To his right, the wall was barely holding on with massive gaping holes filled only with clouds of dust. Across the ground everywhere was gravel and to his left, the wall seemed largely undamaged. Despite the state of the compound, Felix immediately noticed at least one major difference between Edras’ compound and The Archon’s.

Architecturally, the Archon’s compound was wide and open with squared off walls and deliberate rooms. This compound looked more like it was probably dug out by a burrowing animal with tighter, rounded corridors that curved and wound their way through the cliffs.

Running forwards, Felix felt like he was having deja-vu as the cave system heavily reminded of the mole-ant’s hive from the tutorial. Coming up to the first branch in the tunnel that seemed natural rather than created by Peace’s Arrow and the subsequent destruction, Felix found the tunnel forked at a shallow angle almost like water erosion or roots had carved them.

He didn’t have long to think about it though as running down one branching tunnel, Felix spotted the first people he had seen in the compound since arriving.

[C - Legendary] Gelrimor (Lvl 1312)

[C - Epic] Korjenur (Lvl 1246)

The two were in the process of digging their way through the rubble and into some area that had been cut off deeper in the compound. As soon as they saw each-other, both of the participants tearing through the rubble stopped what they were doing and ran.

Felix was caught off guard for all of a few moments as he had been completely expecting them to fight him. Instead, they immediately split up down two different halls and ran as fast as they could.

Felix knew, even as Arthur, he wasn’t that scary and he didn’t feel or recognize overwhelming fear or any fear at all really from either of them. No, they ran because it was logical. They were trying to find someone to report to, to group up with or just to live.

Felix followed behind the higher level and rarity Gelrimor but simultaneously spawned a shade down the other tunnel as he tossed out a couple of Seeing Eye constructs. The constructs flew along and followed the shade as he ran in as straight of a line as he could manage.

The paths the tunnels took weren’t even close to synchronized so Felix had to adjust. As he ran to keep the shade moving, he simply moved his own body with his matter control to adjust to his own tunnel. The shade couldn’t replicate that and only matched his body’s movements.

Leaping forwards, Felix simultaneously jumped on Gelrimor while his shade jumped on Korjenur in the other hall, separated by a few hundred meters of stone between them.

Felix swung down with Eretheas as he fell, using a spell to pull Gelrimor towards him. Gelrimor was prepared for that though as a metal rod that ran along his forearm intercepted the strike.

As Arthur, Felix was still absurdly strong for his level, in large part because of his ability to use mana to buff his body in addition to everything else. Felix still hadn’t had time to figure out the mana channels in his own body simply because there was something weird happening there. His cells, for whatever reason, were unlike any other cells he had found and whatever was happening was too complex for him to solve quickly.

In the meantime, he had Arthur’s absurd strength if he ever really needed it.

Kicking Gelrimor in the chest, Felix threw two constructs behind him as he swapped with his shade then spun and grabbed hold of Korjenur’s breastplate at the back of his neck as he tried to run. Pulling back and swinging at the same time, Felix tried to decapitate him but only managed to cut an inch or so into his arm through the plate bracers as he raised his arm to block the strike.

Felix yanked back solely to control his shade and was punished for it as Korjenur drove a blade into his side. The blood spilling from the wound created a small plate protecting him as his opponent jumped back and yanked the blade free. Felix summoned two shades nearby and began closing in on Korjenur but immediately had to switch back to Gelrimor’s fight as he had jumped through a hole in the wall and was trying to get away.

Felix threw Eretheas at Gelrimor’s back and managed to surprise him as the axe tore a shallow gash in his shoulder. Gelrimor ignored the wound and kept running but Felix instantly teleported to the axe once there was room and reached for his opponent’s neck.

He grasped and began squeezing but was forced to swap back to the other fight before finishing the job.

Ultimately, he was forced to switch every few moments making it nearly impossible to finish either of them off until finally, Gelrimor sacrificed himself to activate a small enchanted orb.

As Gelrimor’s head fell to the ground and joined the red and gold streams pouring into Felix’s rings, Felix could do nothing but watch as a burst of colored gas and sound exploded in every direction. Gelrimor had timed his activation perfectly for when Felix switched so he couldn’t stop the mana and by the time he switched back, all the mana had already been converted. Felix was confident Gelrimor hadn’t known about his mana control but rather, simply wanted the best chance of it activating.

Using his matter control and a quick shield, Felix managed to effectively stop the colored gas but the sound too fast and already long gone. He heard the shrill chirping echo throughout the caves in every direction and just sighed.

Felix took a whiff of the gas then switched back with one of his shades to finish off Korjenur. Processing it within his body, Felix realized the colored gas wasn’t intended to do harm at all. It was what he had expected, and feared, an alarm mechanism designed to notify people of his presence.

Felix quickly disposed of Korjenur once he was able to fully focus on the battle and activated both rings, happy to see his bounty increasing.

Racing down the hall farther away from the cliff face, Felix began taking every turn that led further away from the cliff and further underground. He was hoping the vault simply lay in the deepest and most isolated part of the compound and all he really had was his sense of direction to guide him.

He didn’t bother with the constructs and had stowed them after the fight because he was simply faster by himself. If he wanted to actually map it they would be useful but instead, he simply smashed through the wall whenever he felt open space on the other side with his matter senses.

Much like Gelrimor and Korjenur, Felix ran into numerous profession focused participants which were annoying to kill but not particularly hard. They mostly wasted a lot of time and ran a lot.

After killing around a dozen of them, he began to notice the patterns and realize which gods and themes were the most prominent. It was a safe assumption that the themes were associated with specific gods as he could draw clear lines from the specific themes to various gods he had read about.

There were the family of the Forge, two of which he had killed to start off the whole bounty thing. There were also a few robed holy men that Felix was fairly certain fell under the domain of Ramoriel, the god of Justice. Though they were likely accountants or something equally useless, they also held combat skills that were annoying to deal with associated with Justice.

All of them had System based skills that hurt Felix as he hurt them. Thankfully it wasn’t too difficult to localize his attacks which made it so his Armor of Blood blunted every subsequent strike after the first. It still forced him to hurt himself and carefully control his attacks which ended up significantly slowing him down. Sometimes the damage was reflected in kind, as sharp physical damage, which was Felix’s favorite. When he fought the ones with Retaliation Skills that seared him or struck him with holy light, those seeped through and the armor and inflicted direct pain.

It was pain he had trouble dulling entirely and seemed almost like direct damage where The System itself was inflicting damage by simply removing some of his health. Those were rare though and Felix only came across two as he barreled down the various tunnels.

Every second that passed since he had failed to prevent the alarm, more participants appeared from around every corner. None of them were combat specialists but all of them were annoying and slowed him down. The participants in the event were some of the best of their generation which meant even those who focused on their professions, would crush most everyone else their age in combat.

Unfortunately his significant lack of experience, even shored up recently against the Ashound, paled in comparison to those that had grown up within the multiverse.

Felix’s stat’s, especially as Arthur, helped tremendously in bridging the gap but they didn’t stop him from being hurt in every fight and using an increasingly large chunk of his mana just to make it out.

Leaping off the side of the cave, Felix slammed Eretheas downwards and cleaved a druid in two as their vines failed to slow the strike in any meaningful way. Blood exploded in every direction and before Felix could keep running down the tunnel, tendrils rose from the blood of the druid’s corpse and bound his feet. Spinning his head around, a blood shaman had appeared behind him.

Felix consumed a hundred and fifty thousand mana to close the gap and get out of the root at once by summoning a shade and instantly switching with it.

A shield of blood, similar to his armor but gooier appeared and slowed Eretheas enough for the shaman to start casting some kind of large area of effect spell. The globule that had slowed Eretheas held on tight and began seeping up around Felix’s arms as well, completely preventing Felix from attacking physically. As the blood arranged itself for the spell though, Felix activated his Devouring Aura for just an instant causing the shaman to flinch and the spell to be interrupted.

Swapping once again to get out of the sticky globule holding him, Felix appeared directly behind the blood shaman where he grabbed hold of his neck and squeezed as hard and as fast as he could. The shaman’s magic made the blood in their neck literally fight his grip, which was disgusting in it’s own right, but mostly just annoying.

Fucking hell this is so annoying. Where is this stupid vault?

Giving up, Felix threw the man into his own globule of blood and cast Crimson Slaughter which completely eviscerated his body. They weren’t dead by some miracle as activating his rings did nothing but Felix didn’t stick around to finish the job. It was a waste of time and the longer he spent here, the more likely the faction would fall back and deal with him.

Smashing through a thin cave wall next to him, Felix found himself inside of what looked like a restaurant or tavern that inexplicably held at least two dozen participants.

You guys are literally at war. Why are you HERE!?

Summoning all four Shades in an instant, Felix swapped with one of them as soon as the inevitable barrage of attacks following his arrival began then he flashed his Devouring Aura to buy himself a few moments.

Now on the other end of the room after swapping with his Shade, Felix smacked himself with a Force Push and leapt at a windowed wall, smashing directly through it and running off to the left. He was choosing directions entirely at random at this point and he knew he had dozens of participants following him.

Kicking off the left wall and down another tunnel, Felix glanced back and immediately ducked below what looked like a saw blade.

Stupid Forge Fuckers.

Running down the hall, Felix tossed a Seeing Eye Construct and summoned a shade in the same direction then kept running. He adjusted himself based on the shade and used spells to accommodate for the tunnel before him as his pursuers began to catch up with him.

A barrage of vines, chains, blood tendrils and divine light exploded on his location right as he swapped places with his shade and continued down its tunnel. His maneuver had gained him at least a kilometer of distance and even more time as he was pretty sure no one had seen him originally summon the shade.

