Chapter 77 – Reality Check

AG. This one is 4.3k words. I'm pretty sure I hit the 20k words for the week and I feel mentally exhausted so it won't happen regularly, but it means that averaged over the last two weeks I beat my 10k minimum.

Four of the contenders had died.

Almost as one, all the survivors did their species’ equivalent of lowering their head to express grief at the deaths. Some made loud noises, others beat their chest, and one spat thick slimy mucus at each of the empty spots. It didn’t matter what the routine was - the intentions were clear.

Honour, mourn, and acknowledge.

Part of him thought about his own mortality, and the rest of him on the impact this would have on a declining species when one of their rising stars, potentially the best for generations, died. It was a sobering moment for both reasons. Unbidden, he found himself focusing on the empty spot closest to him. It was the one next to the squat creature that was rocking backward and forward ridiculously fast.

She had never spoken, at least verbally. Instead, she had flashed and communicated everything that she wanted to say. A determination to try, no matter the odds; a conviction that an effort, even if it was a one in a hundred chance or one in a thousand, was worthy; a belief that an attempt was better than accepting the status quo. She had been a child, and he could see Briana demonstrating similar stubbornness. Despite being strong enough to be here, she had been just that - a child. Then again, he was an adult, and he had made the same choice. When the lives and future of everyone you knew were on the line, no one who had struggled to be strong was going to back away from the fight.

In some ways, she never had a choice.

The presenter appeared, and each of the four spots were illuminated; then the ghosts of the dead manifested within them. GOD magic was in play because he knew, at an absolute level, he was seeing their souls. There was no debate. This was them, their conscience preserved at the point of their death for this moment. Having been in an almost identical situation, Tom knew that they would be aware that they had died, and he understood the agony that they must be going through to have realised that they had failed and there was no reset to make things better.

Tears were running down his face, and he didn’t care.

Let everyone else know how much this affected him. He would wear any scorn or condemnation for his emotions, because he felt terrible for them…

That, and the fact that it could easily have been him returning as a ghost.

When he glanced around, he realised he hadn’t needed to feel bashful about showing emotion - over half of those he could see were as affected by this as he was. The majority here were children; he wasn’t, and some species would mature faster, but DEUS would be equalising things. It was almost certain that everyone here was, at a fundamental level, a child.

They were children.

The ones who understood what death was cried, and those that didn’t… well, they would be crying too, if they truly understood what they were witnessing.

The presenter cleared her throat loudly, and Tom felt a compulsion to face her. Out of the corner of his eye, he could see that it had affected everyone, including the ghosts. She smiled, then sniffed and briefly shut her eyes tightly to prevent herself from breaking down.

“You died trying to save your species.” She said quietly, and then had to stop for a moment, one hand on her heart and the other covering her eyes as she lowered her head. She visibly regathered her composure, and then she looked up once more, a brave smile on her face. Part of Tom thought it was bullshit, a mockery of emotion, but the rest believed it. He consistently felt that avatars of DEUS, no matter how close or far away from her, they always cared. They might have been powerless to affect reality, but they had cared.

“You died trying to save your species,” she started again. “There is no grander ideal to pursue than that. Being willing to sacrifice yourself for others is something everyone here can respect. Your bravery will be remembered by all gathered. We salute you.” At those words, the ghosts faded away to nothing, and the presenter stopped and spun around to meet each of their eyes briefly. “We honour them and their cause, and I think, deep down, we understand why they did it.” She paused and swallowed heavily. “The reason for their deaths may be honourable, but do not delude yourself otherwise - they’re dead. Under the rules that this contest operates, under there are no hidden safety nets. Those four died, and they can do nothing further to help their species. There are no sweetheart deals, their soul will have their memory wiped and reborn as per the normal process. Think of what that means for those they leave behind, both those who loved them and those who would have been sheltered under their strength. This is a disaster for their species. As you make the choice to continue or push yourself to fight stronger enemies in the next round, consider the consequences of their choice. Pushing through to the end may not be the wisest course for all of us.”

“On that note, I’m sure you’re all interested in this.” She clicked her fingers, and a ranking ladder appeared right in front of his eyes in ghostly letters.

There were thirty-two lines on the table, with the bottom four crossed out. The information presented was simple. There was a picture, name and then score. Those in the desperate category had a brighter frame around their image to make it very clear who was contending for a spot.

The top fourteen on the list were in full colour, and those below them were greyed out. It made it very clear that half of the remaining were going through to the next round and not the top sixteen. Which meant it was likely there would only be three rounds, because if another two people died the third round, it would leave only three left competing for the spot.

Of the contenders, ten remained in the competition, four were dead, one had placed sixteenth and had failed to make the top fourteen, and the final two who had their species’ future guaranteed earlier had finished in the bottom section. Judging by their score, both of them must have fought under a GOD’s shield.

