Chapter 97: The Spoils of the World

The hole in reality yawned wider and wider as they approached, but there was nothing Kai could do. While they walked within the rainbow aura they were protected and everything outside was certain death. Even if he picked up Zae Zin Nim and tried to flee, there was nowhere to escape.

More monsters were crawling out of the pit at a nearly constant rate, both the slow masses and the faster ones that targeted the strongest warriors. He saw a few of the soldiers in crimson armor go down under monster hordes, but so far they had been treated as a mere obstacle. It seemed like Koleiman, whatever his goals were, would slip through the entire battle.

Kai's mind recoiled against the idea of looking down the pit... but there was also part of him that was called toward it. He'd seen the vast chasm in his dreams, he just hadn't understood.

Before they could arrive, someone stormed past them. The muscular blue man charged to the very edge, sending monsters flying in every direction. He let out a cry of triumph and leapt, not as if he wanted to jump down but as if there was something floating within.

Just before he arrived, a slim woman winked into existence over his head. She wore rough pants and a jacket, as well as a plumed hat that somehow stayed on her head even while she spun in the air. She twisted her fingers on one hand and Kai saw three coins spinning dexterously between them: one gold, one red, and one white.

The muscular man started to roar in anger, then between blinks they both disappeared.

At first Kai stared in confusion, but he theorized that the new arrival hadn't simply appeared there. If these warriors could use portals to land directly on top of the pit, they all would have done that in the first place. No, more likely she had some Class - or a power so far beyond it scorned to be called a Class - that allowed her to move short distances.

When he listened for human roaring over the monster noises, Kai spotted them again: both stood within the main brawl. The man bellowed and tried to grab her, but the young woman gave a playful grin and then vanished in another glittering of her coins.

She appeared just above the pit and began to drop into it... only for an enormous beam of qi to encompass her from above. This one seemed to shock the young-looking woman, but her coins were still spinning rapidly. When the beam should have struck her, it inexplicably twisted to the side just long enough to arc around her and then continue on its previous course.

Kai traced the beam back to the source and spotted the enchanting cultivator again - then he struck himself on the head with both hands and forced his gaze down. It was like every time he looked in her direction, something seized hold of his mind and insisted that whatever she was doing was jaw-droppingly beautiful.

Trying to think about her objectively, he thought that her features were unnaturally perfect, her skin so clear it was more like a polished stone than flesh. Maybe that was beautiful to some, but he thought it was more eerie than anything. He doubted that his mind would agree if he looked up again.

"And we have arrived!" Koleiman threw up his hands and the monsters pouring out of the pit in front of them transformed into showers of purple petals. All the monsters still climbing from the pit avoided the space, giving them a clear path to the edge.

Distracted by the battle, Kai hadn't realized how close they'd come. Now that the hole in the world yawned before him, he could think of nothing else. From this angle, he could see more of the interior. The sides still looked unnaturally sheer, but the surface was rough enough for monsters to continue climbing into the world. The material of the pit was oddly dark... the sun shone brightly overhead, yet somehow didn't illuminate the depths, as if the light was being consumed.

"Now, you first!" Koleiman cheerfully grabbed one of the southerners and pushed him to the edge.

The man screamed, trying to resist the movement of his own legs, but he couldn't stop himself. When he looked down, he went entirely silent and simply stared for several seconds. Then his body crumpled and he fell into the abyss.

"Interesting, very interesting." Koleiman nodded and stroked his chin. "Next."

One of the women who had led the southern officials walked forward next. When she reached the edge of the pit, she looked down for only a moment before her head exploded in a shower of gore. Koleiman laughed and clapped his hands.

Third came one of the hunters, then the southern Snowcaster, then...

"No!" Kai grabbed Zae Zin Nim around the waist and dragged her back. Her legs tried to keep walking forward at first, then she went limp. He could feel the relief throughout her body... and then Koleiman turned to look at them.

"Huh." His head tilted all the way to the side, then he shrugged. "Well, maybe I won't need all of you. Have fun, little fishies."

Was he just going to let them be? Kai watched helplessly as another hunter stepped forward and began melting into white goo. He'd pulled Zae Zin Nim to the edge of the aura, but if they went a single step further, the battle outside would tear them apart. Most likely the people in the strange auras were moving so quickly that if he stepped out, he'd be dead before he even knew it.

"What do we do?" he whispered. He wanted to save the others, but attacking Koleiman would be suicidal...

"There's nothing we can do." Zae Zin Nim closed her eyes and wearily sat down beside him. "Our fate was to stumble on an impossible foe, so we will simply die."

"Is this what Cloudspire is like?"

"This is worse." She said no more and composed herself for death.

Kai didn't want to give up, but the battle outside was driving home his powerlessness with every passing moment. Any one of the people outside could have conquered the entire Deadwaste continent in a day, and they were slaughtering one another. As he watched, he actually saw several brought down by monsters. Though the beasts avoided Koleiman's side of the pit, they were still swarming in.

The most horrifying thing was that he thought all this power was being contained. Once the beautiful cultivator waved a hand and unleashed a wave of qi that looked as though it could consume a city whole. It streaked through the earth, evaporating everyone on its way toward Monskon City. But at the Frontier wall in the distance, the beam flickered out. If the wall hadn't been containing the battle, Kai wondered if all Goralia would have been destroyed.

Someone new appeared in the air overhead, so swathed in white robes that it was impossible to see anything but their eyes. The being raised a hand and then an enormous symbol lit up in the sky behind them. It struck Kai as similar to those he saw with his spiritual vision, but this symbol had depth and reality. Even though his spiritual sight had been firmly closed, it imposed itself on him.

