The next day Kyrion stood with his team in front of a gateway.

“Due to the inherent powers displayed previously, and tradition, today's matches will take place on one of our lost continents. Due to this being the case, the wards that automatically trigger have been altered to adjust to abilities that trigger the safety as well as removed the restrictions on people with a power that lets them return to battle from a near death state.”

“Ugh. I don’t like this.” Cecil stated.

“I don’t think the next two matches will be as easy as I want.” Hel sighed.

“Is that so?” Kyrion adjusted his fox mask and smiled wickedly. His red hair freely flowing behind him with a gemlike luster. His eyes sparked with mischief and anticipation. He’d get to fight like himself.

“Due to this, there is a chance that the battlefields will overlap. While you won’t get bonus points for interfering in the matches of future opponents. You also won’t be penalized as the finals will begin right after. Thats right, there will be no break between the semi finals and final round. Removed members will receive the best healing and have a day to return should the tournament go past the expected limits.”

“Oh. Oh no. Kyr. I need my mech.” Cecil looked to Kyrion.

Kyrion smirked and snapped his fingers as Calablog just popped into existence.

“What is that!”

“My magnum opus! WIth this, war will change on this world forever.” Cecil stated as he adjusted his robotic hand and opened up the cockpit. From there he climbed into the machine and it activated.

The experts stayed quiet as many of the rankers recognized the war machines of Ilu. Only on a much larger scale. Based on their knowledge, Cecil was skipping quite a few levels in the world's natural developmental cycle.

“Care to explain?”

“Now without further ado, this match will be last team standing with an announcement being made when it’s time to move to the finals! Ready? Begin!”

Immediately every team was teleported to a flat desert plain quite a good distance away.

Hel scowled. “This changes quite a bit. We need to set up a base camp.”

“We’re in a field of time dilation here 12 to 1. It appears this may be a survival game. No nearby food and no nearby water sources or plants and other fauna.”

“Swords and idiots,” Hel swore, well as close to swearing as someone of her upbringing could.

“You swear like an old lady,” Bastion said from right next to Hel. His height had decreased and he appeared more baby-faced than he had prior.

“Bastion? Why are you here? I was certain that you were left behind.”

“It was quite funny. I was sitting with mr… the umm… big teacher.” Bastion held his head in confusion.

“There are nine of us.”

“Does Bastion add anything to the team as he is?”

“No. He was hardly a combatantant before. I intended for him to sit these last fights out.”

“What can you do about our food stores?” Cecil asked from his mech.

“If I starve myself, two months. If not one month. At least that's as much as I can spare in this situation.”

“Really?”

“I’m being stingy. I’m talking about real food, not snacks and nothing going to my monsters.”

“Is that so? Would you be able to grow anything in this environment?”

“Yeah. Though if I want to avoid trouble then I’ll need to spend two days of focused labor. If I want the food to grow properly here the land needs to begin the process of reviving.”

Kyrion then began the process of carving runes into land to set up a conversion spell. With a sacrifice of blood and mana, the land for at least a few miles wide would become fertile for the next few years.

Within an hour, the spell was done. Quite a bit of land was excavated and converted into bricks then filled with an absurd amount of water. From there he turned the earth into a fortress of metal and stone.

After leaving his building state he looked about. “Food is settled.”

“Super cool,” Bastion said in a half-lidded monotone.

The others had gone on a scouting mission which led to Kyrion and Hel sharing babysitting duties. As Hel tended to scare Bastion, he decided to follow his savior about and watch. Based on how the area looked at the start of the day. The current fortress looked like an oasis in a drought-ridden desert.

“Hmmm… Not enthusiastic enough.” Kyrion sighed.

“It needs more colors. Just blue, green, and brown.”

“The fruit trees will be grown by tomorrow morning. By slowing their growth I can cause them to grow thicker and stronger.”

“Oh.”

“Do you want to help paint the walls?”

Bastion shot up. “Paint?”

“Yeah, we can do this two ways. The suspended cord way or the flying way.”

“I can’t fly.”

A man with white wings walked out of Kyrion’s domain. His expression concerned a silver sword and shield, drawn for combat.

“Why have I been summoned?”

“Michale, I need you to help my apprentice paint the wall. It is an important duty as I intend to make this place a foothold in the future.”

“I see. Aren’t you aware of the civil wars?”

“Tower residents and island residents are fighting everyone. Right?”

“Correct.”

