Each of the safe zones was about a hundred yards across, you couldn’t fight while inside them but the System didn’t block attacks from entering them. So whenever a Champion respawned it became a shooting gallery. Each of the zones was now a pot marked, porcupined with arrows, scorched wasteland.
The champions hadn’t died all at once so they didn’t respawn at the same time allowing us to take them out quickly as they just appeared in the middle of the safe zone. There were a few that managed to get out of the safe zone but none could escape the killing fields and were hunted down and slain again and again.
I drove Clarent through the back of a fleeing Champion and held them down as they screamed as the lightning blade carved through their flesh.
103 rank points gained, split between surviving contributors
“This doesn’t seem very sporting,” Pierce said looking at the smoldering corpse of my latest victim.
“This is just payback for me,” I said shrugging. “They gained up at every opportunity they could to take me down, now I’m just turning the tables.
“So you seek vengeance?” Pierce asked.
“No,” I said. “For the most part I don’t take anything personally, they try to kill me I try to kill them, those were the terms of the game and we all knew it when we became Champions.”
“This is why some in my order were reticent to join with you,” Pierce said. “You may not be a champion but you still have that same mindset.”
I shrugged and blasted the safe zone with lightning as another Champion respawned. A host of ranged attacks lanced, burned, chilled, dissolved, and slashed their body.
103 rank points gained, split between surviving contributors
“This is the mindset that grew in a world without the System,” I said. “I didn’t kill people there but you’ll find self-preservation and power are cross universal motivators.”
“And is that the way it should be?” Pierce challenged.
“It’s the way it IS,” I asserted. “Wishing it away won’t change it and acting as if it isn’t will get you screwed over or killed.”
“So might makes right?” Pierce asked.
“Yes,” I said. “In my world we have the idea of God, a singular creator being who sits in judgment over us and from whom we get morality, there is not such thing here. The System doesn’t care why we kill only that we do so, the gods all push us to kill eachother for their own “moral” reasons. The only thing that makes something correct is if we say it is.”
“What about the will of the people?” Pierce asked.
“What about them?” I asked. “I know you’ve all got some socialist ideas but if the majority of the people told you to stop and just do what the System and gods said would you disband the order of the Magi.”
“No,” Pierce said.
Another Champion respawned and was blasted into oblivion.
44 rank points gained, split between surviving contributors
Ability Gained! Relentless Assault, Rank: 1; Your endlessly pursue your enemies hunting them down again and again with no mercy, leaving no survivors. For every attack you land your next attack gains a stacking +.2% damage bonus, the stacks disappear if you fail to land an attack within 10 seconds.
Cost:
10 stamina per second
Casting Time:
Channeled Passive
Rank up this ability to increase the damage bonus and its effects. Each rank increases your Speed attribute by 1.
I considered merging the ability with another but I wasn’t in the Void and didn’t’ want to risk trying that outside of it where the System had full dominion. I also didn’t plan on ranking them up just yet, I was beginning to understand abilities more on a fundamental level and there were things I wanted to test about them.
“Then why should we care what people think,” I said. “Maybe there is some creator out there, maybe we’ve just been ignoring them and the consciousness they gave us but here things are only justified because the people with the power say they are, if others say differently they are ignored or killed.”
“But that doesn’t make it right,” Pierce objected.
“Says you, but you aren’t a regular person,” I said. “I have no idea still how you don’t get rank points but even if you aren’t a Gifted you are still gifted, some people are just born better than others, some become better than others but none of us are really equal.”
“You view yourself as better than others?” Pierce asked.
“I am,” I said with no false humility or arrogance. “I’ve survived what others would have crumbled under, done what everyone thought impossible, I am better.”
“Not very humble of you,” Pierce said crossing his arms as we waited for another champion to spawn in.
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“False humility is just another form of pride,” I said. “I am who I am, if I wasn’t who I say I am then why are even the gods trying to kill me.”
“Oh I don’t discount that you are special,” Pierce said. “We wouldn’t have allied with you if you were not; but I worry you aren’t allied with us for the right reasons.”
“Your against the gods, so am I,” I said with a shrug.
Another champion popped up and we blasted his body apart.
11 rank points gained, split between surviving contributors
“And what happens when you ascend?” Pierce asked. “How long tell I’m fighting against you?”
“You’ve fought against me before and it didn’t’ work out for you,” I said. “What do you want from me, what assurances can I give you?”