In an instant, every flame on the battlefield leapt into the air. Fireballs launched by warriors, flames dripping from the jaws of beasts, streaks of fire hurtling from strange weapons... all flowed upward and into a sphere. The robed figure raised a hand, then the combined inferno raged over the battlefield, consuming entire armies.

The blue-skinned man charged out of the flames, laughing wildly, and leapt at the new figure with an earth-shaking stomp. Nothing seemed to have touched him, from the flames to the strikes that connected in midair.

"Too slow... everyone is showing up..." Koleiman muttered to himself while fumbling in his robes. He pulled out an unusual device: it was made of something that might have been a strange metal, smoother and more intricate than anything Kai had seen before. Koleiman pushed a button and the magic artifact made a soft tone.

At that moment, a tree erupted on the battlefield. Kai watched in horror as it grew out of the body of one of the giant armored warriors, stretching high. Yet Koleiman ignored it, instead pushing more buttons on his magical artifact. Were the two unrelated?

The woman carrying the coins moved toward the tree, only to be intercepted by the robed figure. Whoever they were, they gestured and flames blurred into being around the woman. She appeared to be consumed for a moment before her body erupted in a mesh of sizzling white lightning. It arced across the battlefield, tearing through several figures before resolving back into her usual form.

Koleiman grunted in satisfaction, his head raised, and Kai had no choice but to look up. He immediately stared in shock. A vast object was descending from the sky, just as sleek and complex as the small device. It looked almost like a ship that flew with magic, but this vessel had vast cauldrons of power burning on the bottom instead of wind magic or sails. Thin metal lines extended from the sides and began releasing streaks of light that impacted all over the battlefield.

Some of the lesser fighters - still a thousand times stronger than Kai - died instantly when the streaks passed through them. The cultivator deflected them with a shield from one hand, frowning slightly. She wasn't looking at the attacks, instead letting her eyes flicker over the battlefield. Whatever power the robed figure had, it failed to control the streaks of light and they had to retreat. It seemed like Koleiman had taken the upper hand... until the blue man appeared again.

Laughing as light splattered off his skin, the man leapt into the air. He shrank to a speck before reaching the flying vessel, forcing Kai to realize that it was even larger than he thought. But that didn't matter: the enormous man tore the vessel out of the air, even though that should have been impossible, and then hurled it to the earth. The explosion scoured another portion of the battlefield and sent monsters flying, but Koleiman only grunted and looked back to the pit.

The strange tree had endured all attacks and began to glow. A pillar of light shot into the sky and for a moment Kai thought it had missed before he saw the shadow in the heavens.

Even though Kai's sense for what was possible had been overwhelmed multiple times, he still gaped: an impossibly vast sphere began to blot out the sky. It reminded him of the moon, but this sphere glowed with ominous purple light. As it loomed closer he could make out the surface, thin lines resolving into mountain ranges. An entire world was being brought down on their heads as if to end the battle simply by flattening everything.

Many of the warriors began to slow. They had fought on, even when companions were destroyed by various attacks, but even they stared overhead. Just when it seemed like they might all be crushed, the cultivator raised a hand skyward and unleashed a beam of qi that outclassed anything Kai had even imagined.

In an instant, the sapphire beam pierced the world overhead and sundered it into pieces. Entire mountains began tumbling through the air, even the rubble from the explosion enough to devastate the continent. But before they could get too close, a new power pulsed within the pit. Some nearby warriors evaporated and an upward current of force pushed the rubble into the sky.

With that pulse of power, the battlefield changed.

Kai realized in horror that the fighters were finally getting serious. Before that point, they had been more focused on reaching their goal than attacking one another. The cultivator could have unleashed that world-destroying blast at any moment, she just had higher priorities. Whatever strategies such divine beings used, their focus had just shifted.

Overhead, the cultivator raised both hands and glowing points of light began to flicker to life around her in an ominous circle. The blue man bent his legs and flexed the world around him. The glowing tree split open and a verdant being stepped from its heart. The slim woman finally stopped smiling and began spinning coins with both hands.

Kai turned away before the confrontation could blind him. No matter how he tried to think about the situation, he couldn't come up with any way to survive. Everything he'd done to that point had only delayed the inevitable by a pathetic handful of minutes.

"How dreadfully boring." The voice wasn't loud, but he managed to hear it over the battlefield. Most of the beings outside the rainbow field made distorted and slowed sounds, but the words had been perfectly clear.

A man wearing all gray shuffled through the chaos. Whatever color his skin had originally been, now it was a featureless gray that matched his loose robes. His expression was weariness personified. Few seemed to notice him, not even the monsters moving rapidly. As he walked, the man looked from side to side as if that was an impossible effort.

"Another pit, another cosmic battle. How dull. Tainted monsters. How tedious."

One of the crimson giants loomed beside him, raising a boot the size of a house. The gray man sighed and shrugged one shoulder. An utterly colorless point began to glow above him, motionless. Then the giant stomped on him... and vanished. There was no explosion or sense of power, the suit of armor simply ceased to exist.

"Great size. How monotonous. Cultivation, abilities, Dao, soul arts... downright platitudinous."

As the gray man walked closer, Kai realized that something was wrong. The others were all slowing down, nearly frozen. Koleiman had become a statue: his face set in glee as his colorless body stared into the pit. The gray man shuffled through the edge of the rainbow aura without apparent effect.

"And of course Koleiman the Magnificent with his research. As always, so trite, so prosaic, so bromidic..." The gray man's head swiveled to look at Kai. "What the fuck is that?"

"M-me?" Kai should have been terrified to have one of these nigh-omnipotent beings finally focused on him, but he still wasn't bound in place. "My soul-"

"You don't need to talk, anomaly. Well, I don't know what to make of this... it seems that random chance can still produce novelties... as a matter of principle, better eradicate it root and stem."

The gray man raised a hand and colorless oblivion approached.