Tom’s cheeks were burning slightly, but Everlyn did not push him further.
They walked together in the middle of the group. While his enmity level was an impressive six, it was not quite sufficient for their setup. People on the periphery were being stung and then required immediate healing. Without any discussion, the entire crowd shuffled to the right, and Tom, instead of being in centre, was shuffled to the left.
It meant he was closer to the dense wasps coming from the side. An occasional wasp would come from the other direction, but they were few. Everyone here had made the top million. While a third were now crafters, they all knew how to fight. A single wasp against seven or eight fighters was a lopsided battle, even if the humans were poorly matched against the insects.
There were further readjustments, and both magic-based and agility-based warriors shifted to the exposed side. After that, they were more than capable of taking out the regular wandering wasps from that direction.
The calls for healing dropped right off.
It was an ingenious solution that played the geography. With their repositioning, very few wasps came from the left, so Tom wasn’t in need there. Then, on the right, having fewer people between him and denser wasps meant they were more likely to be caught by his aura before they targeted someone else. They reached the area where they were setting up the new shelter. Around Tom, everyone got to work, with Michael firmly positioning Tom in the centre. He was served food, with Harry and Sven remaining close by to keep him company. Everlyn was doing her job and had headed out to scout the surrounding wasps to ensure that there were no unexpected surprises.
Tom watched the frantic activity, and when the wards of the main shelter were cast, he decided he’d had enough. “Okay, the shelter’s up. I’m going to break some hives.”
There were a few grunts of acknowledgement, and he extracted his way from the group and went to work on the next hive on his demolish list. He summoned a water wisp because all the nearby wasps had at least partial vulnerability to it. Then he went to work. The hive he was attacking had already swarmed him, and most of the worker wasps were dead. There would be the standard higher tier ones left in the structure, but if he was lucky, it would collapse before they bothered him. Smoothly, he stepped to the right and kept smashing away at the supports.
Another step.
He froze.
His entire body had tingled, as though he had moved into an area with substantially different air pressure.
Despite the buzzing wasps, he shut his eyes and assessed what his body was feeling.
His elemental hummed as it destroyed the wasps stinging him, but he extended his senses beyond those distractions.
There was a tingle there. It felt like he was half a step away from reality. The air was both heavy and light. He turned away from the half-demolished hive and peered into the distance.
The instability feeling was something he knew well. He searched carefully, aware that sometimes what he was looking for could be hidden. His eyes lit up with excitement and then frowned when the object he was looking at was a thin ovoid rather than being closer to a sphere. From the feel of the air, it was what he had expected, but it still annoyed him.
The thin ovoid and the instability it implied, definitely meant trouble.
His eyes looked back at the camp and his support team. If it had been a permanent trial, he would have shared its presence. He might lose a first clear bonus because of that openness, but those benefits were low unless the trial was at the right levels above him. The first clear bonus, as far as Tom was concerned, was only worth worrying about if the challenge was in the Goldilocks zone, which was currently five to eight ranks above them. The designated level had to be significantly above your own for the first clear bonuses to really matter, and if it was any higher than eight, the trial would become impossible to complete. Or at least that was Tom’s opinion. But people were stupid; and given the heat running through the camp, any news might set off an inferno.
That was for a permanent trial. The nature of the trial, the aura of which Tom had detected, he could see was not permanent; it was temporary… He looked at it again. The ovoid was narrow, whereas a permanent trial would appear with a perfect sphere. And when he took a step back, it vanished from his vision.
Low-powered.
A temporary trial, with this little energy, potentially sufficient for only a single run, brought a whole different stratum of trouble.
With how frustrated many members of the camp were, how keen they were to take action, learning about this tiny and temporary trial, which might support only one participant, would cause violence, almost guaranteed.
He bit his lip and kept hitting the hive as he thought it through.
Destroy the hive like normal and then check it out? Or go sooner?
He glanced at the support team.
