Gambit Of The Living Weapon - Chapter 261 Queen of the ring

The crowd continued to cheer at the victory of the crossbow mage over the demon challengers that continued to come one after another.

Each time Evlin defeated an opponent the audience would just get wilder and wilder with their roaring. The emperor would not stop sending demons after demons to face the young lady only for them to get pummeled by her rich pool of magic skills.

Evlin didn’t mind it though. Getting to beat up demons after all the amount of stress she received from being stuck so long on the white void with Mia and due to her conversations with Knucker was just what she needed to unleash her emotions.

Not only that, this was the first time she was allowed to go wild without having to worry about causing any damage. If she by any chance ended up breaking something, the public would just laugh it off and cheer her even more. She was feeling like a rockstar right now and almost felt like using her magic to leap into the crowd so they could carry her.

The demons continued to come out of the gates and every time they would, she would use them as test subjects to find out how much of the terminal power sleeping inside of her body she could pull off safely.

“Next!!” she stated as she just finished up defeating another demon that looked like a bull with red skin and white wings on his back that would not stop running all over the arena like a person with ants on their pants.

Another gate opened and a new demon appeared striking the appearance of a man-sized lizard walking in two legs with sparks of electricity coming out of its tongue.

Evlin jumped out of the head of the bull she was using to raise herself up and rushed towards the demon with terminal fire coming out of her legs. Her speed was so great that it looked like she had teleported between spots, with the only thing indicating her sprint being the cloud of dust she raised.

The lizard gasped with Evlin suddenly appearing in front of her and could barely react as she uppercutted its chin, sending him flying towards the ceiling.

“Next!” she exclaimed as the demon dropped from above and crashed into the ground.

Evlin was completely losing herself with the fights. People would often talk about how violent she was and how much she was good at spreading destruction, so she started to wonder why not just prove them right? Everyone in the audience thinks she is a brute already, why not just give them what they want and enjoy it? Nobody ever believed in her anyway.

It was true that she could be competitive and had a short fuse, but she never really saw herself as a violent person. She always hated people that used magic or any kind of advantage they had to bully others. But right now? Right now she could finally give this a try and just try to see how violent she could really be if she tried, and even more than that, if there is anything wrong with that.

The emperor stood up and raised his arms before speaking one more time, “We are witnessing history in the making, my friends!! The great founder of our beloved culture finally returned to us to bless us with her glory!! Marvel upon her magnificent feats as she continues to stand tall over any pathetic demon that dares to defy her!!”

The crowd started to roar once again, but Evlin just tilted her head for a moment after hearing these words, “Founder of your culture…? What…?”

All of sudden the crowd changed its chanting from saying Evlin’s name to shouting another.

“BIG JAY! BIG JAY! BIG JAY!”

The emperor replied to that chant, “You want Big Jay!!??”

“BIG JAY!!! BIG JAY!!! BIG JAY!!!” the public continued to chant, now with even more emotion.

“Then bring us!! Biiiiiig Jaaaay!!!”

“Big Jay…?” Evlin repeated.

The arena started to shake all of sudden. Evlin looked up and noticed that a massive door had appeared in the ceiling and it was slowly starting to open up as well.

She took a deep breath as she realized that her next opponent was coming and assumed her battle stance once again.

Auren, who was still watching everything by the side of the emperor began to fill himself with worry, “Who exactly is Big Jay…?”

The emperor laughed and gave Auren a light tap in the back. light for his massive size though, for Auren, it felt like he had been hit by a door.

“It’s our greatest achievement! The toughest demon we ever captured! So powerful that none of our warriors ever managed to defeat it!”

Auren started to lose the color on his face, “And you are going to send that to fight Evlin!!??”

“Of course!! Young one, are you not aware of the greatness that is the crossbow mage!? She is the invincible hero that defeated the demon of the south! She’s a great inspiration for all of us here!!”

“Really??” Auren replied.

“Of course!! My father would often tell me stories of the first time he ever saw her! She was surrounded by a pack of monster hunters and filled with fury in her eyes at the sight of the poor beasts being locked into cages and treated like objects to buy and to sell… You know what she did when she saw them?

