Alix could die from this height. Raina was still wrapped tightly around his neck, and he feared the worm might lose her life too.
Alix summoned the three windows and weighed his options.
[TAMER WINDOW]
[Name: Alix Vineyard]
[Status: Alive]
[Tamer-Type: Worms]
[Creatures Tamed: 1]
[Total Evolutions Made: 1]
[PERSONAL WINDOW]
[Name: Alix Vineyard]
[Status: Alive]
[Tier: Slave]
[Class: Fledgling]
[Natural Attributes: Regeneration, Secretion]
[Evolutionary Attributes: Enzyme Duplication]
[Resets: N/A]
[Tamer Soul Shards Claimed: 20]
[Soul Fragments Claimed: 54]
[Soul Fragments Until Next Personal Evolution: 74/100]
[CREATURE WINDOW]
[Raina]
Evolution Capacity: 3
Evolution Lines: None
Abilities: Secretion
Evolutions made: 1
Soul Fragments Until Next Evolution: 16/400
Description: Raina is an eerie flatworm, slithering and bending to the will of its master. The worm relishes in strangling its prey, liquifying their bodies, and watching the light leave their eyes in a slow, wordless death.
He could try secreting mucus to cover his body again, but how would that protect him from falling to his death? His regeneration wouldn't help if his brain was splattered across the floor, and Raina couldn't help either.
If only you were a bit bigger, girl
Things were looking grim for Alix, and he wasn't too sure that he'd survive.
Dammit! Is there really nothing I can do?
Alix remembered his fight with the guard, and how he had felt utilising his abilities. He hadn't really used them with cunning, but now he had to. He focused on the evolutionary attribute, and read the description of the only attribute within the section.
[Enzyme Duplication]
Description: At the cost of the tamer's essence, the tamer is able to expel thick, yellow mucus from their palms that rapidly duplicates enzymes it comes into contact with. This causes the breakdown of flesh, and the melting of organic material. Ineffective against beasts that are not of the same rank as the tamer, though will affect beasts in proportion to the damage they have made the tamer sustain.
Nothing else I can do
Alix grimaced and stretched out his only arm.
I don't have many other options
Alix waited until he got closer to the ground, closer to his death. When he was within a good distance, he shot out the yellow mucus from his palm. The mucus came out like a pressurised stream, violently flowing out of his skin, and Alix could feel his breath leaving him quickly.
The mucus beat against the ground and held Alix up as if he was some strange, human statue. He was suspended in the air, saved from his inevitable death.
Oh, oh! I did it!
The mucus stopped flowing from his hand, and Alix crashed into the ground with his heart palpitating in his throat.
So…tired.
Alix could feel himself passing out, he had used too much of the mucus, and the effects were now clawing at his entire body. It didn't help that it was already screaming in agony due to his fall, but at least he wasn't dead.
The crowd went silent, and whispering tamers began pondering about the boy who had just fallen into the coliseum.
Above him, Alix saw Vaylor gliding silently through the sky with a wide grin on his face. He landed gracefully beside Alix, and the jet-black wings sank back into his body, leaving a clear sheet of fabric where the wings should've punctured it.
"MEN AND WOMEN OF THE DRACONIAN EMPIRE HEAR ME NOW," Vaylor bellowed.
His voice came out like thunder, and Alix swore he felt the earth rumbling.
The crowd paid close attention, and many of them cheered and shouted words of praises to honour their Lord.
"Lord Vaylor!"
"Great Lord Vaylor!"
"Vaylor! Vaylor! Vaylor!"
"Lord Bloodsworn!"
"WHAT IS THE MEANING OF THIS, VAYLOR," another thunderous voice roared.
Vaylor and Alix looked up to find the source of it. They found a stocky man who looked like an ant from their position, but the gazes the crowd gave him spoke of fear and unquestioned obedience.
"My king," said Vaylor, bowing and placing his hand on his chest as a sign of respect. "It is an honour to be in your presence once again."
"SHUT YOUR TRAP VAYLOR," the king bellowed, pulling a plethora of gasps that swept across the crowd. "YOU SHOULD BE SCOUTING THE BORDER WITH THE PALADINS, NOT THROWING SPINELESS TAMERS INTO MY ARENA."
"My king," Vaylor said, raising his voice even higher, "my guild was scouting the borders the day before, searching arduously for what had attacked our mines and our sites. With my own two eyes I found this boy running away from me the moment he laid eyes on me."