They were irrelevant. All that mattered was that there were ten left. Of those ten, any number from seven to four would go through to the next round, but most likely it would be five or six. Tom was certain that multiple people would die in the next round, as he knew how hard he was pushing himself, and he assumed the others were doing the same.

Then his brain registered the other critical detail of the table he was being shown: his own position and the score against each person. His heart sank as he comprehended the implications of those results. He felt like screaming in despair. They were too good.

“Fuck this,” he cursed. “If I don’t make it, do I get another chance?” he whispered.

“No,” the presenter answered him. He was looking at her, and he could see she was frozen like a statue. She was not using her body to talk to him. “Nobody gets more than one chance to be a contender.”

“But I need this, and…”

“You know why we do this.” She interrupted him. As she said that, he had an image of the bird and the aquatic person whose species had been saved, and he knew what she meant. The more people they could cycle through this process, the better. “Everyone gets one chance unless there is an opportunity for another species to save them, and then we cheat by using a divine intervention. As a competitor species, you’re not eligible for that; you can’t be saved. Under the rules, humanity needs to save itself.”

The entire conversation, Tom realised, had taken place instantly. He got the feeling the presenter had made use of his trait, and he was briefly functioning at ninety percent of the level that the avatar was capable of. It was a level of dilation where time might as well have stopped all together.

“I understand,” he whispered as he stared in shock at the score those above him had gotten. Around him, everyone else began moving at their normal pace. Tom realised he didn’t care.

The simple fact was that, despite giving everything since being reincarnated, he was too weak. If he had come into this body aged three, then the extra years of training might have made a difference. If… if… if.

Existentia didn’t care about ifs. It only cared about reality, and that painted a stark picture.

Tom had fought a four point five in the last round. It had given him seventy-two points, which placed him tenth. A fight right at the edge of his capability had only got him to the tenth place. It was enough to make him scream. There were seven contenders ahead of him, and the third through to sixth were all on the same score of eighty-eight.

They had all fought and beaten a five point five, a full rank over what he had done.

Just to stay in touch, he was going to need to fight a six and probably a six point five, because, to survive into the next round, he had to reach at least fifth place in case people died.

Time froze as his trait activated once more. “It’s not too late to back out.” Then it restarted, and the presenter was staring at him for a long two seconds before turning to look at the others. He wondered how many similar conversations she was having simultaneously, how many wasted attempts at saving lives she was churning through. He was confident that no one was abandoning the challenge this close to success.

He bit his lip as he tried to calculate what was the best way forward.

That cluster meant that, at a minimum, he had to fight a six. Unfortunately, he didn’t know the tie breaker rules, which would tell him if he had to push harder.

“It is based on the performance in the previous rounds,” the presenter told him.

He swallowed at that answer. That implied he might get knocked out unless he pushed to a six point five.

For a long moment, he considered whether that was possible. Then he shook his head. No, it wouldn’t work; it was gambling on there only being two rounds, because there was no way he would be able to beat a seven the round after. The problem was that, as ranks increased, so did skill and spells.

Mathematically, a rank seven was thirty percent stronger than a six point five, which represented physical power, coordination, resilience, and mana pool all being seven percent stronger, but the gap was larger than that. That rank seven would have additional battle experience and probably a couple of extra class levels, which might come with better passives, and possibly more spells or skills. Later on, it wasn’t so pronounced, but a single additional half a rank at this level would make them fifty percent more dangerous on average.

Given the gap he was already crossing, each advancement took his task from very unlikely to fifty percent more than that, which, he guessed, might class it as extremely unlikely. He couldn’t do it.

The fate he had invested into survival was the only thing that made what he was planning remotely feasible, even with Danger Sense being as powerful as it was due to his affinity. His first victory had been a miracle, his second would be… what? And then what about the third one? How far could forty-three fate truly stretch?  Three miracles had to be getting into the range of the absurd. Fate stretched probabilities. It did not create divine miracles.

Not six point five. He couldn’t take that. It was too much. Six he would risk, because, if he went any lower, then it was almost odds on that he would be kicked out even with a victory.  But he couldn’t convince himself to push any further. Even a six felt impossible, but it was an impossible that was fifty percent easier than it would have been if he pushed harder.

He made his selection, and a moment later he was back in the same arena.

“And our contender from yesterday is back,” the devil yelled.

Tom did not react to either how close the devil was or that apparently a day had passed. GODs were involved, and they could do what they wished, including screwing with timelines. Hopefully, he would return from this competition to find that no time had expired, or that his avatar had taken over, because, if he was left comatose in the isolation room, or, worse, just went missing for a day, that would draw unwanted attention.

