[MA] 93. Gift (Patreon)

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Shen switched a few words with Sai, then moved to stand in front of his circle. The guard was left behind to join the others.

Shen had expected them to organize in groups, as if this was a standard reset, except one he would participate in. Instead, they all got in a massive battle formation. Shen had gotten the exact numbers of each stat but recalled only approximated percentages.

Whooping 45% or so, around 600 people, were mages. They were in the middle of the circular formation, standing up on crates or podiums of multiple heights to give them a good view of Shen.

Those platforms would also be helpful in the group fights Shen didn't participate in if they kept it. Shen's stand was still where he had left it, though the ladder he had bought in the third stage's middle boss was nowhere to be found. He guessed the system didn't teleport things it considered discarded.

25% were strength fighters, 330 people. They surrounded the ranged fighters, leaving enough room for maneuverability. Only a few of them had taken to long-ranged weaponry and stood with the mages.

20% were agility fighters, 260 people. Around ninety of those were ranged attackers who stood together with the mages. The others were positioned randomly among the strength fighters. Shen guessed they would wait for openings to strike him.

The last 10% were resistance fighters, 130 defenders surrounding the entire group.

Shen's first challenge was getting close to them without dying. He could dodge a lot of projectiles, and his innate soul defense would let him brute force his way against enemy spells, but his spear had no soul. It would slow him down.

The second challenge was the actual killing once he got close enough. Jumping in the middle of the mages might work, but this was supposed to be a training session. He wanted to test new things to improve instead of killing indiscriminately—or worse, quickly.

Finally, the third challenge was resources. He would spend a lot of qi and stamina. If he wasn't careful, he would just drop useless in the middle of the battle. Dodging was essential.

Shen allowed himself a slight smile. He planned on learning a lot in every opportunity he had to fight, but this first one was special. He would teach them something they seemed to be completely forgetting about. By grouping up, they had made his gift extra effective.

That would be fun.

He made a list of priorities on what to learn or improve: add one last Concept to his Path, master one or more foundational Concepts, use his strength more effectively, level up his footwork, then get better at everything else, including secondary Concepts.

Shen grasped his spear and sprinted ahead.

= - = - =

Evelyn welcomed the challenge with open arms. There was a lot in her mind recently. Beating Shen, the source of many of those thoughts, should be satisfying and help clear some doubts.

Shen was on the opposite side of the stage. He had to go around the final boss to get to them—or so was the plan.

He went straight to the boss. Did he plan to damage it then make it follow him to this group? That sounded like a stupid way to train, but maybe he was just a sore loser.

Whatever his plans were, it was mesmerizing to see him once again move on the floating steps as if he was a damn monkey. Really, how the hell could he do it? Evelyn wanted to suggest using her gravity to make him jump higher or fall slower but hadn't had the time after he just demanded they all kill each other.

For it had been a demand. Somewhat politely phrased, but a demand all the same. Shen had called them stupid and spoke with such confidence that to go against it was to confirm to him that they were idiots. By dealing a lot of damage to the golem without getting hurt, he had had just presented the possible results of training as he did; of course, they would comply.

Even now, she still couldn't understand the way he defied gravity, and she knew the Concept of Gravity. There was something uncanny about his jumps, his lightness, the perfect path he always took, how he seemed to ignore the resistance of the air.

The boss tried to hit him, but he seemed to be precisely fast enough not to be there when a strike arrived. He got to the highest step, then, to her surprise, threw his spear at them.

He started falling right after, but she focused on the spear. Multiple people said the same: stop the spear. They did. Wind threw it off track, her gravity pulled it away, and a wall made of rocks flew from the ground to stand in its way. She felt a slight pang on her willpower as her mana contacted the strange energy Shen claimed to use, qi, which was in the spear.

So many spells got in the spear's way that Shen's willpower was swiftly overwhelmed, and the weapon fell harmlessly about a hundred yards away from them.

Shen reached the ground at about the same time as his spear. Then he started running towards it.

"Not on my watch," a nearby girl said, and wind pulled the spear to them. The mage victoriously grabbed it and plunged it on the podium she stood on, right beside her.

To Evelyn, that looked strangely like a victory flag that belonged to Shen instead, but she didn't mention it.

Shen changed his path towards them. Some people mocked him before throwing magic and projectiles his way.

They shut up pretty quickly.

Shen moved fast and unpredictably. He seemed to flow like a ghost, an untouchable blur that couldn't be hit even under the barrage of attacks.

Evelyn used her gravity, but he did the same as the last time they had fought. Somehow, he could ignore a lot of her pull. She still had no idea how someone could simply ignore gravity. It made no sense.

It at least slowed him down, and a few spells and arrows finally hit him. He had a way to use his qi to make his skin harder because arrows barely pierced and spells hardly dealt any damage.

"Does he have E+ resistance?!" someone complained.

Even while moving slower, he was still too fast. He arrived at the first row without dying. Evelyn had never seen him fight barehanded, and the reason quickly became apparent.

He sucked at it.

Sandra used spiked gauntlets and explosive attacks. Scott—beep that guy—used explosive fire fists. There was an agile fighter Evelyn had seen who knew some martial arts that let him punch dozens of times in a second for a lot of damage.

Compared to them, Shen was a drunk in a brawl.

