PoV Areus
Kane wasn't the best teacher when it came to the magical arts, but he was unmatched when it came to aura. He had mastered every known element and was even recognized by the top 100 hunters as the most talented rookie of his generation. Such a bright future ahead...
'I still remember those days with you, when we were still your apprentices. You saw that we had trouble socializing with the others, so you often dragged us to a bar to drink with the others.'
He would often end up just flexing his love life on us while being drunk. He was someone who was extremely kind and caring, just like Daniel. That makes Hyung's offense all the more offensive and unforgivable.
'And for what, a bit of power he never ended up getting? Jealousy? Envy? What's there to be envious of? He worked extremely hard all his life to get where he is now. Have you ever tried to work half as hard as him, Hyung?'
I tightened the grip I had on my weapon while slowly feeding my shield as much aura as possible. At the same time, I made my illusion move towards what looked like their blind spot while creating one in Joy's mind in front of him.
'You were just a lowborn that could be found anywhere on the streets. You sold your body to make a living; you never became a hunter to better yourself. You just wanted petty revenge for a problem you created for yourself.'
As soon as I finished healing my arm, I teleported in front of Joy and Hyung.
'That's why pests like you need to be eradicated from this life.'
"Areus, stop!" shouted Joy in vain as he tried to create an illusion around me with his mana.
As I pressed the button close to my pinky finger, the aura blade extended itself and pierced both of them.
"I changed my mind, Joy. Leaving him alive was a mistake. He's incompetent, lazy, and arrogant. I will never accept him as my superior."
I then tried to move the sword upwards, trying to rip them off, but Joy stopped me from doing so, catching the blade with both hands and keeping it firm in place.
I then teleported towards my projection. It was located right above them and was in the process of swinging the sword to cut Hyung in half now that Joy was too occupied holding my blade.
But before I could finish him off, something grabbed me from behind and threw me away into a faraway building.
'It's all useless! As long as I have the-' I suddenly noticed that my illusion had disappeared.
I immediately flew towards them to check what the cause of their sudden disappearance was. While I was flying over there, I noticed that most of the buildings had started reverting back. Every broken piece had started to go back to where it belonged, as if the damaged time was moving backwards.
'That's Chris's ability, but why would he protect-'
The answer was simple: it was not Chris but Daniel. He had managed to figure out all the information about Chris's ability and could now successfully copy it.
He was rebuilding the neighborhood we had just destroyed and had put both Hollis and Hyung into his healing cocoon.
As I tried to get closer to Hyung's cocoon, a portal appeared before me in an instant, and it closed almost as soon as it appeared once I passed through it.
PoV God of Combat.
Creating scenarios and monsters has always been fun for me. I was the only one who liked the art of creating new species. I have been like this since time immemorial. Mortals always praised my power, looked at me like a god, and prayed to me whenever they were about to enter a fight and were uncertain of the outcome.
In return, every time they won, I would bless them with knowledge and a new goal. The path to power was never an easy one, but when the number of worthy opponents diminished to a miniscule number, they began to rot. Most of them got corrupted by the seed of cowardice other gods had implanted in them. They started to value mortal pleasure above the pursuit of glory and power.
Imitating the God of the Hunt was the only solution in my mind. My brother suggested the creation of a figure others would look up to, a hero of the people who used their power responsibly while also remaining humble.
I quashed the idea and decided on a more radical approach. I started creating monsters whose sole purpose was to hunt down the powerful ones and clean them up before starting again.
'If those other gods just hadn't intervened, the mortals would have reached new heights…'
As I was watching how the mortals would clear the scenarios I had prepared for them, I heard someone landing behind me, so I changed our surroundings. The clouds we were resting on had begun to compress, forming a solid with a marble-like appearance. Slowly, I started building a temple around us, with many columns surrounding us in a circle. Each column had a white dragon wrapped around it, and each dragon was looking at the visitor.
It was a lesser god. He was covered in jewels and many other golden accessories, while also wearing a pure white vest.
"You finally revealed your true intentions you-" He immediately started berating me as soon as he found me.
"Calm down, mhhhh... whoever you are."
He seemed a bit angered by the fact I couldn't recognize him, then he tried to get closer as he kept speaking.
"How can I calm down when the humans are about to break the first seal?" He shouted while creating a floating mirror showing some humans trying to break the first seal.
"I never once hid my intentions; we made a deal. A deal you all accepted." I said, barely looking at him.
"You were supposed to protect the seals; THAT WAS THE DEAL!" He was very dramatic in his gestures.
"I did; I sent in the army you gave me. I can't do more than this. I have my hands full with the upcoming scenarios."
"Do you really want to see our universe crumble at the feet of that arrogant-"
I then gestured to him to stop talking and created an invisible wall to stop him from getting any closer.
"I don't care. I never cared about living beings the way you did. If you don't want him to conquer your land, it's up to you to stop him. If you can't protect what's dear to you, then you have no right to complain when someone steals or breaks it." I replied.
"Your arrogance will bring downfall to-"
I then got up and slowly walked towards him while slowly pushing him with mana.
