Scarlet

I quickly begin making a beeline straight towards the center of the map, having my Red Plague spread out and devour everything I sense around me. Whether its wild animals, monsters, or plants, everything is turned to naught but red ash.

Of course, I make sure to check ahead of the Red Plague for other competitors. Because I’d rather not devour them.

Especially Amelia.

And thanks to my slaughter of hundreds of powerful monsters, my level gradually begins to increase. To the point that I almost catch up with Leonidas’s level in the early to mid nineteen hundreds.

Which is rather nice.

As I fly through the trees, leaving a large trail of red ash in my wake, I glance at the monsters I’m devouring. Unlike the void creatures of the Tower Defense tournament, these are all random monsters from old world mythology on Earth. A rather odd choice considering that Titania supposedly died before the System reached Earth.

Makes me wonder if there’s a connection there.

But I find several things like griffons – a large creature with the body, tail, and back legs of a lion, and the head and wings of an eagle with its talons on its front legs – drakes – large, scaled lizards with wings – wendigos – pale creatures with glowing red eyes that basically eat anything they see – and more. And as I get further into the forest, the monsters’ levels just continue to rise without any sort of limit to be seen.

I make sure to keep an ear out for the other competitors during my trek though, and from what I can hear, most of the others are rushing at each other instead of towards the center. Which makes some sense, considering that the only benefit they’d get from going to the center is the points.

That said, one of the others is going to the center and not towards the other three.

Amelia.

Ironic.

I fought Leonidas earlier on in the competition and now it looks like I’ll be fighting Amelia.

Meanwhile the other three will be duking it out amongst themselves on the outskirts of the map.

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The question though, is whether I’ll be able to make it to the center and kill the hidden monster before Amelia gets there.

And the answer is a rather simple one, to be honest.

She’s slow.

Much slower than me.

Wouldn’t be surprised if I finish dealing with the beastie before she arrives.

And at that point I’ll be able to just overpower her with brute force since my level should be high enough. Assuming that new mythic skill of her doesn’t somehow manage to cripple or kill me that is.

Because that would be annoying.

I am rather curious about if it’ll be able to break past my Red Plague armor though.

Also, I’m not sure if Amelia can erase the Red Plague if it starts infecting her like Leonidas could. So I might have to be careful not to let it near her.

Which would make the battle even harder for me.

Before all of that though, I want to deal with that hidden monster.

So I continue rushing as fast as I can towards the center of the stadium, spending hours just to get there because of all of the monsters I have to deal with, not to mention having to make sure my Red Plague doesn’t just run rampant in here. And as I get to the edge of the forests, I find the area covered in nothing but ash. Just ash all the way from the forest’s edge to the volcano.

With some volcanic rock and more lava mixed in closer to the volcano itself.

Meanwhile the monsters here seem to be more fire and lava focused creatures. Like draconic creatures and large flaming birds and the like.

None of them seem to be dragons though. Just small drakes. And I can tell they’re drakes because they’re just skinny little things and don’t seem to be able to breathe fire.

Well, that and the identify calls them drakes.

I kill them too though. Devouring them all whole with the Red Plague that washes in like a wave, covering a large part of the already-ash-covered-wasteland surrounding the volcano. And without missing a beat, I continue on to the volcano, passing by higher and higher level monsters along the way.

The monsters reach such a high level that they’re in the two thousands.

So far the strongest one I’ve seen has been a large phoenix at level 2041. Stronger than anything on Earth.

But the monsters seem to stop growing stronger after that. And by the time I reach the top of the volcano, near the crater, I’m already level 1971 myself.

A higher level than any of the Demon Lords and the second highest level person in the System.

Not that it matters much to me since this is the last real battle in this tournament.

I still need to reach Class VI if I want a chance at defeating the Voided Overlord after all. So this isn’t a high enough level.

Not yet.

After reaching the top, I slow down and withdraw all of my Red Plague into my body. Then I gracefully land on the ground and walk over to the edge of the crater, looking down into the boiling lava down below. And at the large ripples moving about.

The ripples continue as they are for several seconds, not showing any signs of change. So I go ahead and spread my Red Plague around before pointing down at the crater, making a flood of Red Plague pour down into it, mixing with the lava. And immediately after doing that, glowing red mist begins to rise into the air that I quickly absorb. Because Red Plague in a steam form sounds dangerous to others.

And after doing this for a few minutes, the ripples suddenly stop completely.

So I stop pouring down Red Plague.

A few seconds pass in silence before the lava begins to bubble.

Looks like it’s coming out.