Chapter 361 - Gareth

My Avatar does what I thought he would do against a lot of opponents he wouldn't be able to face head-on.

He just flies high up.

Yup, it's that simple, yet it still gives him a huge advantage.

It's as if you introduce a helicopter with machine guns and a bomb or two to the conflict against a bunch of people with rifles. And it isn't pretty.

Out of range, the people below struggle to detect him and only some of them reach that far, warning others of the upcoming attack. But it's to no avail.

Five seconds pass.

Ten seconds pass.

Nothing.

People from Easy difficulty, nervous and more sensitive, are already feeling mana concentrating high in the air.

Fifteen seconds pass and quite nice barriers are created over parts of the groups.

Thirty seconds pass and Samuel shouts, people splitting and spreading over a bigger area.

Then my Avatar attacks. Like a crashing meteor, he lands on the ground where the most people from Hard difficulty are, and like an EMP, a disrupting wave explodes from him. It spreads over a huge part of the forest, weakening barriers, canceling skills or straight up disrupting them. 

He then lifts off as quickly, a single orb left in his wake. A thermal orb as big as an orange. It is of golden color, the immense heat it releases making the air around it waver.

Golden flames explode into the area and with this, dozens of people from Hard difficulty start appearing outside.

After that, even more of them.

One after another, their hastily recreated barriers, their armors and skills are unable to resist the brilliant golden flames. Bodies melted, burned to the point the system sends them out.

Being charged by so much thermal energy, the orb envelops a huge area, killing hundreds of people. 

When it looks like it's the end, from high up in the air, an orb lands in the middle of another group. A tricolored orb that turns bright white, exploding into heat, shockwave, and following implosion.

Then another tricolored orb lands somewhere else, and the third one too.

The explosions are changing the landscape, tearing the trees from their roots, sending huge chunks of the ground flying through the air, and flinging human bodies around, burned and crushed before turning into shiny particles.

There is no sight of my Avatar, as he safely stays so high up. It's an efficient and smart choice.

Down there is pandemonium. People are burning, the ones not dead have either terrible wounds or limbs missing. Some of them scream, most of the leadership dead and already outside in the common area.

As I thought, the Avatar seems to have run low on mana and there are no more big explosions. Instead, a rain of orbs as big as grapes falls to the ground, each of them letting out a whistling noise as it passes through the air.

Some of the survivors try to hide under trees or block the attacks. A few even attempt to shoot something towards where the orbs are coming from. But it's to no avail. The Avatar focuses the attacks on the people who are weaker or busy defending against the forest fire.

Just ten seconds is enough to finish the rest of Easy and Normal difficulty. Tens, hundreds of people decimated by the Avatar that has just a little mana remaining.

The surviving members of Hard difficulty shout at and insult the Avatar. Every single one of them frustrated by being unable to reach him with their attacks.

Obviously, the Avatar doesn't care at all. Not even a little bit.

On the screen, his face shows for a moment. Calm and expressionless while he forms bigger mana projectiles around him, compressing them. Using the natural gravity and his kinetic energy, he then shoots them at the challengers. Unable to use flames the challengers had put out, he just snipes them from high up with mana projectiles.

It's quite shameless.

“Why do you not fight like that? It looks so easy!” Min-Jae comments, watching the screen with big eyes.

“Because it would be boring,” I answer.

I thought of this kind of fighting style long ago. Most of the people around my level or even at a higher level can't fly. That's something kinetic energy allows me to do. Having air advantage and being able to shoot ranged attacks without worrying about being hit back is truly powerful.

Maybe it is even the most optimal way of fighting for me, seeing the Avatar fighting that way. 

But it's so boring.

If I fought like that I wouldn't put myself into danger. I wouldn't gain more experience. I wouldn't see the skills of the people I fight against. I wouldn't learn what is possible and how people tend to fight.

I could, but I don't want to fight that way because I think I will not get stronger doing so. It’s as simple as that.

Still, knowing that I can fight that way, I wasn't worried about them defeating my Avatar, and Avatharniel didn't disappoint. 

Such a cowardly little prick. Good job! You are making papa Nat very rich!

The last remaining group gives up and just leaves the event rather than wait for the Avatar to kill them.

Just like that, in under two minutes my last challenge is won, my restricted Avatar beating almost two thousand people.

Congratulations, your avatar ended victorious in the 3rd challenge! You have received 17,113 shards. The final event reward will be given after the end of the 3rd event!

It physically hurts me how much the system took as its 10% cut, but there's nothing I can do about it. But damn, an arcane passive might not be that far off. Most likely not during the tournament, but maybe sometime during the 6th or 7th Floor.

“Fricking monster,” Brainiac lands on the roof near us.

“I won't give you any shards,” I say before he can continue. They are mine. My precious! 

My Avat… no, I worked hard to get them.

Brainiac snorts, “Not even I am that shameless.”

“So what are you doing here?” I ask as he sits down near me and other members of group 4 who watch the event.

“I had to get away from Gary, the old man is annoying sometimes.”

“You should beat him and take over as leader of WhiteWing,” Aaron jokes.

“Only if you take over Group 4,” Brainiac sighs, “Even if the entire WhiteWing attacks together we will have no chance against Gary.”

“He doesn't seem that strong,” Maya mentions with interest.

“Gary is crazy strong.”

“Sure he is.”

“I'm not joking!”

“He just looks like he would fit more for a pastor or director of an orphanage.” Maya snorts.

“I know what you mean,” Brainiac nods. “But that's only because we are real people from Earth.”

