A/N: An especially long chapter for you guys. Read, enjoy, and review!

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“This is a ruthless world and one must be ruthless to cope with it.”

- Charlie Chaplin

“How’s everyone feeling?” I looked around at my friend’s nervous faces. The light from the campfire danced in everyone’s eyes, showing a wide array of emotions. For six days straight we’d rampaged across the Plains of Death. Side by side we’d encountered and defeated countless beast men, goblins, gigantulas, and orcs but now…now it was the night before we’d be pitted against the aliens from Draco Interfectorem.

Thinking about the hectic week we’d all had, my thoughts turned back to the Infinity Complex’s new loot feature. According to my System Alert log, it had become available once I hit level 15 after our first big fight on the second floor of the tower.

Since the beginning, I had found it very strange that not even one of the ridiculous amount of monsters we killed that first day had dropped items since it’s a fairly customary concept for any self-respecting game to have the monsters drop loot. At the time, I’d simply written it off as something that wouldn’t happen because item drops in games basically created something out of nothing, which is essentially impossible within the bounds of science I’d been taught thus far…but that first fight with a gigantula nearly a week ago had taught me that the Infinity Complex’s potential refused to limit itself even to the Law of Conservation of Energy.

Infinity Complex – 1. Science – 0.

The loot we’d gained from gigantula that day had ended up being some money that I—and the Infinity Complex—deduced as copper, silver, and gold coins with a drawing of a grand city and the phrase ‘Letheron is All’ engraved on them. In our curiosity, we found through ‘experimentation’ that not all monsters dropped loot, but those that did would dissipate from existence in no less than thirty seconds each time leaving some speck of white light that would sparkle on the ground in their place. In the time we’d had, we also found out that Clara, who had been building on her luck stat, had a much better chance of getting large amounts of money and she even received bundles of webbing from defeated gigantulas in the past couple days.

Considering Izzy had the lowest luck stat on the team, which made a lot of sense considering what’d happened to her our first couple of days here, she was henceforth banned from grabbing loot. Aside from luck being a distinguishing factor, we also discovered that those monsters that weren’t as large or as powerful as a gigantula would drop less rewarding items such as small amounts of copper or raggedy clothing, but the weapons used by goblins and orcs always stayed.

In the last week, I’d collected no less than thirty daggers, a roughly forged longsword made of what I could only guess was iron, and even a small buckler. My friends had been more than happy to let me claim these weapons for myself. I only had to split the daggers I’d found with Milik who’d picked up a sword and buckler similar to mine from a fallen orc only a couple days ago. Kualin, Kyra, Pixie, and Clara didn’t feel the need to use any weapons just yet, but Akito and Izzy, on the other hand, had ripped some heavy axes off a pair of heavily muscled orcs in a particularly fierce battle just yesterday. Thinking about the weapons made me once more appreciative of the Infinity Complex since we’d been able to just stash our weapons into our respective inventories and pull them practically out of thin air when—

“…you okay?”

Kyra’s voice snapped me out of my thoughts and I realized everyone was staring at me.

I gave my friends a sheepish grin. “Sorry…I’m fine. What were you saying?”

“I was just asking if everyone had finished leveling up, so that we can go over strategy for the battle tomorrow.”

“Strategy? I thought we’d just steamroll the aliens and that’d be that.” I couldn’t help but smile at Kualin’s words. He was lying near the opening of the cave with Pixie without a care in the world as the both of them watched the red lightning pulse and flash throughout the perpetually murky sky.

Kyra, however, did not smile. In fact, she narrowed her eyes at him in displeasure.

“And what makes you think we can just go into that fight tomorrow with no preparation? No plans?”

“Two things actually.” Kualin lifted his upper body off the ground and turned so that he was facing the rest of the team from where he sat. Pixie also sat up to participate in the conversation, but from the time I’d spent with her, I knew she’d much rather have laid there to watch the sky without disruptions.

Kualin’s words only caused Kyra to throw her braids over her shoulder in a show of irritation, but she waited for him to elaborate.

“For one, we’re all leagues stronger than we were when we fought that first day we came to the second floor. And I do mean leagues. Whether it be physical strengths or skills, I don’t see a lot of things being able to trouble us anymore.” He paused for a moment to let his words sink in before carrying on. “I’ve seen some of the skills you guys were using the last couple of days. Alex and Milik have been doing exactly what their class names tell them to; sky walker and shadow strider. Hell, I’m still trying to figure out how Milik even moves through shadows like that…” Milik perked up instantly and was about to begin explaining, but Kualin cut him off. “Not that now is the time to hear about it.” Milik flipped him the finger in response, but they both laughed it off.

“Izzy, Akito, and Pixie have all gotten better at controlling their elements—”

“No doubt from the increases in wisdom.” I smoothly cut into Kualin’s speech but he only grinned in response.

“Yes, let’s not forget the smarts of our fearless leader—”

“Fearless? You do realize my dexterity is the highest in this group just in case I have to outrun all of you one day, right?” The entire group burst into laughter at that and Kualin stood up to make everyone focus on him once more though he was still laughing.

“But seriously. Every fight we’ve had, Alex’s strategy has pulled us through relatively unscathed and I know you’re getting stronger as well Kyra. Didn’t you recently acquire some sort of telekinesis—”

“Psychokinesis actually…but I don’t think there’s a difference…” Kyra corrected Kualin, but she was still watching him expectantly.

Kualin sighed before carrying on.

“To my second point then. Like I said, Alex’s strategy has been great, but those were all in the heat of the moment. I don’t think it’s valuable to make strategies beforehand when we know nothing about the enemy. No plan survives contact with the enemy or whatever the saying is, right?”

Kyra sputtered at his words, but I was able to come to her aid.

“That’s true, but I vote we don’t go in there blind. We may not know the enemy, but we know ourselves. Meaning, we know who can fight, who can’t, who should pair up with who, who should fight solo…stuff like that.” Everyone was looking at me and my eyes met Clara’s.

