[Bonus thanks to Chronotitan <3]
Nosphaleen waved her tail and they shot forward like the crack of a whip, slithering with such pace through the air that one would have thought they’d spark a fire of friction between their body and the raging winds.
In an instant of time, they had crossed the distance to the winding river and dove in, vanishing from sight.
Sylas realized that there was a very clear deduction to be made. The ocean was very still, so much so that it was hardly kicking up any waves. By comparison, the rivers were truly raging.
This much was odd, especially since they were connected, but not enough to raise eyebrows.
The ocean was too vast in comparison to the river. Why would the speed of one be dictated by the other? The river followed a much narrower path, so it wouldn’t be too much of a surprise.
However, there were several more factors to take into consideration.
This was the wider world, not Earth. That wasn’t an ocean, it was a lake.
Great, so lakes in the wider universe could be much larger than the lakes Sylas was used to on Earth. Why did that matter?
Well, lakes weren’t supposed to be salty, for one, and the river was oddly black. No matter where in the universe you were, that was odd, and something interesting had to have happened to cause it.
Regardless, the most important thing to notice was that the green forest was a trap. Any forest that could flourish so well while near such a density of salt was to be questioned. It was almost like a honey trap in the depths of the abyss.
But by comparison, even though the lake was safer, it was also the center of power causing this change. It would be easier to make it through the lake, but not easy enough that it would save one of all hardship.
In the end, the river that looked the most menacing was the safest. That was because while it looked black on the surface, it was actually flushing out everything that was good from this region. The black was nothing more than illusion to make it look more menacing than it was.
This trial was a test to see the resourcefulness of the participants, their abilities to pick up on context clues from their environment and act accordingly.
After understanding this, Sylas felt that he had no need to waste his time on these meaningless puzzles anymore. These sorts of things he could do in his sleep, especially with his new Rolodex of information.
If he could see through all of the tricks with his Rune Mastery, why wouldn’t he, instead of standing around trying to decipher these brain teasers?
And that was exactly what he did.
The Petals of the Seeing Thorn watched as Nosphaleen tore through one puzzle after another at a pace that had taken the other girls days to complete.
No… most of the girls weren’t even placed this far back in the race because they had joined much earlier.
By the time Sylas began to catch up to the most common starting regions, his greatest limiting factor wasn’t even the danger anymore, it was instead the distances he had to fly.
Soon, the challenges became so easy that Sylas didn’t even have to kill to deal with them; he just flew by too fast for them to even react.
It was only after reaching a certain point that the challenges began to ramp up in difficulty somewhat again. But even then, they were still easier than the starting position.
But in less than a day, Sylas had already caught up to the leads of the group.
…
BANG! BANG! BANG!
Malevolace Dazeth smashed against a stone continuously, more enraged than she could put into words. Her four arms worked together like the pistons of a hydraulic press as she smashed a heavy stone to bits of ash and sand.
Cassarae had escaped again. It felt like every time was another slap to her face, another humiliation along her path. It was so infuriating she couldn’t even put it into words.
Her eyes glanced down to her ample chest, rippling with both muscle and soft tissue that bounded in her rage. There wasn’t a single ounce of droopiness to be found.
At least, that was what she thought until she caught her reflection in the nearby lake. From the side, she suddenly felt like it extended out too far and would have definitely drooped a bit if not for her armor forcing it to keep its shape.
With a roar, Malevolace picked up another heavy stone and threw it at the water.
BOOM!
A surging current rose with a backdraft that shook the earth and sent a pillar of water into the air.
However, the pillar of water didn’t go very far before a woman with a long, snaking tail appeared. She frowned for a moment, then held out a hand.
The pillar of water that had been about to blast into her stopped in its tracks as though reflected by an invisible wall. It crashed back down in a wave that buried Malevolace completely, drenching her from head to toe.
“WHO!?”
Malevolace’s roars had been ignored until now, but when she suddenly spoke as though she was calling someone out, her allies rushed to the lake, turning up in droves until they saw what the situation was.
High in the air, Nosphaleen looked down. Sylas could feel that Cassarae was around here, probably close by, likely hiding. From the looks of it, and the rage of this woman, Sylas doubted it was a coincidence.
Cassarae probably wasn’t as smart as Sylas, not close. But what she was good at was understanding people. Her sharp tongue was only that sharp because she knew exactly how to get under someone’s skin. Well, that, and she had a certain way with words.
The fury of this woman and Cassarae was almost certainly related.
In that case…
Sylas raised Nosphaleen’s hand and casually slammed down.
Malevolace became a pile of flesh and blood.