Episode 55: Raid Corp Competitors

“What do you think of her,” asked one of the grandmasters in the viewing room. The space they were in had 21 sides, each side a large wall filled with screens of events held on corresponding floors.

The martial combat expert who’d spoken stood next to his oldest rival in front of the wall of screens linked to the lowest floor. Both men lost interest in cultivators beyond the lowest levels, as most who made it beyond the first, were either extremely talented, or lucky and would probably be swallowed whole long before they made it where they now stood.

“Yeah, I noticed her too, never seen someone use light mana so destructively, aren’t most of their type healers and the like,” asked one master to the other.

“For sure, but you know better than me how using basic manas in exotic ways can be more than beneficial for growth, wait what do you mean you noticed her too, who has caught your eye?”

“This kid over here, Carter something,” One master stepped away from the screen he watched filled with a girl on a demolition rampage, and over to his rival to see what had caught the man off guard.

“His rival rarely stayed in front of a singular screen ever, but had made an obvious exception for some reason.

“Doesn’t that challenge have a mana lock on it,” asked the master when he stepped closer to see the young man named Carter Gestalt spin through a sea of bones and violence.

“I may bet on him to make it off the ground floors and up here to the sky suites,” mumbled one master to the other. The other man nodded, and glanced back at the girl he’d watched wrecking a city block built to stand the might of powerful cultivators of many shapes and sizes.

“Sparks, I think I’ll put money on your guy, and this beam of sunlight over here too…”

“Hmmm, how about we make it interesting, pick one, the boy or girl, and whichever one makes it up first, if they even manage to make it at all, wins, then you or I will pay for the others next time extension ticket,” prompted the grandmaster’s rival in challenge.

The two performed a handshake as confirmation of their bet, and both received a notification that symbolized the contractual legitimacy of their spoken wager.

“May the best cultivator win my old friend.”

…

Troy found herself in the middle of a dilapidated hotel, that had once been pristine. Recently in fact; as its current state was completely accomplished in a matter of moments.

Troy didn’t know she had such a talent for demolition, but with each load baring wall she destroyed like her weapon was magnetized toward the architectural supports, she knew.

“Should I do this for stress relief,” asked Troy aloud to herself in contemplation. The roof rained down around her and she knocked away chunks of the structure rather than be enveloped by dust and debris.

“She was glad that she’d found an event that offered her massive amounts of points for a simple task. Well simple for her at least.

She’d started to practice filling things struck by her weapons with unstable light mana that caused atoms to split. This caused most of what she hit with her hammer during the event to disintegrate like cotton candy.

Why she needed as many points as feasible, and as fast as possible… her boyfriend of course.

The young man stated that he would be placing bets to win their money, but hadn’t mentioned the literal army he’d decided to fight to get some starting capitol. Yes, he could have waited for the others to get them for him, but instead, took action as always.

Shouldn’t have been surprised, Arson couldn’t sit down even if there was money on the line and all he had to do was stay seated.

Troy chuckled to herself, and pushed her Overlay notifications aside. She was prompted every time she and Arson swapped places for the number one position on their team for points. Which at first had fueled Troy to push harder, until she got a message from Lane stating that Arson was in some sort of event where he couldn’t use mana or he’d be disqualified.

The words had taken the wind from her sails instantly. So instead of trying to beat Arson, she pushed to enjoy herself.

“And another one down, and another one down, and another one falls to dust,” sang Troy. She got into a groove after a while and hadn’t realized that the main cameras for her event followed her every action.

Viewers watched as the areas long unused, or refurnished improperly were turned to ruins. Buildings made to withstand tornados, toppled in a single swing.

Troy had a catch phrase for each building she made smash into another and it quickly caught on with the viewership, “Timber!”

Ten story buildings crumpled like stacks of improperly placed building blocks for children; sometimes even more than one at a time were made to fall.

Troy’s catchphrase could then be heard echoed across the lower floor in the aftermath of each destroyed piece of architecture, and even some entirely separate events paused to join in the cheer that came with each explosive demise.

She reached a state of zen, and in a moment of inspiration tapped into her newest ability.

The vortex of light absorption and expulsion formed around Troy. The energy intensified when she spun, great hammer in hand, like a powerfully shaped mixing device made to twist reality.

An entire block vanished in three complete rotations , and the audience went wild across the first floor at the sight, and her points sky rocketed.

“Hmm, maybe I can win, even if you aren’t using any sparking mana Arson, how that’s even possible with the level of challenges being presented down here, I have no idea…” thought Troy with a sigh and a shrug.

“Come on Troy, a win is a win, he chose his event, and you chose yours, winning some artificial battle in your head to be better than your friends won’t make you do any better, just push yourself and see where this goes…!”

…

Arson was having a blast. The skeletal armies that poured out from the dozen portals he actively chose not to close kept Arson in motion without end.

