I knew what this meant. A warm feeling spread through my core.
This wasn’t suicide after all. The soldiers had done the worst thing possible.
If there is one thing above anything else that it is inadvisable to do…
…it is to stab a bogan until you make his eyes glow red.
A crimson glow gathered around Razensen’s trio of eyes. Anger seethed from him in hot waves.
Giving a roar that shook the whole arena, he swung his axe into a crowd of soldiers. The force was enough to lift them into the sky, sending them completely clear of the arena itself. Their screams grew quieter as they plummeted off God’s Fist and towards the ground.
I hated having to watch from the side-lines, not doing anything. I could only remind myself that it was part of being a core. Our power isn’t in swinging the sword, but in directing who should swing it and where.
It didn’t matter either way. We were winning.
One member of the Shielded Republic stepped out from the crowd. He was tall and muscular, with black-grey hair and deep-set eyes. His shield was bigger than the others, and essence crackled around it.
“Nobody will stand in the way of Vike Stonecroft, leader of the Shielded Republic. We will rise again. We will-”
“Dragon?” I said, using my core voice. “Finish this, please.”
My new dragon prowled forward, his eyes burning red, his tail towering above his scaly body. Some of the soldiers backed away.
The dragon opened his mouth.
A gust of flames roared over Vike’s shield, burning through the essence. Black smoke gushed into the sky, and the air around the arena shimmered with heat.
When the flames ended, Vike’s shield was gone but the man was still alive.
Facing him was my giant dragon.
Vike ran his finger over the emblem on his leathers. The symbol began to illuminate, running over his armor in a current.
Before the emblem could complete, a dragon tail smashed into him. Vike’s bones crushed under the weight, and the force of the blow sent him across the arena, where he landed in a dead heap.
Next to me, Overseer Gill stood with a big smile on his belly face. He was clenching his fists.
“This is all going rather well, Beno. But what do you imagine would have happened if the bogan and the narkleer weren’t here? What if you didn’t have a dragon?”
“Well, I-”
“I’d hazard a guess that we would now be looking upon an arena strewn with dead kobolds and spectators. This should be warning in itself of how much stronger you need to become,” he said.
“Does it matter? They’re dead.”
“A core shouldn’t rest upon the strength of his monsters. We need to improve you, Beno. You are too weak. But a year with me will change that.”
“Let’s not relax too early, gentlemen. The Shielded Republic hasn’t been lax in their preparations. Look,” said Bolton.
I should have known better than to begin to relax. Beams of light shot down into the arena. Even more Shielded Republic soldiers rappelled down them, landing on the arena ground and using essence to form shields in front of them.
With their reinforcements, the soldiers numbered almost fifty. Using their shields of essence, they formed into units of four or five, each holding shields in different directions so they were protected against all attacks.
By now, Razensen’s anger had burnt itself out. As was usual after a bout of intense rage, the bogan looked fatigued. His ice axe seemed heavy in his hand.
Likewise, Kainhelm had reached the limit of his psychic disembowelment power. Without it, he was just a large, skinny creature made from bone.
“The other cores will get here soon,” I said. “We just need to hold out a little bit longer.”
“The portdoor is still open, Beno,” said Gill.
I glanced at the door. How easy would it be to flee through it and into the safety of my dungeon?
But if I did, the Shielded Republic would have nobody to fight. This would leave them free to run amok amongst the crowd, taking the spectators as prisoners. After securing the arena, they’d spill into God’s Fist. Who knew what they would do from there? If they reached the city below, they could do anything.
I racked my brains to think of something I could do with a gaggle of tired, injured monsters, and the essence points I had left.
And then I noticed that the bulk of the Shielded Republic soldiers were holding their ground on my side of the arena.
There might be something I could do.
I cycled through my list of traps, stopping when I came to a trap I had used often.
The pitfall. A hole in the ground, usually disguised so that heroes fell into it. One of the most basic traps a core could make. A trap that even a Base core could craft with ease.
On its own, a pitfall probably wouldn’t help much here.
But I had a new technique, and I had a great idea.
I gathered essence within my core and imagined a pitfall in my mind. I put my essence to work, pulsing it outside myself and into the arena, directly underneath the Republic soldiers.
But instead of stopping there, I tapped into my Essential Overload. I pulsed all the remaining essence from my core and into the pitfall. Receiving much more essence than was necessary for its construction, the pitfall grew deeper. It cut through the bowels of the arena until it reached the other side.
Because the arena was an extension of God’s Fist, it must have been hundreds of feet in the air. This gave the Republic soldiers little chance when the pitfall appeared under their feet.
They plunged down through it, waving their shields and their arms as they fell hundreds of
