Inside the arena, two of the five fights had come to an end, and only three of the fights remained. The camera had decided to focus on Quinn's match at this very moment. They could see that the Multiplier was trapped and thought another contestant would soon be eliminated from the competition.
When the daggers were thrown, everybody waited in anticipation of what the Multiplier would do to follow up this attack and how he would dismantle his opponent as he had done previously. What they didn't expect, was for the sudden reveal of a strange power that no one had ever seen before.
The sheet of purple shadow rose from Quinn's feet surrounding him. It was moving ever so slightly, and the small blades seemed to have stopped just as they touched it.
"Hey, do you know what ability that is?" A person from the crowd asked.
"No, I've never seen anyone with it before."
"I wonder what it does or how it works."
"Wait, what is Quinn doing!" Layla shouted. "Why is he showing his powers, and worse of all right now in front of everyone?"
Sam looked carefully at the strange power. He had expected Quinn to be hiding something, he even thought he was a hundred percent sure that he was the Blood evolver, but this, he had never seen the Blood evolver do this before. Even if they had learned a new skill, there was a clear difference between what he was seeing right now. The Blood evolvers powers produced a red aura, while this was purple and dark; it felt different.
"I assume you have something to do with this?" Logan said, looking at Vorden since he seemed to be the only one who hadn't acted so surprised at the outcome.
"He's sick and tired of hiding," Vorden replied. "I can feel it, and I think you guys can too. The whole situation was just frustrating him more and more as the days went by. Sooner or later this was going to happen, so might as well do it now."
"But won't people come after him after they learn about his background?" Layla asked. "He was an orphan and the military knew he had no ability before. The others will try to ask for the ability book, or try to find out how he learned this."
"Don't worry, after this, I told him he could say my family is looking after him, and he gave the ability book to them for safekeeping."
"And what original family do you come from?" Sam asked. If Vorden was confident to use his family's name to protect a rare ability, they had to be strong. If they weren't, then others would still try to attack or pressure them in some way to obtain the ability book.
"My family is the Blade family," Vorden responded.
Sam started to think hard if he had ever heard such a name before, but he tried and tried. He was quite knowledgeable and even knew some medium-sized factions and families, but the Blades just didn't seem to ring a bell. However, since his family was an original family and managed to stay that way, it meant it would still give Quinn some protection.
Follow on NovᴇlEnglish.nᴇtWhen abilities started to become more well known around the world and families began to reveal themselves. Some of the original families were broken up and had their abilities learned and stolen, eventually making them known to the public. They then were no longer known as originals.
Only the more potent abilities or the ones under the Big three at the time, were able to keep their abilities and powers to themselves. If Vorden's family was still considered an original, they had to have some influence, right?
Opening up a part of the shadow from the front, the small blades moved again, and Quinn had blocked them with his gauntlets. He then moved out from where the shadow was originally placed and allowed for the shadow to return to him. As soon as he did this, the blades continued to move forward, wholly missing and falling off the arena.
[94/100 MC cells]
The small blades were only at the basic tier level. This was why Quinn knew he could block it with only a thin layer of the shadow. At the same time, the damage it had done was small.
[Shadow cloak skill activated]
Then, in front of everyone's eyes on the stage and from the booth, Quinn had disappeared entirely. The stronger ones could still sense where Quinn was, as this was only a visual effect, an illusion almost, but to the crowd, they now couldn't see anything.
Multiplier himself had quite keen senses and could tell Quinn was still here, but found it hard to pinpoint his exact location. The problem was, Quinn was just too fast. When attacking, the shadow cloak was disabled, and a fist seemed to come flying out of nowhere, delivering a punch to the head. The puff of black smoke appeared once more.
"Not that one."
Seeing another one not too far away, he decided to use the flash step. Moving himself right in the position of the next person. Without hesitation, an uppercut was delivered, and with it, another cloud of smoke appeared. From behind, his sensitive ears had picked up the sound of footsteps running up to him. Quickly spinning his body and lifting his leg, he performed a spinning back kick, hitting Multiplier through the air and off the arena ground.
All the fights around them were now being ignored; each puff of black smoke appearing the crowd cheered in response. It was as if they were watching a skilled traveller take on several men at once.
While one person came towards Quinn at the front, another was behind him. The two daggers came toward both his body and his head; using both of his hands, Quinn was able to grab him by the wrist, but that didn't stop the second person coming from behind.
"Is he done for?" the crowd thought.
But Quinn knew all along what was happening. From underneath his feet, the shadow rose once again, stopping the attack.
[80/100 MC]
The attack had been blocked, but this time it had taken a lot more of his MC points to deal with it. This was due to the weapon being an advanced tier one.
