Weapons of Mass Destruction

I blink, and the Champion is gone. Reappearing to stand next to us, and all that remains of our defenses crumbles. She looks to the sky, as the dust begins to fill it once more, cutting off the light of the sun.

The vyssari stops and looks at Tess for a moment flashing her one last smile. "Good luck to you and your party, Tess."

With those simple words, she disappears again, moving at speeds too great for the eye to follow, leaving a trail of lightning in the air as the only sign of her passage.

Just a few seconds later, lightning streaks across the blood-red sky, visible even from this distance, signaling the fight's renewal. Hundreds—thousands—of bolts crash down in rapid succession, and it takes several seconds before we hear the first thunderclap, a stark reminder of the distance between us and the battle taking place.

Then we begin to feel tremors too—a constant barrage of vibrations from the shockwaves generated by the distant fight.

The air grows noticeably colder, and a blizzard appears on the horizon approaching from the opposite side of the Champion’s lightning storm, stretching nearly through its entirety.

"Did that eye just free the remaining prisoners? The lightning vyssari and whatever it was in the north behind the permafrost?" Min-Jae asks, unable to take his eyes off the clash far in the distance.

"It seems like it. Nat, Sophie, we might need to hurry, like really really hurry. I don't think we’re quite far enough away to survive as they increase the output and that last prisoner might actually be worse than the two of them combined," Tess says, finally managing to pull her eyes away from the blizzard.

"I should be done," I reply and immediately start laying out the parts of the array. "You two, help."

Izzy's flames surround us, blue and warm, warding off the increasing cold that’s already coating every exposed surface in a layer of frost and causing snowflakes to fall gently from the sky. Izzy´s blue flames press in close against us without burning, providing us with a gentle source of warmth.

Noodle expands in size, growing as thick as a tree and coiling in a circle around us with his mouth open as he devours the mana radiation gradually encroaching upon our space.

The others chip in as well, doing their best to set up defenses while the fight in the distance gets worse and worse. The sky grows a darker shade of red until it feels almost tangible. High in the sky, fleshy veins grow within, resembling both vegetation and inscriptions.

Just the fact that we can see them from so far away tells us something about their size. Just how big might they be? Miles upon miles tall and wide.

They form into the shapes of inscriptions, generating fields, attacks, and defenses that crash against that small figure that flew there specifically to fight the one who freed her.

Within the blood-red sky, red and white lightning crackles relentlessly, unleashing attacks that obliterate the eye's creations. These strikes form colossal lightning weapons, each as big as a mountain. Explosions ripple through the air, scattering the dust and tearing through the red domain of the sky, allowing shafts of light to break through.

And approaching from the other side is a blizzard making its way ever closer, an unknown presence within. And the closer it moves, the more sluggish my mana feels, as if the cold were slowly freezing it.

Once I finish setting up the array, I move over to help Sophie. The twins connect us together, allowing us to combine our efforts, and we push ourselves to make everything work. And all the while, the moon, the Astral Prison around us, starts breaking apart, as a little part of me watches it all happen.

The anger that has been simmering within me resurfaces. The realization that there is nothing I can do here at this moment. There may “only” be a 200-level difference between me and the Champions, but that gap is still immense. I don't try to push this anger away; instead, I let myself feel it. I let it flow through my body and make sure to remember everything I feel right now. My weakness and powerlessness.

Then Sophie activates the array, finally pushing through with all her might before collapsing in concert with the twins, as the others rush in to catch them before they can hit the ground.

And I feel much the same as my entire reservoir of mana is channeled through my body to be sucked away by the array, but I endure. It's something I have to do.

One by one, everyone in group four passes through the array. I take a step forward and pause for a moment, turning to look back, engraving the scene behind me deep into my memory.

And only then do I cross through, and watch as the view shifts and the system’s notifications appear before me.

Congratulations! You've successfully completed the 6th floor's main quest in the fifth round of the tutorial for Hell difficulty.

Welcome to the 7th floor: Battlefield.

You have acquired:

Active skill combination token

Epic-grade passive skill

5000 Shards

Communication with your disciple for 10 minutes

Send a single item to your disciple (up to rare rarity)

Increased daily Community limit

So Battlefield it is.

I force strength into my legs and stand upright.

There are dozens of people passing by us: lynthari, humans, thylarin, demons, people of all races. Everyone is dressed in full armor and we find ourselves in something akin to an outpost—surrounded by temporary buildings made of stone, wood, and some that seem to have grown from naturally occurring trees, along with others made entirely from crystal.

A constant barrage of words fills the air around us.

Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

"... heard they need more on the 5th front, they say the pay is pretty good..."

"You won’t catch me fighting with a demon at my side, those guys are..."

"They say there’s a spy in the main camp, they’re offering an arcane item to anyone who can bring them information exposing them..."

"... no, only Champions Safie and Feroy are taking disciples, and not just anyone either. Feroy especially tends to be... picky. Did you hear..."

"... so maybe? I heard a Champion-grade monster appeared on the 2nd front so you bet I’ll be fucking skipping that place."

"... attacked the smithies. Weapons increased in price again."

"Nobody can get through that array in that cursed forest—not even Champion Owain. There’s a rumor that he’s planning to ask his master for help, but yeah, good luck with that. The Absolute is the only thing keeping us alive, so I’d say he’s got his hands full."