She jumped on top of her enemies and began to fight like even more of a beast than the actual monsters!! And right after that! The girl went face-to-face with the leader of the hunters, and just when it seemed like she was cornered and about to lose, she combined herself with a captured griffin and demolished her opponent like it was nothing!! It was so beautiful that my father who was hiding and seeing everything from afar began to cry.

Never before had such an amazing display of violence and brutality had ever looked so… Magical!”

Auren was in complete disbelief, “Wait… This whole culture is based around one person seeing Evlin fight? That’s why there are so many monsters walking around and a huge arena in the center of the city??”

“Of course!! This is a city of mages dedicated to coexisting with the beasts and enjoying the glory of the victory on a battlefield!!”

“Mages?? Everyone here is a mage?”

“Beast mages, warriors dedicated to learning the ways of beast magic!! We all walk the path of magic that allows us to connect with our monsters! Fell what they feel, and let them feel what we feel! They see that we mean no harm and become part of our family!”

“But where are your staffs?”

The emperor pointed at his white mask, making Auren realize that it was made of wood.

“Oh!”

“The crossbow mage doesn’t need a staff to be a mage, and neither do we!”

Auren began to reflect on this whole situation, “An empire built upon the idea of connecting with animals and coexisting with them… That does sound like something Evlin would like…”

“And now… The carnage begins!!” the emperor said next.

“That… I’m not so sure if it sounds like Evlin….”

The gates of the ceiling finally had opened up completely, and from inside of it, a massive cage, almost as big as the colosseum itself, began to descend.

“Oh, boy…” Evlin whispered, “I might have gotten a bit carried away…”

The cage finally reached the ground and would not stop shaking as if the creature inside of it couldn’t stop fighting to try to get out.

Evlin used her geo-radar to get a sense of the situation and began to shiver a bit. This thing was big, way, way too big. Bigger than any demon she had faced in there.

The cage opened up, and from it a pair of red eyes could be seen, staring into her soul.

Auren began to worry about her safety, “Are you sure this is a good idea?? She might need help!!”

“Help?? Basfemmy!! The crossbow mage is the ultimate warrior! Have you not been watching the spectacle?? She will finish this before we know it!!”

“You don’t understand!! Evlin is strong, but even she has her limits!! If she just keeps fighting like this, eventually she will run out of magic!!”

“Then she will perish with the greatest glory of all, falling in battle facing the greatest of opponents! Her final moments will be burned into our hearts!”

“Oh, my Lord…” Auren began to feel like these people that created an entire culture based on a girl fighting off against hunters might not be the sanest after all.

The demon finally stepped out of the fifty-foot tall cage and revealed its body. It’s ugly, terrifying body. Its main appearance was that of a lion, a huge feline body with two paws on its front and on its back. His fur was drenched in a purple tone as if it was sick and about to vomit.

Above its neck, instead of a head, there was the upper half of a humanoid figure, almost making it look like a centaur, but instead of human arms, it had the claws of a scorpion sticking out of it, and instead of a human face, it looked like it had an octopus above its neck, with its big red eyes still staring at Evlin. As if that wasn’t enough, a huge pair of bat wings could be seen sticking out of its back.

Evlin had no idea how she was supposed to react to that thing, “You must be Big Jay…”

“Look at that lad…” the emperor whispered to Auren, “Ain’t that just horrendous?? That’s Big Jay for ya!”

“Why is it called Big Jay…?” Auren wondered.

“It’s short for ‘Just Pray’… Cause when you get face-to-face with this fella… Aint a whole lot more that you can do…”

“Oh no…”

Big Jay unleashed a massive roar that echoed inside the entire building and could even be heard by the people from above. The entire arena shook from the vibration of the sound.

“This is the moment we all have been waiting for!!! The amazing crossbow mage!! And Big Jay!!!! Two opponents!! One victor!!!” the emperor shouted, acting like a wrestler announcer.

Evlin began to re-think her life choices, “Yeah… I definitely got too carried away…”

Part 2

As the humongous demon continued to approach her, the crossbow mage began to think it might be better to quit while she was ahead.

“Hey! White-mask!! I think I’m done for today! Let’s stop here and pick up again next Friday night, cool?” She shouted while gazing at the emperor.

The leader of the beast mage tribe was not looking like he wanted to follow her suggestion though, “Stop!?? Now?? When you already came so far?? Nonsense!! Come on, crossbow mage!! Don’t be shy!! Show everyone here the reason why you became a legend!!”

