Far up above the arena, Berrigious watched the hunt unfold, sitting next to the replacement System imprint as he did so. Unlike an actual System Overseer, the creature that had been placed in charge of the System within this universe was a weak creature, fallible and utterly mortal.

It still possessed enough power to crush Berrigious like an ant, but he had the thing on a tight leash of reciprocity and blackmail. It feared the day that the true System Overseer would return,as its existence would be ended upon its arrival. Berrigious had dangled the promise of a way out over the creature, as long as it helped him with his goals.

Under the purview of the System, the little trick that he had played with the subatomic script on the contracts was completely illegal. However, the imprint had tweaked some of the rules and made it so that Berrigious could make it work. Unfortunately it was only enough of a back door to bind the signers for a short amount of time, enough for the monster hunt and the tournament, but it was not enough to permanently force anyone to serve Berrigious.

It was only a stopgap measure to cull most of the herd, and allow those who Berrigious wanted to preserve to rise to the top. He watched the events unfold within the arena just as he had planned. Both of the most powerful teams had found the real prize in the event, and the team of Sam Atlas was still alive, which also suited his purposes. The System imprint was still confused by his scheming however.

“I don’t understand. Why would you want your favored pawn not to reach the center?” It asked him, pointing at the meandering path of Sam’s team. Berrigious laughed. It felt good to be smarter than the System for once in his life, even if it was not really the System.

“Did you not see how Sam lost himself to his rage earlier when only one of his companions died? Imagine what would happen if all of them were to be slain. He would go utterly berserk, his Dao rising in prominence until it threatened to eclipse his soul. He would break out of it, his will is strong enough, but by the end, he would have caused enough damage to break his other Dao. I have no interest in a servant who serves Justice. But Anger is another story. I can bend him to my will far more easily then.”

The System imprint nodded appreciatively at Berrigious’ artifice.

“I understand. How ingenious.”

Berrigious smiled, but inwardly scoffed at the imprint.

“Of course you don’t, you cretinous machine. How could you? I am the pinnacle of existence, the rightful hegemon of this Multiverse,” Berrigious thought. Needless to say, humility was not one of his strong suits.

Sam doubled over in exhaustion, his body spent from the exertion of the past hour. After they had passed into a part of the forest where the trees grew even closer together than before, everything had become far worse. The monster attack had doubled in intensity and a new, even more dangerous species of monster had arrived.

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It looked like some sort of sentient patch of resin, which would drop down from the branches at random. It was not merely sticky however, but it was composed of a highly potent acid that even burned Sam. To the weaker members of his party, it was a death sentence. Another of his charges had died, and one of them had lost an arm to one of the sap monsters. They professed their ability to remain useful in battle, but Sam feared that they were not long for life. If not from their wounds, the warrior would soon die to a monster. A seething volcano of apoplectic rage simmered in Sam, but he had nowhere to vent it. He needed to keep all of his focus on the protection of his companions, with no room for a temper tantrum. It felt like he was suffocating, he was so enraged. Both at himself and Berrigious, but mostly towards the latter of the two.

Sam and Eduardo had begun to feel a strange presence within the arena over the last thirty minutes, and they were making their way towards it now. It felt like the aura of a powerful monster, which they were sure was the boss of the event. If they killed that then their levels would skyrocket, or at least go up, and they would probably win the hunt. The only problem was that it seemed as if others had already detected the monster. Some of the branches in front of them were broken, betraying the path of another team. Sam would have bet his last level that it was one of the two strongest teams who had beat them to it.

He cautiously pulled back one of the broken branches and inspected it. There was a fleck of greenish blood on it, which was definitely not human, or as far as he knew, of any of the monsters in the forest so far. His ears began to pick up a faint scratching noise coming from ahead, and he signaled for the others to tighten up their formation before they went ahead. Sam started to imbue his body with mana and the armor of his skill formed over his flesh.

Behind the branches was a clearing, one that was filled with gremlins. These were no ordinary gremlins however, they were the size of people. Beady black eyes glared at Sam from under thick, deep set brows and muscular appendages extended outwards from their chunky torsos. In the middle of the group what could only be described as a madman stood. He was caked in blood and filth and his eyes were unfocused. Slobber dripped down from his mouth and onto the floor. On his head was a rusty iron crown, one that looked like it had been picked out of a dumpster. He locked his eyes on Sam and hissed.

“Brothers! Attack the invader to our holy court!” The man screamed, spittle flying out of his mouth. The gremlins grunted and charged Sam. He laughed and swung out with his mace, expecting to feel bone and flesh pulp beneath his weapon, but it barely killed the first gremlin. These things were far higher level than he had expected. Behind him, the bright eyes of the madman seemed to stare into Sam’s soul as he chanted some inane verse.

“Seventeen slippery seals swam softly, sharply, slowly, singing. Sixteen sharks snapped seventeen seals swimming softly, sharply, slowly, singing.” Sam cut out the noise and focused on the battle. As he beat back the advances of the gremlins, he turned towards the man.

‘Who the hell are you?” Sam asked, as he blocked a claw slash.

“Who am I? Who am I! What am I? I am Judge, Judge, Judge. King of the gremlins.” Sam was confused for a moment but then saw who it was. On the power leaderboard, there was a man named Elminster Judge. That, combined with the strength of the gremlins that attended him, told Sam that this was the very same man.