Before Ray dashed towards the Ryous in the distance, he cast Spiritscourge Chain again. His cast was pretty quick this time. He was not giving any time for the painted monsters to separate and dodge the spell.

“You hit ‘em with that thing?” Gritty asked.

Ray nodded before he continued moving. “All damage to any monsters will be shared by all the monsters. So go ham.”

He didn’t wait to see how Gritty and Marcus dealt with the Painted Guardians. Didn’t even bother checking if the monsters were trying to come after him instead of his companions initially. He’d have to put some faith in his comrades. His real goal was their main opponent in this chamber.

“I wasn’t expecting I’d find you all so soon,” the Ryous said in a sibilant voice. “But I’m glad I did. Sooner we end this, the sooner I can get off this rock and get back to enjoying myself.”

Ray wasn’t sure what that meant, but he was somewhere between shocked and impressed his opponent had come here alone. Primordial Gauge wasn’t detecting the presence of anyone else nearby. “You’re either really brave or really stupid, you know that?” He paused. “There’s nothing stopping you from being both, I guess.”

The Ryous frowned. His green, scaly skin was dark enough that it almost melded in with the rocks of the tunnel. “You’re calling me stupid? You? A human?” He scoffed, forked tongue flickering out. “You have little clue what you’re dealing with.”

That was supposed to be true. Ray didn’t know his opponent’s capabilities, nor could he find them out since the Amulet of Blindness blocked Primordial Gauge from delving into a person’s status.

But that was where Sridayne had come in handy.

“I don’t need to know anything about you to know I’ll kick your ass,” Ray said.

Apparently, the System translated enough of that turn of phrase to let his opponent know what he meant. The Ryous’s eyes flared, pupils turning into slits of anger. “You humans are so pathetic. That bravado is all you have.”

“We’ve made it all the way to the Third Floor of the Tower, and not just from this Tower. From other Towers too. You really think we could come this far if we were so pathetic?”

“Climbing a Tower is nothing. You are bound to your little world.” He pointed an accusing finger at Ray. “You have no knowledge of the greater plane of existence. No idea about the Omniverse. We Ryous have been faring the depths and reaches of the greater dimension for time immemorial. You believe climbing a few Towers on your little world compares to that?”

Ray was tempted to grit his teeth. The Ryous kind of had a point there. Humans were new to this whole schtick with the System and the Omniverse’s many races.

But that was it. They were new.

“You pretend like you’ve had the System and access to the Omniverse forever,” Ray said. “But really, you were like us at one point too. Just another fledgling race trying to survive being integrated into this new world.”

The Ryous scoffed, but didn’t detract anything from what Ray had said. “Don’t worry, human. You and the rest of your kind will learn your place. Starting with now.”

Confident that his abilities were a secret from Ray, the Ryous attacked. Or at least, Ray assumed his opponent thought it was secret. It could just be sheer arrogance that made him throw caution to the winds and attack Ray directly.

Whatever the case, the ground started cracking as rocks levitated into the air, starting to orbit around the Ryous.

A second later, the rocks came flying in at Ray.

He knew what this was, of course. Sridayne had filled him in. The Ryous had psychokinetic powers. Abilities that worked in an area-of-effect to wrap everything in his control. In fact, it was likely that if Ray was within the ability’s range, he himself could become controlled too.

Kind of broken, in his estimation. But whatever. He had already formed counters to that.

Mottling Spiritguard created just the defence he needed. It would be hard to judge the effective distance that the Ryous could control anything. For all Ray knew, the eight-armed, snakelike alien was keeping the apparent range within a dozen feet of himself to make Ray lower his guard. Best to assume that was the case.

The Spiritguard orbs shifted in shape into rotating shields around him. Ray focused on maintaining their control, blocking the levitating rocks that the Ryous launched at him.

Once he had suffered enough of the attacks, he created draconic maws with Primal Spiritcraft and fired off lasering breaths at a distance.

The Ryous’s response was just as expected. More rocks burst out of the ground, at a greater distance this time, blocking the beams of compressed chaotic fire. Smart thinking. If the rocks had remained closer as they had originally done, the resulting explosion when they blocked would have peppered the Ryous with deadly shrapnel.

