Author's Note: Hey guys! I'm truly sorry for skipping out on last week's chapter but school is sooooo hectic and busy. I'll try to dish out another chapter by the end of this weekend, but I've got a couple hard ass midterms coming up so no promises, unfortunately. I hope you all enjoy this chapter though! :)

.....................................................................................................................................................................................................

“And once the storm is over, you won’t remember how you made it through, how you managed to survive. You won’t even be sure, whether the storm is really over. But one thing is certain. When you come out of the storm, you won’t be the same person who walked in. That’s what this storm’s all about.”

-Haruki Murakami

The thudding of the two decapitated heads hitting the ground marked the end of our life and death struggle on the first floor of the tower. Surely there were going to be more to come, but I find it hard to believe that I would remember every single one. No. My first battle, where I willingly took six human lives would be the one I’d remember.

“Alex, are you okay?”

I snapped out of my thoughts to see Milik standing in front of me with his hand on my shoulder. I looked him in the eye with conviction and responded, “I’m perfectly fine. You on the other hand, might need to put on a new shirt.” Looking down at himself, he saw how soaked his shirt was in the blood of the guy he’d been tussling with on the ground.

Shrugging, he said, “Inventory,” and pulled out his duffel bag for a fresh shirt to change into. With a quick ‘Inventory,’ I put my machete away just as Akito and Kualin reached Milik and I. I couldn’t see any disgust or fear in their eyes as they looked at me. Akito was adept at hiding his emotions and Kualin appeared to be used to this kind of thing because he acted as if none of it bothered him.

“Bastard tried to fry my ass, did you see that? He’s lucky I know the ways of the Lin Que,” Kualin said in an offended tone. I stared at him for a couple seconds before breaking into a fit of laughter. Milik began to laugh as well and we must’ve looked crazy to all the people watching us from outside the platform. This carried on as Milik and I ended up laughing less at the joke and more at how he or I kept laughing in this situation. After about a minute, we were finally able to stop laughing and began to walk over towards the girls.

Pixie ran into my arms with a cry of happiness and I fiercely hugged her back. I was glad that she wasn’t hurt, but after a moment I let go of Pixie and rubbed her hair affectionately. “You alright, Pixie?”

“Yes! Well, you all took care of everything. It was amazing to watch. I can’t wait to be able to help out!” She was shouting in awe and I couldn’t help but grimace at what she was saying.

‘I’ll deal with it in due time.’ Changing my grimace into a smile, I say, “I want you to be able to protect yourself as well, Pixie. You’ll get there.” She smiled back towards me and I looked past her to see Clara looking at me with a mix of emotion in her eyes. I wasn’t really sure what she was looking like that for and so I walked up to her and I couldn’t help but feel a jolt run through my spine as her piercing blue-green eyes met mine.

Without knowing what else to say, I opened up with a “Hey,” and I grinned at my own lameness. I can fight people trying to kill me without fucking up, but I can’t even talk to a girl I find myself attracted to without sounding stupid. Life just isn’t fair sometimes. Maybe if I increase my luck stat…? Nah. It’d be a waste. But then again…Nah. Clara only looked at me for a moment before throwing herself into my chest where she began to cry. To say I was surprised was the understatement of the year. But then again, maybe ten points in luck was already enough if Clara can run into my arms like this for comfort.

Smiling to myself, I wrap my arms around Clara and say in a soothing voice, “Shhhhh, it’s over now. I told you we would be okay. Come on, we’ve got to get off the platform. There are still more people that have to fight.” She sniffed into my chest and once again I watched as she wiped her eyes free of tears and my heart once more broke at the sight. I led my team off the platform and through the crowds of people that were cheering my group on.

‘Fucking sickos,’ I thought to myself with disgust. I turned towards the base of the obsidian steps and once we all got there, I sat down with Clara on the first step. With a huge sigh, I leaned back and laid my head a couple steps above the one I was sitting on.

“I say we go ahead and distribute these points to our stats and then just hurry and go through the door,” Izzy suggested to the group.

No one wanted to stick around longer than we had to, but Kyra also added a fairly good suggestion when she said, “I also think we should all try once more to develop some skills. You saw how much they tipped the scales and if we didn’t have Alex’s or Milik’s skills, then I can’t say we’d have made it out unscathed like we did…” Everyone nodded in agreement and began to increase their stats or mess around with mana.

I decided to save the five points I’d earned in the fight. Those guys must have been all fairly low level for me to have only gotten one level from them. Which made sense because they only moved as well as the slightly above average human. I also made a mental note to not rely on the air cloak like I had in today’s fight. I didn’t want to use such a costly skill in every fight and it certainly wouldn’t last long with the amount of mana I currently had. But besides all that, something else was bothering me.

I was supposed to get boosts in my stats from the Lord Sky’s Heir title, but nothing was showing up in my stats. ‘Status,’ I thought to myself.

Title: Lord Sky’s Heir

Name: Alexander Taylor

Class: Sky Walker

Level: 7

HP: 170/170

MP: 185/185

STR: 20

VIT: 12

DEX: 25

INT: 25

WIS: 20

LUK: 11

POINTS: 5

MONEY: 47 USD

Clicking on my title like I did earlier, the description came up on a golden window.

