Bro, I'm not an Undead!

The incredibly vast audience was lost in the visually impressive specs of the magical screens. This wasn’t their first time using these, but maybe because the option to watch the contenders directly had been available in the Preliminaries, they had neglected to use the glass screens much.

This wasn’t to say the quality was the same as last time. That simply wasn’t true. The level of detail was enhanced on the current displays, showing the tens of contenders who had spawned in different locations, with their reasonably varying reactions immaculately.

Unlike how dark it was outside the stadium, the actual grounds for the Royale, the displays seemed to have brightness adjustment settings that didn’t compromise the quality. As such, when viewing through them, the contenders seemed to be out on a moderately sunny day.

Some of the contenders instantly started darting around, while others studied the environment with little movement.

The perspectives and angles changed according to the activity of the contender, widening or panning in different directions accordingly, which the audience quite enjoyed.

So far, with about three minutes since the contenders disappeared from the white platform, there was yet to be any meaningful encounters or conflict. A large, illusory counter at the very top of the stack of glass pane screens was still vividly displaying the number ’58’, confirming this. But it would change soon.

Atop the arrangement of spectating seats, a woman beside Rearren squeezed his hand. It was Millisa, his wife, who was, for the most part, a meek and quiet individual. She barely seemed to exist between the cool and calm presence her son exuded, as well as the powerful and revolutionary energy her husband embodied.

Yet, she was there all the time, always carrying a face full of veiled anxiety. She was forbidden from voicing it.

It wasn’t that Rearren didn’t understand her concerns, these concerns at the moment being targeted towards their son.

Rearren simply ignored her sentiments. Millisa was different from him and Rias after all, but he accepted it. There was no way he couldn’t.

With a subtle move of his head, the EverSword House Head peaked behind him where nothing but shadow could be seen, and smiled thinly. His eyes then traced the multiple glass screens that showed images so vivacious and vivid that he could see without strain from a distance. In a blink, he found a familiar scene that was barely shown on the four corners of the wide glass, when the perspective quickly panned, following its respective contender who darted in another direction.

***

“Well this is a problem,” Skullius voiced with his mouth skewed.

He had travelled a short distance towards the GOAL, before finally being brought to a halt, stumped.

Taking the clouds into account, he had thought that this Cluster worked in the same way as the goblin one, where some substance in the air would inhibit invaders and strengthen the locals; like the rain which had strengthened the Hau Kaka goblins.

However….

Well, he wasn’t wrong.

That wasn’t strictly the function of the clouds, granted he had yet to study them completely.

When he had started racing towards the GOAL at full speed, his body reinforced with his mana, something strange had happened.

While the Hybrid Luman could have covered a few kilometres with a few strides of his earlier sprint, he had barely managed to cover ten meters instead.

What was even stranger was that the massive trees and vines around him raced backwards as he moved, just as they should have when he was moving at such a speed, but when he stopped, he found himself to still be among the same stems of vegetation he had left behind, some of them only being a slight distance away from him.

Skullius had tried this multiple times before he finally started to understand. It was a bit easy to miss if you didn’t pay attention, but the clouds overhead seemed to be locked on to him.

Every time he ran, even while everything blurred – or pretended to – some of the clouds remained directly above him, dictating how fast he could move.

To be more apt, they governed how quickly Skullius could approach the mountain, and the GOAL. Basically, he couldn’t move too quickly towards it.

However, he found out a few other things.

If he went in any other direction that wasn’t the mountain, he could move normally.

If he moved in the direction of the mountain, but towards a separate target, like a tree nearby, he wouldn’t be affected.

If he opted to walk, pacing reasonably towards the mountain, the clouds wouldn’t impose a limitation on him.

With his current abilities, there seemed to be no way around this.

The clouds seemed to be a natural phenomenon of the Cluster, which made Skullius come to the conclusion that this slowing effect wasn’t something integrated by Guissepo, and in turn wasn’t tied to the GOAL specifically, but the mountain it sat on.

Perhaps there was something sacred about the mountain. It wasn’t unusual since the Sage Monkeys he had faced off against with Stylla, Bron and Fore in the past had also considered their mountain sacred.

Maybe that’s where the Cluster General was.

Seeing as there was no way around slothing his way to his objective, Skullius began the long walk to freedom.

The ominous pressure spewing from the clouds above as they followed seemed to lessen, as if they had just been giving a warning before.

Quite frankly, once the pressure was mellowed, Skullius enjoyed the soothing, quiet walk between the crooked, twisted, mangled, angled, craning, and labouring trees that seemed to have been drawn out of a dark fantasy comic.

What did they think this was, a standard horror story starring an edgy, swordsman with a large sword?

