Sometimes I felt like I got a free pass with things because Mom created the System, and the System was behind creating dungeons, trials, and challenges. This time, I felt like I’d been singled out. I appeared on a large hunk of rock surrounded by a sea of lava, in the middle of a volcano. Above me, tiers of scaffolding circled the interior of the volcano mouth, and ascending looked like it was the only way free of the slowly rising lava.

As cool as a volcano wasn’t, I had always wanted to see one, but not from the inside. Any thoughts of altering gravity through my gravity Kinesis fell the moment I saw arrows and bolts of magic flung my way. Stationed throughout the platforms were pink-skinned pig-men who were in the process of evacuating.

“There’s the cursed one! If we kill it, mighty Magmos will spare us!”

“”Kill him!””

I only had one way out, so I dodged the incoming attacks in a burst of Rainbow Dash. The world behind me was left dyed in a magenta wash, since I had activated my Anti-Magic Kinesis. The arrows and bolts were unaffected, but they missed me anyway, and hit rock. The magic bolts, though, disintegrated when they got near me.

I didn’t go up the ladder to the first section of scaffolding, I activated Prismatic Blur for the extra bonus to evasion, then jumped. While midair, I dropped Tides of Woe upon a large group of pig-men, and then turned my eyes ahead once more. With my Strength 18 jump I managed to clear the 4 meter high jump with a few meters to spare. I didn’t land on the scaffolding though, I immediately engaged the nearest pig-man with Dragonfly Strike. Three bare handed blows from me sent the bleeding pig-man off the scaffolding and into few rocks left below. The lava continued to rise. I tuned out his squeals, and activated Dragonfly Strike to appear behind the next monster.

The pig-men were as strong as I was, maybe stronger, but I wasn’t muscular person, and I didn’t play fair. Thanks to my unbreakable gloves and the training from Sun Wukong, I landed blows with the full force of my bolstered Agility. My status screen indicated I was up to 202 Agility at the moment, thanks to the stacks of Spectrum Surge and Malicious Tormentor. My first blow shattered the pig-man’s iron armor, and the second turned the poor thing into blood-mist. Apparently, my Anti-Magic Rainbow Dash counted as using a Kinesis for the purposes of Spectrum Surge, and I had shot up to the full fifty percent agility bonus thanks to all the missiles of magic and bolts of mana being flung my way.

I didn’t even bother to do more than tap the pig-men as I ran past them, that’s all it took to rupture their bodies, transforming the armored pig-monster-men into exploding meat-bombs. I learned right away not to wait for the explosion, but to be as many steps away from their corpses as possible.

I’d forgotten the pig-men had shouted initially, so caught up in my ease at slaughtering them. On the fourth scaffolding from the bottom a pig-man in fancy armor pleaded with me.

“Please! Please spare us!” The words gave me a shock.

“You can talk?” I blinked a haze of red away, and a sick feeling swam in my gut.

“Yes! We can talk! And feel! Let us escape with you!” The sick feeling turned to mere sourness, when I noticed his subordinates were preparing to drop this scaffold into the lava, their boss and me included.

I danced in front of the silver armored pig, punched him square in the chest to shatter his armor, and then I punched him in the face. It was messy, but it sated the rage that had burned within me when the creature had tried to lie to me, to trick me into letting its minions kill the both of us. I flipped my Kinesis to Gravity, hit the area of the two who worked to disconnect the scaffolds with a Gravity Chromatic Cascade, and then fled up the next platform.

When I reached the last platform the lava had only ascended halfway up the fifteen platforms below me, and no pig-man had survived my passing.

“Time to die, dragonfly.” The last pig-man was big, like three meters tall big. It’s huge two bladed axe was bigger than I was, and one hit from that would ruin my day. I didn’t really want to waste a lot of time with this guy, so I flipped to silver, (actually, magnetic), Kinesis. I ran straight at him, creating a corridor of magnetic attraction, and waited until he swung the axe towards me to activate Dragonfly Strike.

The asshole somehow managed to contort, impossibly, to block one of my fists with the haft of his axe. He nearly lost control of the axe, since the enchantment on my gloves completely protected my hand, and my other fist landed a blow against his strange fur and hide armor. That’s all it took for Dragonfly Strike to be considered a hit, and awful wounds split the pig-man’s flesh as bleeding stacked on.

In the agony of bleeding, I upped the danger, dropping Tides of Woe on him.

Warchief Neghed afflicted with Haunted.

Spectral faces and ghostly noises echoed from Warchief Neghed.

I followed that up with Aurora Burst.

This book's true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience.

Warchief Neghed afflicted with Sleep.

You gain Swift Shadows (+30% Movement Speed) (Duration: 4:59.9)

“Really?” I asked the sky, but I wasn’t going to question it too hard. I walked over to the sleeping figure, and punched Warchief Neghed. Unlike his subordinates, he didn’t explode like a meat-bomb. He looked rough, but the huge pig-man’s eyes had taken on an eerie crimson, and waves of primal power wafted off his three meter tall body much like body odor wafted off him.

The cries of ghosts mixed with a primal roar, and the powder keg of rage and vile spirits combined, completely transforming Warchief Neghed. When the waves of power ceased, he was now named Haunted Rage Neghed. I felt some feelings about that, but the lava continued to rise within the magma chamber.

