Chapter 378 - Terrifying predator (Patreon)

Min-Jae returns to the rooftop just when the one-hour-long rest is about to end. He is quiet, but the mood around him seems to be different now. There is still a lot of disappointment, but it feels less sour and dirty. But who the heck knows, it's hard to deal with people. Why can't everyone be as simple as minions and our future animal overlord? Things would be simpler then.

“Such a good boy.” I rub Biscuit's belly. The best-looking corgi that ever existed looks at me confused, but being the perfect being he is, he just accepts it and starts wagging his short tail. Emotional Support Corgi sure is a nice competition to ESM.

“Nat…” Min-Jae wants to say something but I interrupt him.

“You are young and dumb. But it would be nice if you stopped caring about useless stuff. And get yourself together, before the tournament ends I will be asking you about your eye.”

“O-okay.”

I wave and then get summoned into the Arena to face Swordmaster. This time the arena is different as well. A huge field covered in grass reaching the middle of my shin moves under the constant wind. It makes it look like beautiful green waves made of grass.

There are also stone pillars all over the place. Some of these pillars are as big as buildings, others are shorter than me. The sky has a slight orange tint to it, just before the sunset. There are no clouds but the sky makes it look like there is a ring around the planet, like around Saturn.

“It's pretty, the nicest arena so far.” Swordmaster, the same as me, is looking around, neither of us starting the fight now. The man is nice and didn't attack me while I was looking around so that's a point for him.

“Wanna bet this place actually exists outside of the tutorial? You might have a chance to visit it if you are lucky.”

“I don’t think such travel would be so easy.” He shakes his head, “Just the closest star to us is lightyears away.”

“Not with such an attitude.”

“I just swing my sword. Space travel is not for me.”

Saying that he pulls out his sword, the beautiful blade made out of ethercrystal. It’s not that difficult to guess the abilities of the weapon that is surely epic grade.

Having a good opinion of the man, I mirror him partially. My mana seeps into my hand, extending and creating a sword. I push further, compressing it until it turns dark blue with light blue and purple colors swirling inside. My Mana Regulator redirects a big part of my mana into Reinforcement and we face each other.

Swordmaster attacks first, silent, the grass around him barely reacting.

When I use kinetic energy to dash, a shockwave is created behind me, creating a ripple-like effect in the green grass. The grass loses some of its color and the wind becomes more distant as I slide deeper into [Focus].

The air reverberates as our weapons slash, just a single exchange making it clear that he is much more skilled when it comes to handling weapons. I, on the other hand, am stronger and faster thanks to the huge amounts of mana strengthening my body.

Swordmaster soon starts dodging my attacks, trying to predict and read them instead of barely blocking them.

We attack each other, the weapons creating small shockwaves, invisible slashes behind the blades, or sparks of mana exploding into the air.

Constantly repositioning and using the pillars to hide behind or jump on, we fight simply. Not much mana or skills are used.

I find myself enjoying this even deep in [Focus]. There is something satisfying about just moving my body and reacting to the movement of my opponent while he does the same. Swordmaster is very talented, also realizing that this could have ended long ago, so at times it feels like a lesson as he focuses on my weaknesses. When I fix them at least a bit, he focuses on another one.

Even so, ten minutes later, he jumps back a few times. More mana seeps into the transparent blade that starts shining, as well as the mana around him.

More kinetic energy flows out of my Vortex Core, and we dash at each other, the last exchange turning him into white particles as the system teleports him out, and I follow soon after.

It takes me a few minutes to replay our fight and I feel my mood improve slightly. That duel was fun, with all this mana I almost forgot how much fun it is just to move my body.

The next duel is Brainiac against Bard, with Brainiac winning, getting himself into the top 8 the same as me.

After that it's Bisuit´s turn. Before he disappears, I wish him luck and promise a lot of jerky if he wins.

In the same arena, as I did, a corgi and Gareth face each other. The grass bends gently under the wind as Biscuit floats into the air.

“This is awkward. I will feel terrible fighting you,” Gareth sighs.

Saying so, Gareth still creates a silver armor around his body and a crown of the same color over his head. Near his shoulders, two orbs form. He doesn't seem to underestimate his opponent.

Dozens of purple tentacles shoot from Biscuit, surrounding and grabbing Gareth, who tears some of them just with sheer strength of his body and cuts through some with weapons he creates, setting himself free.