“And he is here for another fight to the death.” The devil made a joke of examining him in detail, pacing around, prodding, and measuring him. “Back and no stronger, but this time he is fighting something that is a rank six instead of mid four. That’s a big jump.” The devil’s arm rested on his shoulder with a familiarity that he wanted to reject and fight against. He didn’t bother, of course. It was too strong and could do what it wanted. “Tell me, child, how do you hope to defeat a person who is almost six times faster than you?”

There was no real way he could answer that, because he didn’t know.

“How can you block an attack that has six times the strength that you have? Why are you here, child?”

“Because I need to be.”

“Are you here voluntarily?”

Mutely, he nodded.

“Then why challenge? Do you wish to die? Or perhaps you think you can win? Do you possess a tier nine combat skill?” 

“No.”

“Or a trait? Or any secret ability?”

Tom shook his head at both questions.

“Then why? Is it because you’re suicidal or because you’re a fool?” The devil looked sad, and from the past Tom knew it was being genuine. For all of its faults in taking the job it had, it genuinely wanted the best for those who fought in front of it. “You got lucky in your last fight. The creature you fought was broken, and even then, if it hadn’t listened to you like a moron, you would have lost. I ask again, why are you here?”

“For my family and to save my species.”

“And those,” the devil went back to addressing the audience. “Are the words that many contenders die after saying.”

Then the devil was gone, and Tom found himself armed once more.

Across from him, a new opponent was standing.

It was a raptor-like dinosaur with a massive flattened horn on its head. Raptor-like, yes, but not precisely so. It was heavier than those creatures, and its front arms ended in dexterous hands, one of which had an axe while the other was clutching some kind of hooked instrument. Intelligent eyes stared at him. There were three of them: two were at the side of the head, and the last was under the horn. All three were focused on him.

Tom wondered what it saw. It would know his rank, but what would it be thinking?

That made him contemplate what tactical considerations he would have had if he were in its position.

The obvious first thing to focus on was that it was a rank-zero in a gladiator fight to the death that was willing to challenge a rank six. That fact, in the absence of anything else, would set his alarm bells ringing. He would worry about the unknown. Questions like the ones the devil had asked would be his focus. Did this crazy opponent have a high-tiered battle ability, and, if so, and the positions were reversed, would Tom approach the fight?

He would try to go quickly, to overwhelm the no-name before the high-tiered combat abilities could come into play; to make use of his spear and strength to end everything quickly.

Also, because of fear of social or mind skills, he wouldn’t engage with the other person. Which was the exact attitude his opponent was taking. It, unlike the psycho moron, had said nothing.

They stood awkwardly and silently, watching each other. The devil’s voice was booming over the colosseum, extolling the virtues of the contest, wondering out loud how long it would go and what tricks the child would come up with.

Tom knew the truth.

He had screwed up, and the only thing that gave him any sort of hope was the fate that he had invested in surviving. It had been released before the random match-ups were selected. Theoretically, it should have given him an opponent he could match, if not beat. He prepared for the coming fight by pumping all of his mana into Spark, apart from a single point of precognition mana that went to Power Strike. He was positioned to be threatening for a single engagement. If the lightning failed, he would be helpless afterwards. 

Then he waited and watched as a bead of sweat trickled down his face. He suffered the tickling sensation, as he couldn’t afford the distraction necessary to brush it away.

There was no signal, but time slowed down dramatically. Visually, the movement in the stands had almost stopped between one moment and another, but the sound profile was the largest change. Clicks becoming drawn out was a very distinctive variation.

The fight was joined, and the barrier separating them had vanished. As he had predicted, it was charging him. Its head was down as it led with that horn, which was the size of a beach ball.

Blue light flared in front of it as it cast some sort of shielding spell. It was an overkill, but in its place Tom would have done the same thing: shock and awe and putting everything offensive and defensive into the first engagement to overwhelm any potential high tier surprises.

One relative second of the slowed time had passed, and it had crossed half the distance between them. Fifteen metres in a fraction of a second, it had accelerated to a race car speed almost instantly.

There was no time for thought.

He released both attacks that he had prepared, but lacked the time to adjust any parameters.

The creature hit him. His spear might have shattered its shield first - or then, again, it might not have. His brain, even with the trait activated, wasn’t quick enough to interpret the flash of information.

Pain, it was fine with, and he felt it. Physically, every part of him was screaming at him.

Then he was airborne. It did nothing to mitigate the throbs of agony going through his body.

His teeth had ended up in the back of his throat. He felt like his head had almost popped off. His torso had been affected the worst where it had struck. Despite his sideways evolution strengthening his bones by sixty percent, his entire rib cage was pulverised. Apart from the bonuses from Touch Heal, his body was am Earth-standard human one, and, between the speed and the horn, it was equivalent of him being hit by a wrecking ball.