The conversation is getting interesting so I listen. At the same time Gareth's Avatar appears on the screen and a 15-minute countdown starts.

“What do you mean by that?” Min-Jae moves closer while sipping on his drink.

“I mean exactly what I said. Gary is nice only to people from Earth and no matter how trashy they are, he always gives them a chance. Only if he really believes they are beyond helping will he become ruthless.”

I knew it. Paladin of justice is secretly evil. Right now Brainiac might think the Earthlings are protected by Gareth, but I'm sure his dark secrets will spill. There is no way someone acting so nice to people isn't evil.

Brainiac lowers his voice, “On the third Floor he killed a hundred or so natives. Kids, women too, no hesitation at all. We needed water and food and they had it. So he just took it on him and murdered them all. After that he smiled, saying to us to not worry and that he will protect us and take these sins upon him.”

I watch Gareth's Avatar. Restricted to the 5th floor, it stands there below the trees. A chiseled face of a 40 or 50-year-old man waiting for his challengers.

“Gareth didn't get angry with us, not even once. He never shouts, he never despairs, he never hits us or anything and often takes hits instead of us. Not once in the past year did I have a worry he might hurt me,” Brainiac says, his usually cheeky expression serious.

“You shouldn't underestimate him only because he acts silly sometimes or seems too nice. He is in Hell and in Beyond for a reason,” Tess warns other members of our group.

“He is,” Brainiac nods. “You know what's funny? He is strongest when he is alone. Fighting with us, he holds back a lot to protect us, but the moment he is alone his fighting changes. Just wait and see.” He points at the screen where the Avatar waits for the challengers.

A few minutes later Gareth’s Avatar’s 3rd challenge starts with over a thousand people inside.

Right away the man starts moving towards the group of the challengers and a silver crown floats over his head.

As before, I wonder how his crown is called. Other than me and Tess, he is the only one so far that has one. That also offers a question, are crowns rare? Are they considered powerful or important?

Getting closer and seeing the first people from behind the trees, Gareth starts radiating silver light from his skin. Maybe light is the wrong word, it's more like silver smoke seeping through the skin.

In his hands, two maces form, each of them with a few nasty spikes and both weapons probably as long as my arm. Over his shoulders, two silver orbs float.

The combat starts by Gareth hitting against a melee attacker from Hard difficulty.

Not even for a second is the man capable of facing Gareth's strength, his arms cracking and mace piercing the skin-tight barrier and turning the man into shiny particles.

A group shoots ranged attacks at him and even as they bombard the ground around him or his skin he doesn't create armor around himself. Just with the sheer strength of his stats and strengthened body he faces them all easily.

One of the orbs shoots ahead with surprising speed and reaches the group of twenty ranged attackers. Before they can move, in a blink, the orb expands like a bubble, all of them finding themselves inside of that bubble. The bubble stops expanding and then changes color to a darker shade of silver.

The group becomes unable to get out. Their bodies slam against the inner walls of the bubble and their weapons fail to pierce it. Before they can try more, the silver bubble starts shrinking as quickly as it expanded before.

All twenty people are caught in that. From the size of a small house, the bubble shrinks to the size of a small room and then to the size of a basketball and finally to the size it started with. Everyone inside it, unable to escape, is squeezed and killed.

Attacks start anew. Gareth bombarded while moving almost lazily from group to group, no one able to endure more than one attack of his mace. The two silver bubbles move around, enveloping groups of people and turning them into shiny particles. 

Outside of the tournament, the result would be more gruesome. A bunch of people turned into compressed bloody paste.

The forest exploding around him from the challengers' attacks doesn't cause him much trouble. He seems capable of going on for days.

Shadowy attacks fail to slow him, fire causes him no trouble. They can't disrupt his mana and  they even fail to pierce the orb. Anyone who gets inside of these silver bubbles dies without exception. 

When they start getting away out of his reach or the range of his bubbles he changes strategy. The crown over his head disappears and the silver smoke stops leaking from his skin. Instead, an armor forms around his body.

It isn't bulky or impressive armor. It seems almost skin-tight and dense. At the same time, the maces in his hands dissolve and Gareth dashes, the ground exploding under his feet.

In a blink, he reaches another group, gloves forming over his hands and one hit into the head turns a man from Hard difficulty into particles. Gareth twists his body and grabs the sword with his hand and kicks another man, caving in his chest, the man turning into silver particles soon after.

Similarly to Lily, Gareth uses the strength of his body and armor to go wild and tear the remaining people apart.

“Gareth is really bad at doing multiple things at once,” Brainiac sighs. “But when he doesn't have to focus on healing, teleporting, and keeping our marks active he can be really scary.”

Nice. First, Gareth doxxes the real names of everyone from his group and now here Brainiac gives exposition on his abilities.

What a group.

“So what are the names of his skills?” I try.

“Not telling!” Brainiac answers.

Well, maybe they aren’t that stupid.

“It's fine, I might ask Tacita, I'm sure she already knows the names if you guys talked about them sometime during the tournament.” While I say it I glance back to the top of the chimney where a thin girl with messy brown hair sits.

Her eyes meet mine and her expression seems to be surprised and in quick succession a weird field she generates changes a few times. But each time I change my detection as well, my senses piercing through.

Only her last attempt succeeds to confuse me for a bit longer and then she stops when I see even through that.

Tacita seems dissatisfied, annoyed even, her eyes turning dangerous as she examines me and the way I detect her.

I hope you didn't think you could keep hiding from me forever.

***

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