To say the battlefield was chaotic would be a severe understatement.

  “Do you see that?” Mýra said, pointing to the edge of the sands.

  “See what?” Karl said, frowning as he looked where she pointed. There was so much blood and augmented monsters that it was hard to really see anything but the terrifying display of divine-enhanced warriors and industrial enemies. But as he looked closely at where Mýra pointed, he could see another strange sight.

  A Roman gladiator fighting just before them battled against a humanoid tiger-faced demon with claws made of alloy blades. He had just finished decapitating his foe when the monstrous tiger thing started to dissolve into divine particles. It was extremely subtle, as the little sparks of gold coming off its body would have been very easy to miss had they just continued fighting. As it drained into the sands around it, it was almost like it was being sucked into the ground by an invisible vacuum.

  “Have you ever seen that before?” Karl asked.

  Sporus shook his head. “That’s something new.”

  They turned to look at the bodies of the monsters they had faced, and they saw a similar sight. Golden specks coming off the bodies were being drained into the floor.

  Whatever the weird nature of the arena was, Karl desperately wanted to stay at the edge where they were safest, considering they had a ring of bodies to hide them. He thought briefly of his strategy of camping out in some of his favorite RPG games or multiplayer games, which proved to be successful then, though the stakes weren’t as high as they were now. But any thoughts of hiding out until the clock ran out were shattered when an Egyptian warrior wearing dark gold and obsidian plates ran up to their little hill of monsters and pointed at them, shouting something. He was wearing a helmet that looked like a jackal, and Karl got the feeling that he wasn’t friendly.

  Sporus drew an arrow just to be safe as the Egyptian kept screaming at them.

  “What does he want?” Björn asked, preparing to summon his Bifrost to protect them.

  “He keeps saying Ka,” the Trickster said. “That means life force.”

  Karl really didn’t know whether to trust what the Trickster was saying was true. But it didn’t matter, as the Egyptian screamed out something with finality and twisted his hand in a weird summoning shape, causing the dead bodies beneath them to start to shift.

  “Wait, I thought we were fighting just monsters,” Karl said, as the spiders began to twitch and move underneath them. “Don’t we have enough problems to worry about instead of fighting each other?”

  “Welcome to Rome,” Sporus said, as the spiders and the cryowolves twitched back to life thanks to the Egyptian’s necromancy abilities.

  Kara shouted, activating her Valkyrie Rune Leap to jump off the now reanimated Japanese spider to deliver a fatal sword strike on the jackal-headed warrior. She cut him clean in half with her tremendous power.

  It still didn’t stop the revival of the monsters they had just slain.

  “Teleport!” Karl shouted, calling each of his friends to grab onto him as he Elf Leaped them off the Japanese spider, which turned around and chased after them without a head.

  They landed right before Kara. Karl touched her with his foot and Elf Leaped them again onto another hexagonal surface to get away from the revived enemies. He did not want to deal with those enemies again.

  The elevated plate they landed on contained a group of Indians who were exhaling fire from their mouths onto a pack of deer with bronze piston legs and crystalline horns partially covered with jade plates. Thankfully, those warriors did not want to kill Karl and his friends like the Egyptian did.

  But that didn’t stop Björn. The Viking charged forth and severed the spine of the nearest Indian before knocking unconscious his buddy with the butt of his battleaxe.

  “Björn!” Mýra shouted in shock.

  It didn’t matter now. The other Indians turned on them. Karl cursed as he and Kara leapt out of the way of the flames that emitted from their faces. Karl followed up with a quick fire of an ice arrow into one of the Indians’ faces, causing ice and ink to go all over their face. Sporus disappeared, presumably thanks to his divine blessing of Pluto, which he admitted to earlier, and he fired off a barrage of shadow arrows that distracted the dozen or so Indians they now fought against.

  Because of their distraction, the industrialized, Chinese-looking deer skewered a handful of the Indians with their crystalline horns. They used their hydraulic legs to kick several others off the platform.