Before he could relish in the freedom though, two daggers pierced his flesh, one in his neck and the other in his side. The one piercing his liver was coated with a blood toxin while the other was covered in a neurotoxin.

Blood flowing from the wounds sealed them over with The Armor of Blood but couldn’t fully form with the knives still stuck in him.

Felix summoned a shade in front of him then spun around and swiped at a small humanoid covered in black clothes but she vanished into the shadow beneath her before he even touched her. He instantly swapped with his shade and put her in sight, Eretheas already swinging towards her body before he even appeared.

Another dagger of hers, a much more impressive looking and less disposable one, appeared in her hand and she used both hands to try and block the axe swing.

As the dainty blade and massive axe met, an explosion of shadow tendrils appeared from the dagger that braced it against the floors and walls. A flash of relief appeared through the slit that revealed her eyes and the shadow worshiper began activating some kind of skill.

Felix flashed his aura and simultaneously ripped all the mana from her body for himself. Her eyes widened in shock just before Felix released a Burst of Force into Eretheas’ blade, overcoming her and her dagger’s combined strength and splitting her in two.

Punching her head and collapsing her skull, Felix activated both rings and stowed all the weapons that had clattered free then continued running down the hall as The Armor of Blood sealed his wounds.

The poisons were slowly being whittled away but they had spread annoyingly far as blood pumped through his body in the heat of combat. While the effect of poisons in general were minimal, if he let them spread, their minimal effect multiplied into something bothersome so he was forced to avoid fights as much as possible for the next minute or so.

That was fine by him though as he only had one goal in mind, find the vault.

Running down every different cave he came across and even mapping the entire compound in his mind, Felix was stuck running essentially in circles. He was forced to loop back and around far more than he would have liked and even smashing through walls where he could, the cave system was the most convoluted winding mess he had ever encountered.

He was smart enough to realize that it was a part of their defenses, making the layout as ridiculous as it was and he had long since realized it had been created by a druid’s roots. Neither of those realizations helped him in the slightest though.

He had also identified the more prominent gods of Edras’ faction, or at least the prominent ones amongst the non combatants. There were The Druids who called themselves younglings, The Forge worshipers who identified themselves through figurative familial connections. There was the Shadow god’s thieves, The Blood god’s ritualists and the Justice god’s administrators. Then there were the randoms that didn’t fall into any particular pattern.

Swapping with a shade and running past a random with two knives, Felix barreled into another wall and finally found a tunnel he hadn’t mapped just yet. As soon as he landed though he was knocked over as the ground beneath him shook so violently, he was actually thrown into the ceiling.

Looking around, everything was shaking and even further in than Peace’s Arrow had reached, the caves collapsed as the walls all began to crumble and shatter.

Felix surrounded himself in layers of Force Shells so he wasn’t buried and looked around but found no source. All he saw as the wall crumbled was that the shaking wasn’t localized at all, it was everywhere.

The tunnels to either side of his merged into a cave as the walls collapsed but the shaking continued and soon his tight tunnel carved by a burrowing root had opened up into a wide cavern. Along with it, the participants searching for him suddenly had a direct path to him.

His only saving grace was that they were as immobile as he was while the ground continued to rattle.

A few seconds passed then the ground beneath him and the ceiling above him simultaneously shattered in an explosion of shrapnel as nearly the entire compound became a single chamber.

Using his Matter Control to fly and spells to protect himself from the tons of rock collapsing onto his head, Felix flew off towards the deepest wall in the cave before the participants now in the same chamber as him, recovered.

Smacking up against it, Felix scanned outwards with his mana senses as he flew along in a grid pattern desperately hoping to find any signs of a spatial enchantment anywhere.

Damnit. Where the FUCK is the vault!?

After scanning just a quarter of the wall, Felix was forced to push himself downwards to avoid a shotgun blast of molten metal then swap with a shade immediately afterwards to get out of a blood cage.

Looking back, there were hundreds of participants in the room with him, half of them were trained on him and the other half were in the process of getting up.

Before any of them could say or do anything though, a massive Way Cry poured in from the battlefield and echoed throughout the cave. As it reverberated through, Felix could feel his chest vibrating but it didn’t have any effect on him. Everyone else in the chamber though, part of the same faction, all began to glow with red smoke creating a protective aura around each of them.

Well… shit.

A particularly cocky looking halfling Justice worshiper smirked, “Die, dickwad.”

Felix already started casting a portal so he could bait them away from here and come back to continue his search later when suddenly a massive chain appeared out of nowhere. It swept across the room from behind the faction and managed to grab dozens of participants as it twisted and contorted itself to reach as many of them as possible.

The halfling who had spoken, one of the lucky ones who didn’t get hit by the initial sweep, spun around in shock as he saw a second Arthur behind him.

Ecstatic for the relief, Felix ignored them all and let Peace deal with distracting them as he continued his sweep of the wall.

He wasn’t entirely subtle about it as he didn’t care much if they realized what he was doing but he was forced to fight back and avoid some attacks before he managed to scan the entire side wall.

Please don’t tell me the vault is vaults, split up all over the place?

World Event: Bastorus One

Announcement

As the world event is nearing its completion, some participants have begun stashing quest objectives within their personal caches ruining the experience for others. In response to this, large collections of treasures within the event will now be revealed to all remaining participants.

Good luck on your hunts and may you all draw much blood!

Did… What? Did The System just wish us all… ‘to draw much blood’? What the fuck is going on here?

Checking his map, sure enough, Felix immediately spotted the vault he had been desperately searching for. It wasn’t anywhere logical like in the center or the deepest section, rather-sticking with the theme of confusion-it was at the end of some random off shoot tunnel that hadn’t collapsed yet. Luckily, it was just a few hundred meters off of the newly created main chamber he was in now.

Having seen the screen themselves, everyone in the room was immediately aware of what was happening and so as soon as Felix turned towards it, the faction redoubled their focus on stopping him in his tracks.

With just a few participants still focused on Peace, Felix wasn’t left with any room to breathe and was instead forced to constantly summon and switch with shades, defend himself with barriers and take hits. His health plummeted just as fast as his mana pool and he was making no progress towards the vault because it would have been far too predictable for him to move in that direction.

He dodged an explosion of blood spikes by swapping with a shade only to be forced to immediately push himself out of a beam of light with an instinct cast. His left arm was shriveled and burnt from the light, even through the Armor of Blood that had accumulated there.

The arm immediately started healing itself but it wasn’t nearly fast enough to match the pace of incoming attacks as Felix used the wall to pull himself away from a stream of molten chains. He jumped through a cloud of razor leaves but his ankle was grabbed by a vine that had been hidden within so Felix summoned and swapped with a shade directly above him.

Each and every time he was forced to swap, he watched helplessly as his mana plummeted and for the first time in a long while, Felix feared he might actually run out of mana.

Before that ever became a real possibility though, Felix prepared his escape as it became painfully obvious it was impossible for him to make any more progress towards his goal at the moment.

Suddenly, a burst of bestial bloodlust filled the room like an oppressive aura. Felix’s soul, especially with his newest protective layer, was barely affected but every other participant in the room was stunned. The bloodlust was thick and palpable, moving as a physical wave through the room and even knocking some of the participants down. It wasn’t anything human either, Felix was certain when it hit him that the aura originated from a savage beast.

There was no doubt in Felix’s mind as to the origin of the aura and no time for him to thank Peace lest he waste the opportunity. The sudden burst only stunned the people in the room for a moment and so Felix redirected the portal he had been preparing and reappeared a few meters into the tunnel leading towards the vault.

Using his shades and swapping with them to move as quickly as possible, Felix made it to the edge of the vault in under a second. Seeing the vault before him, Felix wasn’t sure that without his map suddenly revealing it to him, he would have found it at all.

The tunnel leading towards it was completely nondescript and looked like every other winding tunnel in the compound, at least before it had completely collapsed. Now that he stood in front of it, he could feel the deeply structured mana within the wall but he would have had to be very close to it and looking for it in order to find it himself.

He knew his train of thought was just him stalling so he took a breath, pushed mana into the pendant Adaline had given them, then stepped forwards.

Some part of him had expected his foot to hit the wall but it simply passed through. Another part of him expected to never make it out of the wall but his foot leading the way broke through exactly as fast as he had expected it to. Another part of him expected to be horribly maimed or disfigured which made him eternally grateful he was doing this in his Persona body instead of his real one but as his head passed through, nothing happened.

He was completely intact and exactly the size he had expected to be with all his parts exactly where they belonged. All he had to do was make sure he didn’t fall through the wall by making sure he stepped all the way through to the other side, as Adaline had directed and even with that, it was as easy as stepping over a puddle.

Looking around, Felix released the breath he had been holding and immediately started looting.

The vault was exactly as he had hoped, a spatially expanded room with carded out shelves and various containers holding everything from naturally occurring ores, gems and plants to constructs, scrolls, and most importantly, quest items.

Somewhat indiscriminately but not quite, Felix ran through the vault and looted everything starting with the quest items. Those were the most important to him and the entire reason he was here. He looted everything he saw that remotely interested him but the Imitation Cores, he specifically kept an eye out for. Ultimately he prioritized what he was looting because his inventory space was limited and he was pretty sure he couldn’t grab everything.

He already knew opening a portal was out of the question for moving things because moving across spatial boundaries was dangerous but those weren’t all the portals he had access to. Once his inventory reached the halfway point and he moved on to metals and ores, Felix slapped his Pocket Home marble against a wall and began throwing everything in sight through.

He wasn’t even certain if his Pocket Home was big enough to contain everything safely but he didn’t care about preserving the plants. He had no use for plants or the other various fragile items and no time to worry about them so instead, everything was thrown onto a pile to sort through later on.

