Instead of sleeping in the Castle or Sanctuary Town, a lot of participants slept in their tutorial, but they’d only do this if they had it to themselves or shared it with trustworthy friends.

Physical safety wasn’t the only reason for doing this. It’s not uncommon for participants to use the tutorial as a storage area for their valuables.

So, this was about five weeks after the Game initialized. A handful of days after Dan took all my team members to turn their Trait tokens in at the Forge.

Everyone was aware a wave of monsters would attack each area in a couple days. Plans were put in place. Groups were formed to protect the vulnerable, all that kind of shit. My team members were tasked with defending Sanctuary Town.

Most kids, gimps, and olds too old to be useful were consolidated into a handful of tutorial instances. The waves hitting those areas would be the weakest.

About half of my team still slept in their tutorial. The rest slept in Sanctuary Town. No matter where they slept, every morning they’d all meet up in their tutorial for exercise, meditation, and all that kind of shit.

The party with Dotty, Austin, Nick, Becky, Luke, and Ida Mae left a while ago to complete the Trial of Might in the Castle area.

Becky always brought Bonnie along with her. She didn’t like leaving her kid with other people all day. That’s not all that common. Most mothers either stay with their kids and don’t progress or have someone babysit their kids while they’re out progressing.

Since the Trial of Might takes a long while to complete, the party with Andrew, Leena, Chet, Carlos, Hecter, and Ace weren’t rushing to get there.

By this time, parties were scheduling Trials days and days out, so as long as they got there before the Trial reset, they’d be fine.

While waiting, Hector was trying to pull a crown out of Andrew’s mouth that had been causing him a lot of issues. It takes a lot of direct and potent healing for teeth to be affected. I believe the tooth had been partially healed causing the crown to crack. Something like that.

As those two were busy with that, everyone else was packing up and getting ready to spend the day in the Castle area grinding.

Ace was sitting on a fallen tree right next to Andrew, watching Hector attempt to pull the crown out.

He was way too surprised to do anything when Hector ripped out Andrew’s lower jaw. He was still too surprised to react as a laughing Hector stabbed that jawbone into his chest, making what kind of looked like a handle poking out of him.

That did spur Ace into action.

Ace didn’t have a weapon on hand and Hector never used any. Hector always wore those Asmodon’s Gauntlets I told you about before.

Hector had almost a whole foot on Ace. Or a third of a meter. Whatever. And Ace probably weighed half as much as Hector.

Ace still pounced at the man. And he gave me a solid glance at what the beast mana-type can do with semi-advanced techniques.

Not only did his hands and forearms grow claws and fur, but his whole body semi-transformed. He became bulkier, more muscular, a lot hairier, and his teeth rapidly grew into fangs.

Ace got some great slices in on Hector before the massive man clocked him in the head, forced his head down, and grabbed him around the waist with both arms. He flipped Ace’s legs high into the air while the head pointed to the ground.

Then Hector jumped up and yelled out, “Tombstone Piledrive,” as he raised his own legs and Ace’s head drove into the hard ground with a loud snap.

Hector laughed harder as he rolled off the corpse and stood.

Carlos, Chet, and Leena had no idea what was going on. They thought Hector and Ace were messing around or training. They even clapped when they saw how well Ace had transformed.

They couldn’t see Andrew. He had fallen backwards with his legs still on the tree. His torso and head were out of view. He had immediately gone into shock, and he wasn’t doing much beside gurgling blood out of the huge mess where his mouth and jaw used to be.

Once they heard that neck snap, they knew this was real. Leena was the first to catch on and immediately entered stealth.

Carlos fumbled for his shield and mace on the ground.

Chet hesitated. I assume because he was so messed up after killing that one guy that had almost killed Nick. The funny thing about that – Hector was the one who had helped Chet work through that the most. They often trained together too. They were good buddies.

Maybe if Chet invoked STRIKE before Hector saw it coming things would’ve gone differently. Instead, Hector battered all five steel missiles aside with his Asmodon’s Gauntlets. He made it look easy too.

Hector had some sort of blood related mana-type. I’ve never seen anything that worked like it before. Or maybe he figured out a way to work it I’ve just never seen. He extended his hand to Chet and pulled it back towards himself as he made a fist.

Chet fell to his knees as blood leaked from his eyes, nose, and ears. He coughed up a decent amount of blood too.

Carlos tried to invoke Intercept, but it didn’t work on the blood-pull. Instead, as Chet fell unconscious and his face wacked into the ground, Carlos ran at Hector while invoking MANA ARMOR.

Hector laughed as he waited for Carlos to close with him. So fast I could hardly see it, he turned and caught Leena’s knife hand, preventing her sneak attack. He went to backhand her, but Carlos now had an attack he could intercept, so the gauntlet hit his shield instead.

Carlos’ mace also hit a gauntlet as Hector’s other hand ripped the shield away from him.

Leena had really improved with her techniques. She used her moon mana-type to attract Hector’s new shield to his face while sending rocks at him. Hector completely ignored the rocks, but the shield stuck to his face was an issue.