Her eyes were more green than blue at the moment and I was strongly reminded how much I needed to protect her. “Take Clara for example.” She blinked at me in surprise as everyone’s attention turned towards her.

“Alex, Clara doesn’t fight…” Izzy, sitting next to Akito across from me, hesitantly reminded me.

“Exactly my point, Izzy. So she can’t very well get too close to all the fighting. Clara has increased her luck and dexterity, but who…who knows if that will be enough to keep her alive when the rest of us cut loose without thinking about that?”

Kualin began to nod at my words before speaking. “You make a fair point, oh fearless leader. So what’s the plan?”

Everyone’s attention turned from Clara back to me. Taking a deep breath, I ran my fingers through my hair in thought. After several seconds, I grimaced and locked eyes with Milik.

“Alright, here’s what we’re going to do…”

………………………………………………………………………………………….

“I still don’t understand why we have to walk alllll the way to the designated area. I mean, Alex, you could’ve made an air slide from the cave! It’s hotter than a barbecue burning on the fourth of July out here.”

“Dude, I swear to all that is holy, I will never use an air slide unless the fate of the world is in jeopardy. And if I hear one more thing about an air slide I might go crazy.” Kualin was right though, it was scathingly hot on the Plains of Death today, but that’s why I was channeling more cold air around myself as we walked.

Seeing that I was a lost cause, Kualin turned to Akito who had been creating water out of thin air and letting it splash on him every thirty or so seconds.

“Aye man, you tryna share some of that? I’m not trying to get any darker out here in this sun.” Akito only looked at Kualin’s dark chocolate skin tone and then to the sunless sky before snorting and running more water through his hair. Almost desperately now, Kualin turned towards Izzy who was moving quickly to keep pace with Akito’s larger stride. Before Kualin could even open his mouth, she spoke.

“My heat resistance is not shareable so don’t ask.” I winced at Kualin’s misfortune, but he was obviously determined.

“Akito, what’s your excuse man? Come on! Lin Que forever!” Akito waved his hand in response and a sizeable volume of water appeared over Kualin before falling onto him.

“Ahhhhhh. Much better. Alex, don’t think you’re slick because I know you’re doing something about this hot air. You haven’t been sweating at all yet.” He whipped his dreads around for a second, letting the excess water fly around and turned his playful glare on me.

I looked at him before shrugging. “Just trying to conserve mana, man.”

“Conserve mana!?” I let a smile slip onto my face. “You know it takes you close to ZERO mana to do what you’re doing!”

“True, but we’re almost to the location that the Infinity Complex marked for the fight, so it’s kind of a moot point to argue now since we’ve already been walking like this for like an hour.”

Kualin was opening and closing his mouth like a fish, trying to find the words to keep the banter alive, but if his muttered “bitch” was enough to go by then I could only assume he hadn’t found any.

Looking away from Kualin, I turned my attention to the only two parts of the plan I wasn’t entirely sure about: Kyra and Pixie. Although I didn’t like the idea of Pixie fighting, I knew she could move just as fast as I could if I didn’t have the ‘Lord Sky’s Heir’ title to buff my stats and she’d also gotten a good enough grasp on her lightning manipulation to use it in fights the last couple of days. She just looked too…delicate. Usually, I’d say she’s like a little sister to me, but if my blood related little sister were out here, I’d have made her stay in the cave no ands, ifs, or buts about it. It was only through the usage of puppy eyes and keen determination that she was not on standby with Milik and Clara.

Kyra, I didn’t really know too well, but as far as the facts go, she was physically weak. Her and Clara both had not touched their strength stats and only invested some points into dexterity so that they could keep up with our hunting speed this past week. Sure, she’d developed some psychokinesis ability that could be useful, but it would depend on how good she was at using it.

“Alex.” I left my thoughts to look at Kualin, but he was pointing far off into the distance ahead of us.

Squinting my eyes, I could just barely make out the outlines of a group of humanoid figures standing together. I felt a chill run down my spine at the sight of them and my heartbeat instantly kicked itself into high gear. I’d been doing it all week, but walking into a situation like this still wasn’t one of the most relaxing activities in the world…er ‘worlds.’ Taking some calming breaths as we walked, I couldn’t help but worry about my friends. All of us were capable, but my friends would be playing a game with time so that Milik could prepare for his part in the plan.

We walked for a couple more minutes before coming to a stop about 500 yards away from the group of figures that I only now realized were cloaked. After staring at one another for a minute, the other group threw off their cloaks and I finally got a good look at what we were dealing with.

The aliens looked human. There were six men, two women and they all sported the essential two legs, two arms, and one head (thank god), but that was where the similarities ended. One perk about increasing the vitality stat was that it made our bodies better in things like metabolism, aesthetics, and even eyesight which I was abusing the hell out of at the moment. I could see from where I stood that there were different jewels implanted in the foreheads of each and every single one of them. Aside from the jewels, I could see that though their skin was scaly, they were not full blown dragons which, honestly, is what I’d expected from a planet called ‘Draco Interfectorem.’

One thing I couldn’t help but be surprised by was the shiny armor that most of them were wearing. All but two of the aliens wore some form of lightweight yellow chest armor with matching greaves on their legs. One of the two was covered from his neck all the way down to his toes in some sort of silver plate armor that I could only assume was very heavy. Silently reminding myself not to let that one hit me, I turned my attention to the other one who had no armor at all, just some loose fitting black clothing. This one had long blonde hair tied into a ponytail and even from this distance, I just knew that he was the asshole and leader of the group.

My guess was further confirmed when he took a couple steps forward from his group and picked something up from the ground. I watched him as he stared at the object in his hand for a couple seconds before he threw it at my friends and me. In the blink of an eye, it had traveled half the distance between us with no loss of speed, before I forced it down into the ground with a controlled burst of wind. I could tell the black clothed man was surprised, but he still let loose a savage grin in our direction that I could just tell was aimed towards me.

