Gregory felt chills on his back as he rushed towards the main base.
"What a fucking lunatic!", he was glad he only had to give up his slate, there were barely any tokens on it anyway. His core was full of mana, and he didn't use any willpower, yet he felt exhausted and sick of what was happening. Why did he have to go through this? He never hurt or pained anyone, yet here he was, healing his burnt hand.
It didn't take long before he reached the main camp, a bunch of tents were neatly arranged and people were moving to and fro. One of the students responsible for writing and summarizing reports saw him enter and called the guards.
"Oliver, we're in trouble. There's a student who massacred my entire squadron, he took all our tokens as well, we need to stop him.", Gregory didn't look that hurt, only his hand seemed to be burnt. Oliver was the second in command among their group, he had special training from Simon and was a great aide to their leader.
"Care to explain how you survived then? You're the healer, right? Why would the prime target of any attacker survive a so-called massacre?", Oliver didn't like how he looked to be in a perfect condition. When inspecting him, he still had a ton of mana left, so why did his allies fall?
"No, listen to me, I can explain! He exploded a core from another dead mage, a taboo! We were all taken by surprise, our scout warned us way too late!", like Gregory said, using cores as a weapon was seen as a taboo since it's said that the cores contain the souls. Destroying the core meant erasing their soul and any possibility of survival in a different form.
"If you got caught in the explosion, then why do you only have some bruises on your hand? Were you so busy prioritizing your own wounds that you couldn't heal the others? Plus, doesn't every healer hold that trump card? Why didn't you use it?"
The trump card that Oliver was talking about would heal a person that was on the edge of death, a true miracle that many desired and fought for. Miracles, sadly, are a rare thing in Aurora, using it would drain the life from one person and give it to the other. An exchange of health, so to speak.
Gregory obviously didn't use it, not because he didn't know how to. Rather, his own life felt a lot more important than his friends, no matter how cruel that may be.
Silence. Gregory had no excuse and knew that it was already too late. Convincing someone that was already suspicious of you with no concrete evidence was extremely difficult. Especially since lying wouldn't solve anything. He was talking to Oliver, one of the few people on the island who knew so much about how they worked.
"Gregory, what happened?", Oliver's tone was cold enough to give him shivers of a different kind.
After his explanation, Oliver knew what needed to be done. "You're lucky we were going to investigate it in the first place. But if what you said is true, it means that monster has 5 more cores to use. Luckily, we're still alive, meaning he didn't follow you. Sticking together or splitting up are both dangerous options, but our chances of survival are higher if we move as one.", creating a shield that was strong enough to block the explosion of an entire core wasn't easy to do alone.
Oliver started to group everyone together and made everyone work together to create a barrier strong enough to withstand the power of a few cores. While the shield was strong, their mobility was cut down. Moving slowly, and methodically they reached the site of the massacre.
"What in the...!", some men didn't know what they were seeing. In the middle of the crater, a massive stone cross stood strong. The leader of the fallen squadron was hung up at the cross, with his arms stretched out and pinned into the cross with stone pikes.
The rib cage was pulled opened, and the organs were dangling down, the legs were gone. The blood flowed down the guts until it gathered enough to form a drop large enough to fall down into the pool of blood and bodies below.
Skin was ripped off from certain skulls but only partially, the jaw was unhinged and pulled wide. Arms and legs lay broken among the remaining body parts in a massive pile of blood and gore. The iron smell of blood easily reached the group. The image of the mutilated bodies were too much for some, making them turn around and vomit. They had only just eaten their breakfast, but their bodies couldn't stomach it.
Oliver stared frozen at the disgusting scene, he wasn't prepared to handle such a thing. He couldn't even blink, mesmerized by the body that was crucified, afraid to look away since his composure was at the brink of breaking. Any movement was halted to try to make sense of what was in front of them.
Seeing his men and underlings barf and the fear in their eyes surprisingly made him more grounded. He was above them, he needed to be better than them. He would stand strong even at the cost of his mental wellbeing.
"I guess what you said wasn't all lies, we're dealing with a complete lunatic.", Gregory didn't feel happy being acknowledged or partly trusted, he himself was having trouble keeping his cool. They were mostly normal people following orders. They killed, that's for certain, they didn't play with the bodies though. Oliver tried to find a reason for why someone would do such a thing. Thinking logically and looking for a cause made him gather some of his calm.
Still, even when he tried to think of a reason, nothing came up, nothing but a madman's crazed joy.
Looking past the blood and guts, Oliver could see a small stone reading platform. A small pillar with a wider flat surface at the top. There wasn't any paper on it, only some scribbles were distinguishable from afar. Leaving the barrier was a terrible idea, asking everyone to follow him into the blood pool also wasn't such a great request, but his life was more important than the wellbeing of the others.
"Men, let's go to the center, I can see a few words written down over there. There's no reason for this monster to leave any kind of message behind unless he wants us to follow him. Follow me."
Moving closer to the platform, the ground started to become wet, as if rain had been falling for hours. The water had a light red color, mixing in with the massive amounts of blood. The mud was especially sticky and hard to walk through. Trudging their way forward, Oliver reached the platform and quickly read the message.
Suddenly the ground beneath them started to rumble, the ground became uneven. The air crackled with tension as a massive amount of mana was starting to chaotically clash against everything it could find in its path.
"SHIELDS!!!"
A colossal shockwave emanated from beneath them. Light peered through the cracks in the ground. A ginormous explosion shook the island as the entire clearing in the woods was leveled. The shockwave obliterated the trees and everything around the open area. Flames reached high in the sky as it consumed everything it found in fire.
A massive pillar of smoke was visible from all around the island. The clearing was now a chaotic display of pure destruction. The blood and bodies were all gone, turned to ashes.