About three quarters of the way through the room, Felix felt a surge of mana from the direction he had entered the vault and so, he quickly hopped through the wall on the opposite side-through a few meters of stone-into a different cave. He already had a portal prepared so he instantly cast it, entered and vanished.

By the time they made it inside, he was already gone.

----------------------------------------

“A little jig here, a little ditty there and… HA! Bet you never expected to look at him like that. I saw that look!”

Giggling to herself as she floored it, Melody was gone a moment later, not that they would have heard her anyways with the cacophony of the battle being waged below. She had other fights to disrupt and she had been playing around with the warrior and druid pair long enough.

Flying by, Melody observed the battlefield below her to carefully pick her next target. There was no line drawn in the sand with sides controlled by each faction, other than the line The System had created by shearing the land so oddly. With the elites of the multiverse, even the children, they were far too mobile and fast, their skills too devastating for that. Instead the battle immediately degraded into a series of individual fights where people helped each-other where possible to beat common enemies and free resources.

A druid follower from Edras’ faction fought with a dual sword wielder from the Archon’s faction. The swords moved in a whirlwind to carve a path through the vines, both of them pushing themselves to their limits to overcome the other. Then suddenly, a bolt of fire streaked out from the mountains and incinerated the forest around the two of them.

They were both hit and partially burnt but with no vegetation remaining, the outcome was obvious.

Melody ignored that battle and moved on once the druid drew on the entirety of her life force to try and take dual swords out with her.

“Idiots. This battle isn’t worth it… Just because you’ll live on in an afterlife…” Sighing Melody crossed off another square on her bingo card then darted off to watch a new fight.

The nature of the various disparate fights, and the inclusion of the druids on the battlefield, had quickly turned the landscape into a patchwork mess of fiery destruction, verdant overgrowth, metal jungles, blood splatter and dirt. Definitely not anything worth looking at, nothing like the beautiful sunset that had just turned purple over the desert dunes in the distance.

Focus.

Looking around, Melody shifted some focuses and tuned some emotions but didn’t really involve herself in anything just yet. She was well aware that as much as the battle ranging below them seemed impressive, it was merely the appetizer. These were the best of the elite children of the multiverse and yet, amongst them there were true monsters and they hadn’t even begun fighting yet.

They were all present though, biding their time and generally hiding their presence from the other side so they couldn’t be targeted early. The true elites from both sides were more than happy to sit back and wait for the perfect opportunity to make a dramatic entrance.

As the pressure of an intruder behind them, in their compound, devastating the support line mounted, Edras’ elites were forced to act and even Melody had to admit the first of the monster’s opening move, was fittingly dramatic.

In a move intended to help on all sides, Garett from Edras’ faction, dropped to one knee in the middle of the battle field and slowly inserted his hand into the stone beneath his feet. His arm reached downwards until half of his forearm was buried and Melody excitedly circled right above him and watched.

She had heard about this skill and once again, much like many of the kids in their generation, it was a skill he never should have been able to learn let alone master at his age and level.

Using just one hand was a reasonable decisions but still, Melody couldn’t help but want to see him use both. The silver lining was that she had known he wouldn’t and so, she got to shade in another square on her bingo card.

A moment later, the ground began to rattle. It rattled just slightly at first, imperceptibly if you were engaged in a war and only barely noticeable when perched in a Sky Slicer above. Then, the rattling grew, quickly and exponentially reaching far beyond each mountain compound.

The ground visibly shook, moving what looked like a meter in an instant up and down. Each time it smacked those without the ability to fly or even just suspend themselves in the air hard enough to cause minor damage. The remaining trees of the forest were swallowed as the ground split and the earth shifted, the landscape being put through what essentially amounted to a washing machine.

Given what Peace had done to start the war, Edras’ faction was left without a defensible compound to attack from so, despite having stronger siege casters-the worshipers of Edras, they were left on the defensive. The Archon’s faction still had their mountain and within it, their casters were defended and able to freely rain death upon the battlefield and support wherever they could.

Garrett was no doubt trying to even the playing field, making it impossible for the casters to maintain their relatively safe perch within the mountain but he failed. Just as all the others who had tried to sneak in had found Zeraxes waiting for them, Garrett found they were ready for his particular flavor of destruction.

The mountain itself stood tall after the quake, even amongst all the others in the range that had shown damage through various splits and landslides. The reinforcement to the entire mountain the Archon’s Faction had spent so much time and resources on, had clearly paid off.

Garret looked furious as the lack of effect from one of their best cards only multiplied the pressure they were under and Melody shaded in another square.

Forced to play their next card, Melody’s eyes brightened as she felt the anima coalescing around a barbaric and wild looking woman.

Azkurvin-or as Melody liked to tease-Azky, began performing something that looked completely out of place in the middle of a battlefield. Dancing around in a circle performing some kind of ritual or prayer, a few participants tried to interrupt her but were stopped by a sizeable fraction of Edras’s faction that had moved to protect her.

As ridiculous as the dance was, the anima all around Azky began to swirl and coalesce, much of it coming from an item she had somehow managed to smuggle in and all of it creating a green and blue cloud above her head.

After almost a minute of dancing, the ritual was complete and an explosion of greenish anima rippled across the battlefield having seemingly no effect whatsoever as it passed.

A moment later, humanoid creatures made of semi translucent greenish anima began appearing all over with distorted features and blank faces. An army of remnants suddenly filled the battlefield, outnumbering the participants 10 to 1 then 20 to 1 only slowing down when there were at least 50 specters per participant.

Cool. I’ve always wanted to see that. It’s also exactly as gross I thought it would be feeling thousands of dead souls wailing and… She shivered as she shaded in another square on her card, Maybe let’s try and wrap up my end of this heist.

Edras’ faction wasn’t done there though and it seemed to Melody like they were aiming for a quick victory by completely overwhelming the other faction. Honestly, Melody was pretty sure they had already lost but this was probably their best strategy at this point, not that she was a strategist she just didn’t see any other way given the cards still in both of their hands.

Similar to Azky, a barbaric looking man, another worshipper of Sal-Khi the war god, stepped forwards and collected an absurd amount of anima within his throat. Once again the vast majority of it was supplied by an item he had managed to smuggle in. His skill didn’t take nearly as long as Azky’s to activate and just a few moments later, an echoing war cry rattled the battlefield and surrounded the participants on Edras’ side along with all the remnant specters in red auras.

Even though their were no well defined sides in this battle, Edras’ faction made noticeable headway as they began pressuring the Archons and pushing them back across the entire battlefield.

Looping around and pushing the black slicer beneath her to its limit, Melody dropped her bingo card with the most recent square only halfway shaded and finally pulled out the Exotic tier instrument she never even wanted. Newly upgraded with the strings from the Ancient Drakene relic Tekragoraxius had gifted her, Melody hadn’t even wanted to use the damn thing before, let alone now.

[Exotic] Whispersong Dreamweaver: Stardust

An instrument crafted in another universe for purpose unknown. Restrung from the remnants of something Ancient and forgotten, two ancient souls are now bound to one item and locked in an eternal struggle. Only one wielder in the multiverse is known to be capable of wielding the instrument at all, let alone form a symphony from the conflict of the opposing souls.

Even before replacing the strings, the capabilities of the instrument perturbed Melody to her core. She had been the only person to have successfully read, interpreted and played the tune required to unseal it. It had been a miracle when she did so, especially as a child, and no one really knew what it was capable of so, they had given it to her. All they could tell was that it had a stupid name even then, before she had restrung it. Items often did though when they originated from outside The Systemverse, translations just weren’t nearly as accurate.

She often wondered if they had just known, would they have given it to her so freely? Just because it was an instrument, they thought it unassuming. Even Felix hadn’t been able to read and recognize how ridiculous it was during their Group Combat class. She had only pulled it out then to see his reaction after all, just in case, but it was too well crafted.

Melody only knew what it was and what it did because, it didn’t quite speak to her but, it did communicate to her in harmonies and tunes directly into her soul. She never responded though.

Partly because it wouldn’t shut up and partly because of what it wanted her to do, use it, she strongly disliked pulling it out, ever. She was confident she could keep it from influencing her but she didn’t even like risking it.

Even though the composer’s soul locked within now eternally fought with it’s new strings, creating a discordant symphony as a result, it recognized the new power it had. Ever since restringing it, Melody had been even less inclined to ever pull it out of the pocket dimension she kept it in and the composer’s soul had been ever more insistent that she use it, fully.

She had no intention of using any of its abilities now either but using it to augment her reach alone, the risk was well worth it in her mind for what she had planned.

Placing just the tips of her fingers very carefully against the strings, closing her eyes and fully embracing her ability to read the anima, she listened to both the instrument and the ambient anima. Lifting her middle finger slightly, she tapped the string beneath it ever slightly and produced a single silent tone that echoed across the entirety of the subspace containing the event. She felt the note smack right up against the boundary way up above the atmosphere all around the planet and winced.

Oops, little too strong.

Adjusting things just slightly, she began lightly tapping at the strings, not daring to pluck them lest she accidentally activate the instrument itself.

8 taps in quick succession then she tossed the instrument back into its pocket dimension and moved her attention back to the battlefield below.

As its name suggested, the harmony she had played was not heard but rather, it was a whispersong. A melody played with no intention of being heard, a tune consisting of no sound. Not a single person in the entire event below her would know what had happened or why. No one looked around for her just yet. Fyrden might realize later but at the moment, they were all too busy.

The fierce battles against remnant specters all across the battlefield suddenly grew very odd as both the specters and the participants they tormented began to see each other in a new light. No one did anything explicit but the look in their eyes, the sudden hitch in their steps was more than enough for Melody.

She noticed and felt the sudden shift in tone of the ambient anima created by all those beneath her but she focused specifically on Azky as she began to look at her own summons with both deep confusion and unbridled lust.

