Chapter 68
Decisions, Decisions
“You said that each Tier Five construct is unique,” said Kaelis. “Are their forms entirely random, or is there a logic behind it?”
“You might be surprised to learn that GEC maintains one of the most comprehensive databases of inhabited planets in the galaxy. It conducts in-depth analyses of each planet’s cultures, beliefs, and history,” Auroria replied. “Primarily, it’s used to identify worlds that offer suitable candidates for the Salvaged Trialists. But it serves many other purposes, one of which is relevant to this conversation. When the construct is created, the Arcane Projection Chamber accesses the database to shape something drawn from the Trialist’s lived experiences. Whatever appears next, Peter will recognise it as something from his world.”
*
I was not happy.
The water hadn’t washed the slime off. If anything, it had made it worse – turning it into a disgusting paste that was smeared across my skin and through my hair.
Then it had started to harden until my skin had a flaky yellow coating, leaving me looking like a jaundiced sunburn victim mid-peel.
And my hair?
If the yellow highlights weren’t bad enough, the slime had set and become the world’s most potent hair gel. When I tapped my hair with a knuckle, it actually made a clinking sound.
It was also a mess.
Now, in my experience, hair can be messy in two ways. There’s the kind that takes effort. Fifteen minutes in front of a mirror. Sea salt spray. A hairdryer. Carefully adjusting every strand until it creates the perfect illusion of not trying. This is the kind you’ll see on the model on a bottle of hair product.
Then there’s the second type. There’s nothing careful about this one. Imagine a two-year-old asks to style your hair. You say, ‘sure thing, little buddy,’ then hand them a full tub of hair product and tell them to go wild.
My hair absolutely fell into the second category – which brings me back to my earlier point.
I was not happy.
I tapped a foot impatiently while I waited for the arrival of the final construct. It was about to become the punching bag for all my frustration.
The wait was not a long one.
It did not arrive from the forest. Or the volcanic zone. Or from beneath the ground like the giant worm.
The fifth construct came from the sky.
I heard it before I saw it.
Well… I say I heard it, but that wasn’t really accurate.
The silence of the chamber was shattered by a sonic boom, and a fraction of a second later I was bouncing across the ground like a pebble skimmed across the surface of a lake. I travelled for at least a hundred metres, the world a spinning, disorienting blur, before finally skidding to a stop.
I shook my head, trying to clear the ringing from my ears, then rolled onto my back. I blinked up at the figure hovering above me.
A man.
An actual, honest-to-god human male.
But not just that…
He was a fucking superhero.
He stared down at me through narrowed eyes, his arms crossed like a teacher who’d just caught a student cheating on an exam.
He wore a skin-tight, yellow costume. There was a capital ‘J’ in bold writing on the chest. It was black, just like the man’s boots, cape, belt, and gloves.
As for his physique? Well, you hear about costume designers in superhero movies adding extra padding to create the illusion that the character is jacked as fuck.
This guy didn’t need any padding.
You could see the definition of every muscle through his costume, like his body had been carved from granite.
Thankfully, they’d added some padding to obscure his… private regions. With how tight the costume was, nothing would’ve been left to the imagination. I was incredibly grateful to the Arcane Projection Chamber. I considered myself an open-minded guy, but even I had my limits.
He was an unreasonably handsome bastard. His skin was tan, his jaw chiselled, and his eyes a piercing blue that made it feel like he was staring straight into my soul. And, as if I wasn’t already jealous enough, he had messy hair too. The only difference was, his fit firmly into the first category.
I pushed myself to my feet, then went to dust off my clothes. My hands froze midair as I looked down and found the self-clean function had already taken care of things, and no evidence remained that my body had just been ragdolled across the ground before digging a fairly impressive trench in the earth.
I couldn’t decide how I felt.
I was already pretty grumpy because of the slime, and the constructs unnecessarily rude introduction – slamming into me like a human-shaped missile – didn’t help matters.
On the other hand, I’d loved superheroes when growing up, and there was one hovering in the air barely ten metres away.
“So,” I said, feeling a little awkward under his relentless, disapproving gaze, “what does the J stand for?”
“The J stands for Justice,” he replied. Even his damn voice was handsome. Deep, rich, and smooth. I bet he’d kill it with the ladies if he wasn’t such an uptight prick. “For I am Justice Man…”
“Justice… Man…?” I said slowly.
“Indeed, criminal scum,” he said, unfolding his arms to plant his fists on his hips. He cleared his throat, then began reciting his… oath?
When hope begins to fade
When light gives way to shade
When wicked hearts spread fear and hate
Inflicting on the world a terrible fate
I will answer
I will rise
No villain shall escape my might
For Justice always wins the fight
I stared at him for a few moments, my jaw slightly slack. I couldn’t decide if it was cool or the lamest fucking thing I’d ever heard.
Okay, it was definitely lame.