Throwing out a kick towards his opponent's stomach finished the first one-off, and then a spin with the back of his fist hitting the one behind him, the two opponents had been finished off.
Looking around him and at the arena, he could still see the six of the same person. Even though he had already defeated multiple clones.
"Damn, which one is the real one? They all smell exactly the same!"
What Quinn didn't know was the Multiplier was able to switch his real body with any of the clones he created at any time. The Multiplier not once had even gotten close to Quinn.
How he wished he was able to use his blood abilities right now. Using blood swipe, he could attack far away or with the crescent kick, and if there were multiple enemies, he could use the blood spray.
There was another problem, sooner or later, his MC points would run out. The weapon the Multiplier used was strong, and it could only block so many more attacks. Quinn was careful not to get hit, and if he did and the fight got rough, there was a good chance his Blood bank would automatically activate.
His healing wasn't as impressive as Peter's, but it was still to the point where one would think he had a healing ability. This, in turn, would cause so many questions to be asked.
"Well, it looks like this match certainly has gotten interesting," Owen said, giggling away.
"I knew you wouldn't play fair," Burnie replied. "You knew he actually had an ability, didn't you."
"I knew no such thing; how would I know information that not even Oscar knew?" Owen replied.
Burnie was now looking at Oscar for an answer. If anyone should have known about his powers, it should have been him. Oscar was starting to wonder how Owen knew or came to know of this as well.
"I think this makes the whole thing a lot more interesting," Mona added. "It would have been boring otherwise; besides, a bet is a bet. Even if you did know he had an ability, the Multiplier is one of the strongest people in this tournament, and that fact still doesn't change. Besides, we all know how the Multiplier likes to toy with his opponents from the last fight, and he still hasn't shown everything he's got. Although, with the Cursed Child, I do wonder what level his ability is at?"
"It is a hard one to judge," Owen replied. "The ability itself doesn't seem to have many attacking opportunities. If the user himself wasn't so skilled in hand to hand combat, then this fight might have been long over. However, it also seems the ability itself is versatile. It cloaked him, making him almost invisible, and also, it can be moved around at will like an elemental power. I have a feeling we haven't seen everything yet."
Back on the platform, Quinn slowly made his way back into the center. The others found this quite the amateur move as it allowed him to be surrounded. If he stood near the outer edge, he was able to face opponents coming from one direction. Yes, there was a higher chance one would be knocked off from the stage. But it still gave him better options.
Still, Quinn knew if he weren't the aggressor, he would eventually lose this fight. Once in the center, all the clones threw their small blades again, and Quinn repeated with the same action lifting the shadow and blocking the attacks.
"I can do this all day, come on!" Quinn shouted, hoping that the Multiplier would try something new.
Follow on Novᴇl-Onlinᴇ.cᴏmAll of them switched and pulled out their daggers.
"Oh, do you think you've won?" the Multiplier spoke. When speaking, each of his clones spoke simultaneously, and the voice sounded louder together like an odd choir. "You do know I've been playing around with you this whole time. You see, I like to toy with my opponents, sometimes make them feel like they are winning. Some matches I start with two, for others, I begin with four. After seeing how easily you dealt with my clones, I decided on six.
"But, I guess that wasn't enough."
From behind the six people that surrounded the arena, another six people were seen behind them as they moved to the side to make twelve. It was the first time in the tournament the Multiplier had ever used twelve people to fight so far.
"Let's see how you deal with this!" the Multiplier said, as all twelve clones decided to charge in towards the center at the same time.
"Perfect," Quinn said.
[Shadow void]
A thick purple shadow spread out from his feet across the floor in all directions from where Quinn stood. Once it reached a particular area, it started to rise, eventually creating a small dome shape. The dome incased both Quinn and all of the clones with him. From the outside, the public suddenly couldn't see anything, but a purple dome of moving shadows.
"What's going on?" the crowd said.
"Are they still fighting in there?"
"This had to be that Cursed Child's ability right."
"Are you starting to feel nervous about our little bet?" Owen asked.
"Although I don't know what this strange dome thing does, I can not believe one person could take on twelve. I didn't even know the Multiplier could copy himself that many times. If I have him in one of my families, it would be like having a little squad. He would be able to go out on solo missions on his own."
As time went by and nothing was happening. Even Burnie was starting to get nervous. It shouldn't have taken this long for someone to beat one person.
Finally, the shadows around started to fade away slowly. They began to disappear from the top of the dome to the bottom and eventually returned to the original users two feet, where one person could be seen standing, while the other was beaten entirely and knocked out on the floor.
"Ladies and gentlemen, we have our winner. The Cursed Child!"
*****
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