The rumors that will start from this. I mean, I’ll be the one starting them but still. You’re never living this one down.

Melody’s giggling was cut short by a dour expression though as an armored giant with a body of molten metal rose up from beneath the mountain where Felix had been. She already knew Felix had escaped based on the outpouring of rage and disbelief from within the mountain and she had full faith in Peace’s abilities, suspecting he had already made it out even after expending so much of his anima to release the wave of bloodlust.

Her dour expression was because this was the last straw and would force the Archon faction’s hand. It was finally time for the true monsters of their generation to join the battle.

Maybe it’s time I leave this event. There’s already too much… hatred it’s… disgusting. I hope Felix is okay. Oooh! I wonder if Thakorm’s finally finished that pastry he’s been working on for the last few epochs.

Turning around with a flip and a spin, Melody was just about to push Erevos as fast as it could go when she heard a terrible screeching noise and looked over.

Is that… an actual Dragon? No, it can’t be… right? Dammit, that definitely was not on my bingo card.

----------------------------------------

As soon as he stepped through the portal into his vault, Felix grabbed the batteries he had left for himself and began unceremoniously dumping everything he had just looted into the nearest empty room. That one filled up nearly instantly so he moved on to whatever free space remained. He also emptied out his Pocket Home, just in case he needed the room, then he opened a new portal and stepped through.

The remainder of the batteries he stuffed in his mouth like a chipmunk and continued to drain as he looked around down the hall he found himself inside of.

He already knew where the vault was because it was revealed on his map but he had no idea how to get there. The buff he had gained for reaching over a hundred bounty stacks revealed a lot more people than he had been hoping for, still in the compound between him and vault.

Where Edras’ faction’s compound had been carved by roots and designed to be confusing, this one was structured and very straight forward. The downside for Felix though was that there weren’t really alternate ways of getting from A to B, there was one main hallway and that was it.

To get to the vault he had to walk right into a room filled with participants and there was no way to portal around them, the vault was directly behind them.

Adaline’s mines had taken obvious chunks out of the walls, floor and ceiling even opening up some rooms that would have otherwise been sealed. The metal framework the faction had embedded within the mountain though made it so there was no significant structural damage at all. Felix had been hoping the structural damage would move people out of and away from the compound but it seemed it just wasn’t meant to be.

Fuck it.

Running forwards, Felix ignored the various doors around him that he knew were empty of either loot or participants as both were displayed on his map. Even though the message had said large collections, apparently a single Imitation System Core counted as a large collection because he had tested it and it appeared on his map back in his vault. He was already going to but knowing that, he made extra certain to keep all 111 cores he now had, in his inventory.

Unauthorized tale usage: if you spot this story on Amazon, report the violation.

There had definitely been less than he had hoped there would be in Edras’ Faction’s vault but really he was happy he had even found 28 cores at all. If they were really paranoid, they would have split them up amongst all their inventories. He assumed they were just greedy and putting as many as they did in the vaults was to build mutual trust or favor or some bull shit like that. Either way it was good for him.

Running into the first room that was both completely open to the main hall and filled with participants, Felix saw why and smirked. Dozens of participants stood lined up, all in robes and all in the process of firing various siege spells through slits in the mountain.

A few of them barely registered him as he barreled into the room ready to swap with a shade to avoid an onslaught. If they didn’t want to fight him, as much as he wanted to build Arthur’s reputation, Felix was happy with simply running past them for the time being.

Taking a single leaping step to the other end of the room, Felix suddenly swapped with a shade as possibly the scariest thing to have ever attacked him suddenly blasted a crater in the side of cave next to him. The attack was instant and had he not sensed the mana crackling ahead of time, he would have been forced into his real body.

Swapping with shades as fast as he could as far as he could, Felix’s newly refreshed mana pool plummeted from three quarters to one in a matter of moments. Eretheas was more than capable of handling the mana flow but Felix wasn’t as he felt his soul strain and his core start to collapse within him. There was no time to hold them stable let alone fix anything as Felix was forced to dedicate every spare thought to running from the torrent of lightning chasing behind him.

Why the fuck are you in here and not fighting!?

Lightning instantly spread through the walls, floor and ceiling. As Felix ran, arcs of electricity reached out from every angle at once and burned holes into this arms and side. They stuck around unnaturally long and acted like living snakes, striking in an instant as Zeraxes rode the lightning towards him.

Felix had seen Zeraxes teleport to the lightning so he knew he could. The fact that he was only slowly approaching and lightly zapping Felix rather than obliterating him meant that Zeraxes was playing with him. Savoring the chase and all that.

FUCK OFF!

Once again, Felix readied a portal and once again, he was saved. This time, it was a little more dramatic but he was ready, realizing what was happening just a moment before anyone else did. Even knowing what was going to happen didn’t allow Felix to prepare for it though as suddenly, everything exploded.

The ground beneath Felix’s feet, the metal plate reinforced walls of the tunnel and the entire mountain he found himself inside of crumbled and collapsed around him as the head of what appeared to be a black dragon shoved its way into the compound.

It was hard to tell with the entire mountain collapsing around him but Felix was pretty sure Nova had gotten a lot bigger than the last time he had seen her as a dragon. All he could make out was a fraction of her head as stones and metal reinforcements were shattered and bent beyond recognition before they showered back down around them.

Looking around all Felix could see was crumbling mountain and Nova’s neck. Kicking off of the rocks, he had his map directly piped into his head as he made his way towards the vault. Using spatial enchantments alone was enough for the entirety of the vault to remain intact in the form of a massive tumbling bolder amongst the rest of the collapsing mountain.

Flying through the debris, punching and kicking off of rocks where necessary, Felix barely made any headway as it bounced around against Nova’s body moving further away from him as he chased it.

Summoning shades was impossible as Felix couldn’t see more than a few meters through the thick cloud of dust.

Smashing through as much as he could and using Nova’s body as a platform to run against, Felix tore his way towards the massive boulder that contained the vault and dove directly at it, pushing mana into the amulet right before he collided with it.

A moment later, he recklessly ripped all the mana back out of the amulet, completely shattering it in the process but successfully catching himself in the air in the middle of the vault before promptly smacking into the side. Being inside the vault as it moved was one of the weirdest sensations Felix had ever experienced.

Visually, the entire space lagged behind reality so all of the objects contained within along with the room itself had visual trails and afterimages. The effect wasn’t just visual either, the feeling on Felix’s body was like nothing he had ever felt before, like his own body was being stretched out but without putting any extra stress on his cells. Like suddenly, there was just more space within his own body, his organs bigger than they usually were.

He had no idea if it was happening because the spatial enchantment wasn’t designed to move or because it was damaged or because it was just a lesser enchantment that was set up quickly. Whatever it was, he feared for his life and was once again extraordinarily thankful he was using his Persona’s body here, just in case he was shredded as the spatial enchantment degraded.

With that in mind, Felix moved as quickly as possible to loot everything. He really wanted to avoid opening his Pocket Home portal if possible so he focused on the high priority items with his inventory alone.

Luckily, his senses helped him sort through the mess much more easily than if he relied on his sight alone. His mana and matter senses together made it almost trivial for him to find 23 more cores putting his total at 134. No matter how much more he searched though, he didn’t find any others.

Fuck. The rest are in inventories, aren’t they?

Finishing up with the vault as quickly as he could, stowing everything that seemed remotely like something he wanted, Felix ran over to the door where he spent a few seconds deciphering the mechanism to open it. Using his mana control, he activated the enchantment and the rock in front of him simply vanished allowing him to quickly shoot through and grab hold of Nova’s tail.

Just a few moments later, the vault itself exploded scattering its contents amongst the falling debris.

Climbing his way up Nova’s back as quickly as he could, Felix was rather surprised to find more than a few changes from Nova’s normal dragon form. Using the spikes along her back along with her scales to climb, Felix climbed past her butt where the first set of spiked black chains dug into her body.

Using the chain links as a handhold, Felix found a mostly dried up crimson goop that he would have sworn was blood, had he not known his familiar didn’t have or need blood at all, even in a biological form. The chains wrapped all the way around her body and tail, wrapping around her legs and chest and finally forming a harness around her head. The entire thing was covered in the same spikes and appeared to dig into her body everywhere, causing blood to actively drip down in some locations where the chains had been jostled by the falling debris.

Climbing his way up to her head, Felix quickly checked in with Nova through his Soul Bond and got back pride, joy and a distinct lack of pain.

You guys planned all this, didn’t you? You and Tekragoraxius with the harness and everything? What did you prepare all this for? There’s no way she predicted my breaking into the vaults.

Nova roared out in response, the sound echoing throughout the valley as the pressure of the roar bent some trees and knocked over a few participants. There was no actual communication along with the roar so Felix just assumed they would talk later.

Looking out from the side of her head, Felix spotted a burst of Lightning in the debris as Zeraxes freed himself from the rubble. He readied himself for Zeraxes to chase but he didn’t, despite looking his face and glare making it seem like that was all he wanted to do at the moment.

Instead, his attention was pulled towards the other end of the battlefield where a massive armored giant with a body of molten metal stood. Standing around 200 meters tall, even Nova looked small by comparison and with the mountain behind them now gone, the giant was easily the tallest and most imposing thing on the entire battlefield at the moment.

Zeraxes, Romar and a few more of their faction seemed to agree because one of them stepped forwards to meet it. Felix watched with great interest as Nova circled around above.

The man walked all the way up to just a few dozen meters from the giant before using their skill and as soon as they did, Felix knew who they were.

In a fraction of a second, their body morphed and shifted into that of a massive white bear with some slightly humanoid characteristics in their body’s definition. The bear was less than a tenth the height of the giant but even Felix knew that was just the first part.

