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366. Premeditated Self Defense

Ike funded Wisp’s snack attack at the local monster-parts shop. The best part was the shopkeeper’s face as Wisp stuffed down a huge chunk of toxic-to-humans meat and complained about the toughness of the flesh. He only got to enjoy it for a moment, though, because the shopkeeper quickly recovered and stepped in to Ike.

“She’s a bea...

94. Semifinals

Rhys found his name easily. There were only two fields left; each of the semifinals took place with all the stadium’s attention, with no other Tier fights going on at the same time. Earlier this morning, the Tier 1 semifinals had occurred; now it was the Tier 2, and after them would be Tier 3. The stone platform before him was pristine, which ...

365. Entering the City

The city gates rose up before Ike. He looked up, taking them in. The walls were neat and regular, and stretched on for miles. It reminded him of Shopkeep’s city, but ten times larger. No, maybe a hundred times larger. As he stepped through the gates, he realized why there were farms outside the walls: it was because there was no more room with...

93. Small Chats with Small Cats

Rhys awoke to sunlight and the chattering of birdsong. He jumped to his feet, startled. Two days in a row of sleeping? That was… that was…

Absolutely luxurious! He laid back on the floor and stretched, feeling the warmth of the sunshine on his face. True, the mattress was still wet, so he couldn’t enjoy the incredible luxury of sleep...

364. Just Chatting

The man would not be so easily dissuaded. He stretched out his long legs and kept pace with Ike, and Ike had no option but to start talking. Every time he reached an end point—and he often found end points—the man would ask some question, and force him to keep talking. Eventually, Ike just kept his mouth shut and responded only by nodding or...

92. On The Way Home

Rhys left the stadium with dampened spirits. He’d feared this reality, and now that it had come to pass, he wasn’t any happier for having correctly predicted how horrible a position his region held. If anything, the Schoolmaster’s absence had only confirmed how terrible their standing was. He’d already figured out that this was more-or-l...

363. City Slickers

It was a long and boring walk to the city in the distance. It was further away than it looked, and even at Ike’s top sustainable speed, it still took some time. There were at least woods and hills between them and the city, making it a more interesting run than a flatline over dead land, but it still wasn’t super exciting. There weren’t ma...

91. The Empress Arrives

It didn’t take long for the Empress’s ship to close the distance, no matter how far away it looked when Rhys first spotted it. He had enough time to absorb the blood out of his clothes—it was trash, now that it was outside his body, so fair game for absorption—but that was about it. The black ship approached the stadium, looming overhead...

362. To the Capital

They headed out. There were more regions around the edge of their region, and more pieces of the greater being to pick up, but keeping Brightbriar from doing whatever horrific thing he planned on doing with Rosamund took precedence to collecting more pieces. Besides, who knew if there were other pieces, or if they were weak, like the infants. Th...

90. Child Rearing Advice

The referee stepped forward in the next moment. He cleared his throat. “Winner, Rhys Foundling.”

“This match is invalid! He was beating my child indiscriminately!” the well-dressed man, Florian’s father, insisted.

“Haaa, is a match invalid if your child loses? I didn’t see you complaining when Florian was beating the ot...

361. Leap of Faith

The baby’s mouth enveloped Ike. Wet, humid air rushed past him, and gums pressed against his limbs. But it stopped there, moving no further. It breathed, and Ike stumbled in, then out with its breath. He stood there, just in front of it, meeting its eyes.

“Uh… huh?” Wisp asked, caught in the middle of kicking it.

Ike shook hi...

89. Battle of Attrition

It’s go time.

The needles in Rhys’s legs left a numb, tingling sensation there that he almost hadn’t felt at all through Trash Body. They were poisoned. No, not just poisoned—the entire needle was made of poison.

Or in other words: impurity.

Rhys released his cauldron’s Trash Intent and drew in stron...

88. Surely a Young Master

The boy spluttered again, shocked. “S-such blatant escalation! You shameless extortionist!”

“Fifteen thousand gold, and I promise, I won’t touch a single poison,” Rhys replied. That much would actually make a significant increase in the gold he’d made from the potato chips; at that level, it might actually be worth it. Not that...

360. Full Circle

His hand sunk deep into the soft, pale, translucent flesh. Ike drew in, as if he were sucking in aether, but he drew on the baby’s energy instead. It wasn’t a real thing, whatever this pale-fleshed construct was. It was a conglomeration of dead flesh and the strange power that existed in this place. Right now, that power belonged to somethin...

87. Match Making

Ernesto burst onto the platform, his robes billowing and a stormy expression on his face. He pointed at Sable. “Behind me. Now!”

Sable looked at him. A sour expression crossed her face. She went to move to his side.

Rhys caught her arm. “Wait. Why are you following him?”

“No one else will teach me. He’s my only opti...

