I looked around the starlit void, seeing the angel of vines and shattered glass before me
“Took your time to finally pick your reward,” they said.
“Yeah, well, I'm still here, so get over yourself.”
I felt the stirring of her domain, and I flinched in anticipation, noticing a pull in my soul from my own Domain since it was originally hers. And when she saw me flinch, she seemed satisfied and did nothing, a small smile on her face.
“So, what is it that you desire for your reward?”
“There are still three options for me to pick from, no one else took one, right?” I asked.
“Yes.”
Ok, that got rid of the possibility that Urg or Second had the ability to create zombies and was using it to trick me by reanimating the other. They could’ve foreseen the possibility that I would check using this method and decided to delay taking a reward, but I felt like I might’ve been overthinking that.
“Well, before I do that, can I ask you a few questions?”
“As long as they don’t hit upon forbidden subjects.”
I nodded, “Alright, so, in the circumstance that all contestants decided not to attack each other and just let old age take them. What would you and the other gods do?”
They scowled, “It would not violate the rules technically, so we would be forced to not interfere.”
“Really?” I said with apprehension.
“But,” They continued.
And there it was.
“In the event that all the gods believe that something violates the spirit of the question that The Great Debate was used to answer, we can change the format to something we can mutually agree on.”
I bit the inside of my cheek, thinking of a plan using that information. But it would probably not be the best idea to hint to Terra about it, so I asked what had been on my mind from the very beginning, “What the hell even is the question you all wanted answered so badly!”
Terra tilted their head, seeming confused, “Is it not obvious?”
“No!” I cried out.
“Well, the question we want answered was which one of us had developed our intelligent life the best.”
“What….”
“We wanted to know who had done the best, so we randomly chose five members of our dominant intelligent species and pitted them against each other in a way that they had no prior experience and could only adapt. It is the one trait, adaptability, I mean, that we all agreed upon would show which species was superior."
I felt like my jaw had become paralysed as I tried to form words that didn’t come out.
They had summoned fifteen people into a death game without their consent so they could settle a pissing match. A divine mother fucking pissing match.
After a minute of stunned silence, I said, “Oh my God…”
“Yes?” Terra said.
“Wasn’t referring to you,” I spat out, trying but failing to keep the venom out of my voice, hoping she wouldn’t try to hurt me with her domain again.
There was tense silence again before Terra said, “Are you done asking questions and ready to take a reward? I do not have infinite time to use this space.”
Relieved, I said, “Fine, ok.”
I looked over my options again, the Mulligan, the Enemy Weakener, and the Power Booster. It was quite an easy decision; I still had the issue of getting too reckless with Mulligan, so that was still off the table. The Weakener was useless since I was planning on making the two other contestants allies, and I didn’t want them to think otherwise. So I picked the power booster since it had no downsides. And when I confirmed my choice, I felt something warm go into my body, reaching my core.
Gaining a brief glimpse of white light and my core as the light merged into me, then there was an explosion of pain as I felt my soul forcibly expand. The painful gourging compounding with the teleportation nausea, making me throw up when I got back to the tunnel I was in.
After collecting myself, I stood up and felt like I had eaten too much, and the food was sloshing around my soul. I spent a few more moments getting used to the feeling, then I decided to look at my status sheet to see what changed.
Species: Elder Queen Lunar Scale Moth
Level 43/70 till Evolution
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Antenna: Imperial
Wings: Imperial
Tarsus: Imperial
Abdomen: Imperial
HP: Green
Lv: 10
MP: Green
Lv: 21
EP: Green
Lv: 15
Core Skills: 4/5
Lunar Scale Dust
LV 8/10
1986/2400
Moon Silk
LV 7/10
Royal Will
LV 9/10
Slip Away
LV 6/10
21/115
Locked
Gained Skills: 3/5
Stealth
LV 7/10
Appraisal
LV 10/10
Split Focus
LV 2/3
Free XP: Green
I hadn’t been looking at my status as much as I probably should have, but it didn’t seem to have changed in the slightest. I thought I had been cheated until I saw the Free XP section, so I mentally tapped it, another system message popping up.
“Where would you like to assign free XP?”