Along the way, Skullius studied his status to pass the time, while with his Omniscient Thought Cracker, he divided some attention to scanning the surroundings with [Graceless Hunter].

~~~

[ Name : Festos Dawn ]

[ Level : 20 ]

[ EXP : 451,000/7,000,000 ; Trial Pending> ]

[ Core : Blue ]

[ Class : Insurgent Magnus ]

[ Race : Hybrid Luman ]

[ Inv. Status : Still doomed ×2 ]

——-

[ Stats ]

[ STRENGTH (I) : 31,050 ]

[ AGILITY (I) : 29,334 ]

[ INTELLIGENCE (I) : 44,124 ]

[ ENDURANCE (I) : 30,678 ]

[ LUCK : Atrocious? ]

—–

[ HEALTH : 74,098/74,098 ]

—–

[ MANA (I) : 105,450 ]

—–

[ Null Life Essence : 12,000/12,000 ]

——

[ Skills ]

[ Greatest Mana Crafter | Lv.89 ]

[ Great Celestial Counterfeit | Lv.1 ]

[ Celestial Hack | None ]

[ Ungodly Flames of Debauchery | Lv.19 ]

[ Null Extraction ]

[ Static Limbo ]

[ Null Life Aura | Lv.8 ]

[ Graceless Hunter (Special) | Lv.7 ]

[ Instant Blaze Charge (Special) | Lv.28 ]

[ Bombardier Bangster Fist Art (Special) | Lv.34 ]

[ Greatest Mana Attraction | Lv.17 ]

[ Elite Combat Arts (Special) | Lv.9 ]

[ Elite Swordplay (Special) | Lv.9 ]

[ Parting Wave | Lv.9 ]

[ Primal Caution (Special) | Lv.28 ]

[ Undaunted Calamity (Special) | Lv.23 ]

[ Beyond the Hype | None ]

[ Swindling Death Dance (Incomplete) ]

[ Ghost Rending Divine Sword Art (Special) | Lv.48 ]

[ Swordmaster’s Quiescence (Special) | Lv.36 ]

[ Unmatched Sword Sense (Special) | Lv.40 ]

[ Lesser Gravel Rune Mastery (Special) | Lv.22 ]

[ Rune Assimilation (Special) | Lv.11 ]

[ Advanced Potion Making (Special) | Lv.19 ]

[<Class>]

[ Evil Darkness Meshing (Special) | Lv.59 ]

[ Evil Darkness Creation (Special) | Lv.64 ]

[ Immoral Authority (Special) | Lv.10 ]

[ Just Light Creation (Special) | Lv.71 ]

[ Just Light Meshing (Special) | Lv.50 ]

[ Boundless Evil (Special) | Lv.30 ]

[ Absolute Zero (Special) | Lv.35 ]

[ Saint Lumis’ Benign Arc (Special) | Lv.19 ]

[ Destined Warp Steps (Special) | Lv.55 ]

[ Crude World Projection ]

[ Seramoro, Oblivion’s Edge ]

[ Bead of Malevolence | Lv.10 (Max) ]

[ Perfect Night Domain | Lv.7 ]

[ Wing of the Just ]

[<Racial>]

[ Son of Luserus (Special) | Lv.1 ]

[<Arts>]

[ Pseudo Evil Veneration (1%) ]

[<Oddities>]

[ Binds of Fukal ]

[ Fruit of World Myths ]

[ Omniscient Thought Cracker ]

—-

[<Affinities>]

[ Evil Darkness – B ]

[ Just Light – D ]

[ Distorted Gravity ]

~~~

Skullius hummed.

He hadn’t been focusing on levelling skills much, except for those that helped him skip from Level 18 to Level 20 as per Task requirements in his attempt to clear the Second Trial quickly.

What had drained most of his time was studying what Aurolio taught him, and helping Theurien with his torturous routines to get back to full strength. That, and helping him manage the Estate, of course.

With a few Enriching gems, Skullius had also increased his stats slightly, but he hadn’t focused on that much since increasing his stats wasn’t the only way, or even the most efficient way to make sure he survived whatever was coming.

Building a coherence and collective efficiency with his set of skills was the most important because said skills Skullius had on this list were crafted with a strict purpose in mind. While most were ways off from evolving again, they responded well to others that complemented them to a meaningful degree.

For instance…

…!

Skullius’ boy suddenly grew alert as [Primal Caution] both warned him, reacted, and triggered [Graceless Hunter] to give full focus on the threat!

Before the Hybrid Luman knew it, his body had moved on its own, diving to the side splits of time before something so sharp it made the air scream in a shrill voice zoomed past where he had been!

[Primal Caution]’s forceful grip lasted for a limited amount of time, but that was enough for Skullius to regain control, and with [Graceless Hunter] already having pinpointed his enemy, he was in a better position.

The entity that had attacked landed almost soundlessly on the moist ground before glaring at Skullius, a pulse of its vicious and incredibly dense mana spiking from its large body!

With [Greatest Mana Crafter], Skullius sensed an obvious similarity to this mana signature and the one from earlier. It was a diluted version, but still potent nevertheless, its calibre, in terms strength and density, being marginally close to that of the Finite Sword god, Hobbu Bobbu.

This creature was not something to be trifled with.

The quivering of the trees from it just standing there menacingly was also telling. It also told of another unexplored fact.

Skullius grinned, as he faced the dreadful enemy of unnatural proportions.

ƥαṇdα-ηθνε|·ƈθm

“It’s about time. I was itching for some action,” he said as his mana burst from his body, tinging the surroundings in a unique glow.