Chapter 125 – Cheating Aliens

Tom stared at the three doors in front of him. He had stood here often and was losing track of the days, but this was something like his fiftieth fight, and the disk toss had consistently told him that he was going to fail. And except for that one time, it had been right. 

This was going to be his fifth fight since the darkhole trial and even with that boost in strength he had still lost all four of those death matches. The full GOD shield meant that he was not damaged even psychologically in those defeats, but the failures rankled. In the trial he had managed to win against trillion to one odds, he had gotten the rewards of the explosive growth trial and it still wasn’t enough. His failure spoke too how weak he had been when he had first gained entry to the divine champions trial. Even with the trial upgrades, along with Lightning Javelin and Remote Power Strike, he was out of his depths.

He guessed his struggles just drove home how exceptional Corrine truly was to have achieved a low forties win rate.

Tom shook his head. Thoughts on the past were often helpful, but this was not one of those times. Right now was another chance to make his mark and prove he was good enough to be here.

He spun the disk in his hand while he remembered the first four fights. The encounters had all been ones where his opponents had basically been unbeatable. He hadn’t lost because of a skill issue apart from the fact he lacked powerful ones.

One of the enemies had done a Corrine and washed the entire battlefield with intense flames. Even with the help of a burst, he had lacked the speed to escape and perished within seconds of the bout starting. The others had been closer, even if still impossible. His traits had equalised the attribute gap and in two of the duels had even given him a slight advantage, but that hadn’t been enough. All three opponents had been immune to his stun attempts and once that ploy had failed, so had his chances to win.

He looked longingly at the shield free door. Hopefully, today was the day, but he wasn’t going to take shortcuts when he knew the GODs were after him. Carefully, he created the same precise mental image as always. Satisfied, he spent his fate and started flipping the coin; once, twice, eight times.

Every flip came up heads, but he didn’t get excited. This had happened before, first when the GODs tricked him and then again in his second fight after the darkhole trial. That’s how he knew they were still gunning for him.

He kissed the coin and internally hoped for the best.

Would this be it? Or was it just another example of the GODS putting their fingers on the result to give false hope?

With a flick of his wrist, the wooden disk flew up, spinning rapidly. It almost touched the roof before plunging downward. It bounced, rolled, and then stilled.

Tom’s heart beat faster, and a broad grin broke out. He had been expecting failure, but instead he was staring at his ninth head in a row. That was confirmation. The battle, a proper fight with stakes was going to happen. He snatched up the disk because it also contained his danger sense ritual and then walked confidently towards the door that led to a fight without a GOD’s shield.

With every step, he expected the crushing foreboding feeling of imminent, certain death to strike, but the disk remained passive.

“Yes,” he whispered. Finally, it was happening. With a thought, the spear that Baptiste had gifted him after nearly two weeks of Tom dropping clues appeared in his hands.

When it was handed over, it had been a tier one compound spear. Which in the Divine Trial, where outside weapons couldn’t be used, that meant it was worth its weight in gold. That additional sharpness and damage of the higher tiered weapon could mean the difference between life and death and that was why it had been such an amazing gift. Baptiste had constructed it by abusing his ability to layer different types of wood together to create a perfectly balance weapon that was more than its component parts. It had not been enhanced in any way shape or form and had been closer to a marvel of engineering than a magical artefact.

It was still a great spear and one that had become even better once he had placed it in his inventory. Tom smiled at the memory of its description.

Item: Compound Spear of Protection – Tier 3

This spear is lighter than it looks and is enhanced to improve parrying ability.

It can also absorb magic attacks containing up to 16 mana every 60 seconds.

That last line was the true jewel of the upgraded weapon. That sixteen mana, like always, was calibrated to refer to a spell at the same tier as the spear. In this case it meant a third-tier spell. If a lower tier spell like Fire Bolt was used, then the weapon would be able to absorb a spell or spells containing up to fifty mana.

He was hopeful that for most, or at least some of his opponents, that the spear could exhaust their mana reserves. Everyone he fought was a child and if they came from a non-magical gifted species and were using lower tier spells, then the fifty-absorbance capability could very well be sufficient to tap them out.

Part of him wondered if the only reason his test had determined that he could beat his coming opponent was because of this weapon.

Most of him hoped not. The Known Heretic title was a component of his strength, but it felt unearned. Instead, he hoped that his hard work would be enough to earn his victories, rather than him having to rely on the title that he was sure he only had because of DEUS’s manipulation.

He reached the doorway, and he paused then took a deep breath and stepped through. This was it. There were no safety blankets in the coming fight, no GOD’s shield to protect him.

He could die.

A message, as always, greeted him as he was suspended briefly in the void.

You are fighting a representative of FAMES. It has 0 confirmed incapacitations and 2 kills.

His opponent was a from terror race. Emotions swirled as he suffered through a mix of the thrill of excitement combined with his gut falling away at the stakes.