But Ray had foreseen enough of it. His goal hadn’t been to directly harm his opponent. Not with his maws’ fiery breaths.

Instead, with the dust clouding them all, he cast Lifeblood Soulform to create the bees and made sure to coat them with Mimic Mana after summoning his Imitator construct too. Then he sent them forth towards the dust cloud.

It didn’t matter if they got caught in the Ryous’s psychokinetic control. As long as they retained some ability to control their own motion, they ought to be able to get close enough.

Before the cloud cleared, more rocks came cannoning out towards Ray. His Spiritguard shields blocked them with ease. He could just dodge them, but keeping the extent of his mobility hidden for now would allow for a nice surprise when he really needed to move fast.

It wasn’t just the rocks that the Ryous was controlling, though. Air itself started swirling fast and hard around him. A veritable twister erupted into being, blocking the Ryous entirely from view.

Ray wasn’t that worried at the display of power. He was just kind of miffed because now he was pretty sure the bees weren’t going to work against that. He sighed.

The tornado whipped and twisted about. While Sridayne hadn’t mentioned anything about the Ryous controlling wind to that extent before, it wasn’t unexpected. She had reported seeing him create a vortex of swirling magma around him with the same powers.

What she hadn’t reported was the fact that he could swing his vortex around like a whip. The column of ripping wind narrowed before lashing out.

This time, Ray forewent blocking and just dodged. He was right to do so. The twister missed him, but the wind caught several of his Spiritguard shields. They promptly tore them to shreds.

Oh yeah, that was strong. Ray would do best to avoid it completely.

When the tornado whipped in after him, almost horizontal as it swiped across the chamber floor, Ray dodged differently this time.

He used one of the draconic maws at the end of his arm to fire a blast to his left. Over the onrushing twister. Spectral Step took him to the end of the blast in a microsecond. Powerful though the Ryous clearly was, he couldn’t arrest the momentum of his ability and bring the tornado around in the complete opposite direction easily.

Not before Ray could get off his shot, at least.

The other draconic maw was aimed straight at the base of the tornado. Ray pushed some extra True Mana with the Mana Infuser ring and raised the strength of Primal Spiritcraft by a few Tiers. The draconic maw around his right arm grew to twice its original size. Then it fired.

This time, the Ryous was forced to dodge. The base of the tornado broke apart as he shot out of the tornado to evade the blast.

Ray was expecting just that. He was already flying, Soaring Wings taking him closer to his target with incredible speed. The Ryous’s eyes widened as Ray closed in.

He had already dispelled the Windbane maws around his hands. Now, they were both free to cast Soulstrike. A True Mana arm the size of a small construction crane burst out of Ray’s back with a flare of red-black chaos, the spectral limb punching forward to strike his target.

The author's content has been appropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

The Ryous gained control of the True Mana arm a mere foot before it connected. At the same instant, the psychokinetic ability’s real range came into play. Everything around Ray started cracking, the rocks, the air, and even his own body starting to compress horribly.

[Warning!]

Primordial Gauge has partially blocked the effects of Suppressing Aura [Tier 7].

Ray ignored the warning. He had an instant to act. The quickest of casts of Primal Spiritcraft with Mana Imbuing had a spectral draconic maw forming right at the end of the True Mana arm.

It fired the moment it formed.

The horrid feeling of being impossibly crushed vanished as the Ryous was blasted backwards off his feet. Ray didn’t catch if there was some defensive skill protecting his opponent or not.

He himself had fallen to his knees, breathing heavily. The pain wracking his body was decreasing but holy shit, that had been intense. Way too close. And what was that warning from Primordial Gauge about some ability affecting him?

“Ray!” Marcus shouted from behind.

The alarm in his voice made Ray turn around. He was a little nonplussed by what he saw. None of them were in any immediate danger as far as he could see.

Instead, all he witnessed were the monsters falling apart. They had already been damaged from their fight against Gritty and Marcus, though not so much that they would be breaking on their own. Ray froze as he understood. Then he used Spectral Step again.