But a fast and strong drunk.

A high resistance stat somehow also meant being harder to be moved against one's will. Shen punched shields and armor, but no one was pushed back despite the significant impacts.

Meanwhile, spells and arrows still rained at him. His proximity to the defenders limited which spells could be used, but all mages there were elites. They could make magic appear above or beside Shen easily enough.

He still dodged most of them even though Alicia was still slowing him down. Her gravity was half a cheat. It was like she was pulling a bed sheet, and the bed sheet was pulling something else, except the sheet was gravity itself. Because she was the cause, her willpower was still involved and had to fight his innate soul defense. Yet, even when she lost the battle because natural soul defense was absolute, some gravity still affected him, bypassing said defense.

It was weird though. The last times she had used the same gravity against him, he had been a little extra affected—

Her eyes were drawn to the spear. That was the reason he had thrown it. He knew it would slow him down.

For all that talk about a Path being part of oneself, his weapon was still a separate entity without a soul, much more easily affected by whatever was sent his way.

She used some gravity, pulled the spear up, then threw it far away from them, close to the boss. The last thing she wanted was for Shen to get in their midst and grab his weapon—though they had prepared some surprises if he tried to jump over the front line.

"Hey! Who did that?!" the girl who had grabbed the spear asked and tried to take control of the spear.

Evelyn felt it would be a waste of time to try to explain why leaving the spear there was a terrible idea. Only the sixteen-year-olds truly understood the menace called Feng Shen. Instead, she fought—and won—against the girl.

That gave Shen some extra maneuverability, but he did nothing different. He kept punching and kicking the defenders. Some strength and agility close-ranged fighters got bored and left their posts to attack him.

"Inspect," Evelyn said.

| Feng Shen (E) | 132 / 200 HP

What was he doing? It would only be a matter of time before he died. Had he gone senile? He was kind of thousands of years old if one believed his insane tales. She was still unsure about them.

Scott—beep that guy—was among those who attacked. His fiery body actually helped Shen, as the others had to get away from him. Shen roared in seeming rage. It was very weird to see the guy lose composure like that. He then—

Evelyn felt a sharp pain in her neck.

Everything turned black.

= - = - =

Shen had given Sai three missions. One, ask Alicia for help. Two, gather information about the mages who would focus on slowing Shen down. Three, kill as many of them as he could once Shen gave the signal.

Sai had done his best, and the first who needed to die was Evelyn. She was one of three who were confirmed to have a Concept of Gravity or close enough. Alicia had killed the other when Shen gave the signal—a roar of fake rage—and now she and Sai would work together to kill as many priority targets as they could before they died.

"I'm glad they are focusing on improving themselves and killing the boss," Shen had said. "Humankind could do without greed. Yet, greed is part of this boss too. Ignoring it will only benefit those who would exploit it at the worst moment possible. Feeling it in their skin will help them not forget it anytime soon. You, Alicia, and I will remind them that the giant golem is only the easiest enemy on this stage."

Holding one dagger on each hand, Sai rushed to kill the next mages in the order he had determined would help Shen the most.

Blood and chaos flowed freely in the middle of the group.

= - = - =

Alicia put a knife to a gravity mage—she had very specifically not picked Evelyn to avoid any issues—then used the best spell she had. She was saving it for her second Skill slot, though she currently lacked the funds.

It was called Hellfire Eclipse.

The system had classified it as D+. She had developed the spell in the creative stage and hid it as a trump card until now. This was the perfect occasion to reveal it. Sai had said Shen wanted to remind everyone of the hidden dangers on their backs, and nothing screamed evil schemes like flames darker than black expanding from a traitor and trying to consume everyone.

Alicia wondered if it might negatively affect his image, which she had sacrificed her Achievement to improve, but just as he would respect her decisions, she would also respect his.

Her spell first created an explosion of black flames around her. The fire of said explosion expanded until it became a vast sphere with Alicia at the center.

Everything inside burned with fires of pure Destruction.

Usually, destruction was just a side-effect of the existence of fire. But here, the flames roared, seeking nothing but to eradicate everything they touched. The Concept of Destruction made them deal extra damage to everything they touched.

The flames also exploded upon contact with foreign willpower. Innate soul defense allowed one to ignore direct mana contact, but not the heat of a flame or the shock wave of an explosion. Now, dozens, sometimes hundreds of explosions focused purely on destruction surrounded each person in her eclipse.

All except one.

Her Path was that of Selective Destruction, and Alicia alone stood untouched by the flames in the middle of the hell of anguished cries.

The headache was instantaneous. Her spell was good enough to avoid having mana touch others as much as possible, but it wasn't perfect. She fought a lot of different wills in a short amount of time, as at least a couple hundred people were inside the spell area. Her grand entrance disappeared mere seconds later, dissipated as the nanobots snuffed the spell out to protect her.

Alicia fell to her knees, but she was glad to see she wasn't the only one. Dozens had turned into light. Dozens more had dropped to the ground, many heavily injured.

She had done her part.

Unfortunately, that meant she had just become a target.

She stood up, grabbed her dagger, and rushed to kill whoever she could before she died. Instead of using magic, she preserved her willpower to withstand the pain of the attacks that turned her body into a sieve.

She cut three throats before she died.

[A/N: Who saw that coming?]

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