 Of course, he thought to himself bitterly. Of course, the first time he went in without a GOD’s shield it would be against a terror race and therefore a fight to the death.

 Nothing in this place, he suspected was random. There had been a forty percent chance of him being in this situation, but it was more than that. Through the fifty fights, he had been tracking who he faced and an abnormal number of them were aligned to the terror GODs. Almost sixty percent of his fights fell into that bracket instead of forty. They or DEUS had their fingers on the pot, but at least the stakes of this fight were clear.

Two of them would enter and only one of them would leave, and Tom was happy about that. The fewer sapient monsters there were in Existentia the better.

His nerves were buzzing as he materialised in the arena and then he saw the terrain.

“Damn it,” he cursed when he found himself in a dense forest. It was the opposite of what he had been hoping for. With his current build, he benefitted from clean lines of sight without any protective cover.  The dense tree trunks around him were the inverse of that. While the space between him and his opponent was clear beyond that and immediately to their sides the thick vegetation started. It was a young forest with each tree trunk only slightly wider than he was, but it was lush. The tree trunks in some spots even touched each other.

The moment you left the cleared area there was lots of cover to hide behind. It was not a great setup for him.

Finally, he studied his opponent. From past fights, he knew he would not get a good read on what he faced, but sometimes, body shape and weapons told a story about a creature’s fighting style. With careful eyes, he examined it. “Fuck me.” He hissed.

He was facing an ape that wore clothes made of living leaves and doing it in the middle of a jungle.

His eyes flickered to the vines, the trees and the densely packed plants, and then back to what the creature was wearing. The leaves on its chest were moving unnaturally, which made a shiver go down his spine. He hoped it was an artefact, but feared the large monkey had druid like powers. If so, it would be like fighting Baptiste in a forest.

For the first time, an edge of worry wormed itself into him.

You’re safe, he reminded himself. The disk would have triggered if his death was imminent.

But at the same time he could remember the GODs. DEUS wouldn’t allow this to be an execution, but if they wanted to test him. If the ones that hated him and the neutral ones ganged up on DEUS and her allies.

What then?

Did the danger sense ritual not triggering mean anything?

He licked his lips.

Nope, it would do nothing if the GODs desired for this to be a real challenge. They could have suppressed his artefact easily. While his preparations told him he was guaranteed a victory Tom was not so sure. This match up did not feel favourable. 

 Worriedly, he glanced around at the lush vegetation and the numerous trees, which were the opposite of what he wanted. Then once more he looked at the monster’s clothes and what they almost certainly signified.

There was no point in panicking.

His experience from those forty years in the tutorial meant he understood that the situation called for simplicity, at least until first contact. He would try to shock and awe it into submission while retreating to get solid wood between him and it.

He centred himself, focused on everything and nothing, and then the familiar calmness of his battle trance took over.

The countdown hit zero, and he reacted instantly.

In preparation he had crouched and now, after burning a burst, he leapt sideways to reach cover as fast as possible. Time slowed as his traits kicked in and because he was looking for it he felt his attributes soar. Physically, he was faster and stronger, but mentally, too. The two traits combined to enhance his spell casting speed and in an eighth of the time it usually took he had created two Lightning Javelins and had sent them hurtling toward the enemy. Precognition mana infused both to give them a shield breaking component along with the Remote Power Strike being at near full strength to ensure the projectiles could pierce the strange armour the creature possessed.    

Out of the corner of his eye, he monitored the enemy. The monkey saw where he was heading and without hesitation went the other way. Tom registered that decision and immediately catalogued it as a ranged spell caster. Two steps later he had a baseline on his opponent inferred from his improved attributes and perception of time.

Possibly unsurprisingly, given that it relied on ranged offence, it was only tier five and for a terror race that was low.

As he sprinted, his worst fears were realised. The surrounding vegetation moved unnaturally, vines twisted and leaves shifted to follow his progress like they were sentient. Internally, he cursed. The arena they found themselves in was the definition of unfair, but then he guessed so was the human racial trait that gave him faith that he would this fight, providing the GODs weren’t interfering excessively.

His gut clenched at that thought. He didn’t know if it was paranoia speaking or that bit that let him recognise truth. But his mouth went dry as he realised the fight was a real one. This was life and death and there were no guarantees about who would fill each role. The hostile arena, a spell caster that probably didn’t need line of sight and the cover that would only hinder him worried him.

A vine lashed towards him so fast that without his attribute boosts he would have been decapitated before he even saw it. As it was, he had time to react, but barely. Without conscious thought, he twisted out of the way and a point of fate was released as Fateful Repositioning triggered automatically.

Tom grabbed the fate and without hesitation focused it on ensuring he survived for the next four minutes. A single point couldn’t do much, but if the GODs were indeed against him, it might help. A tree root ripped itself from the forest floor and he leapt over it and while air borne risked a glance at his opponent.