“I don’t think there are any,” Pierce said. “I don’t know that you will become my enemy and I don’t believe you know if you will either. The future is uncertain.”
We were silent as we both digest what the other had said.
I also had doubts about the Magi, I’d made peace with them once before only to have them attack me when I was weak. There was every chance they might try that again if they thought I was a threat to their goals.
Ten minutes later another champion popped up and was blasted apart.
22 rank point gained, split between surviving contributors
Ability Gained! Mirage Men, Rank: 1; You are surrounded by up to three copies of yourself, the copies mimic your actions to confuse your enemies and will disappear as soon as they take any damage. Each copy last for a maximum of six seconds, and can move up to 30 ft away from you.
Cost:
50 mana
Cast Time:
Instantaneous
Rank up this ability to increase the range and duration of your Mirage Men and gain additional effects. Each Rank increases your Perception attribute by 1.
I rolled my shoulders we still had a long way to go before this was done and I hoped to get a few hundred attribute point worth of abilities from this. For now it was back to work and the systematic slaughter of the Champions. Hours passed as we killed and killed, then killed again. I wasn’t sure how the Champions would handle the psychological damage from being farmed and killed over and over again but that wasn’t my concern.
I didn’t get as many abilities as I would have liked but the risk had pretty much all vanished once we’d killed them the first time and they spawned in a few at a time every few hours.
Ability Gained! Lava Burst, Rank: 1; You stomp on the ground creating a chasm moving out from the impact zone 5ft wide, 10ft long and dropping into a 10ft deep hole with lava at the bottom. Every 10 seconds for the next minute a blast of lava shoots out striking a creature hostile to you within 30ft of the lava pit dealing Major fire damage to them.
Cost:
90 mana
Casting Time:
Instantaneous
Rank up this ability to increase the size of the lava pit, as well as the range and duration of its attacks. Each rank increases your Might attribute by 1.
Ability Gained! Holy Ground, Rank: 1; You are a being of religious portent and the ground you walk upon is sacred to those who follow you. You consecrate the ground within 150ft you for the cost of a drop of your divine blood, increasing the mana and stamina of any allies in the area by 100 and their regen rate by +10.
Cost:
300 mana
Casting Time:
30 seconds
Rank up this ability to increase its effects, maximum mana & stamina capacity and regen and range. Each rank of this ability increases your Spirit attribute by +1.
Ability Gained! Doppelganger, Rank: 1; Anyone at any time, the face and body of a familiar lover or a hated foe, even your description will lie to make you whoever you want to be. You can take on the appearance and mirror the Description of a humanoid you have met who is at least lower than half your rank.
Cost:
40 mana per second
Casting Time:
Channeled Passive
Rank up this ability to increase the strength of your Deception and gain additional effects along with it and reduce the rank discrepancy for creatures you can imitate. Each rank increases your Perception attribute by +2.
Ability Gained! Famine Breath, Rank: 1; You breathe out the wind of famine on those who defy you. At will you cause a wind from your lungs to blow across the land, all non-magical food not kept by you or your allies, rots and spoils within the next 6 hours.
Cost:
190 mana
Casting Time:
Instantaneous
Rank up this ability to increase the range, time and types of food effected. Each rank increases your Endurance attribute by +1.
Ability Gained! Sickening Aura, Rank: 1; To defy you is to invite suffering on oneself. You inflict painful boils, sores across the skin, feverish sweating and wasting diseases inflict all creatures hostile to you within 1 mile on a failed Toughness check, sicknesses and diseases caused by you will last until naturally or magically cured.
Cost:
200 mana
Casting Time:
Instantaneous
Rank up this ability to increase its range and the severity of the sicknesses caused and the difficulty in removing them. Each rank increases your Toughness attribute by +1.
Ability Gained! Devotion of the Flesh, Rank: 1; To be worshiped is to have power, that power for you is even more real than for others. You gain +50 to your Maximum stamina and +1 to your Stamina regeneration for every ally within 100ft of you.
Cost:
None
Casting Time:
Passive
Rank up this ability to increase the maximum stamina and regen you get per ally and to gain more effects. Each rank increases your Endurance by +1.
The event started to fade around us as the world began falling apart as the System had no further use for it. I created a portal back to the Void, I had some dangerous life-threatening experiments to perform on my own soul, it was time to see just what abilities were made of.