Red. There was a lot of red. But there was also a lot of blue, surprisingly. Caves weren’t exactly something that any of the group had much experience with before, but the aesthetics of this region were just so mind boggling that any previous experience with caves wouldn’t do this justice.

Rai had never been to the Underworld before, so he was, understandably, blown away.

As far as the eye could see were ginormous cavernous walls with soft reds and blues reflecting off of them. It was almost unfathomable that a whole region existed down here. The sense of scale was completely discombobulating to Rai.

They’d teleported to the edge of a rather large island in the middle of an underground lake. It seemed like the whole thing was large enough to fit a massive city like Aurum’s capital, if somehow that city managed to teleport itself elsewhere. How’s there even room for this island to exist down here? There’s rocky areas, a not-so-small river, a forest-like area, and just a whole lot of random shit! What the fuck! Naam and Lilly... just what exactly did you guys get up to down here?!

The Underworld capital was just behind them, but none of the group seemed to notice, except one. They were all taken aback by the crazy island before them. Sin was the only one who turned around to look back at her home.

A soft smile crept onto her face. As much as she had conflicting feelings about home, it was still home in the end.

Rai dashed past her towards Kallad, who was just a bit further in on the island.

“Kallad! Where are Na-”

Kallad held Rai’s mouth closed.

“Don’t mention them just yet. I don’t want you or Sin to be publicly associated with them right now. Understand?” He whispered.

Rai nodded slowly as Kallad released his mouth.

Kallad let out a small sigh.

“But... they’re about to introduce themselves. Just keep your eyes forward and you’ll see them.”

Rai was about to speak, but he closed his mouth and just nodded instead. He looked forward at the massive island in front of him.

A snap of a finger echoed from within the island.

Walls of black, leathery mana formed around the edges of the island, cutting off Sin’s view. Sin turned back around and looked towards the island’s entrance. She joined Rai and Kallad.

“Ladies and gentlemen. Allow us to introduce ourselves to you.” A pair of voices announced in unison.

Twin succubi flew in from atop opposing heights within the island. They landed in front of the archaeology society.

Rai and Sin realised that one of them must be Naam, and the other must be Lilly.

They both had identical features. Yellow eyes, pink skin, and long white hair.

Sin quickly realised that they were using their Mimics. The only defining features for either of them were the gems embedded in their necklaces. One of them had a sapphire, and the other had a ruby.

“I’m Sapphire,” The one with a sapphire necklace said.

“and I’m Ruby!” The other one said.

Well, duh. Sin thought to herself.

“And together, we’re going to put you through hell!”

“Figuratively speaking, of course.”

“Yes yes... figuratively speaking.” Sapphire winked at the society.

Shivers ran down most of their spines. A succubus had just winked at them. Who wouldn’t lose it?

“Now... we heard you’re all hoping for a tournament of sorts...”

“But we had a slightly different idea in mind!” Sapphire snapped her fingers.

A board popped up above them. It was made of ice and had a bunch of numbers and all of their names on it.

 

 

Hiron’s eyebrow twitched.

“Why am I LAST?!” He yelled.

Pfft.

Most of the people present stifled giggles while trying not to laugh at Hiron, regardless of how much they wanted to do so.

Sapphire appeared directly in front of Hiron. She’d teleported.

“Because you were the last to join, hon.” She whispered into his ear, while brushing her monstrous metal claws against Hiron’s soft cheek.

He audibly gulped.

“Right! I bet you’re all wondering how on Zenith this ‘tournament’ is supposed to work then. It’s quite simple really.” Ruby said, before taking a deep breath, “The island is full of monsters of varying levels, but a kill is counted as a single kill regardless of the difficulty involved in killing it. If you kill a rabbit you’d get the same score as if you’d killed a direwolf. Those will count towards your kill score that you see on the board.”

Sapphire continued the spiel as she teleported beside Ruby.

“If you work together to get a kill, then the people who didn’t get the killing blow will get a single assist point.”

“The most important categories, however, are the leadership points, and duel win categories.”

Kallad took to the stage, teleporting between the two of them. He also took over the explanation.

“If you can lead people through any kind of adversarial situation, then you’ll gain leadership points. If you fight each other and win, then you’ll gain a point under ‘duel wins’. Based on the scores at the end, we’ll decide who is fit to lead.”

“You have twelve hours. Survive, fight, and win.” Ruby winked at them.

“Good luuuck! Don’t hold back or you’ll really die!” Sapphire waved at them all.

“Rely on your skills and your team or you’ll really die.” Kallad smirked.

Snap!

Before any of them could’ve said a word, they were all teleported to different locations on the island.

Kallad waited a moment for them all to teleport away.

“You two have really outdone yourselves this time.”

Sapphire giggled in Naam’s voice, while Ruby giggled in Lilly’s voice.

They were both happy with the setup they’d managed to do for the tournament. However, both of them knew that this wasn’t what Rai, or his friends had agreed to. They all thought that they were coming to simply fight against each other.

“You think they’ll be alright?” Lilly asked her sister.

“Eh. I think a few of them will struggle. But that’s why we set this all up.”

Kallad looked back at the forest that led into the rest of the island.

“How did you even get all of those monsters and beasts down here?” He asked his daughters.

Lilly answered, “It’s a secret!”

