CHAPTER 246 – WORKING OUT FRUSTRATIONS

Toni looked at him in shock. Fear and concern flooded her features. “Tom! What’s happening?” She was on her feet and was already instinctively moving to change the flag colours.

“Nothing urgent,” he clarified with the fury still consuming him. The knowledge that they were planning on betraying him had tipped him over the edge. He needed to kill something.

With a crackle of energy, he engaged his summoning skills and manifested a lesser water elemental. It would persist for over an hour. A bit of him had been hoping for an upgrade because he had targeted the higher levels of the plane, but nothing came down from above to nibble on his presence.

His action of immediately summoning the wisp disturbed Toni further. “Tom! Talk to me. I’m worried.”

He manifested his spear. The wood in his hands was soothing and if the truth was to be told the confusion of being woken abruptly was still impacting him. Absently, he ran his hands over it to make sure it was still in top condition. The wood remained perfectly straight, and there were no signs of structural damage. That didn’t surprise him, as he checked the status of his weapons after every battle. The routine was an excuse to delay Toni, while his mind dealt with the ramifications of the dream and the planned betrayal.

“Tom.” Toni repeated while she approached him. Her eyes were wide. “What’s happening? You’re scaring me. You’re not usually the type to blow up, like this… and the elemental and the spear.” She reached for him and grabbed his shoulders.

He instinctively shrugged and stepped back to create space. He did not want to feel trapped at the moment no matter how non-threatening her actions had been. His eyes double checked the surrounding space to confirm that there were no enemies. Logically, he knew that it would be at least a day probably two, before Selena’s squad arrived, but he was still worried.

“Tom. Spit it out. Talk.”

He met her frenzied gaze. Somehow his behaviour had unsettled her almost to the levels that the dream had affected his own internal equilibrium. That was just from his actions. She didn’t even know why he was so upset. “Selena’s group is planning on betraying us.”

He watched a host of emotions run across her face. “No… It doesn’t…. Are you sure?”

Anger flared through him. He couldn’t help it and he knew it wasn’t about the question as stupid as it was. “Of course I am.”

“But…” Uncertainty flared in her eyes. “They were stand offish but overall they were nice. Could you have misinterpreted something.”

“No.”

“I’ve misheard conversations and jumped to conclusions before. Eventually I could laugh at it, but at the time I felt…”

“No! I see their thought processes. There’s no room for misinterpretation. While the fuck do people have to be shit!”

He stalked over to the door that led to the zone that Selena’s party was currently in. The fury in him was extensive, so he kicked the door… and did zero damage. For a moment, he wondered if they should be setting up better traps. Lethal ones, even. Go on the offensive. It was a question for the team, as there was no need to rush. It wasn’t like they were going to arrive at any moment. They had days. He glanced at Toni. “And like idiots we told them where we were and asked them to come. And they’re going to betray our aid with daggers in the back.”

“Are they planning on killing us?”

“Metaphorical daggers,” Tom corrected. “I think the plan is to incapacitate and rob, but who knows… if you’re willing to go that far, they might go further.”

“So, what do we do?”

Tom shook his head. “I have no fucking clue. People suck. Fuck Keikain and Clare they ruined our starting group. But that was because they made a shitty decision and didn’t have the courage to kill themselves. Selena’s squad. It’s not like that at all. It’s so much worse. They’re doing it because they think they’re better than us. Fuck them all. Nothings forcing them to be pricks. They’re just greedy.”

“So, what did they say or think? Are they going to burst out of there.” She nodded at the door. “And fight us?”

“No…” Tom shrugged. “Or at least the dream ended before the final decision was made. They want to rob us. While we have nothing to steal, we’re safe.” Tom swirled the rings on his finger. Currently, he was the only one with anything valuable and they didn’t know about the rings. Everlyn, when planning for the warlord had protected him by calling the effect a one off artefact. “If they think we have nothing they won’t rob us. However, if we just got a zone reward…”

“Then hopefully we can leave before they arrive.”

“Staying ahead of them will work for now… but when we reach the inner rings?” Tom glanced at her. “When there are only eight zones, we’re not going to be avoid them. And my gut tells me we need them to beat the dragon, anyway.”

Toni looked at him helplessly. “Are you sure they’re stronger than us?”

“I don’t know, but I don’t want to have to find out. Human’s fighting humans is next level bullshit.”

With a sigh, he walked back to their sleeping spot. “I need to fight something. Can you tell everyone we have a meeting in about an hour.”