Neither Everlyn nor Sven were there.
Michael, Thor, and Harry were there, but also a couple of the substitutes. If he left the hive now partially destroyed, but not fully, that whole team would know something unusual had happened, and those extra eyes would talk.
In annoyance, he scanned the temporary trial. The ovoid was so thin. That meant it had little energy. Maybe enough to teleport a few groups to the trial before it would dissipate and maybe less. The absolute worst case would be a single person trial with a few slots available where the fifty interested people would need to compete for four or fewer slots. Best case was single person and single use, and then he could pop in and dispel it with no one the wiser. From the energy level, it was showing there was no chance it would be large enough for everyone who wanted to get a run.
He had seen a fist fight erupt over who had to sit closest to the shelter exit. A limited resource like a temporary trial would not go uncontested. There would be blood, unless Tom could dispel it before anyone noticed.
If he left before the hive came down, it would be known something had spooked him. Better to do it immediately after when it was still too risky for them to follow, but not unusual for him to walk further. It was a pattern that he regularly followed where he would often march forward into the newly opened territory to confirm what was coming.
If he played it cool, they might never even suspect that a temporary trial had been present. Providing he could dispel it, that was.
Tom hit the hive harder.
His muscles strained to bring it down sooner rather than later.
There was a splintering sound, and Tom knocked away another chunk of supports to speed up the reaction.
The entire mound crashed down.
Then he waited. He prayed that this would not be one of the hives where he had to smash it for ten minutes to eliminate the Queen.
Cha-ching.
He sighed in relief.
The Queen was dead. Tom did not hesitate and paced toward the distortion, trying to keep his pace even and unhurried. They could see him, but not the trial entrance.
So far, he had done nothing wrong.
He was walking on the grass plains, head on a swivel, noting where all the hives were. The number of wasps attacking him dropped off as he got closer to his destination, as the properties of the unstable energy drove them away.
When he reached the strange surface, Tom froze.
He pretended to pan around and examine his surroundings.
His heart was thumping.
What didn’t he want?
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Drama.
What did he want?
To survive, followed by personal power or even better, something to help him with his plan.
He poured his fate out and imagined exactly what he wanted. A trial that he could complete to get him closer to delivering on his plan and one he could close without alerting anyone else.
Please DEUS.
The last prayer was pointless especially as it was not backed by the sacrifice of any experience, but it made him feel better. Tom did not touch the trial immediately; instead, he gave the fate a moment to work.
Then his hand slapped down onto the distortion in the air.
Instantly, he was in a black space with details of the trial displayed.
Temporary Trial - Provides entry to the Lartonga coliseum - (one charge) Augmented Monster. Single person. A hundred times time dilation. Recommended Rank 8 to 15.
Do you wish to enter?
Tom almost sighed in relief when he read those details.
This was the single most valuable thing they had seen in Existentia so far. Rewards were always variable and reflected the risk taken, but the potential offered by a trial in his goldilocks zone was more significant than all the auction credits they had generated as a community.
If this went to a decision by committee… Tom shivered at the thought. One possibility was they might try to go conservative and send someone as close to rank ten to defeat it, excluding him even though the trial looked perfectly tailored for anyone from rank three to nine. Then he imagined the council trying to agree on a single person to send. There was so much tension in the camp that people would probably die in the arguments around who was best suited. Not to mention the risk of some scout type attempting to sneak in — and worse, the consequences if they succeeded. He could imagine some of the current chest-beaters in the camp, killing anyone who robbed them of their opportunity.
It was a one-person trial, and the portal could only send one person. He only needed to accept, and he could remove the threat.
But he had some minor considerations. Coliseum, he guessed that meant it would be some sort of set of arena battles. That probably implied structured fights with what was most likely an escalating wave concept.
Then there were the specific concerns. Augmented monster? What on Existentia did that mean? He had never seen that description before. Was that extra powerful? Maybe the monsters were given armour to fight? He didn’t know.
