Chapter 143—Reality Illusion

AG. There is no audio file for this chapter. I've been trying to get it to generate for a week I've tried on about a dozen seperate occassions and have escalated it but haven't got a respons back. I'm not hopeful but if it miraculously fixes itself up I'll post it.

He joined the others in the obstacle course room, relinquishing his ability to stay in the divine trial, as the complicated acrobatics the course demanded were the best place to practice his movement abilities. Unfortunately, the four of them weren’t the only group present, so they were forced to restrict their actions. None of them did anything outlandish and not a single burst was used. Even the girls actively refrained from using the darkhole trial benefits.

Despite the limitations that outside observers caused, it was fun, and Tom pushed his limits and stressed his body as much as possible. His life already had too much dead time, such as formal lectures and eating, so in the active hours he strove to maximise the fate generated from his new trait. While magically and defensively it was a massive upgrade, unfortunately, in terms of fate production, it was difficult to match the returns he had managed with the base skill. Focusing on his returns during his active periods was one way he addressed the problem.

The obstacle course, even with a two-minute breather between runs, allowed him to generate a point of fate every three minutes. When he could be active and once he left the artificial confines of the orphanage, it would be good. But for now, at least on a standalone fate basis, it wasn’t great.

The trait also let him perform at a higher level than his base attributes should have facilitated. He couldn’t quite match Kang’s broken teleport and the advantages of his extra height, but that ability to do things that were otherwise physically impossible closed the gap between them, so he was losing by only seconds instead of tens of them.

Smiling exuberantly, he dashed along a beam and then jumped. Mid-leap time stopped and an invitation from Kang came through. Tom accepted it immediately and found himself in Kang’s system room with the other two.

“Why did you wait until I was mid jump!” Tom mock grouched.

The other boy shrugged and grinned. “Training or because it was funny. Pick your medicine.”

“And if I choose either of those does it change anything?”

Kang shook his head. “Nope. They’re the same. Girls you were watching weren’t you?” They nodded. “What do we want Tom to do? What will stretch him the most?”

“Or be the funniest.” Bri suggested with a wicked grin.

“A flip,” Eloise proposed.

“I can’t.” Tom responded instinctively.

His upgrade was permanently active, which was a massive improvement, but in terms of individual actions it wasn’t quite as strong as Fateful Repositioning had been. For example, previously, he had used it as a proxy for a short-term teleport once every ten minutes that flexibility was over. Now all he could manage were micro stutters, which had about a quarter of his previous range, but that limitation was offset by the fact that he could do at least forty of them in that ten-minute interval. The eventual limit might even be higher, as forty was just the best he had achieved to date.

The same principle applied to flips and while he could use the ability to make himself rotate faster in the air he doubted he could force his body to spin quickly enough to do a full three hundred and sixty degrees in the fractions of a second he had before he  second he hit the platform he was heading toward.

“You can,” Eloise rebutted. “I’ve seen you do it.”

“I used to be able too.”

“No, I’ve noticed you do it since you upgraded.”

Not in the space I’ve got, he thought, but there was no reason to give them ideas. “No, I mean I can’t because there are too many observers.”

“But I’ve been using arcane step and they haven’t blinked at that.”

“Just because you’ve been doing mid-air flips doesn’t mean he can.” Kang said, sounding tired. “As far as the rest of the world is concerned Tom only has Power Blow and some lightning skills. That’s all he can use. Doing a midair flip after starting out as a straight jump is too much.”

“Pick something else.” Tom suggested.

“Grab both your feet and roll when you land,” Briana suggested after a moment’s thought.

“And yell ‘Rolly polly’.” Eloise suggested.

“No.”

“Yes,” both Eloise and Kang said simultaneously.

“Or forfeit the bet,” Kang finished for them.

As per best practice, now that they had agreed to the extended task, he forcefully ended the session and immediately pulled his legs up, grabbed both feet, and threw his head forward to start the rotation  even as he was about to impact the platform.

“Rolly Poly,” he screamed. His shoulder hit the wood, and he tucked his head in tight.

The force jarred through him.

It hurt and he bounced. “Rolly polly!”

Time froze. In the instant he had to think he assessed his situation. He was not in a good place as he was about to crash into the side barrier. As is, he would have been able to adjust, but if you factored in a moment of disorientation.

Shit, he thought, and then angrily accepted the invitation.

“What’s the deal!” he demanded immediately. “We don’t trigger when someone’s about to crash.” Then he froze in shock, the angry insults he had planned freezing in his throat. He was not in one of the girls system rooms! Instead, he was in Kang’s. 

