When Res opened his eyes back again, Akeem was probing at his chest. With a booming voice, he proclaimed: “He is alive”

Xenia emerged from behind Akeem and recoiled in disgust. Jason looked down at him and realized that he was still covered in black goo. A few meters next to him, Serafina groaned as she sat up. Icy water was poured down from above and the announcer emerged from behind the tent. “We have had enough melodrama. Let’s play the second game. I choose Serafina and Xenia.”

Xenia cried in outrage. “I don’t even need to play!”

The announcer whirled his staff around in a sign. “Look again!”

Xenia went pale as her compass now displayed zero aether allowance. The announcer patted her on the shoulder and added. “We are all about fairness. That is why we brought you the latest commercially available fighting suit.”

He motioned at Serafina and Xenia. “Both of you: Take your place on either side of the net.”

Dutifully, both girls took up positions while Xenia tried and failed to show her fear. A faint whirring sound could be heard and a yellow-red streak of light shot towards them from the heaven. It slowed down and turned out to be a metal construction the size of a human. It hovered closer while being stabilized in the air by roaring fires on all the extremities of the metal suit.

“Bro, I can’t believe they actually produced a fucking mech. I only drew the Iron man suit once on a napkin at the queen’s birthday. Fuck me, that looks scary.”

Res wholeheartedly agreed as he watched the metal abomination creep towards Xenia. It opened like a living being and revealed some sort of cabin. The announcer twirled his jeweled walking stick: “Make yourself comfortable.”

Xenia hesitated, but when she looked at Serafina who was staring daggers at her, she complied. She squealed when the mech closed around her. After a while, her face shone through the glass helmet of the construction. The announcer cried out: “One of you wins if one decapitates their opponent! Start!”

Res looked at the Gamemaster in horror who only smiled, gave him a wink, and teleported away. Xenia’s now distorted voice resounded through the clearing. “This feels … great.”

Serafina was circling the construction with her sword in hand. Accompanied by a distorted squeal, the mech jumped eight meters into the air and landed in an explosion of dirt. Xenia’s new voice came distorted from the metal monster: “What is a plasma gun? Doesn’t sound nice. Gatling mode? That sounds dangerous. Cortana, yes I want to activate Gatling mode.”

Hundreds of small barrels emerged from holes all over the mech. Serafina froze mid-step as random high tones resounded from the machine. A memory of a klengan shooting metal balls from a much small barrel surfaced in his mind and he tried to shout out. Everything was drowned out by a deafening assault of enormous hardened shells. He couldn’t feel any aether usage from the metal construction, but it was still shooting metal at high velocity.

He was sure that his normal hardened skin wouldn’t have withstood that. The barrage stopped and a distorted female voice said: “Energy shield reserve 0%. Stop feeding energy to shield as misfunction of the shield is likely.”

A blue shining barrier around the mech vanished and hundreds of metal balls dropped to the floor. The metal balls had bounced off the wall, yet the metal suit had survived without a scratch. When the smoke cleared, it became clear that Serafina hadn’t been that lucky. Res cried out in horror when he saw Serafina lying motionless on the ground. She lay in a pool of blood which grew larger by the minute from several large impacts in her abdomen and legs. Res pushed himself towards her, but the energy barrier only had him bouncing right off. He had to watch as Xenia righted herself in her metal suit. When she saw Serafina lying prone on the floor, her eyes lit up. With enormous strides, she moved towards Xenia and positioned herself over her form.

“Res, you will remember and celebrate this moment forever. This will be the day that I freed you from the tyranny of that witch.”

He dropped to his knees and pleaded for mercy, but Xenia didn’t relent. She pulled back her metal fist and punched down with such force that the impact made the shield ripple. A numb feeling spread throughout his body. In his mind’s eye, the scene of her death replayed over and over in his mind. He found himself stripped of an integral part of his purpose. Serafina had shown him an image of himself that he wanted to be and the goals he wanted to achieve.

Slowly but surely, he was falling back into his old way of thinking. Thinking for the sake of thinking. Social Interactions are pointless, so don’t have any. Yet, he couldn’t accept that mentality anymore. He hadn’t been better than anybody; he had ignored everybody. The last few days with all the people around him had shown all the errors in that way of thinking. Serafina and her shy, but determined attitude was like sugar in coffee. Like a refreshing summer breeze – Something he now found out, he couldn’t live without.

“The enlightenment came too late.”, Res mumbled absently as the dust from the explosion settled. He couldn’t bring himself to look at what carnage would await when the dust settled.

“Bro, look!”

Jason’s shout made him look up in time to see a bloodied Serafina pouncing at Xenia’s back. White ghost plasma was covering her wounds, and she had a wild look on her face. Her new claws raked over the glass shield and a deafening screeching noise resounded through the clearing. Her eyes were glowing pink-red as she battered at the glass. All the while, Xenia was trying to regain her balance with Serafina hanging onto her. A scared thought shot through his mind: “Jason, tell me: Has Layana possessed her completely?”

The enthusiastic response simultaneously calmed and unnerved him: “No man, it looks like Layana is an excellent trainer.”

When Xenia punched blindly at Serafina, Serafina wound around the punch like an agile cat and continued her barrage. Jason added: “It looks like Layana shared some memories with her. Look at the way she winds through those attacks. It is a trademark of the dragonkin. They call it a lot of fancy words that I can’t pronounce, but it looks cool.”