“The hell have you been smoking?? What legend?? What are you talking about??” Evlin angrily replied.

Auren came closer to the edge of the seats to clear the confusion, “Evlin!! These guys built their entire culture based on you!!”

“What!!??”

“They think fighting is what pleases you!! You have to get out of there!! They are never gonna stop forcing you to fight!!”

Evlin felt her hair blowing from the wind pressure caused by another roar of Big Jay.

“Oh, man… I really did not think this through…” she whispered while staring at the beast that towered over her.

Big Jay raised its scorpion claw and tried to squash Evlin under it. The mage acted faster and used her speed to leap to the side and avoid the impact. Sadly, she was still caught by the shockwave caused by the impact of the claw on the ground and began to fly backwards until she crashed against the walls of the arena.

“Kuaahhh!!”

The audience finally saw that Evlin had found a challenge worthy of her and began to chant once again, “Blood! Blood! Blood! Blood!”

Evlin stood up and quickly applied healing magic to fix her back, “Ugh!! This is just perfect… Why didn’t I just listen to Auren and got us out of here when I had the chance…?? I wonder why I even have so many enemies when it feels like I do a great job of screwing myself up all the time…”

Big Jay began to charge after her with its lion lower body and Evlin reacted by using her agility to run up its body as if she was climbing a mountain. Once she reached the neck of the creature, she tangled her whip into her fist and tried to smack its face with all the strength she had, but as soon as her punch landed, the demon just glared at her with annoyance and slapped the woman away with the tentacles from its head.

“Whoaaaaa!!!” Evlin shouted as she was about to crash against the floor of the arena.

She hurried to untangle her whip and latched onto one of Jay’s claws to stop her fall. As soon as the creature noticed Evlin hanging from its arm, it raised its limb to throw her up towards the ceiling.

Evlin wrapped her whip around her legs and increased the strength of her lower half to kick back the ceiling before smashing herself into it, forcing her body to fly down towards the demon and landing a dropkick on its head, but much like before, her power was not enough to cause a lot of damage.

“Her attacks are not working…” Auren noticed.

“Of course!!” the emperor agreed, “Big Jay is the strongest demon we have! he would never go down so easily!! Our great mage will need to try a little harder if she wants to succeed!!”

“You people are crazy!!” Auren screamed, “You say you look up to her but you still throw her into a death-match against a demon five times her size???”

“This is what she lives for!! She is the queen of violence!!! Have you not heard the tales??”

“No, I have not heard the tales, but I’ve lived with her!!! I know her better than any one of you!! And Evlin does NOT LIKE VIOLENCE!!”

“What!!?? Are you stupid?? Of course she loves violence!! Have you not heard about the many foes she defeated?? About the monsters she slew?? About the damage she caused during her travels?? She’s basically the incarnation of destruction!!”

Auren watched Evlin being smacked by Jay once again and crashing against the ground, followed by almost being stepped on by its purple paw and pierced by its claw.

The mage saw a piece of debris flying and grabbed it with her whip, transformed it into a piece of diamond, and shot it at the demon’s face. But just like before, it had little effect on it.

The bald man stared at the emperor one more time, still hoping he could stop this madness, “She didn’t defeat these foes because she loves violence!! She did it because people would try to capture her or harm her friends if she didn’t fight back!! And any destruction she caused was because she simply has a short temper due to how stressful her life has been so far!! I’m telling you!! She knows how to fight but she doesn’t really like fighting!!”

“Young man, you don’t know what you’re talking about…”

“YES I DO!!! I know because I saw it!! Right after she acquired the strongest force on the planet, the first thing she did was get rid of it and go back to her family!! The only reason she fights is so she can get away from the fighting!! Even now!! She was only taking part in this craziness because she assumed you wouldn’t let us go otherwise!!”

“Strongest force in the planet…??”

“Yes!! Evlin once had the power of both blessed energy and cursed energy in her hands once, and she just threw it all away because she couldn’t care less about power!! You think you are doing a great honor by giving her something strong to face, but all you’re really doing is putting her life at risk!!”

“…” the emperor gazed at Auren for a moment. He began to think about the tales he would hear from his father, about how Evlin eviscerated the monster-hunters with the ferocity of a greater beast than anything he had ever seen.

