Chapter 12: The Impossible Challenge
Arthur stared at the crater for a long moment, at the six unconscious beasts and the six students who had stopped making decisions and the blackened earth and the single figure standing untouched at the center of all of it.
His grin widened. "Vedas."
The Goblin Warrior looked over.
Arthur pointed at the Golden Dragon. "Ready to beat a dragon?"
Silence.
Melo blinked.
Taurus stared at Arthur in disbelief.
The deer looked away.
The Flaming Crocodile covered its eyes.
The black hawk and the spiky ape turned around.
Vedas blinked before tapping his ear as if he had heard wrong. And then followed the direction of Arthur’s finger. The Golden Dragon was staring back with calm golden eyes. Vedas looked at the dragon and then at Arthur.
Then back at the dragon.
Ten long seconds passed, and Vedas smiled. "...Arthur."
"Yeah?"
"... did you find a better beast?" Vedas pointed at the Golden Dragon. "Is that why you want me dead?"
The followers blinked before gasping in surprise while the beasts shivered and took a step back.
Arthur blinked. "No?"
Vedas expression shifted into disbelief and pointed harder. "THAT says otherwise!"
The Golden Dragon chose this moment to release a low sound from somewhere in its throat. Not a roar. Something below a roar, a pressure that moved through the air and arrived in the chest before the ears had finished processing it.
Vedas stared at it for a moment. Then he slowly crouched down to a lower position, as though reducing his visible surface area was a reasonable response to the situation.
"My partner is crazy," he said, to the ground in front of him.
Arthur laughed.
"Wants me dead," Vedas continued.
"I don’t want you dead."
Vedas appeared not to hear this. "Definitely wants me dead."
Melo, who had reduced herself back to her smaller form at some point and was sitting nearby, walked over. She placed one paw on Vedas’s arm.
Vedas looked betrayed.
"You helping?"
Melo’s tail swayed.
"Not helping."
Mithra immediately covered her mouth as laughter escaped. Arthur looked completely unapologetic about all of it, which was somehow the most aggravating part.
The followers had recovered enough from the initial scene to form opinions about it, and their opinions arrived in sequence.
"You can’t be serious," the tall one said.
Arthur looked over. "I am."
Another pointed at the crater with both arms extended. "Did you not hear any of the stories on the way here?"
"I heard all of them," Arthur said.
"He beat a Bronze Rank Beast Tamer before he had an awakened class," a third said.
"He just defeated six Beast Tamers," another added.
"With their beasts."
"In one round."
"And that dragon is what did THIS." The follower gestured at the entire surrounding destruction with the energy of someone who felt the gesture alone should be sufficient argument.
Arthur looked at the crater again, at the flattened trees and the blackened ground and the scale of what a single movement from the Golden Dragon had apparently produced. "Pretty impressive," he said.
The followers stared.
"That’s your response?"
Arthur looked back at them. "What else am I supposed to say?"
The tall follower rubbed his face. "Vedas beat the Taurus," he said, trying a different approach. "That was incredible. Everyone here agrees."
"Yep," Arthur said.
"That thing is leagues above the Taurus."
Arthur nodded. "Probably."
"Probably?!"
Arthur smiled, and the tall follower made a sound that suggested he was very close to a personal limit of some kind.
Cassian stood apart from his group with his arms folded, watching all of it. He had not said a word since they reached the ridge.
Mithra stepped forward before the argument could develop further. "Arthur."
"Hm?"
The amusement in her expression settled into something more direct. "You really believe you can win?"
The crater went quiet. The students who had been resting nearby looked over.
Arthur looked at her and nodded without hesitation. "Of course."
Mithra held his gaze for a moment. "Why?"
He pointed at Vedas, who was still in his crouch but had been paying close attention. "The vision I told you about." Her eyes widened slightly. "The one where he wounded the Golden Dragon." He turned to look at the creature standing at the center of the crater, and then back at Mithra. "It’s this dragon. I recognized it when we arrived."
Silence.
The followers looked between Arthur and Mithra, then at each other, then back again, the comprehension arriving gradually on each of their faces and not improving their expressions.
"Your reason," the tall one said slowly, "is a vision."
"Yes," Arthur said.
"That’s your entire plan."
Arthur thought about it for a moment. "...mostly."
The follower covered his face and then crouched down while muttering. To his surprise, he could hear words such as Vedas is dead or poor Vedas.
Weird.
Mithra stared at Arthur for several seconds and then slowly raised her hand. Arthur looked confused before his eyes widened and he grinned.
He raised his own, and their palms met with a sharp, clean sound.
"Let’s see if it’s real," Mithra said.
"Yeah?" Arthur said.
She laughed. "It’s interesting enough."
The followers collectively looked like they had lost all faith in the world. Arthur turned around and began walking down into the crater.
"Why are you encouraging him?"
"Someone stop them."
"They’re both insane."
Mithra smiled sweetly. "I think it’s interesting."