The scythe in his hands flashed in what seemed to audience members to be multiple directions at once.

What they were unaware of was how much Arson favored the weapon. Having had used one so often throughout his early teens, he could no longer be considered average or commonplace in regards to his scythe use. He was instead, quite talented.

So much in fact that he wondered if his usage of the scythe could be considered a magical ability. He felt that with the weapon in hand a sense of his surroundings was given with each swing. It wasn’t as precise as his closed eye dominion by any means, but there was a reason Arson’s Reaper Gestalt form, wielded a scythe when summoned.

Arson spun through the first few dozen easily in the beginning. Every dozen breaths another small rip appeared, and gave more skeletons a new vantage point to emerge from.

The situation continued to escalate. Arson soon became enclosed by spacial rips and a flood of bone creatures.

“People, I don’t know who this guy pissed off upstairs, but he’s sparked, for real, can we be sued for foul play on this one, Henry…,” yelled Bobby the announcer.

Arson gained momentum, seemingly to the audience as quickly as the scales grew around him.

He moved with the intention to only use enough energy to survive the next moment. This would train his reactionary combat abilities, and with his self created Flicker Stance; a single movement could result in dozens of deaths.

This was what gave the appearance that he could die at any moment. Movements only made when as many enemies as possible were within his reach, before he extended his weapon wide.

The wide sweeps of Arson’s stance were created to replicate the speed and flexibility of a dagger, and offer the same power potential and range as a great sword.

The added hook like effect the weapon gave Arson was utilized in ways that made the crowd gasp in awe of the wielder.

Some enemies were caught and pulled from the air when they used their fellow skeletons’ piled-up bodies to jump high above Arson to attack.

While others were pulled off their feet, Arson’s blade weaved in between leg bones, before he launched foes into the air. He’d even managed to use this method to block a few of the skeletons who jumped from above.

Aerial collisions occurred by the handful, but most were instead sliced in half or were even instantly bisected with blurred flashes of movements Arson performed as simply as single steps forward.

Arson had loved the weapon since he first tried it, but felt he would never catch up to the individual that first inspired him to use it. His grandfather was one of many individuals who used a scythe, and though Arson loved his talent for it, he still wanted to recreate his family’s lost weapon, and felt he’d only just begun to grasp a potential start to the process. Still…

“Bring it on!” An explosion of force boomed outward. He spun 360 degrees in an instant at the center of the horde,. A wave of pressure rippled out from the slice in a torrent of devastation that eviscerated all the summoning portals that surrounded him.

“Holy sparks folks, this guy is an absolute issue for these skeletons, but this staging area must be broken if you expect me to believe that he didn’t just use mana to do that!”

Arson grinned. The attack gave him a moment to look around at his environment. Every foe even beyond the physical reach of his weapon had been crushed by his last attack.

The attack indeed hadn’t used any mana, but what it had done was crack the shaft of the weapon he held, which made Arson sigh with sorrow. It was the same problem with every scythe he used, they could never stand up to the requirements mandatory for Flicker Stance’s use.

“Let’s hope you last long enough to get me out of this jam, little lady,” thought Arson with a firm grip on the scythe in an attempt to physically hold it together by will and force alone.

A resonance occurred in that moment. Arson committed himself to the weapon’s use, and in the same breath was also chosen.

A strange energy filled the sky above Arson and soon images of scythe wielders of many different varieties and types could be seen. Mana converged above to paint the sky with images of those who’d truly affected reality through their use of the weapon Arson currently gave his all too.

The first large portal was ripped open in front of Arson and without a single thought, he dashed forward, “I’ll show you what it truly means to be fearless System, one step at a time!”

“Really think it’s a good idea to taunt the system while charging through a hell-mouth, kiddo?”

“Not now, Ana!”

“Aww you shortened my name, we can be friends now, yay,” said Anastasia with exaggerated excitement to show her displeasure. Her continual displeasure at Arson’s choice to risk both of their existences constantly, by rushing toward danger for nothing more than excitement and wealth alone.

“Ha, don’t act like you don’t love this!”

“I don’t, I just find it slightly amusing is all…”

“Yeah well, looks like the odds are going to be stacked against me now, so either help out or shut up, this isn’t as easy as I make this look.”

Anastasia laughed and nodded on his wrist, before she started to scan the new area he’d rushed into.

The Coliseum cameras followed behind Arson and revealed a medieval city, filled to the absolute brim with skeletal humanoids, beasts and even winged nightmares.

The audience that paid to watch the event, started to share video clips of what was being recorded by Raid Corp, and without Arson’s knowledge, he broke into the top 1000 most viewed events offered by Raid Corp, viewable on their company’s mane stream page for any and all to see.

“Southwest incoming,” yelled Anastasia from Arson’s wrist. He turned with a two handed grip on the base of the scythe and completely the opposite direction from where he’d been charging and swung.