Looking at the black clothed man almost made me want to laugh.

“Oh, a show of strength? Those are always fun. Guys, you know the plan.” After saying that, I picked two daggers out of my inventory and handed them to Kyra. “Kyra, you know what to do with these…stay safe.” She nodded at me and I looked over at Pixie who had shut her eyes and was molding something in between her hands.

“Ready, Pixie?” She nodded almost imperceptibly and I pulled the shoddy iron longsword from my inventory into my left hand. I shook my limbs out a little and threw the sword from my left into my right hand.

I was ready.

“Alright, Pixie. Light it up!” As soon as I gave her the cue, Pixie’s eyes snapped open and I could almost swear I saw blue flashes of light in her irises. Giving herself one second to lock her sights on the target, she let out a cry and threw her hands down towards the ground. Everyone on my team aside from Pixie turned their eyes away as the loudest crack I’d ever heard was accompanied by a huge surge of red lightning that flashed from the sky directly into the midst of the group of scaled Interfectorians.

As soon as the flash of light disappeared, I took the chance to run into the sky at top speed with my air platforms. In two seconds I was already standing nearly three hundred meters above the ground and intently watching the spot on the ground where Pixie’s lighting had struck. Several silent seconds ticked by as I watched the spot, but I couldn’t see much through the dirt that’d been kicked up in the lightning strike.

Anything, Alex? Kyra’s voice came through the connection she’d established with her mind link ability. I could feel Kualin, Pixie, Izzy, and Akito through the link, but they were all waiting for me.

Nothing yet. Do you think we got—Woah! I quickly ducked underneath a black flash of light and took off at a run across the sky.

Alex, are you okay!? Pixie’s voice screamed through the mind link and I nodded before I remembered she couldn’t see me from the ground.

I’m fine. I don’t know if any are injured, but they’re alive. Focus on your fights. I’m up here if you need me just tell Kyra to patch you through!

With that, I cut Kyra’s link with me (something that Milik and I were able to do for whatever reason while the rest could not) and stopped on an air platform to peer at the form of the black clothed man. I didn’t even need to ask myself how he’d gotten up here because I could see his pair of dark leathery wings slowly flapping to keep him in midair. I had so many questions on how his flying worked because I was pretty sure his wings weren’t moving fast enough to keep him aloft, but maybe they were just there for show. I focused, for a moment, on the black jewel embedded in his forehead before his eyes flickered to the area behind me.

‘Shit.’

Dissolving the air platform underneath me, I was just barely able to dodge the silver flash of what looked to be a very sharp longsword. Flipping in midair and catching myself on another air platform, I saw that one of the two female interfectorians had decided to join the fight. Her long black hair framed a face that I could describe as beautiful if it weren’t twisted in rage at having failed to kill me. Large red wings were silently beating behind her as she took her place next to the black clothed man. I realized they were both fairly good looking now that I could stop and stare, but I most definitely did not like the cocky grin splayed across blondie’s face.

“What is your name, human.” The man’s voice was smooth, but the way he’d said human caught me unawares. Almost like he was asking a bug that he’d soon squash if it would like a cup of tea.

I didn’t like that voice at all, but I made a show of checking my nails in front of him and the female’s eyes flashed red in anger.

“I suppose it depends on who’s asking.”

If the dark haired woman wasn’t angry before, she was absolutely livid now.

“Watch your tongue you imbecile. Do you know who you’re in the presence of!?” If looks could kill, I swear I’d be falling three hundred meters to the ground already, but since this particular race didn’t seem to have that ability, I only flashed my teeth in a wide smile at the fuming woman’s words.

“Not in the slightest, snow angel.” She screamed in fury and looked like she were about to charge at me, but the blonde haired man raised his hand at her, stopping her in her tracks instantly. Despite my words, the man seemed unfazed and his smile only seemed to grow wider in amusement before he spoke again.

“Human,” I nearly shivered at the cold tone of the man, but didn’t avert my gaze from him. “You are in the presence of Adal Beraht. Eighth true son of Arnwald Behrat king of Drakkhos.”

I fervently nodded my head at him in amusement. “So we’re doing the long introductions? Alright then. You are in the presence of Alexander Taylor. Esteemed Sky Walker and heir to Lord Sky himself.” I finished with a mock bow towards him, but his cocky grin was now gone, replaced instead by a stony visage.

“Heir to Lord Sky?” I frowned at his familiarity with the title, but before I could ask him if Lord Sky was actually a real person, his tanned scaled hands turned black and long claws extended from the tips of his fingers.

“Melanie, this young man cannot leave these skies alive. Kill him.” His calm demeanor had completely disappeared and I could practically feel the killing intent rolling off of him in waves of heat. Melanie, the red-winged woman, was only too happy to comply with his orders as she let out an unrestrained battle cry and rushed directly towards me.

I met Melanie’s longsword with my iron one and batted it away at an angle that left a chip in my blade before jumping backwards out of her range. Melanie’s eyes were red hot as I turned my attention to Adal.

“Kill me? You’re funny.”

………………………………………………………………………………………….

Kualin stood on the ground, staring upwards at the sky moments after Alex had cut himself free from the mind link. If he were being honest, he’d say he was jealous of both Milik and Alex’s ability to close their minds to Kyra, but he was not an honest man. Although he wasn’t in what he’d call optimal conditions, aka fighting for the sake of a world that had never done anything for him but throw him down time and time again, he’d only made it this far in life by being anything but honest. Kualin turned his gaze down to Akito’s large shadow that was barely visible in the light of the red lightning pulsing through the black clouds above. Kualin was only glad that he was not stuck in the same group as a man that believed honesty and a strong sense of justice were the best ways to win.

No. Alex knew how to get his hands dirty, but he still upheld whatever righteous values he lived by. Kualin, however, was not a righteous man and could get his hands even dirtier. In his twenty-two years of living, he’d only spent five in a warm home before it was snatched away from him. The next seventeen years he’d lied to many people, stolen a number of things, and gotten into hundreds of fights but the moment he’d tried to live his life honestly the world was invaded by monsters.