Title: Lord Sky’s Heir

Gods once raged across the multiverse battling one another. Among the top-tier fighters was Lord Sky, the divine manipulator of all skies and absolute controller of its elements. Lord Sky used his total control and complete manipulation of the air to decimate planets and send even the other seven top-tier gods fleeing. Lord Sky’s will lives on in you! Train hard to improve your mastery!

50% increase to air elemental attacks

50% increase to air elemental defenses

50% decrease in cost to air elemental skills

50% increase to DEX for control over air elemental skills

25% increase to INT for control over air elemental skills

25% increase to WIS for control over air elemental skills

‘Hmmmmm…’ I stared at it for a couple seconds before tapping the screen once more to see if anything would happen and lo and behold a new golden screen popped into existence before me.

‘Son of a bitch,’ I thought as I read the contents of the new screen.

‘Would you like to apply the Title, Lord Sky’s Heir? Yes or no?’

‘Yes!’ I practically shouted in my mind. The window and the title description windows vanished from sight leaving my status window up for me to see and I couldn’t help it when my jaw dropped at the sight of my increased stats from the title.

Title: Lord Sky’s Heir (Active)

Name: Alexander Taylor

Class: Sky Walker

Level: 7

HP: 170/170

MP: 185/185 (321/321)

STR: 20

VIT: 12

DEX: 25 (38)

INT: 25 (31)

WIS: 20 (25)

LUK: 11

POINTS: 5

MONEY: 47 USD

A rush of power filled my brain and body, purifying and strengthening them several times over. I also felt, almost instinctively, that I could change my own perception of time. I knew that my motor functions and reflexes had increased once more and my speed had reached a height that I actually felt a little frightened to test out, but I think I’d be fine what with my new ‘changeable’ perception on time.

Remembering that Milik was Lord Darkness’ Heir, I called out to him, “Milik! Dude, you gotta check this out!” It only took moments for him to activate his title and his jaw also dropped at the sight of his new stats, which I could only guess increased as much as mine.

“What stats does the title grant you bonuses in?” I asked with a burning need to know.

“Looks like, dexterity, intelligence and wisdom. Same as yours, right?” He responded with a huge grin on his face.

“Dude!” I shouted at him as I fell back onto the stairs next to Clara whose hands were glowing with a white light.

“Dude.” He responded.

With a light laugh I decided to check over my skills and heard the crowd roar in approval from something that had just happened on the platform. Shaking my head at them, I looked over my skills and saw that even though some of them had increased in level, there were no noticeable changes in their bonuses and the like. With a shrug, I closed all my windows and looked around at my friends.

Kyra had her fingers to her temples and it looked like she was concentrating really hard on trying to do something…that didn’t stop her from looking constipated though and I had to stifle a laugh at the thought. Akito was sitting next to her propelling a water bullet the size of a tennis ball into the ground. I understood that water bullets were like super basic, but we all had to start somewhere just like with my air blade. Kualin was firing off pieces of rock from his hands and feet. It looked like he was trying to match it with his movements and it looked pretty cool. I was sure that his next opponents would be surprised when a basketball-sized piece of rock smashed them in the face. Pixie’s fingers were sparkling and flashing with a blue light and upon closer inspection, I realized it was her electricity.

With curiosity on my face, I called her over next to me and said, “Hey, Pixie. Whatcha working on?”

She had a bright smile on her face and began to explain. “I’m trying to make a skill where I can shock people. Seemed like the best place to start, right?”

I nodded in agreement and then said, “Well, yeah that’s true…” Thinking about how I didn’t want her to fight made me pause, but I guess if I gave her a couple pointers then she’d be better able to defend herself if I ever couldn’t. Things would be easier for us if we were all as strong as possible. “Well, you could definitely do that and send lightning bolts at people around you, but maybe when we have the time, try to make the lighting conduct through more than one person. That’s usually called chain lightning.” She was soaking up the information like a sponge, but I carried on without noticing.

“And also, you could even try using the electricity to modify your body. Almost like my air cloak, but internally. I’m sure it would boost your physical abilities like dexterity and intelligence at the least since your body would be running on pure electricity. It could be incredible, but maybe you should wait until you boost your intelligence and wisdom to try that out…”

She frowned in disappointment at that, but then asked, “Are there other things I could try focusing on? Beginner stuff that could be easy?”

I pondered for a moment before saying, “Well, yeah of course. Imagination is key, but there are also already a bunch of unoriginal skills I’ve seen over the years in books I’ve read or games I’ve played like the chain lightning I mentioned earlier. You could also probably absorb electricity to recover mana or to disrupt the flow of electricity in a place with cameras and stuff like that. Uhhh I think you could create an electromagnetic force field to protect yourself…honestly though, if you can just control some lightning, then you could use it in a ton of ways. I feel like making skills isn’t as effective as being able to completely control our elements. That’s why I’m focusing on just being able to manipulate air at the moment. Here, watch this.”

