Clem spun into a tempest kick. Her leg started up high, then dropped down almost to the ground when she’d spun away from her enemies, before rising again as her body came around to face the charging constructs. Jinsei flashed from her foot and slammed up into the chests of our attackers. The blast of sacred energy hurled the constructs up and away from Hagar and Clem.
Straight into the outstretched arm of their overgrown buddy.
The impact combined with the pressure Hagar had applied shattered the monstrosity’s crystalline limb. Jagged shards rained down on Abi’s shield, which sheltered us from the worst of the falling debris.
The other constructs, though, weren’t so lucky. Hunks of dull crystal slammed down on them, crushing torsos and shattering limbs. They struggled to rise, only to find their bodies so badly damaged the best they could do was lift themselves onto their broken stumps.
Jinsei gushed from the stump of the big construct’s shattered limb, and its strength drained away with it. The enormous fingers that had threatened to crush Eric a moment before went limp.
The Resplendent Sun scrambled out of the giant’s grip, ran up its arm, then dashed across its shoulder. His blade slashed through the thing’s body with every step he took. Rivulets of sparkling dust ran from the construct’s many wounds, and it sank to one knee.
We were winning.
But we hadn’t won yet.
The fallen constructs dragged themselves onto the giant and fused their bodies to it with threads of sacred energy. Arcs of jinsei pulled the fallen shards that littered the ground back into the main body, and the thing grew bigger by the second. Soon, it would be back at full strength.
We had to stop it before that happened.
“This is our chance,” I shouted to my teammates. “On my mark, attack with everything you have!”
I scanned the construct’s core, watching as it filled with jinsei. I had to time this perfectly, or the whole plan would fall apart. The last of the constructs had fused with the giant. Scraps of crystal were sucked up into the thing’s wounds until only one remained.
“Now!” I roared as the last fragment sailed into the air and attached itself to our foe’s body. It had rebuilt itself, even the shattered arm, and its core was almost full.
Clem and Hagar came at the construct from its left side. Their blades hacked into the back of the creature’s knee, cracking the joint and splintering its leg. Eric drove his sword straight down into the top of the thing’s torso between its shoulders, and cracks ran through its center. Abi shouted and dropped his shield to unleash a sweeping upward swing that ripped a gaping gouge up the front of the giant’s body.
And I gave it one last blast of toxic aspects that pushed everything in my aura into the construct.
Our combined attack did the trick. Its body was weakened and brittle thanks to my technique. The blows from my friends had cracked its body and wounded its core. The construct went to its knees, its body crumbling away around it. The construct sagged onto its remaining arm, weary and broken.
“And stay down,” Abi said. He swung his heavy, two-handed blade in a savage strike that split the creature down the middle.
“That’s what I call establishing dominance,” Hagar said with a smug smile. “Good thinking, Jace. You doing all right?”
“Other than being sick to my stomach from drinking that poison milkshake, yeah, I’m fine.” It wasn’t exactly true, but the middle of the challenge wasn’t the time or place to tell anyone how badly I’d injured myself. “Let’s finish this.”
“Catch.” Eric had already retrieved the red ball and tossed it to me. “You do the honors. If you hadn’t figured out how to kill those constructs, we’d have lost for sure.”
“If my core wasn’t cracked, I could’ve summoned my own sword and that would have been over much faster,” I sighed. “But thanks.”
I walked the ball to the middle of the arena, cocked my arm back, and hurled the red sphere through a goal on the opposing side. It slipped through the opening with millimeters to spare. A loud bell rang, and the one on the scoreboard changed to two. Another red ball appeared on the ground at my feet.
“And that’s three,” I said confidently as I hurled the ball through the same goal. Damaged or not, my core did give me phenomenal aim.
The innermost ring on the scoreboard turned gold, the two became a three, and streamers poured out of the ceiling in a particolored rain.
I let out a sigh of relief. We’d made it through the first challenge.
As the streamers cascaded around us, I was glad for the distraction.
I didn’t want any of my friends to see me wince and clutch at my abdomen.
My core was getting worse.
The Award
THERE WAS NO PORTAL to take us back to the School.
The instant the scoreboard updated with the third point, the arena vanished, and we were back on the stage, surrounded by chaos.
One of the Yzlanti fighters lay on the stage’s polished boards, surrounded by a growing pool of blood, his eyes half-open, a jinsei infuser strapped over his face. A pair of medics labored over the fallen contender, whose chest was laid open by an ugly gash that revealed rows of red-stained ribs down the right side of his body. The rest of his team was gathered around him, their eyes filled with worry that I knew was only partially for their teammate.
The ugly, selfish truth of the matter was that if Yzlanti lost a member, they’d be out of the Gauntlet altogether.
I didn’t know how to feel about that. On the one hand, I didn’t need the competition. On the other, they were humans. Their loss would cost me a potential ally against the dragons.
And his wounds were very serious. There was something deeply disturbing about the idea that the challenges could be fatal. What possible
