170: Kharvek Arrogance 170: Kharvek Arrogance “You think you’re strong?” he bellowed.
“I am the City Lord!
I’ve bathed in magma since before you could hold a blade!” He stomped once and the arena answered.
BOOM!
Obsidian spikes erupted in all directions.
One nearly impaled Ben from below, but he vaulted sideways, swaying between falling stone and rising fla.
Kharvek charged, faster now.
His entire right arm transford into a gauntlet of molten rock, curling into a hamr the size of a grown man.
CRASH!
Ben barely ducked in ti.
The impact shattered part of the arena wall, flas pouring from the crater like blood.
The crowd howled.
“You run well, rat!” Kharvek mocked, his voice thundering.
“But I wonder, how long can you dodge my wrath?” Ben didn’t reply.
He was already moving.
Another trio of venom daggers flicked from his hands, one high, one low, one curving in from behind.
Kharvek snarled.
This ti, he ignored them.
His molten armor flared again, taking the hits, allowing the blades to sink in, only halfway.
“You think you’ve outsmarted ?” he spat.
“You think I haven’t fought a thousand like you?” His arm-hamr split, forming into a whip of liquid fire.
It lashed outward.
SNAP!
Ben twisted, but the end caught his shoulder, the searing heat biting into his flesh.
He hissed, rolled, and ca back up, but now blood soaked his left side.
The ground beneath Ben shimred.
Another trap.
He kicked off the arena wall, just as obsidian hands burst from the stone to grab his legs.
Midair, he flipped, and threw two more daggers downward.
They detonated, shattering the hands and blowing apart the trap.
Ben landed hard, panting.
He could feel the heat.
The pressure.
The constant roar of the crowd and the suffocating heat from the seal.
But he grinned.
“You talk a lot for soone bleeding,” he said, nodding toward the gash still leaking red from Kharvek’s ribs.
Kharvek snarled, eyes narrowing.
“You’re Dead!” The Molten Seal pulsed, once, twice, and then exploded.
Lava surged outward, spiraling around him like a dragon..
The arena trembled.
From the rivers of flowing lava, shapes began to rise.
First one, than five, than dozen of them.
Humanoid forms, sculpted from blackened stone and glowing magma, their eyes twin coal of white fla, their appearance look similar with Neprhirid.
The crowd erupted in cheers, chanting his na as if the outco had already been decided.
Kharvek threw his arms wide, reveling in the spectacle.
“Look around you, rat!” he roared.
“This is strength!
This is what real power looks like!
I am the Brand of Fla!
City Lord by fire, conqueror by birth!” Ben didn’t flinch.
His wound still sizzled across his should, but it was already beginning to heal.
He was holding back the regeneration.
To hide his identity.
“Not bad,” Ben said under his breath.
Then his daggers ignited.
Fla burned along their obsidian edges.
This dagger co from his forge, crated from grimslate ingot and and obsidian steel.
It’s one of the rare weapon that got enhanced with magical abilites.
With every stab, the blade would deposit a fragnt of unstable mana, set to detonate after a heartbeat.
He dashed forward.
The nearest molten golem stepped into his path, raising a his fist.
CRACK!
Ben ducked under the strike and plunged his right dagger into the creature’s abdon.
STAB!!!
The blade slid in, then vibrated.
BOOM!
The golem’s detonated from within, bursting into shards of lava and stone.
Ben rolled through the debris and ca up behind the second, slashing across the knee joint.
Another vibration.
Another BOOM!
Kharvek’s grin twitched.
Two down.
But twenty more advanced, their heavy feet pounding across the arena like a earthquake.
Ben exhaled slowly, eyes narrowing as his twin blades flared brighter.
“Let’s see how many of you I can carve apart,” he whispered.
Then he moved again, like a phantom cloaked in fire.
Ben beca a blur weaving between molten giants like liquid fla.
BOOM!
A dagger lodged into a golem’s spine.
The mont it sunk in, the runes on its hilt ignited and the entire golem’s chest exploded outward, spraying shrapnel in every direction.
Another charged him, swinging a molten axe the size of a wagon.
Ben flipped over the blade, landed on its forearm, then drove his second dagger straight down into its neck.
A pulse of mana surged through its body, cooking it from the inside.
The golem took one more step, then crumbled into rubble.
Kharvek’s laughter began to waver.
His confidence cracked.
Ben didn’t stop.
He stabbed the foot of one, leapt as it exploded, then used the blast wave to launch himself straight into the chest of another.
His knees slamd into it like cannonballs, daggers already whirling in both hands.
Crack!
Boom!
Boom!
Two detonations in rapid succession blew apart its chest and head.
The crowd gasped, half of them on their feet, unsure if they were watching a battle or a massacre.
From the center of the collapsing formation, Ben erged, smoke trailing from his shoulders, wounds reopening from the sheer strain, but still moving.
Kharvek roared in fury, thrusting his palm forward.
The Molten Seal behind him exploded in light.
FWOOOOOOM!
All remaining golems collapsed, their cores ripped from their chests and sent streaking into Kharvek’s body.
His veins bulged.
His skin cracked and hardened into obsidian armor, pulsing with molten fire.
He grew Taller and Bulkier.
His arms thick as boulders.
His eyes glowed bright as furnaces.
“You dare humiliate !?” Kharvek bellowed, voice shaking the arena.
“I’ll break your bones and forge your corpse into my throne!” Ben spun his daggers once, their runes sizzling with one last charge.
“You can try.” They clashed.
BOOM!
The air itself split from the impact.
Fire t fire.
Steel t stone.
The arena vanished in a whirl of motion and shockwaves as challenger and lord collided.
Ben ducked beneath a molten fist that could’ve flattened a house.
His foot slamd into Kharvek’s knee.
CRACK!
Ben force the giant back a step.
He spun, drove both daggers forward in an X-shaped slash.
CLANG!
Sparks flew as the obsidian armor cracked deeper.
Kharvek roared in pain.
He swung wildly, fire gushing from his fists in thick waves, but Ben moved like a shadow wrapped in fla, slipping through the gaps, carving lines across the monster’s body.
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