“I didn’t know Athena had a brother.” The instructor from earlier whispered as Willow approached the roiling horizon. A wave rippled across the earth— no, the slime that covered the earth— as it coalesced. It piled on itself, higher and higher, a spinning object inside of it.

The rest of the slime pooled around it.

It was the size of a car, looked like it was made of slime covered gold, and embedded with gems— a crown sitting in slime, as the horizon slowly but surely moved to meet Willow a few hundred feet away.

She extended an arm, opening her hand, and with a flash of golden light, a spear appeared within it.

“Athena?” I asked, staring.

“She’s high platinum— the top 10%. Not enough to be known around the world, but locally… We call the people above the top 5% the Pantheon. Because for all intents and purposes…” he trailed off as Willow’s previously pitch black armor began to glow.

Even from this distance, I could see it stretch and contort, her bracers crawling up to completely cover her arms, her chest plate extending and forming a helmet around her head. It looked like she was in an ironman suit of gleaming gold, a cape forming behind her nearly of translucent glittering gold flecked white. She took one step, and then as simply as taking a second, she leapt a hundred feet into the air, appearing above the rapidly coalescing giant slime.

She hovered there in midair for a ponderous moment, ever slowly pointing her spear downwards, as if she was floating and considering her next move. The crown tilted upwards, as if the giant slime was considering her.

“For all intents and purpose? They’re gods.”

She dove through the slime in an instant, the motion breaking the sound barrier and sending a shock wave rattling over the truck. The slime deformed on impact, absorbing much of the force as she led, spear first, into the monster.

The crown slid out of the way as she shot though, sending dead slime splattering out, and the slime roared.

An impressive feat for a monster without a mouth. Or was it all mouth, technically, if it digested things with its body? It was all stomach?

It curled around its crown, swirling, before launching itself at her.

She caught herself a moment later, taking multiple steps to dissolve her inertia as she half stumbled away from the monster.

“Didn’t expect it to be so soft!” She shouted, her voice echoing over the land. And then, she laughed, calm and enthusiastic. A monster the size of a stadium was little more than a toy to her. Most of the truck stared on, mesmerized.

And then she stepped forward. As easily as her breaking the sound barrier, as easily as her leaping a hundred feet in the air, she moved through the slime again, reaching for the crown that swirled away from her.

The landscape behind her set on fire. She exploded into one side of the slime the size of a football field and out the other, stumbling near the truck.

“Ugh, this is so much harder solo.” She said, looking up at the instructor. “Hey, can you take care of the trash mobs for me?”

The front of her helmet was like a grill of lines, blocking her face. Every inch of her glimmered gold or white, and around her neck was thick fur attached to the cape.

“Yeah. You guys hear that? Right on time! We’re going disc shooting.” The instructor raised a weapon.

I looked back to the slime. It was firing blobs of slime into the air— trash mobs?

I picked a gun back up and raised it, firing at the same time as the instructor into one of the quickly falling blobs, and then a dozen lances of light were pouring out of the truck like a light show.

“If I can’t catch the crown… I’ll just have to destroy all of the slime.” Willow said happily, turning and walking fifty feat away at a sedate, human pace, before leaping again.

Willow— Athena— lifted her spear back, and I paused as I felt Qi swirling inside of her. That was a spear art— she was preparing a technique— and then it was out.

Light lanced down from her, a golden spear perforating the slime at a hundred feet away, and the recoil pushed her upwards into the air. A column of the slime fell out of it, dead, and it re-coalesced around the hole.

She reached out her left hand, and a spear in electrum gold-silver appeared.

She threw it, and it fell like a hammer out of the sky. The earth shook with the impact, and a wave of dirt, dust, and dead slime flowed over the truck, obscuring our view. There was a plop as a slime landed near us, and the instructor reached over, shooting it.

“Is she really going to try to fight a war of attrition with a fucking slime? She’s crazy! There’s no way she doesn’t run out of mana!” One of the awoken in the truck shouted over the sound of a second impact. The air was choked with dust.

Then there was a golden light, and the dust was blown away.

Willow was falling from the sky, spear extended, and she shot through the slime, looping around it as she pierced it over and over.

After a dozen passes, the slime collapsed. So much was dead that it couldn’t hold its form, and it moved to re-coalesce around the crown.

Willows spear moved through it like paper, a red gem at the center shattering, and all of the slime stopped moving. She swung, and the crown rolled all the way to the truck, but she walked over at a leisurely pace, even as she dismissed her spear and her armor began to retract.

When she reached the truck, she looked up, exasperated.

“I haaaate slimes.” She jumped onto the truck. Every inch of her was coated in layers of goop.

The instructor leapt down, pulling the crown aboard.

I stared at Willow.

“What?” She asked.

Internally, I was wondering how much Qi killing a monster like that would grant me if the so called trash mobs could advance me a stage. Externally, though… “You’re… strong.” I said.

It wasn’t technically a lie— in the martial world, she would wield power comparable to the Sixth Realm with ease. And the killing intent that radiated off of her… I looked around the truck. They couldn’t sense it. It wasn’t the kind of thing that came from killing slimes, either. My sister had killed people. I reevaluated her as she sat back down.

“Yeah, I guess so.” She said. “There’s always someone stronger though.”

“A rare bout of true wisdom, Wil.” I said, sitting beside her.

“Hey! I have bouts of wisdom all the time. My wisdom stats are great!” She flexed her muscles.

It was less impressive covered in slime.