A moment later, Fyrden roared and a burst of frost exploded around him instantly freezing the ground into a glassy sheet of ice a few hundred meters in every direction. Trees were encased and a whirlwind of snow and sparkling hail suddenly appeared forming an opaque, swirling blizzard.

Despite the blizzard making it hard to see, the giant was massive and so Felix saw the whole thing when a moment later, Fyrden roared and encased the entire giant in a burst of ice. Its front was completely encased and its rear had sharp, shooting icicles growing outwards where the blast had hit it.

Holy shit. What… That… Even with my entire mana pool, I couldn’t do that.

The giant was imposing but seeing how trivially Fyrden had stopped it, he seemed unbeatable with his domain. A moment later though, Felix saw a burst of greenery next to the giant’s left foot and intersecting with Fyrden’s domain. Looking down, he spotted a druid in the center of it entirely encased in armor made of bark and vines.

Leaping towards Fyrden, they slammed into the ground and a literal tidal wave made entirely of vines and leaves a hundred meters wide rose from the ground and imposingly smashed through the blizzard.

Fyrden turned towards it and slashed outwards with his front paws freezing the vines solid and shattering a few of them but it wasn’t enough. More vines pushed through the frozen wall like an infinite swarm and replaced those that had been shattered.

The Shifted Bear God slammed his foot down and summoned thousands of icicles that were immediately carried by the blizzard to shear through the vines and for a moment, it seemed like he was going to win. This fight wasn’t the druid’s focus though and the entire time, they had woven vines into and around the armored giant’s body to break through the ice.

A series of loud cracking noises echoed outwards as chunks of ice big enough to crush buildings tumbled free and plummeted to the ground, freeing the armored giant.

Fyrden, in his Domain of True Frost, easily shredded the falling glaciers and the ice threatening to crush him was turned it into massive blades that he launched forwards towards the druid. A wall of chains suddenly shot out of the leg of the armored giant to block the knives as it stepped forwards and made to crush Fyrden beneath its foot.

He created pillars of ice but the foot morphed and Felix heard sounds reminiscent of a hundred chainsaws coming from beneath the foot.

It seemed like Fyrden was done for, trapped by frozen vines on all side beneath a massive unstoppable foot and a moment later, the blizzard was blown away. Felix was confident Fyrden had died or surrendered until a moment later, he saw Fyrden-once again humanoid-running from the fight. In his place next to the foot, stood Romar.

Unlike class, where Romar wore mostly loose clothes and flames, here he was entirely encased in a pale green set of armor that was big enough to house an entire exoskeleton within. It looked more like a cauldron than plate armor and Felix had no idea how he moved in it. Not only could he move though, but it seemed he was capable of ridiculous feats of strength.

Standing beneath the massive foot of the armored giant, Romar held the foot aloft with both hands and actually looked like he was gaining strength from whatever was happening, not struggling.

A moment later, that seemed to be exactly what was happening as the armored giant released its own foot and regrew it, its body shrinking ever slightly to make up the material. Romar happily sucked the foot dry of what seemed to be heat as his body grew slightly redder with each passing moment until he finally burst into flames.

Leaping forwards, he jumped onto the giant’s body and began to single handedly tear through the massive creature with his bare hands. Chains were formed, spikes, cages, coffins and massive hammers but none of it seemed to be able to do anything to his odd looking armor as he lazily raised his arms to block the attacks and continued to drain the giant like a leech.

The druid tried to help using her domain to reach vines up the giant’s body but they didn’t get very far before a horizontal lightning strike joined the fight and apparently, frightened the druid. Their vines stopped dead in their tracks and instead, everything they could spare went into a massive multilayered cage around them.

Landing on the side of a tree before casually hopping off, Zeraxes body rippled with arcs of lightning that perfectly matched the Divine Bolt he twirled in his hand. He casually walked forwards and threw his bolt right at the druid creating a blinding lightning strike that rivaled actual lightning strikes. They were completely different than and evidently outclassed anything Felix had ever powered himself.

The strike collided with the vine cage and arced along it into the ground, completely obliterating the vines in the cage but effectively being grounded nonetheless. That didn’t bother Zeraxes though as the Divine Bolt reappeared in his hand a moment later. He took another casual step forwards as he threw his Bolt again. Another bolt of lightning, just as bright and ridiculous as the first struck the second layer of vines and completely disintegrated them before dissipating into the ground beneath their feet.

Zeraxes took another step then threw it again, the cage getting smaller with each strike and by no insignificant margin. In just a couple more throws of his bolt, Zeraxes would kill the druid.

She seemed to realize this too as even Felix, with his untrained soul senses, could feel her fear from where he was way up on Nova’s back circling overhead.

Looking around, the battle still raged all over with remnant specters harassing and occasionally groping a participant as they fought back, often helplessly. No physical attack seemed to have much of an effect on them so the participants were stuck often running or just dealing with the specters until someone with a more effective weapon could come to their aid.

Noticeably the fighting had slowed though as everyone kept an eye on the real fight happening in the middle of the battlefield.

The giant had split itself into two distinct, half sized giants, one of which occupied Romar while the other ran past him towards the core of the Archon army. Felix could tell it didn’t overly matter what the outcome of the little fights were. If one side won with an overwhelming victory, it was possible they could have overpowered Zeraxes or Romar but even with their entire army, he just didn’t see how they could deal with both of them.

Fyrden was noticeably out of the fight though and Felix spotted him dumping his possessions into the real world then literally surrender to one of the other Archon faction participants. All his treasures and things were instantly moved to that person and they left.

Felix frowned and tried to figure out what was happening until he realized he had missed a System screen in the chaos of raiding the moving vault and mounting Nova. Pulling it up, he frowned.

World Event: Bastorus One

Announcement

As the world event only has a short time left and the majority of the original participants have already perished or surrendered, all future departures will now be permanent. Participants are no longer capable of leaving through traditional means and from now on, must surrender or perish to leave the event. All items brought into the event from the outside can still be thrown through event marbles for the next dekad to ease the transition and all surrenders will automatically be accepted from now on. The location of all participants will be revealed on the map and the area of the world event itself is now shrinking rapidly to prevent hiding.

Any participants not currently in the event will be permitted to enter one final time in the next hour or have their possessions jettisoned through without them.

Good luck and shed much blood!

This is ridiculous. The rules just… change every few minutes now? What the fuck is happening. Also what is with these good luck messages? They’re so obviously just wrong… Unless… They aren’t The System at all…

Looking around to the rest of the battlefield, Felix noticed a number of other fights where one of the participants handed off their fight to another then surrendered to their ally to ensure their escape. Considering how easy it was to die with the complete monsters and their domains running rampant across the battlefield, Felix couldn’t really blame those who wanted to ensure their own safety.

Glancing back over at the real battle, Felix watched carefully so he could track who ended up with the biggest inventory. His assumption was that Zeraxes at least, among some of the others, held some of the Imitation Cores in their inventories so he followed along to see who he would have to hunt down afterwards.

Right as Zeraxes stepped forwards and threw his final bolt, a flash of light engulfed a relatively small, hundred meter wide circle in bright white light. A new domain had appeared with the slight ting of a bell as the druid and Zeraxes were both electrically shocked and visibly burnt.

[C - Legendary] Ovedithas: Arbiter of Justice’s Will (Lvl 1462)

The druid turned their head to Ovedithas-the man in the white robes who had summoned the new domain-and a moment later, vanished. Felix assumed they had surrendered. Their domain vanished but its effects remained with a deeply verdant circle of uncontrollable vines, trees and various plants left behind.

Scoffing, Zeraxes shook his head then spoke with an audible smirk, “Domain of the Lightning God.”

He spoke just barely loud enough for Felix to make out and a moment later, arcs of electricity drenched the land around him. They obliterated a circle slightly bigger than the Justice domain, reducing everything it touched to fine ash. As the ash floated away, arcs of electricity sparked between them all throughout the air above Zeraxes.

He reached his Bolt up into the sky, looked at Ovedithas once with brightly glowing eyes then vanished.

Zeraxes didn’t reappear at all though as instead, bolts of Lightning struck randomly from nowhere in particular and everywhere within the domain. The Justice domain tried to fight back and Felix saw flashes of light where the damage was returned to Zeraxes’ incorporeal body but it wasn’t nearly enough. The bolts tore through every shield the Justice worshiper helplessly summoned until they finally surrendered.

There was no doubt in Felix’s mind that the Justice wielder had other attacks that they just couldn’t use against Zeraxes’ incorporeal lightning form. Being limited to just some shields and a passive effect made no sense for a participant in this event or a domain. On top of that, Ovedithas was obviously significantly overpowered by Zeraxes ridiculous power.

Reappearing in the center of his domain, Zeraxes lazily turned around and briefly made eye contact with Felix before jumping into the air and throwing his bolt directly upwards. Felix and Nova were across the battlefield so he wasn’t throwing the bolt directly at him but Felix was confident that was only the start.

He quickly prepared what he could to redirect the strike as much as possible and protect himself from the rest of it but it wouldn’t have mattered anyways. The instant the bolt disappeared, it reappeared all across the battlefield striking down and indiscriminately hitting a quarter of the minor fights all over the battlefield and simultaneously blinding everyone that wasn’t ready for it. None of them were directed at Felix though which he was grateful for but simultaneously astonished by.

A number of the minor fights that the Archon Faction’s participants were obviously losing were simply done. Both sides were either dead or forced to surrender to anyone they could find so they could recover. In an instant, the battlefield visibly shrank down as hundreds of participants died or left.

Their spots were somewhat filled by some of the participants that had been hanging back but only 10% of those that had been forced out were replaced. Looking back over, Zeraxes nodded once then threw one last bolt directly at the second giant’s back. The bolt was even bigger than any of the others he had thrown to date and closing the distance instantly, the giant visibly cracked then shattered in a way Felix didn’t know was possible when Lightning struck metal.