He always assumed that the reason she acted like that was due to her lust for blood since all the tales he would often hear about the crossbow mage suggested the same. He began to wonder if every single tale was just missing the entire point of her true character this whole time.

“This can’t be true… There is no way that the tales…”

Auren grabbed the emperor by the collar, “Who cares about the tales!!?? She is right there!! Just freaking ask her what she thinks!!”

The bald man was so infuriated by the emperor’s misinterpretation of Evlin that he didn’t even realize that his personal guards were pointing spears at his neck.

The leader of the mages looked at Auren’s eyes and could see the resolution inside. This was a man ready to die to protect his friend.

The emperor came forward and raised his voice, “Evlin, the mage!!”

“Eh…?” the woman was so focused on staying alive that she almost forgot that she was in a coliseum surrounded by a large audience.

“Do you wish to stop the fight??”

“Can I?? Yes, please!!”

“Do you not want to finish this battle with your own hands and bathe your fists with the blood of your fallen enemy?? Do you not wish to shower in the glory of your victory over such a mighty foe?? Do you no desire the title of the strongest and most powerful warrior of all??”

Evlin tilted her head, “Wha…? No, heck no!! I don’t care about any of that… I just wanted to vent a little bit and test my powers! I’m good now, I’m ready to stop!!”

“Oh…” the emperor replied, ” I did not expect that…”

“That’s fine, just end this before she really gets hurt!!” Auren pleaded.

The emperor began to shake, “No… I mean… I really did not expect that… We never planned on locking Jay again… We assumed she would just kill him…”

“… … … What are you saying…?” Auren softly asked.

“We… We don’t really have a way to lock him again… It took an entire army to capture him in the first place… If she doesn’t kill him… He will be free and rampage over our entire city…”

Evlin and Auren both stared at the emperor feeling like they had just stumbled upon the dumbest ruler they had ever met.

Evlin took a deep breath, “Are you saying that if I don’t take this abomination down…”

“Everyone here will most likely die…”

Evlin glared at the emperor and slapped his face with her whip, sending him flying against the wall behind him.

“Coooool… No pressure…” she commented as she realized she was the only thing standing between a giant monster and the deaths of hundreds.

Playtime was over. This wasn’t just about Evlin anymore and she needed to put an end to this fight. She felt it was time to call her daughters again.

Evlin began to focus and tried to call for the three forces that could help her out, [Maggie, Blessy, Cursy… You guys there? I need more power again…]

[Let… Us… Out…] the energies inside of her body replied.

[Come on girls, we been there before… You know I’m not doing that, so just send me your power so I can survive this and save our skin!] Evlin spoke inside her mind.

[Not… Worthy…]

[… … … Excuse me…?]

[You… Not worthy… Of our power….] the forces replied, [Without us… You… Weak]

[Oh, no… You guys are picking a really bad time to enter a rebellious phase…]

Big Jay used this moment while Evlin was distracted and picked the cage that he came out from and launched the huge piece of metal on top of her. Evlin saw the object coming and slapped the ground with her whip to raise a wall of diamonds, the biggest one she ever made.

The cage smashed against the wall and many pieces of diamonds could be seen falling on the ground, and further ahead, the demon with an octopus for a head charging after the mage.

[I’m serious guys!! If you don’t help me out now, we all will bite the dust!! If I go down, you go down as well!!] Evlin tried to argue.

[Then… Let us… Out!!]

[I’m not doing that!! Last time you got out my friends almost got torn to pieces!!]

[We fight… We… Win… You fight… We… Lose… Let us fight… Let us out…]

[I’m not letting you out!!]

Evlin tried to use her earth magic to create golems so she could hide among them and avoid the demon’s gaze, but as soon as her army appeared, Jay just smashed every single one of them with a wave of its massive claw.

Auren was getting nervous. He wasn’t sure how long Evlin would last out there against that creature by herself. He wanted to help her, but he had no idea how.

[Let us out!!] the voices shouted again.

[No!!] Evlin replied.

[Let us out!!]

[No!!!]

“Evlin!!” Auren shouted.

Evlin raised her head and saw Jay waving its wings to create a huge cloud of dust to blind Evlin’s field of vision. She still could use her geo-radar to locate it though so she wasn’t worried, but as soon as she tried to activate her power, something went wrong.