Kualin smiled to himself at the irony of it all. He’d tried to live life like a normal person and then the whole world had gone to shit, but it was not only this irony that made him smile. No. His thoughts turned to how the weight of the entire world had felt like it was on his shoulders every day of his life, but now the earth, in a sense, was his to command.

Kualin placed both hands in front of himself and imagined gauntlets of pure fluorite encasing both of his arms from the elbows to the tips of his fingers. Feeling a sizeable drain on his mana reserves, his thoughts took form and in the blink of an eye, the fluorite covered his arms. Kualin knew that fluorite was one of the hardest rocks known to man and it was one of few that he was capable of fully molding at his skill level by knowing its constituent parts—calcium and fluoride. If there was one thing Kualin could feel thankful for, it was his unhealthy obsession with rocks that drove him to the library time and time again. There wasn’t much but the rocks that you could call your own when you’d lived on the streets as long as he had.

Kualin finally turned his eyes towards where Pixie should have demolished the group of interfectorians and though they were slightly obscured by a cloud of dust, he could see six figures moving out of the dust and towards his new friends at a rapid pace.

Kualin turned toward Kyra who was still holding the pair of daggers that Alex had handed her. He’d had his doubts about Kyra just like Alex, but he knew he could carry the extra weight that she couldn’t. That’s why they’d been paired together.

“You going to use those or what?” Kualin’s voiced seemed to snap Kyra out of whatever thoughts she’d been having and she responded in a firm nod before tossing the pair of daggers ahead of her where they stopped as if an invisible force had grabbed a hold of them.

“Two is my limit, but I think it will be fine…”

Kualin stared at her for a moment before shrugging. “Just remember, you’re holding two of them back as well as you can. Keep your distance.” She nodded at his words and Kualin pointed towards the rushing group of Interfectorians—specifically, the one in heavy armor.

“And I’ll be taking that one.”

“Wrong.” Akito’s voice cut through the conversation like a hot knife and Kualin looked at him for a moment, specifically his bulging muscles, and nodded.

“That’s fair then. You can take the heavy one.” Akito flashed Kualin a grin before taking off towards the group of six with Izzy trailing behind him.

Looking back at Kyra, Kualin looked at the group of six before covering his legs from his kneecaps all the way down to his toes in fluorite. “I’m going. Cover me.”

Kualin shot off towards the group of six with Kyra’s two daggers whistling through the air behind him. Kualin quickly caught up to Akito and Izzy just as Izzy threw her hands forth towards the rushing Interfectorians. In the wake of her movement, a huge pillar of orange flame flew in the direction of the six aliens and they split into two groups of three.

“Perfect Izzy! I’m splitting with you guys here!” Kualin shot off towards the right just as Izzy kicked the ground and disappeared to the left towards the other group.

‘Damn. That girl is so much faster than I am.’ Kualin only had the time for that quick thought before Kyra’s knives flashed ahead of him aiming directly for two Interfectorians—a woman with brown hair and a man with short red hair.

Kualin rushed the last one on his own.

The Interfectorian watched as the two daggers passed by him, forcing his teammates to jump away. Kualin, who was quickly closing the distance between the two of them, took the time to notice this one had cropped black hair with a yellow jewel lightly shining in the middle of his forehead. He’d decided to call him Yellow just before he threw a right straight for the alien’s face.

The Interfectorian agilely slipped past the fist only to catch Kualin’s fluorite-covered elbow on the ridge of his nose. The blow landed with a crack and sent Yellow flying back a good five feet before he landed heavily on his back.

“What’s good, bitch!?” Kualin gloated for a moment before quickly sidestepping a woman with brown hair and a mousey face who had attempted to stab him in the neck with a jagged knife. He was just about to engage the woman before a silver light flashed past him and forced the woman to jump several feet back and continue her dance with the flying silver dagger.

The woman’s interruption had given Yellow enough time to clamber back to his feet, only slightly dazed from the elbow despite the flow of blood dripping steadily from his nostrils.

“You’re a lively one, huh? Not even going to introduce yourself?” Yellow’s words made Kualin snarl viciously in response.

“Why introduce myself to a dead man walking?”

Yellow chuckled at his words before settling into a combative stance.

“Why indeed?”

………………………………………………………………………………………….

‘Oh shit! Oh shit! Now I did it!’

Izzy was currently scrambling to take her heavy axe out of her inventory as the group of three Interfectorians rushed her and Akito with rage in their eyes.

‘Can’t lose control of my emotions…I won’t lose control of my emotions again!’

The last week had been life-changing for Izzy. Well, she was sure it had been for everyone, but as fierce of a person she was, she’d lived a relatively sheltered lifestyle in the comforts of the money her parents’ made as a doctor and lawyer in Tampa, Florida. The shame she’d felt when she’d frozen up during the first fight with a gigantula was eye-opening for her.

Izzy did not want to be weak. Not when her friends were counting on her to be strong. Izzy’s eyes went towards the hulking form of Akito who was coldly staring down the rushing Interfectorians.

No. She would be calm and cold like Akito.

Izzy shifted her axe into her right hand before lifting her left hand towards the sky. In a flash of light, a blue flame flickered to life in her left palm. It did not burn her. It never would.

In a split second, the flame grew to the size of a small car and she threw it in the air where it burst into a multitude of fireballs that scattered the three Interfectorians. Everywhere the flames landed, the ground was instantly disintegrated and left basketball sized holes that burrowed deep into the plain’s landscape.

Izzy lightly twirled the axe in her right hand before creating a small blue flame in her left hand.

Akito, who had been watching her out of the corner of his eye, allowed himself a small smile. It was almost a shame to have a girl her size be as strong as him. Last night when they’d leveled up again, Izzy had reached fifty in her strength stat, which was two points higher than his own and it was just icing on the cake that she was also a whole level of speed above him. In fact, Akito knew he was probably one of the slowest on the battlefield, but there was something he could do about that.

