You’re safe, he reminded himself. The disk would have triggered if your death was imminent.

  But at the same time, he could remember the GODs. DEUS wouldn’t allow this to be an execution, but if they wanted to test him, if the ones that hated him and the neutral ones ganged up on DEUS and her allies…

  What then?

  Did the Danger Sense ritual not triggering mean anything?

  He licked his lips.

  Nope, it would do nothing if the GODs desired for this to be a real challenge. They could have suppressed his artefact easily. While his preparations told him he was guaranteed a victory, Tom was not so sure now. This match-up did not feel favourable.

  Worriedly, he glanced around at the lush vegetation and the numerous trees, and they were the opposite of what he wanted. Then he looked at the monster’s clothes once more, and at what they almost certainly signified.

  There was no point in panicking.

  His experience from those forty years in the tutorial meant he understood that the situation called for simplicity, at least until first contact. He was going to try to shock and awe it into submission while retreating to get some solid wood between him and the creature.

  He centred himself, focused on everything and nothing, and then the familiar calm of his battle trance took over.

  The countdown hit zero, and Tom reacted instantly.

  In preparation he had crouched and now, after burning a burst, leapt sideways to reach the cover as quickly as possible. Time slowed down as his traits kicked in, and, since he was looking for it, he felt his attributes soar. He was now physically faster and stronger, but mentally too. The two traits combined to enhance his spell casting speed, and, in an eighth of the time it usually took, he had created two Lightning Javelins and sent them hurtling toward the enemy. Precognition mana infused both to give them a shield breaking component along with the Remote Power Strike being at nearly the full strength to ensure the projectiles could pierce the strange armour the creature possessed.

  Out of the corner of his eye, he was monitoring the enemy. The monkey saw where he was heading, and, without hesitation, went the other way. Tom registered that decision and immediately catalogued the creature as a ranged spell caster. Two steps later, he had a baseline on his opponent – one inferred from his improved attributes and perception of time.

  Possibly unsurprisingly, given that it relied on ranged offence, it was only tier-five, which, for a terror race, was low.

  As Tom sprinted, his worst fears were realised. The surrounding vegetation moved unnaturally, vines twisted and leaves shifted to follow his progress as though they were sentient. Internally, he cursed. The arena they found themselves in was the definition of unfair… but then, he guessed, so was the human racial trait that gave him faith that he would win this fight, provided the GODs weren’t interfering excessively.

  His gut clenched at that thought. He didn’t know if it was paranoia speaking or that bit that let him recognise the truth. However, his mouth went dry as he realised the fight was a real one. This was life or death and there were no guarantees as to who would fill each role. The hostile arena, a spell caster that probably didn’t need line of sight, and the cover that would only hinder him – all of it worried him.

  A vine lashed towards him, so quickly at that that, without his attribute boosts, he would have been decapitated before he even saw it. As it was, he had time to react, but barely so. Without a conscious thought, he twisted out of the way, and a point of fate was released as Fateful Repositioning triggered automatically.

  Tom grabbed the fate and, without hesitation, focused it on ensuring he survived for the next four minutes. A single point couldn’t do much, but if the GODs were indeed against him, it might help. A tree root ripped itself from the forest floor, he leapt over it, and while airborne, risked a glance at his opponent.

  Fuck you, he screamed inside his head. He had been hoping for it to be prone on the ground and being electrocuted. Instead, it had paused at the edge of the cleared area, and three roots had risen in front of it like serpentine sentinels. Two of them had smouldering sections one of which surrounded a hole going straight through the root. Whatever they were, a trait or a racial ability or a spell, they had intercepted his attack, and, with them being made of wood, even the hole he had left in one of them was not going to help him, as Tom knew. Energy wise, they were still close to full strength.

  His mind rushed furiously. Should he close to melee or pepper it with ranged attacks? Could a massive, ranged barrage overwhelm its defences?

  The monkey made a gesture, and a green web shot from its fingers. The quasi-physical spell moved deceptively quickly, clearly ignoring earth’s physics, as it was not slowed at all by wind resistance.

  Danger Sense trilled a warning, not the frantic you’re about to die kind of alarm, but rather a don’t let the web touch you because it’ll eat through your flesh like pouring water on a salt pile one. There was no time to react apart from slashing it with his spear. As his weapon touched the magical strands, Tom ordered it to absorb the magic. The web split down the middle, and a significant section of it vanished as the energy was sucked into his spear.