The giant that had stood easily over a hundred meters tall was dealt with in an instant with a single strike. It exploded in giant chunks of metal and participants in every direction as Felix realized they had been inside of it, controlling it like a massive robot.

Many of them surrendered to each-other before they even hit the ground, too weak to continue and too afraid of what would happen to them if they didn’t. Just three of the dozen or so people remained and they were quickly engaged by both specters who had completely lost control and were just attacking everyone or nearby participants.

Zeraxes was evidently done though as his domain vanished a moment later, along with his glowing eyes, and he used his Divine Bolt to teleport far away from the rest of the battlefield. Guessing he was drained, Felix mentally commanded Nova to follow as they raced after him.

Looking back, Romar was still slowly draining the half giant that remained while various remaining participants from Edras’ side tried to stop him.

Racing through the jungle, Nova chased after Zeraxes with Felix on her back as he regenerated as much mana as possible from the ambient and batteries he had prepared for this specifically. Zeraxes noticed them quickly but was forced to fight as the outer barrier of the event had closed dramatically during the war. He had only managed to teleport twice a few kilometers out before finding it in it front of him.

Knowing what Felix’s intentions were, Nova opened her maw just as Zeraxes seemed to be cornered and released a beam of dark red Fire and purple Lightning that moved in an instant. The scales along her body all rose up slightly and glowed a deep red from beneath except for the blue hand print on her chest which glowed violet and arced with lightning instead. Felix could feel the mana being consumed to fuel the beam but it wasn’t any spell he knew how to cast so it took him just as much by surprise as it did Zeraxes.

The beam moved so quickly, it seemed to move just as fast as Zeraxes’ bolt. He didn’t even have time to throw it before being hit as he teleported to it to get out and reappeared missing two of his limbs entirely.

He sneered and threw his bolt at Nova who took the hit to her wing and roared in pain. A web of electricity disintegrated a huge part of her wing and traced an arc down the side of her body and into the ground. Watching the massive wing fall to the ground next to him, Felix summoned a shade and switched places with it directly next to Zeraxes.

Felix appeared mid swing and Zeraxes was forced to block it with his Divine Bolt that was now noticeably dimmer than before. That along with the rough shell of ionized conduction and metal dust he had surrounded himself with were the only reason Felix was willing to directly engage Zeraxes.

Zeraxes sneered as his Divine Bolt met Eretheas’ edge to block the strike, “I’m not that drained asshole.”

He smirked as his Divine Bolt brightened once again causing blinding arcs of Lightning to race down the axe handle then harmlessly divert themselves into the ground. Zeraxes clenched his jaw and Felix just smirked in return as he punched forwards and went for another swing.

Teleporting out in an arc of Lightning, Felix switched instantly with a shade to follow and activated his Devouring Aura to throw Zeraxes off. It worked for an instant causing him to flinch but Zeraxes still managed to block the swing in time with his forearm coated in arcs of Lightning that had somehow solidified.

Felix didn’t bother deactivating the Devouring Aura as that trick wouldn’t work again against the same enemy, especially not Zeraxes who had barely even flinched the first time. The aura helped with his reputation though and cost Felix nothing so it stayed.

They traded blows a few more times in one of the slowest yet fastest fights Felix had ever seen. Simultaneously they traded slow and deliberate strikes with his massive axe while they both teleported around constantly. Zeraxes, after the first attack, didn’t even really try to fight back much which Felix assumed was because he was too drained to do so.

Felix was happy to slowly whittle him down and find out who’s remaining reserves were bigger but he never got the chance to find out.

Teleporting after Zeraxes and slamming Eretheas down into his Divine Bolt, Felix noticed Zeraxes smirking just a moment before dozens of Drakene jumped out of the forest around him screeching in bloody rage.

Fucking forgot about you guys and that you-completely understandably-despise me…

The Drakene in their rage simply ran at Felix, only about half of them with the presence of mind to think through their actions. Some jumped and clawed at him, ignoring the completely deadly swinging axe he held while others stood back and prepared massive skills channeling hundreds of thousands of mana and energy.

Zeraxes smirked one last time then teleported away while Felix was occupied dealing with the Drakene.

A rabid swarm of religious fanatics willing to die for their cause were simultaneously incredibly difficult and trivial to deal with. On the one hand, they were willing to do anything for their cause and so Felix had to switch with 4 different shades to avoid various last stand suicide attacks.

Not everyone was quite so fanatic and willing to die for the mere chance of honoring their god though and so the various Drakene who stood back, attacked from afar or simply planned their attacks were incredibly annoying. They may not have been eager to die but they were still fanatics willing to blow every resource at their disposal, including credits. The number of scrolls, items with massive batteries, bound souls and other costly weapons Felix had to deal with far surpassed what he even thought possible for them to wield.

His mana control helped but with a range of just over 30 meters, it wasn’t nearly enough to stop every item from working.

Luckily that was where their fanaticism made them rather trivial to deal with. As much as they wanted to kill Felix, none of them were willing to hurt Nova at all, even if it meant they could save her from her apparent captivity.

Switching positions with a shade on Nova’s neck, Felix reached forwards and grabbed hold of the chains wrapped around her neck as if he were actually controlling her. She made a great show of being in pain and fighting back so Felix used a spell that was nothing more than flashy lights to make it seem like the chain was enchanted or special in some way.

Pretending to control her head, Felix was really just trying his best to hold on as Nova’s head rapidly swung from Drakene to Drakene completely disintegrating them with her breath of red Fire and violet Lightning. The beams she released were impossibly powerful and Felix was astounded by her destructive capabilities.

In less than a tenth of a second, half of the Drakene were completely wiped from existence, Felix’s Soul Ring managing to retrieve their souls but his Blood Ring finding nothing to latch onto. After that, Felix felt a nagging in his soul and traced it back to Nova.

What’s wrong?

She poked him a few more times before he realized what was wrong and began channeling whatever mana he had left into her body.

Completely draining his pool and directly feeding her somewhere in the neighborhood of 40 million mana was enough for her to obliterate the rest of the Drakene fanatics.

Pulling out some more batteries from his Soul Space, Felix and Nova spent a few minutes regenerating as much as they could before deciding to head out. Felix only managed to fill half of his pool and Nova, now with an actual mana pool since her evolution, managed to completely fill it. The battery was gone though from what Felix could tell so his assumption was that she had somehow consumed it and fully integrated the battery into her being during the evolution. His theory was backed up by the fact that the size of her mana pool perfectly matched that of the battery she had been using before.

Flying over the landscape as fast as Nova could manage along with Felix’s spells to push them even faster, they managed to catch up to Zeraxes in just over a minute of flying. He hadn’t actually gone very far and was trying to hide and recover.

Swooping down from the sky, Nova’s breath tore a chasm into the landscape itself but just barely missed Zeraxes as he teleported away.

Felix hopped down and switched with a shade, reappearing within arm’s length of him as he reached out to grab hold of Zeraxes. With Felix’s ionized shell and metal dust maintained, Zeraxes Lightning was harmlessly redirected around him, like he was in a plane or car being struck by Lightning.

Though he didn’t have the resources, mostly Lightning and mana to properly fight back and blast through Felix’s defenses, Zeraxes was incredibly stubborn. He teleported to his Lightning, created bursts of light to blind Felix and jumped rapidly between two positions before choosing one to try and slip away.

Felix wasn’t sure if Zeraxes had realized he was displayed on the map for anyone to see meaning it was impossible for Felix to actually lose him.

Either he eventually did realize that or decided to get help because Zeraxes finally started zipping through his Lightning towards the heart of the battlefield once more.

Chasing behind him, with Nova trailing just a bit behind, Felix arrived in a landscape that had changed so drastically, he initially though The System had replaced it.

The outline of the mountains he had helped destroy were visible on either side but they were warped and different. Everything around the center of the battlefield for multiple kilometers in every direction had transformed into a volcanic mess. The ground was blackened and reduced to the rocky base beneath, even that already slowly melting. All the trees, plants, soil, blood and ice that had once defined the landscape were gone, no doubt contributing to the superheated ash floating around on the air currents.

The mountains themselves, while recognizable, had noticeably melted down from their previous sharp points to rounded hills hosting streams of magma that made them look like they wept.

Teleporting over to the edge of the blackened rock, Zeraxes looked onwards for a few moments before sneering and turning to the side.

Oh thank System he doesn’t want to go in there either.

Chasing Zeraxes along the edge of the volcanic landscape, Felix could feel the ridiculous heat and had to actively fight against it with three different spells to shield himself, move the air and cool himself down. Looking at his map, he confirmed what he saw, that those who remained had been pushed out of the battlefield. The only points on his map that were still within being Romar, Lumeris, Shadalle, Novren and Hyd, whoever they were.

Around the outside of what Felix was assuming was Romar’s domain, Felix also spotted a few small collections of participants hiding out and recovering with only a small few still fighting each-other. He was making assumptions on what they were doing based on how much they moved but he felt pretty safe with those assumptions for the time being.

Looking ahead, Zeraxes seemed to generally be moving towards one of the closest clusters of participants who had been still, and therefore likely recovering, on the edge of the domain.

The only reason Felix was even capable of fighting and chasing Zeraxes was that he was drained in so many ways and Felix was constantly draining batteries he had prepared. Even though these participants wouldn’t be as strong as Zeraxes, they very well could have completely recovered and even just a few strong combat focused participants were more than Felix could handle alone.

He desperately tried to push Zeraxes in a different direction, cut him off or stop him before they reached the cluster but he was just too slippery with his ability to teleport to his own Lightning.