As Hector was busy with that, she tried to stab him in the back again. She got close, but the giant man backhanded her so hard with his gauntlet, she literally went flying backwards.

She slammed so hard into a tree that I really thought she was dead. She slumped against it with her eyes closed and mouth open. She definitely looked dead.

Hector knocked Carlos down and threw the shield at Leena. Her eyes opened just in time. The shield looked like it skimmed her as she rolled aside. It thunked deep into the tree, so definitely would’ve killed her if she had been a tiny bit slower.

Leena was so nervous that she was shaking. Instead of running back towards the fight, she kept her distance and watched.

Carlos was back on his feet, and Hector blocked another mace blow with a gauntlet. He held up the same hand he blocked the mace with. He then closed his fist and blood spurted out of Carlos’ eyes.

That was Leena’s cue. She didn’t stick around. She took off running like a bat out of Hell.

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Understandable considering not just her goals, but her bargain Trait. Even if Hector didn’t kill her, and let’s face it, he would’ve easily stomped her into the ground, she’d permanently gimp herself.

[Show me her Trait again. I’ve forgotten the wording.]

Let’s see. Just give your good friend Acesso LeBlacky one second. Here it is.

(2) Oathbound: You sincerely swore the following oath – that you would do anything to get stronger and survive the Game. Someone or something heard this oath and will hold you to it.

If you keep to your part of the bargain and do anything to get stronger and survive the Game, all aspects of self-cultivation will seem natural and progress more easily for you.

If you reject or refuse to perform a non-suicidal act that would make you stronger or help you to survive the Game, or if you purposefully and knowingly place your life in unnecessary or inordinate danger to help or save another participant, all aspects of self-cultivation will become more difficult and progress slower for you.

[Attacking Hector didn’t count? It reads as if it could.]

No. She wouldn’t be able to progress if it was that sensitive. I think participants are given some sort of warning feeling when they’re at risk of breaking the bargain. Maybe she got one of those feelings before she took off sprinting.

Anyway, the blood-pull thing didn’t cause Carlos to become unconscious as it did to that wussy Chet. He was messed up though and waddled around all confused.

Hector turned Carlos around and…I should remind you Carlos wasn’t all that much smaller than Hector. Sure, Carlos was a fat, but he was also a big fat. Large, tall, wide, and strong. I think that big layer of blubber he carried around hid all his muscles.

Carlos was bleeding out of all his face holes, standing there doing his damnedest not to fall down unconscious.

So, Hector turned Carlos around, grabbed him under the armpits, and tossed him impressively high up in the air.

As Hector flopped onto his back, he yelled out “Hector’s Double Knee Backbreaker,” while bringing both of his feet closer to his ass so his knees were poking up.

Carlos’ back slammed onto those two knees. More blood began leaking from his eyes, nose, and mouth. I couldn’t tell if it was from the knees in the back or if it was just a leftover effect from Hector’s mana technique.

Either way, Carlos slid off the knees and fell to the ground with a thud. That was another team member off my plate.

Laughing, Hector got up and stomped on Carlos’ head a couple times until he heard Chet moaning. His laugh became giddy. Instead of going to Chet, Hector stoked the fire that had died down to embers.

“I know you’re out there, Leena,” yelled Hector. “I know you can hear me!”

And he did know. We were feeding his tech information. This had all been planned out in great detail.

Just the day before, Dan managed to increase his Soul-grade to SS+++. Our S+ equivalent. For the first time, he entered the Sanctuary of Revelations. He stayed in there for about 10 hours, far longer than most can take it.

When he finally exited, he talked to Nick before training a little with Leena and Chet.

Just FYI, he offered Nick personal training too. Nick just always weaseled out of it.

But he told Nick he was going back in the Sanctuary of Revelations that morning and would try to stay in even longer.

That was absolutely perfect for us. He also told everyone the monsters wouldn’t invade all the areas until two days from then, and the wave would hit during the night. That’s usually true.

We all assumed those waves were hard coded and couldn’t be messed with. Mystozagan came through there. He got it so the first wave of monsters would attack two days early, and in the morning.

And the plan didn’t end there. Every tech that could was to activate their Sortilege in conjunction with the monster wave in any instance of any area containing any participant Dan even slightly knew.

The plan for Hector was that he would kill his own party first, steal all Dan’s buried loot, make his way to the Castle area, kill the other party, go back to the Boneyard and take care of anyone still alive in Sanctuary Town, then hide along with the other participants working for us until we needed him again.

If we couldn’t kill Dan, we’d kill everyone he knew. He had been close to snapping since this Game initiated. If we could make him just a little bit crazier, push him further and further to the edge, and get him to eventually snap, that’d be just as good as killing him.

If we couldn’t fully break him this day, we had more plans lined up too. Really good ones.

For instance, if Hector proved that he had a real shot at killing Dan, that’s who Dan would face in the arena match required to get into the sixth area. If not, we had almost 40 other participants working for us. They were all hidden and plugging away at Trials and getting stronger.

