"I accept." Xolver replied. "Yet I'm no match for my opponent, so I request for a champion."
"I knew the Night Court's members are just overgrown ticks, but since when do you even accept cowards among your ranks?" Inxialot hadn't tricked Lith on purpose. In his mind, running away from a challenge was something unthinkable.
His words wiped the smile off their faces, while Lith's mind finally connected the dots.
"Wait, does a fight between peers means 'of the same rank in the Court' or 'of equal strength'?" He asked.
"The latter, of course." Sylla replied with a wolfish smile. "You should have asked for my help. He who lives alone dies alone. You have no friends here and you knew it."
"Bah, don't worry, kid." Inxialot sneered. "Awakened ones are the strongest race after Liches. Everything else is trash."
"When will the fight take place?" Lith asked while using Invigoration to return to his peak condition.
"As soon as the arena is ready, and unless someone wants to die by my hand, it will happen within the next few minutes." Inxialot struck the ground with his silver staff, causing the whole room to shake.
While Sylla and Kaelan shouted orders in their respective communication amulets, Lith started to cast what he had always considered the most useless of all the trump cards at his disposal.
***
Unknown location. Underground dungeon of the master of the meat puppets.
Krishna Manohar had long come to terms with inferior minds having no originality. When he regained his senses, he didn't need to look at himself to know that his arms had been amputated.
The Professor knew his body so well that he noticed how his balance was all over the place the moment he opened his eyes. His waist was chained to the wall, and so were his legs.
The room he was trapped in was a marvel in its intricacy. The walls and floor were made of metal, the air was kept thin and dry to the point he kept yawning for oxygen.
'Well, at least this is new. Usually, they just break up my arms. Someone here is very paranoid. I can understand why they took my hands off, but what is this room for?' He thought.
Unlike the master of the mansion, Manohar was unaware of Awakened ones' existence, so the design of the cell made no sense to him. An Awakened wouldn't need their mouth or hands to cast, so the metal served to make it impossible to use earth magic, while the dry air blocked fire, air, and water magic.
With no humidity, there was no water to manipulate, while fire would quickly burn the low oxygen content of the room and make the prisoner faint.
Manohar was still dizzy from all the lightning bolts which had struck him a few hours earlier. With no hands, he had to use first magic to treat his minor wounds and the symptoms from the amputation.
When the pain stopped hindering Manohar's mind, he continued using first magic while studying the restraints trapping him. As he expected, they weren't regular chains.
Even if he was unfamiliar with their design, the Professor could feel enough mana coming from them to support multiple enchantments.
"This may take a while." He sighed.
"Awake already? It's not only your mind to be amazing. For a human, of course." Said a familiar feminine voice while opening the cell door.
"Can you drop the evil overlord act? It stopped being fun before I was even born. It makes you look even more pathetic than you already are."
"Tough talk for someone in your position." Hessie, Lady Lanza's personal housemaid, walked to the center of the room with a soft, cruel smile on her lips. There was nothing bashful in her gait anymore.
She stood as straight as a Queen, looking down on Manohar like he was a thief locked in a stockade.
"I feel ashamed for falling for your act." The Professor said. "The only excuse I have is that I checked you for both slave items and meat puppets. How did you come up negative to my tests?"
His professional curiosity was piqued. According to Hessie's personal file, she had no magical talent. Her history was clear and with no gaps. Yet there she was, exuding such strong mana that Manohar's neck hair was standing up.
Her eyes were still chestnut, so she wasn't remotely controlled like a meat puppet.
"Easy. I took over her body months ago. Your spells detected nothing because there's nothing to detect. I'm Hessie now, or at least what's left of her."
"Are you saying it's not just shapeshifting?" Manohar had never been so happy of being kidnapped. The lady in front of him was as crazy as interesting. She would make an incredible specimen.
'If I manage to capture her alive and if those buzzkills of the Crown don't execute her on the spot.' He inwardly smiled. Manohar lived for the challenges.
"Enough chit chat. There's a reason why you are still alive…"
"Because you need my help." Manohar interrupted her. "Let me guess. After seeing me at work you understood how sloppy and crude your methods are, so you want me to teach you how to do things properly."
Hessie's eyes were reduced to fiery slits, brimming with mana.
"How dare you belittling my work, you insignificant runt? My art is perfect, or better, it was supposed to be. I want to know how did you extract my puppy alive from its host!" Her anger made the Professor's condescending attitude turn to hilarity.
"Art? Perfect? Are you really such an idiot? Your magic is messy at best, if not wasteful. I hoped you were like Balkor, a genius like me but that because of poor personal choices ended up swamped with too much scut work, slowing your research.
"If you think that junk is perfection, then you are barely at a fifth year student level. Once I used my diagnostic spell, I found at least twelve major flaws and as many ways to safely remove the specimen. Off the top of my head at that."
Manohar was so disgusted that he stopped talking and started chanting.
"What do you think you're doing?" Hessie released a bolt of darkness magic from one of her rings, but Manohar easily dodged it despite his restraints. His movement revealed a set of arms made of light that had remained hidden behind the Professor's back up to that moment.
The chant ended and the chains fell onto the ground with a metal clattering. It was the tier four Forgemaster spell Clean Slate, an exclusive of the elite of the army, the Association, or in Manohar's case, of the Queen's corps.
It generated a combined pulse of light and darkness magic that would temporarily short circuit the imprint on a magical item. In the case of the chains, without an owner, the lock was released.
Before Hessie could recover from the surprise, the left arm formed a fist and struck at her like a ram, sending her sprawling on the floor.
"Light magic used for offense? That's impossible!" The first magic composing the hard light construct was enough to allow Manohar to channel his spells, but its offensive force was just slightly superior to that of an average man.
"Just because an idiot can't do it, it doesn't mean that something is impossible." Manohar said while Hessie stared at him with a mix of fear and awe.
