What It Means to Be a Powerful Cleric

Cleric.

A cleric was a mid-ranking member of the clergy.

If bishops and cardinals were the ones who ran the church, clerics were the ones who carried out the actual work.

Nearly all of those who went out to hunt monsters were clerics or those ranked below them.

The ones who interacted with the most people on a daily basis were also clerics.

If you asked someone unfamiliar with combat to describe a fighting cleric, they'd tell you: a rearguard healer who wielded divine miracles.

Protected by the vanguard, they'd say.

But ask seasoned adventurers the same question and you'd get a very different answer.

A walking fortress.

The bard played a ferocious tune, and an enormous number of notes materialized around him.

The moment he aimed his instrument at Elza, the notes obeyed the command and attacked in unison.

The bard's magic gave the notes physical mass, and at speed, they were nothing short of lethal.

If it were Azu, the sheer volume might have overwhelmed her.

If it were Alexia, the cost of countering them all with magic might have drained her.

But Elza pressed forward without flinching.

She deflected the incoming notes with elegant sweeps of her mace.

Tempered by monster hunting and enhanced by her blessing, Elza had more than enough power to shatter them.

But no matter how skilled her mace work, she couldn't deflect every last note in that swarm.

Inevitably, some slipped past and struck her.

Elza didn't care. She kept walking.

Fist-sized notes hit her dead-on.

They struck her hands and legs without slowing her stride.

Each impact caused the barest pause in her movement. Nothing more.

The destructive force of a note was comparable to a stone of the same size hurled at full force.

A hit anywhere would deal real damage.

A direct shot to the head could cause unconsciousness.

Elza headbutted an incoming note and shattered it, closing the distance further.

A trickle of blood ran from her forehead.

Hard. Absurdly hard. This wasn't human-level durability.

It was like watching a heavy knight in full plate.

The audience was going wild, but as far as Elza was concerned, any cleric who'd reached a high enough level could do this.

The minor wounds she sustained healed the moment she murmured a healing miracle.

She batted aside the worst of it with her mace, shrugged off what got through, and healed any injuries while still advancing.

She truly was a mobile fortress.

The bard broke into a cold sweat, stopped playing, and changed his tune.

Instead of overwhelming numbers, he'd go for one devastating strike.

The notes merged together.

Their shapes shifted.

Seeking lethality, the notes transformed into swords, axes, and a spear.

Each one a size larger than the real thing.

The new melody was slow but powerful.

First, the sword launched.

It hurtled toward Elza like a bolt from a catapult.

Elza gripped her mace with both hands and raised it high overhead.

Her legs spread wide, and through the slit cut into her habit for mobility, a flash of pale thigh was visible.

The garter belt holding up her stockings peeked through.

Elza timed her swing to the incoming sword and brought the mace down with all her might.

Her blessing-enhanced blow slammed the sword into the ground with a thunderous crash, sending a shockwave rippling outward.

A crater formed in the earth.

The sword couldn't withstand the impact and disintegrated.

Elza nuzzled the mace against her cheek.

"Swinging with everything I've got feels pretty nice, actually."

Still smiling, she took another step forward.

The bard launched two massive axes simultaneously.

The axes whirled toward Elza from both sides, spinning with vicious force.

Elza caught them on the shaft of her mace.

The impact forced her back for the first time in the match.

The axes ground against the mace, straining to cut through to Elza.

But Elza's smile didn't waver.

Gripping her mace with both hands, her lustrous lips moved.

"Lord, have mercy."

The instant the words left her mouth, the axes shattered.

A miracle invoked through sacred utterance. The sole offensive ability a cleric possessed against anything other than undead or beings of darkness.

Normally, even when used against non-undead targets, the power was negligible.

But Elza's sacred utterance had destroyed both massive axes at once.

Elza resumed her advance. Ten steps to the bard. Maybe less.

The last construct remaining was the spear.

The bard changed his tune once more.

Another fierce battle hymn.

Rather than creating new notes, he was pouring everything into reinforcing the spear.

The massive spear glowed with blue light as the reinforcement took hold.

The moment the bard played the final bar, the spear launched.

It was enormous, and it had momentum to spare.

Reinforced to its limit with the bard's magic, a direct hit could run Elza clean through.

Elza released her mace and spread her arms wide.

The gesture looked almost like an embrace, and the bard, convinced she'd given up, already tasted victory.

But Elza caught the spear just before impact, grabbing it with both hands.

Her palms split open, blood seeping through where she gripped it.

The smile had finally vanished from Elza's face, but there was no panic, either.

"That was quite the performance. But since you've gone and scratched a maiden's soft skin, I think we can skip the tip, yes?"

Still gripping the spear, Elza muscled it onto her right shoulder.

Her strength exceeded the magic invested in the spear.

The bard finally realized what she was about to do.

He strummed a single chord. A death knell in place of a scream.

Elza aimed the spear's point at the bard and hurled it.

The bard didn't resist. The instant the spear struck, he vanished.

Defeat registered.

Elza healed her bloodied hands, mending them completely.

She stood there looking no different than before the fight had started.

Blessing-supported strength. Overwhelming defense. And regeneration to match.

Understated, perhaps, but she'd fought just like a vanguard.

As Elza's bout concluded, the other fight had apparently ended as well.

The beastfolk fighter and the Spartian warrior took each other out simultaneously and vanished.

Apparently the dancer and the beastfolk fighter had teamed up against the Spartian warrior, and when the dust settled, the dancer was the last one standing.

The fourth group's preliminary round was over.