by Andrew Rowe
I moved a little faster. I still had plenty of time, but stopping at the shop had cost me. I didn’t regret getting a healing potion, but if I wanted a high score, I’d need to make up for the lost time.
Choosing the same direction to turn at every juncture — in my case always choosing left — was a reliable way to traverse a maze if you had enough time to spend. Unfortunately, if I was right about the scale of this one, I didn’t have a chance of getting close to the center in the remaining time with that route.
Maybe luck would have gotten me there. And in truth, the approach I’d been taking was earning me crystals reliably without much difficulty, so it wasn’t awful.
But I wasn’t the kind of person to settle for a safe strategy and a mediocre score.
I glanced upward, seeing a room above me without any people currently in it. Then I focused my destructive aura around Dawn again and swung upward.
My destructive aura lashed upward, slicing a hole in the ceiling. Then with three more cuts, I’d removed a section of crystal.
I sheathed Dawn, jumped, and climbed up to the room above.
A quick scan around the area showed nothing of interest. I’d cut my way into the center of another long hallway.
A trap triggered a moment later, firing a gooey spiderweb down the hallway toward me. I countered by flooding my aura with flame mana, then sending a burning slash in the direction of the web.
...it didn’t work quite as well as I wanted.
It did catch the web on fire. Unfortunately, the web was a little tougher than I’d realized. So, a moment later, I was stuck in a web that was also on fire.
After a brief moment of irritation, I sent a blast of destructive mana outward and annihilated it. A bit of gooey residue remained on my skin, but the web itself parted easily in the wake of my aura.
Another moment of concentration sent some destructive mana across my skin, destroying the bits of web stuck to it. I’d have to clean my clothes later; I didn’t have enough control to burn the web off the clothing without destroying it.
Irritated but largely unharmed, I glanced upward again.
The ceiling above me wasn’t crystal. It was solid stone, much like the floor on the bottom level. That was interesting, because I knew there was a level above this one.
Why is this section different?
I was intrigued.
I sliced upward, making a hole.
The area above me was pitch black.
Interesting. Maybe that’ll be dangerous.
Agreed.
I sheathed Dawn, then jumped and pulled myself upward.
Immediately, Dawnbringer’s light illuminated the area once I was inside. Her light spread further as soon as I pulled her back out of her scabbard.
In truth, I probably could have just shined her upward from below, but that would have spoiled the fun of being run over by a vast and vicious monster.
The behemoth was exactly what it sounded like — a creature the size of a train car and a similar lack of interest in slowing down for anything in its path.
While it was elephantine in scale, it was shaped more like a lion with colossal horns and only patchy spots of hair on its head and tail. Most of the body was covered with rhinoceros-like hide, except for the parts where more spikes protruded from its elbows, knees, and claw-like hands.
It rammed me just after I got my footing on the upper floor. I flew backward, hit the ground, and then rolled just in time to avoid being stepped on by massive hooves.
In truth, if it’d stepped on me, I don’t even know if I would have survived that. I don’t think anyone had expected someone to enter the creature’s room from below, or be insane enough to confront a behemoth head-on.
Oops.
My chest ached where the behemoth had slammed into me, but I didn’t think it had managed to break any ribs. As I’ve mentioned, my bones are oddly resilient, even by the standards of the rest of my body.
The fleshy bits are still pretty vulnerable, though, so I was fortunate that it hadn’t skewered me with any of its absurd number of horns. The thing was so tall that it must have hit me with its chest or chin.
Less fortunately, it was already turning around for another charge by the time I’d managed to shake off the initial surge of agony from the impact.
I didn’t have time to stand. Instead, I tumbled beneath it and swung Dawnbringer upward as it rushed over me.
Her blade bounced right off the behemoth’s hide.
That was unexpected.
As the behemoth continued to rush past me, I barely avoided falling back in the hole I’d made and stumbled to my feet.
I lifted Dawn in a two-handed grip, then focused my destructive aura around her again. If her blade couldn’t cut this thing on its own, my aura would do the trick.
The behemoth turned around, roared into the air, and then inhaled.
Oh. I may have miscalculated.
I barely had a chance to react before it exhaled a tremendous ball of fire in my direction. Fortunately, that moment was enough.
I dispersed my destructive aura and swung Dawn straight into the fireball. “Radiant Dawn!”
The behemoth’s breath wasn’t quite the same as a traditional spell, but it was close enough. The ball of fire flew backward and smashed into the behemoth, exploding on impact.
The explosive force blinded me for an instant. And in that instant, the behemoth had already started to charge again.
I’d hurt it by reflecting the fire, but not much. And this time, it was lowering its head to skewer me on its deadly horns.
I waited.
Just a few moments before it would have reached me, I slammed my boot into the ground.
Wall.
The floor of this area wasn’t crystal. It was stone. I was much better at working with stone.