Fuck you, he screamed inside his head. He had been hoping for it to be prone on the ground and being electrocuted. Instead, it had paused at the edge of the cleared area and three roots had risen in front of it like serpentine sentinels. Two of them had smouldering sections one of which surround ed a hole which went straight through the root. Whatever they were, a trait or a racial ability or a spell they had intercepted his attack and being made of wood even the hole he had left in one of them Tom knew would not help him. Energy wise, they were still close to full strength. 

His mind rushed furiously. Should he close to melee or pepper it with ranged attacks? Could a massive, ranged barrage overwhelm its defences?

The monkey gestured and a green web shot from its fingers. The quasi physical spell moved deceptively quickly, clearly ignoring earth’s physics, as it was not slowed at all by wind resistance..

Danger Sense trilled a warning, not the frantic you’re about to die alarm but rather don’t let the web touch you because it’ll eat through your flesh like pouring water on a salt pile. There was no time to react apart from to slash it with his spear and as his weapon touched the magical strands, he ordered it to absorb the magic. The web split down the middle and a significant section vanished as the energy was sucked into his spear.

The remnants struck the vegetation on either side of him with an unpleasant sizzling sound.

An attack, which was deadly if it entangled him and unfortunately, he wouldn’t be able to use his spear to negate it again. He could feel that his spear was on cooldown. It had absorbed as much magic as it could and only removed part of the web. Tom didn’t know what tier the web was, but he suspected it was above tier three. The entire spell might have contained as little as ten mana, so casting it wouldn’t have exhausted the ape’s mana reserves.

His opponent was too powerful.

Fucking Cheaters, he screamed in his head and because he knew a war of attrition was suicide with its high tiered spells Tom changed strategy and charged it.. With the traits and the bursts he was consuming, he was functioning at rank seven rather than the five of his opponent. Providing the magic differential was not too high. He could win this.

If, if, if. If he could do many things, the world would be a different place. Wishing and hoping were never a substitute for action.

It saw him charging, but didn’t flee. Instead, it launched a counterstrike. The branches dipped down from above and roots burst out of the ground to intercept him. The entire forest between him and his target came alive with the singular aim of destroying him.

But he was faster than the terror monkey had expected. Its clothing leaves fluttered in a way Tom hoped reflected surprise.

The branches descended, and the roots exploded out of the earth, trying to close on him like the jaws of a mighty land shark. Without hesitation, he leapt to try to thread himself through the gap being the forest floor and canopy as they reached for each other. Manually, he triggered Fateful Repositioning while he flew through the air to improve his chances of making it. He spun twisted and briefly felt stretched like he had been turned into a pancake and then was through. Behind him, there was crunching noise as wood from above slammed into the roots from below.

The power the terror ape had unleashed was impressive, but Danger Sense told him that it was not a problem. He was within two metres of it with only those three swaying roots in the way.

Those three roots only mattered if he attacked head on and Tom grinned as he used all the free cast of attacking magic that he had left to launch an overwhelming attack at it.

Electrical strikes struck the ape from all directions. There was Spark from behind. Lightning and Extended Lightning Bolt from the sides and his tier zero attacks from the front minus Electricity Explosion that landed on his head. At the same time, his spear hacked down to strike the base of the magical defender closest to him and his high tiered weapon cut through the root like it was paper.

Dismantling the defences proved unnecessary as electricity danced over the terror ape and the two other defensive roots slumped over as the enemy’s concentration was torn away by his lightning.

Tom immediately took action.

His spear snapped down, empowered by a quarter Power Strike and precognition mana just in case. No shield rose to protect it and his weapon carved through the sapient’s head. He felt a thrill of success and relief flow through him, but he didn’t stop attacking. There were too many monsters out there with brains in weird spots or multiple brains for him to just assume the damage to the head was a clean kill. Plus, the arena would have broken apart if it was dead, so he kept stabbing while repeatedly making Spark zap it to keep it paralysed.

Vegetation coiled around him, which told him his opponent hadn’t been extinguished. He could have dodged around to escape its touch, but he didn’t want to give up the advantage he held and Danger Sense wasn’t pushing for that action. He guessed that he was in a rush to see who would be killed first, but with his precognition benefits it was a race he knew he was going to win.

Thorns tore into his legs, but he kept thrusting. Every blow left gaping holes in the creature’s body.

The head was pulverised and its chest too, but it still lived.  

 The terror ape, even though it was clearly effectively dead had not given up. Venom was being pumped into him even as he was forced to duck a wild swing from a branch as thick as his chest.

“Die,” he cursed, and like it was listening, the world he was in vanished, and he found himself standing back in DEUS’s common room. The thorns that had been poking into him had also been stoppering the wounds and they had disappeared without a trace.

