“Hey!” Morel shouted.

He threw his knives after Felorith and the Domain-user flung his red wires, but neither connected. Felorith was already gone. Stade and the rest of them tried to give chase. Even Rieren had been about to join them. Turned out, there was no point.

The ground broke apart. Of course. Serace wouldn’t have carried out this deceit had he not come prepared.

It was those accursed Anachron powers coming into play again. Rocky tendrils broke free of the earth and had clasped themselves around Rieren and her companions before they even knew what was going on. She slashed at them, but as many as she cut away, even more came out to take their place.

The others were having no better luck. Stade had managed to evade the roots entirely by taking flight through the use of crows. His companions were stuck on the ground much like Rieren, however.

“Don’t worry,” Stade shouted. “I’ve got one of my crows following them. They won’t get away, no matter where they run off to. We’ll get our tokens back.”

Tokens. Rieren sighed. That was what all this was about. “No need.”

Morel glared at her. “What do you mean no need? Just because they’re your friends doesn’t mean we can just let them go.”

“No, you fool. They only managed to take one token. Your crow spotted the thief before they could take more than one.”

That reassured the other three. They relaxed, enough to even allow the roots to climb over a whole pace of their height.

“That means we still have…” Stade lowered his voice so that it was a hissed whisper that carried across the area. “We still have three, right?”

“Correct,” Rieren said.

Forys cursed. “Get these things off me, already.”

As Stade got busy with careful applications of his fire, Rieren allowed her mind to wander. The paranoid part of her even stuffed her hand into her robes to make sure that yes, indeed, she had left three pieces of the runic formation left in her possession.

With that fear out of the way, she could refocus her anger and disbelief at her circumstances. Serace of all people had decided to betray her. He was right, of course. This was a competition, and they couldn’t slack off, nor trust anyone at all. They all wanted to win. A seat at the imperial court in Vanharron was on the line. They needed to do whatever was necessary.

But that just made the whole situation appear even worse. Rieren couldn’t bottle the rage rising slowly. She ought not to let her anger dictate her actions, so she let it run its course through her soul for now.

So what if Serace and Felorith had chosen to forego their past connection? So what if they had taken advantage of it? She had to focus on her current objectives as well.

Stade managed to free them all in due time. He looked pleased with his handiwork, though his expression quickly reverted back to seriousness when he saw the look on Rieren’s face.

“We’re really not running after them?” Stade asked.

“We have to pick and choose our battles,” Rieren said. “Determining which would be the most efficient course of action, regardless of what others might say. Running after them to recover one lost token is a waste of time when we have three more. Instead, let us head over to our actual target destination.”

Stade nodded. When he conveyed the message to the rest of his compatriots, they responded in kind. They all understood the importance of reaching the smoke signal.

After all, their primary task here was qualifying.

They got moving. The other path away from the clearing was heading in the exact direction they needed to travel. Rieren was glad her recruits had picked the right place for their crow to teleport them all to.

But just as they took their first steps, two things occurred to stop them. Firstly, Batcat returned atop of the Dawn Cloud. That it had survived this long without any input from Rieren spoke volumes of how far it had improved. Of course, raising her Domain by a point had made the Domain Summons significantly stronger as well.

Welcome as Batcat’s reappearance was, it was driven from her mind soon enough. The glowing orb they kept seeing flitting around them now began blinking rapidly.

Then it started speaking.

“Attention all competitors,” a loud voice boomed from the orb, as though it was some sort of strange transmitter or speaker. “The runic formation that is to keep out all those who fail to qualify is now a third of the way complete. If you wish to stave off the possibility of elimination, I suggest you hurry to your designated destination as fast as possible. Chop, chop!”

The message was repeated a handful of times. Rieren stopped listening after the third time, which proved that there was no new information being disseminated with every repetition.

So that was what the orbs were for. Originally, she had suspected that they were mostly for keeping track of the various competitors, a crude way of ensuring they all complied and conducted themselves according to the baseline rules of the tournament.

But now, it appeared the orbs were also messengers for the competition officials. A means of communication between them and the competitors.

“That can’t be true, can it?” Morel looked around to all of them with growing trepidation. “It can’t already be a third of the way done.”

“We have no clue how fast or slow the other teams are,” Stade said.

Rieren looked up. The smoke signal was still visible, though it had faded some more, suggesting that the barrier indeed was significantly completed. Stade was right. It was impossible to tell what the pace of the other teams were. For all she knew, a majority of the competing teams had been clustered around Rieren’s location.

