Kali wakes up to the weird feeling of something wet on her fingers. She pulls her hand back a little to avoid the odd sensation. As she opens her eyes she sees Fore, with his usual stupid look, staring up at her.

“This one came in and sat down by you. Couldn’t get the mangey thing out of here so I let him stay,” the doctor, who has been looking after Kali, informs her.

“Wait, where am I?” Kali questions, the last thing she remembers being her defeat at the hands of Arua in the tournament and Xander and Drakthar taking care of her.

“A couple of stooges and this annoyingly handsome kid brought you here. Is he your man or something?” The doctor inquires, trying to dust off his bedside manner.

“Did he have scars all over him and reek of murderous intent?” Kali questions, fairly sure he is talking about Xander, not Drakthar, but making sure so there is no misunderstanding.

“No… he was pleasant and polite, although very concerned about your well-being. And he didn’t have scars,” the doctor notes as he starts to take a look at her now that she’s up.

“No, that’s just my friend Xander. Drakthar wouldn’t show concern,” Kali notes dejectedly, almost immediately regretting it.

“I won’t pry,” the doctor comments as he replaces her gauze, knowing this isn’t something she wants to talk about.

“I will make you explain why this wolf has decided he belongs in my home. What is it to you?” The doctor changes the subject.

“He’s a friend. When I showed up here he was all I had. He also ruined my life but it’s all really complicated,” Kali tries her best to explain her relationship with Fore.

“Your life ain’t ruined, at least if I have something to say about it. Seems like you have a bunch of friends, that’s better than most,” the doctor notes, wanting her to keep a positive attitude as it aids in recovery.

“Yeah, you’re right. I guess ruined isn’t exactly right. I’m way happier now than I was before he showed up. In fact, I guess he changed my life for the better… wow, I didn’t think I would ever look at it like that but he really ended up helping me if I think about it,” Kali starts to ramble, slowly realizing that the time spent traveling with her new friends has been more fulfilling than her life of solitude defending a fountain no one visits.

“Then I guess I’ll let him stay. If he’s that good a friend he could help you recover. It always helps to have friends around,” the doctor comments before finishing up changing her bandages.

“Alright, now just try and get some rest. It could be a while before you heal up. The less you move and the more rest you get the faster it’ll happen,” the doctor orders before leaving the room.

Meanwhile, the four remaining fighters in the tournament started by God are summoned by the man himself for breakfast. They walk in to see God at the head of the table, his usual calm demeanor dropped and replaced with a look of exhaustion.

God glances up at the four of them as soon as they arrive.

“Well, it would seem I underestimated your friends. It gives me no pleasure to admit it but Gwendolyn, as well as Kayde, have escaped,” God informs them, choosing not to hide the truth from Drakthar and Xander.

“But, I have every man under me scouring this island for the two of them and I promise you this, they will not escape a second time,” God threatens, attempting to wipe the momentary smirk off Xander’s face.

“Good luck. We toppled an Empire, I think avoiding a few mediocrely trained guards will be easy enough for them,” Xander confidently responds, knowing that much will be a breeze for Kayde and the others.

“It would seem now you are the one underestimating me. I am no mere king, playing at controlling the masses below him. I am God himself, all-powerful and worshiped by those who follow me,” God declares, viewing himself as much more than a king of a once-great empire.

“A God is only as powerful as the people’s belief in them. I saw that first hand in the Sacrosanct Empire with the church of the Purity. What is another false God if no one believes in you?” Xander quickly retorts, likening him to the Purity.

“But people do believe in me, I have all of the inhabitants of this island thanking me for my hospitality and relaxing lifestyle that my sacrifices afford them,” God disagrees, pointing out the flaw in Xander’s logic.

“You are mistaking belief for fear. You are nothing more than a vapid megalomaniac that holds people against their will to use for your own twisted means. No one believes in you,” Xander counters, knowing no one would willingly follow this man by choice.

“While your grasp of vocabulary is quite impressive I would argue that I am the opposite of vapid, I am a megalomaniac? Yes but nothing about me is boring, something I know you cannot claim. I know that if people asked themselves who they would rather be me or you, they would choose me every time,” God corrects Xander’s claims, using it to try and prove himself superior.

“I wouldn’t be so sure about that,” Xander disagrees, knowing that even though God may have unique abilities, his own can be just as powerful.

“Now you are overestimating yourself, truly curious the human brain, your ability to trick yourselves into believing something completely false never fails to astound me,” God throws another insult at him, not able to let this pest have the last word.

The three other fighters, who have been barely listening to their verbal sparring, have all but finished up their breakfast and are ready to go train.

“So you two are done now?” Drakthar comments as he gets up intending to grab his axe and use the area out back to prepare for his next bout.

“Hold on Drakthar, before you go we need to determine who you will be facing in the next round of the tournament in a couple of days. I decided to let you make the decision of who you wish to fight for this next round. Under each of your plates, you will find a piece of parchment, if you could rank your fellow competitors one to three, one being the one you wish to fight the most and three being the person you least wish to fight,” God instructs them.

