"London Tremor eliminated! HF wins! -3, 0."

The upward momentum of the knife being driven into London Tremor's throat had lifted him off his feet. As he was about to go flying off the church roof, the mysterious teen clutched the top of his breastplate and pulled him back.

Safe, London Tremor whistled. "Brilliant distraction play, that was."

"It was 92% your fault." The teen ripped off a chunk from a roast-giraffe panini and offered it to London Tremor to replenish his Stamina. "I need to recover my Boost." He tossed another panini piece to the wolf Scotia barking below. "If you want to play another map, now's your chance."

"Mesoamerican Ruins?"

"Sure." The teen abruptly flung himself off the roof.

London Tremor, following after him, landed less gracefully than the teen, his ankle snapping, before the injury self-repaired a moment later. Scotia loped beside him as he jogged to catch up.

Interview time!

"So, between you and me, how'd you actually learn Forbidden Knife Boxing?"

"I was filleting a salmon for dinner last night when Rocky popped up on TV."

"Rocky?"

"It's a classic boxing film."

"Right."

Another joke.

To London Tremor's astonishment, the portion of panini given to him matched the Stamina he'd expended exactly. Saana's pros were unbelievable...

"Does it take long to learn to track Stamina that precisely?"

"Depends on your talent. For targets whose stats are known, it took me about two days after making a character. The real challenge is determing a first-time opponent's stats on the fly and recalculating your estimations. But don't focus on this at your level; the gains are minimal relative to fixing your other flaws. Start with your concentration."

"And how long have you been playing? Saana II? Saana I?"

"A while."

At the Mesoamerican Ruins sub-map, a horde of fans were cheering for an ongoing duel between a gorgeous Bowwoman and a Crusader. The former was drowning her opponent in a flurry of spear thrusts to force them to back up into the map's lake of acid. Although she could have eliminated him already through simpler means, she was toying with him, inflicting upon him the humiliation deserved by every member of his loathsome sex.

Artemis, with her ongoing beef with the mysterious teen, had camped at the front of today's challenger queue. She'd ended up winning her spot in spectacular fashion, with a crushing 3-0 victory.

Aside from the mysteries, this had been a big reason for London Tremor choosing the teen for his article's focus. Artemis was but one of Suchi's elite duellists to have become entangled with him. Within an hour of the teen's arrival, four of the challenger slots had already been claimed by other players from the top 100, who'd proceeded to exploit their proximity to the teen to ask for advice. Their demeanour had been extremely respectful, and from this treatment, it was evident that they'd intuited the same insight as London Tremor: all of them were in the presence of a monster, one who had only unsheathed a few centimetres of its claws.

Artemis's fans booed at the teen's arrival.

"Leave our goddess alone! You're unworthy to touch the dirt beneath her feet!"

"$&#!, #&#&!"

London Tremor found their hostility absurd. After a tiny amount of digging, he'd discovered that the teen wasn't exactly hiding their membership in Flaming Sun.

Prior to The Pitfighting Tournament, when Artemis's enraged fans had attacked him, the teen had retaliated with the Tier-5 Shaman spell . The Spelltome to produce this had been crafted from Earkencin, a Tier 5-2 material. One had to be aware that The Company were the sole guild who'd progressed to Tier 5-2 raids and they prohibited the sale of these materials to anyone else, including their allies - aside from the puppet guild Flaming Sun. Ipso facto, the teen must be a member. Displaying those Spelltomes so openly had been tantamount to flashing his guild tag or declaring his identity outright.

Alas, The Slum existed in its own, warped bubble. Most of Artemis's moronic fans, under-levelled and out-of-touch with the global scene, wouldn't recognise the material. Those few who had, whatever information they must have shared before deleting their characters had failed to propagate due to the absence of a centralised communication network.

"You better be here to apologise!"

But the mysterious teen seemed to be immune to their insults. His hands were folded with sage-like calm, his chin was held high, and his gaze had alighted upon a flock of seagulls perched on the stadium's walls, seeing into them who knows what.

London Tremor was impressed with their patience. Then again, such slights must become meaningless after obtaining an elite position in Flaming Sun. What does Saturn care for the pebbles in its rings?

With a splash and sizzle, the duelling Crusader took a swim in the acid lake, and the officiator announced Artemis's victory.

“GAAAAGGH!”

London Tremor flinched at a blood-curdling cry by his side.