“Should I tell them why?”

He hesitated and then shook his head. “I don’t think that’s a good idea.” He flicked the flag to orange. “The meeting is in an hour.”

“Tom wait. You can’t do that. While the flag is orange, no one is supposed to leave until.”

He returned the grey flag heatedly. “Well, once I enter my challenge you can turn this back to orange. Then I won’t be breaking any pissy irrelevant rules.”

“Tom, that’s not how the system is supposed to work.”

“I don’t care. I need to kill something. If I stay here…” he shook his head. “I need to fight.”

“Michael was pretty clear about the rules.”

“I have to murder stuff!” He hit the flag in frustration. “I don’t know the system. I don’t care how you do it. Just have them all be here in an hour.” He stalked away.

“Tom, you’re being unfair.”

He spun to face her. “Toni, I…” he raised his hands. “Need to fight.” He ground the words out. “I am so angry.” He held out his arms. They were trembling because he had so much fury pounding through him. “Please make it happen.”

Then he turned and hurried into the centre of the ring to find a challenge. He hesitated for a moment and then chose the second hardest he had available that was part of the third last ring. That level only had eight options of which only one was fighting orientated.

There was a flash and once more he was in an arena.

Immediately, his feet sunk into the soft sand. There was blue sky above him and the rage boiled inside him, driving him to kill. Those bastards were going to betray them.

It was intolerable.

Tom’s internal alarms went off all at once.

Adrenaline flooded through his system.

He grabbed his magic and focused on it, suddenly aware that he was not alone and the battle had already started.

Lightning crashed down around him.

His Spark domain allowed him to turn the elemental assault aside. Sheets of electricity that were more intense than anything he could easily produce crackled along the outside of his impromptu shield and struck the ground.

The concussive boom was enough to almost burst his eardrums.

The sand beneath his feet blackened and melted and he staggered slightly under the swirling wind and the blast of heat that accompanied the strike.

He had known from the tile that these monsters specialised in lightning and flames, but he had not expected a strike within a second of his feet hitting the ground. To be attacked now… mentally he cursed himself… he was not an amateur he should have known better to assume he understood the rules of the engagement. Just because last time, there had been a significant pause to allow him to adjust to the new surroundings before the monsters had appeared didn’t mean it would happen now. Rules often changed especially when the difficulty was supposed to be higher than the previous challenge.

As for that lightning… He didn’t know how it could be counted as non-lethal. It was likely that if any other of his party had come in his stead, they would have died before they even realised they were under attack. But the puzzles were supposed to be non-lethal, which implied that he was probably secretly fighting under a partial GOD’s shield.

It didn’t make him feel any better.

There was no time to think about reasons. They did not matter. His earth domain revealed the enemy directly behind him about twenty metres away.

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He turned and sprinted at it. The monster was ugly, with a massive head and a shrivelled body that seemed too small to support it. It had eight appendages and its four arms that ended in six fingered hands were the largest. Some innate ability allowed it to hover in the air and it was rank eighteen, with all of its power invested into its magic.

Mentally, he swore at the sand. The lack of traction was costing him and stopping him from reaching full speed. He needed to close within ten metres and then his skills could do the rest.

A wave of flames burst out from the creature. A cone that he could not avoid. His water elemental acted, expending almost a third of its energy to open a hole in the rushing inferno.

Tom went through the gap, twisting midair to minimise his exposure. There was a stinging pain on his elbows as the skivvy was burnt away. Then he was past the heat and the elemental doused the flames that had started up in his hair.

He could smell the stink of acrid smoke.

This was bad. He hated it when glass cannons got the drop on you. It was the worst.

Then he was ten metres away, and he triggered Spear Lunge. The lack of traction the sand provided did not matter. Not when he used the skill, as it was hard and firm under his feet.

He exploded forward.

Power Strike and Spear Enlarge both activated, and he collided with the monster with a crash.

It, of course, was protected by a magic shield.

For a moment, the strength of its magical defence was pitted against his spear and all the skills he had packed into it.

He could feel the wood buckling under the force of the impact.

Time felt like it was progressing agonising slowly as something from the system triggered. It was not his dodge skill it was something else. Somehow, the attack he was making was pivotal, and the system was engaged as a result.

He could feel the very shaft under his hands flexing uncontrollably. It cracked and splinters from the no longer pristine wood entered his palms. His blood soaking into the gaps as his high level basic Spear skill strained to preserve the weapons’ structural integrity.

Time felt like it had slowed to a standstill.

