PLEASE ENTER NAME : LEVEL 10

DAY 162 : B-DAY, FIRSTWEEK, FULGORA, YEAR 1

ARENA 3 : ROUND 3 : FIST PUMP

Our opponents have spent the past day delaying and dallying and desalinating their seawater over there or something. At least that’s what Simon says they’re doing.

I seem to be the only one with neither a theory, nor problem with the wait. After millions of years of giving the same answer to the same questions, a day of standing here in this open marble-strewn landscape is effortless and frustration-free. In fact, the inability to summon Armors or control those I have outside the arena while I’m a competitor, combines with the lack of stimuli to bring to mind something called ‘zen’.

This is an odd term. Instead of the usual definition, nothing springs to mind. Not just a lack of new information, but an absolute negation of any other thoughts. I’m no closer to understanding it now than when the match was supposed to start. But sitting here cross-legged while contemplating the new concept has made the day since we got here a very relaxing one indeed.

On the other hand, as he tends to do when specifically unprompted for long enough, my mentor has been ranting about Xemu again. “Mecha in SPACE is the dream. Not this ground-level shit. Even the Neutral Territories would be more fun. At least then, it could be mechas vs aliens.”

But Zack is apparently confused. “What’s a Neutral Territory?”

“Oh nothing, just a completely neutral hub between races controlled by none but the Super Admins.”

“So where are these alleged ‘neutral hub’s? I’ve never seen one.”

“Well, you know how this is all a big octagon?”

“It’s the inside of a sphere.”

Frowning, Simon nods in rare, albeit seemingly random approval. “You know what I mean.”

“I do. And I get it. You can’t stack what has to be a limited maximum number of octagons to accommodate a maximum number of races any more efficiently than to leave an open square between every other one. So the areas bordering Boreas, Deimos, Fulgora, and Horus, are all neutral then? I didn’t know you could travel out there. What’re they like?”

“This is heaven, lad. Go and see for yourself. You have Shine attunement like me, so you can get there easily enough. It’s a long walk, but your portals should alleviate that somewhat. Deimos doesn’t like how bright the deer is, but Fulgora seems to want to eat him, so she always lets us through in an eternal effort to lull Eos into a false sense of security.”

“What about the other neutral squares?”

Simon shrugs. “You can’t do anything in the other three that you can’t do in the fourth.”

“And what the hell is THAT supposed to mean?”

“Heaven is best experienced, young padawan. Not told.”

David leans in to protect the life of his own student. “It means The Black Dragon will come and kill you practically the instant you step into it.”

Zack pales. “Oh.”

Simon takes the prompt to screw up his face at David. “Spoilsport. That would've been hilarious.”

But then Zack kindly provides Simon’s schadenfreude a ray of hope with a followup question. “I thought The Black Dragon wouldn't come down past the barrier.”

“This is an excellent point that you should go and investigate. For science.”

David solemnly nods. “The square areas don't have the protections that keep Xemu out of the octagons.”

Zack turns to David. “Then what’s the point of letting people go out there at all?”

“Heaven wasn't designed with Xemu in mind.”

“Well, why the hell not?”

“I… Don't actually know. Seems like a serious oversight, on The Admin’s part, right?”

“That's what I'm saying.”

Simon sighs. “Xemu is a Hero.”

Zack’s eyes boggle. “What?”

So do David’s. “Seriously?”

Simon smirks. “Yep.”

“But just… How?”

“No idea. But this is only reason why no spaceships are flying around up there.”

“I thought the whole point of The Black Dragon was to stop space travel from being a thing at all.”

Zack nods. “Otherwise, you could just fly to any of the planets and skip all this bullshit needed to climb them.”

Simon chuckles. “That is what barrier is for.”

“The one that keeps us from leaving Humanity’s Territory?”

“No. The one that keeps Xemu out. Which it would also do for spaceships and whatever. If said Hero wouldn't tear them apart the instant they entered neutral space anyway.”

“So those square areas are supposed to be just as neutral as the space above us?”

“Sure is. The vast majority of Heaven’s volume is an empty free-for-all currently and continuously being dominated by one asshole.”

“So why don't the mods do anything?”

