Chapter 302: Passive or in Control (Patreon)

Diana

Diana appeared in a large stone room, perfectly circular with a roughly 50 meter radius and a five meter ceiling at the edges, but the ceiling wasn’t perfectly flat, rising up to 7 meters at the center, and it was covered with a large sigil in a variant of Universal Common which read ‘Battle Royale, Only One Team Survives’.

Diana mostly ignored the architecture, however, already having been told about it by Mila in the past, and instead focused on the 133 other contestants.

They weren’t humans, or even humanoid, instead all looking like a cross between a horse and an alligator, so Diana, who was trying not to think about other things, decided to call them Swift Alligator Horses, or SAH for short.

Law Egg gained - Night

Congratulations!

You are the first to gain a Law Egg of anyone from Toldore.

All stats +6

Your soul is affected by your understanding of Laws.

Magic +6, Soul +6

Almost instantly, she started to raise her Laws, Nana Xara’s lack of warning to not do so alleviating any worries she might have that it would be the wrong decision. And the colored glow that emanated out from her soulform body every time, along with her being of another species, attracted the attention of the SAHs, two of which tried to eat her, but, with the System protection before the start of the battle royale, there was nothing they could do to hurt her, so she just ignored them, first raising all six of her Laws to peak grade Law Eggs before starting to raise three of them—Night, Day, and Flesh—to Law Larvae as well.

Congratulations!

You have advanced your peak grade Law Egg of Night into the Law Larva of Night.

Your soul is affected by your understanding of Laws.

Magic +48, Soul +48

Congratulations!

You have advanced a Law Egg into a Law Larva.

Your soul is affected by your upgrading of Law.

All Stats +12

Congratulations!

You are the first to gain a Law Larva of anyone from Toldore.

All Stats +36

She ignored all the extra system messages telling her how her overflow stats were turned into free stats due to her second boon from Aalam, and the end result was all her stats, Luck included, being at their max possible value of 153, raised by 6.25% thanks to her third boon from Aalam, with exactly 72 extra free stats left over.

And only then did she check the System message about the challenge.

You have the highest Luck of everyone in the Nightmare difficulty challenge, Nightmare Royale.

You may choose up to five team members to form a team with before the start of this challenge.

You may choose one skill and one artifact from the following lists as a pre-challenge reward.

The skill can be learned immediately or granted as a skill orb and secretly placed in your pocket.

The artifact will appear on your person, secretly in one of your pockets if small enough.

You have three standard hours to choose.

The skill wasn’t important, the list only having skills up to Rare grade, but at the top of the artifact list was an Epic grade artifact called Antidote to Diana’s General Miasma, so, after she waited until there was only one minute before the three hour deadline, spending most of the time trying not to think while taking preparation time away from the other contestants, she took the antidote along with a random skill.

Then the challenge started one minute later.

The Nightmare Royale is now starting.

You have one hour to kill each other until only one team is left.

If more than one team is living after the hour, everyone dies.

Then Diana quickly and easily turned her mana into fire and blasted it out from her body in all directions, killing everyone else in the room before having to wait yet another hour, distracting herself by thinking back over the plots of some of her favorite TV shows.

You have survived the Nightmare Royale solo.

You may choose one skill and one artifact from the following lists as a reward.

The skill can be learned immediately or granted as a skill orb and secretly placed in your pocket.

The artifact will appear on your person, secretly in one of your pockets if small enough.

You have six minutes to choose.

Again the skill list was pretty much useless, only having skills up to Rare grade, and again Aalam had put an artifact for her to choose into the list, an Epic grade backpack called Spatial Backpack for an Awesome Sister.

Choosing it, and seeing it was in the style she used to wear back when they’d gone to college together on Earth, black and light with an extra strap over the chest, she started to tear up as the next System notification appeared in front of her eyes.

Conditions met for the bonus round of the Nightmare Royale

Would you like to continue on to the bonus round, where you will compete in the same challenge with winners from other Nightmare Royale instances for further prizes, or will you give up?

Quietly, she gathered up the most valuable skills and artifacts the System had randomly given out when the other contestants weren’t given enough time to choose, putting them in her backpack before putting it on, and then she accepted the System’s request to move on to the next round of the Nightmare Royale, the world fading out until she was in an identical chamber with 128 SAHs in what she guessed were 86 teams and one humanoid, presumably Vanar Tedros.

Seemingly half-human and, if her alien biology was correct, half-tuathan, he had long gray hair, angular features, and three blue eyes—one in the middle of his forehead—but, unlike full tuathans, he only had five fingers on each hand.

Quite a bit older than Diana had expected, he gave off the impression of a lively grandpa, wearing a backpack similar to her own, and, as he walked over and reached out his hand for a handshake, his voice was deep yet friendly. “Diana, I presume. It’s nice to finally meet you. My name is Vanar Tedros.”

He spoke in English, not one of the universal languages, and Diana accepted his handshake.

