“It’s almost time,” Stella said, her eyes fixed on the countdown timer. “You guys have everything you need?”

  Anna extended her arm, her fingers already folded into the correct position as her sword materialized and appeared within her hand. “Yup,” she answered, jiggling her sword a bit. “What about you? Everything fine with that?” she asked, pointing at Stella’s mildly charred hand.

  Stella blinked, glancing down at her hand as if she’d forgotten about it. “Oh!” she exclaimed in surprise. “Thanks for reminding me.” Suddenly a blue formless flame began to dance on her hand, enveloping it entirely and slowly recovering the damage that had accumulated through her training. “There.”

  Marcus, standing nearby, raised an eyebrow with amusement and worry in equal measure. “Are you really sure that’s normal?” he asked.

  “Jealous?” Stella replied with a playful smirk, clearly trying to change the topic.

  Marcus only responded by making a face that screamed “Are you serious?!”

  Alex, who was sitting on the ground, laughed at the interaction, his gaze darting between the two lovers. He wasn’t alone, as soon he was followed by the others.

  By this point, the entire friend group knew about Marcus’s bloodline. They had all assumed it was the case but both Anna and Alex had managed to confirm that there was something beyond a simple accelerated healing factor in Marcus through unique situations.

  Alex confirmed it firsthand by being near an explosion caused by one of Marcus’s experiments. It was before either of them had evolved. It would now be considered minor but at the time it could’ve really caused some serious injuries, and in fact it did.

  After the smoke cleared, Alex actually saw how skin that had been completely burnt off, leaving only exposed muscle, began to regrow. Alex was intact due to his hardened skin, and upon seeing Marcus unbothered by the whole thing, he only laughed it off.

  Anna, on the other hand, had actually caught Marcus using himself as an experiment. For a bit, he tried to pass on his own regenerative abilities to others, if only to lessen the burden that the healers felt whenever a new batch of newcomers arrived. Anna entered his lab with her usual stealthy steps and saw how he cut himself and fed his blood to small animals. Sadly, or luckily, depending on how you saw it, it turned out to be impossible to pass on the effects of a bloodline.

  Later on, Stella gave both Anna and Alex specifics that she felt comfortable sharing with them. The small exchange of information allowed them to understand Marcus and his ability further. In a show of trust and reciprocity, Anna did the same, though, not even she knew what her bloodline did.

  “So, you’re really not coming?” Alex asked, facing Marcus as his laughter died down. “You sure? Who knows what you can win in there.”

  Marcus shook his head. “Most of my strength is here,” he said, tapping the ground with his foot. “But I do need you guys to do me a favor.” He reached for his bag and took out what appeared to be normal phones and handed them to the other three. “Here,” he said.

  “A phone?” Alex asked, inspecting the device.

  “Want us to call to see if we arrived safely?” Anna asked, sarcastically.

  “Is it the GPS thing that you were working on?” Stella asked, shaking the phone lightly. “Did you finally get it to work?”

  “GPS?” Alex asked, furrowing his brow slightly as he rapidly switched between Marcus and Stella.

  “Yes. The range is limited, but even if I don’t get the exact location now, I could probably extrapolate it later, when I have more to work with,” Marcus said, explaining casually.

  “Why do you want it?” Anna asked, inspecting the phone-like device, noticing that it was completely sealed shut and had no openings.

  “I don’t know,” Marcus said with a shrug. “Why do I want anything? Something might occur to me in the future.”

  “Fair,” Anna said, putting the device into her storage ring. “Anybody else coming?”

  “Make sure to take it out at least once, ok?” Marcus added, to which the other three nodded in response.

  “A couple of citizens, some of them government workers,” Stella answered, turning to Anna. “They’ll go in after Alex, and then you and I will be last,” she added, quickly explaining the plan.

  “Connor?” Marcus asked, turning to the person who might know, Anna.

  “Still running the dungeon. We were lucky that he still hadn’t reached level twenty,” Anna said. “Now he can power level some of the security newbies and map out the dungeon.”