And when I say hidden, I don’t mean how those working for us hide among participants. Mystozagan had come through again there. Either that devil’s a lawyer or he had a team of them working for him, as he was finding a bunch of ways to bend the rules.

One emergency maintenance rule allows for the creation of one private instance of each area. That instance was created, and all the participants working for us had those instances set as their own regular instance. Ingenious.

[I don’t like this at all. This Mystozagan risks losing this Game on technicalities. Such risks are unacceptable.]

Believe me, everything was legal enough. He wasn’t risking anything.

If this building stayed in Hell, nothing would’ve come of it, and I wouldn’t be slowly freezing to death. I’d bet half my tentacles there’s some confusing language written in that section that would let us off the hook. That’s how these things work. Trust the system.

Anyway, as I was saying, Hector was calling out to Leena. For some reason, that dumb broad was sticking around and watching. She had her stealth active but was still maintaining a good distance. Hector threw some more wood on the fire and stoked it up nice and hot.

“Leena, if you don’t come out, I fear things will get ugly. That doesn’t have to happen. I see how you look at me. I know you want me. I know you want to live. I’m your ticket out of here, beautiful.”

Leena just looked on. Hector bound Chet’s arms and hands with some torn strips of a blanket, picked him up, and brought him over to the fire.

Hector then held Chet’s calf over the flame. Chet immediately regained consciousness and began to scream horrifically. So loud it was crazy. I love hearing the screams of the tortured as much as any other demon, but this was too loud. And remember the layer I grew up in. We can’t get away from the tortured shrieks of the damned.

We were telling Hector’s tech that he picked the wrong participant to invoke sympathy from Leena. She hated Chet. She wasn’t even that good at hiding it, so it wasn’t like it was a secret only us techs knew about.

Hector didn’t seem to care and kept going. I almost felt bad for Chet. Maybe I would’ve if he lowered his screams to a decent decibel. It was just too much, so I was hoping Hector would gag him and keep up the good work.

We were all taking bets, and not one of us was willing to bet a single frag that Leena would try and save Chet. She’s not the type. She’s pure narcissism. Center of the universe. Only she mattered.

Hector kept up the spiel as he continued to burn parts of Chet. It went on for a while, Hector calling out to Leena the whole time, looking around, seeing if he could spot her.

Leena checked on the corpses of Ace, Andrew, and Carlos during this time. When she finally did appear, it was clear to us that his lies about being able to get her out of the Game alive had worked.

Hector laughed and said, “Smart move. I knew you were more than a pretty face.”

“I doubt my face looks all that pretty now,” replied Leena as she sauntered over, referring to the whole left side of her face being puffy, bruised, and bloody from Hector’s backhand blow. “You better not be lying about…ugh! I can’t think with all this screaming. Just…knock him out again so we can talk.”

Both Chet’s calves were horrifically burnt. Hector was working on a thigh as Leena strolled up. He put the leg back next to the other one on the ground.

More blood began leaking out of Chet’s eyes and ears. Thankfully, the screaming stopped as Chet fell unconscious again.

I’m not sure if I was able to paint an accurate picture of just how loudly Chet was yelling, but the sudden lack of it was wonderful.

Leena pointed at Hector and said, “You better not be lying. How are you going to get me home?”

“Same way I’m getting there,” replied Hector. “The guy I’m working for is very, very powerful. Just stick by my side and I’ll bring you with me.”

This was a huge lie, of course. Leena had no way of knowing that though. While smiling, she asked, “And the price?”

“You know the price,” replied Hector after laughing. “You’re mine until we get back home. Stick by my side, do everything I tell you to, please me, and stay loyal. I’m not asking for much and I’m giving a lot in return.

“And it doesn’t have to be a bad time. Not unless you make it that way yourself. Just don’t get lippy or give me any shit. And when I want you, I get you, and you make it good for me.”

Leena took some time to think it over. “I can do that. But if you’re lying to me, I promise you I’ll find out and kill you.”

I won’t lie. I was envious of Hector’s new evil laugh. I wish I could do it. It was great, but evil laughs need to be utilized strategically. He was doing it far too often. It was starting to get weird.

Hector leaned his head back, opened his mouth wide, and laughed for a solid five or six seconds. “I knew you were smart. Listen, beautiful, I only like it when I think the girl does. I like it a lot more that way. I want you to be into it. Don’t lie there like a dead fish. And don’t cry or do any shit like that.”

After moving closer and holding Hector’s eye with her own, she said, “I know the game. My ex-husband was terrible in bed. He had no idea. He thought he was a god. Even if I don’t enjoy it, you’ll never know.”

Leena put a hand on his cheek, got up on her toes, and stretched her lips towards Hector’s mouth. The man hesitated before leaning down and kissing her deeply for a few seconds. He then pulled away and held her at arm’s length.

“I can’t now,” he said breathily, barely constraining himself. “There are things I must do.”

Smiling, Leena asked, “Better things than me?”

After staring at her for a few seconds, he said, “No. It can wait,” and pulled Leena in close.