“Would you like to form a team?”

“Yes.” Diana agreed and the System responded to her statement. “Thank you.”

Then they moved to the side of the room and, about a minute later, the next round started.

The Nightmare Royale Bonus Round is now starting.

You have one hour to kill each other until only one team is left.

If more than one team is living after the hour, everyone dies.

Before Diana could do any magic, Vanar did something she couldn’t quite understand and all the SAHs in the room just fell over, each and every one dead, causing Diana’s mouth to hang open.

Vanar noticed her surprise and smiled warmly. “Did the Yin Yang Sage not tell you? In my previous life, I was a Blood Blade Swordsman.

“That was just a little application of skill-less blood magic, blowing up some of the vessels in their brains.”

“No.” Diana shook her head once and took off her backpack to start gathering the unused skills and artifacts from the fallen. “I’m not sure how much you know about the woman, but it is completely within character for her to not give any forewarning whatsoever if it might give her a good show.”

“Ahh.” Vanar Tedros nodded once and began helping her gather the artifacts. “Understood. Does that mean she hasn’t told you the plan?”

“What plan?”

“It’s not just me who’s entered into a monster tutorial to reincarnate, but twelve parts of your brother’s soul as well, the soul of Isaiah’s older brother, and one other new member of the United Federation of Planets named Wen Alexis. And, as we all share your brother as a master, we’ll be able to share points at the end.

“For those of us older than 100, parts of our memories are also sealed in such a way they won’t overwhelm our weaker souls, but in a way we can easily access them if we want to reference the experiences, which is very relevant for me but not for you.

“And, during the tutorial, so long as we meet the requirements for enough Epic grade rewards, your brother will provide us with all the artifacts and skills we need for optimizing our rewards.”

Vanar Tedros’s soul glowed white for a few seconds and he smiled.

“Also, for some of us, this is a chance to change our paths.

“I, for example, have always had a knack for using tricks and guile, but my old body’s affinities with light and darkness were virtually nonexistent, so I was never able to use illusions or stealth.” The man’s form split into two, Diana unable to tell which was the illusion even though he wasn’t using a skill, his energy control far, far better than hers. “So I will be changing my path to add illusions and stealth to my repertoire and, instead of blood, I’ll be focusing on the Law of Body to compliment my Laws of Speed and Sword, while also merging my Law of The Tactician with the Law of The Messenger to form the Law of The Scout to better serve the role I want to play in the United Federation of Planets in the future.”

As the white faded from his soul, Vanar Tedros’s soul began to glow black and Diana suddenly couldn’t sense him.

“Finally,” Vanar spoke from right behind her, causing Diana to spin around only to find him right up in her personal space, a large smile on his face as he looked down at her, “your brother wants me to train you.”

He disappeared again, Diana turning around rapidly to try and find him, and then there was a sword at her throat, Vanar Tedros standing right next to her.

“The Yin Yang Sage, while a wealth of knowledge and experience, has no body and thus can’t train you in person.” He took the sword from her neck and moved back a few meters. Then he threw the blade up into the air before moving closer by about a foot and letting the sword land hilt down into his open spatial backpack. “I, however, have personally trained the three strongest C ranks in any known universe, and I am ready to add a fourth to that list.”

“And what if I don’t want to fight?”

Diana realized it at that moment as she said the words. The main emotion she’d been trying to hide from wasn’t sadness or anger, though she was feeling both strongly, it was fear.

Her mother, the person who should have been her greatest support, had cursed her to death from half a universe away. And it had been easy for the woman, effortless, with there being nothing anyone could do to stop her.

Sure, Aalam had somehow saved her, and her brother seemed to already be on the path to growing enough in power to take revenge. But Diana had felt her child die in her womb and been absolutely helpless to do anything about it.

It was terrifying.

“Then you don’t have to.” Vanar Tedros’s voice was gentle as he took a few steps forward. “But I can tell you from experience that running away doesn’t help.

“Everyone I cared about was slaughtered at the order of an A rank emperor, the man I served, the man who should have been my greatest support, and, injured to the point I couldn’t advance, I lived with the helplessness of being unable to do anything but stay on the run for tens of thousands of years.”

Vanar Tedros appeared calm, but his aura showed a deep sadness and anger he didn’t try to hide.

“Eventually, I was able to come to peace with the situation, but it was hollow, and I jumped at the chance to get revenge when your brother and sister-in-law offered it to me.” He smiled and Diana could feel the arrogant pride which replaced the sadness and anger in his aura. “Being able to personally slap my enemy in the face and lead him to his demise was the single most satisfying moment of my life.”

He took a step closer and Diana could feel the confidence in his aura as an almost physical pressure.

“So, the question for you, Ms. Diana Alvaro, is this. Do you want to hide and let your brother take care of everything for you, or do you want to face your fear and take revenge for your child’s demise with your own two hands?

“Do you want to be passive?

“Or do you want to take control of your own fate?”