  Karl didn’t stop to think about the moral implications of what they were doing and just moved with instinct. His weapon didn’t slip from his hand as he fired arrow after arrow; thanks to the Kraken suction, even when the blood of his enemies slicked it, his hand had a tight grip. And when he did receive flame damage, his Moltenveil armor, granting him over 50% fire resistance, caused his Health to drop only slightly. Before long, he returned the favor with a Dual Shot to the man’s chest. The wounded man stumbled back just in time for Kara to open his intestines with a singular burning strike from her sword.

  Karl tried not to throw up as they cleaned up the rest of the Indians they fought against. It wasn’t the only group of them on the battlefield, just a singular cluster. But it seemed the mechanical deer did a better job of taking them out, as within a minute, there were no Indian warriors left—only the mechanized deer, of which there were about twenty left.

  “That’s so many,” Karl said as he and his friends backed away from the horde of them, which were shaking their heads with rage and preparing to stampede with their horns.

  Karl shoved the last of his olive honey olive bread into his mouth to regain some of the Stamina and Health he had lost. But thankfully, Kara had increased his Health and Stamina regeneration just from her kills, and he had granted her more from his too.

  As one, the deer-like creatures charged at them, giving them little time to prepare. Their piston-enhanced legs helped them charge with incredible speed.

  Karl could think of nothing else except grabbing his friends and Elf Leaping at the last second just behind the deer the moment they were about to collide with them. He and his friends teleported just behind them as the deer, who were singularly focused on throwing them off the edge of the hexagonal plate, were themselves thrown off thanks to their enhanced speed. The twenty deer plummeted onto a group of five Greek gladiators below, crushing them. One or several of the Greeks were carrying Greek fire bombs, and the entire swarm of deer—and the men squashed—exploded in the green fire, roasting them all.

  It turned out to be a very hefty ka-ching.

  Intelligence (+250): lvl 8 (50/90)

  Wealth (+37): 11,140 Gold

  Glory (+840): 3,140

  Level (+2): 42 (40/430)

  Skill Points (+2): 2

  With the dramatic increase in Karl’s Intelligence, he literally felt his brain expand as he became smarter; it was one of the weirdest experiences he had ever had. Despite this, he was thankful not to have died and that he was able to level up exponentially faster now.

  “I’m so glad I maxed out my Elf Leap ability,” Karl said, feeling relieved. Had he not done so, they would have been in a lot more trouble. He was so ecstatic about his insane increase in Glory that he almost overlooked how his body seemed to be shedding golden flakes from his wrist, where his gladiator metal band was; it still glowed green since he survived. It looked exactly like the golden essence that came out of the monsters they had vanquished, and similarly, the golden dust was sucked into the sands below.

  Strange.

  Whatever it was, at least he received more weird ingots.

  Item: Jade-Horn Ingot x30 (Epic) — A gorgeous emerald-green ingot, its surface marbled with translucent crystalline veins. When tilted in the light, it gives off a faint earth-tone harmonic hum, like wind blowing across bamboo. Adds 2x more damage to or defense from crafted weapons against animals.

  “Get ready to use it again,” Kara warned, redirecting his thoughts as she pointed with her burning sword towards a space of air.

  “What is it?” Sporus asked, drawing another arrow, though he and the others looked at the spot Kara was pointing to with confusion. But Karl could see what she was referring to thanks to his werewolf senses, his eyes helping him catch the three warped, reflective spaces that had just crawled up on the edge of the plate and were now stalking them.

  Karl drew an arrow, taking a breath to steady his aim against the invisible jaguars that quietly encircled his group. “Kara, be ready to transform.”

  Realizing the game was up, the jaguars growled on every side of them.

  “Oh goodie, naughty kitties,” the Trickster said, unsheathing his Hel’s Chain, dangling it off of Karl’s shoulder. “I’ve been needing a new pelt anyway.”