“Hope you don’t mind getting a little wet, Izzy.” She looked at him curiously before he formed a large ball of water in the air fifty yards above them. After a second, the ball of water expanded into a large sheet and small droplets of rain began to pour down from it. The water wasn’t enough to extinguish the flame in Izzy’s hand, but it allowed him to tell the position of any place his rain was disrupted. Akito swung his axe at an angle that knocked the great sword of the heavy armor wearing Interfectorian skywards but he was forced to twist out of the way of the clawed hand of one male alien with a blue jewel in his forehead.

Akito closed his eyes so that he wouldn’t get caught up in the details. His rain would tell him all he needed to know. He knew that Izzy and the final member of the trio had engaged with one another and she seemed to be holding her own. He’d keep an eye on her but for now it was time to deal with these two. It was time to kill again.

………………………………………………………………………………………….

“Whoo! Just a little bit faster! Come on now, I’m not even going full speed yet you two!”

I was currently flipping around in the air, dodging and parrying the refined longsword of Melina and the claws of Prince Adal at a leisure pace. Well, leisurely for me. The two of them weren’t at my level of speed and I had taken my time taunting them…working them up to the point I needed them to be at before I made my move.

I narrowly ducked underneath the outstretched arm of Adal and finally shattered my iron longsword against the protective scaling of his skin, but not without leaving a long thin cut on his side. “Come now, Adolf! You almost had me that time!”

“I’ve told you! It is Adal!” I shrugged at him nonchalantly. The prince and Melina were now at the mindsets I wanted them to be in, but I couldn’t resist one more jab.

“Hey, Melina! I bet Prince Adolf here gets very angry with you when you’re screaming his father’s name in bed, huh?” Melina flushed red at my words before letting out an enraged scream and rushing at me.

‘This is it. Every time she charges, it’s the same move…’

“No, Melina!” Adal’s words were too late though. I’d already gauged the distance, timing, and speed of her overhead swing and with a quick burst of my true speed, I dodged outside of her swing. Her eyes went wide in surprise when I seemingly vanished in thin air in front of her before I ripped into her with an oversized air blade that left none of her head intact. I caught the wrist of the hand holding onto her sword before her body could fall to the ground and gestured at the headless body of Adal’s teammate.

“Come now, Adal. She was pretty, but you can’t have really slept with this woman!” Adal’s body emitted a foreboding air of bloodlust at my words, but I ignored him.

“Ah, now you’re really mad, huh?” I grinned at him right before wresting the finely forged longsword out of Melina’s unmoving fingers. Now that I had the time, I admired the hilt of the sword which had various colored jewels embedded into it and some kind of inscribing at the base of the blade.

“This is a fine sword…a shame what happened to the wielder though.” After saying that, I didn’t drop Melina’s body. No. I hurtled the headless corpse down to the ground with all my strength. Adal and I watched it for a full five seconds before it landed with what I could only imagine was a nasty splat noise right in front of someone Kualin was about to engage with.

“Filthy, human.” Adal spat the words at me from where he hung in the air twenty yards away from me.

“Tut, tut, Adal. I’m sure we introduced ourselves earlier for a reason.” I watched him closely. Reading him. I saw the rage burning in his eyes and then suddenly something changed. The anger was still present, but he seemed to have reigned himself in. Cold, dark eyes met mine as I chucked the remains of the shattered iron sword far into the distance in favor of the new sword longsword I’d acquired.

“…The woman you just slayed…Melina…she was my betrothed.”

“Ah…I’m almost sorry for that, but you see, we were fighting to the death so...” I flipped the longsword once, trying to get a feel for its weight, but I was too strong for it to have weighed my arm down.

This seemed to prove too much for the prince, who gritted his teeth in anger. “You will die, Sky Walker.” He tapped the black jewel on his forehead and pointed at me. “Everything has been seen by my people. No matter how long it takes, we will get you—”

“Oh, so you’re telling me all of your people can see what’s happening?”

“They can. You will be hunted to the ends—”

“Then they should all know that I am coming for them.” I smoothly cut across his words and leveled a glare at him.

“I am not prey. I am the hunter. Any of you that come close to me, my friends, or my family will die. Do not push idle threats on me, Prince Adal.” After speaking, I pointed his deceased wife-to-be’s sword at him.

“Enough talk. Let’s finish this.”

At that moment, the jewel on Adal’s forehead exploded into a mass of black light that shrouded his entire body and after a couple seconds, the light coalesced to the point on his forehead where there was once a jewel and flickered like a flame. I quickly noted that Adal’s entire body had undergone some sort of refining and strengthening process as his scales stood higher and spikes ran the length from the top of his head, down his back, and to the end of a…tail?

Swishing his spiked tail to and fro to get a feel for it, Adal looked at me with murder in his eyes.

“Let’s.”

“Wait a minute, you can’t just power up like that without expla—!” I pulled the sword in my right arm up almost as fast as I thought to do it to block Adal’s spiked tail inches from puncturing my left eye. He sent a flurry of claws and his spiked tail at me. I bobbed and weaved through the claws while parrying the tail with my sword. The fight carried on like this for a minute or two before Prince Adal and I were locked in with each other tail to sword.

“Where’s all that speed now, Sky Walker!?” I shoved his tail away from me and retreated several meters before glaring at him.

“Speed? You think going twice your previous speed is fast?” My grip on the longsword tightened as I set my gray eyes on the prince who seemed to be all but patting himself on the back from his power-up.

“I’ll show you fast.”

Prince Adal was smirking at me when I spoke and he still had the stupid smile on his face when my foot connected with his jaw sending him several meters into the air. I was next to him when the smile started to change into a look of shock. The shock finally set in when six air blades one right after the other left several gashes on his stomach and sent him racing towards the ground in an uncontrollable corkscrew. I was there when he tried to right himself in the air and his efforts were rewarded with an air cloak reinforced fist to the face. The force of the blow proved too much for him as he crashed into the ground at breakneck speeds, leaving a cloud of dirt and rocks to fly everywhere.