  “Is Clara still helping him?” Alex asked. “Or did she stop after she completed the map?”

  “She’s back with her hunters,” Anna answered.

  “Is that everything then?” Stella asked only to be met by uncompromising shrugs and nods. “Okay…” she said with an unsure tone. “Let’s prepare for the rest.”

  With most of their doubts settled, they opened the doors of the small building they had constructed around the portal that appeared in Solace. Together, they rapidly assembled security for both entry and general security maintenance of the line that would form outside.

  Unbeknownst to the four friends who had basically isolated themselves from the rest of the world, even from the System, in an attempt to prepare themselves for what was coming, the rest of Solace had received an update from the System.

  Portal activation: 00:05:47

  The portal to the tournament grounds would be activated before the tournament began.

  You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

  So, as soon as they were done with preparations, the word quickly spread and all those that would participate began to congregate. This surprised the friends a bit, but they quickly adjusted themselves when they saw the new timer.

  Some from the gathered crowd were rowdy, but most were well behaved. Those that had been here since the beginning considered that this hint of order was part of the final traces left behind by Eric.

  Tournament of the Strong: 10:02:33

  ----------

  Sitting in a courtyard, an older looking man wearing a gray robe, sat on a bench. His gaze was lost in a small puddle of water that was before him. The attendants were busy cleaning the courtyard and one of them had dropped some water on their way toward the other end of their destination.

  He liked to watch how everything was cleaned, there was a certain rhythm and elegance to the entire ordeal. Something that even he couldn’t replicate, despite the level of control he had over the world around him.

  And since their return to their territory, there was a lot of cleaning to do. The servants that had stayed back were minimal, barely enough to ensure that none of the buildings crumbled under the weight of time. But now, as soon as they returned, they moved all their forces to restore their lands to their former glory.

  Their first task was reconnecting with forces that they had ordered to maintain a distance, some of which only consisted of cleaning personnel. To strengthen this force, they even brought an entire army of new followers who would start from the lowest levels of their hierarchy, which was cleaning.

  Finally, to further speed up the process, there was the influx of people that came in droves as soon as they heard that they had opened their doors once more.

  Despite the astounding number of personnel that they had, it still wasn’t enough to bring all their land back to working conditions. Their territory was vast and daunting. It was a miracle that no one had dared to encroach on their territory, not even to take a peek at the seemingly abandoned lands.

  But that was a testament to the power of their faction. The mere possibility of reprisal was enough to keep any and all factions away from such dangerous thoughts. And those that could take the brunt of retaliation had little to no interest in what may lie within the territory of a faction that followed a path differing from their own.

  Contemplating the current situation of his forces and his family as a whole, a small smile began to creep at the edges of his mouth. Looking to the sky, he spoke softly.

  “I’m sorry, I really am, but the guilt is drowned out by the happiness. Can you see your cousins? They show such promise. Specially Anna. She is just like you, free.”

  As the old man kept talking to the sky, both sorrow and happiness fighting to find permanent purchase on his face, some attendants stopped to look. To be so close to him, most of those present were of a certain rank and knew not to disturb or try to glimpse at what he was saying. But some, newly promoted or otherwise unaccustomed to the new situation, weren’t so wise.

  A defiant young man tried to strain his ears, to grasp even a fragment of the words that were being said. Almost immediately as he tried to heighten his senses, his hearing was cut. Panic was quick to set in, but before he could react to said panic, the light left his eyes.

  A moment later, two figures walked away carrying a corpse.

  Another attendant tried to read lips, only for her sight to disappear, and moments later, two more people were seen carrying another corpse.

  None of the attendants reacted, their actions were a crime and death was their punishment.

  Suddenly, the old man’s expression shifted into one of curiosity. Turning his gaze downward, he once more looked into the puddle of water that was still in front of him. His eyes began to see far beyond, a distant scene played before him. “The tower?” or better yet, a scene tried to play before him.