Luckily, Neghed seemed to have forgotten he had an axe. The heavy weapon remained caught in the silver trail of a Magnetic Rainbow Dash, and the dumb brute wanted to throw hands with me. For each hit I dodged I landed three hits on him. Out of my first ten strikes, four of them procced Malicious Tormentor, which dumped Withered, Petrification, Exhaustion, and Frozen onto the monster. Once those landed, it only took me a moment of switching my active Kinesis. My rainbow brilliance dimmed, dominated by the arrival of Death in the form of a dark green shot through with black. Words did the color no justice, for they failed to capture the breath of Death itself upon the dungeon, a grim reminder of mortality.

I had never tried this one out before, since there was a chance it might instant kill people. Infact, the moment my aura changed the body of Neghed twitched and writhed. The Wither effect was part of that, but I felt a rush. The unnatural sensation was the power of conflict, the predator eating the prey. The pig-man’s life force slipped from his body by the moment, and each blow I slammed into it avalanched into more afflictions.

The System read me a litany of ailments, and before I realized I felt a little too good Haunted Rage Neghed exploded like an angry pigeon in a pillow case. Something inside of him exploded outward, sending his primal barbarian fleshy bits across the volcano in a glorious rain of bacon. The most noticeable feeling of buzzing I had been experiencing vanished with his demise.

I nearly gagged, as the realization of what all those bits splayed across the platforms was. The intense heat of the rising lava overwhelmed the smell of burnt flesh. I willed my stomach to behave, switched my Kinesis to Anti-Magic, and dashed through the portal that opened upon the pig-man’s death. I didn’t want to see, or think, about the things I’d just done.

I appeared in a wooden cabin. Across from me sat a man made out of energy, his entire being nothing but the purple black flames I recognized as my Void Kinesis. A checkered board lay between us.

We will play checkers, little brother.

“Little brother? I only have a sister, as far as I know?” I don’t know why, but the fact someone claimed to be my brother bothered me. Neither of our parents had ever mentioned having other children, and they had told us their whole stories.

We are both children of Ayin.

“Neither of my moms’ name’s are Ayin. Got a name?”

My name is Fred, I am the Unutterable Black Flame of the Void.

The way his voice echoed through reality and my mind was really disturbing.

“So what game is this, Fred? I’m Alexander.”

This is the game of games, the greatest of strategic challenges, a game so ancient it predates the Stars themselves.

“Which is?” I asked again. Maybe Void beings didn’t have ears to hear with? Did I need to think it really loudly?

Behold, the field upon which our grand battle of intellect and cunning shall be played. We shall partake in the game of profound simplicity and depths unfathomable, much like my own. Best me in the rite of checkers to pass on to your next trial!

I wanted to roll my eyes, but I started to remember what mom had told me about Fred. Even if he was something of a joke, his power wasn’t. She had integrated him into the System, which meant if he liked me, the System would like me.

“Oh ho ho ho, checkers is it, Fred? I’ve played a few games in my day.” Against Lilith. There was no way in hell that Fred, the insane Void-guy could out-play my sister. So, I just needed to think like Lilith, and this would be a breeze. Think like Lilith. Aisha’s got full lips. Math is fun. I know all the things and have all the magic.

“I’m ready, Fred.” I held my hand out to shake his. “For luck, right?”

A true gentleman, Libby and Reverie could learn from you, little brother.

“Thanks, mom always said manners are important. We still aren’t there on the brother thing, though.” Oh, I wished Fred luck, but not good luck. I called on my ability to twist probability with my mere presence, on my beloved Progenitor of Peril trait, and then we were playing. Piece by piece, Fred lost. He played comically bad, as if he analyzed each move and picked the absolute worst one every time.

You have bested me, Alexander the Great.

“That’s amazing. I wish Morgan was here to hear that.” I liked Fred, but I don’t know why he threw the game so hard, unless my luck curse managed to be that potent?

The final Trial awaits you, brother.

I didn’t linger, I got up from the checkers table and went straight for the portal, then stopped.

“Don’t I get a prize?”

A prize? For what?

“For beating you?” I scratched the side of my head. “I guess since we’re brothers and I bested you, you’d have a congratulatory gift for me. Why else would someone of your importance engineer such a dramatic meeting between us, if not to gift me with something amazing?”

Do you like swords?

“Not really, I like to punch things, like mom.”

Of course, of course. Oh, I see, your gloves don’t count as a fist weapon. Let me fix that.

Fred grasped both of my hands in his, and darkness seeped between us, and when he was done I had a new accessory attached to my Spectrum Gloves.

You have gained Oblivion’s Caress.

Oblivion’s Caress is now bound to Spectrum Gloves. Spectrum Gloves have gained the following abilities: Void Infusion, Void Empowerment.

Void Infusion: Imbue your strikes with the pure destruction of the Void. Adds 10% Void Damage to all unarmed strikes, which ignores armor and physical resistances.

Void Empowerment: On a critical hit, you gain a 25% increase to agility for 10 seconds. Stacks up to 3 times.

“Thanks Fred, you’re the best!”

I darted through the portal.