I tread water, mud grazing against my boots. The stench clung to me, sickly and vibrant. I desperately hoped nothing was in there until my arm broke the surface. I saw a black lump clinging to my skin. Leeches. Wonderful. [Hit: -1]

  Even as the leeches latched on, I scanned the battle zone for the other teams instead of climbing out, marking their priorities. [Hit: -1] That satyr fucker was first, then the healers. [Hit: -1]

  “I’m going after the healers and the stealthy little satyr prick while you guys burn down the other teams from a distance. Frag, stay on the main target.”

  As I glided through the water towards the shore, away from the main conflict zone, Frag’s plasma rifle skills proc’d. [Weapon Mutation: Triumph Cannon] flickered on my HUD. An explosion rocked my ears, HUD showing the damage output. He’d hit [Veliyarix] for 30 points and the skirmishers in the vicinity for 10 each. A shiver of violent pleasure trickled down my spine.

  I spotted the satyr prick sneaking up for a backstab on the elf in robes standing well behind Team Red. I paused. [Hit: -1]

  I’d let him do some of the work for us. I calculated my approach and slithered out of the pond, coated in thick ropes of stinking algae. Grabbing the first leech, I tore it off, flicking it into the grass. The Warpblade Rogue’s [Subtle Presence] dropped, but as soon as the Wind Incarnate turned its big petaled Flower Folk head their way, it fluttered long leaves. A spell formed. [Wind Blade]

  The spell carved a half-dozen slashes in the satyr’s side. [Hit: -2x6] It jumped back and vanished. I kept low in the fern and finished plucking leeches off. That little flower packed a decent punch.

  While I was lurking, a flash of fishnet stockings caught my eye just a few yards from my position. Team Purple’s Blade Witch snuck past me, her eyes on my team’s cover. Frag and Elora were still in the trees, Frag shooting at the slurmopillar and Elora covering him, silver arrows flashing across the battlefield at anyone who threw an attack their way. My party status showed some damage across the board.

  I slithered behind the witch. She straightened, her head rising above the undergrowth. I eased to a stand behind her, swapping Ro’Fatoft for Baneheart. She faced Jake, reloading his tranq gun with a new cartridge. As her arms rose and she started her gothy spell dance, I stepped up behind her. Slipped an arm around her neck.

  Banehart’s tip found her side. As she opened her mouth to scream, I thrust the blade in deep. It took muscle. Good thing I had it. My HUD flickered [Poisoned Double Damage: Organ Rupture: Bleed].

  “No assassinating my team,” I murmured against her ear, her fingernails scrabbling at my bracer.

  I pulled her into the fern to avoid any line of sight from the fighting. Once she was down, I yanked Baneheart out and drove a stab into her throat, straight through to her spine. The crunch of cartilage and scrape of bone turned my stomach.

  The thing I’d done was equal parts thrill and revulsion. If I hadn’t known she’d come back—that she signed up for the competition just like me and knew the risks—I couldn’t have done it. Well. Actually.

  Her target was my team. I would have.

  Blood and death lit something wild inside me. My human side recoiled. The orc in me wanted more. This was the meaning behind Old Fang's words. Heat in the chest, blood in the air. I felt it.

  Fuck.

  I shook off the pressure in my head and crept away from the corpse. I checked my minimap, but the only markers I saw were my team and [Veliyarix].

  Frag’s [Weapon Mutation: Triumph Cannon] proc’d again. Instead of targeting [Veliyarix], the roaring explosion landed in the brush by the dirt track. I sprang up to see. Most of Team Purple and the demon Chaos Tank, who hadn’t noticed what was coming, had engaged in a fight with Red’s minotaur. They both took 30 points of damage and hit the ground. The rest of Purple were knocked flat.

  Team Blue’s satyr was over there in a blink, finishing off the minotaur. A dozen skeletons emerged from the undergrowth in front of me, blocking my path. Beyond them, a woman stood, fingers spread, ephemeral strands stretched between them, leading to the bone warriors.

  She wore a pointed hat. Classic nerdcore. Respect.

  I whirled Baneheart and charged, taking heads as I slashed through, then dropping to a knee to hack out some legs. Brittle bones popped at the joints, falling apart. In seconds, I’d crushed her little skele-squad.

  While I fought, she’d been muttering a language I didn’t know, something European, a sort of intonation.