The broken bones were the least of those problems.

A mana point regenerated, and he used it.

The dilation component of his healing was activated instantly, and he had a moment to understand what had happened. There were shattered bones, smashed organs, concussion from the force of the impact. His brain had been sloshed from one side of his skull to the other.

His heart was shredded by fragments of his ribs. Not one, but four pieces had gone through it, and then ended up stuck within the muscle.

Tom went into triage mode.

The first bits of mana were going to have to go to his brain to prevent it shutting down, which, in the state his body was in, would have meant death.  His sideways evolution of Touch Heal meant the heart, which would otherwise have been his primary focus, could wait.

Part of the damage to his brain was stitched together, and then he was left hurtling through the air. He crashed to the ground and rolled multiple times before coming to a halt.

It was all a bit of a blur. All he could say for certain was that he hadn’t run into the walls, so he had not been thrown eighty metres. His gut told him twenty, but who knew.

He was dying, and so he spent both points of fate on surviving the next few minutes. Then he threw himself into healing. The only upside to this whole thing was that his trait was no longer active. The person he had been fighting was not currently targeting him. If he was lucky, it would be dead, and it was clear that it had been susceptible to lightning, and his plan had worked. His spear must have shattered the magical shielding, and then Spark had hit it full force. If it was vulnerable, given its weight, that should have been enough to fry it.

He wondered what the audience thought. They probably thought he had lied about his lack of a high tiered combat spell, and likely attributed his success to some exotic lightning ability. Little did they know that it was nothing of the sort - just a tier-zero spell and a tier-one spear skill that appeared to be more because of the fate he had spent pre-battle. It was something only humans could do, so no one thought it was possible.

A minute passed and his brain stabilised, then he closed most of the cuts, then replenished his blood, and then started mending his heart.

He had done this dance often enough with April to know how it worked. All he had to do was to show he was not going to die, and then… The first slither of bone was extracted from the heart, and the world shivered.

Everything was a world of pain, but he felt his trait activate.

“You are not under a GOD’s shield. You have to do it all yourself. I’ve brought you here to allow you to do it without anyone watching.”

Tom had forgotten about that. Luckily, from experience, he knew that Touch Heal could fix anything. He went to work, patching himself up slowly and carefully. Unlike with April, he took the time to remove even the smallest of scars.

At one point, he opened his eyes to find he was facing down so he couldn’t see anything, and his body was not improved by the trait, and the dilation was so severe that he couldn’t turn to check out his surroundings. Helplessly, he shut his eyes and kept going. Eventually, everything was fixed and then, without a word being spoken, his trait deactivated.

Miraculously alive and no longer hurt, he looked up to see what had changed in the contender circle.

There was no convenient floating table of information to examine, so even though it mentally hurt to do it, he scanned the contenders circle and counted the empty spots. There weren’t many. Only an additional three were missing.

He hated that was not what he had secretly hoped to see.

That meant that eleven had finished the round.

Which meant six would go through…

Which meant six.

Which meant.

Which.

It was.

Tears ran down his face.

It meant there was going to be another round, and he had failed, because he couldn’t possibly battle a six point five.

There was no way he should have challenged a six. Fate had worked its miracle, but it couldn’t keep doing it. Probabilities could only be shifted so much before the weight of reality stopped them from being moved any more.

And he wasn’t sure it could change the chance enough, anyway. That creature, even if it was perfectly vulnerable to his one offensive magic school had, still almost killed him.

If it had been fifty percent stronger?

He might want to keep going, but he couldn’t.

Tom struck the ground and screamed.

He had failed. He had been so sure, when he had received the invitation to the contenders’ contest, that it was an advantage that would propel humanity to victory, but he had been wrong. It had been a mistake to strive to get in early. A grievous error to have qualified this young and so unprepared. He should have followed Corrine’s path. He had gone too close to the sun and gotten burnt.

It was Existentia.

It was unfair, bitterly so, but he knew his limits, and it shouldn’t have been any more than a four point five.

The dream was over.

Thankfully, his trait activated as the presenter gave him a small mercy. Locked in his head, frozen in time, he cried, screamed, and blubbered. He knew what failure tasted like, and he had never wanted to experience it again.

Yet here he was. He had risked so much. He had almost died again, twice.

And then this happened. A barrier that couldn’t be surmounted. One that was far beyond him. No matter how much his soul yearned for it to be otherwise, the plain simple fact was that his body was incapable of doing what was required.

He knew that was life - things were not supposed to work out perfectly every time, but he had been so certain, so convinced, and so wrong.

And it was unfair! Unfair! he screamed in his head.

Why had this happened?