And, like I mentioned, behemoths are very bad at slowing down.
The behemoth slammed spike-first into the wall.
...and kept going.
There was an instant of clarity as the spikes began to pierce the wall. I moved on instinct, hurling myself to the ground and tumbling just at the right angle for the behemoth to charge over me, rather than into me.
I’d significantly underestimated how strong it was, and I’d very nearly been smashed into pieces as a result.
As the behemoth oriented itself, I rolled to my feet. The collision hadn’t stopped it, but it looked dazed. It stamped in frustration, beginning to turn to search for its missing prey. I darted forward and lashed out, destructive essence flowing across Dawn’s blade.
As I expected, my aura was more than enough to cut through the beast’s hide. But the monster was huge, and a couple cuts from Dawnbringer barely slowed it down.
It kicked backward, and I had to dodge to the side to avoid it. A moment later it was spinning around, swinging a needlessly-spiked claw.
I swiped upward, tearing one of those spikes right off, and then closed in for another swing.
[Twelve minutes remaining.]
The announcement distracted me for a moment, and the behemoth’s other claw caught me from the side. It sent me stumbling back, bleeding from a gash across my shoulder, but I kept my footing.
Then the behemoth stomped a foot in a now-familiar gesture, preparing to charge.
I didn’t see a weak point on it. There was no obvious glowing mark to show a crystal serving as a power source, no gap in its hide. I could have gone for its eyes, but that seemed unsportsmanlike.
I could have kept dodging and started gradually cutting into it with my aura, but I was acutely aware that I was wasting time with a single monster that didn’t necessarily guard a crystal.
When the behemoth charged again, I met it head on.
Body of Iron.
I jammed Dawnbringer into the ground.
The behemoth’s largest horn was right in the center of its forehead. It had angled its head downward to skewer me, and that made the horn an easy
target.
I didn’t swipe upward with my destructive aura, though that might have been the wise thing to do.
Instead, I reached out with both hands and grabbed.
I fell back a single step at the tremendous impact. My muscles trembled in my body. Even reinforced with colossal power, I was straining against a creature with a mass a hundred times my own.
And then, with the power of metal mana flooding through my veins. I pushed.
There was something like incredulity in the behemoth’s eyes as it looked at me then. Then, with a grunt, I shoved it backward.
Behemoths, like many charging creatures, aren’t very good at walking backwards.
I felt my muscles burn as I gritted my teeth and shoved backward just one more step — and then the behemoth’s knees, not built for this kind of movement, failed.
It fell to the ground.
Magnetic pull.
Dawnbringer flew back to my hand.
“Sorry, big guy.”
As the behemoth tried to rise again, I stepped around to the side of its neck and focused my destructive aura around Dawn. Then I swept upward.
The cut was clean.
A moment later, the tremendous beast collapsed unceremoniously to the ground.
Release Body of Iron.
The behemoth vanished, and I felt residual pain throughout my entire body.
It didn’t leave a single crystal behind.
I glowered at the darkness where it had been a moment before.
Seriously?
I turned around to find a newly-appeared treasure chest sitting in the center of the room.
“Ah.” I sheathed Dawn and walked over to the chest. “Much better.”
I reached toward the chest, eager to get the reward from the first difficult fight I’d encountered during the tournament.
Then the box tried to bite my hand off.
“Aaaaaah!”
I’ll admit it. I’m not always great with surprises. Sometimes I panic.
But in fairness to me, virtually everyone panics the first time they encounter a mimic.
A mimic is a particular cruel breed of monster that likes to disguise itself as a treasure box. Some people say they’re related to slimes; others consider them to be a general category of shapeshifter. I’ve even heard a few people talk about them being some kind of thing that lives inside of an actual treasure box, then uses it to lure in prey.
I wouldn’t know. They don’t exist on my continent, presumably because the gods of my homeland don’t have quite as horrible of a sense of humor as yours.
And I haven’t had much of a chance to research one, since I usually react to them the same way I did that day.
As I’ve mentioned, I don’t flee when I panic.
So, as a barbed tongue and vicious jaws lashed out at me, I threw a punch. And, instinctively, that punch carried a tremendous amount of my destructive aura along with it.
Was there treasure inside that box?
I’ll never know. When my aura ripped forward from that punch, it spread outward in a wide, cone-shaped blast.
I absolutely obliterated the thing. There wasn’t a scorch mark remaining afterward. There wasn’t even a pile of ash.
I stared blankly at the empty air, then raised my hand and looked incredulously at it.
Huh.
No kidding.
Nope, don’t even start with me. That thing was the biggest incarnation of ‘nope’ I have ever seen. I can only be disappointed that I cannot possibly kill it more thoroughly.
If I ever gain the ability to travel through time, my first goal will be to prevent the creation of that kind of creature. Gaah.
A little.
I took a deep breath.
You’re not helping.
I took another breath.