“The human ones? Out of their jurisdiction. And as long as he stays out of whatever territory he came from, only The Super Admins are in a position to do anything. As to why they don’t? Not sure. Prevailing theory is a particularly broken piece of Divine Equipment from winning Ragnarok. Either that or a Unique Skill. But those are perfectly fine for Super Admins to nerf, so I don’t know why that would explain it.”

“What's a ‘Super Admin’?”

Alex is apparently also bored. “Admins over all of Heaven. All the individual race ones are subservient to them.”

“So like executives?”

“Basically, yeah. Not so much in dictating the day-to-day operations. But the changes they make are Heaven-wide. Or volumetric? Not sure the right term for the inside of a sphere.”

Simon shrugs. “Don’t ask me. I’m a scientist, not an English teacher.”

The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.

Alex sighs. “For the last time, I’m speaking Cantonese. If you had a better word for what I’m talking about, you could just say that, and we’d all hear the right thing.” Not waiting for Simon to give the straight answer even I know he never will, Alex turns back to Zack. “When I say ‘subservient’, I don’t mean anything quite so managerial. Our Admins can opt out of specific overall changes or make rules of their own that only apply to us. But you’re right in that the upper echelons of The Super Admins can absolutely boss our Admins around. Although they rarely exercise that power.”

Joe is apparently also bored enough to join the conversation. “So they're like an upper circle of Angels?”

Simon, for his part, is quick to address the one not currently calling him out on his deflection. “They’re not angels.”

At the same time, David nods to Joe. “Pretty much, yeah.”

Simon scowls at David.

Who, in turn, rounds on Simon. “Oh what? It's a good analogy. Just because you have unresolved baggage with Earth religions, doesn't mean everyone else is going to tiptoe around you about it.”

Simon shakes his head. “Is not that. Unlike the rarity of Xemu’s equipment probably, they are not divine. They were raised up, by each other, to a position over everyone else who got here in precisely the same way as them. As to why I don’t play your language games, it really all comes back to my father. The man was…” Simon clams up, going suddenly pale.

Condescending to his team’s nonsense out of similar boredom, Tyrone chuckles. “An asshole?”

Some color returns to Simon’s face. “That’s a nice way of saying it.”

Joe perks up. “Is that who you’re bringing back when we win this thing?”

Simon burst into laughter. Likely due to significant Stamina investment, it lasts until the match starts.

“FFFIIIGHT!!!”

And on that note… We just stand right where we have been for the past day. Well, not just that.

Spawning his equipped Legendary Vehicle onto the field, Simon gets in an utterly massive mecha he’d been working on for the past month named ‘Big O’. It’s very slow, but apparently ‘packs a powerful punch’.

Tyrone activates his Three Tails, Super Saiyan, and Armament Haki Toggles that apparently combine to reduce his collective MP and SP regen to near zero, even with as many MP-Regen Passives as he could find. So he can use all three of those indefinitely, just so long as he does nothing else. And if there’s one thing Tyrone never does, it’s ‘nothing else’. Except for now.

For the most part, that’s what we’re all doing.

Remembering my own MP Regen, I opt to preemptively begin and take advantage of the time.

[ EPIC ACTION: SUMMON ARMOR 4 ]

And when my MP is fully recharged…

[ EPIC ACTION: SUMMON ARMOR 4 ]

But my MP doesn’t have time to get back up to full again before Zack summons a portal.

After what public opinion has dictated was a pathetic showing last week, Tyrone has instructed us to make a display of our first royal opponents of the tournament. The Surge Kingdom Team is supposedly slated to win in a few years, so they’re using the intervening time to train up, get used to the format, and compensate for the fact that the majority of them are CRAFT-focused. Tyrone has opted to take advantage of this fact to implement a strategy that minimizes our fight time, casualties, and most importantly, our visible effort at taking down the ones who made us wait here a whole day. In other words, we aim to maximize our opponent’s embarrassment in the eyes of the public.

As such, Kirito walks through the portal. Finding his silhouette off in the distance, I immediately try to establish a target where his silhouette reappears.

[ HERO TARGETED: RAIJIN ]

[ EPIC ACTION: SUMMON ARMOR 4 ]

[ MOVEMENT BLESSING: GALE FORCE ]

As I take off, Tyrone and David head through another portal while Alex and Joe enter a third.

My new target and three others jump away from Kirito almost as soon as he appears.