This feeling of the weapon breaking as opposed to the slowed time was not a new one to him. In the tutorial he had dozens of weapons fail him mid battle.

But he liked this specific spear. It was special to him and he hadn’t even realised it until now. This was something that Sonya had created. It had been a gift to him. Living wood that was theoretically capable of evolving with him.

It had never been a guarantee that it would evolve, an outside chance at best if he was being honest with himself. But because of its history he had hoped. And now some minor monster’s defensive shield looked like it would be enough to break it. He was not devastated. This was the way of things. The enemies had been growing stronger, which meant that the spear became relatively weaker. It was a forgone conclusion that at some point it would break or evolve.

He had been hoping for the latter one, but the weapon breaking was not that much of a surprise. It had been under levelled for a reasonable period.

But he had wanted to evolve with him and he half imagining it absorbing a proportion of the experience he had been getting to do so. He desired to keep it as a permanent connection to Sonya and the others, because they had been the first people he had seen for so long it would be nice to have a reminder.

If he could sacrifice some of his experience to keep it intact he would, but there was no mechanism for that. Tom instead focused on the Spear skill and its ability to strengthen the shaft. He would get it through the fight and maybe then he would retire it and keep it as a souvenir.

Then he stopped himself. He would not do that. He would not keep useless junk for emotional reasons. The moment his soul storage got full the weapon would be discarded. Tom knew how his mind worked, and it was rarely sentimental.

Don’t break, he prayed in his mind. He would gladly have paid all of his banked experience if it allowed this weapon not to be shattered and thrown away.

It was like something in reality clicked.

The freeze in time vanished.

There was a pulse of energy in his hands… the shield broke and his spear thrust forward blasting straight into the creature’s head.

His instincts screamed at him to twist the spear and kill it but Tom stopped himself, just like in the coliseum so long ago buying time between rounds to recover was important.

He was not in the wild where quick kills mattered. He was in the arena and based on previous fights the moment this creature died the next would appear. It was better to delay providing the choice did not put him in danger.

Tom watched for it to try to attack him, but nothing happened. It was alive but still without any magic running through it. Somehow, the embedded spear appeared to have lobotomised the monster.

He watched it carefully.

If it started to create any spell, he would wrench the spear free and do damage as he did so, distracting it with pain and probably killing it at the same time. He was ready.

Nothing happened.

Seconds ticked by and the mana he had used to redirect the lightning at the start regenerated. Tom licked his lips as he went over the battle. Most of his responses had been optimal. Even the failure to use his new skill reflective shield had been the right choice.

Though that was more by luck than skill. He had not applied it because he had, in all honesty forgotten about it. It was embarrassing. However, there was a lesson to be learned. The skill was not yet embedded in his fighting style. Given its utility, it was something he had to do better with. While the skill could have been used against the lightning, it would have required almost perfect positioning and the shield might still have broken. Spark in the same role was almost as efficient and far less likely to fail that was why Tom judged himself to have made the right choice. Then, against the firewall, his only choice would be to reflect, and that would have been prohibitively expensive for little real gain. The water elements acting there were for the best.

The creature under him still had not stirred, and its life was leaking out. He had minutes left. The question in Tom’s mind was what to do next?

What levers did he possess that could make the next fight easier.

The water elemental had been effective. Should he summon another one of them. Maybe use Harnessed Meteorite as it could block spells… but no, he concluded after a moment of thought; the lightning was too fast and the firewall to spread out for the rotating stones to do anything. Against bolt or missile style attacks, the meteorites were very effective defence, but that was not what he was facing.

There was really no choice. He might as well double down on what worked against the first monster. Future ones, whether there were two, or they ranked up didn’t trouble Tom. As he learnt attack patterns, his ability to fight them would leap forward while they being monsters would become more and more predictable.

He summoned another lesser water elemental and then waited for his mana to regenerate.

The creature on his spear died when his mana had only regenerated half of his pool.

Two more appeared abruptly.

Both were over thirty metres from him and with his position formed a triangle. There was no time for hesitation. He immediately sprinted at the one on his left. Lightning slammed down behind him. The spells took a moment to cast and were clearly pre-aimed. His sudden movement caused the miss.

Tom counted down the seconds in his head. Right on cue, the hairs on the back of his neck started to rise. He baulked and threw himself sideways. Two blazing bolts of lightning impacted the ground in front of him where he would have been if he hadn’t slowed when he did.