And many more.

We seem to be ignored for the most part and people pass us by without noticing. Even the levels of all these people tend to match our own, rarely does anyone break level 300. There are some with levels just over 100, but I don't think I can see anyone lower. Most people seem to hover around 200 and over.

We grab the twins and Sophie, who have yet to recover, and pull them to the side, walking between the massive buildings until we find a quiet spot far from the crowds, just below a simple wall, made entirely out of wood. There are no joints, no gaps anywhere I can see; almost as if it were formed of one single piece of lumber.

Catching our breath, we sit quietly, each of us taking a moment to process recent events while Lily heals anyone who needs it.

I almost stop to warn her to hide her status as a candidate, like Tess and I, but I see that she’s already doing so, likely Tess told her when I was busy.

"At least the rewards for the floor quest are nice, right? I got a passive skill combination token," Maya is the first to open the conversation. "And I can communicate and send some stuff to my disc..."

Her eyes move to the unconscious Dennis, likely remembering his disciple who died, and then she buries her face in her palms with a loud groan. "Fuck, I forgot."

"Be careful, please, he still gets upset about that sometimes," Izzy warns, gently tapping the boy's head.

"Yeah, I will," Maya replies, reading an invisible message in the air. "So the floor quest is..."

"We’ll need to talk about it and decide what to do," Tess confirms. "This one is unusual."

Like the others, I open my notifications and reread them.

Floor Quest:

Survive as many waves as possible.

Note: You can leave at any time and head to the 8th floor.

Rewards:

???

???

Communication with your disciple for 10 minutes

Send a single item to your disciple (up to epic rarity)

While I read through everything, I randomly pick an epic-grade passive from my rewards and sell it for just over 10,000 shards.

I think it's reasonable to say the longer we stay and by extension the better we do, the better the reward will be. The question is how long should we stay? At what point do we say we’re better off heading to the next floor rather than trying to maximize our rewards here?

Or more to the point, when does it become too dangerous—because I'm sure that's going to happen. Especially with all the talk of Champions, the frontlines, and mercenaries.

Wandering around the outpost, we collect a bit of information and let our bodies and mana recover. My crown is already over my head, ready to store any mana that won't fit into my body or reservoir.

The planet we find ourselves on this time is comfortably warm without being hot, almost like the last warm days of summer accompanied by a nice breeze. Looking at the sky, I see a few islands floating far in the distance, and I can sense something that reminds me of the Veil surrounding us. It's not as powerful as the one we encountered on the 5th floor, rather it’s much more basic. There are a lot of triggers, so I don't bother connecting to it nor do I examine it too deeply.n/ô/vel/b//in dot c//om

Tess, meanwhile, manages to use some of the materials we have to pay for the rent on a small house near the edge of the outpost, near the wooden wall. The house is just big enough for all of us, forcing each of us to share a room with at least one other person.

We spend a few days without trying anything. Taking our time to train and heal, while collecting information, the Beyond expedition is coming up in just a few days. Me, Tess, Sophie, and Lily should all be able to go. However, that means leaving Maya, the twins, Izzy, Noodle, Biscuit, and Min-Jae behind.

So we do our best to make a somewhat safe base for the ones being forced to stay behind.

It’s during one of these days that a message appears in the Beyond community.

Hadwin -Little pup, what floor are you on?

POV Earth

"Did you see? Some guy came out of nowhere and broke all the records like it was nothing."

"Oh, you mean that Italian with all those viral posts?"

"Yeah! He looks like he barely weighs 70 kilos and he managed to deadlift a full tonne then went for reps. The bar was bending! Then he ran 100 meters in five seconds, benched half a tonne, and..."

"My man, everyone knows it's all fake, don't let..."

POV Earth

"Yesterday, a video went viral, originating from Africa. A new type of ant has been discovered—and each one is about the size of a cat."

"Do you think it’s connected to the phenomenon?"

"Yes, sir. There have been reports of a returnee group in Africa, they’re likely responsible for or accelerating these changes. We’re doing our best to keep it out of the public eye, but additional groups have been reported in Europe and China. Possibly even in Russia and North America. We’re working on confirmation."

"What’s the classification?"

"Still Easy-tier, sir. Estimates suggest all current groups will remain in this category. However, based on the information being shared by the current batch of returnees, we expect individuals from the Normal-tier to emerge within the year."

"Have you reviewed yesterday’s reports and recommendations?"

"Yes, sir."

"Thoughts? Be honest."

"Permission to speak freely, sir?"

"Granted."

"Honestly, sir, I don’t like it. But I understand the logic behind it."

"Good. You’ll be joining that unit as my intermediary."

"I… as you command, sir."

"Speak your mind."

"I agree that involving the families of suspected returnees is a logical next step. However, I’m concerned, sir. If individuals from Hell-tier difficulty finish their tutorial at Grade 5 on our temporary scale, even a simple conversation with their families could provoke a dangerous reaction. This is true regardless of whether the interaction is intended to bribe their family goodwill.”

“Let me ask you this instead: what happens if we’re left with no information or means to negotiate?"

The room falls into a heavy silence.

"No response? Then carry out the orders."

"Yes, sir!"