Heaven's Sword Online- Book One of the Alta Luna Saga

Episode 8: Dance of the Shadows

Rin leaps into the air and spins around like a tornado made out of shimmering blades of light. The tendrils pierce the luminous gale, only to be sliced into snowflake sized bits. Tae-young bares her teeth, gathering the falling shadows and reforming them into purple and black spears.

Her opponent somersaults midair as he falls back down. He rolls past her as ejects tiny needles of light from his body, as if he's a cartoon porcupine.

Tae-young uses the shadows to shield herself and fades from view once more. Whoever wins this is anyone's guess at this point. My bet is that Rin will win, he does have more experience playing these kinds of games.

The two stop vanishing and rolling and run toward one another with their swords drawn and directing toward the other. Tae-young block's Rin's sword with ease using her sword, even as he hold his with both hands and she is only using one. The collision of the swords releases a mass of black and white energy. The four pillars around them show signs of cracks as powerful shockwave vibrates through them.

Tae-young proceeds to punch Rin in the stomach with her free hand. He spits out a mixture of blood and saliva as he crumples to the ground, once more dropping his sword. This time the handle vanishes into a puff as light. Rin doesn't stand up.

I wait for what seems to be forever, yet Rin doesn't get up. Tae-young sheaths her sword and reaches a hand out toward the kid. "Nice fight. You... did well," she says with a smile.

Rin moves his arms around his face and makes what sounds like a cry. "I lost."

"You should know by now that losing is part of the game. No matter how strong you think that you are, you will one day lose," Alla calls out as she jumps up from her position. She rolls her arms around, making her way toward them. "Now, it's my turn to test her out."

The boy rises from the ground, his eyes still shielded by his arms. Jogging toward us, he doesn't even give his opponent a second look.

Poor kid, I know how bad it feels to lose. Sure I am not the best at anything and as a result lose more than he probably does, but it still hurts. Seeing him like this only makes my loss seem even lamer. The shy girl managed to give him the fight that I had hoped to give him.

Rin takes a seat next to me and keeps his head down. I would reach a hand out to him but sometimes having some time to reflect on a loss is the only way to move forward.

Adriana taps him, causing him to look up and reveal reddened eyes. She signals something to him.

"What?" Rin says, glancing at Lua who is restoring Tae-yang's energy as well as the field from her comfy seat next to us.

Lua turns over and nods. "She says, 'A boy with such beautiful eyes should avoid crying. Manuel and I lost too, yet we didn't cry.'"

The pre-teen rubs the tears from his eyes and smiles a little. "Right, I can't be a bigger cry baby than you two, especially not Manuel."

What is that supposed to mean? This brat sure loves to make fun of me. One of these days I'll make him cry for his mother. Besides, the kid is only twelve, he shouldn't be afraid to cry. I used to cry all the time for some of the dumbest reasons back then. I side eye Lua who grins widely at me. Quickly, I look over at the restored field. Damn, I forgot that she can read minds.

Tae-young unstheaths her sword once more.

"You must be getting tired, having had two matches in a row and now this one," Alla says.

Tae-young shakes her head at her as she takes a step back.

"Begin the final!" Lua screams, nearly blowing my ears out.

"Yikes, you must be a banshee," Rin says as if he had read my mind.

Lua keeps her eyes on the two girls as they raise the weapons.

Alla unstraps a long glaive strapped to her back and charges forward at an incredible speed for someone wearing such heavy armor. The pole arm stabs through shadows but no blood drips from the tip.

"I underestimated Rin, but I won't do the same with you," Tae-young says, reappearing behind her. Alla swings her weapon at her but she jumps out of the way. With both her hands, she stabs the ground with the tip of her spear, causing the ground to rumble and entire tiles to fly out of the arena. Tae-young uses her shadows to destroy the tiles but they keep on coming.

"This is ironic," Rin says with a cynical grin.

Should a kid his age really be acting this way? I mean, I can be cynical but when I was his age I was still dreaming of one day creating a utopia.

"What do you mean?" I ask.

"Remember my battle with her? She started off by sending arrows at me. Now it's her turn to dodge."

He's right. Will she fall victim to the same strategy that she used on Rin a few moments ago?

Tae-young lets out a muffled grunt as she stabs the tiles with her dark tendril attack. The tiles surround her on nearly all sides, the only spot where she can go is up but gravity will eventually drag her back down. This is Alla's match to lose.

Alla leaps into the air and comes down on her like a raging bird of prey about to swipe her meal from the ground. The tiles close in, blocking Tae-young from our view.

"It's over already?" Rin says, baffled. "I know that Alla is strong but I was sure that Tae-young would've given her a better match than this." As soon as he stops, a pillar of black energy swallows the tiles and Alla whole.

Lua jumps to her feet and slaps her hands together the barrier glows a light blue color as the sphere of darkness continues to expand.

"What is that?" Rin asks.

My back pushes up against the tree as the ball of dark energy swallows up all of the area covered up by the barrier.

"The game seems to be glitching," Lua yells.

"What?" I ask, leaping up. "I hope that you don't mean that we're going to get swallowed by that thing. And if we do, what happens?"

"I... don't know. I'm not even sure what's going on within it."