Blood spurted out of the abruptly unplugged holes.

His mana was near empty but thanks to his trait he had a free use of Touch Heal available and it sealed the punctures instantly with magic to spare to also combat the venom. It was only tier one and was something that he could negate directly.

There were still puckered ugly scabs on his legs, but all the danger of bleeding out and venom had been neutralised.

“You got a win!” Corrine squealed from beside him, having clearly noticed the blood. She scooped him up from the ground effortlessly and gave him a hug. “You fucking finally got a victory. Yes. Fuck yes. Tom, you’re one of us now.”

“I did.” He agreed proudly even as he searched around to see if they had any losses. No one was exhibiting signs of grief, and it looked like everyone was present and the injuries he had arrived with actually looked like the worse anyone had suffered. That meant it was a good day, and it was okay for him to celebrate. “I did. I eliminated a terror monster with two kills.”

“Was it because of the darkhole trial?” she asked excitedly.

Tom considered the thirty seconds of chaos for a moment. “I used almost all my skills.” He admitted. “But the fight felt unfair. It was a druid ape, and it got lucky. The arena was a forest. It was perfect for it and so it nearly killed me. If I got beach, it would have died in moments.”

Corrine winced at that description. “Not luck, design.”

“I fucking knew it,” Tom exploded. “How do they always seem to be able to cheat?”

“No, it’s not like that. It’s not.” She snapped sharply and looked up with a worried frown at the ceiling. “It’s not related to any outside force cheating. There’s always one or two in every cohort that has the ability to get themselves favourable arena. There’s like four people here that I know of.”

“Really?” he asked in surprise.

“Yeah, it’s fucking unfair. Some individuals have a trait to influence the arenas and as you can imagine that’s a massive advantage, so they inevitably force their way into the divine trial and in their chosen environment they’re almost always powerful combatants.” She shuddered. “The wind and storm ones are the worse.”

Tom hesitated as he imagined Corrine going up against an enemy fighter in a hurricane. Yes, that would be particularly problematic for her.

“So, tell me what happened?” She asked enthusiastically. “Was it fun?”

“I was scared.” He admitted.

She looked confused. “Why would you feel like that if you used our racial…”

“I had reasons to be,” he told her simply. To her credit she dropped the line of inquiry, but he still rushed his description to distract her. “I started with a dual cast of javelins, but it had root guardians which intercepted both strikes.”

“Damn, so no instant kill?”

He waved a hand at his bloody legs. “Obviously.”

“I saw that, you imbecile. I’m not blind. That was me being polite and being an engaged listener. There was no need to be a fucking smart ass about it!”

She wasn’t truly offended, so he continued on. “It was obvious I couldn’t beat it at range, so I charged it and got close enough that my magic could hit it from every direction in order to bypass the root protectors. It didn’t have any magical shielding and was vulnerable to being stunned, so Spark locked it down while I stabbed it to death. The entire fight might have taken half a minute.”

“And your injuries?”

“My fault. I got arrogant and stood still to finish it faster rather than dodging around it. The stun failed to fully incapacitate, or it had already cast a longer lasting spell, so while I killed it some vine trap and poison spell got me..” He shrugged. “I was pretty confident of victory at that point.”

“Yes, your healing is definitely an asset. I guess it allows you to take risks that most can’t. Personally, I can’t wait to see the healing spell Dimitri’s getting for me. It’s going to be a necessity for the darkhole trial. And no, I’m not fucking learning it from scratch,” she snapped in response to his look. “I’m better off investing my time elsewhere, where I have talent. Plus, Dims agreed to let me go in two weeks and as for acquiring Touch Heal from wireframes. No fucking way. That would take six months for a tier zero spell. That’s a fucking ridiculous time sink.”

“You could delay the attempt.”

 She shook her head. “I’ve done the numbers. Delaying doesn’t improve my chances unless I wait until I have system access at fifteen and even then the expected survival rate improvement is not much.” Then she waved at the surrounding room. “Getting darkhole rewards will let me join child bracket four. That’s a fucking extra year and a bit of purchasing. I’m not throwing that fucking away. But enough of that. You won. You’ve got coins. you’re rich?”

He chuckled. “That’s stretching it. I have seventeen coins to my name.”

She clapped her hands. “That’s what I said. You have a fortune.”

He glared at her, and she just smirked before her eyes turned serious. “I’m not joking. When I was in your position, seventeen coins were massive. Used on the right package, it’s a life-changing resource.”

“Yeah, I’m hoping so.”

“What are you doing with it?”

He took a deep breath. “I’m planning on buying a skill earth starter kit.”

She nodded knowledgably. “I did something similar for fire.” As she spoke, flames started dancing around her hand and she wasn’t using mana.

AG. I'm going okay. I still feel like I'm a little distracted when writing so everything is taking a little bit longer than usual.