Just in time. A jagged rock flew in from nowhere, spearing into the spot he had been standing in a mere breath ago.

The Ryous had an ability that transferred his damage to his controlled puppets. That must have been what the warning was about. An inability on the Ryous’s part to turn Ray into one of his enemy’s puppets, just like the Painted Guardians had become, thanks to Primordial Gauge protecting him.

Ray’s teleportation had taken him to one side of the chamber. The bees hadn’t been eradicated fully. The tornado had just thrown some of them away to a different spot.

He created a few more with Lifeblood Soulform, sending them off to other corners of the chamber. No telling when he’d need snap Spectral Steps to get him away.

Meanwhile, the Ryous was gathering a ton of power. More wind and rocks were swirling around him, an avalanche of a maelstrom that would rip apart anything that got close.

Then his barrage started.

Ray had cast Mottling Spiritguard once again. They formed protective shields, keeping him safe against the wind-powered rocks that crashed in. The Ryous hadn’t spotted him yet, but he didn’t need to. Those rocks were flying everywhere.

Even worse, the Ryous himself had decided to move. He was shooting straight for where Marcus and Gritty had been fighting against the Painted Guardians.

Ray was almost tempted to shout that he was the bastard alien’s opponent. But that would be giving away his slim advantage away. So instead, he made the Imitator construct turn into himself before rushing straight for his opponent. He even made sure to imbue enough intelligence so that the construct could act like him too.

“Hey, Ryous!” the construct shouted, in an almost scarily good approximation of Ray himself. “You missed your target.”

Safeguarded against the shooting rocks by several Spiritguard shields, the Imitator Ray charged in front of the onrushing Ryous. Its arms had become draconic maws, which it fired without hesitation against that vortex of destruction around its target.

This gave Ray a short opportunity to crush a True Mana crystal and top himself up. He was a little curious to see what would happen when the compressed beams of chaos hit the vortex.

He winced when they met. The detonation was furious. But through the explosion, Ray caught the real event that made his stomach sink.

The blasts from his Windbane maws couldn’t get through that vortex.

Instead, the vortex reached the Imitator and started tearing it apart. Setting off Ray’s real plan.

He had already created another Imitator construct, which also took up his form. The second fake Ray used Spectral Step to appear right in the spot where the first Imitator was being torn apart inside the vortex.

Ray assumed that the Ryous was expecting something like that. The confident way he had gone about attacking and using his abilities suggested he had done his homework. He knew what to expect from Ray.

Which meant Ray had to resort to something unexpected.

While the Ryous was gloatingly busy attacking the second fake Ray—imagining the real Ray had teleported in his first fake’s place to attack his target within his protective vortex’s shield—Ray got busy.

He used Spectral Step and Lifeblood Soulform several times in quick succession. All those bees he had sent out a little while ago had slowly drawn in closer to the Ryous and his vortex. Ray appeared at every one of their locations along with a single flying Windbane maw.

When he was done, he flew back to stand right in front of the Ryous, just outside that devastating hemisphere of destruction.

The Ryous, busy tearing apart the fake ray, paused all of a sudden. Then his eyes widened.

“You—”

“Too late.” Ray grinned. “See ya.”

“You’re just a human. You will die. You—”

All he had time for were those last words. A second later, the breaths crashed in.

The dozen constructs Ray had summoned made his head twinge painfully, but it was worth it. Where the blast from two Windbane maws couldn’t penetrate through that rocky twister to get to the Ryous within, twelve of them attacking at once sure did.

Ray himself was buffeted back by the incredible destruction shaking the entire tunnel. A column of pure chaotic flames rose from the point of impact to crash into the ceiling.

When the devastation ended, flaming rocks raining down everywhere, Ray finally received the notification confirming his victory.

[Enemy Defeated—Ryous]

Aura Manipulator [Tier 4] Ryous: [Level 53] x1

Essence: +10,600

Knowledge: +3

Mana Restored: +530

Essence to Level 49: 74,450/221,200

Knowledge to next Threshold: 2,530/3,500

Gritty whistled as she walked through the rain of debris. “Who needs a Class Evolution when you can already do shit like that, huh Wingman?”