The final issue was the range of ranks. That too was unusual, and he wasn’t sure what it meant. Was rank fifteen too high for him? Or, given his low rank, would he only have to fight rank eight enemies?
If it was the second, then even the augmented monster status wouldn’t cause too many issues, but if they pitched him against random ranks?
While technically he was rank five, he fought way beyond that level. The fact he possessed an offensive skill with a hundred and thirty-three skill levels was a huge equaliser. While Tom would be dominated physically, the extra magical flexibility might help him, especially if the fate he had spent prevented his opponents from being resistant to lightning.
Finally, it didn’t really matter. If this was not closed, there would be civil war, and he had to trust that his fate had delivered beyond just tailoring the temporary trial to the specifications that best suited his aim.
I accept, he thought, and the world shifted.
Tom’s body instantly went into battle alert. His muscles did not tense, but his legs spread to allow him to react to anything that occurred. The water wisp that was still summoned zipped up to watch for threats his mundane senses might miss. Spark flared out a thin shell of static that would let him sense if anything breached it. The hammer was loose in his hand to give him flexibility to respond in any direction.
No threats presented, so he studied his surrounding in interest. While not surprised internally, he groaned at what he saw. So cliche. He was standing in the centre of a circular, paved arena that stretched eighty metres in every direction till they hit gigantic walls that comprised heavy granite blocks, each of them two metres square and stacked four high. Above that, there were rows of seats filled with creatures that, from their shapes, were clearly not human. But they were real people and felt powerful.
He completed a full three-hundred-sixty-degree rotation, and it was the same in all directions. The only thing that changed was the proportion of thin and fat shadows in the stands. The stonework which he was focusing on remained consistent. There were no doors, nor spots for enemies to enter.
A spectre that, excluding its eyes, looked like some sort of demon from hell appeared right in front of him. It had red skin and sharp horns, but its eyes almost seemed kind.
His hammer whipped through the shape and passed through the demon. It was a hologram. The creature did not even blink at his hostility.
“Welcome, challenger,” the demon said. The words were without accent, but Tom picked up that its lips had not shaped the right syllables. Translation magic was in play.
Its horns glowed red. “Nice instincts. I trust you have entered straight from a trial.”
Tom took a cautious step backwards. If he couldn’t hit it, there was no point being anything other than civil. “Correct.”
“Your trial has sent you to be a competitor in the city of Lartonga’s coliseum. Do you understand?” the demon continued kindly.
“Yes.”
The horns became even redder. “Very amusing. You lie freely, but ignorance serves no one. This is a real place, but the GODs’ magic wraps around you. Your species, your face, they are all hidden from the crowds by the grace of the GODs, but such details are not concealed from me, even if I must keep them confidential.” The horns changed to glow a yellow red. “What is a human?”
“We are an old, insular race,” Tom lied immediately. “There was a recent calamity on our home island, and we were forced to use emergency teleports to escape.”
The demon’s horns glowed bright red, and Tom knew it conveyed some sort of meaning. “There is no need to lie to me. Like the GODs protect your identity from the crowd, they protect you from me telling anyone else. Your secrets are truly safe here. I swear on the GODs.”
Tom said nothing, and the demon studied him in return.
Red and yellow fought for ascendency in the horns. Amusement and curiosity, Tom guessed.
“A new competitor race. then.”
“What?” for the first time Tom felt his mask slip.
The demon licked its lips, and the horns went back to flaming red. It was as good as laughing at him. “I swore on the GODs – plural — and you didn’t blink. A native of Existentia would not have failed to note the significance.”
There were loud sounds of clicking from the stands.
“That,” the demon said with the flames vanishing from his horns as he became businesslike. “Is the sound of the crowd becoming bored. So, I will be brief. First, I welcome humans to Existentia, and I wish you luck in the coming competition.”
