The world of the stadium around them turned into a golden light—blocking their view of the stadium. It was, for a brief instant, a surreal moment. Colt felt as if he were standing on a patch of endless desert, taken away from reality itself. The owl flew towards them, but past that, it was nothing but a vast expanse of golden abyss.

Colt braced with his knife, expecting the owl to attack, but it didn’t.

Twice his size, the thing looked formidable—Colt fired off his inspect.

———

Nike - Level ???

Description: Goddess of Victory and servant to the Goddess Athena.

———

No other information was available, and he had to strain for even that much. The owl smiled as it felt his inspect; another surreal oddity as an Owl shouldn’t even be able to smile, and from that smile, it transformed; the feathers morphed into hair, and wings morphed into arms and hands, the talons from where it landed into the desert turned to feet.

In a second, it had gone from owl to an incredibly athletic woman with hair as dark as midnight.

“My Mortals. My Gladiators—my potential champions?” Nike said this last bit as she slid in between them; before Colt knew what had happened, the goddess wrapped an arm over his shoulder and whipped him around to face the rest of the group.

His knife was in her hand, and the air flowed with the law of Movement. Thicker than Colt had ever seen it—just the wisps of whatever she’d done was enough to make his head whirl and his soul latch out, trying to connect to with whatever happened faster than he could blink an eye.

“What—“

“Ahhhh…” Nike paused, scrunching her face as she examined his, inches away. “Oh, you’ve hold of that at such a low level? Wow. I’ll admit, I thought you guys might be kind of screwed, but… Well. Fighting chance. I love it!” She vanished from Colt’s side and reappeared between them, clapping her hands as her dark hair bounced. “Well, well, well. Maybe you all will be my victors. My name is Nike—I’m in charge of getting you ready between each round of games. I’m allowed to cover what the game will entail, give you the rules, and then set you off to compete. You’re all tracking me so far?”

The rest of the group stood frozen, like statues, scared to even move. They sensed her power, probably. They saw the triple question marks that stood for her level. Even the way she appeared and vanished was enough to drive a stake of fear in their hearts.

Colt vanished his knife from her hand, feeling it slip into his soul again.

She gave him a ‘really?’ look and laughed.

“I like that spirit. I like that look in your eye. If I attacked, you’d try to win, wouldn’t you? Deep in you, you think you could find a way to victory?”

Colt didn’t answer, already running through the potential scenario even before she mentioned it. Quite frankly, if she attacked, he was screwed. But he wouldn’t go down with trying to win. Whatever resources he had, he’d tap and fight as if he could.

The only time a person lost was when they stopped trying. He’d been intimately close to that kind of life before and promised himself deep in the black pits of the dungeon, he’d stay far away from that dark place. This system could throw him into hell itself, but even that wouldn’t be as nightmarish as living a life without belief and in resignation. That, more than anything, had been the most powerful lesson learned in this new life.

“Right. Okay. Athena’s bugging me. Time. The first game is this: Naval Combat. A tactical game, you might think—hey, why bother with this ship, I can just make my way over to those other ships and—“

“Ships?” Nate said, his voice was hoarse, and there was fear in his eyes.

But he stood straighter and stood with purpose. He had to be the strength for everyone else, too frozen to find it.

Nike stopped, then tapped her chin.

“I went too quick, didn’t I?”

“Yes. Start with what the game is, what we have to do, and how we win.” Colt said, looking at Nate. He, too, could be a pillar for them to rely on.

“Okay! Thank you,” Nike gave them a deep bow and then a wicked smile, “The first game is called Navel Combat. The point of the game is to sink your enemies’ ships; beware, though, if your ship is sunk, it’s game over, and so is your life. You’ll be facing off against five other ships—the enemy. You may use anything at your disposal to find your way to victory, and I sure hope you do. It would be boring if the first game was where you met your end since this will be the easiest. Does that all make sense to you, mortals?”

“I don’t know how to sail a ship,” Julia said.

“Well. You’ll just have to figure it out, then,” Nike shrugged.

Colt considered the Goddess before them; took a deeper look. He felt the wisps of Movement around her, swirling as if waiting for her command. The Edict came to her at beck and call, as if it was only natural to obey, whereas, to him, it was like wrestling with a great beast to get it to cooperate. Compared to Cut, there was such a stark difference. Yet… This Goddess manipulated it with little difficulty at all.

What even was a Goddess?

Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

She turned toward Colt and raised an eyebrow.

“You look distracted. Don’t you think you should be concentrating on your upcoming challenge, not staring at my Edict like a confused kid?”

“How do you get it to obey you like that?”

She smiled and tapped the side of her nose. “Movement loves to move. Shocking, right? But maybe you didn’t know this: it loves victory. It is change, challenge, and chaos. I am all of those things, so it loves me. If you stick around, I’ll give you some pointers, speaking of which! I’m allowed one piece of advice to my challengers per round about the round. Here is the key to winning: Holes sink ships.”

With that, she zipped her lips and then walked away—turning into an owl and vanishing into the sky in a flap or two of her wings.

Sarah shook, and Nate grabbed her, steadying her. Nick let out a long whistle while Julia looked around with wide eyes and her mouth half-open.

They didn’t have very long to process the change in conditions. The golden light wrapped around them vanished; the crowd was back, their yelling and hollering once more head-splitting. Colt stumbled. Fingers went into his ears to try to get them to shut up; the ground beneath him roiled and moved. He stared at his feet and saw planks and boards beneath.