Pixie took a step back, but kept her eyes on me. I could even feel Clara’s eyes on me as well since she was sitting next to me and had been paying attention to my conversation with Pixie the entire time. With practiced ease, I took hold of the mana inside of me and brought it to my hand. With a smile, I lightly pushed my hand towards Pixie and a gust of cool wind hit her entire body, raising her bluish half dreaded hair up off her shoulders. She laughed in response and eagerly looked at me for another demonstration.

Raising an eyebrow, I sighed as I got to my feet. Looking back at pixie to make sure she was watching, I channeled some mana into my foot and stepped off of the first step of the obsidian staircase. My foot, however, did not land on the ground. Instead, I was still at the height of the first step and a golden glow could be seen under my foot where I had solidified the air with no more than a thought. I brought my other foot next to the other and voila! I was floating in midair with small glows coming from the soles of my black boots. Releasing my hold on the mana I’d channeled to my feet, I dropped half a foot to the ground and sat back down onto the first step of the staircase.

“When did you learn how to do that?” Pixie asked me in disbelief.

“While we were waiting for our turn to fight. I mean, we had like three hours.” Her cheeks went red at this and I realized that although she didn’t do much watching like I had, she hadn’t really been doing much of anything other than looking away from the platform where people were being tortured and killed.

“Just practice in your off time, Pixie.” Izzy said as she walked up next to Pixie from where she’d been practicing off to the side with her fire element.

“You make any new skills?” I asked her in curiosity. We’d been exposed to the fireball earlier and although it was lethal, it was also extremely basic. But then again, who was I to talk with my air blade?

“Yes. I made the fireball skill that we’d seen earlier. Although, my flame wasn’t the same red as the one from the guy we’d been fighting against earlier—it was a warm orange.” I raised my eyebrow in question and she carried on talking. “I think it has to do with my class. It’s called Burning Heart…so maybe the flame responds to changes in my emotions or something?”

Mulling over it a bit, I finally said, “Yeah that sounds likely. But it may not be all that simple. Maybe it could just be weaker than that other guy’s flame.” She fixed a heated glare on me and I raised my hand defensively, “Well, I’m just saying because you never know. It could be like…” With a flash of inspiration, I turn my head to Pixie and say, “Wait, you all said you had classes earlier, right? What’s your class called Pixie?”

It only took a second for her to open up her status and she replied in an excited tone. “Storm Master.”

Nodding to myself, I say, “Well Milik’s class is Shadow Strider and mine is Sky Walker.” Turning to Clara who sat next to me I ask, “What about you, Clara?”

“Heavenly Saint,” she replied as her cheeks were tinged red with embarrassment.

“Huh? Interesting. Well that sounds like healing and support to me. Maybe you weren’t meant to fight after all…” Calling Akito, Kualin, and Kyra back over to the group, I asked each of them what their classes were. Akito’s class was called Hydromeister which I couldn’t denote any info from other than that he’ll just be very skilled with water. Same with Kualin’s class which was titled as Earthly Origin. My idea from earlier did, however, bear fruit when Kyra announced that her class was titled as ‘Esper.’

“Aha!” I shouted in exasperation. “What if these classes are giving us an indicator for which directions we should be moving in when developing our skills? Espers can do a bunch of stuff like psychokinesis, telepathy, psychometry…!”

“That seems awfully convenient,” Izzy said from the side. Her piercing blue eyes were still flaming from when I’d said she was weaker than the flame element guy we’d fought on the platform.

“Well, it could be right or it could be wrong, but I don’t think right or wrong matters. We can do whatever we want with these powers if we have the imagination to do so! I’m not saying your class restricts how much you can do, I’m just saying it’s a good place to start and expand from there. Hell, Milik’s class is called Shadow Strider so don’t you think he’ll be able to teleport through shadows or something like that?” Milik’s eyes were shining from this revelation and I knew he’d have a lot of fun practicing…if he needed it. I sure didn’t need much when it came to solidifying air and the mana cost was surprisingly small to the point where I could walk on the air forever without running out.

‘Sky Walker, huh? Should be fun…’ I was snapped out of my thoughts when Kyra pointed towards the crowd.

Turning our heads as one, we saw that it looked like the fights were coming to an end and most groups were discussing things off to the side. There were probably two or three fights left until the end. With a groan, I pushed myself up off the steps and looked at my team. I’d barely known any of them for a week and found friends I could connect with on a deeper level compared to what I’d ever gotten from outside. I guess that’s what happens when you risk your lives with each other. Bonds are forged whether you like it or not and I couldn’t ever see me disliking the ones I’d made here.

“Y’all ready to go then?” Everyone nodded back at me with serious looks in their eyes. I knew why. We could all die…But I’d do my best to prevent anything from happening to my friends. Always.

I put my foot on the next step, and began to climb up the staircase with my friends following close behind. In seconds we were in front of the door, but before touching the door I looked back up at the red letters in the wall.

‘Abandon all hope, ye who enter here!’