“Ugh. When you go back, inform the islanders that if they don’t settle down, I’ll drop their city on top of another city upside down. I’ll be going to war sooner rather than later.”

The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.

“Is that true?”

“If they become my enemy then using one to destroy another is an eco friendly maneuver. I don’t need two wars.”

“Will you follow through on such a threat?”

“Eventually. If I must. I saw what happens if I truely die. Those in my domain will just cease to be. So weakening my soldiers in my domain weakens me and threatens everyone. I could drop them in an ocean upside down instead after stealing the levitation enchantments.”

“Got it. I’ll be sure to inform the opposing faction that failing to cease their attacks will lead to a mass extinction event.”

Bastion blinked slowly. “So how will I do the painting?”

Kyrion withdrew a child-sized bulky gun-shaped device. “This shoots bubbles that cover the area shot with a layer of paint. Excess paint spreads instead of stacks; this is what we used to paint mechs.”

“Could have sworn this was bigger.” Kyrion eyed the altered device and shook his head.

Bastion was then carried into the air and directed towards a set of walls.

After six hours passed from the start of the match, the sun began to set, which was interesting as they hadn’t been in the area all that long.

“Odd. Wait time zones exist. But sheesh. For it to be getting late this early.”

Cecil returned to his mech and immediately exited his form covered head to toe in sweat as the machine turned off.

“Whats wrong?” Kyrion asked.

“Poor ventilation and overheating.” Cecil took a deep breath and looked around,

“Was that something you left out or something I left out?”

“I made it like one would make a spaceship, but I didn’t prepare enough backup oxygen or air filters for land battles. Moving around 10% max speed in this desert also causes too much friction in the environment which leads to even more overheating. Aside from that, its best use is in ten to thirty minute intervals.”

“That's strange. We flew it here from the academy just fine. Though it didn’t take six hours.”

“It flew?” Cecil slowly blinked.

“Ah right. The new gravity stabilizers, you should have noticed them, it’s the red wheel that can be used to adjust the mech’s weight. It uses quite a bit of power but it also reduces some strain. Though a ventilation adjustment may be necessary for fights in a high temperature environment.”

“Kyr… You should inform me of what your changes do properly. Your designs aren’t exactly as intuitive to others as they are to you.”

“Fi–.”

“Monsters from the south! Headed your way!” Brion informed them through a communication flower.

“Got it. Get back to the base as soon as you can.”

“Monsters from the north as well!’ Minah said through her flower only to arrive a few minutes later with a somewhat dumbstruck look based on her body language.

“Hmmm? Right, guess you weren't aware that I built most of the more recent dorms on my own. I also created the building you had to defend in our bout. That's the measure of power that I'm working with.”

Minah seemed to respond slowly as she turned to Cecil.

“Thats one of the few ways you can train your mana pool isn’t it. Macro scale magic, I mean.”

“Yes. This pushes my limit without using blood to speed things up.”

“Gotch. I don’t remember you buying that robe by the way.” Cecil looked at the all-white ensemble.

“Don’t worry about it.” Kyrion scratched his chin as his eyes landed on a section of earth and split it a good distance causing the ground to shake a bit. From there it was filled with water to form a deceptively deep moat. The moat was then extended around the area as earth was moved out of the way and the entire area was given a watery defense.

“Are you going to build some walls as well?” Cecil asked.

“Gonna put your canned nuns on the fort.” Kyrion pointed to the fortresses' towers that had large areas for siege protecting weapons.

“Cannons exist.”

Minah scowled. “Why do you have nuns in a can?”

Cecil realized Kyrion did that on purpose. “Fine. Set them up, I’ll be in my mech.”

“Great.” Kyrion flew to the tops of the six defensive towers and arrayed Cecil's mana cannons before summoning a team of 36 hat gremlins to inform them of their orders.

“Fire at the monsters as well as any enemy humans. You know the faces of everyone on my team.”

“Rodger, boss!” The gremlins saluted before getting to work.

“Alright.” Kyrion found Bastion shooting everything in sight with his bubble gun. The walls of the fort were covered in an array of messy wild colors, and the apparent child had a wild look in his eye.

“Time to go inside. Why don’t you decorate the walls?” Kyrion had yet to add furniture as that would come later when his team was ready for bed.

“What shall I do?” Michale asked.

“You are a powerful summon. I can’t waste you on anything that could end with your death. So make sure Bastion doesn’t get hurt.”

