Bro, I'm not an Undead!

A rush of wind caused the waters to ripple madly, and bash against the innumerable dome shaped rocks rising from their collective, repugnant body. One forceful gust was enough to disturb the tranquility that had been here before, but unfortunately, the one causing it made it spawn many times as they jumped from one rock to the next in rapid succession.

Vali had grown impatient.

Simply walking at such a terribly slow speed – as much as the clouds overhead allowed – towards the GOAL, was not ideal.

Sitting still, and doing nothing had never been a favoured non-hobby of hers.

She had wasted thirty minutes adhering to this unrelenting phenomena before bursting towards another goal that had to do with her own selfish desires.

An arrow shaped glow was streaking ahead of her in a direction detached from the mountain, and she was speeding to keep up with it while decked in a brilliant glare of mana that reinforced her strength.

Each time she lifted off one of the innumerable rocks peeking from the dark water, it exploded from the intense force, and Vali would be shot tens of meters towards another one she had set her sights on beforehand.

The navy blue haired beauty gave a rough sigh.

She was making steady progress, but she wasn’t going as fast as she would have liked. Hopping wasn’t as fast as running, after all, and she would be damned if she let herself touch the dark waters below.

Worse yet, the item she was using wouldn’t last much longer if things didn’t improve.

She had taken a potion called Finders Leavers.

Its function was to determine the direction, and distance between her, and a target of her choosing. Once consumed, the user had to keep a steady concentration on how they recalled the mana signature of their target to be like. It wasn’t easy, but with consistent focus, an orange coloured arrow would appear, showing the direction of the target, as well as the distance between them – its size grew smaller the closer one got.

Of course, this was merely a Unique grade item, otherwise Vali would have employed the use of something far more efficient, but since there was a limit on Legendary grade tools – the highest tier of tools allowed in the Royale – she opted to bring the golden hook tied to the end of her French braid as her favoured high grade artefact.

‘How much longer? I’m getting tired of this,’ she thought with a slight frown.

While she did ask herself this, she couldn’t help but be grateful that in the far, far distance, the waters seized, giving way for dry land that exploded into all other directions – besides this one, of course. From there, she could hurry on her way to her escapades much faster while also looking for means to travel to the GOAL more efficiently. Vali was sure there were a few ways to go about doing that, either sponsored by the Game Master, or the Cluster itself.

That was one piece of good news.

As for the other…

Vali temporarily switched the target for the Finders Leavers. The arrow grew almost three times as large, and pointed in a different direction from where she was currently headed.

‘Thank goodness I don’t have to run into that bastard any time soon,’ she smiled, returning the arrow back on course.

***

‘Tomato flinger…’ Sila called after a lengthy silence that had grown too uncomfortable, given what had happened earlier.

Skullius merely grunted in response, to which Sila continued, assuming it meant he was allowed to speak further.

‘That young lady… Your sister… How was she able to… to uhm… You know…’

Skullius was silent for a while. A long while. By the time he answered, Sila was already preparing to take a mental nap.

‘I only got to understand it better when I was facing her. Something… some sort of recollection occurred when she was shouting at me, and also calling herself a freak. I remembered a little…’ he told the old Tower General as he paced about in the forest, following one of the Fleeting Pioneers which was steadily rushing through the plain that had sprung forth, expanding outward fifteen minutes ago, after the line of trees ended.

‘Previously, in my original world, strange things happened. I now know that much. Camilla must have been one of the abnormalities in it. One of the first. That’s all I remember. It wasn’t magic, or anything like that. I’m sure…’

Sila thought over this.

It was an impressive display really – how Camilla had made the snow stay still in the air. In Aigas that wouldn’t have been quite as impressive though, even when pairing it with the fact that the young lady had probably demolished a sizable section of the snowy mountain with but a thrust of her thin hands.

What had made it terrifying at the time, was that both Sila, and Skullius were powerless to do anything about it. They were both facing that might as regular humans. Common folk. Additionally, they hadn’t known what would have happened if they were caught in the attack.

That, in particular, was strange.

Sila had to ask.

‘That flower is supposed to show the best and worst memories. How come you only saw something like that? There didn’t seem to be signs that a wonderful memory would have showed in time, tomato flinger. You… do have good memories, don’t you?’

Skullius’ nose twitched irritably.

He was still holding in a lot of frustration that had been slowly mellowing out with time, but refusing to disappear completely.

