Out of every member of Hell difficulty or person that got into Beyond, there is one I respect more than any other. You wouldn’t be wrong to say that’s because of the degree of the advantage they would hold if we fought.

I don't know Savant's skills yet, but it's not him. It isn't even Lily despite the fact that she has the most powerful damage oriented skill I've seen so far. It's not even Tess with her extremely long-range and powerful attacks. And it's not Gareth with his barriers and weird form of teleportation.

No, the person that worries me more than any of them is Tacita.

Even now, I'm not sure if I noticed her because she wanted me to, she's just that good at hiding her presence. And her speed does tell me one thing. Tacita is similar to me, a person who also puts most of their stats into a single attribute, and her favored stat is Dexterity.

I'm Mana-oriented and because of what I do, my reactions will never be as quick as someone who goes full into body strengthening. I can reinforce my body with mana, I can boost my strength, and make myself faster with kinetic energy.

But someone like her will always be my natural enemy. The main reason being that, in close quarters, unless I was already reinforcing my body as much as possible, I wouldn't be able to react if she decided to kill me.

It's a weakness, and I already have multiple plans for dealing with it. But for now, there are going to be situations in which I have no chance against Tacita.

I watch as she lashes out at the lightning mage that once stood next to Brainiac and jumps back and to the side, her feet moving nimbly, as she dances around his attacks. Leaping, bobbing, and weaving as drops of rain cling to her skin..

Mari and Pumpkin try to rush her while Gareth and Lootenant keep an eye on me.

So as I’m floating there, I create two orbs at my side and fill them with mana until they’re on the brink of becoming unstable.

As I do that I sow the ground with a barrage of normal mana projectiles, tying anchors to three of them. The first orb explodes through an anchor I managed to place between Tacita and the lightning mage, who, unlike the stabby brunette, dies.

Gareth creates a barrier around the rest of the group, but, being closest to the explosion, the lightning mage's barrier is unable to resist the implosion and breaks. Tacita, meanwhile, just opts to outrun the explosion.

Noname (Hell, 4th) ⟶ Ghast (Hell, 5th)

Tacita doesn't seem to like that and grabs a stone from the ground, her arm a blur as she throws it at me. The stone crashes against my barrier with a surprising amount of force, and she changes her target to Lootenant, the raindrops seeming to burst outward as she moves at incredible speed.

Mari and Pumpkin actually manage to stand in her way for a moment, keeping pace with her. though I do notice that their bodies seem to be radiating a silver aura, which flares up to create barriers and heal their wounds as needed.

Gareth blocks my second tri-colored orb, once again surrounding it with a silver barrier before sending it to the same spot as before. I wonder if he placed some sort of mark there.

Using the third anchor, I appear on the ground near Gareth, kinetic energy exploding from me, only to be absorbed by his barriers. I send disrupting mana at him right after followed by a blast of golden flames, and yet he reforms his barriers each time, successfully blocking the attacks.

I sidestep a swing of his mace, causing it to crash into the ground and send chunks of muddy earth into the air.

Thunder roars in our ears, and the wind grows stronger as the wall of black clouds moves closer and closer, blotting out all other sounds. The rain also grows in intensity, further obscuring my mana sight with the mana-filled droplets.

Gareth stops holding back, and his blue armor turns silver, and a silver crown appears floating over his head. The hexagonal segments of his barrier orbit his form, and his mace shines brighter as he charges me. Each of his swings bears disrupting properties, and the marks he placed on his party shine brighter, surrounding them in that same silver light.

Twelve sections of his hexagonal barrier move around him, forming larger ones to block my flames or splitting into a multitude of smaller ones to address heavy barrages. Though sometimes they stick to his armor, strengthening some parts further.

The man negates most of my attacks, to my great annoyance, and I feel my frustration rise more and more, and my plan to limit my mana expenditure disappears from my head.

Once Mari joins him, blades made of oscillating mana in hand, I have had enough. A black orb forms in front of my chest, and all of their eyes turn towards it, surprised by the unnerving feeling.

A blast of kinetic energy from behind Gareth pushes him towards it, and silver and black mana clash.

Following the clash, the black orb of mana manages to absorb a few sections of his silver barrier. Gareth moves to block it, though his weapon and crown flicker as the orb sucks in more and more.

When he finally lets go of his weapon and moves back, pieces of his armor are missing, eaten away by black mana, and half of the hexagonal barrier is gone.

Mari is also dead, an anchor placed near her head having reduced her into particles of mana.

Noname (Hell, 4th) ⟶ Mari (Hell, 5th)

With the mana in my body reduced even more, I float into the air and fire one last projectile at Lootenant.