“Oh, no… No, no, no…” she repeated as she realized her geo-radar had stopped working, “What’s happening?? Why isn’t my magic working??”

[No more magic…] one of the voices inside her mind answered.

“Maggie!!?? Come on, Maggie!! Don’t do this to me now!!!”

A giant hook appeared from the dust and moved its way to crush Evlin, but right before it could lend the hit Evlin felt something pushing her shoulder.

She turned around and saw Auren, appearing out of nowhere, and moving her body away from the trajectory of Jay’s massive claw.

Unfortunately, Auren ended up taking her place and was smacked by Big Jay’s attack and sent flying against one of the gates of the arena.

“Guaaahhhh!!!!” the man screamed in pain while coughing blood.

“AUREN!!!!!” Evlin screamed in horror.

She moved her legs to go to his aid and tried to apply healing magic, but her energy was still not obeying her commands.

“Auren!! Auren, please, stay with me!! Stay with me!!”

“Cough… Cough… E…. Evlin…”

“Auren you idiot!! Why did you do that?? You know you can’t use your shields without Ria!!! What were you thinking!!??” Evlin shouted as her eyes started to tear up while she held her friend in her arms.

“My… Body… Moved by itself… Sorry…”

“W- What??”

“I just couldn’t take it anymore… Watching… You… Being treated like a toy by these people… They think they know you… But none of them get you at all…”

“Auren, stop talking, just try to use your power to revert your injuries!!”

Auren acted like he couldn’t hear Evlin’s words anymore, “You… Are not… What they think you are… They think you search for blood…”

“Auren, it’s fine!! I don’t care what they think of me!! Just heal yourself!!”

The injured man couldn’t follow that wish though. The damage he received made it impossible for him to think straight or even move his arms to activate his ability. His eyes began to close.

“Auren? Auren! Auren, I can’t heal you!! You have to use your power!! Use your power!!” Evlin screamed while her tears continued to flow. She tried to use her magic again but her magic force continued to refuse to help.

Evlin looked at his state. His legs had been crushed, his entire body was covered in blood, parts of his bones were sticking out, and his heartbeat was getting weaker by the second. If she didn’t try to do something, he would die.

She considered asking for help from the masked mages but they all were either too afraid of Big Jay to approach or too sucked into the violence to try to stop it.

Nobody would help her right now. Her friend was going to die, and all because she refused to listen to him.

She began to wonder if this was also part of Knucker’s plan. Did he plan for her to come to this place so that Auren would die? Is this what her life would be like from now on? Always asking if every bad thing is a plan from a cruel dragon that won’t leave her alone? Or was this just her usual bad luck acting again? She honestly did not know what was worse, being hated by an enemy, or being hated by fate itself.

But truly, none of that mattered right now. All she cared about was how to save Auren. She needed to heal him, she needed her magic, but her forces refused to let her access it.

Therefore, there was only one thing to do.

Evlin took a deep breath, lowered Auren on the ground, and whispered in her mind.

[Fine…]

[…]

[I’ll let you out… Just… Just, please… Save my friend…]

[…]

The forces did not respond. Evlin just found herself in the white void once again with her three daughters staring at her in front of the door to the dark void.

Evlin silently stood up and walked through the door while her forces began to combine themselves into one being, an image of Evlin made of terminal fire.

The cloud of smoke began to clear up and Big Jay spotted Evlin kneeling in front of Auren. The demon moved to step on her with its purple paws and buried its limb on the ground with the mage and her friend under it.

The entire audience gasped at that sight, but suddenly they changed their expression to that of confusion as they saw Jay’s paw shaking and being lift up.

Everyone looked again and noticed a pillar of light coming from under the demon’s body, and in the center of the light, Evlin was raising the paw with one hand while surrounded by terminal fire.

She smiled and stared at the demon with her eyes that constantly shifted color from red to green, and finally silver.

The demon tried to slam her with its other limb, but Evlin just stared at him, ignited her whip in terminal fire, and repelled the attack away by slapping it with her weapon, causing a huge explosion once they went in contact.

Big Jay stared at his arm that had been completely torn apart by the impact and began to shiver while looking at the small mage on the ground smiling at him.

Evlin pulled her flaming whip back and after tying it up around her arm, applied a bit of healing magic to fix Auren’s wounds and whispered two words.