Despite the triumphant grin she sported, there was a look in her eye Ray didn’t miss. A look that went deeper than the victory they had just scored.

“That really was…” Marcus shook his head as he joined them. “Insane.”

“We should get going,” Ray said. “This whole place looks a little too unstable for my tastes.”

They got moving. Ray didn’t feel a whole lot, and he wasn’t sure if he ought to. That Ryous had been the first competitor he had killed in this Immortalizer Tournament.

It wasn’t going to be his last, going by the way even the other humans were determined to win no matter what. He wasn’t going to hold back when others came at him with deadly force. Death was just the consequence of what they were putting on the line. That was the stakes they were playing for.

Still. A part of him realized it was all just entertainment from one perspective. The rich spectators, the elite that the Tower Lord had invited from across the Omniverse that the Sylvans could reach, were all watching this with smiles on their faces and their chosen chilled beverage in their hand.

That death meant nothing to them. The snuffing out of a life was just another aspect of what they’d paid to see.

No doubt, they wanted more.

“More of the Painted Guardians,” Gritty called. She had ranged ahead a little. “And they’re different this time.”

They were indeed. The monsters were more numerous, taking on more abstract shapes. Their artists had taken some very creative liberties with their portrayal.

It wasn’t just the monsters that became more of a pain to deal with. The dungeon’s originators had also set up painted traps that came to life. From classic rolling boulders to environmental hazards such as an entire tunnel filled with a blizzard, with icy monsters attacking them in the misty gloom.

All in all, a real pain in the ass to deal with.

Nevertheless, after what felt like an hour or two of fighting through monsters, traps, and environments, they reached the dungeon boss room. It was nice that Ray had earned another level by the time he had reached the boss room. So close to hitting that level 50 threshold.

[Enemy Defeated—Painted Guardian]

Tier 22 Monster: Painted Guardian [Level 52] x13

Tier 23 Monster: Painted Guardian [Level 54] x7

Essence: +235,660

Knowledge: +60

True Mana Restored: +10,540

[Level Up!]

Reward

* +5 Intellect, +5 Spirit, +2 Vitality +2 Agility, +10 allocatable free stats.

* 1 True Mana Tier Point

Essence to Level 50: 78,310/221,200

Knowledge to next Threshold: 2,527/3,500

He assigned his Tier point to Primal Spiritcraft to reduce his reliance on the Mana Infuser ring. The free stat points went to Vitality again.

It wasn’t just about more survivability now. He was determined to see what he got when he broke through the stat’s next Tier threshold.

“You guys ready?” Marcus asked.

“Ready as I’ll ever be,” Gritty said. “Let’s go. Just kind of surprised we haven’t met any of the other competitors yet.”

They’d discussed it briefly on their way here. The other one of the Ryous duo must have met the Sylvan team. A fatal meeting, most likely. While they didn’t know the Sylvan team’s capabilities, Ray suspected that they were more than strong enough to handle one Ryous.

But that still left the dangling question as to why they hadn’t met the Sylvans yet. Had Ray’s team just been that fast? Unlikely. There was something else going on.

“Imagine we meet them inside,” Ray said.

Gritty smiled deviously. “A least we’ll know where they are then. We can spring a nice surprise while we’re at it.”

The entrance to the boss room wasn’t barred. Unlike other chambers, where they’d had to navigate through a bunch of different challenges to go further in, the boss door was a simple tunnel. When they reached the end, Ray grinned.

“Oh, boy,” Marcus said. “That’s a big one.”

A painting was coming to life, the biggest and most complicated one they had seen yet. Ray didn’t mind. Strong though their final challenge looked, he was happy about it. Finally, they’d be facing a dungeon boss inside a dungeon and Ray could properly use Primordial Gauge to determine the threat.

Just as they entered, though, Ray realized he had been inadvertently prophesizing earlier. They did indeed meet the Sylvans within the boss room.

The tunnel closed with a sudden, rocky snap. When he turned, Ray found the three Sylvans standing in front of the former entrance.

“Raymond Dominick,” said the Sylvan at the front. “Compliments of the Floor Lord.”

And then, the Sylvans attacked.