The teen was screaming himself red in his rage-twisted face while chopping down invisible enemies with a two-handed sabre. At one moment, his wild, bloodthirsty slashes were delivered with the force to decapitate a horse. The next, shrieking in terror, he scurried a retreat while deftly parrying a multi-prong—the teen stumbled backwards. A moment before cracking the back of his head, he saved himself with a backflip.

Was that intentional? wondered London Tremor. Even with his amateur eyes, the manoeuvre had seemed uncharacteristic to Nomad Sabre.

"Woops."

The teen's ability to physically execute his martial arts seemed to have lagged far behind his knowledge. This must be inevitable, though, when one studied so many. There was no time to master each one.

Artemis strutted past them as she exited the arena, throwing a glare at the teen as though she wanted to claw out his eyeballs but otherwise remaining silent. He'd shut down any outbursts earlier by threatening to eject her.

That being the full extent of their interaction, London Tremor felt disappointed. He'd selected this map knowing in advance that Artemis had been using it and hoping to stir up drama.

For the next duel, London Tremor turtled on an island in the acid lake's centre with two rope bridges leading to it. The island had a statue for sheltering from harassment. While his Grey Wolf performed interception duty, blocking whichever bridge the teen chose to assault from, London Tremor would shoot them with as they struggled to dodge in the narrow confines of the bridge.

Aiming would become progressively easier with each shot that landed. Beast Tamers possessed special venom buffs, which caused both their and their Companion's attacks to deal a stacking debilitation effect. The class had two at Tier-0, , which slowed the target, and , which healed a percentage of damage dealt. London Tremor would employ the first.

Once the teen had been slowed down enough, Scotia would then latch onto his arm with , opening up his defence for a finishing blow.

That was the big plan. What actually happened, though, was that a few seconds after the duel began, the teen rammed his sword down Scotia's throat, one-shotting the wolf, then shapeshifted into a cheetah and sprinted London Tremor down.

Well, London Tremor'd never had a chance of winning from the start, the skill gap being so wide between them. He was a reporter, not a prodigy, not a pro, not anything resembling whatever this teen was.

The disparate martial arts styles could add an interesting effect in his article's opening, he thought. By framing the first paragraphs as though he were being stomped by different people, he could later reveal them to be one and the same with a twist. But that would annihilate his wordcount...drat...

Having one challenge attempt left, he cast to recondense a cloud of motes into his slain wolf.

The teen, in the meantime, went over to a table of martial arts manuals that a team of assistants had shuttled around the arena's perimeter during the duel.

"Intriguing," he rubbed his chin philosophically, "the wonderful secrets we uncover by daring to near the edge of madness. Yes...sometimes, it's more efficient to eliminate the pet first." He made sure to jot this priceless wisdom down in a notebook.

Danielpickens25, an American Fighter, ranked 19th, utilised this break to approach the teen and inquire about the viability of adapting a wrestling technique for his class. The teen replied with a pointed expertise that instantly betrayed the farcicalness of the previous 'insight'.

One of the most perplexing elements for London Tremor was this charade of the teen's that they were mastering these martial arts on the spot. On the one hand, they were obviously finishing off a massive endeavour, the culmination of years of intensive research. On the other, they seemed to be showboating in a child-like manner, mocking someone or something. But who? What audience could this sham be designed to offend? The intern had no idea how to reconcile this conflict – not yet.

After he revived Scotia, the wolf was mad at him for ordering it into a suicidal situation. Monsters tamed with retained the intelligence of their natural, non-Bloodlusted state. To appease his wolf's wrath, he gave it a pat and a boiled sausage.

Now, a female Cutthroat approached the teen with an expectant expression. Into her palm, he bestowed a plate sporting a lemon lava cake. Although the original cakes were tiny enough as is, barely sufficient for a bite, he gave the Cutthroat a miserly half of one. The richness of the custard flowing out of the severed side stood in depressing contrast to the cake's meagre size, like an unreachable river of gold spotted on a horizon.

"It shrank again!" She stamped her foot. "This is unfair!"

The teen shrugged. "My hands are tied after a certain someone, who you snitched to, ordered me to ween you off. If you're unhappy with the design of this extinction regime, we can test another method. Cold turkey, perhaps? If not, I recommend venting your frustrations against ten sword-and-board Crusaders."

"Kick a rock!" The Cutthroat stomped away.