‘Let’s see if these doors lead to hell then, shall we?’ With that thought, I pulled on the golden handle of the door and a burst of blood red light flashed. I felt myself moving. Twisting, really. My body stopped shifting in moments and the red light receded from my field of view.

Before seeing anything that was in front of me, I turned on a dime to check if my friends were behind me and sure enough they were all standing there a little dazed from the trip. I barely caught a flash of red light dwindling into space behind them and with an audible pop it disappeared.

“Woah, this looks dark.” Hearing Milik, I take my first look at our surroundings and was taken aback by the sight; the whole sky was a murky black with swirling veins of red lines pulsing and flashing as if threatening to unleash some dark horror upon the world. The ground was gray and barren, stretching off into all directions and deep cracks in the ground also shone with that same strange red light. I could barely make out a mountain range in the distance and it looked as lifeless as everything else around us.

“What is this place?” Izzy’s voice was quiet as a whisper and I could hear the slightest tinge of fear in it. I looked over at her and saw that she had retreated next to Akito’s side. Her dark blue eyes were searching his for an answer, but Akito could only shrug in response. I could tell by the tightness in his muscles that he was ready and alert.

“More like which way should we go?” Turning my attention to Kualin, I just shrugged in response to his question.

“Well, we don’t know anything about this place. So any direction is better than just sticking around here, right?” Saying that, I began to walk in the direction of the mountains. Everyone else followed suit. Clara had moved up through our group of friends and was walking within a couple inches of me. Taking a quick glance at her, I saw that she looked afraid, but even more so than Izzy was.

I reached for her hand and gently took a hold of it. She tensed up only for a moment before relaxing and shifting her hand to interlock her fingers with my own. Surprised, I looked over at her to meet the sight of her sparkling blue-green eyes intently looking into my own. Transfixed, I held her gaze for a couple seconds until a light blush began to spread on her cheeks. Tearing my eyes away at the cute sight, I began to again look towards the mountains. Nothing had changed about the scenery before me and it was still as barren as ever, but things definitely didn’t look as bleak as they had only minutes ago.

……………………………………………………………………………

One-Two hours later

“Hahahaha! No you didn’t!” I looked at Kualin in disbelief as he was recounting what he’d done the night the Overlords had unleashed the monsters on the planet.

“I swear to you I did. You think I’d back down? I kicked that little green, peanut-headed, half-dressed, ugly goblin right in his nuts. See if he was gonna try and stab at me with that little needle sword again.” Milik and I roared with laughter and Clara, still holding my hand, had a light smile playing across her lips. Pixie was giggling as she walked next to Kualin and Akito, standing behind those two with Izzy, had visibly relaxed and almost had a smile on his face while Izzy was covering her smiling face with her hand.

“What did you do after that?” Kyra asked with curiosity and mirth in her eyes.

“Well, someone had to deliver the drugs and I’m a little more afraid of a bullet from the guys higher up in the chain than a half-naked gremlin,” Kualin responded with a grin.

We were still trekking towards the mountains and we’d been getting to know one another better. Mainly, we’d been talking about what had happened to us on that fateful night or what those of us had been doing if not engaging with the monsters. Kualin was from New York City and he’d apparently worked under some drug lord to make some money as he grew up. He was an orphan and had mingled with the wrong crowd as a child until just a couple months ago, he’d tried to get his first real job at twenty-two years old to leave behind his life of being a criminal but he took one last drug run the night of the attack. One thing about growing up in a city like NYC was that he’d learned how to parkour for fun and that was how he’d maneuvered the city that night as he searched for shelter from the monsters. On his way to an underground hideout, he’d killed at least four goblins and seriously injured another before he waited out the rest of the very short invasion.

As it so happens, I was the only one who’d gone through an absurd amount of bloodshed that night. Akito, Kualin, Kyra, and Milik had done what they’d had to do when confronted with goblins but other than that, they’d reached areas of relative safety until all the monsters had mysteriously disappeared.

From what I’d heard, Akito is supposedly the same age as Kualin and lived in Alaska. He’d been off with some buddies in a pub after his tiring job working construction when it happened. He told us about getting attacked by a wolf with red eyes when he’d went outside to relieve himself and how he’d barely managed to kill it before taking refuge with some of the workers inside the pub with a bunch of other citizens. I assumed he was talking about one of the wolf hybrids which I’d been able to kill, but it seemed like the one he’d dealt with was definitely just a monster-like wolf and the one which had attacked him was a lot smaller than the hybrids I’d had to deal with.

Kyra’s kill was more of an accident than anything. Honestly, it would be something to laugh at since those goblins would get no sympathy from me. Kyra is eighteen years old and she was finishing her senior year at some high school in Sacramento, California and she’d been at some after party that took place after her school’s spring ball with a bunch of her friends. Now…apparently, she’d been drinking with her friends, doing adult shit, and she’d drained a forty. I would’ve never expected that of her, but after she’d finished the glass bottle, she’d tossed it out onto the driveway in a high arc and it landed directly on the head of a goblin which had just climbed out of a manhole in the middle of the street. The goblin was killed instantly and of course this caused a huge panic. Everyone hid in the house’s basement, then called the police but, well, the Earth was kind of under attack and so they hadn’t gotten answers until later that morning.