  A black vortex expanded above her head and reached for me, stretching out like the funnel of a tornado. The skeletons had been a distraction. I backpedaled, blade up, as if it could defend against the eldritch horror she cooked up.

  The hat flew off. The necromancer stumbled. The vortex vanished. She clutched a silver arrow in her neck, her dark eyes wide with shock.

  I stepped in and thrust, my blade piercing flesh and cartilage, scraping between ribs. I planted my foot on her chest and kicked her off my blade. As I watched her drop, annoyance burned in my throat. I wanted to kill the satyr and the demon. Where were they?

  [Veliyarix] reared back to spit again, drenching a few that had gotten too close to it. We’d completely turned on each other once it dropped to 200 HP. The AoE casters had to fall back to sniping with spells, since we were all overlapping each other’s ranges. Frag and Elora kept to the treetops. Fig and Jake were back-to-back, defending each other. Fig still sang—this time a grim ballad—as she fired off her plasma pistol. [Vocal Aura: Demoralize]

  Jake’s tranq gun hung on a two-point sling. He didn’t have time to heal anyone, firing nonstop at the Reptilian Monk, the Hex Hunter, and some cowboy-looking dude with dual pistols. My grudge against the two assholes that pissed me off would have to wait.

  Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.

  The half-elf cowboy from Team Purple had positioned himself behind a fallen tree and wasn’t shooting at Fig or Jake. Yet. He aimed for the Blue Team’s Reptilian, who flickered across the fern tops like gravity didn’t matter. Blue’s Hex Hunter hid in the crook of two trees that leaned against each other.

  I went for the Hex Hunter, unsure of the cowboy’s class or skills. I could tell the hunter’s attacks would linger by the dark whorls of magic floating from arrows embedded around Jake and Fig. I circled at a distance, stayed low, and followed the sound of a bowstring’s twang.

  Something thunked into the dirt beside me. I glanced at the smoky, hissing black arrow and dove away. She’d heard me.

  I crashed through the underbrush, stealth abandoned. I zigzaged as her arrows flew, my dips and swerves barely saving my skin. Another bow sang. [Hit: -10 Arc Arrow] The Hex Hunter screeched, and the dull clatter of her bow hit the brush beside her. I charged for the crook she’d been hiding behind and found her gripping her arm; a silver arrow pierced it.

  Bloodlust sang in my veins as I dashed at her. The Hex Hunter looked up from her arm to me, her face twisted in terror. I raised Baneheart in a feint. She lifted her arms as if to protect herself, and as my forearm clashed with hers, reversed Baneheart, plunging it into her torso beneath the edge of her leather chestplate.

  The angled blade tore out with brutal force, ripping her stomach open. Flashing her a feral grin, I ran. Her life drained to zero on my HUD as I ducked into the giant fern again to travel in another wide sweep. Next, the cowboy. And then it would be the satyr and the demon.

  Stray shots from Jake and Fig nearly got me twice on my circuit. Holes burned through the thick leaves, one close enough to feel the sear of heat. I sucked in a breath through bared teeth and dropped to crawl on my belly.

  Jake’s bark of pain changed everything.

  Rage surged, and I pushed up off the ground, roaring. [INTIMIDATE] activated, and I caught the cowboy’s eye. His two pistols, which were aimed at the three skirmishing opponents, faltered. I saw his fear. The killer inside me devoured that look as I surged at him.

  In the System, his WILL wrestled mine. My sprint towards him, my bloodied blade, and my aura froze him into stillness, a deer in headlights. The clash of numbers churned behind the UI, a thing I’d grown attuned to as we’d drilled. I could almost read how the numbers fell. Over and over the numbers rattled against each other. Every second a new figure generated, ticking toward the moment my aura would fail.

  The odds flipped just before I got to him. The statistics fell flat against me. The half-elf’s eyes lost the terrified sheen. Then—he did something I’d never seen. He tossed a gun into the air. With a quick roll and flick of his wrist, gold flashed.

  Inside my HUD, I glitched. That’s the only way I could define it. Thoughts stopped working. My HUD went on without me, throwing numbers and alerts out that I couldn’t read or even recognize. [Chronofreeze: 0s]

  A stunning force hit my shoulder with searing pain that stole my breath. I went from running to slamming into the underbrush, spun off balance. At least I didn’t fall on my sword. Face first in broken stems and big, flat leaves, I rolled and turned my arm to see an arc of flesh carved away from the muscle.