“Extra training,” Kang told him, grinning like it was Christmas and he had been showered with multiple high tier evolution potions. The grin was best described as shit-eating.

Tom glanced around once more with wide eyes. This time, he focused on the finer details, the exact images in the photos. Searching for a blurred face or a lack of attention to detail that might suggest a trick of some kind. The details were perfect. Excitement flared through him. This was not a prank. This was not one of the girls customizing their room to look the same as Kang’s. “Wait! Is this real?” Tom asked. “Did we really do it?”

“I did it!” Kang confirmed.

“Did you borrow or create a new invite?” Briana asked.

“I couldn’t tell. But it worked.”

“We need to check.” Briana insisted.  

“We’ll leave and I’ll extend two invites.” Eloise offered immediately. “Then someone else to prove the change either way.”

Tom gave her a second glance. The suggestion was a good one. It was too insightful if anything as it showed problem solving abilities which were better than an eight-year-old should have possessed.  Then again, maybe not, a lot of what she said was nonsensical, even if this one idea was an excellent one. "We'll do that," he declared.

He returned to his body and between one split moment and the next Eloise sent the first invite. Everyone was all smiles, and they used the extra couple of minutes together to chat.

“You met a giant didn’t you.” Kang asked suddenly.

“Yes. We even allied with it for a bit and then we both betrayed each other and my team mates killed it. They got the drop on it and then six on one. The giant had no chance.”

“Then you’re probably interested in this. Did you read the latest missive?”

“About how they’re getting too many rating points?”

“Oh, no, that was last week’s newsletter. They now know how they’re doing it.”

“Really? What are they claiming?”

Kang smiled. “They’ve become assassins. They're hitting clusters of empires up to two rings away from us. Some of those giants must have been travelling for decades to get that far.”

Tom’s mind froze at that pronouncement.

His thoughts raced, chaotically. He had fought one of them and had only come up to its knees. How could a creature that big be an assassin? he thought in disbelief. But he needn't have doubted the idea. He knew the answer.

Its racial gift was stealth.

Absolute invisibility and something to stop the tremors caused by its movement, giving its position away. He shivered as he remembered the secondary encounter. How it had just appeared and how it had killed Jenny as casually as it had. Just like a human using a fly swatter. The memory of Her body flying a hundred metres to splat against a wall.

He could just imagine them hunting someone. A creature that strong getting a first blow in and they would have tailored skills as well.

They didn’t have the experience shop like humans did. But that didn’t make their method weaker. Their GOD bought and sold things on their behalf. If it had set them up to be assassins, then they would have abilities with long cool downs. Single use boosting abilities. That would let them kill anything.

The implications were horrifying. It was not a surprise they were getting so many points especially if they had truly spread themselves as wide as they had. 

They would be beyond deadly. Before he could respond, Eloise’s second session ran out of time.

Time restarted, and he had a moment to remember his precarious situation before pain exploded through his skull as his head crashed into the wooden wall.

Thankfully he didn't tumble over the edge. While with his trait and his general acrobatic ability falling three stories was not lethal it would still hurt. Not to mention it would draw the attention of eyes he didn't want on him.

He groaned and then  healed his concussion cursing the others inside as he did so. Then he attempted to create a meeting.

Nothing happened.

He sighed. They had changed the communication trait and made it better, but the alteration wasn’t giving them extra meetings. Unless something else had changed as well it was just a blah update. It was possible that something like the cool downs might have changed but for now he would assume that they had gotten the most minor of improvements.

The next day he prepared for another duel.

While there was a slight bit of excitement in seeing how his new trait worked in combat, he knew its benefits weren’t going to be significant.

At least not yet.

Bored, he went through the usual routine. He flipped the coin and paid more attention than usual to the results. He was very conscious that Danger Sense was no longer available to him. Fate alone, technically would be enough but he still worried.   

The randomised pattern he had chosen was matched by the flipped coin for the first eight tossess and it was only on the final one that the negative came.

Tom frowned.

He would go in with a full GOD’s shield. That was not negotiable, but the eight yesses in a row annoyed him. It was a pattern that repeatedly occurred. There was no way that randomly he could be getting these results. Eight correct flips one after another and then a negative for the final one, in five times out of his ten most recent rejections. It was bullshit. The GOD’s, for whatever reason were still screwing with him and all he could do was grin, bear it and ignore the shitty attempt to frustrate him.

He went through the appropriate door and then froze when he saw his opponent.

Anger flared through him.

This was not a good day

He compressed his jaw to the point his teeth creaked and his hand clenched so tightly that veins stood out.