He returned my stare with smug satisfaction, and despite my best efforts to hold it in, I burst out laughing. It doubled me over, and I slapped my hands against my knees as I fought to draw breath.
“C’mon, man,” I wheezed, shaking my head. “Stop fucking with me.”
“I do not ‘fuck with people,’ criminal.”
I glanced up to find him fixing me with a hard, flat expression, any trace of smugness long gone.
He was serious…
I took a deep breath and straightened up.
“Okay…” I said. “In that case, what exactly makes me ‘criminal scum’? Don’t get me wrong, I may have dipped my toe in the pool of criminality a few times in my past life. Driving thirty-five in a thirty, pirating a few movies, taking the train without a ticket.” I paused. “Oh, and there was the one time I accidentally shoplifted a chocolate bar as a kid. When I realised what I’d done, I was too scared to return it. But still – I think you’re being way too harsh!”
“Too harsh?” he snarled. “Too harsh? There is no such thing as a ‘small’ crime. Every act of lawlessness is a crack in the foundation of civilisation. Left unchecked, those cracks spread. Today it’s shoplifting a chocolate bar. Tomorrow it’s murder.”
Accidentally stealing a chocolate bar was a gateway crime that would inevitably escalate to murder…?
The guy was fucking batshit insane.
It’d be the worst villain origin story of all time.
Family murdered before your eyes at a young age? Dropped into a vat of toxic waste? Possessed by an ancient evil?
Nah, dawg. I accidentally stole a chocolate bar as a kid, then was suddenly overcome with an insatiable urge to murder people.
It was time to have some fun.
“You’re a massive hypocrite, you know?” I said. “I mean, look at you. Tall, handsome, chiselled physique, a voice radio presenters would kill for. Where’s the fucking justice in that? Seriously, save a little something for the rest of us.”
“Are you mock–?” he began, but I wasn’t finished yet.
“Even your messy hair is the good kind. Do you understand how infuriating that is?”
Apparently, Justice Man did not possess a sense of humour.
Maybe he thought that telling jokes was the first step on the slippery slope to armed robbery.
“Enough talk,” he said, rising a little higher into the air. Despite the fact the air in the chamber was entirely still, his cape began fluttering dramatically as if caught in a gentle breeze. “It is time for Justice to be done.”
And then his eyes started to glow – a radiant, blazing light that grew in intensity until it looked like he had twin golden suns burning in his eyes.
Of course he had fucking laser vision.
Two beams of radiant golden energy exploded from his eyes.
I barely had time to think oh, shit before they slammed into my chest.
The beams carried so much force that they made Lokta’Inif’s punches feel like playful nudges. They swept me off my feet, and I once again found myself tumbling through the air.
I finally skidded to a stop and lay there for a moment, staring blankly up at the ceiling.
It had not been a fun experience.
I was winded, my ribcage was protesting most enthusiastically, and I could detect the far-too-familiar scent of scorched flesh and burning fabric.
A little hesitantly, I looked down to assess the damage.
The insufferable prick’s lasers had burned a hole straight through the fabric of my peasant garb. But they hadn’t stopped there. The flesh of my chest was an angry mess of blackened, blistered burns.
I was suddenly incredibly grateful for the armour enhancement. His lasers had punched straight through armour that was resistant against attacks up to sixty strength and intelligence. I hated to think what they would’ve done to me if I’d still been wearing plain old peasant garb.
I pushed myself to my feet, rolled my shoulders, then performed a few experimental twists. The skin on my chest felt tight and painful, but it wasn’t too bad. My armour had definitely spared me from the worst of the damage.
I grinned at Justice Man.
You’re probably thinking, Pete, you’ve just been laser blasted in the chest and your skin now resembles a well-done steak. What exactly do you have to smile about?
Great question.
I was smiling because, although his lasers had fucked me up, the damage wasn’t actually real. It wasn’t my chest that had been roasted – it was the arcane projection’s. As long as I was the last man standing, it didn’t really matter what condition this body ended up in. Once the assessment was over, I’d just be zapped straight back into the real one anyway.
“This is not possible…” said Justice Man, his voice thick with disbelief. He wore the expression of a man whose entire worldview had just been shattered. “When my Golden Gaze falls upon a criminal, their evil is laid bare before the light of Justice. No villain has ever escaped its righteous fury.”
“Sorry to disappoint, buddy,” I said, taking a step towards him. “Maybe your ‘criminal scum’ detector needs a software update.”
He snarled and rose higher into the air. Then he shot towards me, arms extended in front of him and fists clenched.
I pushed off the ground to meet him.
What happened next was incredible…
It was like something straight out of one of the Rocky movies. We collided midair, our fists slamming into each other’s jaws at the exact same moment.
I just wished I could’ve seen it in slow-motion. Or maybe even a freeze frame. I had no doubt there’d have been blood, spit, and maybe even a few teeth flying through the air.
Unfortunately, I didn’t have time to dwell on it.
*
“Is it just me,” said Kaelis, “or was that… in slow motion?”