  A crash drew my attention. Jake landed hard beside me, big wings flaring briefly as he dropped to a knee to stab me with a needle. He got a hand under my shoulder. Burn marks scarred his tactical vest, and Fig, bounding after him, seemed to have gotten a plasma haircut. Green locks of her hair sorn on one side of her head, blackened and smoking.

  I flinched at the needle jab and got up, then caught sight of the cowboy’s smoking body. Good. Frag’s doing. The reptilian monk’s body was lost in the fern. I exhaled and turned towards the thick of the fight.

  “I’m going after the healers,” I snarled.

  Jake nodded and lifted his plasma gun in a salute. He and Fig fell in behind me to cover as we moved along the jungle floor, taking an adjacent route around the dirt track that [Veliyarix] patrolled.

  “What did that half-elf use on me to make me glitch like that?”

  Fig: “Chronomancy. The concept of time stopped for you, but no one else.”

  “Cool.” I muttered, meaning the power was cool, not that it was cool to deal with. It sucked. He’d shot me. If Frag hadn’t blasted open a hole in his chest, I’d be dead. I paused and glanced around a tree trunk draped with vines.

  “Frag, Elora, who do you have eyes on? Who’s left?”

  Instead of speaking, Frag sent actual video footage. Surprised, though I shouldn’t have been—hey there, cyborg boy has camera eyes—I opened my aspect screen and pushed it out so it didn’t take up my whole HUD display. No Red or Blue tags. The satyr was good at hiding, though. The Silica from Purple hummed loudly, healing the Chaos Demon Tank near the beaten dirt circle, as [Veliyarix] continued its route around the pond. Corpses lay in various locations. I accounted for them all except the Warpblade Satyr.

  The hum gave me an idea.

  “I have a plan.” I told them what it was.

  Seconds later, I charged through the brush toward the Chaos Tank, Ro’Fatoft gripped in my hands. The Silica hummed, backing away. I roared to engage [INTIMIDATE] and felt the System’s RNG tick away the odds.

  The bulky red demon laughed, drawing his greatsword straight from inventory. He wore no armor, just leather. It looked cool—if you were into 80’s glam rock KISS cosplay. I swept at his ankle with the hooked wing of my patarshan spear. He leapt clean over it and sidestepped to drive a backswing of his sword at me. He moved fast for a big guy, though I guess I was one to talk in my half-orc avatar. I turned just enough for the heavy blade to whoosh past, stirring the air and scraping my chestplate.

  The soft thwip of Elora’s bow was followed by a sharp ting of metal striking crystal. Fig’s voice rose behind me just after, the resonant tone building into a powerful crescendo, matching the tone of Elora’s arrow on the Silica perfectly. [Vocal Aura: Shatter]

  The Silica screeched a bone-grating sound and rolled onto its back, thick legs kicking violently at the canopy. Snaps and pops cracked from it. I barely noticed it as the demon and I circled each other.

  [Veliyarix] slowly closed the distance, crawling along the path toward us.

  Fig voice soared as the crackling sound increased right before Frag’s rifle blast flew past. The Silica exploded in a rain of crystalline gravel that peppered the underbrush. I grinned at the demon and lunged, spear low. He did what I expected: raised his sword to drive an overhand slash into my skull. I snapped my spear up to crack across his wrist, diverting the blade, and twisted into a side kick at his hips.

  No one said anything about hitting below the waist in this competition.

  The demon hopped back, but not before my boot slammed into his groin. He howled, black eyes going bright red. I figured that meant something. Spinning away, I shouted, “Watch your back, buddy!”

  The demon turned to face a fogbank of pink mist. Before he could cast that annoying Chaos Shift Attack move, Jake shot him in the face. Good ol’ Jake. Elora and Frag joined in, and the salvo dropped the demon to his knees.

  I took stock of our situation as [Veliyrix] paused to snack on the demon’s body. Elora and Frag were in decent condition. AoEs and snipe attacks had taken Elora down to 60% health. Frag was rougher, at 30%. Fig was at 70%, Jake was at 20%, and me? 30 HP left. Confidence swelled, despite the fact the worm had 200 HP left.

  I stepped back, away from the dirt track, waving everyone back. Jake gave me his last healing stab—to my back, because I didn’t want to watch him do it—and we executed or final attack. I played distraction, and when [Veliyarix] exposed its core, they tore into it.

  When the boss worm fell for the last time, its body flattened like a discarded pool float.

  -ARCHIVE-