London Tremor recognised the girl as another member of Byzantium, one of Australia's most trash Villages. From her username, she was a rerolled assassin from The Garden of Grotesque, although her low placement in Suchi's leaderboard suggested she couldn't be far up their ranks. Her and the teen, along with several other Byzantines, appeared to be real-life friends. This added another perplexing layer to the story. If you were going to pull off some world-shaking feat, why do it while hanging out with your random noob buddies? For a cover? But the teen wasn't operating covertly.

The second the Cutthroat's back was turned, her trembling fingers broke off a corner of the snack with a honey-glazed raspberry on top and dunked into the golden river until a generous helping of custard had been soaked into the cake's fluffy sponge. As this portion, so meticulously prepared, passed between her lips, her anger shattered, her eyes burst. At once, it was as though she'd stepped out of a home whose air had grown dusty and stagnant over the winter only to receive a faceful of the invigorating, flower-scented winds of spring.

Scotia, sniffing the cake's delicious scent, spat out the sausage and bolted after the girl, who, poking her tongue petulantly at the wolf, stored the remainder in her inventory.

Weird, thought the intern. Scotia was usually more disciplined than that.

He asked the teen when they returned whether they knew Nomad Spear.

"No Mad's Beer? Nah, mate, I'm a minor. Can't drink."

London Tremor winked knowingly. "It's the spear analogue to Nomad Sabre."

A total blank. "Nomad Sabre? If you're referring my two-handed sabre style revolving around emotion-based stances, I invented that one after being encouraged by my therapist to be more emotionally expressive."

"Ha—!"

Behind London Tremor, a laugh peeked out from an Olmec-style statue before being snatched back by its producer.

And then there was this Earthfriend lurking in the background, never close enough to interfere, but always uncomfortably close, her movements deft, silent, and flawless.

Mysteries galore, thought the intern.

The third duel ended with his head being exploded by a gorilla piledriver.

Byzantium, Villagers trickling in for the start of the evening's exciting activities.

In the centre of the Village, a group had gathered around a projection of Karnon's latest prank.

The scene'd been filmed by a random schlub that The Trickster God had abducted and snuck into a row of bowing subjects. Shown was a throneroom carved out of an obsidian-black stone that had been decorated in children's party supplies. A banner hanging from the ceiling read, 'Happy 302nd, Lord Zulfikar!' The birthday boy, a lich with a crown of demon fingers, was walking down the aisle with a bouncy step, his eyeless gaze scanning his guests for the sneaky fellow who'd organised this delightful surprise. Hopping up onto his Skullthrone, the lich vanished through the seat. His bottom plummeted into the throne's gelatinous pudding interior. Suddenly, a piñata pig burst apart to reveal Karnon and Svanto wearing party hats. Both shouted in rehearsed unison, "Oh no, bony bum, you've been pudding-throned!"

The Byzantines slapped their knees and inflated their souls with laughter. Hohohohoho, Karnon, you unpredictable rapscallion.

Meanwhile, in Byzantium's posh residential area, Team Friendship Forever were having a barbeque in the flowery courtyard of the house assigned to them, the fumes of insect-repelling incense mingling with the savoury smoke of frying pork. In a lawn chair, Abigail was reading a manga while Anderson braided her hair. On a table they'd dragged outside, Cathy was sprinkling pills into an organic salad, and, in a corner, Brian was kneeling with his arms raised apologetically to the heavens – a punishment after being bailed out of jail for sneaking Handsome Dan, a minor, into an in-game brothel.

For guests, they had over two NPC guards who'd been patrolling Byzantium's residential area during the hours when the Byzantines were logged off. Donkey Bro, who'd befriended them while staying here in his human form, had invited them for dinner before they signed off duty. As guards, these friends of his were also part-time soldiers for The Empire. Like many NPCs, they’d joined with the ultimate goal of gathering the skills and wealth to complete enough Trials of Nerin to qualify for living in Central City.

Although few players would notice the subtlety, one of the friends had red-skin, marking her as a member of the Claypeople caste, a native of Suchi and born in Central. Every Ibangua was excommunicated from The City in their teens until they’d completed the same entry requirements as everyone else. Technically, this meant admittance to Central was impartial, the rules not distinguishing between sand or clay. In practice, Nerin’s Trials were so dangerous that they couldn't be completed without the years of training and preparation that only an established clan could provide. Those Claypeople who failed and ended up stuck in The Slums were usually of poorer clans who’d fallen out of favour, incompetent, or unlucky.