Vividly he recalled scattered organs and the ‘fix all’ potion that had made them wriggle back into the body. The physical shell had been healed, but nothing could be done about the mind and soul. The future of a species broken because of the creature across from him.

Large teddy bear eyes stared back at him. A monster that was almost too cute to be alive. It would, Tom decided, be better as a stuffed toy. And he would do the taxidermy and then the stuffing. It would be cathectic and if he could do the first part while it still lived that would be even better.

A chance to pay it back for everything it had done to the innocent children trying to save their species.

He remembered the clinical way it spoke while carrying out its torture.

The desire inside him surged. More than anything he wanted to hit it and tear its logical, scientific voice box from its throat and then drip acid on it until its skin was burnt away.

It was a fantasy, at least for now.

He was wearing a full GOD shield. Even if he won the fight, he wouldn’t get any true satisfaction. To kill this evil, he needed to learn to maim souls and despite his talent at taking a beating he was still at least eight months away from that according to Mr. Cricket.

Stick to the plan, he thought to himself urgently.

Today he had to lose and not give away the fact that he was coming for it. He had to hide that he might be able to break free of its hold and that he was getting soul training.

It couldn’t be allowed to learn that  he was hunting it. His eventual counter had to be part of an ambush to be successful or else he risked it fleeing before he could hurt it enough to disable it, and if that happened, he would never be able to eliminate the threat. He had to maintain his element of surprise.

With all of his willpower, he tore his eyes away from the hateful thing and concentrated on his spatial storage.

A single thought consumed him. He couldn’t afford to allow it to examine him.

He refused to let it see how his soul had changed.

A pill appeared between his teeth and he bit down on it. Bitterness and pain filled his mouth but only for a moment before it went numb.

It was done.  

Ten seconds was all that he would have.

No one in the child bracket could heal him fast enough. This single pill would stymie it.

The countdown finished.

His ability to interact with the  world froze like last time, and he subtly flexed against the restrictions holding him. They bent and he knew if he pushed harder further they would shatter. It’s strange illusionary, paralysing power would no longer be capable of restricting him.

He felt like laughting.

There was the sound of trumpets. 

“No! No!” the teddy bear screamed as it ran at him. In its haste, it abandoned walking on two legs to go to all fours. It didn’t look so cute in that posture.

Tom started laughing but with is face being eaten away it came out more as a horrific wheeze.

He didn’t care.

This was the last time. Next time they met he would destroy it.

It bounded toward him desperate to do its experiments and run its torture. But it was way too slow. The deadly poison he had ingested was doing its work.

The arena he was in shattered and he found himself back in the foyer amongst all the others with his body completely healed.

A smile graced his lips.

The contingency plan he and Mr Cricket had hatched had worked perfectly. All the trident would have seen was someone under a full or partial GOD’s shield fleeing from it. It would not know that it was going to die soon.

Elation built inside him, but as always he glanced around to see the results of the latest round of duels.

Corrine and Baptiste were beside him.

Mr Cricket was there as well, standing in the spot Throm had once occupied.

There was no one screaming in pain.

“No please, please no.”

Tom’s head snapped around to look at the source of the noise. A flyer was on its knees next to a ten-legged mammalian crab trying to put together a body that had been torn apart. He recognised both of them. They were part of his cohort and more highly ranked than he was.

The person with his big wings wallowed and screamed and tried to help, but there was no saving its companion.

Dead was dead.

Tom cared, but he also didn’t. Everyone he had formed emotional bonds and interacted with was still alive, and he had his trumpets to investigate. The divine champion trial was deadly if you searched for coins. People died. It was a fact of life. He wanted to yell and scream but instead he felt detached. Life sucked sometimes and this was one of the examples, but the fate of humanity was not on his shoulders let alone the whole of Existentia.

The death was of course sad but it was not his problem.

Mutely, Corrine linked arms with him like she usually did, and one of Baptiste’s vines curled over his arm.

Collectively, they and everyone else paid respect to the one that had fallen with a moment’s silence.

All too soon, it was over and from regular experience he knew life would carry on as usual.

Mr Cricket moved the body, and the crowd dispersed back to their normal lives.

The three of them remained where they stood.

Corrine examined him curiously. “What happened to you? You look, despite,” she waved. “Despite that you look Happy.”

He felt Baptiste’s focus fall on him.

“I ran into the trident again.” He answered truthfully.

“And I take it the suicide pill worked?”

“Yes, and I got caught in its freezing field.”

Her brow furrowed in sympathy.

“No, you don’t understand. I challenged the illusion, and I was winning. II didn’t push it to the point of breaking, but I got a notification, anyway.”

Her eyes widened. “Fuck yes. Let’s see it.”

