Chapter 338 - Natural enemy (Patreon)

Out of every member of Hell difficulty or person that got into Beyond, there is one I have more respect for than for others. You can call it worry because of the sheer advantage that person holds over me.

I don't know Savant's skills yet, but it's not him. It isn't even Lily with her most powerful damage skill I've met so far. It's not even Tess with her extremely long-range powerful attack. And it's not Gareth with his barriers and weird teleporting.

No, the person that worries me more than any of them is Tacita.

Even now, I'm not sure if I noticed her because she only wanted me to, she's just that good at hiding her presence. And her speed tells me a single thing. Tacita is similar to me, a person who also puts most of their stats into a single attribute, and for her, it is Dexterity.

I'm Mana-oriented and because of what I do, my reactions will never be as quick as someone who goes full into body strengthening. I can use mana to reinforce my body, I can strengthen my movements with mana, and make myself faster with kinetic energy.

But my natural enemy is someone like her. The main reason is that if we were standing close to each other and I wasn't actively powering my body as much as possible, I wouldn't be able to react at all if she decided to kill me.

It's a weakness, and I already have multiple plans for setting up automatic defenses for such situations. But right now, in certain situations, I have no chance against Tacita.

I watch as she stabs at the lightning mage that stood near Brainiac and jumps back to the side, her feet moving nimbly, the raindrops crashing against her skin as she lowers her body, running and jumping around, dodging all the attacks.

Mari and Pumpkin rush at her while Gareth and Lootenant keep an eye on me.

So floating up there, I create two orbs to my side, filling them with my mana until they are on the brink of becoming unstable.

A barrage of my normal mana projectiles crashes all around the ground, three of them having anchors tied to them. The first orb explodes from the anchor between Tacita and the lightning mage that, unlike the attacking girl with brown hair, dies.

Gareth creates a barrier around the rest of the group, but, being closest to the explosion, the lightning mage's barrier is unable to resist the implosion and breaks. Tacita, meanwhile, just outruns the explosion.

Noname (Hell, 4th) ⟶ Ghast (Hell, 5th)

Tacita doesn't like it, and she grabs a stone from the ground, throwing it at me with a blurry swing of her arm. The stone crashes against my barrier with surprising force, and she changes her target to Lootenant, the raindrops bursting on her skin as she moves at incredible speed.

In her way, Mari and Pumpkin stand, for a moment keeping up with her. I notice that around their bodies, a silver aura radiates, flashing to create barriers when needed and healing cuts Tacita causes.

Gareth blocks my second tricolored orb, again surrounding it with a silver barrier and sending it to the same spot as before. Did he place some sort of mark there?

Using the third anchor, I appear on the ground near Gareth, kinetic energy exploding from me absorbed by his barriers. I send disrupting mana at him right after and then a blast of golden flames, yet every time he reforms his barriers to block the attacks.

I dodge his swing with the mace, it hitting the ground and sending muddy earth into the air.

The thunder roars louder, and the wind becomes stronger as the wall of black clouds moves closer and closer, barely any other sound to be heard. The rain also becomes that much denser, making it even harder to detect mana because of mana-filled raindrops.

Gareth stops holding back, and his blue armor turns silver, a silver crown appearing floating over his head. Hexagonal pieces of the barrier float around him, and the mace shines brighter as he charges at me. Each of his swings bears disrupting properties, and the marks he placed on his party shine brighter, surrounding them in similar silver light.

Twelve pieces of the hexagonal barrier move around him, forming into a bigger one to block my flames or into multiple smaller ones to block multiple attacks. Sometimes they stick to his armor, strengthening some parts further.

The man negates most of my attacks, annoyingly, and I feel my frustration rise up even more, and my plan to not spend that much mana disappears from my head.

When Mari joins him, blades made of oscillating mana in her hand, I have had enough. A black orb forms in front of my chest, and all of their eyes turn towards it, surprised by the unnerving feeling.

A blast of kinetic energy from behind Gareth pushes him towards it, and silver and black mana clash.

Following the clash, the black mana orb absorbs a few out of twelve pieces of the silver barrier. Gareth moves to block it, and his weapon and crown flicker as the orb sucks in more and more.

When he finally lets go of his weapon and moves back, pieces of his armor are missing, eaten away by black mana, and half of the hexagonal barrier is gone.

Mari is also dead, an anchor placed near her head turning her into particles of mana.

Noname (Hell, 4th) ⟶ Mari (Hell, 5th)

With my body mana reduced even more, I float into the air and shoot the last projectile at Lootenant.