  He could feel that he wasn’t the only one that was attempting to glimpse into this distant reality. Furrowing his brow, he rapidly recognized what was happening. “Is it that young man again?” he asked himself, picturing a pre-evolution Eric in his mind.

  Back on Earth, whenever he tried to peer into Anna’s whereabouts, they would sometimes be obscured by another presence. Fueled by curiosity, he actually went and met Eric while wearing the guise of another. It was why he was so quick to notice the familiarity that he felt.

  As he mused at the obscured scene before him, still staring deep into the puddle, his senses picked something up. “A demon…? One of them was still hidden outside their universe?” he asked himself, a smile appearing on his face. “Interesting.”

  While not exactly watching, he felt the movement of fate and the heavens, trying to understand what was happening where his sight could not reach. He felt old strands of fate that had long since been severed, stir in an attempt to reconnect with something long lost.

  “Why do these feel familiar,” he asked himself.

  A part of him recognized what these strands were and prepared, his bloodlust rising. But he forced himself to calm, he could not act with so much missing information, especially since he didn’t know exactly why he was reacting that way. These threads were old, so old that the memory was distant and hard to reach.

  Just as he decided not to interfere, he became aware of a gathering of power that shot from far away and was directed toward the place that was obscured. Massaging his chin, the old man contemplated his options.

  “The demon will be fine. He even seems familiar?” His mind was already making connections. “But the little human is another matter. Hmm… a debt is a debt, and he must repay it. I will consider it an investment.” With that, he simply swung his index finger upwards, considering future rewards.

  That simple finger swing reached far, further than he thought it would. He frowned slightly, noticing the energy he expended, but quickly dismissed it as his enormous pool of energy quickly filled again.

  Far above the labyrinth, a collection of various energies was making its way toward it. It was a mess of discordant energies that held little to no synergy, yet something kept it together—a common purpose.

  Trailing behind it, like a bloodhound, a single slice trailed behind it, growing ever closer.

  When the two energies collided, the concentration of various energies was more than cut, its very existence disappearing from reality itself. But the power that was slicing through space and time still had some power remaining and it struck the labyrinth, splitting it in two.

  “My bad,” the old man said playfully, his sight retreating.

  Beside him appeared a man wearing a neat gray robe and a sword on his waist.

  “Why did you stop the attack, father? You might have created more animosity with your interference,” the gray robed man said, his face bearing no expression, it was completely blank.

  The old man shrugged. “Did you recognize that demonic energy? I felt a certain familiarity from them.”

  The gray robed man, blinked in disbelief. “You could actually feel something from that void of nothingness?”

  “Why else would I ask?”

  The man nodded. “Of course. But sadly, no, I did not even feel it as clearly as you did. I felt demonic energy but nothing discernable.”

  The old man lifted an eyebrow and only nodded.

  “Old man. You are really losing it.” the gray robed said, grabbing his father by the shoulders. “You would have recognized them easily if you were who you once were. You need to remember who you were and step up once more.”

  “Interesting,” the old man said, taking his son’s words to heart, but not too much as he knew his son’s true nature. Shifting his gaze toward a regular window in front of him, not a System one, but one that everyone could see, his mind began to settle.

  Kazehwa Clan

  Restoration Report

  Army 54%

  Attendants 70%

  Servants 84%

  Family 98%

  Infrastructure 77%

  Merchant links 93%

  Peeking at the window, the gray robed man lifted an eyebrow. “Hmm, looks like that brat Yuna is finally here. She was the only one missing,” he said with an empty smile.

  The old man’s gaze lingered on the 98% beside “Family.” It was the one category that would never again reach 100%. Pain began to build up inside him, the image of a familiar smile invading his mind.

  Taking a deep breath and with a mild grunt, the old man stood. He had no difficulty standing or even mild pain, but years of acting like an old man really took a toll on how he behaved. “Let’s go see what she’s been up to.”