Five challengers had come and died at Eik’s hands. It was almost too easy. He couldn’t even get into that ferocious headspace he so often relied on for situations like this.

  There was no challenge. No life-threatening danger. No suppressed fear. Nothing that would normally get him fired up. It was simply pure monotony. And being in the calm and relaxed state of mind that he was, he could really appreciate the degree to which he’d changed as a person.

  Waiting for people to show up so he could kill them was… barbaric and insane. He liked to think of himself as different from someone like Atla, whose regard for the sanctity of life seemed to be more or less non-existent, but… The more he thought about it the more difficult it became to deny it.

  And it hadn’t even taken that long either. Sure, he had definitely killed more people than many of the other Awakened from Earth who essentially exclusively killed monsters, and Profound Toxin most certainly had an effect on his mind — profoundly so — but still… Yet, there was a definitive indifference mixed in with the concern he felt over the matter.

  A sixth individual appeared at the edge of the monolith, this time from the reverse side behind Eik’s two decoys. Her body and face were covered in fur. Truth be told he only assumed that she was female based on the shape of her body, but who the hell really knew.

  She wielded something that looked a lot like one of those atlatls used to throw spear at great speed. It wasn’t quite the same but Eik didn’t know the weapon well enough to point out what separated them.

  She appeared to already be aware of the Gohkamorian and Eik’s living armor. Likely due to some kind of sensory skill, but her eyes never once even so much as flickered to where he still sat perched on the branch. Kneeling quietly in the shadow of a thick-trunked tree, she placed a thin projectile in a narrow grove in the atlatl where it fit perfectly. She had already coated it in some kind of substance and now willed a vibrating edge of energy into existence around the tip. Damned ranged attackers.

  Eyes boring into the back of the Gohkamorian corpse, she lifted her arm and Eik could almost hear her joints pop as her muscles tensed. Without uttering a single sound, she brought her arm down in a sharp arch, but halfway down, her eyes suddenly homed in on Eik himself. In a smooth redirection, the atlatl, which was on the edge of releasing its payload, swept about in a near perfect horizontal line and sent the projectile flying right at Eik at extreme speed.

  Shit. How careless could he have been.

  Only by the skin of his teeth did he avoid having his face turned into a bloody mess by kicking off the trunk of the tree his was sitting in. The spear tore a chunk of his ear off but otherwise missed him. If he hadn’t been looking at her when she shifted her attack, he would have been dead right now.

  Crashing to the grass below, he rolled and sought cover in the bushes. Another spear almost buried itself in his shoulder but he was ready for it this time. Judging by the power of her throws, she was already under the effect of at least a Potion of Mighty Strength class 2.

  Taking a potion of his own, he dashed out of the bushes to get at her, batting another spear away with the wakizashi, the blade ringing in his hand from the impact. He’d just gotten over the worst of the aftermath of the several times he had activated Backflow recently. Three of the remaining five red healing potions had been expended, leaving him with only two.

  With a smooth, conical shield, which deflected two of her projectiles out to the side, held up in front of his body as he charged, Eik leapt for the atlatl wielder only for her to retreat all the while keeping up her barrage of short spears. He gave chase anew but she kept hopping back.

  Gritting his teeth in annoyance, Eik watched her for the next time she leapt back. The next time she did, a relatively controlled Backflow crashed through his system empowering him to twice the movement speed.

  She yelped as he practically teleported to appear right in front of her face, his eyes intense. His irises shone such a bright and vibrant blue that she almost lost herself in them. What frightening speed. This man was dangero—

  A wet gurgle was all that came out of her mouth along with the blood as he slit her throat in a single, lightning-quick movement. On reflex, she brought up a knife from a sheath on her belt but he slapped it away with ease.

  She tried to retreat again but her legs failed her and she stumbled backward to the ground. Words refused to leave her lips. The man appeared above her, those otherworldly eyes practically drilling holes in hers. She was dying.

  “Sorry about this,” he muttered as he lifted his blade. Then everything became nothing.

  ***

  Two more victims later and Eik hadn’t been forced to trigger Backflow again since the girl with the atlatl. He had managed to force the trait to fade almost as soon as she had died but it had still done a number on his body. Another red potion had been consumed to mend the ruined skin and slight muscle pain, just to be on the safe side. That left one.

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  Actually, that was a lie. With all the people he had killed, he had gathered enough additional potions to have a stash of more than ten, even now.

  He was sitting on his perch in the tree when a thunderous sound rang across the entire forest, coming from all four cardinal directions. The source seemed to be somewhere on the horizon, further than he could see from here.

  “This is an announcement for all surviving challengers in the first stage of the Championships.

  The moment this announcement comes to an end, we will commence the countdown of the final five minutes of the event. Please make sure you get your life stones tallied before the five minutes are up.

  Head to the peak of any of the monoliths to turn in your life stones.

  It is still allowed to collect more life stones within the final five minutes.

  We wish every single challengers good luck in surviving until the end.