Seeing the inevitable approaching, Felix prepared a portal spell to make his own escape if necessary then continued the chase with more caution than before.

Teleporting through the rocky pillars of stone that had been revealed around the ridiculous domain, Zeraxes vanished in a bolt of Lightning over a cliff and Felix circled around the side to avoid an ambush. Peering over the cliff face as he jumped to the other side of the chasm, Felix quickly changed his mind and pursued Zeraxes directly as he saw the state of the participants at the bottom.

Not only had they not recovered, but he was pretty sure they were likely worse than whenever they had first settled here.

The participants were all actively deteriorating from some kind of plague, poison or disease. They all showed various combinations of symptoms from blood seeping out of their pores, their eyes inflating themselves, muscles melting and deformed growths covering their bodies. Landing amongst them, apparently not worried he would catch whatever they had, Zeraxes looked back towards Felix grimaced then threw his Divine Bolt into the ground.

Lightning raced through the volcanic stone in every direction, each tendril killing its respective participant almost instantly in their decrepit state.

The time he had wasted putting the participants out of their misery was definitely not something Felix would have worried about and in his mind, a grave mistake.

Slamming his arm forwards, Felix grabbed Zeraxes other arm and held on as tightly as he could. With a chain wrapped around his hand and dangling down into the ground, Felix knew all of Zeraxes Lightning would be redirected. More or less safe from Zeraxes in his weakened state, Felix swung towards him with Eretheas and simultaneously used his mana control to prevent Zeraxes from teleporting out again.

Eretheas swung forwards but never made contact with anything, simply swishing through the empty air. It took Felix a moment to figure out what had happened but looking down, he still held Zeraxes arm. The arm was detached though and so he had somehow still gotten out.

Absorbing the arm with the blood ring, Felix looked around and spotted a quick flash of light around one of the infected participants. Looking over, he saw Zeraxes for just an instant as he threw his Divine Bolt with an impressive whip of his neck and teleported out of the chasm, now missing both of his arms.

Felix activated both rings and absorbed the infected participants bodies and souls then chased after Zeraxes.

This pattern repeated itself thrice more as astonishingly, every group of participants they found nearby were in the process of dying, unwilling or incapable of surrendering. Zeraxes didn’t bother killing them after the first though and simply ran to the next as fast as he could. Felix on the other hand wasn’t slowed at all by killing them as he spared a small fraction of his focus that he didn’t even need and a meager amount of mana to obliterate them all with a single spell.

With no other groups nearby, Zeraxes desperately ran towards the only other participant in the vicinity on his side, an individual. Lightning arcing across the ash in the sky, Zeraxes appeared next to a rather surprised looking man in a set of average looking scale mail that was sitting against a rock, eating a leg of some kind of meat.

As soon as he appeared, Felix felt the relief flowing out of Zeraxes as he grabbed the man’s arm and blurted out, “I surrender.”

The man looked at him in complete shock but a moment later, Zeraxes vanished.

Looking over at Felix who was now standing just a few meters away, the man looked up and their eyes met. The man was evidently confused for many reasons, most of which had to do with the fact that Zeraxes in his desperate attempt to surrender to anyone other than Felix, had missed on crucial detail. The man’s leg was completely destroyed and he had no hope of fleeing himself, let alone fighting Felix.

Even with less than 10% of his mana left, Felix knew he could not only catch the man if he tried to flee but he could easily kill him.

The two of them looked at each-other for a few seconds of silence which was enough for Nova to catch up. As her head peered over the large rock behind Felix and looked at the man, he just nodded then snorted a laugh, “I surrender.”

Felix snorted a chuckle as well, feeling a little bad for the guy who was thrown into this for no reason other than Zeraxes being stubborn. Zeraxes hadn’t even tried to surrender to Felix once, hoping for every moment that he would find help or at least make it to someone other than Felix that he could surrender to. In the end he found someone and got out but, whatever he was hoping the man would do, he clearly wasn’t capable of.

The man disappeared in an instant and his inventory, along with all the inventories Zeraxes had collected up to this point, were suddenly added to Felix’s. As he had expected, Zeraxes had 59 cores in his inventory bringing Felix’s total up to 193, among a number of other mostly useless items from the event.

He didn’t bother sorting through them at the moment though and instead, rushed off with Nova to clear out as many of the remaining pockets of participants as he could.

Of the 25 small clusters he hunted down, 18 of them were simply waiting to die, infected by the same disease as all the others. Obliterating them, Felix was pretty sure it wasn’t contagious as he never managed to catch whatever it was. He didn’t try very hard as he was still recovering his mana pool and wasn’t willing to potentially hinder himself at the moment but he still touched the bodies, stood around them, breathed the air.

The various participants he killed netted him another 5 cores which Felix was happy to take. Somewhat surprisingly, as he whittled down the recovering participants, Felix found the ones that were infected, weren’t restricted to either side. There were both Edras faction participants and Archon faction participants lying around on their death beds which meant whatever had infected them was likely from an outside source.

Other than those waiting to die, Felix fought and killed-with a lot of help from Nova-just over a hundred other participants as they recovered. Being those who had fled from the battlefield, the majority of them were combat focused participants but luckily, they were even easier to kill than the non-combat focused ones from Edras’ compound.

All of them were in various states of being simultaneously drained and injured. As soon as he appeared, the majority of them surrendered immediately to whoever was closest to them and only a small few even tried to fight. When they did, either he or Nova were able to kill them relatively quickly, or force them to surrender. He tried to kill them all fast enough to prevent them from surrendering but it was nearly impossible in most situations.

Once they had all been cleared out, Felix quickly checked and confirmed that the only ones left in the event nearby were himself, five fighting it out in the middle of the fire domain and one other that was hiding out far away from the battlefield.

The last participant on the map other than those in the battle was too far for Felix and Nova to fly to but luckily, Felix still had a mental mapping of portal coordinates covering the event map. Choosing the closest portal, Felix readied himself by crushing some more batteries then stepped through and instantly teleported as close as he could using Eretheas’ new abilities.

[C - Unique] Aberration: Scourge of the Plague (Lvl 1497)

Appearing in the middle of the desert made it ridiculously easy to spot an individual with hair long enough to reach their feet, lying back and seemingly suntanning. Swinging down just a few inches to make the strike as hard as possible to dodge or block, Felix was certain he’d be able to kill them quickly.

Instead of hitting a soft flesh sack though, Eretheas clanged against something that sounded metallic. Glancing down, Felix saw a mass of greenish brown and black hair wrapped around the blade of his axe. He pulled back on it but gave up as soon as he felt resistance and swapped with a shade to avoid it skewering him a moment later.

Jumping to their feet, Aberration looked just as surprised as Felix was that his strike had been blocked and seeing him tens of meters away, turned and ran as fast as they could.

What…

Summoning a shade next to them, Felix tried to swap with it but before he ever had a chance to, the shade was gone. Aberration’s hair had shredded it in an instant. Felix frowned and tried again with two separate shades attacking simultaneously but he just couldn’t overcome the hair, it was too fast.

Falling back on his normal combat style, Felix kept his distance and began using Eretheas to mask his throwing spells at Aberration. He swung the axe head around and launched an axe head shaped disc of fire into their side.

Once again, Aberration looked like they had no idea what was happening as they flinched and ducked. They never stopped moving and they definitely didn’t avoid the spell as their hair reached outwards like spider legs that kept them moving while simultaneously forming a shield and blocking Felix’s spell.

Felix tried a few Blade, Cold, Fire and Lightning Spells before finally settling on Force Spells for the time being. The hair still blocked the spells but it had to dig into the sand to stop their host from being thrown around which slowed down how fast they could run.

I feel like I’m fighting someone’s equipment, not an actual leveler.

While his Force Spells slowed them-Felix purposefully using as little mana as possible while still slowing them down-Felix regenerated his mana as quickly as he could. The best way he could think of to deal with them was to attack the body directly and he didn’t have many spells to do so effectively.

Using the last of his batteries, Felix managed to fill his mana to nearly halfway which was just enough for him to cast the spell he wanted with a bit left over afterwards.

Leaping into the air above them, Felix summoned a shade in front of and facing himself then swung his axe at it, the head turned to strike with the flat side. Mirroring his movement, the shade did the same and their axes smacked into each-other creating a fairly weak and anticlimactic clang.

Only Felix knew that though as he had cast a sound attack downwards at the very same instant, making it seem like a skill of some kind rather than a spell that cost him 40 million mana. Being directed, the spell was cheaper than when he had used it to kill the demons and he further reduced the effect because finishing this fight wasn’t as urgent as that one had been.

Still, it was more than enough for Aberration to completely halt in their desperate flee as their hair formed a small sphere around them to shield their host from the spell.

Dropping down, Felix began smashing the axe into the barrier as hard as he could, with a few hundred thousand mana worth of Force and Eretheas as heavy as he could muster. He also ramped up his Devouring Aura which was actually the most effective weapon he had found. As soon as he had activated the aura, the hair seemed to shut down and almost shake with fear.

Seeing that, Felix reached forwards with his hands and surrounded them with as many of his soul tendrils as he could. Similar to how he had removed The Endless Hunger from Nova, Felix began ripping open the hair shield and pulling the hair free from Aberration’s head. Instead of using his soul exclusively though, he was just using his soul to push back against the possessed hair and distract it. His soul wasn’t and couldn’t have done anything by itself but it did enough for his physical strength to pull on the hair and literally rip it from their scalp clump by clump.

As he tore away the hair and tossed it aside into the sand, Felix gradually revealed more and more of the leveler’s body within the shield and though he couldn’t physically reach them, he could see their face between the strands fairly early.