As Rieren freed herself from the ashes of the earthen tendrils, she quickly pulled out the Comm Shell. Her recruits looked on, confused. Surely she wouldn’t need to use one here. They were all present.

But Rieren wasn’t intending to call them, of course. She had her actual teammates waiting somewhere. People who might know more about the situation.

“Hello,” Amalyse said after answering Rieren’s call. “Is that you, Rieren?”

“Who else could it possibly be?” she asked back.

“Well, you could have died, or lost the Comm Shell somehow. We could be talking to a thief.”

Rieren shook her head, though of course, Amalyse couldn’t see it. “Speaking of thieves, you will not believe what I went through.”

She gave the briefest rundown possible of all that she had experienced with Serace’s team and the overpowered trio before him. That they had come out of all those encounters with both most of their limbs attached and with enough tokens to progress through to the next round was more than enough.

The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.

“Serace stole a token?” Amalyse sounded like she wanted to push her arm through their Comm Shell connection and shake Rieren physically. “How could he do it? To us of all people?”

“He could have asked,” Kalvia muttered. “You had extras.”

Rieren had already begun fathoming various reasons why Serace might have decided to act against them. Desperation was one, no doubt. No one wanted to lose. Not this early, at least.

But there was also the fact that they had left the Sect. For good. Rieren, Amalyse, and Rollo had all departed the Sect and had given no sign that they would come back, even if they intended to—as was the case for Amalyse.

This departure had no doubt soured their relationship with some of their former disciples, so Rieren couldn’t truly blame Serace for seeing her as a competitor first, former friend second.

“We have more than enough,” Rieren said, mentioning how their third member had been discovered before more than a single token could be stolen. “We will be all right. All we need to do is reach the smoke signal before the rest of the barrier is built.” She frowned. “Fast.”

“Oh, that.” Kalvia made a dismissive sound. “You don’t have to worry about that. The statistic is overblown.”

“What do you mean?”

“There’s been a single team going around taking everyone’s tokens, so all the tokens they submitted when they reached their destination represent just them.”

Rieren tutted. That sounded too convenient, as though Kalvia was trying to convince herself things weren’t as hopeless as they appeared. “How can you be so sure? And even if that was the case, would this powerful team’s submission of all those tokens ensure that all the spots for all their tokens are fulfilled? We would still have a limited number left.”

“Think about it, Rieren. The tournament needs a set number of competitors to make the second-round work properly. If we consider a traditional elimination bracket, we need either at least thirty-two competitors or sixty-four.”

“Ah. Are you suggesting that if more tokens get submitted than teams qualify, there will be extra spots up for grabs?”

“Yes, exactly. Though how they’re going to go about distributing these extra spots is the real question. It could be dispensed in a first-come, first-serve basis, so reaching our target as quickly as possible would still be beneficial.”

“Alright. We should move on, then. But how did you come to learn about all this?”

Amalyse and Kalvia took turns explaining how they had seen the overpowered team in action personally. Apparently, they had run across the trio, who were all strong enough to be in Late-Exalted at the least, judging by their powers. They had torn apart everyone who had come upon their path, taking the tokens from all competing teams.

“Good decision to stay away from them,” Rieren said.

“I think they just ignored us because we didn’t have any tokens,” Amalyse said.

Kalvia agreed with a grunt. “Which is why we’re able to help our current allies too.”

“Current allies?” Rieren asked. “You scolded me for my recruits but you went ahead and formed alliances as well? Such hypocrisy.”

“It was a spur of the moment thing.” Kalvia sounded minorly chastised, though Rieren’s tone had been light and barely mocking. “We thought it would help to get some potential partnerships going, just in case.”

“I support it. Just be on your guard.”

They exchanged farewells and decided to head out. It was true. They might still have a safe number of tokens, but they wouldn’t have truly succeeded until they reached their destination.

“So…” Morel stood resolutely at his spot even after Rieren walked past him. “We’re not going after those robbers?”

Rieren stared at him. He was one to talk. “No. We are going where we need to go. The smoke signal. And hopefully, we will be avoiding any further confrontation.”

Morel muttered something under his breath, clearly dissatisfied with the decision. He didn’t argue against it, though. “I saw that look, you know. It sounds hypocritical of me to call them robbers, but see, we’ve had a change of heart. We see the error of our ways and understand it wasn’t the right decision to try and take all the tokens from everyone else.”

“Speak for yourself,” Forys muttered.

“You’re the one who told me that!”

“Did you truly have a change of heart?” Rieren asked Morel and his friends. “Or did you simply discover that it would have been impossible for you all to continue stealing tokens?”

“How would it be impossible?”