But that little time is enough, and the orb Biscuit was preparing is ready. It's bigger than any he created before, the purple color of it turning bright white. It seems he decided to put everything into this single attack.

Biscuit falls down from where he was floating, tired. Every ounce of his mana used for the orb that is most of the way towards Gareth, who just got out of the tentacles.

Gareth groans in surprise, the crown over his head shining brighter. Gareth´s two silver orbs form into a single one and shoot towards the bright white orb, surrounding it.

As Biscuit´s orb explodes, Gareth keeps layering barrier over the barrier to the point his crown flickers a few times, but it stays. The silver light of his barrier surrounding the orb extends further. The explosion stretches, making the barrier bigger before it weakens and Gareth compresses it.

In the end, the light of the explosion inside the orb dies off, and Gareth shoots it far away, where it bursts open, and the intense heat scorches a huge part of the field.

Taking a few steps, Gareth stops in front of Biscuit, who can barely move, and looks up at the man.

“That was a very strong attack, I have only a tiny bit of mana left,” he says gently and reaches out his hand towards Biscuit, who lets the man pet him.

Gareth smiles gently, “Can you please forfeit? I don't want to hurt you.”

Instead of that Biscuit moves quickly and bites Gareth´s hand.

At first, Gareth laughs it off, calling it cute, but soon a shocked expression appears on his face, and he jumps back, blood dripping from his hand before it heals up.

Biscuit shows his teeth, his usually gentle brown eyes glowing with a hint of purple. The shadow behind him expands, seeming much bigger than it has any right to be, a myriad of tentacles swirling inside.

Licking his lips where a bit of Gareth's blood stays, Biscuit seems much bigger than before, even though nothing changed. His cute little mouth feels more enormous than even his disciple's and his teeth more dangerous.

The growl that sounds is primal. A raw growl of the terrifying predator.

Gareth doesn't get a chance to attack, and Biscuit disappears, forfeiting this duel.

Biscuit appears back in my lap, lying in such a way I can't see his expression or eyes. I can only see the shape of his body and the back of his head.

Slowly he turns around to me, and I get to see it.

His face is back to normal, cheekiness sparking deep inside his eyes.

(Food!)

I quickly take a few bits of deer jerky I have on me and feed them to Biscuit.

Leaning next to his ear, I whisper, “I don't mind if you start eating planets or something. But try to avoid eating humans. They are dirty.”

We don't want him to get a taste of that. If he grew the same addiction he has to deer jerky, it could be very dangerous.

(Food!) The tone of his voice is disappointed. How do I dare to think he would eat something else other than high-quality deer jerky?

In the next fight, Wanderer beats Zenith, the lucky or unlucky Hard difficulty member.

Savant wins against Rook easily, and Tess beats Meridian, who is also from Hard difficulty.

Tacita faces Vesper, the scrawny man who beat Min-Jae. From the start, she seems to hold disdain towards the man just from the way she looks at him. When he blends with his surroundings, she just lifts her eyebrow, and her eyes continue to move, clearly tracking the man who thinks he is invisible.

Cursing, he appears again, and she dodges a few daggers he throws. Then Tacita disappears.

Vesper, with sweat rolling down his forehead, keeps looking around, swinging his dagger, and trying multiple skills, yet he is unable to do anything.

One of his fingers falls down, then his ear, then a leg. In quick succession, Tacita cuts it all off without the man even noticing.

It's clear he is about to forfeit, but before he does so, Tacita appears, standing in front of him, her dagger stabbed into his neck.

Both of them disappear, the victor decided.

When AnotherOneHere wins his duel against Luminary, the top 8 of this event is decided.

Group 2 - Noname
Group 3 - Brainiac

Group 5 - Gareth
Group 7 - Wanderer

Group 9 - Savant
Group 12 - Sset

Group 13 - Tacita
Group 16 - AnotherOneHere

Warning. It is now possible to die inside the Arena.

Then there is no other message, but even that single sentence is enough for my mood to change. The vague boredom I was feeling until now is gone.

Just how much can you be excited for the fight if you know that there are no consequences? No death, no real danger. Sure, it is fun to be able to go all out without worrying about useless stuff like breaking your body or having your brain melted under the pressure of your own mana.

But this? I really like it. This is much better.

