47th of Season of Air, 59th year of the 32nd cycle

  “The eighth round is about to start with only seventy-two teams remaining, two of which are independent cultivators.” Northstar interrupted Sleek’s heated cheers for the Billowing Sands’ final cultivator.

  The woman fought desperately against the four remaining nanuqsauruses. One snapped its jaws at her while the remaining three beasts slaughtered the illusory villagers. The carnage would have been hair-raising had the battle taken place in the real world; then again, no third realm cultivator would risk their life over a dozen mortals.

  “Fifty-nine groups still have unbreached walls—”

  “Oh, wow! Do you see this, folks?” Sleek interrupted his co-host, earning a fiery glare for his effort. “A pair of peak third realm T-rexes in each lane. Look at them pounce the cultivators who expected they would just run towards the forts like the nanuqsauruses. Things are about to get bloody…”

  ***

  Newt lunged at the tyrannosaurus as soon as it appeared. Unlike before, the fiery beast turned to face him and exhaled a wall of flames. Traced Magmin Scales sprang up, burning away the searing heat as Newt lanced his glaive into the beast’s maw.

  Granite Crust covered Newt’s skin even as his blade sank into the monster’s brain. The tyrannosaurus disappeared, leaving Newt wide open for its mate’s massive chomp. Granite Crust soaked the damage, but Newt’s chest still ached under the force of the gargantuan jaw’s bite. The retaliatory fire-wave blasted into the tyrannosaur’s maw, and the conflagration consumed the hulking dinosaur.

  Newt twisted midair and landed on his feet, then hurried to the second lane, catching his breath along the way. Air-attributed nanuqsauruses outpaced the fire-attributed tyrannosauruses twice over, and Newt risked the shortcut through the jungle, catching them long before they had reached the middle portion of their lane.

  Both dinosaurs turned, sending walls of flame at Newt as he soared, spear-first, towards the closer tyrannosaurus. He passed through the two fiery screens, his glaive finding the dinosaur’s eye without error. The tyrannosaurus disappeared, along with Newt’s cover and purchase.

  He fell, the other dinosaur’s jaw snapping closed right above his head. The glaive flashed, severing the monster’s neck, and just like its mate, it too disappeared as Newt righted himself with a fireburst. The distraction consumed a mere handful of seconds, but he rushed straight towards the fortress instead of cutting through the jungle.

  Newt noted how his rapid footfalls made no clouds when slamming against the dusty road, but the dinosaurs’ did. The leaves did not rustle or burn in the wake of his techniques, and he wondered why, when they turned to ashes at the dinosaurs’ actions.

  In Magmin’s realm, deaths and interaction with the environment appeared much more realistic, but then again, Magmin did not maintain a thousand instances of the same realm at the same time, and the dragon had certainly been at a higher realm than the creator of the trial Newt was taking. Maybe the realism came from the fact that Magmin’s realm belonged to Magmin, it was the copy of his realm, while Sage’s Realm boiled down to an elaborate spell formation?

  Nonsense thoughts. Newt reached the fortress and moved to his third and final lane. Two hundred yards away, a lone tyrannosaurus trampled its way towards him.

  “Twochains, we’re switching lanes, come here, there’s only a single T-Rex.” Newt shouted while dashing to his friend’s lane.

  “I also have a single T-Rex incoming,” Flare shouted.

  In a matter of moments, Newt handled his third wave, and rushed over to help Twochains, who was struggling with a single tyrannosaurus.

  “You stay here from now on, and I’ll take your lane,” Newt said as the slain dinosaur disappeared.

  He considered their current situation, and it was tough. Had Twochains fallen, they would have probably lost the next round, assuming the enemy did not grow stronger and slower, in which case Newt could handle four lanes.

  The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

  “Redleaf, come back here to back up Twochains!” Newt turned around to Twochains, but the man just nodded, he already understood Newt’s idea.

  “We’ll attack them together and keep each other safe. If they are focused on the fort, we’ll kill them while they are tearing down the wall.”

  Good man! Newt smiled.

  ***

  “Forty-four teams remain with the ninth round mere seconds away. Forty-three.”

  You’re repeating yourself, and your reporting is bland, factual.

