Chapter 148—Failed Conversation

AG. Audio file attached.

Tom casually met Briana’s eyes and pretended to fumble the completed Danger Sense ritual disk. It flew out of his hands to kind of fall between them. She startled and attempted to snatch it out of the air, presumably to save it from falling and breaking.. She was way too slow, but an instant before it touched the ground, he sent it into his inventory.

He grinned at her astonished expression. “Nice trick, right.”

“Where did that go… ohh… Did you make it go into your spatial storage?”

“Yes, anything within about ten centimetres I can send straight into storage.”

She glanced pointedly down and her eyes hardened. “Oh, so you weren’t being clumsy. You dropped it near your foot deliberately.”

“Guilty.”

“Does that mean you’re immune to arrows?”

He grimaced. “Not yet. But I’m working on it. Currently, objects need to have been in the area of control for a couple of seconds before I can take them into storage, but,” he continued brightly. “It used to be ten seconds, so I’m making progress.”

“I’m going to buy storage too, then. That sounds useful.”

He nodded and hid another grimace. He would discuss it with her later. The storage options, at least the cheap ones, wouldn’t have the level of flexibility that his effectively GOD gifted one possessed. That was a longer conversation, both the secret around his own storage history, and the subtle differences to what she could access. Today, he had a different agenda. “Bri. I have to ask. Why are you here?”

He was sure her eyes looked slightly haunted.

“I thought we could chat.”

He raised an eyebrow. “Really? You want me to believe that’s why?”

“Or fight?” He could almost hear the desperation she had in turning that final word into a question.

He deliberately didn’t pick up one of the three plain wooden disks on the table in front of him even if he could talk while working because it would send the wrong message. “Don’t you think you should be with the other kids? Or Eloise at least?”

Bri pouted. “I do, but the magical duelling arenas here are more fun. Out there I have to hide my abilities, but here I can go full out because I can’t actually hurt anyone.”

And with the hundred twenty-eight mana trait stone Dimitri had sourced from her she was right. If the randomised arena environment suited her, even if it was only sporadic puddles, she could crush him every time. In real life, she was too powerful to duel anyone apart from those in the divine champion ship trial. And when the four of them went head to head, it was best to do it in the safety the training arenas in here represented.

“Do you want to fight?” He could tell she wasn’t being sincere. 

Tom licked his lips as he struggled with his wording. He wished Social Silence could help, but it wasn’t going too. He was on his own, Kang had even refused to get involved. ‘Just let her be her,’ he could hear his annoying counter in his head.

“Bri, I don’t think that’s why you’re here.”

“It is.”

“I think you’re shy and avoiding people.”

Her hands went to her hips. “I am not!”

Tom smiled. She was particularly cute when she was angry. “You’re retreating in here to avoid interacting with people.”

“I am NOT!”

“I know combining our class with the older kids is.”

“It isn’t.”

“Worrying you,” he finished.

“It isn’t.” she insisted again.

“But you should make more of an effort.”

“I don’t want to.”

“I know. It’s hard, but it’s important.”

Her lower lip trembled. Then she vanished.

Tom sighed heavily.

That had not gone well.

She had always been shy around adults, which wasn’t a problem but now her introversion was extending to other kids. The class that had joined them was only a year older, but that had been enough to drive her into her shell. It was troubling and his speech…

“Damn it.” He cursed. His speech had done absolutely nothing to help and, if anything had made things worse.

“She’ll be fine,” Mr Cricket said dispassionately.

“I’m not taking advice from you.” He almost snapped at the alien person.

“Despite your peculiarities Tom I’ve lived a far longer life than you. Hatchlings develop on their own cycle, and geniuses in particular struggle with their nontalented peers.”

“That’s not what’s happening here!”

Fifty arms shrugged.

Internally, Tom shuddered at the gesture. He definitely wasn’t taking advice from that. With Mr Cricket’s unique physiology, there was no way he could understand humans. He would bide his time and work out if there were other ways to help her.

Another week passed, and Tom found himself once more walking through the portal to take him into an unshielded duel. His win rate for the last few months had been well above fifty percent. He was going through an unsustainable purple patch, which was probably catch up for the period when it had felt like his opponents were anything but random.

The instant he appeared in the arena, Tom frowned. It was close to the weirdest he had ever seen.

There was the true ground and the apparent intended battle level that he found himself standing on which had been created by the existence of a series of stone stacks that had all finished at the same height. The individual constructs had been built more like modern skyscrapers than a pyramid, as the footprint didn’t change as they got taller. They stretched thirty meters high but were impossibly thin. The one he stood on was one of the larger examples and while he could stand on it comfortably each of his feet was mere centimetres from empty air and a thirty metre drop. Worse, the pillars weren’t a single piece of stone. Each stack was constructed of rounded flat stones stacked on top of each other. There must have been over two hundred stones in each column. Multiply that by the tens of thousands of stacks he could see and literally millions of rounded paver stepping stones had been used to create the landscape. 