I sent all of it flying away with an Air Gale and approached the fallen form of Prince Adal who had shrouded himself in his wings.

“This is speed.” I grasped the longsword in both hands and brought it down through the thin membrane of his wings, but that was as far as I got. Wrenching the sword out of whatever had caught it, I dashed backwards several meters and watched the Prince’s body with narrowed eyes.

After several moments, the prince’s body started shaking and a deep laughter rang out from the covering of his wings. The wings moved to reveal the bloody hands of the prince, which he must’ve used to catch the longsword moments ago. He was bleeding heavily from the wounds my air blades had inflicted on him, yet he lay there laughing. I waited for him to speak and it was only after several long, agonizingly creepy seconds that he did.

“You are stronger than me, Sky Walker, I’ll give you that…but you really think I’d let you kill me with my wife’s blade?” His voice was sad, but it still held the air of cockiness and anger he’d displayed earlier in our fight. I watched him pull himself up to his feet and, with a sigh, I put the longsword in an empty slot in my inventory.

“I think you’d be too weak to stop me if I really went for it. But we can finish this the old fashioned way. Air Cloak.” The golden swirls of the ultra-thin layer of wind with all the protective strength of a hurricane settled itself around my body and after a couple seconds, no flashes of gold were seen, but I knew it was still there. I spread my feet apart—left foot forward and right foot back—and put my fists up in front of my face.

It was because he’d acted so high and mighty earlier in our fight that his next words caught me completely by surprise and left me wondering if I’d ever heard it in the first place. But I believe I did hear it. It was almost masked when he rushed at me, but I know I heard the smallest “thank you.”

………………………………………………………………………………………….

“Tch.” Kualin slipped a jab from Yellow and lifted his left foot to avoid the low kick that followed. Kualin used the momentum from lifting his left foot to jump off his right and execute a well-aimed kick with his right foot towards Yellow’s head. Yellow’s eyes flashed in alarm as he turned his head to absorb some of the damage as Kualin’s foot connected with his head. Kualin was undeterred, however, as he spun his body around on the balls of his feet and connected with a backhand on Yellow’s face that sent him sprawling to the ground.

“Oh, don’t tell me you didn’t see that one coming?” Kualin had a victorious grin on his face.

They’d been going back and forth for several minutes now and it seemed like he was finally gaining the upper hand, but every time he did, one of those two—damn! Kualin jumped back from the prone body of Yellow just as the same brown haired Interfectorian woman interfered once again with a wide slash of her knife.

Screaming in anger, she jumped at Kualin, slicing and stabbing at him all to no avail. Kualin dodged the knife expertly for several seconds before catching the woman’s arm in a tight grip when she overstepped herself to stab at him.

Kualin’s gauntleted fist rocked the woman’s face once, twice, and then he yanked her past him and forced her onto her knees. Setting his mouth into a grim line, he placed his other hand on the woman’s shoulder blades before snapping her right arm up. The motion was accompanied by the nasty crunching noise of shattering scales and a broken bone, but both were immediately drowned out by the woman’s scream of pain. Breathing roughly, Kualin kicked the woman onto the ground in front of him and raised his hand for the final strike.

It was only the years of life living on the streets that had given Kualin a good sense of knowing when to move, so when his instincts screamed at him to move, he did so with no hesitation, but still felt the claws of Yellow rip into his right side.

Kualin gripped his side with a gasp of pain while moving to gain some distance between the two aliens. When he stopped, he looked down to his side where a good chunk of his flesh was missing, as if someone had just taken a bite out of him.

“Fuck.” Kualin tried to cover the wound with his left hand to stem the flow of blood coming from his side as he watched Yellow grab the woman’s working arm to help her up onto her feet. Grimacing in pain, Kualin straightened up and set himself into a fighting stance while looking around himself for Kyra.

About a hundred yards away she was evading the third member of this trio while fighting him off with her two daggers to keep her distance from him. Looking further to his other side, he saw that Pixie had apparently run off to help Akito and Izzy as per the plan once she’d recovered from her heavy use of mana at the beginning of the fight.

Kualin then turned his gaze back to the two Interfectorians in front of him. The woman was looking at him with pure hatred in her eyes and Yellow’s expression wasn’t far off from that either.

Kualin then spit out a glop of blood in their direction. “You two just want to stand there all day or you gonna come get some?”

This seemed to be the final straw for Yellow who snapped with a primal scream of rage and rushed at Kualin. Kualin prepared himself for the pain. He could hardly defend himself from the two aliens in the condition he was in.

When Yellow was less than a couple yards away from Kualin, a body splattered into the ground between the two of them causing Yellow to screech to a halt. The blood from the impact splashed in all directions and the two Interfectorians looked at the body in surprise and confusion as they tried to figure out who it was.

Kualin had no hesitations. He knew Alex was in the air and he would not lose to his opponents, so when the two aliens had hesitated in front of him, he gathered a good portion of his mana reserves to forge a huge stake created from quartz—a mineral two times as hard as the fluorite he’d used thus far.

“Ahhhh!” Kualin threw the stake at yellow who was only a couple yards away. The man had no chance. The stake pierced through the alien’s armor and body like it wasn’t even there, leaving him with a gaping hole through his body and a look of pure confusion in his eyes.

“Payback’s a bitch, isn’t it?” Kualin coughed after speaking and sprinkled the ground beneath him in blood as Yellow’s body began to fall backwards. The woman snapped out of her daze and caught Yellow’s falling body. She gently placed her deceased teammate’s body on the ground and caught Kualin’s eyes in a steely glare. Kualin met her gaze with equal intensity and prepared himself for the fight.

