Chapter 383 - Bloody brawl (Patreon)

Against the man from Easy difficulty, an Avatar appears. The Avatar of the man who won the 1st tournament of the 1st round of Earth’s tutorial.

That rumor spreads fairly quickly, and before the ten seconds to the start of the duel pass, there are plenty of eyes on that screen, examining that man.

He is very tall and extremely muscular. The build you would see on strongmen. His head is bald, and he has a bushy black beard and looks to be in his thirties. Wearing simple clothes, there is no visible weapon on him.

When the duel starts, he takes a few steps and stares down at his challenger. It’s just a moment, but even that seems to scare the member of Channeler’s group.

Then the Avatar swings his arm, and the upper half of his opponent's body disappears, and with it, his challenger appears back outside.

“Did you see? Just that simple swing destroyed the ground behind,” Aaron says excitedly.

“High strength?” Min-Jae guesses.

“That dude was massive, and probably as heavy as both of us and Min-Jae combined.” Dennis stares at the now blank screen with his eyes wide open.

“But it seems like you were right, Nat! We can really see the winners of the tournaments.”

“It’s not like it’s too useful, but it is nice to see some of the other tutorial attendees. We might even find out how many rounds our tutorial has,” I answer to Min-Jae.

“They are challenging another one,” Sophie notifies, and we turn back.

The 2nd round winner of the tournament is a young redheaded woman with a long scar on her cheek. She is wearing simple, well-made armor, the one I recognize as the armor of the Fallen Hero. Her only weapon is a huge ax with two blades.

Even so, she doesn’t bother using her weapon and instead nonchalantly kicks a stone off the ground towards her opponent. That stone shoots like a bullet and kills the man from Easy difficulty.

“Hot.”

To my surprise, it was Maya who said that. She gets a few surprised looks, and I can see the twins want to say something, but none of them is brave enough to do so.

The winner of the 3rd round’s 1st tournament is a child. A boy looking to be even younger than Isabella. He has brown curly hair and deep blue eyes. Very deep blue, something more likely a trait than his natural color.

When ten seconds pass, the boy’s shadow expands, and from it, two pitch-black wolves looking like they are made from ink jump out. They attack at once, dashing at the challenger who quickly dies to them.

The two black wolves turn into a liquid-like substance and seep back into the boy’s shadow which turns back to normal. The entire time, his blue eyes seem to shine.

Then the time comes for the winner of the 4th round’s tournament.

It’s a 27-year-old woman. I think she could be considered pretty by many. Her eyes are both brown and one of them is slightly lighter in color than the other one.

She is wearing simple clothes. Black pants and a gray shirt with long sleeves. The design seems to be one used on the 4th floor. Her black hair is pulled back into a simple ponytail, clumsily done since she was never good at doing it herself.

Even as an Avatar, confidence, and grace radiate from her as she stands there with perfect posture.

“Nat…” I can hear Tess say quietly.

“Something happened? Why is your voice like that, Tess?” Maya asks with worry.

“That woman, she…” Tess hesitates, unsure what to say.

“She is my sister,” I answer instead of her.

On the screen, I watch as Victoria takes a few steps. Her movements are so familiar. The Avatar moves just like her. Confident and daring. It's as if she is daring the entire world to throw everything it has at her. And I’m sure if that happened, she would endure it all without complaining. That's how she is.

The challenger dies just from a single swing of her arm.

When she disappears, I can only stare at the place where she stood.

(Boss, we tried to challenge the 6th round winner, but it didn’t let us. The same goes for higher numbers. It seems like we can challenge only rounds below our 5th for some reason.)

(I see. How many guys do you still have?)

(Still five of them. They can challenge…)

(Tell them to challenge the winner of the 4th round tournament. One after another. Don’t ask why.)

(I… I understand. Will do so!)

These five guys from Easy difficulty die one after another. Each of them receives some mana stones with inscriptions from me. But at this moment, I do not mind it at all.

The thought of testing who this event would allow to challenge disappears from my mind the moment Victoria appeared.

Each challenge gives me 10 seconds in which I can see the Avatar of my sister and then a few more seconds as she calmly reaches her challenger.

A few of them try to run away, but she catches up to them quickly and finishes it.

Group 4 is quiet, most likely giving me some space after a quick exchange in the group chat that the twins and Sophie keep up.

When it’s all over, I find myself staring at the screen.

“Won’t you challenge her? You could see her longer…” Maya tries, and her voice is unusually soft.

“No, I will never fight with her.”

Just the thought of hurting Victoria, even if it’s in a spar, disgusts me.

She is someone who cared for me for so long. Who took so much on herself and suffered because of me. There is no way I will hurt her, not even if it was in a friendly spar. Not even if it’s only an emotionless Avatar.

Never.

But there is someone with a different idea, a silly and petite black haired girl who moves impulsively and most likely thinks she is helping me. She even wastes her challenge.