On the opposite side of the United States, Milik had completely intended to protect himself and kill the goblin which had attacked him. Milik was slightly younger than Kyra, but still eighteen which effectively made him the youngest in our group which is why I was surprised to hear that he’d been out doing a photo shoot and recording for a skateboarding company called Krooked Skateboards. He was at some popular skate park in Atlanta, Georgia when goblins had attacked and he bashed one’s head in with his skateboard before making a run for it with the recording crew and other skaters. He told us about how he could see giant monsters destroying the city from afar, stuff he’d only ever thought he’d see in movies or video games.

When I tried to ask him more about what he’d seen that day he turned away and said that he’d rather not talk about it. Which I completely understood. I had flatly refused to tell the group anything about what I’d done and gone through that night. I felt like they’d look at me differently…with contempt maybe? Pity? I didn’t want any of that. Despite what my parents had said about always loving me no matter what and that I’d done the right thing that night, I still wasn’t completely sure how others would react to it. They were my parents after all and we had unconditional love between us whereas all of my new friends might leave me or be disgusted with me if they thought I was a damaged person by what’d happened to me…and it was possible that they’d even be disturbed since I wasn’t as fucked up as I had every right to be after that night.

The girls who had been level one before our fight on the first floor of the tower: Clara, Izzy, and Pixie were all in the safety of their homes on that night not doing anything particularly interesting. They had been extremely lucky to have been overlooked in the invasion, which I was grateful for. There’s nothing quite like waking up to blood and murderous monsters invading your homes and I’d seen many examples of it on the news in the time that I’d been home.

“Do you guys feel that?” Kualin’s voice snapped me out of my thoughts as we all came to a stop. Looking around, I couldn’t distinguish anything around me that had recently changed, but there was an itchy feeling on the back of my neck that made me feel uncomfortable. Normally, I’d think I was being watched but we were in the middle of a barren wasteland with nothing living in site and a mountain range which was only a couple miles away by now.

A thunderclap brought my attention upwards and towards the swirling black clouds in the space behind us. I’d seen over the past hour and a half as we were walking that the red glow in the sky had slowly changed from bright red into an eerie shade of blood red and now the lines of red which covered the sky were fluctuating madly as if something were trying to break out of the sky.

I felt Clara’s hand tighten on mine as I subconsciously pushed her behind me. Akito, Kualin, and Milik were now all standing next to me and stood protectively in front of Izzy, Pixie, and Kyra. We stood watching the sky for minutes as the wind whipped around us and the sky was beginning to pile in on itself as the clouds formed a whirlpool of motion.

Finally, the whirlpool of clouds imploded with an ear-shattering boom and no more than fifty flashing red bolts of light instantly appeared and struck the ground no more than a mile away from us. I’d thrown my arm in front of my eyes to shield myself from the light, but the resulting explosion of force caused all of us except for Akito to stumble backwards and fall in a heap. Quickly scrambling to my feet, I pulled Clara back up before casting my eyes back off into the distance in the direction of the explosion.

There was a haze of smoke covering the area, but I could at least clearly see dozens of shadowy inhuman shapes.

“Run,” I quickly said to everyone before gently pushing Clara towards the direction of the base of the mountains. She only hesitated slightly before letting go of my hand and setting the pace for the other girls who quickly followed after her. The rest of the guys had stayed behind and were watching the smoke disperse only to give us the sight of several monstrosities. Some were goblins, others were much bigger than the four foot tall goblins but still looked like they had goblin traits. Others were the mashed up hybrids I’d seen that night; they stood like men, but were mixed with several animals such as a wolves, crows, foxes, snakes, tigers, panthers, etc. Even larger misshapen figures were behind them with tusks jutting out from their faces and ugly, cracked gray skin. They were heavily muscled and looked intelligent if not even more so than the other monsters standing with them. It was the weapons hanging from their waists and savage bearings which snapped me into action.

“Kualin and Milik, run in front of the girls. Akito and I will take up the rear. Run until we find shelter in the mountains or until we can fight back,” I quickly gave positions for everyone and Akito, Kualin, and Milik shot off after the girls. Kualin and Milik overtook Clara and the other girls within ten seconds, but had to slow their speed to match the girls’ pace. I was left standing alone in our original spot as the crowd of monsters began to rush from where they’d landed. They’d started about a mile away from us and I waited until they’d cut the distance between myself and them in half before cursing and taking off after my friends who’d only ran about a fourth of a mile away.

‘At this speed, we’ll be overtaken before we can even reach the mountains. We’ll have to fight…maybe we can take them. There are less than fifty and maybe my air blade can cut through a bunch of them at once…but the girls would be vulnerable…shit!”