Molten sand from the blast pelted him. It stuck where it landed and then burned into him. Each of the small specks of rock stung like a bee sting. It was superficial damage and healing would just be wasting mana.

Once more, his domain warned him that lightning was coming, but this time only one blast. Rather than slowing down Tom sped up fractionally. Stepped to the side and then used his skill. The bolts contained enough energy to almost break the shield, but he got the angles right. Instead of the magic attack hitting him, it struck the ground behind him and the concussive boom pushed him forward.

Then he was in range.

Lunge activated.

His spear aimed at the creature. It had nearly broken last time, but his skill had held it together and he was hopeful it would survive the battle now. The weapon buckled in his hands, but there were no splinters and the shield shattered. This time he did not hold the weapon still in the monster and instead he started to twist it immediately to maximise the damage.

He waited.

Then he felt the hairs on the back of his neck rise.

That was the signal.

He sprang forward.

There was a boom and the smell of fried flesh as the second creature’s lightning bolt landed on the first. If his spear hadn’t killed it, then his companion’s magic certainly did.

Tom sprinted across the floor. Fate went with him. He slipped and then rolled. The lightning bolts were smaller, but multiple of them crashed around him. One remained on target, and it was easy enough to turn it aside with his skill. Then he was on his feet and running at it.

A cone of fire blasted at him.

The two water elementals working in tandem split the flames. He went through slightly singed. Then he lunged at the enemy.

The collision of his spear with the shield was immense. Somehow, the shield held, and the spear didn’t break either. Instead, Tom was forced to let his grip slide as he slid forward and crashed into the monster.

Twin elemental water attacks struck the magical barrier as he scrambled upright. Another fire attack was forming.

He thrust and this time even though he had far less momentum behind him the already stressed shield shattered. the spear plunged once more into its head, sliding all the way through to the back of its skull.

The fire spell immediately terminated.

Tom breathed deeply to catch his breath while watching the dying monster. It was in the same state as the first. It’s life slowly draining away while it lay helpless and incapacitated by the weapon in its skull. While not letting his focus slip, he reviewed the battle and was happy with the outcome. There was nothing he needed to change. He was thankful that dodging the spells counted for his skill because once fate increased it made avoiding the lightning attacks to be far easier. Basically initially the enemy monsters were stupid in their targeting and then by the time they adjusted the fate his skill had created let him dodge them when they aimed better at where he was going to be as opposed to where he had been. His mana hit full, and then he summoned another water elemental.

Last time he had started the battle with only half mana but this monster was less injured and lasted for significantly longer. When his mana was fully recovered, it was still alive, so he killed it by twisting the spear as he pulled it out.

He was comfortable now. He knew the patterns and the best path to survival was to keep moving.

Four appeared in a square around him, but the closest was only fifteen metres away.

He sprinted at it. Lightning crashed near him, but fate helped him avoid them and when he couldn’t his spark domain was sufficient.

He slaughtered the first two, and that triggered them to switch to the weaker but more numerous attacks. For these, his skill sufficed to deflect the ones that he failed to dodge. He killed the third and then impaled the fourth on his spear.

Breathing heavily, he regenerated his mana, but one look at the dying monster warned him that there would be no time to summon another elemental. It died before they were full.

Six new enemies appeared. This time, a teleport helped him avoid the lightning bolts as they crashed down around him.

He survived with his mana near zero. He panted as he stood over the final body. His spear paralysing it like he had all the others. There was something in their physical makeup that made a head wound not immediately fatal but also resulted in them going catatonic. Tom suspected it was some evolutionary quirk where the shutdown was a survival instinct. They had a big head and there was probably some arms race where another creature possibly something alien like a self propelling spike would shoot into their heads. Then those things would feed on brainwaves. By shutting down everything apart from healing, presumably they could survive those types of encounters, as the prey spike would get bored and go find a different victim.

Whatever the explanation Tom was really glad that it existed. He held the spear still and considered the next steps. This new ring had increased both the quality and quantity of the enemies he faced. He was confident he could beat eight simultaneously and even if they ranked up and he had to repeat the cycle, he would survive.

The question was what next?

There was still a combat challenge in the next ring down. Could he really defeat it if the enemy scaled relative to these monsters. Especially since the next opponent used wind as its primary weapon. Half of his success here had been caused by his Spark domain being able to defend himself against lightning strikes.

The answer was pretty obvious. If he wanted to complete the next level down, he would need to spend some fate.

With a jerk. He killed the creature under him and eight more appeared.

He started running as lightning fell around him.