The organizers knew what'd happen when the Hydra appeared. In fact, it was not a coincidence that this happened, it was very much pre-planned development, and also something they planned would be the end of the second event.

  No one knew of this, of course, other than the organizers.

  Not that it meant much to the participants. It had already been hours. Those who had enough points, would pass ahead. Those who were eliminated wouldn't. And those teams whose point-carrier was still alive somewhere, they were in luck, as even if they themselves got eliminated, their life-line was very much alive, so to say, and they would reap the benefits of that the moment the event ended.

  Instead of getting eliminated, they'd find themselves ecstatic they passed.

  But people didn't know that either.

  So when the new team dove down on the Hydra, the look on Peter's face when he realized what was happening was absolutely priceless. No way, would someone really dare steal from them? Who could be so idiotic?

  Victoria's expression didn't change as much as the others, as this new development didn't affect anything as far as she was concerned, given that she knew she'd have to compete with the others anyway when the Hydra died, but that didn't mean she wasn't angry. In fact, the temperature dropped considerably by the time Eddie's lightning went from controlled to wild, wreacking havoc. And Sven... Sven just sighed like he'd been expecting this.

  They hadn't expected any other team to dare interfere or try to steal their kill.

  For them, it was only natural that they be the ones getting the points. It never crossed their minds that someone could do this—that someone would do it.

  Theodore recognized the one leading the new team by the time the [Thermal Lance] in the air pulsed with enough mana to make his teammates look startled, not thinking he would pour that much mana into it. Theodore grew more and more amused. It was stupid of him to think Freya wouldn't come have a try at the fused Beast King, she was that much of a battle maniac after all, which meant this wasn't a kill steal, but more that she'd just arrived now.

  Knowing her, she dove right in, and the panic on her teammates' face as they proved just that, as they launched everything they had at the Hydra's exposed wounds. It was uncoordinated and messy, but it was also five fresh fighters hitting an already dying creature. Theodore grinned. "No way am I gonna let you do that."

  The [Thermal Lance] blasted forward, and by the time Freya landed her hit on the Hydra after smashing through the others, the lance had already struck as well. It moved fast because he had forced kinetic mana into it, and it moved so fast that the world had not caught up yet. The impact came first, and then the sound arrived afterward, as the air finally tore itself apart and the crack of the broken sound barrier slammed across the battlefield.

  ***

  The reality of the situation slammed into Peter.

  Someone had stolen their kill.

  Peter's grin twisted into something ugly. He'd been having fun, actually enjoying himself for once, and some rat had ruined it. Victoria's ice crackled around her fingertips, temperature plummeting as her eyes swept the treeline. She didn't need to say anything. The killing intent radiating off her said enough. Eddie's lightning arced wild, scorching the earth beneath his feet. Sven just stood there with an unreadable expression.

  Freya landed hard beside her team, confusion written across her face. Her fist had hit the Hydra, she was sure of it—but so had something else. She turned, following the trajectory, and found Theodore standing there just as everyone else found him.

  Her confusion lasted a moment, and she started laughing. The spectators hidden throughout the forest had gone completely silent. Recording crystals trembled in shaking hands.

  "Did... did that just happen? He's dead. He's so fucking dead."

  Peter, Victoria, Eddie, and Sven exchanged a single look. There was a beat of silence.

  They moved.

  The Condition to end the second event has been fulfilled. The event will end in 60 seconds. Anyone that gets eliminated in the blast radius will lose all their points.

  The announcement blazed across the sky, and everyone froze, eyes flicking to the Hydra's corpse.

  Thump.

  A heartbeat sounded.

  Thump.

  Second heartbeat.

  THUMP.

  Third heartbeat, louder than the rest.

  58 seconds.

  Peter broke into a sprint. Victoria's ice spears materialized. Eddie's lightning crackled to life. Sven's armor flared. Theodore roared: "SCATTER!"

  His team exploded in five different directions—Tessia cutting left, Tobin diving right, the others vanishing into the trees. Theodore watched the four monsters closing in on him, felt the killing intent crashing against his skin like physical weight.

  Peter reached him first—

  Theodore [Blinked].

  The world snapped, reality folding around him as he appeared behind Peter's exposed back, the ball of compressed kinetic energy he'd been holding slamming into the lunatic's spine before anyone could react. Peter cratered into the earth. The ground exploded outward in a shower of dirt and stone, cracks spiderwebbing around him.

  [Blink].

  THUMP.

  Theodore's feet hit the ground running. Kinetic energy flooded his legs, each step launching him forward faster than any normal human could track. The trees blurred past him. Explosions erupted out of his hands, propelling him forward.

  Victoria's ice spears screamed through the air behind him. He felt them coming and twisted sideways. One grazed his shoulder, leaving a line of frozen blood. He didn't slow down.

