His words echoed.
Under the rising sun the world shook. His world shook.
The oceans churned and bubbled. Small tidal waves rose and collapsed into hurricanes. Earthquakes split islands in two. Thunderclouds threatened to swallow the sun.
From all the chaos, the spirits of long dead Island-Dogs, Jungle-Cats, Frost Eagles and glacial-sharks emerged. They had to be moving by the thousands. Surrounding Claude.
The boy blessed by nature and life.
Now a beacon of death.
Fully representing nature. Both in light and dark. In life and death.
Wraith-Brutal stumbled backward.
"D-dark-god. Hey- hey! Go get Ronin! CALL THE NINE! Call the dark-eaters ERADICATE HI—"
Wraith-Brutal went limp suddenly and fell face first into the ground.
"Link severed." Claude realized as he tried not to let his eyes linger on the animated spirits, "That's it. It's over."
His knees buckled under his own exhaustion before stiffening in response to the Orc regaining true conciousness. He could immediately tell by the new movements. They weren't human. It didn't move like it had human proportions. It moved like an overweight pigish monster-man. Which it was.
A fact that was unavoidable as it tore off the childish wraith mask and cloak, allowing its massive frame to be truly taken in as hot magic infused saliva dripped down its tusks.
No chance the beast was like the Elf. Just hunger. Even with all the disorientation that must've came from waking up in a new terrain. It knew for certain Claude was edible. Him and the two students he stood over. Defending the defenseless.
The only problem was, he was defenseless too. Just awake enough to realize it. Which was more terrifying.
Claude called to the spirits as he stood alone. He pulled them close, like a shield of undeath.
The dark blue spirits spiraled and whistled through the air before collecting around him and morphing into a hybridized ageless beast. It surrounded him completely and froze the Orc in its tracks.
"Ohhhhhh this is insane." Claude huffed as he held his hands up to the shaken orc.
The beast looked ready to run.
"Please."
He could almost smell its terror.
"EUUURAGG—" Or not.
"GO!"
Claude commanded the undead forward.
The spirits disipated.
Instead of the Orc running him through, a scythe came from behind and ripped open its throat. It was still dripping with sea water.
The Orc stumbled.
A dark shape burst out of the water.
Percival landed on top of the Orc and ran his swords through its eyes.
"HEY! That wasn't the plan!!!" Brink jumped out of the water tackled the Orc like he wasn't a teenage human below level ten.
The Orc fell anyway, blind and gushing blood.
From there Brink spit fire bullets into its back.
More students and members of End's Island came rushing out of the water to finish off the Orc.
In a weird way it was almost wholesome. They weren't fighting eachother to take the final batch of points. They weren't rushing for the kill to make their own.
Like Claude— like his dream, they did what they would as heroes. They did their job to better the world.
"But what even is the world. They would've done that to the good monster— to the elf, too. Would I? I mean…." Claude was too tired to follow the thought process as Naz approached him.
"You thought you could escape me, Liberator?"
"He thought he could escape us all. What an asshat, HAHA!" Brink wiped steaming saliva off his lips and used it to heat treat his spiky Mohawk.
"Defending the man who was hunting you the entire event. I think many would admire you. I begin to question your intelligence and the basis of our rivalry." Darius said as he trailed behind the battle-mage.
"Guys…." Claude shivered as the spirits disipated. He could hear Anubis laugh. Calling him a fool for reasons he didn't know.
"What?"
"Hey, man. Why do you look so sad? We made it! You got first place!" Trey came up and slapped Claude on the arm, beginning to heal him with his warm sage scented magics.
"What? No I didn't. Samuel's first….. But— my power. Anubis chose me. It's how I stopped the Orc. The spirits of the dead…. I…."
Everyone looked at him like he was insane.
Brink even started to laugh, "HAHAA!! What part of the plan is this? You, a beast tamer, just won the Island Gauntlet, without your companions. And now… you try to tell us it was you chosen by a Dark-god? Where's the dark god power? Wait…. You didn't take Samuel's points? ARE YOU STUPID? Take them now!"
"No." Claude said.
Brink looked genuinely angry for the first time in a while, "Why? What's this plan?"
"There is no plan. The points do nothing. It's not how we work in the real world."
"That statement presupposes that none of this was real." Darius replied.
"Sometimes it feels like it wasn't." Claude said.
The others stared.
Claude spoke again, "I thought it was Anubis. The spirits were mine."
"Anubis doesn't even manipulate spirits." Darius watched him with confusion. "He makes his chosen necromancer's, offering endless corpses in the form of dead warriors who don't bring enough gifts to him in the afterlife. No spirits. Only long dead physical bodies. You can smell a chosen of Anubis long before you see them."
"Then what…?"
"Maybe you're hallucinating? You look like roadkill." Goren was suddenly standing in front of him with Stella and Enzo.
Claude felt his vision blur.
"Oh hell no." Stella pushed Goren closer to Claude.
"Our first placer isn't passing out. That's embarassing. Fix him."
"He's not first place. The blonde burn victim on the floor is our class Champion…. I guess." Brink clarified, now walking past Claude, but not touching Samuel.
Goren began healing Claude.
His mind spiraled.
"Was I not chosen? Anubis spoke to me. I wielded the spirits. My system…. Wait— my system."
As Goren healed Claude, he brought up his system screen.
***
Name: Claude Grey
Class: Beast-Tamer
Race: Human (Defect)
Title: None
Level: 7 (710/800)
Stat Points: 0
HP: 200
MP: 200
Stamina: 25
Strength: 17
Willpower: 15
Intelligence: 5
Accuracy: 16
Speed: 30
***
"No title…. No god. Then what did I see? What did the Hex blade see?" Claude thought.
Before he could think on it any further, a whistle blew in the distance, drawing everyone's eyes to the sky where the sun was just beginning to rise.
They did it.
The Island Gauntlet was finished. And once more, Claude was even further confused.
He'd won in a way, but he was far from victorious.
And the real competition was just beginning.