If one recalled the scar-faced Senior Director that’d tried to blackmail Henry about the stadium when he’d first arrived in Suchi, that guy had been in a similar situation, losing half his face during one of the Trials. His Company job had since given him enough resources to qualify to re-enter The City himself, but he’d stuck around in The Slums because he’d married a Slumdweller who’d nursed him from death and he couldn’t take her or his half-caste kids. Self-entry required 12 of the 108 trials; family-entry, 70.

"What happened next, D-Bro?" asked one of the guards. "How are you still alive?"

"I grabbed the beetle's mast-sized antennae," Donkey Bro used to swell the muscles of his shabbily-short arms, "wrapped them around its neck, and choked the miserable life out that green bug! Thus was toppled the first enemy on my Ascendant's path!"

"Sick."

"Sounds real."

At the grill, Henry was tending a sizzling set of boar steaks while Dan handsomely recounted the second most colourful event of his day, a match from an in-game rugby league he'd signed up for with his meathead pals.

"...a notch into the second half, Big Bro, the Melby Rebs were 13 on the flame over us with us two pumps down the drain. We couldn't win. After taking the H, me and the boys tried knockin our heads together for explanations, but we came up blank. It doesn't make a lick of sense, Big Bro. How could a pick-up-group of amateurs knock us wonky?"

Henry flipped a steak. "I didn't understand any of that, but if there is a problem, it'll be because all of you are Fighters. Your team composition lacks the utility spells of the other classes."

Dan clutched his thick, perfect-hairline hair. "Holy smokes! Not even the captain figured that out. Big Bro, you're a genius!"

"I am, but that was common sense. Please pay more attention to the lessons on basic game mechanics in order to infer their impact on unconventional combat scenarios."

"OK!" Dan pumped his fist in the air with the conviction of an action hero about to begin a training montage. "So what are we learning today, Big Bro?"

"Not quite yet, save that energy for when we begin."

"Will do, Big Bro."

Henry, after buttering up Team Friendship Forever with these steaks, was going to have them and the rest of the Byzantines practice at his stadium. Although group combat was strictly prohibited in the venue, an exception could be made for them because he owned the place.

The stadium's empty space was necessary for today's training. Although significant work was still needed on their tempo and communication, the time had come to introduce them to advanced tactics for moving across the map, exploiting the terrain to assault and defend high-value positions. One such position was the skeleton dragon's rib-cage that the Tizcan Host had stationed themselves at during the Village Deathbrawl. 61 similar spots were spread around the 3x3 map, and a convoluted body of theorycraft on how to utilise them had been produced by Saana League's analysts. Methods were highly situational, fluctuating depending on team composition, side randomisation, etc. To teach these advanced manoeuvres in their Duchy's crowded facilities, with hundreds of other teams getting in their way, would have been tedious and inefficient.

This arrangement had had already cleared with Justinian. Earlier, Henry'd persuaded the lobotomised Crusader not through bribery, as would have been preferred, but through a convoluted, roleplayed negotiation, during which he'd spoken with the gravity of King Priam of Troy begging Achilles for the body of his slain son Hector. The literary conquest had prepared him well, such negotiations being a common formula scene in ancient oral epics.

There were also, he muttered under his mental breath, the last 2.8 years of LARPing a Sacred Warrior.

Gritting his teeth to bear through a jolt of psychic pain, he sprinkled a few herb leaves over one steak before plating it.

No expense had been spared in enhancing the steak's flavour. The tastier they were, the more love for him they would produce in his friends, the harder he could pressure them to train before their bodies broke. Worry not, though, there were no mind-enslaving buffs this time – just the raw cooking skill built up over six decades of preparing his own meals.

He batted Rose's stalking hand away from the steak. "Let it cool first. Your Tier-0 Vitality is too low to avoid bu—we've got company."

His ear twitched at the sudden approach of dozens of boots click-clacking on the faux-cobblestone paving of the street overlooked by their courtyard. A number of sycophantic voices followed.

"Nice place, this is."

"Yeah, the architecture's pretty snazzy."

"Fools! Anything worse would be an insult to our goddess! Give the command, Artemis, and I'll knock these bungalows down and erect for you a palace of the moon with a radiant beauty matching your own!"

"Do not address me directly, scum."

"Yes, my queen!"