Chapter : 861
It was just as magnificent, and just as terrible, as it had been the day before. A twenty-foot-tall river of molten rock and roaring, crimson flame, its fiery maw a vortex of pure, hungry annihilation. It paused, its form coalescing, its non-existent eyes fixing on the small, robed figure who had dared to disturb its slumber.
Lloyd stood his ground. He did not flinch. He did not show a single, outward sign of fear. He simply watched the creature, his expression one of a doctor calmly, clinically, assessing a new and particularly virulent disease.
The Demon let out another roar, this one a challenge, a declaration of its absolute, unquestionable dominance. It opened its fiery maw, and Lloyd knew what was coming. The opening salvo. The wave of fire.
The crowd, which had fallen into a terrified hush, now let out a collective, horrified gasp. This was it. The moment of truth. The moment the foolish, arrogant healer would be turned into a puff of greasy, black smoke.
But Lloyd did not run. He did not cower. He simply raised a hand.
And he summoned his own fire.
The crowd was stunned into a new, and even more profound, silence. The slum doctor, the humble healer, was a Spirit Master. And his spirit was a demon. A magnificent, terrifying, and unbelievably powerful-looking fire demon of his own.
The mockery, the jeering, the certainty of his swift and pathetic demise—all of it evaporated in an instant, replaced by a single, unified, and utterly baffled thought that rippled through the minds of all seventy thousand spectators: What in the name of all the gods are we looking at?
The Jahl itself seemed to pause, its own fiery maw closing slightly, as if in surprise. It had expected a screaming, fleshy morsel. It had not expected… a rival.
And then, the two waves of fire met. The Jahl’s roaring, chaotic inferno, and the controlled, defensive wall of flame that erupted from Ifrit’s greatsword. The arena was consumed by a cataclysmic, blinding conflagration of crimson and gold, a battle of two suns. The healer’s folly had just become the most interesting fight the kingdom had seen in a century.
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The collision of the two infernos was a cataclysmic event. The roaring, undisciplined tidal wave of the Jahl’s fire slammed into the controlled, concave shield of flame that erupted from Ifrit’s greatsword. The sound was not an explosion; it was a deafening, continuous roar, the sound of two primordial forces of nature locked in a struggle for absolute dominance. The very air in the arena seemed to catch fire, the heat so intense that the spectators in the highest tiers could feel the blistering wash of it on their faces.
The crowd, which had been stunned into silence by the sudden, shocking appearance of Lloyd’s own fire demon, was now a single, unified entity of pure, slack-jawed disbelief. The narrative they had so confidently written in their minds—the story of the foolish, suicidal healer—had just been torn to shreds and set ablaze.
They were watching a man fight a forest fire with a candle, just as the broken champion Gias had predicted. But the candle was not being extinguished. The candle was fighting back.
For a long, breathtaking moment, the two fires were locked in a perfect, violent stalemate. The Jahl’s chaotic, crimson rage pushed against the disciplined, contained fury of Ifrit’s defensive wall. The sand of the arena floor where the two forces met was instantly superheated, melting and fusing into a long, dark, glassy scar.
Chapter : 862
In the center of it all, Lloyd stood behind his magnificent, demonic spirit, his simple healer’s robes fluttering in the super-heated wind. He was a picture of serene, unshakeable calm, a small, still point in the heart of a hurricane of his own making.
The Jahl, for the first time in living memory, was being challenged on its own terms, in its own element. And it did not like it. It let out a roar of pure, frustrated fury, and pushed, pouring more of its seemingly endless power into its fiery assault.
Lloyd felt the strain. He was channeling his will into his spirit, his mind a fortress of discipline, holding Ifrit’s power at the carefully calibrated, suppressed Ascended level. The pressure was immense. He could feel Ifrit’s own, natural, Transcendent-level power straining against his control, a caged god yearning to be unleashed. But he held it in check. The performance, the narrative, was paramount.
The stalemate finally broke. Ifrit’s defensive wall of fire, under the relentless, overwhelming pressure of the Jahl’s assault, began to waver. It buckled, it flickered, and then, with a final, explosive whoosh, it was shattered, the Jahl’s fire washing over them.
But it was a victory that came a second too late. In the instant before his shield broke, Lloyd and Ifrit had already moved, a single, fluid, and perfectly synchronized sidestep. The tidal wave of fire roared past them, crashing into the stone wall of the arena behind them and sending a shower of molten rock into the air.
They were unscathed. They had weathered the first storm.
The crowd let out a collective, explosive roar. It was a sound of pure, disbelieving, and ecstatic excitement. The mockery was gone, forgotten in the face of this impossible, glorious reality. This was not going to be a comedy. This was not going to be a tragedy. This was going to be a fight.
The Jahl, its initial assault a failure, now focused its rage on the two figures who had dared to defy it. It no longer saw a simple challenger; it saw a rival, an affront, a lesser flame that needed to be extinguished.
Its chaotic, molten form began to coalesce, to take on a more defined, more solid shape. Two massive, clawed hands of obsidian and rock formed from its fiery limbs. It let out another roar, and it charged.
The crowd, and the other warriors watching from the cells, now understood. The healer was a fire user, as Gias had said. And he was indeed a fool. A magnificent, brave, and utterly doomed fool. He had survived the first wave, yes. But to challenge the god of fire with a lesser fire of his own… it was a battle of attrition he could not possibly win. The mockery, which had been silenced by shock, now began to bubble up again, this time laced with a new, almost pitying, respect. He was going to die, yes. But at least he was going to die beautifully.
In the waiting cells, the tattooed barbarian shook his head in wonder. “The man has a fire-demon of his own,” he muttered. “And he still chooses to fight. He is either the bravest man I have ever seen, or he is a lunatic who has fallen in love with the idea of his own funeral pyre.”
The assassins simply watched, their faces grim. They were professionals. And they were watching another professional, a man of surprising and hidden power, commit a fundamental, and fatal, tactical error.
Lloyd ignored them all. He faced the charging, thirty-foot-tall behemoth of rage and flame, his own, smaller, nine-foot-tall demon at his side. The size difference was comical. The power difference, everyone assumed, was absolute.
“Engage,” Lloyd said, his voice a quiet, calm command.
And Ifrit, his own greatsword blazing, charged forward to meet his ancient, enraged, and far more powerful namesake in the center of the ring of judgment. The dance of the two fires had truly begun.
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The roar of the crowd was a fickle, hungry beast. One moment, it had been a wave of pure, derisive mockery. The next, a tsunami of shocked, ecstatic excitement. Now, as the two fire demons, the colossal, chaotic Jahl and the smaller, more disciplined Ifrit, clashed in the center of the arena, the roar subsided into a new, more profound sound: a low, humming, and deeply uncertain awe.
The common spectator saw a simple, brutal, and glorious spectacle. They saw fire against fire, a battle of pure, elemental fury. They saw a brave, if foolish, underdog, a challenger who was putting up a far more entertaining fight than anyone had anticipated. Their mockery had been silenced, replaced by a raw, bloodthirsty, and deeply appreciative respect. This was what they had paid to see.