359. Big Baby

The baby whirled again. It slammed a big fat hand onto the ground, and the soft earth trembled, then gave in. The rent in the earth hurtled toward Ike and Wisp. Ike dashed to the side, while Wisp hopped onto his shoulder and hitched a ride.

Ike summoned the scepter mid-leap and drew mana toward him. The fog swirled and hurtled into the sce...

86. Fight the Champion

Rhys stepped onto the platform. Across from him, the cloaked figure stepped forward as well. The two of them faced one another from across the stone expanse. A wind blew, blowing a gust of dust across the platform, and Rhys could almost hear the mariachi riff and the rattlesnake’s rattle. He reached toward his hips, as though he was about to d...

85. Supernova

Trash poured into him. The carefully separated trash visibly depleted. In moments, he reached the level of trash inside his core that he would usually ignite a trash star at, and he kept going. Compressing, pushing, crushing down the trash as much as he could into as small of a point as he could. When it started to fill his core, he used his cor...

358. A Real Fight

The grub-babies crawled toward them, blanketing the ground with pale, moist flesh, their silvery eyes shimmering in the low light. The earth shook, sending them all trembling, their soft flesh shaking like a bowl full of jelly.

“Yuck,” Ike commented.

“Yum,” Wisp said, at the same exact moment.

He squinted at her. “Do ...

357. Crawling

Ike jumped into the air with a shout, startled. Mag fluttered up, scared into flight, and Wisp jumped backward, hopping onto one of the tiny stones and perching atop it with her feet at improbable angles… for a human, anyways. Wisp stared around. “What? What happened?”

“I… something grabbed me!” Ike said, thoroughly spooked. He...

84. We've Got to Stop Meeting Like This

“You know, the first time we met, you mentioned telling me about the background between our schools. Never got around to it, did you,” Rhys said.

She shrugged languorously, something sensual about the motion. “You didn’t press me for answers. I conveniently neglected to bring it back up.”

“Where were you? Why didn’t Ern...

356. A Thousand Tiny Graves

What else was there to do? Ike looked at the graves for a little longer, then shrugged to himself and hopped down the cliffside toward the rolling hills below. Wisp followed silently, and Mag took to the air. Ike wasn’t really sure the birdbrain understood what the gravestones meant, and he didn’t think it was necessary to break the news to ...

83. Arch 'em

“Arch ‘em swords, bad boy,” Rhys encouraged Archem with a vicious glint in his eye. He lifted his hand to match Archem’s bared sword, a chunk of dark metal barely visible in the palm of his hand.

Archem growled and swung down with all his might, putting his whole pu—ahem, self into it.

To be honest, Rhys was pretty sure fif...

355. Pillar of the World

“O’… what?” Ike asked, lost. What had she called him? What did it even mean? Pillar of the world. Had he supported the world, once? And wait, if he was something like a pillar, what was the world doing without him? Wasn’t that a problem, if the world was missing one of its pillars?

Wisp raised her brows. She leaned in to Ike. “...

82. First Match

The crowd was larger than any crowd Rhys had ever seen before. All of Purple Dawn had turned out, along with most of the students from all the other schools. There were big blocks of white, green, and blue in the crowd, according to the schools’ uniforms, while a mishmash of every color of students filled another quarter of the stadium. Not al...

354. The Fog

A laugh echoed from all around Ike, sliding into his ears unasked-for. He shuddered and wiped his ear on his shoulder, but it didn’t stop the voice.

“You come into a girl’s home, ruin her wall, and then you lead with that? No manners,” the voice hummed, drifting around Ike.

“What are you? Why are you doing this?” Ike watc...

81. Tournament Time

If the mana-imbued chips had sold, the enlightenment chips sold like hotcakes, absolutely flying off their shop’s shelves. Although they’d targeted the tournament-visitors, by now, the word-of-mouth about their chips had spread throughout all of Purple Dawn Academy. Teachers, students, staff members, it didn’t matter what their rank or Tie...

353. Shadows in the Fog

Mag ran up to Ike and Wisp and walked beside them. His whole body was stiff, but he kept a poker face, as if nothing was wrong at all. Ike and Wisp raised their brows at one another. It would’ve been less obvious if he’d announced that something was wrong.

“What’s wrong, buddy?” Ike asked at last.

Mag glanced at him. He sho...

80. Enlightening Chips

He’d done it for one chip. Now, facing the vat of bubbling oil, Rhys contemplated doing it on a hundred-fold scale, if not more, all without touching them, because if he touched the oil, he risked his entire hand. He rested his hands on the rim of the pot, relying on his Heat Resist to protect them. It was warm, hot, even but he could handle t...

79. The Belly of the Beast

Laurent glanced around, checking that there was no one around. He gestured the two of them on. This was totally out of character for him, breaking the rules like this, and yet, it was so exhilarating. His heart raced with excitement that he hadn’t felt since he’d gotten his Tier 2 core. Sure, all of the other students were out using their ne...