Not the fourth though. He remains standing there with Kirito’s hand on his shoulder.

While the Character Moment Skill is in effect, neither the user or target can move or otherwise damage each other.

That offers no protection from outside interference, as demonstrated by arrows, bullets, and actual bolts of lightning being fired from Raijin and the two other members of the Surge Kingdom Team at the one holding their comrade.

A much larger portal appears above Kirito and his trope-trapped target.

Neither this, or what follows, happens fast enough to stop Kirito from being utterly bombarded with projectiles. Whether due to friendly fire protection, or actual aiming, all the shots hit our team’s second tank, rather than his captive. In the intervening dozen-or-so seconds, Kirito gets peppered with enough damage to kill the rest of us except maybe Tyrone, several times over. But the only impact that seems to have besides the apparent pain and feedback from every hit, is the left side of Kirito’s hairline bleeding ever more profusely with each one.

Eventually, then again several times, one of the shots results in a disproportionate fountain of blood spurting from the point of impact. As I understand, this is a sign of what would, for anyone else, be death. Each time Kirito’s HP would be reduced to 0, he recovers at least half, and that becomes his new Max HP. Should that value ever become 1, he will lose consciousness until his max health restores to full at the end of eight hours. As such, this is regarded as an elimination for the concerns of any competition where death is a loss.

As is idealized by the Tank Archetype, the Anime Subclass of the Main Character Specialty can never die. And, as planned, he’s still extremely far from any such threshold. Especially with his armor boosting Max HP Recovery, Defense over 32, and a Skill selection focused mainly on increased survivability.

Having circled around the three of them, I come in behind each of the Royal Team with ten of myself to do what Tyrone described as ‘helping them with their aim’.

[ POWER BLESSING: GALE BALL ]

From the blind spots Raijin and each of the two others allegedly have, ten of me take turns sending them all beyblading closer to their target. I don’t give them a chance to recover. Nor do I stop when they’re once more under the area of the portal now the width of a building. But that is when I send a message.

[ TEAM / PLEASE ENTER NAME: OPPONENTS IN ]

A building-wide fist slams through the portal, into the ground, flattening Kirito, four of our opponents, and eight of my Armors.

Around the same time, the armor with my head lands back over by Simon after dropping off those 30 bodies, 22 of which are now running as fast as I can from the giant fist.

Next to me, the bent-over Big O’s arm ends in a portal. That’s more than compensated for by its other end extending further behind its shoulder joint than the total length of its other arm.

[ TEAM / KIRITO: ANY DAY NOW… ]

Like a hydraulic press, the missile silo of a shoulder extension collapses back into the rest of the Big O’s arm.

In addition to the eight from earlier, I lose the three closest armors to the detonation zone.

[ OPPONENT ELIMINATED: STORMBRINGER ]

[ OPPONENT ELIMINATED: RAIJIN ]

Once more extending without lifting its fist out of the portal or even off of its victims, the extended bit slams back down again.

[ OPPONENT ELIMINATED: ASTRAPOS ]

And again.

[ OPPONENT ELIMINATED: LIGHT NING ]

Finally, the fist lifts off of the corpses and also Kirito, out of the crater splattered with blood that mostly belongs to Kirito.

[ TEAM / KIRITO: ALWAYS A PLEASURE ]

[ TEAM / TYRONE: THANKS FOR THE DISTRACTION ]

[ TEAM / SIMON: YOU ARE QUITE WELCOME ]

My Sonar range doesn’t cover nearly that far, but my Team Silhouettes indicate Tyrone standing on top of David’s summoned dragon as he holds one of the enemy team in each hand.

Both of those enemies seem to be armed with what fits the description of a ‘missile launcher’.

Tyrone’s silhouette claps.

[ OPPONENT ELIMINATED: BOLT ]

[ OPPONENT ELIMINATED: GAMMA ]

In a different direction, What I’ve learned to properly recognize as Joe’s silhouette makes a throwing motion.

Alex’s silhouette makes a batting motion.

[ OPPONENT ELIMINATED: STARSEED ]

David’s dragon’s silhouette makes a breathing motion.

[ OPPONENT ELIMINATED: MARLEY ]

“AND THE WINNER IS…”

“Seriously? The Anime Club? Jesus…”