Taking back his control, Gareth blocks my attacks with a barrier that surrounds the man, but at the same time, Tacita passes by Lootenant's traps, activating some but dodging their damage or slowing effects and finishing the man.

Then, the same as me, she disappears into the forest, the gradually approaching storm hitting the area.

When the first lightning hits near us, it evaporates a chunk of the car-sized rock nearby, turning it into dust, and leaving a crater on the ground. The wind blows into me, making me feel like I got hit by a truck, and I decide I do not want to get into that storm.

Using more and more mana, I push my body through the air, thunder and lightning behind me.

I stay high in the air, multiple anchors placed on the ground.

When Gareth and the rest of his group exit the storm, a thermal explosion envelops them, and a rain of compressed mana javelins rains on the ground. When the flames disappear, pushed away by silver mana, Gareth and the last member of his group stand there without any damage. His barrier even tanked a lightning from the storm, the ground around them exploding, and mud and rocks sent into the air.

Tsk.

Unwilling to waste more of my mana on a tanky target, I boost myself further, floating away when I catch a familiar mana behind me. Looking back, I see a figure floating just on the edge of the storm. Over that figure's head, a crown made of lightning floats, brighter and twice as big as before. The woman's blonde hair floats around her, shining in a beautiful golden color.

A barrier I create blocks white lightning from the storm Tess redirects, not damaging me but throwing me further away.

“Are you hunting group 4 only?” I shout at her.

There is no way she can hear it through all the thunder, but she seems to understand and she smirks.

Sset (Hell, 4th) text shows over her head, the [Restriction] placed as well.

High in the air on the edge of the storm, Tess and I face each other, and I feel my decision from before crumble and disappear. The hold I kept over my mana weakens and it floods into my body for the first time since the start of the event.

Gareth far down under us, Tacita sneaking around, Savant waiting somewhere nearby. All of this disappears, pushed to the far back of my mind.

With all the honesty and pride I'm able to collect, I face the very first friend of mine.

I [Focus] and [Regalia] surrounds my body, quickly infused with [Resonance]. A shockwave explodes around me, pushing the droplets away, and I charge into the storm.

Tess moves her hand, and two white lightning bolts created within the storm change their direction and crash against my body.

I already saw them striking multiple times and I know what to do. My armor tanks most of the damage and resonating mana tears apart the rest while I absorb some generated heat, collecting it inside my body.

Seeing what I'm doing, a pulse of [Psychokinesis] crashes against me, slowing me down while pushing Tess further away where she holds a bigger advantage.

Dodging to the side, I avoid another bolt of lightning, a few mana arrows filled with thermal energy shining as they pass through the storm, evaporating rain in the process.

Tess floats lower, tearing from the ground a few smaller trees and rocks with her skill and throwing them at me.

I dodge through the air, taking a few more lightning strikes and constantly shooting my projectiles at her, forcing her to reposition and attempting to distract her.

The crown over her head shines brightly, some mana from it forms lightning projectiles near her, these ones from white and red lightning. Tess shoots them at me, making them move much quicker than the ones from before, making them change direction mid-air.

Placing an anchor further ahead, I teleport past them and then a few more times, reaching Tess.

The crown from over her head disappears, turned into lightning armor that surrounds her body, and it clashes with my [Regalia].

Each of our clashes causes a small shockwave, creating a pulsating sphere without rain as they push the raindrops away.

From up close, I bombard her with mana projectiles boosted by kinetic energy, and, impossible to block them all, she tanks most of them, returning the attacks with lightning that constantly flickers around her.

A few lightning bolts get pulled from the storm, this time hitting her body and strengthening her armor as she is getting pushed.

I teleport once, but the moment I appear, a lightning projectile crashes against my armored forearm, and then again when I teleport. Tess is reading and predicting my placement of the anchors.

Finally having generated enough, my armor changes, a golden thermal energy filling it, the heat radiating from me. Boosted by kinetic energy, I reach Tess, the raw power of my flight better at this level, and after a clash, I grab her arm.

Expecting that, Tess pulls three white lightning bolts toward us, damaging my armor and further strengthening hers.

Her lightning and my thermal energy crash against each other. The lightning piercing through the armor damages me, but my temporarily rare passive heals the wounds due to the sheer amount of heat that surrounds me.

More and more, my heart beats as I barely hold on, avoiding lightning projectiles she shoots from up close and enduring the lightning she puts down.

