Beatrice told her knees not to tremble as she sat in the transport and floated up toward the location of the challenge. She felt unmoored from her body, moving up through the cloud layer along with the bus. Her knees acknowledged Beatrice’s feelings but told her very directly that they would continue to tremble regardless, thank you very much.

Beatrice pressed her eyes closed so she at least didn’t need to watch her insubordinate body. The seats were faux-leather and reminded her of a school bus. She… hadn’t been very popular in grade school. Middle school had been worse. The creep of those memories just added to the unreality of the moment, as she floated up in a bus filled with some of the greatest heroes of the age.

And worst of all-

Beatrice told her eyes not to give in to temptation. But the needy ocular grapes whizzed around to fixate on Illdan, two seats in front of her. For one seconds, two seconds, three seconds, she simply stared at the angular structure of his face, becoming more panicked that he would notice because she had been staring for so long. Finally, she was able to tear her gaze away. She released a shuddering breath.

It was almost worse that he wouldn’t acknowledge her. Like she was a drifting ghost, fixating onto the living and sucking away their life with her presence. The strained silence between the two of them only added to her nerves regarding the fight against the Ghosthound; combined, her anxiety had become crippling.

“Young Miss,”

Beatrice jumped as Hong Li leaned over and put his hand on her forearm. His smile was warm and aimed directly at her. She felt some of her tension ease. “We shall be working together in the fight, so let’s do our best to support each other. Only together can we succeed.”

She offered him a quick smile and nodded. Truth be told, she was quite relieved that she and Hong Li were going to be acting in concert to try and limit the Ghosthound’s physical movements in the challenge. With some of the others, Beatrice would have been too intimidated by their storied accomplishments to focus. And with Illdan, she would have been constantly wondering if, despite how bad an idea it would be, he would twist around and pull her into a slow kiss, right before the fight began-

“There it is,” Paolo said in a booming voice. The bus had burst out past the clouds. He jabbed his finger at the window. The rest of the bus, a blushing Beatrice included, leaned forward to get their own look out the slightly smudged windows.

The Little Moon that would host them felt like the secret dwelling of some ominous space demon. It was shaped like a god’s hands had simply dug into the surface of a planet and levitated a cupped handful of stone, rounded at the bottom and mostly flat across the top. Beatrice squinted and activated her Incisive Gaze to get a better look. Right now the Little Moon was only the size of a fist, but as the bus carried them closer it continued to expand. Even from the distance, she could make out strange, pillar-shaped rock formations.

The Little Moon seemed to be covered in a forest of stripped stone trees. Beatrice couldn’t help but wonder why.

As they moved closer and the platform expanded from a fist to a small town and then further to an entire city, Beatrice also began to notice the autonomous camera drones hovering around the area. Their lenses caught the light in the thinning atmosphere of Expira, small sparkles of the attention the whole of the Alpha Cosmos heaped upon them.

“Grim place,” Alana observed.

“I almost think the Ghosthound made it that way on purpose, so it would be more fun to obliterate,” Paolo cracked his knuckles.

Kimpap clicked her tongue. “I am still freshly introduced to Nether as an abundant energy; we could not access it before being formally included in the Alpha Cosmos. However… the way those pillars are arranged causes slight dizziness if I look too closely. Somehow, I believe they are arranged in a pattern that damages the flower of Nether.”

With renewed interest, the group looked at the island. There were dense sections of those somehow uneven pillars in several places, but the ring around the edge of the Little Moon was complete.

“Now why would he arrange it like that?” Hong Li wondered. No one else could think of an answer.

The bus soon settled down on the surface of the Little Moon, in an area relatively free of the stone pillars. The trembling in Beatrice’s knees grew more intense. There was already something in the air; the reality that they would fight against Randidly Ghosthound began to sink into her skin and weaken her resolve.

The group filed off the bus and most of the others wore expressions of determination. Beatrice was second to last, with only Hank Howard behind her. The lanky cowboy yawned and stretched as he stepped onto the stone ground, then adjusted his guns. The bus hummed with energy and lifted off, leaving them alone in the stone wilderness. There were no noises here; the still air of the outer atmosphere was still and lifeless. The drones circled almost soundlessly around the group.

Compared to the raucous and excited atmosphere of the arena, the Little Moon made Beatrice deeply uncomfortable. As Kimpap had indicated earlier, if she ever examined the arrangement of the pillars too closely, her head began to swim.

“Guess I don’ need ta ask where we headin’,” Hank inclined his head in a certain direction. Without any other signs, the air in that direction just felt denser. Hong Li smiled slightly. Alana, Illdan, and Kimpap checked the blades of their spears for any flaws. Paolo showed a wild smile, one almost feral with pent-up aggression. Drake slowly rubbed the leather grip of his sword with his thumb.

The group walked for two minutes, then accelerating to a light jog to cross the distance. The deeper they weight, the more oppressive the silence became. The more peculiar the pillars became. Beatrice tried not to breathe, so she didn’t need to hear herself. They passed through increasingly dense areas of stone pillars. Some seemed to have been altered halfway up their length, so the top portion was moved a half-length in any direction. More than that, the thickness of the pillars began to rapidly increase.

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

When they had come within a certain distance, Beatrice could feel the presence of their target against her skin. It had all the potent energy of sunlight. Her skin began to prickle.

The Ghosthound waited on top of a pillar the size of a squat apartment building. His posture was relaxed as he watched them approach. The group leapt and joined him on top of the pillar. His messy black hair hung around his face. His left arm was a living carbon plant and he lightly held a spear in his right hand. A tail flicked at his waist. Two larger drones were installed behind him, likely to give the viewers better angles for the audience at home.

Yet it was his posture and confidence that made Beatrice sweat.

