Tom remained in his prone position, his body locked and unable to respond to any of the mental signals his brain sent. It was the time dilation caused by his trait after being triggered by the presenter targeting him. He knew she was being kind, but it didn’t help matters. His mind lashed out at the unfairness of the world and the impossibility of the task he had stupidly set himself. Worse, in his opinion, was that he had wanted the others to fail, and the depravity that type of attitude showed terrified him.

However, so many humans were also going to die if he failed. His mind went in circles, with bouts of violent emotion bursting up from his heart to overwhelm his usual discipline. The whole situation was demonstrably unfair, wrong, unjust, and he needed to fight it and destroy it. Fury consumed him as the unnatural anger reacted to his thoughts. Every atom in his body wanted to strike out and terminate the world. His physical power swelled to new heights, but, frozen in what was effectively a time bubble, it could do nothing. Eventually, the intensity waned, and he was able to think once more. He shuddered when he thought about how long that had taken. In absolute time, it had been a fraction of a second, but the real time, he guessed might have been hours, and maybe even a full day.

There was no point in waving his fists and rallying against the GODs. The rules were not something he could ever challenge. Or, at least, not for a few hundreds of years - and then, if he grew enough, then maybe, and only then and only maybe, he might be able to plan to do something.

Slowly, his emotions calmed.

“Your reaction is to your credit.” The presenter told him. “Life is unfair, and there are rules we all have to follow. I’m going to release my focus on you in a moment. Are you prepared?”

He tried to nod but of course his body didn’t move; she could read his mind or something, though, because his state changed, and all of his muscles spasmed as the buildup of contradictory commands he had released while frozen, hit all at once.

With a groan, he glanced up at the presenter who began to talk, her face sad.

“We have our final six chosen. There will be one more round before the three open spots are awarded. Before we start that, it is a tradition that the top eight all plead their case for why they deserve the opportunity. Remember, even if you are fully qualified you can always step aside to let the person immediately below you take your place.”

The moment she finished talking one of the contender spaces lit up. The person it held was the standard biological template. It was kind of like a goat with its fifth and sixth appendages, its arms originating from the rib cage midway between the two legs. While it appeared to be hairy, it was hard to tell, as it wore simple clothes like the ones Tom had been given. Almost all of its body was covered up, including its feet and hands. Only elements of its face were visible. It was possible it had as little body hair as a human, with the exception of a thick beard.

From the early descriptions provided by the presenter, Tom recognised it. This was one of the geniuses, and it did not fall in the desperate category.

Its hands slapped the ground. “There is nothing to say or argue. I withdraw. I will not contend for a competition spot.” Then it repeated the starting gesture of smashing the stone floor four times. In human terminology, the strange skill that permeated the air told him that what it was doing was closer to a salute than a clap.

“Okay, next.”

The light immediately switched to a creature three spaces to the left of the goat. Tom was not surprised when he saw it was one of the desperate. It was a hippo, large and streamlined for swimming. Half of its mass actually rested in a pool.

“My people are called the Dusk. I am Swift. Hope. We have always been peaceful, and have coexisted with our neighbours for hundreds of generations. Seventy years ago a terror race band emerged from a previously unknown entrance to the Underground which has since been sealed. They had degenerated to become effectively feral. There was no reasoning or negotiating with them. They were happy to fight to the death if they took us with them, and that’s what they did. Our heroes fought against them and held them long enough for aid to come from our neighbours. But the action caused us to suffer catastrophic losses. We went from having over a hundred heroes specced for teaching to having only six. Our future was stolen from us over a single week. Those five who survived are gone now. They successfully raised only three behind them. We became a diminishing race almost overnight. I was the brightest of my generation, and our people emptied our vaults to raise me as far as I can. If I fail, our people have no hope. Please, step aside and let them live” Swift Hope trailed into silence.

The presenter bowed her head. “The problems of others are never as compelling as our own, but we all know the gravity of the situation.”

While the official scores hadn’t been displayed anywhere, from the previous ladder and having seen who was still alive, Tom was confident he could guess where everyone sat. He was certain that he was currently in fifth place.