I was a lot faster than my friends and I reached them within twenty seconds going at what I felt was only half of my true speed. To say I was pleasantly surprised by my speed was an understatement. They’d only traveled that fourth of a mile and catching up to them so quickly meant I had to almost be going fifty mph. At half speed. It seemed almost natural for me to part the air in front of me using mana so that it wouldn’t resist me as I ran and break my body which, although fast, was still pretty average in toughness due to my low vitality stat. Once I caught up, everyone took a quick second to look back at me, surprised by my speed, before pressing on even harder towards the mountain. We ran on for a couple minutes, but looking back, I saw the monsters within a hundred yards of us and knew we wouldn’t make it to the mountains unscathed.

I quickly shouted, “It won’t take them long to catch up! We need to stop and fight while the girls go on without us and gain some distance. Do not run into the trails and get lost unless you see us killed!” My final words held a sense of finality, but I was quickly rebuffed by Izzy who was only a few yards ahead of me.

“Fuck that! We all need to fight, Alex! You four alone won’t be enough for all of them. At least let us help where we can!” Izzy’s voice was scolding and serious but I could hear the fear and anxiety in it.

I was about to tell her that she was just being stubborn, but then an idea formed in my mind. “Izzy! How big of a fireball can you create?”

She was thrown off by my question for a moment, before saying, “Well, I’m not sure since I haven’t used all my mana trying, but I think it could be as big as a small shed! Why?”

“Stop! Everyone stop!” Everyone came to a sudden halt once they’d heard me and I quickly said, “Everyone stand back. Give Izzy and I some room!” Our friends quickly moved back ten steps or so and impatience was prevalent on mostly all of the faces except for Milik who was unsurprisingly curious as to what Izzy and I would do.

“Izzy, give me your biggest fireball, but don’t shoot it off until the monsters are about fifty yards away. The rest of you get ready to fight. Pixie and Kyra protect Clara!” Izzy instantly began to concentrate and a burning ball of fire steadily grew until she had to hold it above her head to see clearly. The flame was a nasty green color and I figured Izzy’s flame really did have to do with her emotions. The heat from the flame had caused every one of us to back off and give her a bunch of space.

Just when the green fireball had reached the size of a shed like Izzy had said, the monsters drew within fifty yards of us. “Now, Izzy!”

She hesitated for only a moment before thrusting both of her arms towards the incoming monsters. Just as she released the flame, I gathered a huge amount of my mana into the palms of my hands and, pushing my hands in the direction of the green fireball, I created a huge gust of wind which tore through the air with a high whistle before impacting with the huge ball of flame. The wind raged through the fireball shifting it into a swirling curtain of green flame which raced through the air at a much quicker speed thanks to the wind I’d thrown in.

In less than a second, the green flames engulfed what looked like more than half of the monsters, but mostly the goblins and hybrids and only a couple of the larger gray-skinned brutes. The flames stuck to the monsters and a putrid smell permeated throughout the air as several screams of agony filled the air.

Ding!

I saw the golden window pop into existence and on it were the words, ‘You have leveled up six times!’ There were also two more windows with too much writing on them that I wanted to read through, but I quickly turned my attention back onto the remaining monsters ahead of me and swiped my hand at the windows making them disappear from existence. Calling forth my inventory, I quickly grabbed my machete and drew it from its scabbard. Tossing my scabbard back into the inventory, I realize that Izzy and I had taken out nearly thirty-five of the monsters with that one move alone as there were only twelve left standing. Eight of them were the gray-skinned, weapon-carrying brutes with tusks and the other four were a mix of hybrids. They’d all jumped away from the curtain of fire that Izzy and I had created, which even now was still burning on the barren rock of this floor of the tower even without a source of fuel.

It was then that I heard a small whimper to my side and just barely caught Izzy before she fell unconscious. Quickly shooting Milik a look, he came up to me and grabbed Izzy from my arms. “Milik, protect the girls. Akito…Kualin…come on.” Milik nodded in reply, but was now staring at where the green flames Izzy and I had created seemed to vanish into thin air.

‘Must’ve disappeared once Izzy fell unconscious. That fire probably is used in fear and doesn’t go out until she’s completely drained. That’s a huge drawback…but we did manage to nearly decimate all the monsters that’d been chasing after us.’ My thoughts were quick as I held my black machete at my side, gauging up the remaining monsters in front of us. I reached for my mana inside of me and quickly realized that I hadn’t used more than an eighth of my total mana reserves when I supplied Izzy with the wind, which made sense considering all that firepower was hers.

“Ready?” I asked Akito and Kualin. Akito had his knife in his left hand with his other open. Probably to send a water bullet at a moment’s notice. Kualin hadn’t even bothered bringing out his knife as he cracked his knuckles. I assumed he’d want to try out his new fighting style with the rocks, but it was unprecedented that’d it’d be so soon after our first life and death fight as a team.

“Ready to hand a monster its own ass? Always,” was Kualin’s snarky reply to my question.

I was scared as hell and my heart was threatening to pump out of my chest, but his words brought a small smile to my lips. Maybe I’d get used to fighting for my life one day, but this was still all so new to me…but this time would be different from the day everything had changed.

‘This time, I’m strong.’

With that thought, I kicked off the ground at full speed and came to an abrupt stop in front of three of the gray-skinned orc looking monsters in one second flat. The most amazing thing about the speed was that my brain really could keep up with me and I had time to be surprised that I’d traveled a full fifty yards in the blink of an eye.

