it through his clone's chest with a powerful thrust of electrical discharge.
Still on its feet, the clone slumped to the side. Shimmered. Then dissipated before Zohnos' eyes, leaving a gaping wound in his side that he seemed to force himself to ignore.
Though the grimaces that broke his face on occasion still betrayed him.
"Next comes the creatures of the night."
Trailing in the wake of my words was a wave of magical darkness. A gate that Humphrey stampeded through without my order. Sending inky water splashing into his trunk as he sent a deep grumble reverberating through the air.
Zohnos, on the other hand, stood his ground with his trident held high and sparking with electricity.
Undaunted, Humphrey stomped forward. His trunk held out before him like a water cannon that ejected a foul inky-soup through the force of a large trumpet.
Like a semi-truck, the dark water slapped against Zohnos' water wall to send splashes of clear and dark water every which way.
Like a second semi that came just after the first, they made contact in a bright flash of lightning and dark water.
Thrashing about, Humphrey trumpeted and stomped in anguish over the burning scar that was steadily healing away on his head. He thrashed his head to the right, sending his trunk sweeping below Zohnos, cartwheeling in midair.
Bellowing again, Humphrey whipped his trunk around to slam into his shoulders from above. Sending him rocketing into the ground just after his spear was released into the shadow elephant's neck.
As if he could save Humphrey, I took advantage of the opening by flinging Stewie through the darkness.
He landed on Zohnos' chest in a puff of umbral smoke, pulling his concentration away from Humphrey's rising feet. If only for an instant.
With a gargled growl, Zohnos ripped Stewie from his chest before the former could even open its mouth and pulled it to his own. And in one swift motion, Zohnos pushed Stewie into his mouth and rolled backward onto his feet. Where he immediately staggered to vomit forth chunky black viscera onto the ground.
Even then, summoned a wall of water and charged into it. Simultaneously wiping the muck from his face and counter the splash of Humphrey's stomp.
Almost like a wrestler, Zohnos stepped inside Humphrey's foreleg and threw his arms around it. And with all his might, he lifted. Heaved until veins pushed through his scales and blood gushed from his clenched jaws. Zohnos let out a blood-curdling scream. Humphrey, the wail of a cornered animal. A hollow scream that sent the rest of the Menagerie into a frenzy.
But I didn't release them. I only watched Humphrey get flipped onto his side to be impaled again and again with Zohnos' electric trident until he was on the brink of death.
My only action was to Bamf my knife into Humphrey's back just before he passed.
"You don't get to kill that one," I whispered through the shadows.
"Are you going to fight me now?" Zohnos sneered.
"If you beat him."
Laughing, I jerked my thumb over to a humanoid figure trotting into the monochrome light. Then laughed harder as I tracked Zohnos' eyes moving from the charred bone of his feet to the dry, somewhat mummified skin covering his body. When his eyes rested on the ethereal flame pouring from Zaraxus' eyes, mouth, and partially decayed nose, the draugr arched back to emit a blood-curdling screech and charged.
'Kill him and I'll send you straight to the void.'
With another nefarious grunt, Zaraxus acknowledged my order and kicked forth. And, frowning in disgust, Zohnos sprinted forward in kind.
They made contact in a dazzling shockwave of sparks and necrotic energy that preceded a rapid blur of blues and grays.
Following the rebound of their clash, Zohnos wheeled around to jab Zaraxus in the sternum with his pommel. In a flash of brown and gray, Zaraxus parried the attack with his club- more a paddle lined with nails than a proper fat stick.
In the same motion, Zaraxus whipped his charred, skeletal hand around in the form of a hook that dug into Zohnos' ribs like a meteor dragging to a halt in the dirt. Transferring enough power to send a visible ripple through the triton's body before he was flung away.
Another flash of white erupted between them and Zohnos lurched to a grinding halt. Zaraxus screeched, raised himself onto his toes and Zohnos traced a crescent moon through the air before a small earthquake tremored below my feet.
Even while hacking up blood, Zohnos rebounded off the ground and swept his arms behind him in a swimming motion. Mana surged behind him and a loud hiss pierced the air. An explosion of air and water forced Zaraxus back just a step.
By the time he regained it, a living torpedo had crossed the immense distance between us.
Its elbows were clamped to his sides. Its trident was held along its chest like a ship's keel as it rocketed away from Zaraxus and straight for me.
A shining trident held before a grinning, scaled face zoomed forth to meet me in a fraction of a second.
Within an even smaller fraction of a second, I sent a wave of purple mana with a wave of the arm. But not before Zohnos was to make contact in a vibrant flash of light.
Ironically so, the light of his attack served to illuminate the object of his despair and simultaneously highlight that very emotion.
With eyes as wide as coins, Zohnos watched his trident impale an umbral bosom and discharge. Sending lethal voltages running through the strangely fleshy substance.
Being as weak as she was, Lana thrashed about in silence until Zohnos was pulled back. As he fell, his trident withdrew from Lana's torso, sending clots of blue-green 'blood' splattering onto him and the floor just before he tumbled away.
While Lana fell flat on the floor, Zaraxus readied himself by raising his club overhead. And with a blood-wrenching crunch, he brought it down across Zohnos' head as he raced past.
Like a doll had been tossed aside by a toddler, Zohnos cartwheeled into the far wall and slumped to the ground. Where he remained in unconscious stillness.
"Good job, you two." Still smiling, I turned my eyes to the fallen. Scattered here and there in the inky waters. "And you two as well."
With a wave, I deposited the corpses and my minions into my shadow and did the same for the umbral energy lingering in the clouds and water.
Leaving the storm for someone else to deal with, I Bamfed up to the platform with nary a look behind me and waited impatiently for the descent.
I had better things to do.
I had to commune.