Gareth finally manages to retake control of his abilities and blocks my attacks by surrounding the man with a barrier, but at the same time, Tacita passes by Lootenant's traps, activating a few along the way, while avoiding their effects and finishing the man.

Then, like me, she takes the opportunity to disappear into the forest as the gradually approaching storm ravages the area.

The first bolt of lightning lands next to us, it evaporates a good chunk of a car-sized rock nearby, causing it to crumble into dust, leaving a small crater in the ground. The wind blows into me, leaving me feeling like I got hit by a truck, and I decide I do not want to get into that storm.

Using more and more mana, I push my body through the air, leaving the thunder and lightning behind me. I remain high in the air, placing multiple anchors along the ground.

When Gareth and the rest of his group exit the storm, a thermal explosion envelops them, and a rain of compressed mana javelins rains across the ground. When the flames disappear, pushed away by a wave of silver mana, Gareth and the last member of his group stand there free of damage, his barrier having tanked a bolt of lightning from the storm, the ground exploding around them, and the mud and rocks that erupted into the air.

Tsk.

Unwilling to waste more of my mana on a tanky target, I boost myself further, floating away when I catch a familiar mana signature behind me. Looking back, I see a figure floating just on the edge of the storm. And that figure's head bears a crown made of lightning, brighter and twice as big as before.

The woman's blonde hair floats around her, shining in a beautiful golden color.

I form a barrier to block a bolt of white lightning that Tess redirected from the storm, and while I don’t take any damage it does manage to push me further away.

“Are you only hunting me?” I shout at her.

There is no way she can hear it through all the thunder, but she seems to understand and smirks.

Text reading Sset (Hell, 4th) floats above her head, along with the [Restriction] she’s placed herself.Unauthorized use: this story is on Amazon without permission from the author. Report any sightings.

High in the air on the edge of the storm, Tess and I face each other, and I feel my decision from before crumble and disappear. The hold I've kept on my mana weakens and it floods into my body for the first time since the start of the event.

Gareth far beneath us, Tacita sneaking around, Savant waiting somewhere nearby. All of these concerns disappear, pushed far, into the back of my mind.

I [Focus], and [Regalia] surrounds my body, quickly infused with [Resonance]. A shockwave explodes around me, pushing the droplets away, and I charge into the storm.

Tess moves her hand, and two white lightning bolts created within the storm change their course and crash into my body.

I’ve already seen them striking multiple times and I know what to do. My armor tanks most of the damage and resonating mana tears apart the rest while I absorb the generated heat, collecting it inside my body.

Seeing what I'm doing, Tess assaults me with a pulse of [Psychokinesis], slowing me down while pushing Tess further away, so that she can maintain her advantage.

Dodging to the side, I avoid another bolt of lightning, a few mana arrows filled with thermal energy shine as they pass through the storm, evaporating rain in the process.

Tess lowers her altitude, tearing a few of the smaller trees and rocks from the ground with her skill before throwing them at me.

I dodge through the air, taking a few more lightning strikes and constantly firing projectiles at her, forcing her to reposition in an attempt to distract her.

The crown over her head shines brightly, its mana forming lightning projectiles that wait at her side, these ones formed of the usual red and white lightning. Tess launches them at me, making them move much quicker than the ones from the storm, and forcing them to change direction mid-air.

Placing an anchor further ahead, I teleport past them repeating the process a few times, and reach Tess.

The crown over her head disappears, turning into lightning armor that surrounds her body, and clashes with my [Regalia].

Each of our clashes causes a small shockwave, creating a pulsating sphere devoid of the ever present rain as the escaping energy forces the raindrops away.

I bombard her with mana projectiles at close range, boosted by kinetic energy, and it’s impossible for her to block them all, so she tanks most of them, responding in kind with the lightning that constantly flickers around her.

A few lightning bolts get pulled from the storm, hitting her body and strengthening her armor as I pressure her.

I teleport, but the moment I appear, a lightning projectile crashes into my armored forearm, so I try again, only to get the same result. Clearly, Tess is reading and predicting my placement of the anchors.

Finally having generated enough, my armor changes, my golden thermal energy filling it, heat radiating from me. Boosted by kinetic energy, I advance on Tess, the raw power of my flight better at this level, and after a short clash, I grab her arm.

Tess, having expected that, pulls three white lightning bolts toward us, damaging my armor and further strengthening hers.

Her lightning and my thermal energy rage against each other. The lightning piercing through the armor damages me, but my temporarily rare passive heals my wounds with the sheer amount of heat I’ve surrounded myself with.

