Veteran Bracket Semi Finals: Christoph vs. Bloodrose

[Christoph]

What he said.

The sound of rending steel roared through the stadium as Teric’s sword struck home with furious force, hacking off Elijah’s leg at the knee. The challenger gave an agonized cry, springing backward with his remaining foot to avoid a vicious finishing strike. His sword slipped from his grip as he fell to the ground, blood pouring from the brutalized stump. This wasn’t supposed to happen.

“The challenger is down!” bellowed the announcer. “The Grandmaster seems to have grasped victory from the fiery maw of defeat!”

I’m an arrogant fool, thought the Master, cursing as excruciating pain pulsed through him. In his blind desire to utterly best his opponent, he had willingly battled on the Grandmaster’s terms. He’d gotten so complacent in his prowess that he thought to defeat one of the world’s most legendary swordsmen at the point of a blade. Sarah was right; he’d rushed into it, too sure of himself. He’d lost the instant he clashed swords with Teric, and now he was paying for it. His life’s greatest achievement hung just out of reach.

“No,” he growled. Amid the smothering despair burned a vibrant spark of defiance. Even as he teetered on the brink of defeat, battered and bleeding with his strength diminished, Elijah’s fighting spirit endured. He hadn’t come this far to let victory slip from his grasp.

A curious murmur overtook the crowd as the challenger’s gauntlets began glowing red emanating rippling heat. With a scream that sounded more like a tormented wraith than a man, he pressed the scorching gauntlets into his bleeding stump, searing the wound closed. The spectators gasped, and Elijah struggled to his knees. An implacable expression plastered Teric’s face, fear, respect, or something else entirely, and the Grandmaster hesitated for but an instant before charging forward to finish the job.

With his focus broken, Elijah’s charms were swiftly unraveling, leaving him defenseless. Gritting his teeth, he held out his left fist and unleashed another kinetic blast from his ring. The ring had only partially recharged, so the blast lacked the same crushing force, but it struck his foe squarely in the torso and sent him staggering for a crucial instant. Like all acts of desperation, his needed only a moment.

With a ragged howl, he unleashed lethal primordial forces that predated even the Tap or the tamed arcane arts. Raw power erupted from his fingertips in a surge of fiery wrath that crashed against Teric like a tidal wave, smashing the Grandmaster into the dirt. Elijah’s scars glowed like lines of molten metal as he pressed his frantic offensive. Before Bloodrose could stand, a pillar of blue fire burst from the ground like a geyser, enveloping the old man in a savage inferno.

The sorcerer poured the last of his resolve and vitality into wielding the storm of wild magic, which rebelled against his control even as it consumed his foe. The savage conflagration contorted and thrashed, lashing out at the unprotected Master and spreading dangerously close to the stands. Gusts of sparks and embers assaulted the weakening challenger as he failed to keep the reins of his spell. Tendrils of flame lashed against him, mercilessly charring his blistered flesh. Scalding sand assaulted his eyes, scouring them from their bloody sockets. With a final blast, the voracious balefire shattered the chains of Elijah’s will, and his world fell into blackness.

Not a soul stirred in the stands as every eye watched and waited for the smoke to clear.