  At the suggestion of being turned into clothing, the jaguars pounced.

  17

  HEAVY METAL

  At the same time, Karl and Kara transformed into their werewolf forms, each taking on an invisible jaguar, leaving the remaining jaguar for Björn, Mýra, Sporus, and Ratatoskr.

  Karl instinctively activated his Moonfang Strike, which cost 25 Stamina but allowed him to deal 150% weapon damage and apply a Lunar Bleed for 15% of the jaguar’s max Health over eight seconds. He sank his jaws around the jaguar’s neck, crunching down with all of his might.

  He nearly regretted it.

  As he and Kara mangled their foes, the jaguar’s body crushed into their mouths, slicing open their gums and their tongues. Their bodies were made of glass, apparently, and Karl’s Health started to drain a few points every second.

  Ugh, this is not a good snack, Kara thought to him.

  Maybe the Trickster will enjoy it, Karl replied, growling as he pulled apart the jaguar’s ribs with his claws, being careful to avoid his skin touching it.

  The jaguar didn’t stand a chance.

  Like glass, Karl threw his effort into smashing it to pieces, crushing its spine and trampling it into the hectic, hollow plate. Kara did the same. The glass shards exploded everywhere.

  Each of them received extra Health and Stamina thanks to their acolytes, giving Karl 10 Health points and 10 Stamina. And because they had just slain a beast within three seconds of each other, a feeding frenzy took over them both, giving them 15% attack speed and 10% lifesteal for 20 seconds.

  “Want to keep going?” Karl asked.

  “I’ll beat you to it,” Kara said, smiling with a mouth full of glass and jumping off the plate.

  Karl did the same, his System strength flooding through him and making him not mind the extreme. He wouldn’t be able to activate his werewolf ability once his Moonlight Meter went down. They needed to keep killing to keep it up. And luckily, he was in the mood for a frenzy.

  Karl landed on a Chinese female warrior who was taking on another of these mirror jaguars. Karl trampled her nearly to death on the ground.

  “Sorry,” Karl said through his voice, but then he was too busy destroying the next jaguar.

  Some of the Chinese warrior’s friends shouted in horror and began shooting their crossbows at them. One of them summoned a water serpent that appeared out of thin air and lunged at Karl, blasting him in the chest with the full force of a fire hydrant. Karl flew back and slammed into a group of gladiators who were terrified and mistook Karl for another monster to kill.

  We need to move quickly, Kara thought to Karl, now facing another group of Chinese warriors, some of whom had the cloud-stepping ability and were jumping around her and attacking with expandable staffs and crossbows.

  Karl growled and ran after her to intervene, drawing the attention off of her.

  The four Chinese warriors who were fighting her stood no match for him.

  Karl leapt from the sands and grabbed two of the warriors at the same time, one in each hand, and bit down into the chest of the third. Even Karl was shocked because of his explosive force, which was like that of a rocket. He knocked the breath out of the three warriors and was seconds from destroying them.

  But before he could, something very large and freaky slammed into him, throwing him backwards.

  “What the hell are you?” Karl asked, as he looked into the face of a man with a long, curly braided beard whose body was attached to what looked like a totem pole. Its wings were made of burning hot metal, and with each flap, it sent a heat blast into Karl’s face, burning him. The thing grunted, sounding like a cow mixed with a man, which was easily disturbing, as it thrust Karl into the sky, quickly surpassing the heights of the first floor and smashing him into the top before abandoning him to death.

  Karl screamed as he fell back down, no longer aware of the cheers and cries of the audience.

  Right before he smacked into the ground, he summoned his Nøkk’s Hand Soap. He threw the minty green soap onto the ground before impact. Not a second too late, he teleported where he had thrown it and avoided being flattened from the fall.

