Weapons of Mass Destruction

Chapter 573: Hope it’s worth it

I help the Witherclaw break free from another trap set by Leticia and Luna’s group. As it charges forward, Monte shifts, growing to twice his height. Dark green scales spread across his body while his face stretches into a lizard-like shape, his movements turning sharp and predatory.

I disrupt their attempts to help their tournament winner as Monte clashes against the beast.

Leticia calls out to me in surprise, but I ignore her call and step aside as Luna, now the size of an elephant, snaps at me with her teeth. The huge golden retriever continues to attack me while Leticia supports her by spreading a web across the area and attacking from a distance.

During the fight, I tear down the web and deflect any projectiles aimed at me. The clash lasts barely thirty seconds. In that time, the Witherclaw grows noticeably stronger. Its mana expands and it begins using it much more naturally, at which point it begins disrupting skills, and applying pressure to the others, even as it strengthens its body with the excess.

Monte, in his current form, has strength nearly equal to Jean’s. The green scales covering his body resist mana to an impressive degree, and I can even feel the ambient mana bouncing off of them. The forest ends up being reduced to a crumbling wreck in the wake of his battle with the Witherclaw. Trees are uprooted by the shockwaves, and huge craters mark the ground wherever they land. Both the shapeshifted man and the beast display remarkable physical strength.

In the end, it’s the Witherclaw who wins. The beast grows stronger as its mana surrounds it, and it begins to move faster than before. With a sudden attack, it drives its claw through Monte’s green scales, and his head falls to the ground.

Then the Witherclaw turns to the rest. It passes by me as it heads to attack Luna and Leticia. Its body remains fragile and its eyes are still empty, but its figure stands taller now, almost as if it had grown during the fight.

Leticia, Luna, and their group die soon after despite all their effort.

So do Baek and his group, and all through the fight, the Witherclaw learns increasingly better ways to control its mana and begins using it more in its fighting style.

Klara, who tries to face it alone, manages to wound the beast a few times.

A group of Beyonders try to attack with rifles and bows from a distance.

Hector, with his invisibility and arcane spear, gets in one powerful attack and even poisons it for a moment. But the beast uses its mana to expunge the poison and attacks the man with the same extreme cruelty as before.

Maxim, using void energy and creatures formed from shadow, cuts the beast off from its mana, forcing it to rely only on its physical abilities to track him as he teleports from shadow to shadow. In the end, the beast breaks through the disruption using a method I know I couldnʼt replicate, tracks him down, and, with a single blurred movement of its arm, removes him from the event.

Derick and the large group he has collected also fall to the now too powerful beast.

Every time I let the beast fight, only stepping in when necessary. During these last few minutes, the Witherclaw would have undoubtedly died multiple times without my help, that much is clear. But gradually, I find myself needing to intervene less and less. The beast adapts quickly. Its strength grows, its mana expands, and it uses everything it has far more efficiently.

Mere moments ago, the beast got scared during the fight with Baek and Klara and ran to me for help while letting out those creepy cries. Now it doesn’t really bother, slowly realizing its potential and learning to control the immense power it possesses. But at the same time, as the Witherclaw grows stronger, it becomes increasingly arrogant and more inclined to torture anyone weaker.

It likes to wound people and watch them die. It likes to bite into them while they are still alive.

We eventually run into Savant, who stands rooted in place, orange light radiating from his skin. The green dagger I saw Tacita use is still lodged in his side. Sweat beads on his forehead, and I wonder what kind of dagger it is and what effect it must be having on him.

But even seeing the state Savant’s currently in, the Witherclaw hesitates upon seeing him. It sniffs the man surrounded by that orange light and growls.

Savant glances between me and the beast. Absent-mindedly, he reaches and touches the handle of the dagger in his side. His expression contorts in pain from that simple touch.

As if he just confirmed something, he straightens up and looks at me. “Unlike somebody here, I know when pushing back is useless,” he says.

After that, he disappears into yet another cloud of pale blue particles.

Barely six minutes have passed since the beast emerged from the island where Lissandra held it. That means only two minutes remain until I can kill it.

Instead of hunting for more opponents, the Witherclaw stops and turns to me. It straightens its tall, lanky figure looming over me and opens its mouth, revealing rows of sharp teeth.

Has it already decided it’s strong enough to kill me?

“So you haven’t noticed her?” I ask calmly.

The beast tilts its head in confusion, and its pupils expand. It raises its arms in front of its chest just in time to block a dagger aimed straight at its beating heart.

Appearing out of nowhere, Tacita lets go of the dagger without hesitation and pulls out another. She jams it into the Witherclaw’s leg and leaves it there, then she pulls out another dagger and circles the beast to stab it again.

After getting over the initial confusion, the Witherclaw reacts quickly and matches her speed. A pale red light glowing around its fangs as it clashes with her attacks.

Tacita’s messy, blown hair turns her into a blur, but the beast matches her speed. While Tacita runs on wild instinct to maneuver her body at high speed, the beast brute forces it with mana.

They clash across the battlefield, each one gaining the upper hand for moments at a time before the other inevitably catches up.

But gradually it becomes clear that Tacita is reaching her limit while the beast only grows faster.

In the wake of one of their clashes, the mute woman suffers a deep wound. Quick to react, she cuts the Witherclaw’s Achilles tendon before leaving. By the time the beast begins to regenerate, she’s already gone.

This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it

After regenerating the wound, the Witherclaw takes a step to follow her, just as I release my mana.

The beast halts mid-step, turning to me while letting out more of those unsettling noises, then drops to all fours and unleashes its mana. Even crouched, its head sits well above my own.

