Freed felt the wind tugging at the hem of his robe as he walked to the center of the arena. The blue skinned tiefling approached from the opposite side, his rapier clanking against his lightly armoured leg.
"So, you're Freed Gornhilde," said the demon kin as he came to a stop a few feet away.
"And you're Akemos the Blue aren't you? Didn't you used to be light green?"
Akemos seemed to get very annoyed.
"Yeah...."
"What happened?"
"Accidentally grabbed the wrong ingredient in remedial potions and it blew up."
'I think he means "blue" up.' Freed smiled to himself.
"Now everyone keeps calling me blue and I can't change back."
Now Freed felt kinda bad for the pun. "You know....uh blue is a good color for you."
This seemed to brighten him up a little. "Really?"
"Yeah of course-." He was interrupted by the announcer declaring the fight to begin. "Oops, we'll talk later if you want." He began to ready a spell.
"Oh yeah, sure." Akemos drew his rapier and sent a bolt of green light flying at Freed only to have it bounce harmlessly off his barrier. Freed saw the binding tattoo on his left arm look like it was burning away like a piece of paper in fire. The gap opened 3 inches wide and then rapidly closed back together.
'Gods! If one bolt did that to my barrier, just how strong is he? I gotta be careful to not get hit directly,' he thought to himself as he sent a fire bolt flying back at Akemos, who in turn batted it aside with his weapon.
"Try again," he taunted regaining some pride as the fight went into full swing.
"Okay. Try this," Freed send a much more powerful firebolt flying at Akemos. In response the tiefling tried to swat it away only to have his clothing get scorched by the detonation of the projectile.
"Heh. Not bad, not bad at all," Akemos laughed as he got to his feet. "But can you hit what you can't see?" He waved his rapier like a wand, clouds of darkness billowing out of the blade as it swung in the air covering the entire arena and blocking all sight.
The last thing Freed saw was Akemos' eyes begin to glow and then fade into the cloud.
Soon enough almost all visibility was gone. Freed heard the collective groans and complaints from the crowd being robbed of their spectacle. Just as Freed was contemplating his next move he was hit by a green bolt of magic, the energy dissipating on his barrier. This was followed in quick succession by 2 additional bolts from slightly different angles. He saw his binding ribbons shred away in random locations, then they slowly pulled back to one another, never closing the distance before another bolt would impact his barrier.
'Ok so he can clearly see where I am currently at,' he sidestepped randomly in different directions to give his opponent a moving target. If the crowd could see, he would probably look ridiculous. Another blast managed to get past his barrier and struck him in the gut, knocking the breath out of him and leaving his skin badly burned and blistering. A second and third flew at him in rapid succession. His barrier stopped one but the next got through and struck the left side of his chest. The blasts were becoming more rapid and they became harder to deflect. Freed felt more and more impact his barrier, but it was the ones that got through that was the worst. His right leg and both arms had been hit by the blasts, and most of his robe had been blasted off.
'If I can't see him, I'll just go for quantity over quality.' Freed began to build up his mana placing his thumbs together, hands splayed out in front of him and unleashed the energy sending tongues of fire spreading out from his fingertips in a wide arc. He then turned around making certain he covered the widest possible area. From above him, Freed heard the crowds roar with excitement as fire exploded from the thick clouds of darkness. Soon enough Freed was rewarded with a cry of pain as his flames overwhelmed Akemos' own barrier and began to hurt the tiefling. While demons, including tieflings, were resistant to fire based attacks they did have a limit to said resistance and Freed was overtaxing Akemos'. He then poured on the power. Out of the corner of his eye, Freed saw the tattoos slowly burn away on his arms.
"Dammit, yield! I YIELD!" Akemos sent white flares up into the air and ended the darkness. Freed cut off his torrent of fire as soon as the horn was sounded, ending the match. Akemos slowly lowered his scorched arms, the clothes he was wearing had been reduced to tatters and a large part of his body had been burned.
Healers ran into the arena to tend to their wounds. Freed felt a hand placed on his chest, sending a shot of pain through his body, followed by a calming sensation as he felt his skin and muscle knit back together, damaged nerves grew grew back and when the hand was withdrawn Freed saw his skin was perfectly healed like it had never been damaged in the first place.
"Gods I love magic," he chuckled as he rubbed the new skin.
"You and me both," said Akemos as he was escorted to the healing wing along side Freed. "Remind me to not piss you off."
"Good strategy with the darkness. You'll have to tell me how you see later tonight. Ow!" Another hand pressed against one of his wounds and began to heal him again.