Michale rolled his eyes and continued his babysitting duties.

Hel arrived moments later with an exhausted look on her face as she looked around. “I’m having trouble summoning my big insects. What’s going on?”

“We’re in a dead area. Start with bees. By morning they should provide enough of a mana return for your bigger creatures.”

“I see. Thanks captain.” Hel went back to her area in the fort and continued focusing on her summoning.

Tiffany spoke into her flower. “I have found the Norn team in my scouting. Shall I make contact or leave th–.”

The call was interrupted as a clash could be heard and a fight seemed to begin.

“Chiyo has been engaged. Send reinforcements to deescalate west. Fighting them serves no purpose for us now” Tiffany said in a hurried huff.

Brion called again on his device. “Bella and I are retreating but we’ll need some backup. Some of these monsters appear to be peak practitioners and early experts.”

“Cecil. So… B & B or C.T.?”

“I can handle expert tier monsters. You should be able to handle your friends.”

“But I need to help you figure out how to lighten your machine.”

“You can’t leave those two for dead.”

“Ugh…Lets leave Rie here, Centi will go with you, and I will go and be mysterious with my old friends.”

“I’ll go with.” Minah stated.

“No. You will make sure Hel stays safe. While I trust Rie enough to protect this place, I don’t know if he’s skilled enough to defend a full fledged assault alone. This is an important job.”

“Why do I get the feeling you just don’t want to deal with me?”

“Because you're partially right. You’re poker face is nonexistent.”

“I’m not poking anyone's face. Speak plainly.”

Kyrion knew poker existed in a few casinos on the continent. Some of which he’d been to with his teacher but that was probably not a phrase she understood.

“There will be a lot of lying through my teeth among misinformation. I want to keep my identity quiet while dealing with my sister and my old friends.”

“You have a sister?”

Kyrion slowly closed his left eye as someone in his head accidentally flipped the wrong mental lever.

“Pretend that it was a face palm.” Ra said from the area behind his eyes.

“Ok. I will assume that you're really good at being deceptive. You are a princess afterall. Just not my princess.” Kyrion rolled one eye as he’d still not regained control of the opposite one.

In moments a red-haired figure with a more muscular form than the one Kyrion preferred appeared a glowing greatsword on his back with a mask and matching white costume save for his mask.

“Myriad forms, phase 1. Defend the settlement. Rie.”

Rie bowed before taking to the top of the fortress in a few jumps.

“Voice of the land, create a brother in arms that is a match of my strength and will. May we share in all and work together to keep this land safe.” Shaggy Kyr appeared and then seemingly immediately teleported away as he had something else he needed to do. They shared memories more directly so Kyrion’s plans and his plans usually aligned.

“Song of the ancients lend me your power.” Kyrion chanted as a third copy appeared; only this one appeared mostly androgynous their white hair tied back in braids and their skin much paler than any other form of Kyrion’s shards.

“Ari, ride along with Cecil, help him manage the mech's weight.”

Ari’s eyes intensified as various hatches opened up around the core and blue starlike particles shot out of the mech and the temperature dropped exponentially. The particles then changed to a deep purple as various runic scripts lit up from inside the mech emitting a purple light as the mech lost weight.

“I didn’t put that function on my mech. What did you do to the engine?”

“Cryosynthesis. The mech uses the condensed heat and converts it into mana which in turn causes the mech to cool down and opens up the fans and AC vents. It also decreases speed and energy output by 5% while active. It's only useful for long missions.”

“I didn’t add this feature.” Kyrion squinted.

“I added the rune script to the engines we developed directly. Though I did not add an activation trigger to this mech.” Arion said bluntly.

“I think I get what you mean Cecil. Hidden functions are annoying.”

“Well, Arion, help me out then.” Cecil climbed into his mech and began to press buttons before adding a runic switch that showed the mech’s internal temperature and linked to the new Cryosynthesis runes and scowled. “This is just liquid cooling, using mana instead of coolant. Well now I can shut it off in emergency situations or when I need a fully charged attack.”

“You catch on quick. Though you did study under Gram for a while. So that's understandable.”

“Just shut up and tell me how to best fly this thing forward.”

“That's an oxymoron.”

“I need to be a bit moronic, otherwise I have no reason to be flying a weapon like this so recklessly.” Cecil flipped some switches activating the wings and beginning the process of building power for a leap.

“You’ve been corrupted. If only I’d integrated sooner.” Ari said in a monotone.