  The remnants struck the vegetation on either side of him with an unpleasant sizzling sound.

  An attack was deadly if it entangled him, and. Unfortunately, he wouldn’t be able to use his spear to negate it again. He could feel that his spear was on cooldown. It had absorbed as much magic as it could, and only removed part of the web. Tom didn’t know what tier the web was, but he suspected it was above tier-three. The entire spell might have contained as little as ten mana, so casting it wouldn’t have exhausted the ape’s mana reserves.

  His opponent was too powerful.

  Fucking cheaters, he screamed in his head and, because he knew a war of attrition would have been suicide, given the opponent’s high tiered spells, Tom changed his strategy and charged it. With the traits and the bursts he was consuming, he was functioning at rank seven rather than the five of his opponent. Provided the magic differential was not too high, he could win this.

  If, if, if. If he could do many things, the world would be a different place. Wishing and hoping were never a substitute for action.

  The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

  It saw him charging, but didn’t flee. Instead, it launched a counterstrike. The branches dipped down from above and roots burst out of the ground to intercept him. The entire forest between him and his target came alive with the singular aim of destroying him.

  But he was faster than the terror monkey had expected him to be. Its clothing leaves fluttered in a way that, Tom hoped, reflected surprise.

  The branches descended, and the roots exploded out of the earth, trying to close on him like the jaws of a mighty land shark. Without hesitation, he leapt to try to thread himself through the gap being the forest floor and canopy as they reached for each other. Manually, he triggered Fateful Repositioning while he flew through the air to improve his chances of making it. He spun, twisted, and briefly felt stretched as though he had been turned into a pancake - and then he was through. Behind him, there was a crunching noise as the wood from above slammed into the roots below.

  The power the terror ape had unleashed was impressive, but Danger Sense told him that it was not a problem. He was within two metres of it, with only those three swaying roots in the way.

  Those three roots only mattered if he attacked head-on. Tom grinned as he used all the free cast of attacking magic that he had left to launch an overwhelming attack at it.

  Electrical strikes struck the ape from all directions. There was Spark from behind, Lightning and Extended Lightning Bolt from the sides, and his tier-zero attacks from the front, minus Electricity Explosion that landed on his head. At the same time, his spear hacked down to strike the base of the magical defender closest to him, and his high-tiered weapon cut through the root like it was paper.

  Dismantling the defences proved unnecessary as electricity danced over the terror ape. The two other defensive roots slumped over as the enemy’s concentration was torn away by Tom’s lightning.

  Tom immediately took action.

  His spear snapped down, empowered by a quarter Power Strike as well as some precognition mana, just in case. No shield rose to protect the enemy, and his weapon carved through the sapient’s head. He felt a thrill of success and relief flow through him, but he didn’t stop attacking. There were too many monsters out there with brains in weird spots or multiple brains for him to just assume the damage to the head was a clean kill. Plus, the arena would have broken apart if the enemy was dead, so he kept stabbing while repeatedly making Spark zap it to keep it paralysed.

  Vegetation coiled around him, which told him that his opponent hadn’t been extinguished. He could have dodged around to escape its touch, but he didn’t want to give up the advantage he had, and Danger Sense wasn’t pushing for that action. He guessed that he was in a rush to see who would be killed first, but, with his precognition benefits, it was a race he knew he was going to win.

  Thorns tore into his legs, but he kept thrusting. Every blow left gaping holes in the creature’s body.

  The head was pulverised, its chest too, but it still lived.

  The terror ape, even though it was clearly effectively dead, had not given up. Venom was being pumped into Tom even as he was forced to duck a wild swing from a branch as thick as his chest.

  “Die,” he cursed, and as though it was listening, the world he was in vanished, and he found himself standing back in DEUS’s common room. The thorns that had been poking into him had also been stoppering the wounds, and they had disappeared without a trace.

  Blood spurted out of the abruptly unplugged holes.

  His mana was near empty, but thanks to his trait, he had a free use of Touch Heal available, and it sealed the punctures instantly with magic to spare to also combat the venom. It was only tier-one, and thus was something that he could negate directly.

  There were still puckered ugly scabs on his legs, but all the danger of bleeding out or dying of venom had been neutralised.

  “You got a win!” Corrine squealed from beside him, having clearly noticed the blood. She scooped him up from the ground effortlessly and gave him a hug. “You fucking finally got a victory. Yes. Fuck yes! Tom, you’re one of us now!”