Though they were both heavily injured, the fight with the brown-haired woman lasted for only another minute before Kualin pierced her through the chest with a hastily erected spike reinforced with quartz at the knuckles of his right gauntlet for the finishing blow.

“Ah, shit…” Breathing heavily, Kualin fell onto his back with a pained grunt and gripped his right side where blood was steadily flowing out of the semi-hole left by Yellow’s claws.

Kualin! Don’t go to sleep, we’re coming to heal you! Kyra’s voice was the last thing Kualin heard before he sunk into darkness.

………………………………………………………………………………………….

“Uahhhh!” Akito swung the heavy axe to clash once more with the heavy armored Interfectorian’s great sword. At some point, after the fight had started, Pixie had come and she was desperately trying to lure one of the Interfectorians out of the rain so that she could use her lightning without fear of hurting Akito or Izzy, but she’d had no such luck. In the time since she’d gotten here, she’d only been playing a deadly game of cat and mouse with the Interfectorian who seemed to be a whole level of speed slower than Pixie and just hadn’t realized it yet.

Akito didn’t know how Pixie was moving that quickly for so long, but he did know that he was growing tired. Fortunately, so were the aliens. Maybe a minute more and the plan would be executed, but damn he was so tired. Keeping this rain up to deal with the Interfectorians’ superior speed was difficult and very harsh on the meager amount of mana he had at his disposal.

He fended off the great sword for a couple more minutes, finding no holes in his opponent’s defense, before the rain allowed him the displeasure of knowing Izzy had taken a hit to the head and was sent flying by the alien she’d been fighting. Akito knew that though she was as strong as him, she was not used to the immense strength and wouldn’t be able to utilize it without getting used to it first and it was probably the only reason she had lost.

Akito swung his axe in a wide arc at the large Interfectorian and used nearly the last bit of his mana to send a multitude of water spears at the alien that had been fighting Izzy, forcing him to give Izzy tens of meters of space.

The water layer above them slowly disappeared as Akito dispelled it so that he wouldn’t pass out from completely exhausting his mana. After a couple seconds, the rain that had been present since the beginning of their fight had finally stopped.

The three Interfectorians regrouped with one another as Akito and Pixie rushed to Izzy’s side. Once Akito had gotten close enough, he tenderly lifted her small body into his arms and took notice of the blood that stuck her blond hair to her head. Seeing Izzy’s unfocused blue eyes try to zone in on him caused something dark to stir inside of him.

Akito’s thoughts turned morbid at the idea of Izzy dying in his arms and he felt the darkness inside of him begin to claw at his heart. He moved to set Izzy on the ground before a hand clamped down on his shoulder. Akito turned to acknowledge the sight of Milik using him as leverage to pull Clara out of his own shadow behind him.

“You did good…but you’re done now, big guy.” Milik squeezed Akito’s shoulder comfortingly, causing him to relax his tense muscles.

“Let Clara heal her and recharge your mana a bit. She’s got huge reserves. I’ll handle things here.” Akito looked at Milik with reluctance clear in his eyes, but he was too tired to fight any more. He’d been pushed far past his limits.

Milik pointed directly at Pixie and said, “Watch over them. I’ll be right back.”

Milik, is it ready? Kyra’s strained voice entered all of their minds and Milik responded to her in the affirmative.

The three Interfectorians that Akito and Izzy had been fighting were catching their breath when Milik walked ahead of his friends to stand thirty yards away from them with nothing but the shoddy longsword he’d picked up from an orc a couple days ago in his right hand. The three aliens looked at one another before laughing at Milik’s audacity.

The heavy armored one lifted his hand up to point at Milik before saying, “You intend to face the three of us all by yourself when your three friends couldn’t even handle us by themselves?”

Milik shook his head at the large alien and shot him a wide smile. “Not at all. That just seems a little unfair don’t you think?” At that moment, an Interfectorian on the defensive came into sight as he batted away two flying daggers with a pair of his own and, seeing his teammates, he rushed over to the other three Interfectorians in seconds. The knives stopped chasing him when he ran away and floated over towards Kyra in the distance who caught them and bolted towards the rest of her friends at a full sprint.

Once she’d gotten close enough, it was easy to tell that Kyra was completely spent; Her braids were in disarray, her nose was bleeding from both nostrils, and she’d obviously been cut in several places as her clothes were bloodstained and partially in tatters, so it wasn’t much of a surprise when she hit the ground in exhaustion when she’d made it next to Akito, Clara, Izzy, and Pixie.

Milik narrowed his eyes at the sight of his injured teammate, but kept his eyes on the four enemies.

“Ah, see? Four versus one. That’s much fairer…not that you stood much of a chance anyways.” The four aliens looked at Milik as if he were insane, but before any of them could move, Milik pulled a small black ball from his pockets that he threw into the air above the Interfectorians. They watched as the ball hovered into place above them and sat silently for several seconds before they burst into laughter.

“Must have been defective! Haha what an idiot!” Milik only watched them silently for a moment before the smile slipped away from his face leaving an expressionless mask in its place.

“I’m sorry.” The Interfectorians had no time to act before Milik snapped his fingers and the ball expanded into a black cube the size of a large house that instantly swallowed up the four Interfectorians. It only took a few seconds for the first scream to come from the dark cube. The first was quickly followed by the other three and several seconds later, the cube became completely silent.

“Milik…what—” Akito reached out to him, but Milik had already begun walking towards the dark cube.

“They’re still alive…just…I’ll be back once I’m done…” He didn’t elaborate any further and walked through the dark wall of the cube.

“He was working on it the entire time we were inside Akito’s shadow.” Clara, who had finished healing Izzy and had moved onto healing Kyra, was shivering.

“…what he put in that ball…I know he’s our ally and he only made it to ensure we won, but never get on Milik’s bad side. I’m not sure if even I can heal what those aliens just went through.” Akito felt a cold shiver run down his spine just as Kyra jerked awake under Clara’s glowing hands.

“Kualin needs our help now! He’s fading fast!” Tears began streaming down Kyra’s face at the thought of losing one of her friends and Clara helped her climb to her feet.