He wondered how stable they were and when he looked around; he had to conclude the answer was probably not very. Every tenth pillar seemed to have lost at least some of its height, and when he peered down, he could see the broken fragments of the rocks that had previously been part of the pillar.

He tensed his body and swayed and felt the pillar shift. It was a long way from being enough to make it collapse, but if he did an explosive leap, then he could see it crumbling.

How such a landscape could even form naturally, let alone survive long enough to support the lichen growth he could see was a mystery. It felt constructed. But a million plus stones? What would do that… then he stopped that thought. With landscapes formed in universes governed by different fundamental rules of reality, all being sampled and used in Existentia anything was possible. Though it hurt his mind to think of how this setup could have been created naturally, but for a species to have made it also seemed unrealistic. It would have required thousands of humans probably working for years such was the grandeur of the place.

Each impossibly narrow stack was thirty metres high. That was equivalent to an eight story building and multiple football fields had been covered with them.

Forcefully, he focused away from the environment and onto his opponent, and his heart sank further. It was a giant turquoise slime blob that was the size of a medium elephant. He immediately recognised what or who he faced and he felt his anxiety climbing. Only the fact that he was protected with both fate and his ritual disk allowed him to push the emotion aside.

He would win against this difficult, dangerous opponent because he knew what he faced. All that time he had spent memorising the contents of the database was finally paying off.

His opponent was classed as problematic for most people. Especially in an arena like this which had been customised to aid it. Statistically it only had a thirty percent chance of shaping the arena, but today it had clearly been successful. 

It fought permanently under a partial GOD’s shield, so this fight was real. He wouldn’t die or anything like that, but any injuries he suffered wouldn’t be divinely removed when the fight ended. He would carry them back into the room he came from.

And with the arena as it was…

Shit, he thought. This wasn’t going to be pleasant.

His mind reviewed what he knew and attempted to create strategies that would work. First was its primary defensive ability. It could use suitable loose stones to create earth shields that were a hundred percent effective at blocking ranged attacks. Put it on a deep sandy beach and even with Earth Manipulation it couldn’t get a defensive shield to work and then it was vulnerable. Place it here, in this arena with the plethora of options each pillar represented then a suitable stone would always be available.

Love it or hate it, and let’s be honest he hated it, but his opinion didn’t matter. For the duration of this duel, it was going to be functionally immune to ranged attacks and there was nothing he could do to change that.

That defensive skill luckily wouldn’t block melee attacks, so that was what he would have to exploit, because in addition to the stone defence it also had more than enough magic shielding to stop wide area magic attacks. While Spark could bypass the stones, it lacked the punching power to break through that secondary shielding.

Tom swallowed heavily.

To stab it with a spear was such an easy thing to say, but in an arena constructed to suit it. His eyes flicked around and he licked his lips.

Shit, he thought almost despairingly. If he hadn’t been so careful with his coin flips, he would think he had made a mistake, but he had double and then triple checked each result. His fate said that he could win this, and he had to believe it was possible.

The pillars were spaced perfectly to allow it to swing effortlessly between them and it was also immune to fall damage so he couldn’t even collapse the supports and hope to kill it that way. Maybe burying it in rocks, would have an impact, but he doubted even that would work.

No, it was a spear through its guts or nothing.   

The countdown hit zero and almost as an after thought Earth Manipulation snaked down and through his own pillar to reinforce it. As he had feared, there was no physical connection between the stacked rocks they were held together purely through precise stacking. With his own magic, it would be trivially easy to collapse the pillar and his opponent had access to the same abilities plus extras.

He doubted, given its superior physical mobility that he could stop it destroying the pillars he stood on. All it would have to do was to get below the fifteen metres over which he could establish control, and then there would be nothing he could do to stop it.

Seconds passed.

Tom stood and watched and just because it could be done with a free cast, he created a Lightning Javelin.

The blob likewise took no overt, hostile actions. Instead, two stones levitated off a nearby pillar to whizz around it. The way they moved reminded him of the Meteorite spell he had possessed in the last life but from the dossier Tom knew that the blob’s version was far more limited and only provided a ranged defence option and lacked the offensive and offensive defensive options that his previous spell had given him.

“You recognise me?” It asked.

“I do,” Tom answered surprised at being addressed. This person represented SUPREME so he shouldn’t have been shocked at it being cordial but so many of these duels kicked off instantly even against the so-called friendly species that any time there was a pause before the life and death fight it was unexpected.

“Only one Javelin?”

“You know who I am.”

“I do and your deviation from your normal style is why I knew you recognised me.”

With a thought, he sent his javelin flying at the blob and one of the spinning stepping stones intercepted it.