That somehow made things worse. One of Cassian’s group turned to look at him for a reaction. Cassian’s eyes had not moved from Arthur’s back.
Behind them, Vedas was still crouched on the ground. "...interesting." He shook his head. "...crazy."
Melo patted him again.
Arthur was walking down into the crater.
The defeated students who had been sitting at the edges watched him descend, and recognition moved through them in a wave.
"Wait, that’s the one with the Goblin."
"What is he doing?"
"Where’s the Goblin, is it—"
"Over there."
They all looked toward Vedas. They saw the armor. The shield. The spear and the height.
"Is that the Goblin?" someone said.
"Why is it bigger?"
"Where did that equipment come from?"
A girl with green hair stood near the back of the gathered students with an owl on top of her head and a notebook open in her hands, and she looked up from the page long enough to answer the questions filling the air around her. "The armor came from the Goblin itself. It evolved."
The silence that followed was a different kind of silence than the one before it.
"That should be impossible. We got our beasts this morning."
"How did it evolve already?"
Mithra waved one hand at the crowd and smiled. "Because Vedas worked very hard."
The students did not look convinced. They looked like people who had been given an answer that technically addressed the question and resolved nothing.
At the center of the crater, Leon’s eyes moved.
Not toward Arthur, who had nearly reached him. Not toward the crowd but toward Vedas. He looked at the height, the armor, the posture, and he looked at the eyes of the Goblin Warrior.
"You evolved," Leon said, across the distance between them. "Impressive."
Arthur’s grin arrived like he had been waiting for exactly this. "I want to challenge you."
Several students physically turned around to make sure they had heard correctly. The Golden Dragon slowly lifted its head before a low growl rolled across the battlefield.
The pressure changed.
Suddenly the air felt heavier, and students stepped back instinctively.
Arthur didn’t.
Leon looked at him for several seconds. "You saw this."
He gestured toward the crater.
The defeated beasts.
The defeated students.
The destruction.
"And still desire to fight me."
Arthur grinned. "Of course."
"And yet... You still wish to fight."
Arthur smiled. "I’ve never fought a dragon before."
Leon blinks.
Behind him, several students immediately started groaning.
"Another one?"
"He literally watched everyone lose."
"Does nobody learn?"
Near the back of the crowd, the girl with an owl sitting comfortably on top of her head wasn’t watching Leon at all.
She was staring at Vedas while her notebook moved rapidly.
Scratch.
"Early evolution."
Scratch.
"Fastest ever."
Scratch.
"Abnormal growth rate."
The owl looked down at the notebook. Then nodded, and the girl nodded back. "Agreed."
Several nearby students quietly moved away.
Not far away, another student was collecting slips of paper while muttering numbers to himself.
"Twenty-to-one."
"Thirty-to-one."
"Fifty-to-one if you’re betting on the Goblin."
A student stared.
"Who’s taking that bet?"
The young man looked offended.
"Someone always does."
The dismissal continued spreading from there, folding in voices from different parts of the crater.
"His beast is just a Goblin. It doesn’t matter what it looks like."
"The dragon will crush it."
"Why does he think he can do something when everyone better than him has already failed?"
Vedas trembled when he heard those words. He looked around. The same students who had laughed at him during the ceremony were laughing at Arthur now. His hands slowly tightened around his spear.
Melo noticed first; her eyes flashed in concern.
Then Mithra, whose eyes widened. "Vedas?"
Then somewhere at the center of the crater, Leon’s golden eyes moved fractionally toward the ridge.
Vedas stood.
His legs were shaking.
The shaking moved up through his entire body, every part of him aware of what he was walking toward, and none of it slowing him down. He moved past Mithra and Melo without speaking. Past Cassian, past the followers and their beasts, past the crowd of students at the edge of the crater, and into it.
Past Arthur.
One step, then another, until he stood directly in front of the Golden Dragon, and the Golden Dragon looked down at him from a height that should have been enough to end the conversation.
Vedas looked up.
He tightened his grip.
"I will beat it."
The sounds in the crater stopped as though they had never been.
Arthur smiles. "There he is."
Mithra looks over. "Hm?"
Arthur laughs. "That’s the Vedas I know."
He knew his partner would never leave him out here to be mocked without stepping up. Then his eyes moved immediately to Leon.
Arthur saw it again. That tiny change in Leon’s eyes. The same one from the Awakening Ceremony. It disappeared almost immediately.
The Golden Dragon rose to its full height.
The roar that followed was terrifying. In the instant it struck the crater, the air darkened, and everyone stumbled, with a few falling to the ground. Several beasts lowered their heads to the ground without being told to.
Arthur kept smiling.
Vedas kept standing.
Leon looked at the Goblin Warrior for one more moment. Then he looked at the Golden Dragon and finally nodded.
"Mephistopheles."
The Golden Dragon’s eyes ignited.
"Let’s begin."
The roar that followed shook the entire crater.
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