Still, a true mage was known for being tenacious. Sadly, there weren't many true mages among the group, only Oliver could open his eyes once more.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Far away almost on the other side of the island, Simon and the Ice Princess were fighting against the final mutated human. It had reached Rank 2, but was brand new to that Rank and was easy to handle, especially since they were with two.
Simon was high in the air as he saw the ground beneath him start to rumble and quake. Tracing the source, he found the pillar of smoke in the distance. Suddenly, a wall of sound and air flung him back, being in the air, he was dragged for a while.
'What was that!?'
"Simon! Is that your doing!?", the Ice Princess knew that Simon had a lot of plans, their fight against the mutated human was just a little side piece. Her tone contained some worry, but he could tell she wanted to be seen as composed.
"No, this... Oh, I see, the games have started Princess.", Simon knew right away who was acting out of his predictions. "Do you have a close contact to Mino?"
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Lucas was quite far away in at the top of a tree as he admired the explosion. "Hahahaha, what a beauty!", he couldn't hold his laughter and joy in. The wind pressure arrived not long after the explosion, making him protect his face. His hair was pushed back by the wind, but he couldn't help but keep a smile on his face.
"Absolutely beautiful.", Lucas killed a lot of people on the island, he wasn't picky when it came to cores. He gathered quite a few and wanted to see how big an explosion would be if all of them went off at once.
'Do you think they're dead?'
"Who cares? The goal wasn't to kill them, right? Just to announce that this game isn't over yet."
'Sigh, what a waste of resources. Well, we couldn't have used them anyway, or our progress would've been even more damaged. At least we've attracted enough attention. We should meet up with Asta and gather some meat with him.'
"Hold on.", Lucas regained his seriousness and quickly hid his presence. Moving between the trees he ventured towards the base of the volcano.
'What? Are you trying to sense someone? The mana disruption from the explosion is going to make it difficult.'
"I can smell the son of a bitch."
'....excuse me?'
Lucas moved forward, jumping between the trees trying to track down his target.
"There.", looking ahead he found a familiar face. A red haired man was staring in the direction of the explosion. He seemed intrigued to go forward, but noticed someone eyeing him. Eliot scoured the area around him, trying to find the watching presence.
Lucas jumped down from the tree and started to leisurely walk towards Eliot. Part of him wanted a fair fight, or at least a somewhat fair fight.
"What are you thinking? Wanna take some revenge for being humiliated back then?", for once Lucas had the capacity to whisper instead of talking out loud, otherwise his position wouldn't have stayed very hidden.
'No, I have put myself past my previous failure, you can deal with him however you want.'
"Good, I held myself back, during that tournament. Watching you struggle to fight a single idiot was embarrassing. At least this is going to be fun."
'Just one thing.'
"What? Changed your mind already?", Lucas said with a tinge of annoyance.
'Make sure he suffers before you kill him.'
"HAhahaha, and you call me the cruel one. Eliot! You bastard!", Lucas yelled and easily gave his position away. The spell hiding his aura was still active, but making so much noise wouldn't be held back.
"I thought I felt a disgusting presence in the area. So the lowly commoner has survived until the final day? Probably by hiding away all the time. You will pay for your crimes today, I'll make sure of it!", Eliot pointed at Lucas while glaring at him. He was wearing expensive clothes and had a few artifacts on him. This wasn't going to be an easy fight.
"Crimes? What the hell did I do?", his nonchalance pissed Eliot off.
"You framed my teacher, you killed an innocent girl, you cheated in the competition, you manipulated others around you, you humiliated nobles and their standing. This list of aggravations just keeps growing every single day! You're a pest in this society, and I'll prove to you who truly stands above you!"
Eliot seemed extremely righteous in his actions, he felt that he was completely in the right to serve justice.
"Now, without the rules of the competition, I challenge you to a duel to the death! I want to make sure justice is served this day! Normally, Matheo would be with me, but you hid so well we had to split up. We never expected you'd be such a rat that you would hide away, scared from us."
"Jeez, what's with these nobles and their whole act. What a joke.", Lucas was sitting on a rock with his head lazily placed in his hand.
"If you taunted me like so a few months ago, you might've gotten a reaction. But I have grown a lot more than you can think! My duty is to remove scum like you from this earth, and I'll be successful this time. In the competition you surprised me and I acted foolishly, I can see that now, but now, you won't win! Be prepared!"
Eliot summoned his flame sword, the exact same one Lucas used as a basis for his own experiment. Seeing the spell in action again, Lucas stared daggers at it.
"Before we fight, could you explain how you do that?", he asked without any worry in his voice. Eliot felt insulted, as if fighting him was an easy task.
'I'll show that bastard!'
Eliot rushed in and slashed forward, acting way out of his noble ways. Lucas was surprised, but the emotionless eyes already knew something like this could happen. Moving his arm up his skin was covered in stone, but on that stone grew a large shield of ice.
The sword landed on the shield, immediately melting the upper layer of the shield, but stopping the motion midway.
Standing in that position, they looked each other in the eyes. Eliot was serious and tried to focus on killing him, while Lucas started to grin slightly. The part of Lucas that had a lot of trust issues and tried to not take any risks couldn't help but enjoy a good fight.
Against many students on the island, he had such an easy time it was boring. Now, things would finally be interesting.
Lucas waved his shield, making Eliot jump back. Standing straight, Lucas cracked his knuckles before taking a stance. "Let me show you one of my new tricks."
A light blue aura started to appear around his hands. Similar to a certain advisor, the mana around his hand stayed in a fluid state without any kind of special element mixed into it, but not pure mana either. It's still being created, constantly in motion, the mana can turn into anything at his command.
"Ready for round 2?"