"It shows ranks rather than names, and the groups were made according to rank. We are to choose ourselves. The lowest group available, Ranks 81 to 90, while the highest is 11 to 20. We have ten minutes."
"What about Rank 91-100?" Imani asked. Everyone began converging around Alex, including Avery.
"They're not an option, probably dead."
"Let's go for the second lowest ranks. We work our way up, then fight against the lowest ranks right before the highest ranks."
"Reasonable idea Elijah, let's go with that?" Dahlia turned to Alex, expecting her input, but was extremely surprised to see an unfamiliar expression on her face. It was hard to tell as Dahlia, who had not known her for a long time, but Dahlia felt that her usually stony expression had frozen even more.
While Dahlia was thinking this, Alex answered as she usually would, calmly and succinctly.
"As long as everyone agrees, I'm fine with any arrangement... However, there is another issue I would like to address." Alex appeared calm, but within, she was extremely irritated. This entire stage had so many things wrong with it that Alex realized yet again how insignificant they were to the mighty deity.
"At the start of the battle, I was informed that the death of any team's leader would result in a permanent death for all participating members of the team, whether it is by our hand or not. "
"That sounds bad..." Maria was the first to express her concerns, and others echoed her words.
"This only stands to benefit us. We never planned to let anyone die in the first place, so this addition doesn't affect us adversely." Dahlia spoke up to silence their fears. Alex knew speaking at this juncture would only reflect badly on her, so she was thankful for Dahlia's intervention.
Alex chose the team consisting of Ranks 71-80 and everyone dispersed, going to their corners or forming groups of two. Alex stayed on her own, absorbed in her thoughts. After about three minutes, she saw Dahlia standing beside her resting place with Elijah and Isaiah a step behind.
"Can I help you with something?" Alex stood up to face them, internally suspicious of their arrival.
"Did something happen?"
"What is wrong?"
Dahlia and Elijah spoke at nearly the same time. They stared at each other for a few fleeting seconds, but returned their gazes to Alex.
'Have I become so easy to read?' Alex was not happy about this, as it seemed twelve years of being expressionless did not grant her perfect proficiency. Alex was momentarily puzzled about how it concerned them, but soon concluded that they were only interested out of fear that she had withheld more worrying information from them.
Alex wanted another opinion on her concerns so she decided to tell them the truth. All of them seemed intellectually operative at least.
"There is something wrong with this entire stage." Dahlia's face scrunched up in confusion before morphing into a brief realization.
"You mean how there is nothing remotely fair about it right?" Dahlia was on point.
"That, and how the stage seems to have no distinct purpose." And so was Isaiah.
'Being around mentally operational people is a rarity. I should be grateful.' Alex thought to herself and nodded slightly. She gestured for them to sit on the large quilt and explained why this bothered her.
"In this stage, they gave us rules, yes. However, they gave us incomplete rules, leaving out important snippets. These snippets they left out to change the entire game and how we should play it. They intentionally misled us. This stage tests more than just fighting ability, rather, it puts a person's entire capabilities into question. How well can they fight? How well can they manipulate others? How shrewd are they? For us, it is a question of how will we dominate, but for the lower ranks, it is about how far they can go, to survive."
Elijah, Isaiah, and Dahlia all seemed to have come to a severe realization, but Alex was not done.
"If they can mislead us once, they can do it twice. They're manipulating us."
"They're grooming us to be ruthless and cold in the most subtle way possible, our own choices."
"Whatever this game is, it is certainly not for our benefit. There is an obscure purpose for this, and it is not going to be kind to us. " Alex finished her monologue with a grim look. If the information they received could not always be trusted, they would be forced to navigate through with a partial blindfold. Only seeing little and not the entire canvas. Information was power, and they had none. Not to mention the deity who was attempting to influence their characters and essentially build them the way she wanted. She could never be trusted.
After a few moments of silence, Elijah spoke up.
"If we can't even rely on information, then we'll just rely on ourselves. Trust and know yourself and your abilities and nothing else. I think we'll be fine, and if we are extremely cautious, they won't be able to turn us into their puppets." Elijah was right. Alex relied too much on the information they gave, while knowing how they had used it against others before. She had become lax. One of her beliefs was to question everything until she had found certainty herself. The only illumination she could ever rely on was herself. Nothing was trustworthy about this deity and no one was to be arbitrarily trusted.
Not much was said as they fell into a reflective silence. Shortly after, everyone in the cave burst into familiar, glowing specs of white.
Alex was overjoyed when saw a pickaxe in her hand. A wonderful change from the stone, she was dressed in an overall of poorly stitched animal pelts. They were located in a large clearing within a much brighter cave. This cave had much more space and the ceiling was a perfect dome. There were no stalactites or stalagmites and only shimmering crystals around the cave which brilliantly shone in the cave.
'So they change our weapons and outfits as well.'
Behind the group of ten in animal pelts were numerous tunnels stretching deeper into the underground depths. However, this group was not Alex's group. Their group only had a single tunnel behind them. The group opposite hers stared at them in a small moment of contemplation before some rushed at them, while a few others took off into the tunnels.
The few seconds before, this was all Alex required to send signals to her group, telling them what to do. She threw her pickaxe straight into one of the deserters and chased the other two. She pushed at full speed and was able to reach across the vast distance in two seconds. She kicked one to the other before they could even realise what was going on and broke their legs. The other escapee was lying in a pool of his blood, but Alex still broke his legs after retrieving her pickaxe.
She called for Imani and directed him to kill all three of them.
"Why me?"
"Have you seen the weapons the rest got? Terrible."
"Fine."
One runner was the team leader, so Alex was not in too much of a hurry to attack the other ones. She wanted to wait for something, any indication of a time limit like in the previous match.
Alex got what she wished for soon enough, as a shattering earthquake shook their location. Everything and everyone shuddered with vibrations. The ceiling, which had seemed so sturdy before, powdered slightly.
Primal fear did not overwhelm them this time, but the effect was evident.
Alex was still in no rush. She wanted to know exactly how long this time limit was and understand what would happen if it elapsed. Although she already had a slight idea about the consequences of exceeding the time limit, she required certainty.