The large skeletal drake that had dove toward his rear, was slapped out of the sky by the scythe he extended toward its head blade first.

He knew he would have sliced the creatures head in half if it was made of flesh and blood, but it was instead sent at high speeds toward a herd that attempted to flank and chase down Arson while he moved forward.

He wouldn’t stop until his weapon broke, or there was nothing left to stand in his way. The images in the sky growing more vibrant as he pushed his skills further than he ever had before.

“Come on!”

…

Although Arson and Troy were able to make an exceptionally large amount of points rather quickly. It was Jasmine and Lane who ended up being the first ones to make it off the first floor.

Not by choice, but by force.

Lane’s idea to dub a series of old karate movies, exploded…

Lane found and bought the rights to a series with literal thousands of episodes, and their work began.

The change from the seriousness the original show offered had been converted into a single episode to test how their idea would work… at first.

Then when they ran the first few moments and were applauded with cheers and laughter during both the sensual voice actor gag event, and the talent show first place was given to them; both girls knew they had something.

Between Jasmine and Lane who fed easily off one another’s energy, ten more episodes were made in no time. Those episodes were no challenge for them and once they got into a refined process through practice, they sent 3 more episodes to Raid Corp to use, and were immediately contracted to give them 100 episodes before the end of their stay, with 45% royalties split between the two of them.

“How long until you think the others come up here,” asked Lane in a hot tub. They had managed a dozen episodes beyond their original ten, and took a break as they watched their point total start to resemble Arson’s as the number ticked upward with every blink of time that passed.

“Not long, darling, not long at all…” Jasmines voice vibrated with each mini karate chop the masseuse performed down her body while she read over the lines they’d created for the next section of their show.

“Holy sparks, I think you are right, have you seen Khalif and Rob’s points recently?” Jasmine refocused her gaze on the section of her Overlay that presented her teams points as individuals and as a whole.

“I get how Rob is making that many points, but what the sparks is Khalif doing…?”

“I don’t know, he’s Arson’s right hand man, we can only expect something crazy from anything tied to our boss,” responded Lane with a sip from her wine glass filled with sparkling juice.

“Mmhmm, wait what are you trying to say, I’m connected to him and so are you…?” Lane simply shrugged and snickered at Jasmine’s feelings toward the perceived slight.

“Yeah, like I said absolutely bonkers.”

…

“Look man just don’t—“ Khalif cut off the young woman’s plea with a computer chip to the side of the head. The force of the shot from the handgun knocked her out of a window on the fifth flor and Khalif rushed to see the girl hit the ground hard.

“Holy sparks, gonna count myself lucky she wasn’t one of those frail magic types.” The girl got to her feet and rubbed the impact point, before she gave a rude gesture up toward Khalif.

“Yeah yeah, pay ya bills, woman!”

He’d made it pretty high up the first building he’d entered, but the amount of stealth required to gain more bounties had quintupled.

Security on the first few levels had been a joke, but now his progress had slowed drastically. Not his point total, but his upward ascent was now a dead crawl.

Between the security doors, legal security guards that the chip gun didn’t work on, and the pressure of watching his friends own points sky rocket upward, Khalif was a little frustrated. Then he got a message from Rob that made him laugh. Apparently the young man had been forced to become a judge for the event he’d taken part in, and wasn’t able to make potions fast enough to keep up with demand.

“I’ve been forced to take on two of the people I beat as helpers, but the points are good, how goes it on your end,” read Khalif under his breath while he sat in an awkward position.

Khalif had shimmied up between two parallel walls in a random hall way . His legs extended straight out from his center, with his feet flat up against the wall across from him and his back against the wall behind him.

He sat comfortably high enough up that cultivators managed to walk beneath him without a clue that he was perched above them casually texting on his flatscreen.

“It's good. Wish I had some higher valued targets, but most of these idiots aren’t even smart enough to look up when they enter a room,” mumbled Khalif as he typed Rob back. Before he could even finish his message another person walked below him, directly in the opening of the door he hid above.

Khalif paused in his typing, aimed, fired at the man’s temple and watched as the third person he’d tagged that way was sent inside the closet below him. He then returned to his message before receiving a surprise.

“Its fine though I’ll eventually find… what… Sparks! How many sparking points was that dude worth!” yelled Khalif in shock.

He’d surpassed Xani and Rob with that last successful chipping. This struck Khalif with the question as to how anyone could either be in as much debt as his previous target. Or manage to evade the masses of cultivators that took on the bounty hunter jobs offered in the Coliseum resort as a whole; for as long as it would take to extend such a huge windfall in his direction as he’d just received.

“Yo, I see you, boy, find a big fish,” read Khalif; before he dropped down from above and texted a response to Rob.

“One of hopefully many to come, my guy, one of many to come.”