Okay. We’re moving on. Let us never speak of this creature again.
I moved on.
In specific, I moved up.
I’d already lost quite a bit of time by fighting the behemoth and obliterating the nope box, but by cutting another hole in the ceiling and climbing up again, I’d finally reached the next part of my plan.
In specific, I was on top of the labyrinth.
From the top, I could see several things of interest.
First of all, the labyrinth itself was a titanic cube, and said cube was in the midst of the largest stadium I’d ever seen.
All around the cube were row after row of seats, filled with thousands — maybe tens of thousands — of watching citizens.
I could see a few special boxes in the crowd as well, the kind that most likely held the highest tiers of nobility or the wealthiest merchants. I couldn’t identify them in any detail, though, because they were too far away.
The sheer scale of the place was mind-boggling.
But I wasn’t up there to stare at the crowd.
Instead, from the top of the labyrinth, I could look down through the crystalline sections of the floor to find whatever I was looking for.
It wasn’t a perfect plan for a few reasons.
One, the top of the cube wasn’t all transparent crystal; there were several sections of solid stone in intermittent spots, and I couldn’t tell if that meant those locations were more valuable.
Two, I could only see the top floor of the labyrinth. If I’d designed the place, I would have expected people to take this route and put the most valuable things on the bottom floors, where they couldn’t easily be seen by someone using this trick.
Third, there about a dozen metallic golems running toward me. Each of them had an obvious glowing crystal in the center of their chest, fueling it with power.
The roof wasn’t quite as unoccupied as I’d expected, but that was fine. These were all solvable problems, especially the last.
In fact, that one was more of an opportunity.
I drew Dawnbringer.
Going to do some metal stuff, brace yourself.
The first time Dawn had heard me command metal to break, she’d felt like I was trying to tear her in half and started screaming in my mind. Since then, she’d gotten better at reading my intentions and stopped panicking, but I still tried to warn her whenever possible.
I met the first golem with a swing across its chest.
Compress.
The animating magic that kept the golem running resisted my command...but only for a moment.
Then it trembled and contorted as its entire body crunched inward, into a single ball of metal.
The next golem took a swing at me a moment later. It was surprisingly quick, and the punch took me right in the jaw.
After being hit by a behemoth, though, I barely even felt it.
I grabbed it by the wrist before it could pull away, then concentrated.
I got a little more creative with that one.
Reshape.
I concentrated on the area around the crystal, and simply reshaped the metal away from it.
The crystal fell right out.
The golem fell inert a moment later.
The other golems paused after that.
I blinked. Were they capable of thinking?
I got a different answer a moment later, when a voice echoed in my mind.
[Contestant, you are in an out-of-bounds area. Please refrain from damaging the security golems. If you remain in this area, you will be removed from the test in sixty seconds.]
Oh. Oops.
Well, they didn’t say anything about not looting the bodies.
I retrieved the two crystals from the
golems I’d already beaten.
The other golems turned and marched away from me.
Sixty seconds, eh?
Not a lot of time to scout.
I ran forward, scanning the ground as I moved.
I saw several things of potential interest below. Sections filled with monsters, people, and even one more treasure chest.
After the experience with the nope box, I would never trust treasure chests again, so I avoided that one.
[Six minutes remaining.]
I moved a bit faster. After about thirty seconds, I stopped and made a hole in the floor above a room with the largest group of monsters I could find.
Why?
Because not only did the monsters look dangerous — and therefore fun — they were clustered around one of the things that I was looking for.
A single green crystal was floating in the center of the room.
I dropped down, landing right near it and raising Dawn into a ready stance.
Let’s do this.
A panther-like beast jumped at me as soon as I hit the floor. I kicked it in the face, then spun to cut the wings off of a gigantic wasp.
A heartbeat later, the next wasp was in front of me, buzzing and jamming its stinger toward my shoulder. My left arm shot up, grabbing the stinger, and I hurled it straight at the next monster — a bear-like beast with scales all over.
The wasp managed to course-correct before it stung the bear, but the bear crashed right into it.
Then I jumped on the bear’s back, avoiding the lunges of a pair of wolves with tentacles coming out of their backs.
I didn’t know why so many of Kaldwyn’s monsters are basically animals with extra horns, scales, or tentacles. At that moment, it wasn’t my biggest concern.
That honor went to the entire wall on the opposite side of the room, which appeared to be made out of a tangle of thousands of flesh-and-stone limbs. The wall was gradually moving in my direction, and while it was disturbing enough in appearance alone, that wasn’t the real problem.
The real problem was that many of those hundreds of arms were, well, armed. (Terrible pun, I know. Forgive me.)
The weapons they were wielding looked like they were made of the same weird fleshy stone substance as the arms themselves, but they rapidly proved functional. The wall was a good two dozen feet away, so the swords and axes couldn’t reach me, but there were a dozen bows firing arrows at me and others throwing knives.