But I hold, and the same as Tess, I'm smiling as well.

With a strong pulse, more energy collects inside of me as I'm ready to push through, but then Tess slashes with her free arm. Not against me, but against her own hand. She cuts it off, leaving me to hold the hand where all of her lightning got redirected.

Pushing further away from me, much less Primordial lightning surrounding her, she calls, “I learned it from you!”

Her cut-off hand I hold shines even brighter, and when I let go, it moves and grabs me instead, creeping me out even more than the astounding amount of lightning collected inside.

Working as a lightning rod, it feels like all of the storm is coming down at me, a dozen lightning bolts heading my direction.

My eyes activate for a split second, and I disrupt the mana from the hand, quickly deactivating the eyes afterward. I tear the hand apart with [Resonance] and watch as all the white lightning passes by me, reverberating the air.

When I look around, Tess is not near anymore.

You silly blonde. What are you, a gray lizard? Leaving your limbs behind like that.

Checking, my body mana is now ten to twenty percent lower.

Taking it all back under my control, I fly out of the storm.

 ***

Three hours remain, and the rain stops as if cut off. The air turns colder, the water from the rain all over the place freezing over, and heavy snow starts to fall, quickly covering the trees and the ground.

Walking between another post-apocalyptic-like city, I listen to the snow compressing under my feet, tracing the footsteps in front of me.

The barrier shrinks once more, and even fewer people remain.

980 / 2357

A few spots changed as well:

1st (193 pts) - Sset

2nd (172 pts) - Noname

3rd (169 pts) - Savant

4th (168 pts) - Tacita

5th (124 pts) - Grumpy

Sensing the trap ahead, I avoid it and move on top of the roof where I disrupt a few detection triggers and reach the group of ten people, most of them from Hard difficulty.

One of them holds an epic weapon, an axe made of ether crystal. A transparent white crystal capable of absorbing mana.

A few well-placed anchors go unnoticed and half of them die before they are able to defend themselves. They activate defensive shields but a wave of disrupting mana crashes against them, disrupting it and a highly compressed barrage of javelins finishes the rest, destroying a part of the roof they set their defenses on.

For a short moment, I check the leaderboard and feel good seeing me being placed first. It's hard to find bigger groups of people from higher difficulties.

In between the falling snow, I examine a few rare and uncommon items, picking a defensive amulet with a single use of a spherical barrier remaining, and pick up an epic axe.

Ethercrystal War Axe (Epic): Crafted from Ethercrystal, this war axe absorbs part of any mana it touches. Each attack channels the absorbed mana to momentarily increase the user's physical strength.

I test the feel of the axe in my hand and swing it around a few times to get used to it. I used to have a similar sword and the axe could help me save some mana I would otherwise use to strengthen my body.

While on watch, I check the notifications.

Sset (Hell, 4th) ⟶ TheStrongestOne (Hell, 5th)

Damn, Tess. Did group 4 do anything to you as of late?

Did I do anything to you?

And a few more.

Savant (Hell, 4th) ⟶ Gareth (Hell, 5th)

Savant (Hell, 4th) ⟶ Pumpkin (Hell, 5th)

Detecting something akin to tunnels under the ground, I place an anchor down there, teleporting below while keeping my eyes on the notifications.

FoodFood (Hell, 6th) ⟶ Two (Normal, 5th)

FoodFood (Hell, 6th) ⟶ One (Normal, 5th)

FoodFood (Hell, 6th) ⟶ Sami (Easy, 6th)

FoodFood (Hell, 6th) ⟶ Eve (Normal, 5th)

FoodFood (Hell, 6th) ⟶ Overlord (Easy, 5th)

FoodFood (Hell, 6th) ⟶ Snowman (Easy, 4th)

…

And the notifications continue, notification about close to two dozen participants defeated.

Damn, Biscuit, what the heck did you even do? Did they anger you somehow? It could be awkward back in the common area if you scare them too much.

Anyway, clearly the best doggo of the tournament floor, no, the best doggo of the 1st event and Survival Domain!

Heading towards where I feel multiple presences, I trigger a few detections on purpose and when I exit the tunnel and enter a big underground area a dozen people are there, weapons out and mana activated.

Quickly I locate two epic items and two people from Hell difficulty, respectively from group 8 called The Guild.

AnotherOneHere (Hell, 5th)

Swordmaster (Hell, 5th)

In the shadowy darkness of the tunnels, golden thermal energy surrounds me and I take a step towards them.

***

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