One last time, I scan the area. I locate Jean far away and sense no one else nearby. Iʼm also fairly sure that Tacita wonʼt interfere once I start, and I make a mental note to repay her.

Then I tap into the Ley Lines connecting me to two of the remaining floating islands. The crown over my head turns black as I take over the black spears at their cores and absorb all the mana they’ve gathered into my crown. The inscriptions I’ve been etching into my skin over the time I’ve spent following the Witherclaw activate. My entire body has been interwoven with them, and they etch themselves deep into my skin and flesh.

I watch in slow motion as the Witherclaw moves to attack me. It charges on all fours with mana blazing around its body.

A small part of me watches the timer tick down as I wait, holding out for as long as I can.

At this stage, the Witherclaw is not only stronger and faster than I, but it also has more mana. In a few more seconds, I may not even be able to kill it anymore. This is my only chance.

I don’t do anything fancy, and I donʼt attempt to use my skills. I rely on my physique, my circuits, [Mana Manipulation], and all the experience I’ve gained in my two years of using Mana Cycling.

All that collected mana blazes through my body at once. No other attendee from Earth can channel this much. That, I know for certain. When it comes to channeling huge amounts of mana or any other energy, I am one of the best. That is my talent and my gift.

In a single burst, much like the ones Lissandra used to train me on the 5th floor, just with a vastly greater amount of mana, I unleash everything I have at the Witherclaw.

The blast rips forward, erasing everything in its path. The ground shatters, it ceases to exist, torn down to raw nothingness. The air distorts from the sheer force, rippling outward.

The Witherclaw vanishes in an instant, erased without resistance or struggle. It is unable to gather enough mana quickly enough to defend itself. One second, it’s there. The next, it’s gone, leaving nothing behind. The destruction doesn’t stop with it. The blast carves a deep crater into the battlefield, like a raw wound stretching far beyond. Dust and debris fail to rise, having been consumed before they can even form.

Then there is silence.

All my internal and gathered mana are gone. Even the crown over my head cracks and disappears.

Before me lies a ruined wasteland. The ground is torn open, jagged, and uneven, laced with deep scars where the blast carved through. All that remains of the trees are blackened stumps and uprooted trunks scattered across the field of devastation.

The air is thick with the fading hum of spent mana.

As I stand there, a single thought occupies my mind. I glance at the rankings.

2nd - 37,600 points -Hadwin

And above that is a new placement

1st - 39,001 points - Noname

Standing there even [Focus] deactivates because of my nonexistent mana reserves. These reserves start slowly filling up, but I do not bother reactivating the skill. I don’t even try to defend myself as the ever-present lightning strikes closer. One of these strikes hits me at some point and, as many of the other attendees have already experienced, turns me into a fine dusting of pale blue particles.

I find myself outside with these people in our common area, watching the huge screen showing the rest of the event. Not feeling like moving, even with my now restored mana reserves in both body and crown, I simply find a nearby bench and sit down.

“C-Congratulations,” the man I sat next to whispers.

It surprises me. I lift my head to face him. “What?”

“You won... so congratulations. I am sorry if I said anything rude.”

I do not speak the word aloud, silently mouthing it instead. Won. I guess I really did win, but that was always the point.

“Thanks.”

I take note of the way the simple answer calms him down and even makes him smile for a moment. He is just some guy I have never seen before. I choose not to use my mana senses or try to estimate his level through his movements, so he could just as easily be from Hell as he could be from Easy difficulty.

“That was cool as hell by the way! My son would probably call it something along the lines of ʼabsolute cinemaʼ or whatever silly thing the kids are saying nowadays,” he laughs briefly, gesturing wildly. “It looked like you were going to steamroll the event, and then the rankings appear, and your alias is nowhere to be found! What even happened? How could that even be possible? I even asked around, but no one seemed to know who that Hadwin guy was. Did he steal your points or something?”

“Something like that,” I confirm.

“What a dick.”

“Indeed.”

“I donʼt know about you, but doesnʼt that make things so much more interesting? All these twists and people with their own goals.”

“Well, any other day I wouldnʼt mind it at all. But not during this specific tournament,” I shrug.

“ It’s a girl, right?” he asks out of nowhere with a surprisingly honest smile.

Everyone else around us is focused on the screen, watching the final groups of people trying to collect more points. Mainly Jean, who, as always, manages to put on an extremely impressive performance. Most of the others are so busy talking to each other that it feels almost like the two of us have been forgotten entirely.

“Girl?” I ask.

“People your age usually have one of two problems. Money and girls.”

“I donʼt think Iʼm that young. I believe most people have a whole different set of problems now,” I retort, gesturing at our surroundings. “The tutorial, the tournament, the floors, their new powers, pairings, skills, rules, and more.”

“So itʼs not a girl?”

“I mean...”

“I knew it! Now, how about some unsolicited advice from me?”

“Why the hell not? Go on.”

“Most things aren’t nearly as serious as they feel in the moment.”

I exhale slowly, letting my head rest against the back of the bench. The guy says nothing for a while and just watches the event play out on the massive screen.

Then he chuckles. “Damn, I sound like an old man.”

“You do.”

He glances at me. There’s something in his expression, perhaps curiosity… or perhaps something else. “I am guessing you’re the kind of guy to take everything on himself, huh? Even when you don’t have to.”

I do not answer, and I don’t need to. He just nods.

“Well, good luck with that.” He grins and stands up, stretching. “Hope it’s worth it.”

With that said, he leaves me with a quick goodbye and leaves to find his son, who apparently wandered off to bother some Hard difficulty guys he admires.