I tentatively accepted, and everything that had an LV next to it and hadn’t maxed out became high lighted. Then I selected Slip away, feeling slightly less bloated when I saw the LV tick up to seven, the number below turning into 173, and the Free XP bar turning a fraction more yellow.
I groomed my antenna in thought. I didn’t have much time to think over this since I had people outside waiting for a response. But I also didn’t want this to go to waste, so I decided to pick the things that would help me in case this became a fight. Maxing out Stealth, Split Focus, and Royal Will, my soul shrinking then expanding comfortably as it put the power into its proper place. Feeling a flash of power come into me from Terra’s thread and turn into my Domain, and when the power touched me, I saw a flash of her for a moment before it disappeared.
I thought about it for a few moments. Could I see that because I understood my soul better? Then I remembered I had people waiting for me, so I didn’t have time to think about it then and there. Then I noticed the Free XP bar hadn’t turned yellow yet, so I put levels into MP till the XP bar just turned yellow. Saving the rest for when I had more time to put thought into it. My new status page looking like.
Species: Elder Queen Lunar Scale Moth
Level 43/70 till Evolution
Antenna: Imperial
Wings: Imperial
Tarsus: Imperial
Abdomen: Imperial
HP: Green
Lv: 10
MP: Green
Lv: 27
EP: Green
Lv: 15
Core Skills: 4/5
Lunar Scale Dust
LV 8/10
0/300
Moon Silk
LV 7/10
Royal Will
LV 10/10
Slip Away
LV 6/10
21/115
Locked
Gained Skills: 3/5
Stealth
LV 10/10
Appraisal
LV 10/10
Split Focus
3/3
Satisfied with my choices, I flew out of the tunnel till I was in sight of the other contestants, but I still kept a safe distance.
And I said, “So you want an alliance… deal.”
They visibly brightened at the news and tried to communicate, but there was still a barrier of speech between us. We spent a few minutes trying to speak to each other using charades and the water constructs Urg made, but it was of limited use. Then I came up with an idea, I drew out a couple of dozen feet of Moon Silk, having one of my minions bring it over to them, and indicated for them to touch it.
Then I said, “Try pushing MP into it with your intent, it should carry along the thread to me.”
That was a complete guess. I knew MP carried the will of the user since it somehow interacted with the core, and I knew I could read will through that. But everything else was based on hopes and prayers to put it reassuringly.
They did what I said, and it worked… partially. It was crude since they weren’t connected to me via Lunar Scale Dust, and the two streams of will going through the same channel messed with each other, making the message unintelligible. But that was simply fixed with another line of thread, and with that we were finally able to have a proper conversation.
“Ah, it's pleasant being able to talk again,” Second of the Snow said,
“Yeah, guess it is,” I replied, noncommittally.
“So now that you’ve joined,” The ape continued, “We only need to get the remaining contestants to agree, and if they don’t want to and try to kill us. Well, it’s three of us versus at most two of them.”
I awkwardly paused before saying, “I, uh… already killed the other two, so… no need to worry about that, I guess, he he,” I half heartedly chuckled.
“Well,” Urg said, “As you said, at least we don’t have to worry about them; Firm Statement."
“That’s the proper psychopathic attitude, let's keep it up, y’all,” I said, the joke just making the other two look uncomfortable, a silence descending after I said it.
“So,” Urg said, breaking the silence, “What will happen now that the remaining contestants will not fight each other; Question? As you said during the third phase, Jacob, the gods would most likely not agree to this consensus among us.”
“I don’t know,” I lied, “I just hope it’s better than this.”
“Well, we’ll do the only thing we can,” Second said, one of their hands drifting to a weapon sheathed in their carapace, “Fight for another way.”
I mentally laughed at what Second of the Snow had said, but kept my thoughts about it to myself. My ideas only being confirmed as the system announced its anticipated message.
“Amendments to The Great Debate have been made. Due to the inability of the Fourth Phase to be completed, a Fifth Phase has been added, called Boss Rush. Days till the beginning of Phase Five (7/7).”
And with that, my plan had started. It was quite simple. I’d just let these two fight and die in the Boss Rush while I ran off and protected myself, leaving a hole in their defences they hadn’t anticipated.