Xenia gave a cry of frustration and boosted herself back with several blasts of fire. All Serafina could do was to jump off her back or be crushed. She landed with a practiced roll and ducked into a low crouching position. Oddly enough, she didn’t even spare a glance at the sword. Instead, she focused on punching and scratching. The mech could take punishment and her scratches had only annoyed Xenia. She immediately sprinted at Xenia once again with an expression of pure rage. Xenia freaked out at Serafina’s expression and shouted random voice commands in her tiny cabin. When she said: “Shoot, Shoot, Shoot”

The same female voice from earlier stated. “Autopilot shooting activated.”

The robot lifted both of his arms and two barrels emerged from its palm. Not a split second too early, Serafina launched herself to the side and a rain of bullets followed her. Her claws began to glow violet as she raced towards the robot in a zigzag pattern. Abruptly, she changed her method of approach and ran at the robot head-on. Her nails had been glowing brighter and brighter with aether. Res couldn’t tear his eyes away from the person he loved most, running straight into her doom.

First, Serafina could deflect and dodge most of the bullets until all the barrels were pointed at her. Res knew that it was a fruitless endeavor, but he still tried to punch through the barrier. By now, he couldn’t look directly at Serafina as she pumped her nails full of aether. He heard a shriek before everything was bathed in bright light. When the brightness finally receded and he could make out two forms on the ground. Serafina was standing over the robot with one of her hands jabbed through the visor of the mech. The other hand was deeply embedded in the abdomen of the metal construction. The announcer appeared next to him and threw a bottle with a clear liquid at him. He smiled widely and patted him on the back.”

That was a spectacle, wasn’t it? We got so many people to watch a commercial for a mech suit. We have to meet up another time for a photo shoot or something. I would save your princess now if I were you. We don’t want our viewers to get angry, don’t we?”

Res was tempted to give him the punch in the face he deserved but settled on a grim smile. “My patience with your games has run out. No more games.”

He didn’t look back as he ran towards Serafina. Closer inspection revealed that she was unconscious and only her nails, which were embedded in a robot, propped her up. He could see hundreds of bullet wounds all across her body. White ghost plasma was everywhere and trying to stop a liver from spilling out again. When he touched Serafina to pull her out, Layana’s presence assaulted him.

“Die! Die! Die! Don’t hurt Sera! Don’t hurt Layana!”

Jason had to jump in and restrain her until she saw a shred of sense and let him work in peace. He and Jason needed to have a serious talk about Layana soon. When Res pulled the nails out of the glass, he heard a whimper coming from the metal construction. When Res had pulled out the fingernails, he could hear Xenia crying out for help. The impact angle made Res believe that she had spared Xenia on purpose, and he somehow felt proud of that. Giving a health potion to someone who had dirt inside their wound would be a death sentence back on their planet.

Yet, Res had no time to remove all the tiny pieces of metal from her body. In the background, Akeem tore away pieces of metal from the suit. Res poured the liquid down Serafina’s throat, who groaned. Her eyes fluttered open for a moment and, when she saw him, she tried to speak but Res motioned her to be silent. Through his aether sight, he watched the potion knit Serafina back together. Judging by the way it scanned and collected objects with aether, it had intelligence of its own. You could buy a kingdom with that potion back on his planet.

Despite all that, he felt that nothing would be as valuable as saving Serafina at that moment. The wounds closed up, but it didn’t seem like that potion contained drugs. She groaned in pain and Res grasped her hand in comfort. All during being patched up, she had her eyes fixed on him. Akeem had gotten Xenia out of the robot and was now treating a shallow cut wound on her neck. When the last wound had closed up, she looked at him with her beautiful brown eyes. “How was I?”

Res squeezed her hand and answered: “You were like a battle goddess. You didn’t kill Xenia. Why?”

She looked at him as if he would explode at any moment. ”I don’t think she deserves to die. She isn’t an evil person per se.”

Res looked at her for several moments and then stooped down to passionately kissed her. First, she tried to say something, but finally she gave in. One eternity later, he surfaced from that kiss. Serafina gasped in deep breaths of air, grinned, and pulled him in for another kiss. Another eternity later, they were both gulping in deep breaths of air and Res whispered. “I love you for that. I haven’t realized until now how much I love you. From now on, I won’t hold back.”

With her hand, she playfully ran through his hair. “I want you. If the tournament is over, let’s do the dual cultivation.”

Res gulped and looked away. “I really don’t think that ...”

Someone next to them cleared his throat awkwardly. When Res looked up, he saw Adrian standing next to them while trying not to look at them. “The announcer has been gone for too long. I don’t like the fact that there are lots of those terrifying apes lingering at the edge of the clearing.”

Indeed, when Res looked back, he saw at least eight groups of stalkers in the trees. He lowered his voice and called over to Akeem. “We will go now, Akeem.”

Xenia wanted to blurt out something stupid again, but Res gave her a deadly look. In his perception, Xenia was now a petty noble child trying to boss you around. Nothing more. At least he hoped so. If Serafina hadn’t defended herself, she would have killed her without batting an eye. Now in a group of five, they continued in the direction the compass pointed. As the announcer had said, the stalkers became more and more common which made them more aggressive.