Vaylor cleared his throat, and then continued to speak. "To my shock, the boy was wearing rags that made him out to be some slave. But it was strange to me, very strange how a tamerless could survive the destruction of the mines and the sites while many tamers had died so easily. When I voiced my suspicions, the boy confessed to me that he was a tamer, a worm tamer at that."
The crowd blinked, and then burst into a fit of violent laughter, Alix thought all of their stomachs would burst for a second, and the rumbling earth wanted to burst too, it seemed.
"Worm tamer?! What on earth!"
"Gahahahaha, a flippin' worm tamer?"
"Does the boy go lookin' for worms!? Worahahaha"
Alix could feel shame and anger building up in his gut, like a meal he couldn't digest. All the mocking smiles, all the mocking laughter, Alix felt an incorporeal knife pierce him and twist itself deep into his heart.
You're the one that stabbed me with it, Vaylor. The crowd have only twisted the blade.
Vaylor laughed with them and then waited for the laughter to die down before speaking again.
"And so, that's when I realised that this fool, this false slave, was claiming to be one in order to escape his duties, to avoid the oaths he made towards the empire! He's a deserter!"
The crowd was outraged, as was the king. All around them violent profanities were being howled down at Alix who could nothing but listen to them while laying in a puddle of mucus.
"Let us not forget the war that is to come, my king, my fellow tamers, my fellow lords! Courtesy of the voice, the world has known five hundred years of peace, and now the great reset is upon us and we shall know five hundred years of war once more! We will fight to the death to maintain our empire, to aid the great emperor as he fights against future enemies; foreign kings, foreign emperors, and their disgraceful foreign ways. Desertion is a great crime that can only be met with death! To desert before the war has even started is a cowardly act, an even greater sin! My king, are you in agreement!?"
The king was silent for a while, and the crowd waited expectantly for his answer. The king sat up from his chair again, then looked down at the arena with a hardened gaze. A short breeze billowed his brown curly hair, and his dark eyes were scowling at Alix from afar. His aqualine nose shrivelled up in disgust, and a deep frown curved his thin lips.
The king held his milk-white robe as if it would leave him, and then spoke up with rage coating his voice.
"THE ARENAS WERE MADE TO TEST THE BEST TAMERS ACROSS THE DRACONIAN EMPIRE. WE ALSO HOLD THESE EVENTS TO COMMEMORATE THE CREATION OF THE EMPIRE. WE WERE FORGED IN BLOOD, SWEAT, AND PAIN, BRAWLING AND FIGHTING AMONGST OURSELVES WITH DRAGONS BY OUR SIDE UNTIL THE FIRST EMPEROR DEFEATED THE WARMONGERS ON THE BACK OF HIS PHOENIX. EVERY TIME THE RESET IS UPON US, THE ARENA REMINDS US STRONGLY OF WHERE WE CAME FROM AND WHAT WE DO TO THOSE WE SEE AS OUR ENEMIES. VAYLOR BLOODSWORN, I WANT THIS BOYS HEAD ON A SPIKE!"
The crowd roared once more until the cheers reached a deafening crescendo. There was clapping, screaming, words of support and praise for both Vaylor and the king. Alix felt the weight of the world weighing down on him, and stared at the sky one last time.
"Bring out the tamer and his beast!" Vaylor demanded.
A loud groan could be heard from behind them. There was a rusted portilcius being raised, and behind it a snarling beast began walking through, its eyes dripping with malice. It's tamer was walking just beside it.
The man was tall and lithe, and wore a mask that hid all of his features—his long black robe served to do the same.
Alix was tired, so tired. Tired of fighting, tired of being pushed to his limits, and especially tired of almost coming close to death. He just wanted to be free. Was that too much to ask for? Alix then realised something profound which forced him to his feet.
The king and the lords had ancestors who once bent to the will of another man. And now their descendants were free men who could watch a worthless tamer like him perish in the arena. Alix couldn't expect his freedom to come to him.
He had to fight for it.
He glowered at the tamer and his beast, and then balled his hands into fists.
It's time to put down another tamer, Raina.
Vaylor knelt down beside Alix, and the boy watched as a small tornado of flames burnt away the mucus beneath the lord's feet.
"Fight well, you mining slave." Vaylor smiled
Alix felt like his heart had stopped in his chest. The revelation that followed after his words was just too much, way too much.
He knows. He knows that I'm a—I was a slave. He's thought so the entire time…