Sure enough, the light switched to the first of the people currently active in the competition. It was a non-biological creature. Nothing as crazy as the spheres of different coloured balls he had fought in the colosseum, but it clearly didn’t rely on anything as mundane as cells and blood flow in order to function. It could be best described as a chaotic pile of independent metal sections. It was what he would imagine a multitude of semi-sapient advanced robots would look like if they came together to form a single entity. That might even have been its species’ origin story.

Strength-wise, it had slightly over three times Tom’s rank, and, while in its latest fight for it to be below him, it must have battled a five point five, and it would not hesitate to increase that difficulty. If it did so, it would only face something twice as strong in every attribute versus the ridiculous six times he had stupidly challenged. Even then, crossing that sort of gap was frankly incredible, but everyone in this room were the peak out of the probably trillions of eligible children that DEUS could have chosen from. At the lower ranks, combat prowess and skills went a lot further than they did at higher ranks where everyone had a base level of competency.

“I am of, and am called, Collective Iron. The collective iron are diminished.” It said in a wobbly voice. “The collective doesn’t possess a convenient sob story like the collective iron’s predecessor had to share. All the collective iron can state is that we are diminished. It has been so for twenty generations on our count, and we should survive another ten, but...” It paused as it seemed to struggle to find the correct words. “But the collective iron will fight to advance and gain renewal.”

The presenter nodded, and, without further commentary, the light switched to highlight Tom.

He hesitated and wondered what to say. He considered stepping aside, but his need to save Emily and also Briana and Eloise stopped him. This was survival, and the judgment of strangers was worth less than the horror which not doing the best he possibly could to save his friends and family would represent.

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“We are in the competition now. It didn’t use to be like that. On our home planet, humanity had grown to be over eight billion strong.” Tom paused as a surprising surge of emotion caught him by surprise and choked his voice up. Ruefully, he sighed and wiped away the tears that had started to form. “We were living in our own world happily, and mostly peacefully. The majority of us were living safely, and then we were forced into the competition.” Tom lowered his head as the waterworks continued to form unbidden. Life had been great for most, and then it had become hell. “We are not prepared for Existentia, and I’m sure you all noted my suitability rating was classed as dismal. That rating applies to my entire species. It means we have no innate strength to help us, and so, in terms of the competition, placing lower than third does not represent a challenge for us. It means a mass death. Because we are weak, we can only have safety in numbers. If we are scattered around Existentia in small groups, the most innocuous of wildlife will slaughter us. My people are not ready for that, which is why I need the strength to ensure that doesn’t happen. As the presenter said, we are rated at an extreme risk of extinction.”

He stopped talking under the subtle pressure of the presenter. Tom didn’t mind from how Swift Hope had ended her pleas abruptly. She had suffered under the same rules. Plus, he had expressed what he needed to say. ’Tom didn’t think he had swayed. He couldn’t see how anyone above him would see humans as being more worthy that their own species, especially as the primary advantage the Divine Champions Trial gave was access to the equivalent of the experience shop, which was something every human over fifteen could already use.

The light switched off him, and Tom’s eyes ran over the remaining four contenders. There were three desperate ones, and one genius. None of the desperate ones were going to concede their spots willingly.

At this point, the equation he faced was obvious. The Collective Iron, currently in sixth position, would fight a six and pass him. The three other desperate ones in front of him were intending to fight. None of them had extended themselves to the same ridiculous level Tom had. They had left the capacity to fight three rounds, if not four, comfortably. For him to get a place, he needed two of them to die, and he hated having to acknowledge that was what he was secretly wishing for, but he did it anyway. He was not one for self-delusion.

“Will that work?” He whispered. “If two die, do I get in?”

His trait activated, and everyone else around froze. “Yes, if you choose not to fight and three of the five who then go ahead of you either die or abdicate, then yes, you will get through.”

“I have one other question,” he thought loudly, because he could no longer talk and he suspected she could hear.

“You don’t have to shout so loudly. I am able to hear you just fine. While your trait makes it convenient to contact you, I can and do have these types of discussion with everyone else.”

“Sorry,” he projected more softly. “My question is about the wording of these fights. Is it just the act of fighting or do you need…?”

She barked with laughter and interrupted him before he could finish. “No, don’t be ridiculous. You only earn points if you win. If you wished, you could try gambling. Not against a rank one hundred and five like you need to win, because no one that high is doing an arena trial currently. But there is a rank eighty-nine you could face with a partial god-shield that will give you enough points. Or, if that’s our aim, there are tens of thousands between him and rank twenty six which meet your requirement. I personally wouldn’t do it, as I think you’ll get crushed against all of them, but you can try if you want.”