“I’m glad you could make it,” Randidly Ghosthound spoke, partially verbally but also with a powerful mental reverberation so that his intent was clear in the dissipating atmosphere. His gaze slid to Paolo, whose face was still twisted into a feral grin. A mirrored version of that look tugged at Randidly’s face. “And the fact that you brought such contagious enthusiasm… heh, I think it’s very clear that the Alpha Cosmos will see an excellent demonstration today.

“Before we begin, I’d like to make you an offer. Your power is impressive, but it isn’t nearly enough to fight against me. The foes I’ve had to handle- well, I won’t go into detail.” The Ghosthound smiled, almost politely. “But if there is any one power of mine, any image or movement, you wish for me to seal, I will do it in recognition of your accomplishments.”

Beatrice licked her lips; her heartbeat quickened. Her overworked brain tried to consider the best possibilities. The eight of them had spent several days in frantic discussions, figuring about the best way to go about this challenge. They had encountered several hard counters that the Ghosthound possessed that were nearly impossible to overcome, even individually. If they chose one to eliminate-

“Don’t pander to us,” Kimpap answered coldly. She flicked her spear sideways, scoring a thin gouge in the ground. She considered him with narrowed eyes. “I had no idea that you possessed this sort of side to you, Mr. Ghosthound. Do you truly think you are invincible?”

The Ghosthound threw back his head and laughed, gleeful and unsurprised. But when he lowered his gaze, something else had slithered into his skin and wore this man like a poorly fitting mask. Before, he had just been an athletic and dangerous man. But now the smile on his face turned wicked and his emerald eyes turned impossibly bright and piercing. He curled at the edges and unfolded into a monstrous physique. His muscles and tendons bulged. Suddenly his skin seemed translucent and pulsing golden veins running through his body. His lower tail thickened and a sinister, spectral sibling flicked from his neck. His hair lightened to match his eyes. His shoulder hunched, rounded with the weight of the power he contained.

“Here, against you? Yes, I’m invincible.” The words were blows, obliterating any momentum they had gathered to their images on the approach. Whatever he had once been, Randidly Ghosthound was no longer human. This being smirked at them and dared them to contradict him.

Many of the other eight stiffened. Yet no one wasted words answering; the challenge would reveal the truth.

Chuckling, the Ghosthound turned away and waved a hand. “Take five minutes. Then the challenge begins. Good luck.”

He walked to the far side of the pillar top, leaving the challengers to glance at each other. No one spoke; they had already made all their preparations before coming to this point. They took up their agreed-upon formation, with Beatrice and Hong Li at the front. Alana Donal stood behind them, spinning her spear slowly in the air. Paolo crouched in the middle, his image of victory bullishly pushing open a larger space and relieving some of the pressure on the group.

At the back, Kimpap and Illdan stood with Hank Howard. The gunslinger carefully pulled out his revolver, flipped open the cylinder, and checked each bullet. When he snapped the pistol back together, he did something fully unexpected. He turned to Illdan and kicked the back of the young man’s knee. “Hey, kid.”

“What?!” Illdan fell to his knees. Then he hopped up and rounded on Hank with a glare. For the first time since Beatrice had gone on that date with him, he had fire in his eyes. “What are you doing? We are a team-”

“Which is why I think ya should take tha chance to apologize to B.” To Beatrice’s horror, Hank nodded at her. “Ya’ve been ignorin’ her. Will be good for morale to settle things.”

“I- t-that’s none of your business.” Illdan flushed. “We just- things are complicated.”

“Is ignoring a girl complicated?” Alana observed, picking a minuscule bit of dirt off her spear.

“This isn’t the time to talk about that,” Illdan managed to spit out. But he for the first time in a week gave Beatrice a genuine glance and held her gaze. Her heart began to pound. “We’ve only a few minutes. Can’t this wait until after the challenge?”

Strangely, everyone paused to survey Kimpap and get her reaction. The older woman from Tellus seemed profoundly uninterested in the exchange. Illdan’s cheeks grew more flushed. “Besides, the drones- the entire Alpha Cosmos is watching. Issues like this should be resolved privately.”

“If ya wanted to do that,” Hank crouched down and pinched the ground. He rubbed the sandy dirt of the Little Moon between two fingers. He squinted at Illdan. “Ya had plenty of chances. Ya didn’ take em, right? So don’t go blamin’ us.”

“This… is just distracting,” Beatrice whispered. Her heart spun in place, unable to decide what to feel.

Hong Li laughed. “That’s the point, young-ins. The two of you are too tense to do anything but think about each other. Do you think we can win with this extra tension? Unburden yourself and commune; only then will you truly understand the other’s emotions.”

“C-c-commune?!” Beatrice felt like her face was on fire. “Here? In front of so many cameras?”

Paolo barked out a laugh. Drake shook his head in disbelief and slid his bastard sword out of its sheath. Alana sighed. “Y’all make this too easy. But don’t let your guard down. Only one more minute.”

The air began to darken rapidly. A weight ground down against Beatrice’s body, making it almost impossible to move. Without having to be told, everyone knew that the Ghosthound would come at them with the intent to subdue them immediately. Beatrice tried not to count the seconds, but she couldn’t help herself. She kept shooting glances at Illdan during that time, wondering if he would actually apologize.

He simply looked down at his feet.

Suddenly, Alana’s expression shifted. “Shit-”

Right as the promised five minutes expired, the Ghosthound’s Nether was there, where it had been flowing this entire time at an impossibly slow speed. Yet when they became his enemy, that power whipped itself into a fever pitch and smashed into their bodies.

Most staggered sideways, unable to withstand the force. Only Paolo endured it, his eyes bright with stubbornness.

But then the Nether shifted. It became an open hand, reaching for them.

Beatrice paled; they were about to be Seized.