Each of them takes a while to contemplate their rankings, that is except for Drakthar, who fills them out immediately. God has one of his men pick up the four pieces of parchment and bring them to him.

He studies each of the person’s rankings before determining mathematically who will face off against who.

“Before I announce the matchups, I thought I would share who it is the others wish to fight. Arua had Drakthar first, Xander second, and Radek third. Drakthar has Arua first, Radek second, and Xander third,” God begins to read off the parchments.

Drakthar grins slightly when he hears that Arua also put him first, keen to fight her as he judges her as the strongest aside from himself.

“Radek put Drakthar first, Arua second, and Xander third. And finally, Xander had Arua first, Radek second, and Drakthar last. So to match you with your highest statistical matchups based on these lists, Drakthar will face Radek and Arua will face Xander,” God informs them, causing confusion among Drakthar and Arua who believed they would be fighting each other.

God chuckles at their shared bewilderment, “Are you two brutes that cannot figure out simple math? It may be true that you wish to fight each other the most but Radek had Xander third and Xander had Radek second. That makes a much lower pairing than having Xander and Radek up against their preferred opponent and you two against your second choice”.

Although he isn’t pleased about it, it doesn’t take Drakthar long to realize what God is saying adds up. He doesn’t dwell on his missed opportunity because he gets to fight Radek, who he also wanted to test his strength against since encountering him in the Pits.

Arua takes the turn of events well, smiling and nodding at Xander upon hearing that he will be her next opponent. Xander returns her gesture, finally able to manage a grin after hearing of Gwendolyn’s escape. The four of them leave the table and go their separate ways to begin training for their upcoming battles.

Meanwhile, in the middle of the jungle, Kayde, Lunette, Maximus, Klara, Francine, and a still unresponsive Gwendolyn awaken after their first night on the run.

“Okay Kayde, let’s start working on fixing up your leg,” Lunette decides as she dumps out one of her bags of holding dedicated to spare parts.

“We should move first, if God has people out looking for us they could have made it this far in the night. We need to put more distance on them,” Kayde disagrees, propping himself up to continue onward despite his busted leg.

“No, you’re going to slow us down if you keep on going as you are now. I’ll fix your leg first and then we can move on. It’s more efficient this way,” Lunette disagrees, logically seeing Kayde’s approach as a waste of time.

“Fine, but let’s move over there where the trees are thicker, if you fix me up by this creek then they’ll have an easier time finding us,” Kayde suggests, moving towards the trees he specified.

As Lunette works on Kayde’s leg, Maximus and Francine keep watch behind some trees, ready to alert the group if any of God’s men come along. Several hours pass, Lunette wordlessly toiling as fast as she can so they can get moving again. Just as they are about to finish, Francine spots a group of four armored men passing through. She points at them, alerting the group to their presence.

Lunette looks around at the others’ panicked faces, quickly realizing that aside from Kayde and herself, none of these people can handle themselves in a fight. She hands Kayde a pistol full of tranquilizer darts, whispering to him, “Don’t move. I’m not done working on your leg and if you try and get up all of my progress will be ruined. If any of them break the treeline shoot them from here”.

Kayde nods understanding Lunette’s orders.

“Take Gwendolyn and hide her behind one of the far trees. I’m going to take care of them,” Lunette tells Klara before pulling out her own pistol.

Francine and Maximus watch as Lunette takes aim at the one furthest from her, choosing that one as her target hoping they will believe the attack came from the other direction. She fires, the capsule full of knock-out fluid sticking into the man’s neck before slowly working his way through his body.

The man falls, the armor harshly crashing to the ground, causing the other three to turn back to look at him. They all immediately draw their swords, ready to face their attackers. Lunette fires off a second shot, this time she aims too low, the capsule bouncing off one of the men’s armor.

“Over there! Behind the trees!” A man screams, pointing to the tree Lunette is using as cover. Wordlessly, Lunette signals to Francine and Maximus to run, hoping to lure the men into the area where Kayde will be able to assist her.

Lunette hangs back, preparing to fire upon all of them once they come into view. She holds her pistol in the air, watching as the three of them pass the treeline. The second they do, all three of them fall to the ground before Lunette can fire a single shot.

“That was easy, now can you get back to work so we don’t run into more of these goons?” Kayde requests, having shot all three of them the second they came into vision.

“Yeah,” Lunette responds, taken aback a bit at how quickly he dispatched the three of them.

Maximus and Francine go over to where the first of the four men is lying and drag him so he is with the others.

“Should we do something with them? When they wake up they are going to know we were here,” Francine points out to the others.

“Doesn’t matter, we’ll be long gone by then. All they will have determined is that we are not hiding in the city, which they should have already been able to figure out by now,” Kayde reasons, not feeling like killing the four of them is necessary.

Another hour passes until Lunette finishes her work on Kayde’s leg, layering one last patch of metal over the crack so the inner wiring is no longer exposed.

“Alright, try it out,” Lunette helps Kayde up, eager to see if her work was successful.

Kayde jumps around a couple of times before breaking out into a sprint, testing the limits of his newly recovered leg.

“Good as new,” he comments, beaming back towards Lunette.