He turned towards a nearby table. As he had obtained it within the divine trial, or in a duel at least, the system should be able to show the details. Even as he thought his wishes the text appeared.

Title: Break Reality Illusions:

·        Reward: You can break reality illusions up to tier 5 instantly. Higher-tier defences take progressively longer to break, but once a specific spell or skill is pierced once, then on future exposure it will be broken instantly.  

·        Awarded for: Successfully breaking a tier 8 reality illusion while unclassed. This was only possible by repeated exposure in life and death situations and by leveraging the <<redacted>> title.

·        Legendary Title. Competition Rank: 1st, 1,000 Ranking points.

He knew instinctively that the redacted piece was only there because others could see the tesxt and the system was smart enough to realise that while he was happy sharing the new title he might not be so accepting of the rest of his advantages getting out. It was most likely referring to his Reveal Hidden Threat title, but Tom didn’t really care about that detail. Only the result mattered.

Next time he met the trident he would be able to beat the psychopath.

The other two read it over his shoulder.

“Fucking oath,” Corrine whispered. “Fuck that’s good.”

“So once you finish with Mr Cricket, you can kill it.” Baptiste said excitedly. “That’s great.”

“Yes.” Tom said grimly.

“Apart from Mulga dying,” Baptiste continued. “This is an amazing day.”

“Apart from that,” Tom agreed. His mind went to the pile of disks he had created and the hundreds more he needed before they would be able to put the first step of the plan in motion and start saving people. “I would love to chat, but I have work to do.” He apologised and left to return to his crafting. The sooner he could finish his task then the more people like Mulga he could save.   

He finished a disk and then left the divine champions trial to have breakfast with his friends. As much as he wanted to push himself he understood the need to take breaks and refresh the mind occasionally.

Almost the instant he was back in his real body, an invitation came through to him from Kang. Perplexed, he accepted it.

“Finally,” Kang said in exasperation. “I’ve been sending them every couple of minutes.”

“Really? I didn’t get a notification.”

“You were in the divine championship trial weren’t you. It must have been blocking it.”

Tom shrugged. “Probably. DEUS might not have wanted me to be disturbed.”

“Because you were crafting?”

Tom nodded and then waved his arms around the system room. It was just him and Kang. “Why are we here?”

“I got an invite.”

Confusion flared through him. “Too the orphanage tournament?” He asked carefully not quite understanding the purpose of bringing him here for that piece of non news.

The look of bewilderment on his friend’s face told him that he had guessed wrong.

“No, why would I care about that? I got into the divine champion’s trial selection.”

The death from earlier flashed through his head. Mulga was the reason why the selections were open.

Then he remembered his own experience. The terrifying danger that he had been in. The fact the challenges had been to the death. That realistically you needed to be able to fight and kill rank six sapients to make it. Kang had the same benefits he had gotten from the darkhole trial. He would always have seventy percent of his opponent’s attributes and could boost himself to be faster than them at least quicker than anything with a rank under eight. It would not be the same near suicidal fights Tom had faced. They would still be deadly. He met Kang’s eyes. “I’m not sure you’re ready for it.”

“Bull shit!” the other reincarnator snapped at him. “You were weaker when you got through.”

“I had Danger Sense to protect me.”

“Great, but I have genuine strength. Our situations are not the same. I don’t need tricks to get through.”

The session broke apart as the time ran out. The restrictions were definitely annoying, but before he could grumble a new invitation came through immediately.

“I don’t need tricks to get through.” Kang repeated defiantly.

“The selection event doesn’t pull its punches.” Tom warned.

“I know.”

“You can die.”

“I know. But the risk is worth it.” The boy looked rueful. “It’s the only way to keep up with you.”

“That isn’t a reason.”

“No, it’s not. But you’ve seen the competition ladder. This is how I make a difference. It’s under thirty years now, Tom. That’s not long.”

Tom could feel the growing tension in his throat. “You know I can’t give specific advice.” He pointed at his neck to indicate the geas.

“I know. I told you because I wanted you to be aware in case something goes wrong and not to gain an advantage.”

Cautiously Tom inclined his head to indicate that he understood. 

“I don’t need your help. This is huge for humanity. If three of us get all the way through. That’s great isn’t it?”

“It is.”

The other reincarnator smiled. “It’s a massive opportunity and I'm going to seize it. If it kills me at least I would have died this time knowing, I did the best I could.”

“When’s it happening?” Tom asked blatantly changing the direction of the conversation.

“Tomorrow morning.”

“Okay. I’ll be waiting in the divine champion’s trial to greet you when you make it.”

“I’ll see you then.”