“Indeed,” said Auroria, a little smugly. “There are all sorts of options available through the admin panel to ensure an enjoyable experience for any spectators.”
As if to illustrate her point, she waved a hand and the footage jumped backwards a few seconds before slowing dramatically. It showed the exact moment Pete and Justice Man’s punches landed, the skin of their cheeks rippling from the force. Blood, spit, and what Kaelis strongly suspected was a tooth drifted through the air in glorious slow motion.
His suspicions were confirmed when Pete’s lips parted in a savage, blood-stained grin that revealed one of his front teeth was missing.
“He’s taking the whole peasant thing a little too far,” said Rel.
Allaria nodded in agreement.
The footage reverted back to real-time.
Pete and Justice Man clashed over and over.
Each time a punch connected, it sounded like thunder cracking and sent a great shockwave rippling outward.
The entire chamber became their battlefield.
They crashed into the dunes and sent great waves of sand exploding through the air. They went hurtling into the walls and shattered enchanted stone. They slammed into the ground hard enough to carve enormous craters into the earth.
After every exchange, they each came away bloodier and more broken.
Pete fought like a man possessed, throwing himself at Justice Man with reckless abandon, showing absolutely no concern for his own wellbeing.
The superhero was no longer so handsome.
His nose jutted out at an entirely unnatural angle, his left eye was swollen shut, and he was missing so many teeth that his mouth resembled a chessboard.
Pete didn’t look much better.
Justice Man soared into the air, attempting to create a little space.
“No time outth, motherfucker!” shouted Pete, the missing tooth causing him to speak with a rather unfortunate lisp.
It really put a dampener on what might otherwise have been a fairly epic moment.
He pushed off the ground and hurtled through the air in pursuit.
Justice Man’s face flashed with panic when he felt Pete’s hand latch onto his ankle. His flight became erratic as he tried to shake Pete loose, twisting and turning, looping and diving, but Pete’s grip was like a vice.
Pete dragged himself upward, scaling the superhero’s body until they were face to face. Then he drove his forehead into Justice Man’s nose, and a burst of blood sprayed outward before being snatched away by the wind.
They began a wild, plunging descent, Pete’s arm nothing more than a blur as he repeatedly drove a fist into Justice Man’s body.
The spectator system carried every sound with perfect clarity, and Kaelis couldn’t help but wince at the crunch of ribs shattering.
“I’ve been doing this job for eight years now,” said Auroria, “and this is quite possibly the bloodiest, most brutal fight I’ve witnessed.”
“It truly is a beautiful sight,” replied Rel.
Auroria stared at him for a few moments. “There’s something seriously wrong with you,” she said. “You know that, right?”
Rel shrugged, far too engrossed in the battle’s final moments to respond.
Pete and Justice Man crashed to the ground, and the fight was momentarily obscured by an explosion of dirt and dust.
When it finally cleared, it revealed Pete straddling Justice Man. Despite the absolutely savage beating the superhero had taken, it had apparently done little to curb his deluded fanaticism.
“My body may be broken,” he said, blood dribbling between what remained of his teeth and down his chin, “but Justice is unyielding. No matter how strong you are, you will not win this fight, for, in the end, no darkness can survive the coming of the light.”
His one good eye blazed with golden light, and he roared defiantly as a beam of radiant energy exploded from it.
Pete hooked his fingers around the man’s jaw and violently twisted his head to the side, redirecting the beam towards the ceiling. Despite the distance robbing it of some of its power, it still carved a deep, blackened trench through the stone.
Then Pete gave a sharp twist, and the sickening crack of snapping bone reverberated through the spectator chamber.
Kaelis, Voklum, Allaria, and Auroria stood in stunned silence, conflicting emotions warring across their faces.
Shock. Disgust. Awe.
Rel clapped.
*
I rolled off Justice Man’s corpse and sagged onto the grass, breathing heavily as I stared blanky up at the ceiling.
Holy shit.
That was quite possibly the most fucked-up fight I’d had since entering the Trial Zone. Although he’d been an absolute head case, Justice Man had been one tough son of a bitch. I spent a moment listening to my astral body communicate its displeasure. The magic used in its creation truly was remarkable.
The broken ribs. The misshapen jaw. The missing teeth. The swollen eyes. The cracked knuckles.
It all felt unreasonably real.
Thankfully, the system stepped in to provide a momentary distraction from the pain.
Fifth wave defeated.
You are now eligible to access Tier Five quests.
Reward:
Bracers of the Titan
Bonus Reward Unlocked:
As the first Trialist in your Division to defeat all five waves of constructs, you may choose one of the
following:
Ability Stone – Golden Gaze
Golden Gaze
Fire beams of highly concentrated energy from your eyes.
The potency, range, and duration of the ability scale with your dominant stat.
Ability Stone – Flight
Flight
Grants the ability to fly.
Flight speed and manoeuvrability scale with your dominant stat.
Choose one of the following…?
Fuck.