The orc’s red eyes didn’t even have the chance to look surprised before I drew my machete across the front of its neck in a black blur. This was the moment that I realized that running at full speed and fighting at full speed were two entirely different concepts. Sure I could run fifty yards a second, but the way my body was responding to my mind was monstrous in a sense. The way I was moving now made me feel as if my nervous system before this fight was casually taking a stroll through a park, but now they were actually running.

The speed of my blow was enough to create a gust of wind which buffeted against the two living orcs as the first orc fell. It was dead before it even hit the floor as blood began to gush out of its neck. The last thing it had remembered was seeing three male humans, then one blurred, and then it was introduced to eternal darkness.

This time, all the monsters around us were able to show surprise, but I had already sent an air blade at the midriffs of the two remaining orcs in front of me. The Air blade bisected the two orcs and traveled for another two hundred yards before finally unraveling itself into normal air, but by that time I was already gone. I reappeared in front of a wolf hybrid not even ten yards away surrounded by three other hybrids and punched it right across its face as images of Sarah’s death flashed through my mind. The hybrid’s neck twisted around in a gruesome fashion and it went flying to the side. I jumped back to give myself some distance to see where Akito and Kualin were as well as to gauge the situation.

For the briefest of moments, I panicked. I couldn’t see Akito or Kualin fighting anything and I turned to the group I’d left behind and saw them still running up to the group of monsters that I was standing in the middle of. Kualin was only ten yards away, but Akito was further back as he was slower than the both of us with his current stat arrangement.

Turning my attention back to the three standing hybrids I noted that they were a hawk, snake, and tiger hybrids. My breath relaxed as memories of Sarah left me and I quickly lunged at the snake hybrid with my machete and watched as most of the blade exploded on impact with its scales. A hiss escaped its serpentine head as it struck back at me. Being at least two levels above the snake in speed, I easily ducked under its fangs, which were dripping some yellow liquid. Flipping my machete in my hand, I jumped up high and stabbed into the eye of the hybrid with the broken blade. I only felt a little resistance before plunging into soft brain matter and hot blood pooled around its eye socket. The only reason that I accurately stabbed it through the eye was because its head was much larger than mine, so the eyes were a fairly easy target.

While in the air, I could see the hawk hybrid behind the snake hybrid I’d just killed. It had unfurled wings out from its back for an impressive wingspan of fourteen feet. Realizing that it was about to take off to who knows where, I channeled mana into my foot and kicked off of an air platform towards the hybrid. As I passed over it I sent a quick Air Blade straight through the bones connecting one of its wings to its back. Blood spurted out of its back as the wing hit the ground with a surprisingly light thud.

It was at this moment that Kualin finally reached the two standing hybrids; one was covered in blood from its severed wing and the other, the tiger hybrid, was roaring in blatant defiance. I only saw Kualin throw a one-two and two solid rocks the size of bricks slammed into the head of the screaming hawk hybrid instantly shutting it up as it hit the ground either dead or unconscious.

Unsure of how to get down safely, I leveled my body out in midair. I was about nine feet up and gravity was about to get to work and as it did, I felt myself begin to fall towards the ground. Tucking my body, I did a full front flip before spreading my arms and legs out once again. Now I was completely vertical to the ground with only four feet left. To be honest, I was pretty scared to hit the ground because I was sure I’d fall over. So instead, I channeled mana into my feet to catch an air platform and then hopped down to the ground from there. I knew it would work because I could create separate air platforms for each foot, so I didn’t have to worry about catching myself on one surface. I’d only have to land in an orientation that was comfortable for me.

In the time that I’d been trying to maneuver myself safely to the ground, Kualin had ‘double-tapped’ the hawk hybrid with his rocks and was now throwing rocks from his hands, feet, and even the ground itself at the tiger hybrid. The tiger hybrid had been hopping around at high speeds, but Kualin decided to use earth walls to confine it into a narrower space so that it couldn’t easily dodge his rocks.

Seeing that he had things under control, I turned to the group of five orcs about ten yards away to see Akito had come to a stop in their midst. I couldn’t send an Air Blade over there or I’d risk…no…no I’d undoubtedly cut Akito in half if I did that. But I also didn’t have any weapons to fight with.

‘Fuck it. I’ll have to be next to him to get in that fight at this point.’ Akito had caught one of the orcs by the arm and threw him ten yards up and away like he weighed no more than a sack of feathers. Seeing that and thinking on the speed at which I’d been moving, I couldn’t help but think that we were even more monstrous than the group of nearly fifty monsters that had tried to kill us.

Kicking off the ground once more, I arrived by Akito’s side just in time to knock aside the arm of an orc that had tried to stab my friend in the back. Its eyes shone red with murder, its rippling muscles were huge and sweaty underneath its thin leather clothing and, to top it off, the orc smelled rancid. I hadn’t really taken the time to stick around when I killed the three from earlier, but now I actually took the time to notice these things. ‘Good thing too,’ I thought, spying a long dagger in the belt of one of the orcs.