  Karl picked it back up and threw it into his inventory before looking off to see where that other thing had flown to. The strange monster was currently teaming up with what looked like a jade dragon with rotating steel segments and was fighting a group of samurai with glowing purple katanas.

  Karl felt pissed for nearly falling to his death. So he ran, scooped up a gladiator helmet that had fallen from a deceased warrior, and chucked it at the half-man, half-winged creature. It smashed into the back of its head, and Karl Elf Leaped to it. This time, he gripped onto the thing’s neck, and with all of his might, he completely separated its head from its shoulders. The decapitated beast collapsed into the jade dragon and the gaggle of Japanese soldiers, who were not quick enough to jump out of the way of the carnage.

  Save for one, who, after dodging, looked at Karl with horror and screamed something, which was probably a curse.

  The man swept down with his sword, but it was blasted away by Kara’s light beam as she came racing to him, fully invigorated by the Health and Stamina he had given her for his multi-kill spree. The man, now defenseless, was easy prey for Kara as she tackled him and tore him apart.

  The adrenaline and the sheer excitement of battle, with Fenrir warring for more inside of him, made Karl forget about his friends as they turned to search for more enemies to eliminate. He briefly checked his internal parchment map, and he could see them, save for Sporus, who didn’t have the tattoo. Each of them was fine, though Mýra was damaged heavily for reasons unknown, probably having run into another group of monsters or enemy combatants.

  It was a good thing they were fine, because Karl had only gotten seven kills as a werewolf. He wanted way more than that if he was going to hopefully unlock his mega ability to darken the battlefield in their advantage.

  Alpha Path: lvl 7 (80/170 Reiði)

  Wealth (+7): 11,147 Gold

  Item: Solar Wingplate Ingot (Epic) — This ingot glows faintly red-orange; it was smelted from the superheated metal feathers of the winged industrial totem-creature. Extremely hard to touch without gloves. Wearing an item crafted with this ingot grants Immunity to Heat Exhaustion, while weapons and armor deliver or defend from 20% fire damage.

  “Where to next?” Kara asked, wiping the blood off her mouth.

  Karl’s Moonlight Meter was still pretty high. He turned to the closest thing, which was a group of Cyclopes currently frying people to death with what seemed to be laser vision, which Karl could hardly understand was possible.

  There, fighting the cluster of Cyclopes, were a group of Roman gladiators who must have had the blessings of the god of speed, as they moved with a blur that was hardly identifiable. Though in the chaos and battle, one of them accidentally teleported into the hand of one of the Cyclopes, who growled at him before tearing the man apart in half in one crunchy bite.

  “Looks like a big meal to me,” Karl said, snarling with a smile, before racing ahead of Kara to take down the Cyclopes, not paying attention to how much time they had left.

  But barely a second before his teeth landed on the very sweaty and sticky Cyclopes, a flash of white burst before his eyes. Thanks to his Inky Blinders Title, he wasn’t blinded by it. He could see that the surge of energy was not alone. All around the battlefield, a web of lightning spread throughout the arena, jumping from one monster to the next until all had been completely caught in its web and exploded with white electricity.

  The sudden lightning was so bright that it stunned everyone save for Karl for a few seconds. Still, he fell to the ground as his hearing went away, as if he had experienced a detonation right next to his ears.

  Did you see that? Kara asked through the Pack Link. Her voice was clear and showed no signs of damage.

  Karl nodded as he stood to his feet.

  The smell of ozone and burnt flesh was overwhelmingly strong. Karl turned around to see that the entire place had been stripped of its monsters while the remaining contestants were still alive. Seeing the thousand or so corpses on the bloodied arena sands, he wasn’t surprised to see the stats.

  Contestants Remaining: 3,893/5,000

  Time Remaining for Floor 1: 00:00

  And there, at the center of the Emperor’s box, was Maximus, with his singular right hand open and upwards. Lightning crackled off his fingertips as if it were barely an effort for him before he withdrew his hand.

  The System notified them a second later that they had survived.