He kisses her on the forehead before declaring, “You guys get moving. I’m going to make a few dummy trails that’ll make it hard to track us. I’ll catch up to you guys in a few minutes”.

“I was wondering... what are we running towards? Shouldn’t we be trying to board a ship to get out of here?” Klara questions, unsure as to why they keep fleeing deeper into the jungle instead of trying to actually escape God’s grasp.

“I can think of a few reasons, we have friends here… they are in the tournament or were… not sure how they are doing… anyway, we can’t just leave without them. So we have to at least stall until they’re done,” Lunette explains as they walk further away from civilization.

“Wait…” Lunette stops, realizing she had forgotten something in all of the craziness they have been caught up in.

“I was supposed to make something for Xander when he fights God… Oh no… I completely forgot,” she blurts out, remembering her conversation with him before the tournament started.

“I should go back… Kayde, do you think you can handle things here? I need to get back there and work on those projects,” Lunette asks, realizing that this might all be pointless if all of her friends lose to God in the end.

“Yeah, I’ve got things covered here. It would be nice if you could stay with us but I understand… you’re too useful to be waiting around out here for things to end,” Kayde agrees, knowing Lunette would be better off within the city with their other friends.

“I shall accompany you. No disrespect mister Kayde but things are not as interesting in this jungle as they are within the city right now. If I remain I am afraid I might miss my chance to view some of the greatest bouts of our lifetime. I would so ever much like to turn them into songs,” Maximus notes, wanting to come along with Lunette.

“Sure, let’s go. I’m going to put on this ring to disguise myself though. God knows my appearance so it could be troublesome if I’m walking around looking like myself. He hasn’t seen you yet so you should be fine,” Lunette notes as she slips on one of her rings that makes one appear like someone else.

“Make sure you find Fore when you get back,” Kayde tells them, watching as Lunette and Maximus walk off back towards the city.

“You two could always go back with them you know. I can look after Gwendolyn myself if I have to. Maybe you could find a boat that’ll take you out of here,” Kayde suggests to the others before Lunette and Maximus are too far away for them to catch up.

Klara and Francine look at each other, wordlessly determining what they should do before Klara responds for the both of them, “Knowing God, we wouldn’t make it off this place. He’d catch us and put us back in that tower. I think it’s better if we stay with you until things blow over”.

“Okay cool, I didn’t really want to be out here by myself. I kind of like talking and Gwendolyn doesn’t do much of that so I would have been really bored,” Kayde sighs in relief.

“So… I heard from Francine that you guys are kind of famous for something about the Sacrosanct Empire? I don’t really know about it because I’ve been here for a few years now,” Klara mentions, trying to start a conversation since Kayde said he enjoys talking.

“Ah, yeah. The kings over there used to all belong to this same line… their last name was like Athualf or something… but they were super corrupt and created this entire religion to manipulate people. Anyway, we got rid of those guys and made some other chill dude king. After we took them down all the people realized what they had been doing so I guess they’re calling us heroes or whatever,” Kayde briefly explains why it is that people know of them.

“Wow… you guys are more amazing than I thought,” Klara notes, a depressed tone present in her voice as she looks at Gwendolyn when she says this.

“Nah, it wasn’t too hard. Really the guy in charge wasn’t doing a good job… it was kind of easy in the end,” Kayde laughs a little, completely lying about the difficulty of the events that happened over in the Sacrosanct Empire.

Their conversation is interrupted by a loud rumbling, the earth starting to shake from underneath them as they brace themselves. It lasts a few seconds before stopping.

“What was that?” Klara asks, looking around and seeing only trees, maybe thinking a larger one falling could have created the quake.

Mere moments later it happens again, the sound exactly the same as before as the ground shakes.

“You guys wait here, I’m going to scout ahead and see if it's something dangerous,” Kayde suggests, moving towards the source of the sound.

As he crests a line of trees, he comes across a tall mountain.

“What the hell? I would have seen this above the trees,” he notes out loud as he peers up at it. As he moves closer he spots what is creating the sound, a large golem made of rock is chipping away at the side of the mountain.

Kayde moves closer to get a better look, not having seen something like this since they journeyed down into the ruins where they found Gwendolyn’s golden bow. The golem ignores Kayde, continuing its work, punching the side of the mountain without any sign of slowing down.

He watches it for a minute, deciding he should turn back and tell the others that it is just a stone golem but before he does he spots a prominent path heading up the side of the mountain. Kayde’s curiosity gets the better of him, choosing to venture up the path instead of returning to his friends.

The trail leads around the mountain, ending in an alcove on the other side. In the middle of it, Kayde spots a waterfall, lush plant life surrounding it, a stark contrast to the barren side of the mountain he came from.

Standing around the edges of the pool of water below the falls are more golems, exactly the same as the one Kayde spotted at the base of the mountain.

“I thought I made it so humans could not enter this place,” Kayde is shocked to hear a voice declare.

He watches as an exquisite woman emerges from behind one of the golems, she strides towards him, completely naked, only her long white hair that falls down to her ankles there to cover herself. Kayde doesn’t focus on her beauty however, unable to overlook her all too familiar blood-red eyes.