‘At least I won’t be unarmed for long.’

Not wanting to make the first move, I stood next to Akito as he fought off one of the four orcs that had encircled us. Akito sent a water bullet directly through the center of the orc’s chest causing it to fall onto its back dead. That was when one of the remaining orcs slashed at me with a heavy axe. With my current speed, it was simplicity itself to sidestep the swing, but the blade in its belt was on the other side of its body, so I sent two quick jabs into its ribs, but it didn’t look bothered at all even though I’d increased my strength to Akito’s original level. Instead, my knuckles came back feeling bruised and I decided not to try and punch an orc again without increasing my stats.

Feeling a tingle on the back of my neck, I quickly dropped to my back to see a long iron dagger slash through the space where my head had been not a second before. Beginning to feel aggravated, I activated an Air Blade and cut through the legs of both orcs. They fell to the ground screaming in pain, but not yet dead.

At that same moment, Akito had punched the remaining orc in the chest as he finally made it through the axe’s bladed defense. The orc’s chest caved in on impact and flew back a couple yards before letting loose a couple strained breathes and then it moved no more.

Akito offered me his hand, which I gladly took. Getting up, I straightened my clothes and dusted them off just as Kualin jogged up to us. I looked over in the direction of the hybrids and, if the huge white rock and blood splatters were any indication, saw that Kualin had dropped a huge slab of what looked like granite onto the tiger hybrid. The two orcs that I’d amputated below the kneecaps were slowly bleeding out, but their screams of rage and anger had now died down to low growls and weak trembling.

Spying the glint of silver that I’d seen at the waist of one of the orcs, I bent over to pull a long, iron dagger from its belt. I’m sure the orc would’ve stabbed me if it could, but it had lost too much blood to even move its head at this point. I then plucked the other dagger out of the hands of the orc that had tried to stab me in the neck. Raising my newly acquired daggers to finish them off, I thought better of it and began to walk back towards my friends.

“Come on. They’ll die soon enough.” Saying that, I heard a Ding! And two golden windows popped into existence in front of me. One of them read, ‘You have leveled up two times!’ Quickly swiping that one to the side, I read the second window and the blood drained from my face.

‘Overgods, your first battle against the inhabitants of Draco Interfectorem will take place one week from now in Letheron’s Plains of Death. Fight to the Death.’

I swiped the golden window out of existence, but then another golden window took its place. Sighing in exasperation, I read the new window. ‘The Infinity Complex now has a System Alert function.’

‘Must be for messages from the Overlords or something,’ I quickly thought to myself and then dismissed that screen as well.

We were about halfway back to the group before I remembered that there had been two other windows that had popped up during the fight. Wracking my brain, I finally thought to myself, ‘Uhhhh…System Alert?’

A golden window popped into existence and in neatly arranged rows, were all the windows I’d ever gotten from the Infinity Complex. All my level ups, all my skill creations, and…two that I certainly didn’t recognize. Tapping on one, it read, ‘The Infinity Complex has granted you a Map function.’ I suppose that’s how we’re going to find the so called ‘Plains of Death.’ What a cliché name anyways. Swiping this box out of existence, there was another log in the system alert that I didn’t recognize so I clicked on it.

‘You have refused to grant your new original skill with a name. The Infinity Complex has dubbed it Air Gale.’ Figuring that this must be what I used in tandem with Izzy’s green fire from earlier, I clicked on it to show the skill’s information.

Air Gale (Active) LV 2 EXP: 43.86% MP: ???

Through your own efforts of fusing mana and your elemental affinity, you have created an original skill. This gale is a strong wind capable of whatever you deem fit to use it for. Mana cost may increase with strength of gale.

No charge time due to Lord Sky’s Heir title

After I finished reading, I swiped this box out of existence as well and was met with the sight of a teary-eyed Clara nearly tackling me to the ground. I was at such a loss by her display that all I could say was, “Hey! Aren’t you worried about the blood I’m covered in??” Pixie and Kyra just laughed at me, but Izzy was still slumped over in Milik’s arms unconscious. I finally let out a deep breath and held Clara’s head with my blood-free hand.

“We’re fine, Clara. Don’t worry. Come on, let’s find some shelter before lightning strikes and we have to make even more friends. Akito, can you carry Izzy?” With a firm nod, he picked her up out of Milik’s arm princess style and I could swear I saw a little worry in his eyes as he looked at Izzy’s unconscious form. Wondering why she hadn’t woken up yet, I realized that the entire fight had only taken two or three minutes.

‘We truly are monstrous to annihilate fifty of those bastards without having a scratch on us…But I’ll become whatever I need to for my friends’ protection.’ Grasping Clara’s hand in my own, we began our trek towards the mountains whose base was only a mile away.

...............................................................................................................................

Author's Note: Annnnnd scene! Ya know, this chapter was loooooong af. haha. I hope you guys liked it. But damn, everyone pretty much leveled up eight times! Next time we'll be distributing stats, figuring out the map function, and exploring the new world! Leave a comment and let me know how you like it!