“Which way?” Clara demanded in a rare show of fierceness.

Kyra concentrated for only a moment before pointing off in the direction she’d last felt his presence and Clara took off at full speed to her fallen comrade, hoping she wouldn’t be too late while the others followed behind her as quickly as they could.

………………………………………………………………………………………….

I watched as the black light in the middle of the prince’s forehead grew dimmer and extinguished itself. It was finally over, I’d felt Milik use his new skill less than a minute ago and I knew that move was the clincher. I looked down at Prince Adal’s body, or well his upper and lower halves, with a sadness I knew was pointless to feel.

Every cruel thing I’d done in the fight…the taunting, beheading Melanie, throwing her body to the ground like I had…it had all been to get into Prince Adal’s head. It had worked and I didn’t feel particularly guilty for doing what I’d had to do to win because, for all I knew, they probably had years of experience on me and would only fight predictably like they had when enraged…but this was just nasty work.

Prince Adal lay at my feet, bisected neatly into two halves. He’d taken a large amount of damage from the high-speed beating I’d given him and the rest of the fight had gone just like it once I’d stowed the sword away in my inventory.

To be fair, my dexterity was at ninety with my title buff and that was some serious speed to be working with, so I’d be sorely put out if someone could match me for speed in our first big fight, but it had been such a bloody one-sided fight.

Sighing, I took off at a run in the direction I knew my friends were in and came to a sliding stop next to the group of them after about half a minute of travel. They were all huddled around Clara who had her glowing hands set on Kualin’s abdomen.

“He’s going to make it. His HP was dangerously low, but I got to him in time.” Clara answered my unasked question and I was about to point at the black cube in the distance before it disappeared leaving Milik standing in the middle of four unmoving bodies in its wake with a long, thin-bladed great sword resting across his shoulder blades.

Milik, spotting our position, was at our side in less than five seconds and as soon as he’d made it to the rest of us, a familiar noise rang out.

Ding!

Before reading the message, I looked at Milik and when his eyes met mine, I nearly gasped in surprise. His eyes were dark. Haunted even. Looking at my friends, I saw that they were all focused on Clara healing Kualin, so I moved next to Milik and grabbed his shoulder and steered him away from the group. Once we’d gotten more than ten meters away, I turned to look at him again. He was standing stock still, and he looked to be not all the way there with me. I felt my blood run cold at the sight and I shook him a little before his clouded eyes focused on me.

“Milik…are you alright?” He stared at me for a second and I felt like kicking myself. Of course he wasn’t okay. “Look, I’m sorry about asking you to do that…I know it couldn’t have been pretty.” Milik’s part in the plan was the only thing I’d felt true guilt for, but I knew it would bring the rest of my friends victory when they were on the ropes.

Milik looked away from me for a moment before wiping at his eyes with the back of his hand. Several silent seconds passed by before he spoke.

“Alex…I broke those people. What I did…I did it for the win…for our planet’s survival…so why do I feel so terrible about the whole thing?”

“It’s…You…” I stuttered trying to find an answer for him, but I came up empty and could only say, “Milik…I’m sorry. I’ll never ask you to do something like that again. I promise.” It wasn’t much comfort, but it was all I could think to give at the time. Milik turned his gaze to the ground.

“Do you think it’s the power? The darkness element…?”

“What?” I stared at him in shock, but Milik’s shaking body was the only response I received.

“No. Absolutely not, man. Look at me.” Milik slowly turned his eyes from the ground up towards me and I could see that his eyes were redder than usual and moist. I placed both of my hands on his shoulders and looked him in the eyes. “This power is ours. It controls nothing. We control it. We decide how we use it. No amount of power will ever change who we are.” I let my hands drop from his shoulders and put a fist between us. “We’re the Overgods, man. I’ll always have your back and you’ll always have mine. We’ll keep each other in line. Alright?”

Milik stared at my hand for a moment before wiping his eyes free of tears as he brought his fist up to bump mine. “Yeah…” He choked a little on the words, but I knew he’d be alright.

“Alright, I’m gonna go back to the group and see where we need to go next. Figure all that out.” I waved my arms around in front of me and he chuckled at my antics before wiping at his eyes again.

“Must be tough being the leader, huh?”

I shook my head at him. “Not with such a great team of friends. Come back over when you’re good.” He nodded at my words and I began walking over to my friends while pulling up the Infinity Complexes’ System Alert Log.

Glossing over the message that told me I’d leveled up five times from the fight, my eyes settled on the new message from the Overlords. After reading it I swiped my hand through the air in anger, dismissing the window.

Making it to the group, I could tell that none of them had read the message yet, but Kualin was rubbing his repaired flesh in wonder so it was fair that everyone was focused on his recovery. I waited silently for another minute until Milik came back before I cleared my throat, immediately catching my friends’ attention.

“Look, guys, I hate to break it to everyone, but I think the Overlords are intent on killing us.” I opened up the log once more so that I could read the message aloud to my friends.

“Overgods. Congratulations on completing the first of many trials ahead of you. After the first round fights, there are only five teams total left on your second floor. Some are still complete, others are not. The battle will take place two months from now in the capital city of Letheron’s continent, Rohan. Your objective is to eliminate two of the four remaining teams. The four remaining teams, however, are under a non-aggression pact.”

I finished reading the message and again swiped it away in barely contained rage. My friends looked like they were at a loss and after several moments of internal struggles all around, it was Izzy who finally asked the question.

“Alex…how are we going to…survive?” I looked down at the ground as my brain furiously worked at the nigh insurmountable problem we’d run into. It was only after several moments of silence that I finally responded.

“A lot can be done, but first…We need to become strong.” I looked at all of my friends and spoke my last words on the matter at hand. “Stronger than all of them combined.”

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A/N: 10,300 or so words later the chapter is over! I hope you guys enjoyed the chapter as much as I enjoyed writing it!