“Finally… Out…”

Part 3

Far away from the battle arena, all the way back at the castle of the king Greyart, Knucker was shivering and screaming in agony while trying to cover his face.

Dria, who was by his side in one of his private rooms, stared at him without knowing what to do as the dragon in a human form continued to contort in agony.

“Knucker?? What’s wrong?? Are you in pain??” she asked.

“Of course I’m in pain, you useless mutt!!” he angrily replied while scratching the floor and pulling out pieces of it in the process, “but not this body… My real body… ”

Dria looked again and realized that his eyes were emitting a strong orange glow, making it look like they were on fire.

“Is this your power…?” Dria asked.

“Yes… It’s sensing a great danger!! Ugh!!! It hurts so much!! My ability is going crazy!!”

“W- What kind of danger??”

“The girl!!! That cursed, cursed, dammed girl!!! She is doing something right now!! Ugh!!!” he replied while stumbling across the room and knocking down everything in his path due to the pain, “I need to deal with her!! I need to deal with her fast!!”

Back at the colosseum, the audience was completely silent.

The demon attempted to swallow Evlin by bringing its octopus head closer to her, but she simply gazed at the cage that used to be Jay’s container and using her power of geo-kinesis, threw the entire thing at its face with a simple wave of her hand.

“Kuaaaahhhh!!!!” the giant cried in pain after having its face smashed.

Evlin raised her arm and the metal cage followed her command raising itself to the sky. Big Jay tried to stand up but before he could, the mage with multi-colored eyes lowered her arm, making the entire cage drop on his body.

The crowd shivered while hearing its cries of pain.

“Hahahaha!! You see this? My people!! This is the true power of the invisible crossbow mage!!” the emperor claimed while applauding her display of superiority over the beast.

Evlin continued to smile and lifted the cage once again, and once again dropped on top of the enormous demon.

Just like before, its scream of agony echoed through the entire arena.

Evlin did not stop. She continued to raise the cage and smash the demon with it, over, and over, and over, and over again.

At first, the audience couldn’t stop cheering, but eventually, the smiles of joy turned into expressions of horror.

The beast’s cry could be heard all the way from the top of the city, making the people from above think some poor creature was getting tortured to death.

The mage finally stopped her game of whack-a-mole with big Jay and proceeded to stare at his disfigured body. She was curious as to why its cry had been stopped but soon realized that the demon was long dead already.

Evlin finally dropped the cage which raised a pile of smoke once it landed on the ground, and while releasing a terrifying grin, began to stare at the audience.

“Next!” she ordered.

The emperor came forward and replied to her, “A- Ah… Great Mage, Evlin… There are no more demons left… You have defeated them all…”

Evlin continued to hold her grin, “Next!” she said once again.

“I- I told you… There is no one left… You won!” the man with a white mask tried to explain again.

Evlin finally dropped her smile and stared emotionless at him while stomping the ground, making the entire place tremble with her power over the earth.

The emperor and the audience lost their balance and began to feel a lust for blood finally coming from Evlin.

“Next…” she muttered a third time.

The emperor finally understood, she wasn’t asking for another demon, she was asking for another victim, any victim.

Evlin untangled her whip and proceeded to grab the emperor, proceeded by dragging him all the way from his seat to the arena while dragging his body through the ground.

“W- W- Wait!! What are you doing!!??” he asked.

“She’s going to kill him!!” someone in the audience shouted.

“She’s going to kill all of us!!!” another one added.

The public began to scream in terror and rushed to get away from the colosseum, but before they could, Evlin used her magic to lock all of the doors and imprison all of them.

“P- Please!! Stop!! This isn’t what we wanted!!!” the emperor tried to plead.

Evlin stared at him and began to smile one more time.

“You wanted blood… I give you blood!”

Auren, who was still laying down on the floor, finally started to feel the effects of the healing magic taking place and began to open his eyes, and the first sight he witnessed, was the image of Evlin holding the emperor by the neck, much like he was doing to her not too long ago, while all the citizens that had come to watch continued to run left and right in terror trying to find a way to escape.

“E- Evlin…?” Auren whispered.

Evlin turned around to stare at him and began to blush with joy before giving her response, “Nope!”

She then raised her arm and stabbed the emperor in the stomach, making the man scream in pain and spilling his blood over the sand.

“Not Evlin!”