My heart beats harder and harder as I barely hold on, avoiding her close range lightning projectiles and enduring the bolts she calls down from the storm. But I hold, and looking at Tess, I can’t help but smile as well.

With a strong pulse, more energy collects inside of me as I'm ready to push through, but then Tess slashes with her free arm. Not against me, but against her own hand. She cuts it off, leaving me holding the hand she’s infused with all of her lightning.

Pushing further away from me, much less Primordial lightning surrounding her, she calls, “I learned it from you!”

Her severed hand shines even brighter in my hand, and when I let go, it moves and grabs me instead, creeping me out even more than the astounding amount of lightning collected within.

It acts like a lightning rod, leaving me feeling like the storm has been concentrated on me, and me alone, as I find a dozen lightning bolts heading in my direction.

My eyes activate for a split second, and I disrupt the hand’s mana, quickly deactivating the eyes afterward. I tear the hand apart with [Resonance] and watch as all the white lightning passes by, reverberating the air.

When I look around, Tess is gone.

You silly blonde. What are you, a gray lizard? Leaving your limbs behind like that.

Checking, I find that I’ve managed to spend ten to twenty percent of the mana left in my body.

Forcing it back under my control, I fly out of the storm.

Three hours remain, and the rain stops as if it’s been cut off. The air grows colder, the water from the rain starts freezing over, and heavy snow starts to fall, quickly covering the trees and the ground.

Walking through another post-apocalyptic city, I listen to the snow compressing under my feet, tracing the footsteps in front of me.

The barrier shrinks once more, and even fewer people remain.

/ 2357

A few of the slots on the leaderboard have changed as well:

st (193 pts) - Sset

nd (172 pts) - Noname

rd (169 pts) - Savant

th (168 pts) - Tacita

th (124 pts) - Grumpy

Sensing a trap ahead, I avoid it and move to a rooftop where I disrupt a few mana sensing triggers and find a group of ten people, most of them seem to be from Hard difficulty. One of them holds an epic weapon, an ax made of ethercrystal. A transparent white crystal capable of absorbing mana.

A few well-placed anchors go unnoticed and half of them die before they are able to defend themselves. They activate defensive shields but a wave of disrupting mana crashes against them, negating the shields before a highly compressed barrage of javelins finishes the job, destroying part of the roof and their fortifications.

I take a short moment to check the leaderboard and savor the feeling of seeing myself in the first place. It's hard to find large groups of people from higher difficulties.

Amid the falling snow, I examine the rare and uncommon items that were in their possession, collecting a defensive amulet with a single use of a spherical barrier remaining, and pick up the epic ax.

Ethercrystal War Axe (Epic): Crafted from Ethercrystal, this war ax absorbs part of any mana it touches. Each attack channels the absorbed mana to momentarily increase the user's physical strength.

I test the feel of the ax in my hand, swinging it a few times to get used to the heft. I used to have a similar sword and the ax could help me conserve some of the mana I would otherwise be using to strengthen my body.

While on watch, I check the notifications.

Sset (Hell, 4th) ⟶ TheStrongestOne (Hell, 5th)

Damn, Tess. Did group 4 do anything to piss you off? Did I do anything to you?

And a few more.

Savant (Hell, 4th) ⟶ Gareth (Hell, 5th)

Savant (Hell, 4th) ⟶ Pumpkin (Hell, 5th)

Detecting something that feels like tunnels under the ground, I place an anchor, teleporting below while keeping my eyes on the notifications.

FoodFood (Hell, 6th) ⟶ Two (Normal, 5th)

FoodFood (Hell, 6th) ⟶ One (Normal, 5th)

FoodFood (Hell, 6th) ⟶ Sami (Easy, 6th)

FoodFood (Hell, 6th) ⟶ Eve (Normal, 5th)

FoodFood (Hell, 6th) ⟶ Overlord (Easy, 5th)

FoodFood (Hell, 6th) ⟶ Snowman (Easy, 4th)

…

And the notifications continue, proclaiming the names of almost two dozen participants who’ve been defeated.

Biscuit, what the heck did you even do? Did they anger you? It might be awkward back in the common area if you scare them too much.

Anyway, clearly the best doggo of the tournament floor, no, the best doggo of the 1st event and Survival Domain!

I start heading towards an area containing multiple presences, I trigger a few alarms on purpose, and when I exit the tunnel and enter a big underground area a dozen people are there, weapons out and mana ready.

Quickly I locate two epic items and two people from Hell difficulty, respectively from group 8, TheGuild.

AnotherOneHere (Hell, 5th)

Swordmaster (Hell, 5th)

In the shadowy darkness of the tunnels, golden thermal energy surrounds me and I take a step towards them.