"You're part of the arrogant ones. Believing you could bend reality at your will, you not only forgot your place, you forgot your duty as well."
"We only did what was right!" He refused to back down and started using his own powers to stop the wall from pushing him any further.
"You did what you BELIEVED was right. If you want to stop the mortals, you can always send in your army. It's certainly powerful enough to easily trample on those soldiers. " I objected.
"Please think about it. Those guys were made to suffer. If we let them escape their punishment, we will also pay the price." Someone else this time tried to reason with me.
"I don't care. Since my power is not threatened by them, I see no reason to get involved, especially after all the restrictions you put in place." I answered.
"If you don't do anything-" Another one joined the discussion, but this time he seemed less intelligent than the previous deities.
"You should've asked the administrator. He can easily bend the rules at his will, right? Oh, that's right, he can't. Any more restrictions will speed up the process of decay. You brought this upon yourself." I said to them.
After that, I started to slowly color the wall gray, and once it stopped being see-through, I made it turn black instantly. I also isolated the room in order to not hear that guy talking.
I then opened a portal that led to one of the planets that was currently in my possession. It is the one I used as a model to create the one where the trial is currently held. Here I test things out with my dutiful and totally unforced servants.
'I even went to the trouble of building a 150-story tower that was also connected to the floating ocean.'
Most test subjects found it extremely tedious to go up the stairs to so many floors. That's the main reason in the trial that the stairs are, for the most part, directed downward. Now that the amount of mana is about to increase, I can finally go a little wild with the changes. Unfortunately, it's not enough yet to introduce dragons to the environment, but I feel like I'll have to wait a long time before I'll be able to successfully introduce them to the planet.
First off, with this huge wave of mana, I will finally be able to introduce predators that can actually use aura. Since most participants seem to want to master aura, I should avoid predators that rely on mana to hunt their prey, as that would put them at a direct disadvantage.
Another thing I have to change is probably the future scenarios. Since the mana will be slowly morphing their bodies, I should change the scenario to match their bodies' changes.
'So many things and so little time, it's really exciting.'
As I entered the massive tower, I started walking past the many animals caged in the many rooms that covered the walls. The first 50 floors were composed mainly of birds or other flying creatures. From floors 51 to 100, there were the land animals, and lastly, there were the aquatic animals. Since the last 50 floors were connected to the floating ocean, I had gathered far more aquatic animals than any other land or flying ones.
"Still, once upon a time, my collection was way bigger. How bothersome."
I had to constantly pour mana into their containers to keep them alive; otherwise, the poor creatures would starve to death. Thankfully, a dear friend of mine has offered to keep them in exchange for a very small favor.
As I was reminiscing about sweeter times, I suddenly stopped at the enclosure of the Fire-eating Hornets, quite the grand name for just some hornets that were immune to fire aura-based attacks. As soon as they saw me, they immediately grouped in front of the barrier that separated us and started attacking it with all their power.
'Not so intelligent animals; I wonder who created them.'
Whoever it was, it was probably a mistake of their youth. Because they were so strong and numerous in their own habitat, they quickly rose to the top of the food chain, causing more trouble than good.
They were probably the biggest insects I could afford to keep. They were as big as a small car, and their exoskeletons were extremely sturdy. They were also capable of creating stingers with their magic and launching them. Instead of having to manually control them, the stingers were heat-seeking. Another useful weapon they had was a complex organ that allowed them to shoot bubbles of spit and air like bullets. The reason why the stupid hunters called them fire-eaters was because they were able to absorb, process, and transform fire aura into mana.
They were, for the most part, orange with blue stripes on their bodies.
Right now, they were blindingly charging at the barrier made out of many small hexagons. Some of them even started using their own stingers, and I could see poison slowly dripping out of them.
"Whatever God created them, he is surely a funny man, considering he even gave them the ability to see the mana in the air."
As I started to chuckle, I saw some of them starting to create their stingers and launch them towards the barrier, so I decided not to disturb them any further.
Right beside them were the Grilic Peacocks. I never really understood the meaning of that name. The hunter who discovered them was probably drunk, but the others were respectful enough to let him name them that way.
I sighed.
Those peacocks were very special to me. I created them when the hunters started to become too proud of their own strength. They had started to become naive, so I used this to teach them a valuable lesson. A silver-feathered peacock, with the males having extremely vibrant colors on their tail. They were ever-changing. The little guy's specialty was illusion. He would then blind the hunters by eating the eyes of their victims and running away. It was a species that could not survive on its own due to my poor mistake in creating it.
'I learned a lot from them. Why did I put them right beside the hornets?'
As I kept exploring my made-up zoo, I found that a lot of the birds were trembling and plucking out their feathers. They were also wearing special collars that wouldn't allow them to attack each other.
"What happened here?"
As I checked, most of the animals affected were small ones. Most of them had started to behave weirdly. The common symptom was extremely aggressive and territorial behavior, even among social animals that lived in large groups.
'I'll check them out later when I have more free time, but for now I should focus more on the trial.'