War God for Hire- Gladiator by David Burke (books under 200 pages .TXT) 📕

which was probably why the elf had elected to fly some fifty feet up. Kyle screamed through the air, wishing he had a cool battle cry, and slammed his shoulder into the elf.

Or at least that was his intent. The swirling winds that were holding Gilthan aloft also acted to shield him. Kyle’s force ripped through the pneumatic barrier, but not before he was thrown off course. He found himself flying through the air until he landed on the far side of the arena.

Gilthan was not as graceful once his spell was ripped apart by Kyle’s essence-fueled leap. The elf was soon bopping across the sky like a punctured balloon. When the fabric of the spell completely gave out, he started to fall to the ground like a rock and only just managed to catch himself with a cushion of air.

Kyle saw his chance. They were a football field apart, but he started running. As he ran, he traced through his mind what he had meant to do and how he had instinctively called upon the War Essence. It clicked in his head then that it was always a reaction.

Just as he had reflexes that used to allow him to catch a ball that was screaming past him and now had learned to apply that to blocking incoming sword blows, he needed to apply it to this other part of himself. He could feel the essence inside of him, and yet somehow it felt like trying to run with a third leg that he suddenly grew.

He crossed the distance and saw Gilthan stumbling to his feet. The man was already raising his hand. The blue sparkles of electrical arcs were leaping across his knuckles. There was no way that Kyle was gonna reach him before getting blasted again. Not unless… there it was. He felt the ground beneath him. It was full of essence and that echoed within him.

It was exactly what he needed, a way to blunt the attack, to literally ground the electrical energy. Suddenly a flicker of information popped up in his vision, but he had no time for it. So single-minded was his drive to reach Gilthan that he ignored everything else. Even the sudden rush of two points of Earth Essence leaving his body didn’t stop his forward drive.

He felt the essence swirl around his body and a slight heaviness came to his limbs, but he was used to pushing past exhaustion and lactic acid. This would be enough to slow him even if he had failed to use the power as he wanted.

Yet he hadn’t failed. The audience gasped as the man they saw as a brutish but exciting warrior was suddenly being encased by the ground. The sand and hard-packed earth beneath it, even the solid stone, rippled up around him. Whereas before most of him had been unarmored, now he was covered in an earthen armor that moved with him.

What Kyle perceived as a slight bit of tiredness in his muscles was in reality the shifting of the new armor around him. His mind had such a narrow focus on his target, though, that he didn’t initially realize he had succeeded.

It clicked into place when he saw the flash of light on Gilthan’s hand. He gritted his teeth and braced for the impact. His only thought was to force himself forward. He was so close now. But then there was no pain, no muscle locking shock, no teeth jarring impact.

His focus was distracted for just enough to look down at himself between strides forward. He saw the swirling earthen armor as it formed and reformed under the onslaught of the lightning bolt all while grounding the charge to keep him from feeling its impact. Rather than be distracted, he roared out, “Rarrr!” Exultation pumped through his body; he had done it. His foe was finished.

Too late, Gilthan realized the lightning attack wasn’t going to work and refocused his depleted essence stores into flying again, but Kyle wasn’t having any of that. He sent the massive maul flying out before him. The head of it struck Gilthan, who crumpled up under the blow.

Kyle had seen the elf in training and knew that despite his pretty boy face, he could take a hit, so for him to be so completely dropped this blow caused Kyle a momentary fear that he had used too much power. But focus returned and he plowed into the staggered elf.

Another roar of battle frenzy escaped Kyle’s lips as he pulled back a fist to pummel the elf. Even as his fist was descending, he realized that the elf was already tapping on the ground.

The wind had been driven out of him when the maul struck, but he managed to gasp out, “I yield.”

Kyle paused for a second to make sure the elf wasn’t going to die immediately, then stood up. He didn’t wait for Saber to announce a winner but instead lifted both his hand up into the air with clenched fists. The earthen armor shed off of him like scales. Then, with his head pulled back to look up at the sky, he roared his defiance while his fists shook.

He might not have asked for this second chance at life but in this moment, he was feeling it. Victory felt so intoxicating. He could understand how a boxer or MMA fighter felt. Beating an opposing pitcher was the closest he had come to this in-your-face kinda victory before coming to Verden. It was so much more intense than even the feelings he had for beating an opposing team.

That had been a game, but this was life. Battle was life. He felt so alive. He almost smashed Saber when the man came up next to him to announce him as the winner. In this moment, Kyle felt like he could do anything.

He searched the audience. The nobles were among the only ones not standing to applaud but they all had hungry looks on their faces, perhaps for different reasons.