“Uh huh... still, I’m impressed. You made sure to put a leash on the strongest beasts in there, right?”

“Nope.” Naam said.

Kallad whipped his head back around to Naam.

“... WHAT?!”

“Hehe... What’s the point of doing all this if we’re just going to babysit them? They’ll face trouble, real trouble. How they can solve those problems is what will determine who deserves to lead. Even if they die, we’ve got you here to revive them.” She said with a wide smile.

Lilly nodded profusely in agreement with her sister.

Kallad couldn’t believe it... but then a devilish smile crept onto his face.

“I could learn a thing or two from you, dear daughters.”

“Why thank you, dear father.”

 

---

 

Rai lost his footing where he landed. The roots of the trees around him all layered over one another, which made for uneven ground. Still, Rai managed to use wind magic to stop himself from falling face first into a tree’s trunk.

Where am I?

He looked around to try and figure out where exactly he was. This wasn’t the kind of tournament he had in mind, but Rai was still excited for it. From the sounds of it, he’d get the chance to fight against strong monsters, which he wanted to gain some kind of experience in doing. This whole situation was great for Rai.

Vines drooped down from the trees around him, and chirps from some birds echoed throughout the jungle.

This feels like the jungles I’ve been told about by the adventurers in Acies. Long vines, big trees, the sounds of birds and insects all over the place. But... what kind of creatures are there here?

In that instant, Rai felt his skin crawl.

On instinct, he dodged to the side using Stormflow.

The sound of a crash came from where he once stood. As the dust subsided, Rai could make out the silhouette of a figure.

It looked like... a monstrous human...

The creature made no noise as it stood back up. Quickly and silently, its silhouette dashed upwards, towards the top of a tree.

Rai could only make out the creature’s shadow rapidly climbing up the tree’s trunk and into its leaves and vines.

It’s fast... and clearly powerful. He looked at the small crater left in the ground by the impact of the creature’s attack.

Suddenly, shrieks and cries came from the top of the trees around Rai.

Multiple eyes laid themselves upon him. He could feel them, even if he couldn’t see them. That thing’s got friends, I see...

Before Rai could think about what to do, the creatures pounced.

Feral claws nicked Rai’s left arm as he managed to dodge in time.

Stormflow.

Rai bought time. He grabbed the creature out of its dash in the air and slammed it face-first into the ground. A grotesque crunch noise came from its head. As its body flopped over lifelessly, Rai saw what he was up against.

The creature had fangs the size of Rai’s hand, which were now shattered. It also had a head shape very similar to what one would find on a human. Fur covered the rest of its body, but it was definitely bipedal. As he analysed the creature’s body, Rai realised.

It was a monkey.

Rai had very little prior knowledge about monkeys, but he’d seen numerous crude drawings of them in his childhood, which made him confident that this was at least a type of monkey. The adventurers in Acies mentioned some of the monkeys they’d come across in their expeditions, and that some species of monkey were fine with mortals, while others were hostile to them. These monkeys must be the hostile kind.

Rai quickly thought about what to do next.

If there’s so many of them, and they’re that fast, then I’ll just have to move faster than they can see.

20%

Rai zipped around his nearby area and gathered information about how the land flowed. Then, he used the strength afforded to him through Stormflow to climb up to the lower layers of leaves and vines that made up the majority of what he saw from the ground.

With the pace that Rai could register the world thanks to Stormflow, he counted the number of monkeys that were hiding up in the treetops surrounding him.

There were loads.

More than Rai could count.

“Alright... bring it on!”

Rai called forth Ghost with a white flash of lightning as he jumped back onto the ground.

Shrieks came from the treetops once more. It felt like they were getting angrier.

This time, three monkeys dashed towards Rai from above him.

Rai sliced the heads off of two of them, and chopped the arms off of the last one. Blood spurted out of them all.

The two headless monkeys collapsed, limp, to the floor instantly as blood spewed out of their neck-holes. Their heads rolled along the tree roots, spilling blood and brain matter as they did so.

The third monkey flailed around its body and legs as it tried to escape from Rai.

Rai felt the fear in the small creature’s eyes as he moved towards it.

A memory from the year before he left for the Academy surfaced as Rai approached the monkey.

It was Jin’s voice.

“Mercy doesn’t always mean forgiveness. If a creature is mortally wounded, you should show it the respect it deserves for remaining in the battle up until that point.”

Rai would show no disrespect to a creature willing to die to avenge its brethren.

He ended the third monkey’s life swiftly by stabbing Ghost straight through its heart.

The monkey stopped flailing around, and its remaining limbs fell limp.

A lone tear escaped from its open eyes.

Rai closed the monkey’s eyes.

“I’ll bury you with your brethren.” He whispered to himself.

The eyes from the treetops remained on Rai. Their shrieks and screams stopped, as they watched Rai clear some roots from the ground, then use magic to quickly create a grave. Rai gently laid the fallen monkeys in the grave and covered it back up with the earthen rock and dirt that he’d dug up just before.

The gazes from the monkeys atop the trees seemed to lose a lot of their bloodlust upon seeing Rai both slaughter and respectfully bury their fallen comrades.

Rai noticed, but he wouldn’t let his guard down just because of the slight change in feeling. In the end, he didn’t understand the monkeys or their motivations, so Rai remained on guard.

It was clear to him that this island wasn’t to be underestimated.