SSS Awakening: I Can Class Change at will

Chapter 552: You are dead...

At the center of the western engagement, Baaron danced with two opponents.

Klein hovered above him, casting spells that pulled columns of water from the ruptured plumbing beneath the venue’s foundations. Waves rose and crashed around Baaron’s position, each strike aimed to sweep him off his feet or crush him beneath the pressure of water.

Sierra circled him from thirty meters out, her longbow drawn to full tension, a fresh arrow nocked with each release. Her unique class was nothing to scoff at, providing her with the ability to use the four basic elements in her arrows, amplifying their powers.

She switched her elemental affinities based on Baaron’s positioning, punishing his mistakes.

Baaron was losing against the two Ascenders. But he wasn’t out of the fight just yet. His cleaver moved fast enough to shred incoming water columns before they could do any significant damage, and his footwork carried him through Sierra’s arrows.

His physical conditioning was a sight to behold.

But he was on the back foot. Blood ran down his left arm from a fire arrow that had hit his shoulder during a previous altercation, and a shallow cut sat across his right cheek, dripping blood.

His breathing was starting to get labored, but he grinned through it all.

"You two really do work well together. Almost like a married couple. Make sure to invite me. I’d hate to miss it. I’ll even bring a surprise." Baaron chuckled devilishly.

Sierra loosed another arrow, her face untouched by his goading.

"Focus on surviving the next minute, boy."

"That’s what I’m doing. I like to compliment my opponents while I kill them. Makes their deaths a little more entertaining."

"You’re the one dying. Boy."

"So are you."

Sierra didn’t answer.

Her grey riding leathers were unmarked. And unlike Baaron, she wasn’t on the defensive. She was choosing her shots, spacing them out, dictating the tempo of the exchange from the ground she had claimed.

"Your bravado is going to bury you. You will not be escaping like you always do. There is no river around to save you today."

Baaron grinned wider.

"If there’s no river, I’ll make one. I’m still standing after all these years. Has to count for something."

"Standing is a low bar. Even a corpse can stand if you prop it up right."

Baaron laughed before launching himself forward.

The floor beneath his boots cratered from the force of the kick. He crossed the distance to Sierra in a single explosive motion, his cleaver already rising for a downward strike aimed at the center of her drawing shoulder.

Sierra didn’t panic from his approach. Her hand snapped down to her quiver. An arrow came up, its shaft wreathed in a rush of green wind.

She loosed it point-blank into Baaron’s chest.

~Whoosh~

The wind exploded out of her bow and Sierra’s body shot backward through the air, riding the recoil, her feet touching down tens of meters away in a clean landing that kept her hand steady, nocking her next arrow before the dust cleared.

Baaron’s cleaver hit empty air where her shoulder had been. He grinned, twisted mid-strike, and leapt sideways just as a massive water lance from Klein crashed through the space he had occupied a fraction of a second earlier.

The lance smashed into the arena floor and detonated in a burst of water spray.

Baaron rolled through the impact and came up sprinting toward Sierra again.

Sierra saw him coming and released three arrows back to back, each one carrying a different element. Fire, water, earth.

The elements crashed into his path in overlapping bursts, forcing him to weave sideways, cut around, duck beneath, and eventually slowing him down.

Baaron laughed the entire time.

His short stature and agility were his greatest weapons. He danced through the barrage like a man who had been doing this for decades, his cleaver twisting behind him for balance, his footwork improvising through gaps that most Ascenders would not be able to take.

The arrows and water lances that would have caused serious trouble to other Ascenders, were simply an inconvenience to him.

A few of Sierra’s arrows missed entirely.

They tore across the arena and slammed into a translucent barrier at the edge of the venue. The wall of energy rippled outward from the impact, the arrows losing most of their momentum before dissipating harmlessly against the barrier.

The dome.

The Association had committed enormous resources to constructing it before the attack began. A containment barrier stretched across the entire venue, holding back the collateral damage of Ascender-tier combat from spilling into the surrounding city.

Without it, every missed arrow and stray spell would have been leveling blocks of the zone.

Baaron slid to a stop fifty meters from Sierra.

"Come on, Sie." He grinned. "You’ve got more than this. I know you do. Or have you gotten older now? Perhaps it’s that time of the month."

Disgust flashed in Sierra’s face at the nickname that Baaron gave her. "You should know that the cycle doesn’t affect Ascenders...boy."

Her mana flared like a flood, her reserves opening completely as she began to prepare the strongest attack she had.

Behind her, four massive bows materialized in the air. Each glowing with a different color.

Red for fire. Blue for water. Brown for earth. Grey for wind.

The four elemental bows floated behind her in a perfect diamond formation, their strings drawing back in unison as her own bow drew its fifth arrow.

Five bows. Five arrows. All aimed at Baaron.

"Deal with this then."

Baaron’s grin didn’t fade. This was the very attack that had plunged him into the river the last time they fought, forcing him to retreat. This time around, it wasn’t going to work again.

Baaron stopped moving.

Even with his agility, and his experience, even with the tricks he had used to escape death countless times before, he wasn’t going to dodge this.

Five simultaneous elemental arrows from an Ascender of Sierra’s caliber, was beyond his ability to evade.

A cleaver began to form behind him, black as void, wreathed in dark energy.

"Let’s see who wins."

Above the arena, Klein raised his hands.

A massive sphere of water began to condense above his head, gathered into a single rotating orb the size of a house.

"You are dead..."