“Thank you.” He looked sideways at the demon. There was only the slightest glow of red. It was not mocking him.
“Let me explain the rules of the trial you find yourself in. The Lartonga coliseum specialises in one-vs-one battles. As a trial entry, you will be forced to win the first three battles before you can exit. After you’ve achieved that milestone, you’ll be presented with a portal that will allow you to exit between rounds. That is the only time at which you can leave, as well as the only means by which you can leave. TR, trial reward points are awarded based on your system-determined fighting combat rank differential and the number of enemies you have previously defeated. As you have a combat rank of,” the demon peered at him. “Five, I will start off your summons with rank eight creatures. TR points are awarded mostly on rank differential, but the number of high tier spells and skills matter. Something might be rank eight, but if it possesses a host of tier five skills, it’s rated a higher threat than a rank fifteen with no useful Skills or Spells.”
“Sensible.”
“Very.” The demon said, his horns flicking red at Tom’s interruption. “Every round, the opponent you fight will go up by half a rank to the peak of fifteen. At the eights it will be Low, mid, and then high. After that, low nine is basically the same as a high eight, so you’ll only have mid and high as you progress through multiple fights. You can fight as many battles till peak fifteen, at which point you will only get three fights. Once you leave, you’ll be given a safe room in which to spend your TR points.” The demon chuckled. “Providing you survive. If you’re dead, you won’t have time to spend the TR.”
Tom nodded. “I can do this.”
“Human,” the demon said abruptly. “I must warn you that you will fight other sapients. Some of your enemies will be blessed with a GOD’s shield, which means they’ll be restored to full health after they leave here. Even if you land a mortal blow, they will not die, but not all of those you face will be blessed with such protections. Some of your opponents will literally be fighting for their lives. For them, there’s only victory here or death. They will not yield, but there is a third type who, while they are putting their lives on the line, can surrender instead of fighting to the death. You, as a competitor, would do well to understand the difference.”
“So, I should disable them?”
“You should fight to win,” the demon said simply. “If they die, then that is the consequence of their choice. You are not strong enough to show mercy. Assume everyone is under a GOD’s shield and fight accordingly.”
“But they will die?”
“If the GODs will it.”
“Then I should stop at three.”
The horns burst into red flames that soared metres in the air. “You are a competitor race,” the demon said in disbelief. “No, I don’t believe you will make that choice. None of you guys ever do.”
That got Tom’s attention more firmly than anything else the Demon could have said. It focused him clearly on his priorities. Maybe some sapients would die, or maybe they would be shielded by the GODs. No matter their circumstances, Tom needed to maximise these TR points.
This was a temporary trial. He was the only one from their group who could use it. There would be no question of him taking it easy.
“I see your fire,” the demon rumbled. “Which is great, but I would remind you that these fights are against people. You would have experienced nothing like it before. These are to the death against living, breathing, thinking people that have their own strengths and weaknesses. Just because the first three fights are easy does not mean the next will be. There can be a steep rise in difficulty that does not reflect the moderate improvement in rank.”
“So, are you encouraging me to fight or not to fight?”
The clicking in the stands had grown almost deafening.
“I’m doing my job. Unless you were a mighty warrior on your home planet that had maintained a tradition of life and death battles, you would not have experienced these conditions before. I don’t know how many fights you should go through. I’m a humble coliseum manager. It’s not up to me to influence your decision. Just to warn you about what to expect.” His horns blazed red. “As fun as a philosophical debate is, it is time to fight.”
“Wait, is there a time limit?”
The red flames intensified. “At my discretion. Don’t waste time, and you won’t feel it.”
“What are the prizes?”
The demon looked at him. “I don’t know. They vary by person; but considering these are death matches against individuals stronger than you, and they won’t grant you direct experience, I imagine what can be purchased is significant.”
The clicking went up another level, and Tom had to put his hands over his ears.
“It’s time.” The demon said simply and vanished.