Tales of a Ninja Magician: Of Journeys We Make

The Reality of Violence

Grabbing the cloaked and armored Immortal in one hand, a massive mountain of muscle and hair raised him over his head and sneered with overgrown tusk-like teeth protruding from the longer than it'd have been considered normal for a man's jaw. Sneering at the captive immortal, the ogreish conqueror pulled him in closer to his snarling face before thudding his oversized skull into the Immortal's face and tossing him aside. The Immortal skidded across the tournament arena floor before flopping off of the corner and down on the ground.

"Cornab Thunderbone, one of the favorites from the bunch of conquerors and adventurers, the human siege machine known for decorating his weapons with the bones of the conquered, eliminated one of the Immortals from the Ryuuchi Caverns without breaking a sweat! That means that there are now... No... Wait... This doesn't seem to make any sense. We've all seen the Immortal getting eliminated, but there still seem to be ten Immortals fighting in the arena... What is going on here!?" the announcer yelled after turning to the audience. The man did the count several times yet no matter if he tried counting the overall fighters still left in the arena or the Immortals specifically, it appeared as if the overall number of warriors, the number of the Immortals too, stayed the same as before the elimination.

A round and thick, bald martial artist with a rugged and torn white gi rolled through the arena like a cannonball and locked his arms and feet around Cornab Thunderbone's leg. Cornab was such a massive unit that even the fleshy boulder human cannonball took the full length of his thick arms and legs to wrap around the limbs of the brutal conqueror.

"Seeing an opening in all the confusion, Balujo, the master of ground-based fighting techniques, has applied his bone-crunching lock on Cornab Thunderbone! This now devolves into a struggle of power and mastery of combat arts. With every second that Balujo has his hold applied, Cornab's legs are in danger of spraining and breaking, and if Cornab collapses and brings the fight down to the ground, the fight might be as good as over!" the announcer relayed to the audience the focal points of the madness and cacophony booming from the arena.

Cornab stiffened his whole body, but Balujo bulked up as well. Cornab had a peculiar, barely noticeable mint-green tint to his skin and a slimy texture to it. With the conqueror twisting his face in tension and taxing his musculature to the limit, the secretions coming out from his pores started foaming but despite the hold he had applied becoming more slippery and problematic to maintain, Balujo held his own with clenched teeth and a brush-like black unibrow that bent into the shape of a downward-pointing arrow. Balujo's skin took a reddish tint from the extreme physical effort the ground submission master put out to bring the cruel conqueror to rub against the tiles of the arena.

"Oh! What impact!" the announcer turned around on one babouche-style shoe while striking a flashy pose and pointing his v-shaped fingers into the sky as gratitude for what he was seeing in the arena. "Cornab was nicknamed "Thunderbone" by his tribe of settlers because when he strikes his bone-decorated weapons, it sounds like thunder itself has been brought down upon his enemies, though, ironically enough, now the thunder comes from the sound of Cornab's face planting against the floor! The struggle has moved on to the ground, now there may be no more hope for Cornab Thunderbone!"

A wicked smile changed the twisted and filled with agony expression of the merciless conqueror as he moved his hands to wrap around Balujo's thighs and calves as well. Cornab grabbed hold of his opponent's squeezing thigh and rolled on to the side like a crocodile when it chomped down and began rolling about and thrashing. Balujo's taxed, blood-red complexion shifted to pale-white in a second as Cornab applied his own rolling leg lock and the two began wrestling on the ground until one of them either called it quits, or their limbs did it for them.

"What a surprise! It appears that Cornab is just as skilled on the ground as Balujo is! Which one will tap out first!?" the announcer screamed out into the rustling and cheering audience.