To Sila’s question however…

‘I do have good memories. But, I think anything that pokes my soul right now is bound to mess me up, and bring out a lot about my past. Besides, from everything I know, Camilla is supposed to be this greatest joy of mine, and most bitter sorrow at the same time. The other half of my soul is represented by her outline… her shape…’ Skullius said before taking a quick leap through a large distance with [Destined Warp Steps] to catch up to the Fleeting Pioneer.

‘What I’ve seen so far… I’m sure it’s just the worst memory I share with her. There has to be more. I doubt that encounter on the mountain was where we last saw each other. There are things that come after… and before.’

Sila also shared the same sentiment. Since he had stolen Skullius’ body before, and absorbed all his memories from the time, he knew about these memories to a fair extent.

He also felt the same.

A flicker of interest sparked within him.

He wondered what was so special about Skullius before he received the Null Life abilities. Before he became an undead.

Serenity had mentioned it.

Somanda had hinted towards it.

He imagined that if Camilla was special, Skullius was too.

And the Hybrid Luman was probably also coming to the same conclusion.

In the end, they would have to find out what that-

…!

Skullius stopped moving, and Sila, while also feeling IT, was jolted out of his thoughts.

Before either of the two could voice their thoughts and apprehensions, Skullius’ body was lifted off the ground, and whisked away by something unseen!

Something pulled on him so eagerly, that Skullius barely had even a micro moment to act, trying to resist whatever it was that had set its sights on him, and stolen his figure from the barely inhabited plain he had been walking in.

Once more, [Primal Caution] had not reacted, but the Hybrid Luman was already setting up [Saint Lumis’ Benign Arc]’s active function for when he reached the destination.

What was this?

A Cluster beast?

A contender?

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Then… it happened.

Skullius’ feet finally touched the ground, safely.

No harm had been done to him. He was perfectly fine.

He had simply been transported to another space within the Cluster, it seemed.

This one looked different from the others – not that Skullius had any right to speak on variety when he had been stuck in one place for hours.

An assortment of wide, deep maroon pillars were scattered haphazardly… yet in a rhythm manner around him, all featuring sequences of height that also seemed to have a profound meaning. Each gave a low hiss of mana saturation, and great hollows were at their centres, giving soothing, almost hypnotic whistles when gusts of wind passed.

At the centre of all these pillars – where Skullius was – a large, sacred-looking, crystalline amber rock stood boldly. Its great height was imposing, its egg shape less so. Bones of various kinds, as well as fresh fruit, and dirty roots surrounded it in great number… in an arrangement akin to offering.

The rock made Skullius uneasy…. but it didn’t bother him quite as much as the eleven living beings scattered around this place with him.

Contenders.

All of them seemed to have arrived here in the same way as he had, given their readying stances, and some of the looks on their faces. All of them, except one.

A rather short, well built man was looking around in awe, glee, and hints of indignation. In his hand was a weird, spherical object that barely looked real given its ghostly, transparent appearance.

It had begun to break apart, and disappear by the time Skullius placed his focus onto it.

The Hybrid Luman narrowed his eyes.

‘I see. That, must be a Draw Bubble…’ he thought.

The observant ones around him were already beginning to figure this out too, and among them, Skullius recognised two contenders of interest.

One was man donning long, cream scaly robes that hid everything of his except his long neck, and firm face. His short, dark hair, and nut brown eyes insisted on giving him a relaxed, unbothered look, but Skullius knew he was every bit as cautious as everyone else.

This was Tallo Rashen, the only Mage in the Royale.

The other was a woman with a suspicious glint in her downturned, purple eyes, her wild, long pink hair making her stand out. She was adorned in a tight, minimalistic black half plate armour with many sections of it – chest, elbows, wrists, ankles – encircled with beautiful silver, steel rings, on her waist, three long crimson cloths trailing behind her in the wind.

It was Maxim Flatbed, the crazy bitch, as Skullius had dubbed her in light of their first meeting.

These two were dangerous.

It was some quirky luck that placed these two on the roster for first opponents for some of the contenders here.

Bad stuff, this was.

The tension among the twelve contenders soared after the two second duration that most of them had taken to gather what was happening around them.

Then, to the others’ surprise, one of them threw caution out the window, and carelessly exuded a fatal hostility that instantly spurred the first instance of a truly devastating battle royale…