  The countdown of the final five minutes commences… Now!”

  Eik shot from the tree and landed in front of the platform of glass. Upending the rucksack of holding, he summoned all life stones in his possession from its depths. They poured out, clinking noisily against the surface of the platform, but the moment they came to a rest, they melted into the glass like cotton candy in water.

  With a sound like a fork on a chalkboard, letters began to etch themselves into the glass platform one by one in much the same way as his wooden plaque.

  Name of Challenger: Eik Magnasen

  World of affiliation: Earth

  Total number of accumulated life stones of Challenger Eik Magnasen from Earth: 53

  Was that good? Considering how many his victims had been carrying, it was likely in the high end. At least top ten, probably? How many challengers were there even? Maybe top one hundred? Whatever. There wasn’t much to be done about it in any case.

  A series of explosions ran out somewhere around the foot of his monolith. Were people fighting to get to the peak to register their haul? That wouldn’t do. What if they had more stones than him?

  He shivered as Backflow flushed his system once again. The pain had most definitely diminished with the assimilation of Resistance: Toxin into Profound Toxin and its additional levels. With Backflow he didn’t need the extra chunks of poison, but the Potion of Mighty Strength class 2 still went down. A frightening amount of power surged through him.

  Yanking the Gohkamorian’s enormous blade out of the ground, Eik raised it high above his head in a two-handed grip like a kendo master. With a grunt of exertion he brought it down on the glassy surface. A spider web crack forked out from the impact point.

  He repeated the motion with a roar, the cracks spreading further. It wasn’t enough. Again and again he brought the blade down with all the strength he could muster. More strength than any D-ranker had the right to possess.

  When finally it had been shattered to a degree he hoped rendered it unable to process any more life stones, he started to run toward the precipice, gait awkward as he attempted to stuff the huge sword into the rucksack of holding on his back at the same time. As he neared the edge, someone made it to the top, face and shoulder covered in blood that still ran freely and wetly down their body.

  For a moment, the person froze to stare at him, fingers caressing something that looked like a foldable staff strapped to the their waist. Eik threw his head toward the center of the bluff in a gesture of permission. The light still streamed from the glass like vapor although it was beginning to diminish.

  With a silent nod, the other challenger whirled ahead under a movement skill, appearing at the foot of the shattered platform just as Eik leapt from the peak, extra wide wings of crystalline toxin carrying him gently through the air.

  It took a few seconds, during which he listened attentively, before a pitched howl of rage echoed across the entire forest from behind him. A shit-eating grin cracked his face.

  Explosions, energy blasts, and gouts of flame erupted from the tree cover as survivors all over the forest fought desperately to make it to a peak before time was up.

  Man, it was nice up here. Fresh air, wind through his hair, great view, and far away from the peasantry below. Was the second D-rank challenger from Earth down there or had she already died? She had been pretty skilled but Eik just wasn’t sure she was truly a match for the Awakened here.

  He immediately recognized the frigid indifference he felt toward her ultimate fate. No, “indifference” wasn’t quite the correct term to describe what he was feeling. There was an unmistakable hope for her survival even if she didn’t qualify, but at the same time, if she died trying to prove herself and help the people of Earth… Well, that was simply the reality of the world they lived in.

  It was a mental distance borne of unfamiliarity. Had it been any of his teammates, Olivia, Robert, or even someone like Olivia’s old teammate Harry, Eik would have been down there looking for them.

  He almost went into a nose dive by accident as he reached back into his rucksack of holding to pull out a bun filled to bursting with custard cream, whipped cream, and delectable, runny chocolate sauce.

  Fuck yeah, this rocked. Thank the Unified Mass for hearty and climate-adaptable cocoa plants that grew three times faster than they had on old Earth.

  He was about eighty meters above the ground when he passed over a wide and open clearing, a bubbling stream bisecting it into two almost perfect semicircles. The otherwise lush, windswept grass and flowers in countless colors were scorched black and smoking by the attacks of the three challengers fighting there.

  With only a short run to another bluff where life stones could be tallied, this could well be the last obstacle any of them would have to overcome before being able to climb up and hopefully secure themselves a pass of this first stage. Two of them appeared to be allies with near identical stylistically designed attire, the unrelenting onslaught of their combined might quickly whittling down the rather impressive defenses of the third individual.

  Just before losing sight of the battle, Eik saw one of the two comrades unleash a small but swift bolt of fire that curved radically to catch the losing challenger in the side.

  That would probably have been the fatal strike if a fracture hadn’t opened right behind the dying man.

  Seven people dressed in long, gray robes with deep hoods emerged in quick succession from the portal, the first of them slitting the losing challenger’s throat from behind with a quick slash. With an extreme number advantage, they also made quick work of the remaining two challengers.

  Eik only got a glimpse of their robes before losing sight of them behind the trees.

  On their backs and along the long hood a symbol was stitched with neat precision. It was a symbol he would never forget.

  A sun contained within the arch of a crescent moon. The cult Moon Shall Swallow.

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