“Yes, I did. And ranged attacks are Useless as I expected, which is why I didn’t create more.”

“If you knew then why make even one?”

Tom shrugged. There was no way he was explaining about the free cast. If it slipped out, it wasn’t an issue, as he was certain that by the time he finished in the divine championship trial all the opposing parties would know, anyway. Everything he showed was examined and catalogued by the other groups and once they had sufficient data all of his secrets would be laid bare. . “It’s kind of my signature and I could spare the mana for one cast, so why not.”

“I hate that you know enough not to waste mana on ranged strikes. The way this trial is constructed is infuriating.”

Tom smiled. “Personally, I hate that they won’t work.”

“I try to ask every duel. It’s not always possible. Can I go all out against you?”

“You’re partial shielded, right?”

“That is correct.”

“Then yes, you can go all out. At worse I have allies who will intercede and the coin reserves required to let them use a recovery potion.”

“That’s costly.”

“That’s the worst case. It’s likely any residual damage you leave I’ll be able to heal directly and won’t need outside intervention.”

“That is good to hear. Likewise, you can not damage me and should not hold back at all.”

Tom nodded. “Okay are you ready to fight?”

“Yes.”

The blob suddenly exploded into action. Ten pseudopods burst out of it as it undulated and sprang off the pillar. The tentacles it had created moved like a stock whip in the hands of a master. They moved so fast there were simultaneous cracks as multiple tips broke the sound barrier. They lashed out and grabbed multiple pillars for support and then with a firm foundation, it moved. It plunged downwards at a speed greater than gravity could provide until after only an instant it established its new location five metres below the pseudo ground level that Tom stood on. 

The fight was on and he still hadn’t established a strategy beyond stabbing it. Questions shot through his head. Would it be best for him to descend to ground level and knock over all the nearby pillars or was he better served staying up here. Was there a middle ground where he held his current location until enough of the pillars had collapsed and then only descend when it was safer. If he went down now the blob could cause a dozen of the precariously stacked towers to collapse around him and if that happened Tom wasn’t sure he could dodge the falling rocks. Alternatively, staying up high had its own problems, as the ground could be literally knocked out from under his feet.

Stay high, he decided, and then while taking care to keep watch on his opponent he started leaping backwards from pillar to pillar. Each leap was a little over two metres, but he had spent so long on the obstacle course and the blob was boosting his attributes sufficiently that it was as easy as walking in the park.

The pillar, one of the larger ones, which he landed on wobbled precariously and he understood just how dangerous the terrain was going to be.

The blob was having none of his difficulties. As it moved, its pseudopods extending to up to three metres grabbed the columns and while it needed them to, they supported it perfectly but once it was past them it had no hesitation in collapsing them. A full five meters would suddenly fall away, which did nothing to reduce damage at ground level because there was still twenty-five metres of pillar remaining. While it did nothing to help his descend, it would certainly hamper him in the long run. The section of pillars he had just retreated from was no longer useable because of the difference in height between all the supports. 

He couldn’t afford to drop two metres onto a damage pillar as he wouldn’t get back up again, but the blob was already travelling below that level, so it was unaffected. It was diabolical. If the fight drew on the environment once he ran out of safe spots to retreat too would turn against him.

Patiently, Tom retreated. As he did so, he watched its actions and considered his victory conditions. He had time, as the blob wasn’t attacking him directly. It was clearly going for an environmental based win, where it would successfully collapse a pillar with him on top.

For himself, the path to winning was simple and hadn’t changed. He still needed to strike it with a spear thrust.

One blow would be enough. The tier three spear and Power Strike with the shield breaking ability would combine to negate its defenses. Then, while the weapon was inside it, he would discharge as much lightning as possible to boil it from the inside. 

According to the dossier, it was vulnerable to magic once you got past its shielding.

The question was how to land the blow.

It was happily moving five metres below him, where he couldn’t challenge it. Eloise could, but she wasn’t here.

What to do? He wondered as dozens of strategies went through his mind. They were varied from drawn out slug fests to brutal melee’s and he assessed each of them. There was no point he realised in dragging this out. The earlier he ended it the better would it be for him, he decided. He was sure he was expending more mental, physical energy to stay ahead of it than it was losing while chasing him.

All or nothing, he decided, and a focused sense of calm went through him.

He would strike, and it would die.

Tom stopped retreating and a moment later it swung beneath the pillar he was standing on. It was the lightest of touches from the blob, but it did what his opponent wanted and a stone five meters below him crumbled. The angles were not right for him to counterattack so he didn’t leap after it. His prudence unfortunately did not help the situation he was in..

The pillar under his feet started to topple.

Instead of retreating, he leapt to the left and forward. Fateful Earth Body activated and his feet like he had hoped found unexpected purchase turning the chain of jumps into a simple exercise.