  Sleek smiled at his co-host, the previous round was his chance to shine, a true carnage. Just as he had expected, hordes of tyrannosauruses tore dozens of cultivators to charred shreds, destroying the teams which had barely remained in play by hanging onto threads. And based on how the challenge was developing, Sleek would have another chance to shine in mere moments.

  He scanned the transmissions, searching for a great team which would succumb to the attack after a long hard struggle and found it in Everfrost Palace. The all-female team was down two members and had seven villagers left, but their remaining fighters were tenacious.

  He searched for the introductory losers, staggered disciples who would die miserable or comical deaths before the main event. His gaze skimmed over the Explorer’s Gate’s team. They would last at least one more round before falling. None of the grand sects and the ten aspiring to overthrow them had suffered any losses; as for the independents, only Dandelion remained, and he showed no sign of fatigue.

  There. Wild Warriors had all of their members standing. At first glance, they were among better-faring teams, but they were all spent. A little push and they would topple like a stack of dominos.

  “Heavens,” Sleek shouted as the monsters appeared. “A mass of five nanuqsauruses floods each lane, but unlike previous members of their species, these are fire-attributed!”

  Without pause, Sleek shifted to the most irrelevant team as the cultivators from the major sects fought against the beasts.

  “Wild Warriors’ Garnet Brightdew slays one with a spectacular cleave of her ax—oooh!” Sleek winced. “And the other four tore her to shreds! Will they be able to withstand this wave? I guess not, the last of them fell within moments.”

  Sleek paused to let the viewers enjoy the sight of packs of nanuqsauruses advancing down the empty lanes before changing focus.

  “Unlike this valiant, yet ultimately futile effort, Everfrost Palace’s disciples are putting up a good fight. Their two remaining disciples are whittling away the nanuqsauruses. Everlast Highpeak has only two remaining while Flake Farisle just slew the second nanuqsaurus. Will they manage their lanes in time to stay ahead of the nanuqsauruses advancing uncontested towards their fortress?”

  ***

  Newstar lashed out, decapitating the nanuqsaurus before even seeing which creature had materialized. The second disappeared before they moved, and only the third perished trying to offer some resistance.

  Woodhopper watched transfixed. Compared to her, Newstar’s reflexes were horrible, average for the fifth-realmers, and impossibly good for those at the fourth realm. But he was at the third.

  The only one more terrifying was Dandelion. The elder was glad she had listened to the sect master’s advice and hedged her bets for this round. Dandelion would almost certainly win the event.

  Newstar finished off his lane of monsters in ten seconds. He burned his spiritual energy like crazy, abusing his advanced movement techniques to achieve quasi-flight hopping off treetops between the two lanes.

  He descended upon them like a meteor, smashing into the ground right at the center of the nanuqsaurus pack. His glaive whistled through the air, scything two necks, before he blasted a ball of flames from his foot, immolating the third dinosaur.

  “Will Everlast Highpeak make it in time?” Sleek roared, and Woodhopper muttered another unintelligible curse. If he’s offering commentary on something, it should be Newstar’s power. If only Explorer’s Gate had a decade or two to polish their gem. Even the three seasons he spent wandering the Savage Wood were an incredible loss to them in the Sage’s Realm tournament.

  Top fourth realm core disciples all survived, and it was easy to find replacements for the slain second-realmers, but the best of the third realm fell in the sudden assault of the fourth realm cultists. Flare was supposed to be the fifth member of the third realm team, not the second. Twochains was the seventh pick, but they were holding on remarkably well.

  Newt slaughtered his second lane and headed for the third just as the pack reached the walls. Flare had handled three, and was keeping the other two at bay, but she was burning through her spiritual energy to stay in the fight.

  Twochains and Redleaf attacked their nanuqsauruses just as they slammed at the gate. Twochains struck one down, Redleaf wounded the second, but the two beasts turned around and fell upon them.

  Redleaf finished off the wounded one, but another illusory beast pounced on his chest and tore his head off. The boy vanished, leaving Twochains alone.

  Newstar flew straight at the fortress, where the five nanuqsauruses were slaughtering the villagers. The beasts reduced their seventy civilians to fifty in mere heartbeats.

  Woodhopper breathed a sigh of relief as the nanuqsaurus pack abandoned the easy targets and turned on Newstar.

  Then, Twochains fell.