As more and more of the hair died off, Felix was able to feel more and more of Aberration’s actual soul and he realized it was completely separate from the hair. He fully expected them to surrender too but they just sat there and looked up at him, fear painted all over their face.

Finally having ripped out over 90% of their hair, there wasn’t nearly enough to fight back so Felix grabbed Eretheas’ handle and turned back to remove their head.

The leveler simply looked up at him, “I’m not surrendering. Either you kill me now or I somehow make it out of here and Plague experiments on my body and soul.”

Felix hesitated mid strike and cocked his head, “You’re a Plague worshiper?”

They nodded, “Yeah but… it’s not like I chose this. He implanted this stupid hair and told m-” The remaining strands connected to their head pierced their throat from all sides then twisted, causing their head to literally pop off a few meters away.

Damn.

Activating both rings, Felix absorbed the body and soul of the leveler then reached down and found the hair was already dead, its soul having long since left its body. He had gotten 6 cores though which was great. Oddly, even sifting through Aberration’s experiences, it was like their soul had been shredded to obscure evidence somewhow.

Weird…

Using the sound spell, Felix was left with just a few million mana which was basically nothing. He had to use almost all of it just to open a portal back to Nova and the battlefield.

Arriving back next to Nova, she didn’t even look up or acknowledge his presence as she was too busy eating a veritable chasm into the ground them. Felix followed suit and began manually drawing mana from the environment as fast as he could as he squinted towards the battle to try and see what was happening.

Judging from his map, everyone was still there meaning Romar had maintained his domain nearly a hundred times longer than Fyrden had and around twenty times longer than Zeraxes. Considering it was also massive in comparison, Felix couldn’t help but be impressed. With his entire mana pool at his disposal, he couldn’t have done as much damage as Romar had in as wide an area for an instant, let alone maintain it for this long.

Finally spotting the glowing form of a cauldron shaped man, Felix squinted his eyes against the heat ripples and tried to spot the rest of the fight. Leaping through the air, Felix barely managed to spot Novren who fired devastating shots from a rather small looking bow in her hand.

[C - Divine] Novren: Progeny of The Huntress (Lvl 1405)

Each shot was loud enough to create audible explosions even from Felix’s distance and visible shockwaves from the wake of the arrow.

Despite the certain death the shots spelled for anyone in their grade, Felix watched as Romar released a ridiculous burst of flame from his body that disintegrated the arrow in mid air. The next shot he exploded with a snap of his fingers and another he simply let hit his glowing armor to no apparent effect.

He wasn’t on the defensive either as beams of fire, explosions, invisible waves of heat and every fire and heat based attack Felix could think of suddenly appeared around Novren. Romar summoned them without looking, anywhere within his domain but Novren somehow saw every single one of them coming.

Hyd wasn’t nearly as lucky as they kept leaping towards Romar and trying to fight him directly with their spear and shield both surrounded in a glowing white aura that stretched out across their entire form.

[C - Legendary] Hyd: Arbiter of War, Chosen of Khi (Lvl 1440)

Romar clapped his hands and suddenly a crater appeared beneath his feet as an invisible shockwave melted everything in a dozen meter sphere around his hands. Hyd took the attack straight on and was knocked back to the ground but got right back up and dashed in again.

This time, Romar was distracted by a bubbling pool of shadow that crept towards him along the ground. Seemingly unaffected by the heat, creatures of shadow-mostly ravens, cats and wolves-leapt out of the liquid shadow, surrounding Romar.

He fought back with his domain, summoning claws of fire, explosions, walls, spheres, shields, and tornadoes.

With Hyd jumping in from one side and creatures of shadow from another along with a devastating arrow from above, Romar was forced to ignite his own body turning himself into literal flame. Where before he had been surrounded in flame, now he was flame. The cauldron like armor he wore that had previously glowed white from the heat finally melted and all that remained was a body made entirely of bright flame.

Throwing a hooked chain behind him, Hyd pulled himself back mid jump as Romar slapped the shadow creatures aside and ignored Novren’s shot. The arrow flew right through his form leaving behind a gaping hole and creating a small crater in the ground on the other side but, the flame forming Romar’s body simply closed back up.

Grabbing the edge of the shadow on the ground like it was an actual carpet, Romar brightened a bit as flame quickly spread and raced along the shadow. The fact that it wasn’t a physical thing didn’t seem to bother him or his flames at all as it chased down the caster standing far away at the center of their shadow domain.

[C - Ancient] Shadalle: Night’s Executioner (Lvl 1429)

Shadalle tried desperately to summon shadow shields, claws and creatures to push back against the encroaching flames but nothing she tried worked and finally, she gave up. Her domain vanished along with the pool of shadow it had summoned and she used a new set of shadow claws to start running away.

Romar, despite dealing with three domains at once, refused to let them escape and punched outwards in her direction summoning a massive conical tornado of flame from his arm that moved incredibly quickly. Given her distance, by the time the cone reached her it was hundreds of meters wide and Shadalle had no hope of avoiding it so she turned to Novren and surrendered to them.

Felix was certain there was no way Novren could see, let alone hear Shadalle but it seemed to work as she vanished a moment before the twister of flame could consume her.

Just two of them left, Hyd tried to stay in melee with Romar but with his new fire form, Hyd was forced back as his white aura began to fade. Romar punched outwards and his arm grew into a massive fist that Hyd was forced to block with his shield. The flame burst out around the shield and singed the outside of Hyd’s skin but they survived. After being pushed back dozens of meters they were forced to run back into the fight but their domain proved incredibly useful in that aspect.

Closing the distance in a confusing burst of movement that made it look like they simply stretched across the space, Hyd braced themselves then thrust their spear forwards in an attack that looked capable of opening mountains.

Romar seemed to agree as he finally side stepped and dodged an attack, the spear strike clearing out the ever present flame in a tight cone a hundred meters long behind him. The absence of flame didn’t last long though as Romar slapped the ground with both hands and summoned hundreds of thick tendrils all around him.

Instantly, the pace of the fight shifted as Hyd was pushed back by tentacles from every side slamming down, trying to ensnare him and burn him constantly. Somehow the tentacles were even hotter than the rest of Romar’s arsenal as even missing Hyd by a meter, his arm was visibly blackened and shriveled. He dodged and used his shield against all of three of them, even noticeably regenerating his arm a bit before giving up and also surrendering to Novren. Even with his regeneration and defenses, he was clearly overwhelmed.

Felix realized that Novren’s domain must have let her see and hear everything in a large radius because she managed to weave her way through tendrils attacking from every side and everyone surrendered to her, ensuring their escape. She put up a good effort, dodging around for a few seconds and avoiding hundreds of tendrils but when her body began to shrivel and dehydrate from the heat itself, even visible from Felix’s distance, she finally surrendered.

Sighing with relief, Romar dropped his domain and fell to the ground, completely naked now that his armor had melted but otherwise unconcerned with his state of undress.

[C - Divine] Romar: Pre-Stellar Starling (Lvl 1294)

Running ahead with Nova close behind him, Felix ran over to where Romar was lying down, shielding himself from the residual heat as much as he could. He still hadn’t regenerated nearly enough mana to properly fight anyone but Romar was his last hope for Imitation System cores before he would have to raid every single random cache of treasure around the planet.

There were still 46 left and Romar was one of three people Felix could see on his map at the moment.

Romar spotted Felix as he ran over and pushed himself up into a sitting position, noticeably struggling to do so. Sitting up, he met Felix’s eyes then nodded and waved.

A moment later, his head turned off to the side and Felix followed his gaze, spotting someone he recognized, the druid with the domain, Lumeris.

[C - Legendary] Lumeris: Splendor of the Moonlight, Branch of the Mother Tree (Lvl 1386)

Man titles are obnoxious.

“You. You killed Dawn Blossom Grove and stole her soul.” Felix cocked his head slightly as she seemed to be looking at him, not Romar.

Felix looked over at Romar who just weakly shrugged.

“HER SOUL BELONGS IN THE EVER GARDEN. I will rip her soul free from your corpse. I will return it to Mistress MoonBranch myself.” Then with more rage than even the Drakene showed towards Felix and his persona, Lumeris slapped the ground and summoned a verdant forest from seemingly nowhere.

Felix jumped back, unwilling to fight a domain but regretted his decision a moment later when he saw her drunkenly stumble forwards and her vines limply noodling around. Using a shade to instantly close the gap, Felix finished his swing and removed her head before she was even aware of his presence. It seemed as though summoning the domain a second time, especially so soon after she had first summoned it, was too much for her and she was unable to even see straight.

I don’t even remember killing a Dawn Blossom Grove.

Shrugging, Felix activated his rings and smiled as he saw his Imitation Core count jump by another 31. There were still missing some but for now, he was just happy the verdant domain had been summoned as it had pushed back the heat. Having dealt with Lumeris, Felix walked back over to the edge of the domain, towards Romar who was still just sitting there.

He nodded towards Romar who just nodded back. Felix was fully expecting them to surrender but Romar seemed content just sitting there so Felix took another step forwards and Romar held up his hand.

Wincing in pain just from lifting his hand, Romar coughed, “I take it you cleared out the rest of the map?”

Felix nodded.

“Even the Plague fucker?”

Felix nodded again.

“Thanks. That guy did not deserve to live or make it to any afterlife.”

Felix squinted, “He said he was forced, his hair implanted against his will.”

Romar shook his head, “I don’t care. Fuck Plague worshipers. Not like they were forced to choose that god.”

Shrugging Felix stepped forwards towards Romar again and he lifted both hands, “Alright, alright, I get it. I surrender.”

Watching the Imitation System Core count in his inventory jump from 235 to 256 was possibly the most satisfying thing Felix had felt in a long time. Checking his map and seeing no one else around, he found Nova and had her revert to a kitten before putting her in his Soul Space to nap.