Rieren pointed behind her with her thumb. “Had I not been here, you three would have had your organs and skeletal structures rearranged in less than a minute.”

They couldn’t truly argue against that either, so they all shut up and decided to follow her wordlessly. Rieren looked up briefly as they headed out. The smoke signal was marginally weaker than it been, although still strong enough to be visible. There was still time.

The journey was smooth for the next half hour or so. That was partly due to them taking it slow. Like before, Rieren had her three recruits ranging out and keeping an eye on things from a distance. Meanwhile, she rode on the Dawn Cloud with Batcat at her side to ensure that she didn’t walk into any further traps or the like.

This time, when the journey was broken once more, it was Rieren who had to do the rescuing. Instead of her three recruits springing a surprise, she had to go meet them.

“These three feel strong,” Morel was saying through the Comm Shell. “I think we should avoid conflict again.”

“I agree,” Rieren said. “Can you explain that you have no tokens and therefore, cannot assist them?”

“Stade’s trying but I don’t know if they’ll believe us. You might have to come in and scare them off.”

“You think I am strong enough to defeat them?”

“Are you not?”

Well, Rieren would have to see for herself before she could answer that. A good thing she had already circled around and arrived from the front, surprising the ones keeping her recruits locked in position. They all jumped in alarm as she landed behind them.

“Could you kindly allow my three little brothers to pass?” Rieren asked the newcomers as politely as she could. “They look mean, but they are innocent little boys only out here to gain some experience. I assure you, they mean no real harm.”

“Maybe if you surrendered your token,” the woman in the lead said. “We could consider letting you go.”

“And we’re not your brothers!” Morel said loudly.

Rieren tutted. “How about I give you one of my tokens?”

“Give them a token?” Stade stared at Rieren as though she had well and truly lost her mind.

“You have more than one token?” one of the newcomers asked.

“I will not be giving it away completely for free, of course,” Rieren said, keeping her eyes on the newcomers. “But I do have more than I need. I can spare a single token. That is, for a team who will work with me.”

The woman frowned. “You mean work under you?”

“What difference does it make? So long as we all reach our target destination, so long as each of our teams has one token for us to qualify for the next round, we should all be alright. So what do you say? A better deal than fighting and wasting each other’s times, no?”

Stade and the rest of Rieren’s recruits looked a little furious, but they didn’t argue. Rierne was right. They really needed to stop wasting their time with pointless fights against everybody they came across. At this rate, even if they retained their tokens, it would amount to nothing if other teams simply reached their targets before them.

The newcomers seemed to recognize it too. Even though their expressions and postures were still combative, the seed of doubt had been planted. They knew what would be best here.

“If you have more tokens than you need,” a small fellow with twin swords hanging from his waist said, eyeing Morel and the rest. “Then why don’t you simply overpower and take the tokens from her? If you couldn’t do it before, well, we’re here now. Together, we could take that harridan down. We don’t deserve to dance to her tune.”

Rieren raised an eyebrow. She took her time dragging her stare from the newcomers to her recruits. “Why is it that you haven’t sought to betray me?” she asked them. “Especially now that you have a much better chance of doing so?”

Morel growled. “What kind of a stupid question is that? You don’t think we have a single shred of decency? Haven’t I just explained that we’ve learned our lessons and taken them to heart?”

Rieren was tempted to scoff, but she moderated it to a skeptical smile. “There you have it, my new friends. My companions are loyal to me.”

“And she’s also really strong,” Stade said. “We don’t want to waste time, remember? Even if all of us together could potentially bring her down—of which there’s no guarantee, I assure you—it would take longer than any of us would like. Best to cooperate so we can all progress through this round as fast as possible.”

The small fellow looked like he wanted to continue arguing, but the woman raised a hand.

“Fine then,” she said. “We’ll agree not to hunt you down for your tokens. But how can we trust that you’ll stick to your word?”

Rieren shrugged. “You will have to take me at my word. I promise I shall grant you an extra token at the destination.”

“Not good enough.”

Rieren sighed, then snapped her fingers. “Batcat.” The kitten flew in, startling several of them in the area. “You are to stick with them as collateral.”

The winged cat looked affronted at being used as insurance, but it flew over after Rieren glared at it for a second. Jerking its head away, it shot into the woman’s surprised arms.

“That is my bonded Spirit Beast,” Rieren. “Do with it what you will if you think I have failed to keep my end of the bargain. Now are we done? Let us depart. This competition will not wait for our petty squabbles and the like.”

Leaving the rest of her party a little flabbergasted at her display, Rieren led the way forward. It was time to end this first round.