  “I am.” He agreed proudly even as he searched around to see if they had any losses. No one was exhibiting signs of grief, and it looked like everyone was present and the injuries he had arrived with actually looked like the worst anyone here had suffered. That meant it was a good day, and it was okay for him to celebrate. “I am. I’ve eliminated a terror monster with two kills.”

  “Was it because of the darkhole trial?” she asked excitedly.

  Tom considered the thirty seconds of chaos for a moment. “I used almost all my skills.” He admitted. “But the fight felt unfair. It was a druid ape, and it got lucky. The arena was a forest. It was perfect for it, and so it nearly killed me. If I got a beach, it would have died in moments.”

  Corrine winced at that description. “Not luck, design.”

  “I fucking knew it,” Tom exploded. “How do they always seem to be able to cheat?”

  “No, it’s not like that. It’s not…” She snapped sharply and looked up at the ceiling with a worried frown. “It’s not related to any outside force cheating. There’s always one or two in every cohort that has the ability to get themselves a favourable arena. There’s, like, four people here that I know of.”

  “Really?” he asked in surprise.

  “Yeah, it’s fucking unfair. Some individuals have a trait to influence the arenas, and as you can imagine, that’s a massive advantage, so they inevitably force their way into the divine trial, and, in their chosen environment, they’re almost always powerful combatants.” She shuddered. “The wind and storm ones are the worst.”

  Tom hesitated as he imagined Corrine going up against an enemy fighter in a hurricane. Yes, that would be particularly problematic for her.

  “So, tell me what happened!” She requested enthusiastically. “Was it fun?”

  “I was scared.” He admitted.

  She looked confused. “Why would you feel like that if you’ve used our racial…”

  “I had reasons to be,” he told her simply. To her credit she dropped the line of inquiry, but he still rushed his description to distract her. “I started with a dual cast of javelins, but it had root guardians, and these intercepted both strikes.”

  “Damn, so no instant kill?”

  He waved a hand at his bloody legs. “Obviously.”

  “I saw that, you imbecile. I’m not blind. That was me being polite and an engaged listener. There was no need to be a fucking smartass about it!”

  She wasn’t truly offended, so he continued on:

  “It was obvious that I couldn’t beat it at range, so I charged it and got close enough that my magic could hit it from every direction in order to bypass the root protectors. It didn’t have any magical shielding and was vulnerable to being stunned, so Spark locked it down while I stabbed it to death. The entire fight might have taken half a minute.”

  “And your injuries?”

  “My fault. I got arrogant and stood still to finish it faster rather than dodging around it. The stun failed to incapacitate it fully, or it had already cast a longer lasting spell, so, while I was killing it, some vine trap and poison spell got me...” He shrugged. “I was pretty confident of victory at that point.”

  “Yes, your healing is definitely an asset. I guess it allows you to take risks that most can’t take. Personally, I can’t wait to see the healing spell Dimitri’s getting for me. It’s going to be a necessity for the darkhole trial. And no, I’m not fucking learning it from scratch,” she snapped in response to his look. “I’m better off investing my time elsewhere, where I have talent. Plus, Dims agreed to let me go in two weeks, and, as for acquiring Touch Heal from wireframes… No fucking way. That would take six months for a tier-zero spell. That’s a fucking ridiculous time sink.”

  “You could delay the attempt.”

  She shook her head. “I’ve done the numbers. Delaying doesn’t improve my chances unless I wait until I have system access at fifteen, and even then the expected survival rate improvement is not much.” Then she waved at the surrounding room. “Getting darkhole rewards will let me join child bracket four. That’s a fucking extra year and a bit of purchasing. I’m not throwing that fucking away. But enough of that. You won. You’ve got coins. You’re rich?”

  He chuckled. “That’s stretching it. I have seventeen coins to my name.”

  She clapped her hands. “That’s what I said. You have a fortune!”

  He glared at her, and she just smirked before her eyes turned serious. “I’m not joking. When I was in your position, seventeen coins was something massive. Spent on the right package, it’s a life-changing resource.”

  “Yeah, I’m hoping so.”

  “What are you doing with it?”

  He took a deep breath. “I’m planning on buying a skill earth starter kit.”

  She nodded knowledgably. “I did something similar for fire.” As she spoke, flames started dancing around her hand, and he knew she wasn’t using mana.