As before, there is one hour left before another duel, but I already feel myself getting giddy.

“Please don’t kill Brainiac, he is a dick sometimes, but he is a nice guy.” Dennis moves closer and nudges my side.

Aaron joins in as well, “I mean you could beat him a bit, the guy deserves it for sure, but killing him would be too much.”

“Sure, sure.” I wave my hand. These two little jerks love these kinds of jokes. Or at least I think they are joking and aren’t serious. They wouldn’t think I would really kill the guy, right? I mean, there is no real reason to and even though annoying at times, Brainiac isn’t that bad.

Noname vs Brainiac

Gareth vs Wanderer

Savant vs Sset

Tacita vs AnotherOneHere

Soon the event will be over, just a few more fights.

***

The Arena for the quarter-finals is different once again. This time, a lake that is as big as the city for sure. That lake is perfectly calm and the water at its deepest barely reaches my ankles.

The calmness of the lake makes it something akin to a mirror, the surface perfectly reflecting the blue sky. And there, far, far in the distance, a giant tree stands. I have trouble guessing how tall it is, but it has to be a few miles at least.

“Want to go check the tree before we fight?” I ask Brainiac, who is already opposite me.

“I don’t know, man, it seems really far off, and how long do you think the system will let us stay here?”

“We can test it out. You will lose anyway, so you can forfeit in the worst case.”

“Ouch… you don’t have to be so direct.”

“So?”

“Damn it, fine, let's check the tree.” He sighs.

I float into the air and stop near him, grabbing him with a mana arm I create. In front of us, I create a pointy barrier and behind us, I leave an anchor to estimate the distance. Then I start releasing the kinetic energy stored inside my core while replenishing it through my thermokinetic heart.

Gradually, I increase the speed of our flight, ignoring the complaining Brainiac to my side. For a few minutes, I fly like that, but the tree doesn’t seem to be getting closer at all. I even use my eyes to check it, but I can’t detect any problem, and when I check my anchor, I land with a sigh.

Turning around, the anchor is just a few seconds of flight behind us.

“See, it’s the same in the games, you can’t leave the area.”

“We could,” I disagree with him. “The system isn’t the problem, it’s this place. The lake seems to cause that, and I can’t disrupt the effect or see through it. If I could, we would be able to reach the tree.”

“So it’s not the arena being set up that way, but the effect of the place the system picked for the arena?”

“Yup.”

“Whatever, why are you so interested in that tree so much?”

“I think it might be alive in a similar way The Living Tree on the 4th floor was, so I wanted to check it. But it doesn’t matter if we can’t reach it.” I take a few steps, each sending ripples in this shallow lake and destroying the reflection on its surface, then I stop and face Brainiac.

He understands quickly and also takes a few more steps back, a distance fitting him.

The water he stands in ripples slightly, and through the air, a dozen or so projectiles shoot at me. Each of them is as big as my pinkie and extremely sharp. There are even some weaker but smaller ones in an attempt to hide them.

As always, his attacks seem to be made either of wind, compressed air, or some other stuff. Maybe vacuum now that I think of it?

I tilt my head to dodge two and step to the side to avoid a few more. I let three crash against my forearm without strengthening it too much, and blood is drawn, the projectiles nearly piercing through its entirety.

When I check the projectiles stuck in my forearm, I find that they have some weight to them and a sense of mass. Still, I can’t decipher what they are made of.

The projectiles that missed me are now returning from behind me, and I send a disrupting wave toward them. Half of them disappear, and the other half ignore it. There is no mana on them anymore, and they fly just by their momentum alone, seemingly made out of some material.

I dodge and examine the attack for a bit longer, sometimes letting some hit me to examine them. There are a few more surprise skills Brainiac uses, but these projectiles are what interest me most so I take some time.

When I have had enough, I send a strong disrupting wave and then let a huge amount of golden flames seep out of my core.

At the last moment, I remember something, increase my control and stop the flames mid-air, the water under them sizzling and evaporating.

“D-did you just almost kill me?”

I quickly lower their power, the golden color turning yellow, and reduce the stream to a quarter of its size.

“Noname! Did you fucking forget we can die now?!”

I let the flames continue with a much slower speed toward Brainiac, and after cursing, he forfeits.

Outside of the arena, no one says anything, but Maya chuckles until Tess gently slaps the back of her head.

***

Next Chapter