Crimson Eternal - Book 5 - Chapter 55

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Don't mind this fluff. It's so that free readers can't click on the link.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

For those of you who are reading this on a website that is not Patreon, please stop. You're reading a pirated version. Instead, if you would be so kind, please click on the table of contents link below and go to my Patreon instead. Or even read it off of Royal Road, which is free.

Discord Invite

Table of Contents and Weekly Schedule

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 

Book 5 of Crimson Eternal is ending soon. All that's left is to finish this little tournament arc. Which is, after this battle, mostly just Aria watching some battles while doing Aria things. Which are totally normal things for people to do.

Also, I awkwardly realized I've written more for Crimson Eternal than for Reaper's Resurgence overall despite starting Reaper first.

Click on the following link for the 1530 word chapter 55:

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1HJeLSHZH1BSICQd3oao_qfFtvnMKZ_e5qKwSVuwOP2Q/edit?usp=sharing

Or you can read the unformatted version below:

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Aria

The final round is set up differently from the first two rounds. Mostly because it’s a battle royale with three participants instead of a direct duel between two. And thanks to that, it’s an all day battle without the judges declaring a victor.

Because it’s a King of the Hill type battle.

Whoever stays at the top of the pyramid located in the arena for the longest during the five hour long round wins.

Which means that it doesn’t matter who is the strongest so long as they can stay on top of the pyramid.

Also, since it’s a battle royale between us three, it won’t just be me versus War. Which I completely forgot about because of my battle against Pestilence.

Well, that and the fact that War has been blatantly ignoring my mother to focus solely on me during this.

Anyway, after a relaxing night of ignoring calls from Ruby and Little Blue, I find myself back in the arena again. Ready to sit here and get beat up by these people while I claim points at the top of the pyramid.

And the audience is ready to watch it as they cheer rather loudly for both me and my mother.

Completely ignoring War’s existence.

Not that it bothers him, considering the wide grin on his face.

Fortunately my age reversal has already run its course. So I’m back to my usual appearance now.

And I can’t help but notice Pestilence writing notes while glancing at me. No doubt noticing that himself.

The audience continues to roar before the round finally begins with the firing of a gun. At which point I just hop on my horse and open a gate straight to the top of the pyramid. Making me arrive there less than a second after the start of the final round.

With War arriving less than a second after me through the same method. Making his own gate on his own horse.

Leaving my mother to arrive a couple seconds later. Moving faster than my eyes can keep track of.

As for the barrier around the arena? It’s stronger than it’s ever been before in the previous rounds. With all of the Grands in the booth making sure to enforce it, including Pestilence.

And the pyramid itself is reinforced to make it so that it’ll always automatically repair itself in an instant. Which is shown when War casually swings his sword that he draws faster than I can see, making a massive arc of scarlet energy swipe through everything until it crashes into the barrier.

I find myself blinded by the scarlet energy as a massive explosion spreads out all across the arena. And when I regain my vision, I find myself already back on top of the pyramid despite having felt myself falling for a moment.

As if I was falling through the pyramid.

Probably while the pyramid was destroyed.

I glance at my mother to find her frowning while inside of a barrier made of black and crimson energy.

Death energy.

It only takes a few seconds after that for my mother to rush at and slam her fist into War’s face while blatantly draining his life energy. With War quickly returning the punches with even more power. Pushing my mother back.

Meanwhile I pull out some wine and even a bag of popcorn that I begin snacking on as I watch the two fight. Just racking up points simply by standing here on the top of the pyramid while they fight.

This is entertaining.

Although the popcorn could use more flavor…

I’ve never been a fan of eating. But popcorn just feels nostalgic. And it just kinda feels right in the moment.

I glance between the popcorn and the two people fighting on the other side of the pyramid’s peak. Then I firmly nod my head and, under the gazes of who knows how many people, pour a bunch of wine onto my popcorn.

And amidst the laughs of the audience, I start to eat the wine drizzled popcorn.

Hmm. This is much better.

My mother and War pause their fighting to stare incredulously at me for a few seconds. Only for them both to start fighting again when my mother attacks War once more.

I continue eating my wine drizzled popcorn as the two of them keep fighting. With both of them frequently knocking each other out of the score zone.

But neither of them target me for some reason.

I know my mother can’t do squat to me beyond physical strength, seeing as her ability involves death energy, but War can easily knock me out. All he has to do is pick me up with his war energy and throw me out.

He doesn’t even have to hurt me.

Maybe it’s because he wants to fight my mother?

Or maybe he just has no interest in winning, and my mother is making it so he can’t have that one on one duel he wants with me.

Either way, I continue eating my wine drizzled popcorn as I watch the two of them go at it. With War’s blows destroying the entire arena and resetting it more often than not.

Which is kind of annoying when it destroys my popcorn, and more importantly, my wine as well.

So I make sure not to use any specific wine that I care about and don’t have much of.

Wines I like but have practically an infinite supply of are fine. Since I don’t have to worry about not being able to replace it.

But wines that are incredibly valuable, rare, and ones I care a lot about?

No way in hell am I letting them waste it with their little battle.

And just like that, the final round continues in a rather ridiculous manner. With me eating wine drizzled popcorn while drinking wine, my mother and War fighting it out with each other, and the arena constantly being destroyed and rebuilt.

All while the barrier protects the roaring audience that is very entertained by this, and my kids and Little Blue all looking exasperated at me through their own booth windows.

But I focus on the fact that this audience seems a lot more hyped up now than any previous round.

Then again, there aren’t any people who dislike my mother. In fact, people like her. From what I’ve seen online, she’s actually very popular due to her beauty and cold attitude, on top of the fact that she’s never committed any sort of atrocities before.

People also like me for whatever reason.

And War is the least disliked out of the other Horsemen besides me. Since all he does is go around constantly starting and fighting wars.

Most of the atrocities he ‘commits’ are from the aftermath along with the casualties in the wars themselves.

Those atrocities are mostly caused by the people he carelessly leaves in charge of some planets.

He himself couldn’t care less about what happens to the planets he conquers.

So there are a lot of people who don’t directly hate him but just hate his wars instead. Unlike with Famine who clearly enjoyed torturing people.

And Pestilence who spreads different pestilences across the universe.

Because, while Pestilence doesn’t care about what happens either, plagues, diseases, and other illnesses are far crueler than a simple war. Especially when War’s forces don’t commit any war crimes during those wars.

Although, War is still not liked.

I’m the only Horseman who people actually like, and I doubt that’ll change.

Anyway, I continue watching the battle for four and a half hours, sitting in the score zone the entire time as I do so. Making it literally impossible for the other two to win at this rate.

Even if they knock me out of the score zone and both stay in it for the remaining half an hour.

I just have too much of a lead on them.

So at this point, they finally stop fighting, with War asking if he can fight me for a little while without interference. Since the final round is pretty much over.

My mother glances at me, only to find me shrugging.

Because I don’t really care at this point.

Even with wine on the popcorn, I’ve gotten a little sick of eating popcorn for four and a half hours.

And at this point I’ve made my point. So there’s no reason to continue eating it.

I’m just glad I don’t have those bodily functions other people do with having to go to the bathroom and all that.

So with my agreement, War shouts at the organizers to remove the pyramid so that me and him can have a duel. Then they can announce my victory for the final round regardless of the result of said duel.

And since it’s free content for them, the organizers go ahead and do as he asks.

Leaving the two of us staring at each other from atop our horses on opposite sides of the arena without the pyramid there anymore. At which point I finally put away my popcorn and wine.

Let’s see how this’ll go.