His body shot up, and his height rose—a ship came from the sand below, and a sail split his group as everyone fought to keep themselves upright.

When the world finally stabilized, he was on a small ship, and all of the sand around them had turned into a small lake, filling the center of the arena. Athena beamed at them from her spot on the side, her owl back on her shoulder.

At the other half were five other sails, five other ships. Populated with what looked to be men with goat legs. Satyrs. If Colt’s mythology was right. And they had swords. And blood. And they looked pissed as they started getting control of their ships and swinging their sails around.

“Ah,” Colt said, taking one last glance at the Owl on Athena’s shoulder, then at his ship.

Yeah, he was at a complete loss on how to do this. Those five ships were already getting their sails under control and trying to head over and kill them. Given this was a D- ranked dungeon, he could only guess how strong the monsters were on them.

“Julia!”

“Uh?”

“Can you control the water around the boat?” Colt asked, moving to the front of the ship to get a better look at their enemies.

“Um—a bit?”

“Move us at the other ships, and take that post in the read. Nate, can you try to work the sail like they are?”

“I’ll try,” Nate called back, shouting. It was hard to hear one another over the cheer of the crowd, but it at least was no longer an overwhelming wall of volume and head-splitting screeching. This much communication they could now manage. Colt was whirling his head around as he thought—then he called for Nick.

A second later, streaks of light were sailing out from their boat, crashing into the waves at the upcoming five enemies who were getting themselves together. The water below was swirling and swelling. Sarah went over with Nate to help with the mast and sail. The wind whipped around as dark clouds formed in the sky above, turning the battlefield into a storm. Another layer of complexity to the challenge.

One of the arrows of light smashed into the hull of an opposing ship. It didn’t make a hole, but it was starting a small fire—Colt didn’t feel drops of rain, so it seemed that was on the table. The enemy ships were under control and headed their way far too fast. These monsters were good at navigating their ships, and Colt and his crew were sitting ducks.

Then, a swell of water picked up beneath them, and they started moving right as the enemy.

“Bank left!” Colt shouted—having to grab hold of the railing not to get flung from the ship. Nick stopped shooting, the sudden rush of momentum as they lurched faster than before. Colt saw they were riding on some kind of a wave.

Water magic in action. Julia must be good at her skills. Thank God.

Julia didn’t hear him the first time, so he screamed louder, fighting against the cheering and wind to make his voice cut through the air…

Cut.

On a whim, he grasped at the Edict and shouted, his voice infused with the Edict, sliding through the noise to reach the crew’s ears. It was weird; unlike wrapping that of a blade, this application stretched at his soul and understanding. He wasn’t even sure if it was possible, yet he visualized the noise sliding through all of the chaos.

Immediately, the ship banked to the left, avoiding the main thrust of the oncoming enemies and positioning it just right to get closer to one. With one of the enemy ships lagging behind dealing with the fire, this was a target they could try to take. A minute slid by. The enemy was trying to adjust, but they had to fight the wind. Julia’s control of the water below gave them an advantage.

Within another two minutes, the ship was a stone’s throw away. Nick found a spot to ground himself and fired into it, setting small fires as the arrows of light crashed into them.

“Closer!” Colt screamed, his voice slicing through the wind. Julia yelled something in protest, but he ignored it.

She brought the ship closer.

They were about ten feet away—he could see the goat men on the enemy’s ship, fighting the fires that Nick set. A couple of them were getting their weapons ready, spears attached to ropes they intended to throw over to try to board and bring their ship down.

Colt focused, his knife in hand, as he got as close as possible to the ship.

Focus.

The raging winds, the shouts, the screams, even the faces of the enemy goat men on the other ship roared as they got close, some kind of guttural goat war cry. What levels were they, Colt wondered? Did it matter? The swirling fighting sea below lost its existence as he fell into a state of meditation, preparing the invisible edge along his blade. Cut. His first Edict. It wasn’t as powerful and wasn’t as ancient as the Edict of Movement.

But it was still a fundamental law of the universe. It was a force of power unrivaled.

Colt prepared, honing the weapon in his hand, wrapping the Edict along his blade, preparing and pouring his Soul into it.

Then, his hand snapped forward, slashing the knife downward.

About a foot of water parted, an invisible sliding wave of the blade crashed forward through the storm, and then into the ship of the goat men—their boat groaned as a thin line of black appeared in the side of their hull. It was difficult, Colt strained, sweat beading his brow as the Cut slid through the enemy’s ship. One of the goat men got too close, and his arm came off, the bleeding stump flailing as the creature screamed.

It reached about a third of the way through the ship, twenty feet from Colt, until he could no longer hold the invisible edge together.

Colt let it go.

The waves and crashing water did the rest of the work. Goatmen threw spears and ropes at them. A couple landed, but Sarah was there, cutting them free. The water and the wind tore the ship apart. Goatmen drowned and screamed. Three minutes later, their first ship was conquered.

It seemed that Nike was right, holes did indeed sink ships.

———

You have defeated Satyr Sailor - Level 38

You have defeated Satyr Sailor - Level 39

You have defeated Satyr Helmsmen - Level 40

You have defeated Satyr Sailor - Level 35

…

You have leveled up!

You have leveled up!

You have 6 Stat points to spend. You have gained 2 points of Dexterity and 2 points of Soul!

———