Tom smiled. “It’s probably worth it, isn’t it? There’s always a chance they’ll see it as funny and let me live. As I understand it, most people don’t like killing children, even if they are of another species.”

“No, it won’t work. Unsurprisingly, the system is set up to avoid loopholes. All those on the other side of these matches do not have the right to surrender. For them, it is win or die.”

“Then that means there’s no point fighting.”

“Unless you are willing to risk death by going up against a six point five.”

“That’s suicide.”

“Yes, and it’s commendable you recognise that. And don’t raise the fact you’re an adult. I know that, and I’ve seen many adults make stupid decisions in these circumstances. It’s easy to gamble in the hope of hitting a jackpot and foolishly believe you’re the chosen one. I’ve watched in horror as otherwise smart people died because of that attitude. And I would imagine the temptation is even higher for humans with active fate in play, so, I repeat, it is admirable that you’re resisting the enticement.”

Tom nodded, and the presenter returned him to normal time. The ritual continued, and he listened to the next four state their respective cases. The words of the genius were the most interesting. Its civilisation was on the cusp of becoming diminishing. It was not declining yet, but there were signs that they were starting to lose some skills. Nevertheless, the person formally stated, that, despite the fact it could safely finish in the top two, it was giving up its position and would not be taking one of the precious spots.

That just left the last three still in the running.

The pot plant was one of them along with the turtle dog who had tried to be kind to him. Both had, if he was being honest.

The final person in contention was a big, hulking creature. He was almost three metres tall, with two legs, three tails and four arms, and, given he was getting in on his merits, he didn’t have to say anything, but he did anyway. He wove a story about how, when he was younger, the village used to eat mushrooms and the algae from the nearby pools to survive. Then, two years ago, the mushrooms had stopped coming. One of the critical hunters of their cavern had died, and it was now too dangerous to harvest the mushrooms. They reverted to only living off the tasteless and barely nutritious algae. Their food was supplemented by trade missions, but they too had been becoming steadily more rare. When once it had only required a couple of strong guards to keep wagons safe, the losses they had suffered meant those people were all in the official armies. Contact between the outer settlements instead fell to non-fighters. Every mission needed forty to fifty adults to escort them, and they still failed occasionally, with all hands lost. The elders of his village had decided they were going to leave with the next trade caravan to move closer to the capital, but they were worried about the starvation that would cause, because the food crisis was even worse in the denser population areas.

He had thought the problem might have been a war, but the elders said that they been diminishing for generations, and it was just encroachment of a section of the Underground that was causing the bulk of the problems.

Given that story, just like the others, he was not giving up his spot.

As he trailed into silence, the presenter clicked her fingers, and the ladder appeared. The scores were exactly as he had predicted. Two equal with him, one clearly in the lead and the final person a little behind. Their next successful challenge would push them ahead of him, because there was no way he was walking into certain death.

Tom thought about the conditions required for him to win, and then shut his eyes and tried to drive the images away. He didn’t want to imagine any of them dying.

“And we are done?” The presenter said suddenly.

To Tom’s perspective only a few seconds had passed, and his eyes snapped open in surprise. He immediately looked to his right where two of the remaining contenders were. Horror filled him when he saw the empty spot where the kind turtle dog had been. The pot plant had survived. Admittedly, it looked significantly battered.

His heart leapt in response. A mixture of excitement, joy, and despair. He shut his eyes as he dealt with that surge of emotion. That meant there was one dead, and if one other died… He didn’t want to open his eyes and check. Until then, he was in the divine championship trial and had done it without the guilt of having only made it by climbing over dead bodies. He knew those outcomes were mutually exclusive, but, for now, he could have both simultaneously. For the life of him, if he had a choice, he didn’t know what he wanted.

Did he want one of the other two to have died? Yes, no, no. There was a flash of memory of his family and Briana. His heart firmed. Yes. He did want to get in and now he didn’t want to open them in case both of them were still alive. It was enough to make him scream.

“And the three spots are filled.” The presenter declared, and he realised he didn’t have a choice.