Lily appears inside facing Victoria, and she turns towards where the “camera” is and smiles. I know she does it for me.

What a dumb girl.

For ten seconds, Lily and the Avatar face each other. Then the fight starts.

Unlike before, Victoria’s Avatar acts differently. Her posture changes, and as she charges, even her speed is much higher.

She and Lily clash against each other, Victoria easily dodging Lily’s hits and hitting her a few times in quick succession. Two hits on Lily’s face, two on her neck, and one stronger one on her chest.

Lily staggers back, her tough body enduring it so far. Out of everyone from 5th round, Lily has one of the highest physical stats, and with the addition of [Sacrifice], probably the highest. Yet Victoria nearly matches her.

Another exchange sends Lily rolling on the ground as Victoria pounces on her. Even in a fight, she seems so collected.

Finally, Lily is forced to use [Disintegration].

Victoria shows incredible reaction time and jumps back. She glances at the eaten-away piece of her shoulder and, for a moment, I can see her calculating. Then she attacks again. She uses more of her strength and mana while dodging Lily’s burst of [Disintegration].

But then, to Lily’s surprise, Victoria gets hit by strong but slow bursts of gray mana, and her entire body disappears. Only a finger plops on the ground behind Lily.

Lily stands there more shocked than anyone watching.

“That was unexpected,” Maya mutters.

But Lily doesn’t get teleported outside; the duel doesn’t end.

In a blink, from the finger, Victoria regrows. The flesh extends from the finger, along with bones, nerves, organs, and skin. It happens extremely quickly, and Victoria grabs Lily’s arm.

Lily, who was looking around at that moment, starts pulling her arm back in shock, but Victoria pulls stronger and tears out Lily’s arm from its shoulder socket.

That makes Lily stagger back, a short scream of pain escaping her while her arm starts regrowing. Before it’s restored, Victoria takes a step and, swinging Lily’s arm she still holds.

She hits Lily’s face with great force, sending her staggering with a broken nose. And then another quick step and a swing, making Lily stumble even more.

Before the third hit lands, Lily uses [Disintegration], sending it against Victoria.

That attack of gray mana gets blocked by Lily’s own arm, which Victoria swings against it.

It’s the arm of a person who possesses that skill and uses it often. It makes sense it is able to endure it. The only sign of damage on the arm is the mangled skin and disintegrated pieces of flesh.

Lily continues to attack, and every time, Victoria uses that arm to block the attack of the gray mana. After a while, just a jagged bone remains out of it, and Victoria attacks head-on.

She spits, and I can see a bloodied piece of something fly over Lily.

“Was it her tongue? Did that crazy woman bite off her own tongue and spit it?!” Maya says in shock.

The moment that piece of tongue lands on the ground, another Victoria regrows from it in the same way as before with the finger. A perfect copy of the original.

That copy quickly moves and puts her arms around Lily from behind while the original uses the bone of Lily’s torn-off arm to pierce through Lily´s chest, aiming for her heart.

A whip-like burst of gray mana is sent from Lily, both versions of Victoria getting hit. One loses both arms, another one its legs under the knees.

From these cut-off limbs, three more Victorias quickly regrow.

Victoria without arms knees Lily’s chin, and the one without legs grabs one of Lily´s arms.

The other three Victorias each grab one limb and start pulling.

Lily screams as they tear off her limbs, and another burst of gray mana devours everything around in a big area, and all the Victorias with it.

Still, they had time, and further away, two bloodied fingers land on the ground. From each finger, one Victoria regrows.

Lily sways a bit but straightens up as they attack her relentlessly. They are much more confident now, better at dodging [Disintegration], and after a while, one of them bites off her finger and spits it out.

From it, a third Victoria grows. After dodging, she swings her arm and punches Lily in the jaw, making her stagger and almost lose consciousness as the powerful hit shakes Lily's brain. All three of them then attack Lily. Two start pulling her arms, and the third one grabs Lily’s head after punching her again in the same spot.

There are now much weaker bursts of [Disintegration] damaging them, eating on flesh, blinding them, but they continue to pull.

In the end, Lily´s head lets go before the limbs, and they pull it off with the spine.

Turning her into particles Lily appears back on the roof.

The result is a total shitshow.

She wanted to help, to have a duel so I could see my sister for just a bit longer, and yet it ended like this.

A total, absolute shitshow.

Instead of fighting with her to allow me to see, it ended up with both of them getting into a bloody brawl.

But I do understand. I also often screw things up when I try to help, making them worse instead. A something that caused so much trouble to my sister back then.

There was no ill intention from Lily, none at all. In her own naive way, she just wanted to help, without thinking it through at all. It's almost silly. What did she imagine would happen?

Lily tries to get out of the rooftop, but I move to her and grab her arm. I patiently wait until she lifts her head from the ground and looks at me.

“Thank you,” I say to her.

***

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