The blob reversed direction violently, its sudden jerky motions suggesting it was annoyed that he had gotten away so cleanly and that he had gone in a different direction to what it had epredicted.

A moment later it had fully recovered and swept past his new pillar with vengeance. To Tom’s surprise he saw that it wasn’t just his pillar that was collapsing, it was all the surrounding ones.

It was unfortunately too far away from him to attack. Cursing his luck, he leapt in the opposite direction to where it was travelling. His feet landed on another collapsing pillar. He kicked off that before landing on one outside the radius of destruction. It rocked under the force of his landing, but not enough to crash.

The blob was returning for another pass by and absently he hopped a couple of pillars backward to buy a second or two.

That previous run had seen it collapse everything within six metres of him. If it could do that at will, that was dangerous.

Suddenly, he noticed the trajectory that it was taking and inside he smiled.

Everything lined up perfectly for him.

He toppled forward off the side of the pillar like someone going for a belly flop. Gravity took hold and Fateful Earth Body let him ignore physics and then faster than should have been possible he was horizontal to the ground. It was like he was lying on his stomach on an invisible bed thirty metres above ground with his feet pressed against an impossibly constructed pillar.

The smile went from internal to external and as gravity started to take hold, a spear appeared his hands and with the two key conditions met, especially the one that required his feet to be planted he activated lunge. An instant later, he was sprinting down the pillar and his enhanced power strike coated the spear’s surface with a pale green light.

Time froze as he sprinted closer to the enemy, every step applying so much force that stones should have gone flying, but the magic of his skill meant the real world remained unaffected.

The manoeuvre he was doing was almost an instantaneous one but only, almost. A hidden defence activated and a stream of dark energy radiated from the blob.

Inside, he started laughing as his spear drank up the magic energy and he continued unrestricted and unaffected by the counterattack.

He thrust forward.

The green light of his spell briefly interacted with the white of its shield before his opponent’s defensive ability shattered. Then his tier three spear tore into its flesh. As far as his weapon was concerned, the blob might have been made of air. There was no resistance as a massive gash was torn through it.

Lunge finished, and it had left a gaping hole in it but Tom focused instead on the fact that the spear had not yet blasted out the other side.

Now laughing, he released Spark with everything but his earth mana included in the attack. Lightning filled the inside of its body as Tom found himself falling through the hole his strike had blown open. Briefly, the flapping bits of its flesh smacked against his face. It felt like he was being pummelled with thick, dried and very substantial leather off cuts.

Then he was through.

He wasn’t sure, but he felt the extra attributes he had gained vanished as time seemed to speed up.

The ground was hurtling towards him.

Fuck, he screamed in his head as Earth magic shot out as his feet touched the pillars that he was running down or more precisely, falling next to. Rock moved to accommodate him. He launched off it to alter his trajectory. His body screamed in protest, but did as he requested. Fate was instinctively directed to protect him in this fall. Suddenly he wasn’t falling vertically but on a slightly kinder trajectory at least in relation to the odds of not landing and just going splat.

He twisted his body violently, shifting himself in an attempt to land feet first.

His knee struck the ground and was pulverised despite the stone shield that erupted to protect it.

Earth Manipulation flared as he burned all of his reserves to convert the rock he was landing on. The top inch transformed into a bouncy rubber like substance spread over harder rock. He bounced, rolled, spun, cracked into a pillar that broke and absorbed some of his momentum.

Fateful Earth Body worked overtime as shields snapped into place and his skin hardened to stop gashes. He crashed to a stop as rocks rained down around him. Instinctively, he protected his head and while only small rocks hit him, he understood how much damage they would have done if they struck the brittle bone protecting his brain. 

The rain of heavy stones stopped.

He was alive.

There was the sound of trumpets, which he ignored to focus on his surroundings. Stones were still falling, but none in his immediate vicinity. 

No blob came to attack him.

When he had fallen through it, he had felt its attention leave him. That may or may not have been because he had killed it. Time would tell, but if it lived and came for him, it would get an easy kill.

He used his free Touch Heal.

The diagnosis information flooded in and he sighed slightly in relief. He hadn’t suffered any mortal injuries apart from a couple of small bleeds on the brain and a burst spleen all of which he healed immediately.

The rest of the situation was less positive. Both legs were broken. His right leg in particular was in a bad way. The knee had been splintered; the femur had multiple compression fractures where the hollow bone had been collapsed and the tibia was shattered into eight significant pieces. Then there were broken ribs, hip, a shattered hand, along with his ulna and radius. Basically, it looked like a truck had run over his right arm and leg. 

It was nothing Tom realised with relief that a couple of hours of healing couldn’t fix.

He felt himself being pulled out of the arena and as he hadn’t surrendered; it meant he had won.

Internally, he smiled. He wondered what his friends would think when he told them. “You should have seen the other guy.”

AG. 4200 words. Audible file is being problamatic again.