  Eddie appeared. Lightning slammed into Theodore's chest. His [Mana Reinforcement] caught most of it, but the overflow seared through his ribs, cooking muscle. He hit Eddie with a kinetic pulse anyway, watched the lightning mage's barrier shatter as he went tumbling.

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  [Heal] flooded his chest. Flesh knitted back together in seconds.

  Sven materialized at his left. Golden blade swinging. Theodore barely got his arm up in time. The impact shattered his forearm—bone fragments exploding through skin—but he'd already [Blinked] again, reappearing thirty feet away with his arm reforming.

  He ran.

  THUMP.

  No one was holding back anymore. In fact, they were all attacking with no care for their own bodies, meaning their attacks were far, far stronger than they would normally be, as they were hurting themselves as much as they were hurting him.

  They couldn't give up. He had their points.

  Peter was back on his feet, face twisted with fury and excitement in equal measure. Victoria had closed the distance, ice armor coating her entire body. Eddie crackled with enough lightning to level a city block. Sven's golden armor blazed so bright it hurt to look at.

  And Freya—

  Freya was grinning as she charged straight at him.

  "This is the best day of my life!" she screamed.

  Theodore couldn't help it. He laughed even as he exchanged attacks with them all, [Blinking] over and over, dodging, attacking, and running.

  35 seconds.

  Theodore's [Parallel Processing] screamed at full throttle, eighteen separate threads of thought calculating trajectories, managing mana flow, directing [Heal] to whatever part of his body was currently exploding. Peter's fist arrived like a wrecking ball, caving in Theodore's sternum with a wet crunch. Theodore used the impact to pivot, grabbing Peter's wrist and detonating a kinetic pulse that turned the man's fingers into a spray of white bone-shards.

  Victoria's ice spears punched through his thigh, pinning him to the earth. He grabbed it, superheated it with [Elemental Mastery], and hurled a jet of scalding steam directly into her eyes.

  THUMP.

  Sven's golden blade descended. Theodore [Blinked], the air imploding where he'd stood, and reappeared mid-air, slamming a kinetic-enhanced heel into Sven's helmet. The gold cracked. The ground beneath Sven turned to powder.

  Eddie's lightning cooked his left arm black. He pumped mana through [Heal] and forcing fresh, pink muscle to erupt through charred skin into a fist that slammed into Eddie's face, kinetic energy detonating on impact and sending the man hurtling back.

  Sven's blade opened his chest to the bone. Theodore [Blinked] before the follow-up could take his head and poured mana into [Heal].

  THUMP.

  They were destroying each other.

  Nobody was holding back. Victoria's ice storms caught Peter in the crossfire, freezing half his body before he could dodge. Eddie's wild lightning struck Sven's armor, the golden metal conducting enough voltage to make even him stumble. Freya's flames scorched everything. Theodore took it all. Absorbed what he could. Let [Heal] handle what he couldn't.

  His body was a ruin of burned flesh, constantly regenerating, constantly breaking apart again.

  THUMP.

  Now.

  Theodore planted his feet, the kinetic energy ripped from his surroundings. Every scrap of kinetic energy he'd been storing—every hit he'd taken, every impact he'd absorbed, every ounce of force that had slammed into his body, everything he had been absorbing throughout this entire event—

  He let it go.

  [Kinetic Release].

  A dome of pure force hammered outward. Trees uprooted. The ground tore itself apart in a wave of pure devastation rolling outward from Theodore's position. The shockwave caught Peter and snapped his limbs like dry kindling. Victoria's ice armor shattered into a million diamond-sharp needles that shredded her own skin. Sven's barrier crumpled like tin foil.

  Theodore's own body paid the price. His arm split open, muscle tearing from bone. His legs buckled, tendons shredding under the strain of channeling that much force without a care for his body.

  [Heal]. [Heal]. [Heal].

  Mana poured through his system, stitching him back together through sheer force of will. But still, Freya caught him before he could heal any longer. Her flames wreathed her like a second skin, eyes wild with battle-lust. She closed the distance in a heartbeat, and her fist—wreathed in condensed flame—punched through Theodore's right arm.

  The limb exploded into red mist from the elbow down.

  He grinned, teeth coated in gore, and used the bloody stump of his shoulder to wedge Freya's arm against him while his left hand drove a spike of kinetic force through her stomach, exiting her back in a spray of blood and gore. They fell apart, both coughing blood, both already regenerating as they hit the dirt.

  His arm erupted from the bloody stump and hit Freya's cheek, a kinetic blast rattling her brain and hurtling her backward. Freya's own healing was no less effective, and she stopped herself with a blast of fire and then rocketed toward him with a bloody grin.

  THUMP. THUMP. THUMP.

  The Hydra's heartbeat was deafening. It was building up—the mana in that corpse reaching critical mass. When it blew, it would level everything. He started moving again, kinetic energy as well as blasts of thermal energy, mana, air, everything he had at his disposal propelling him forward.

  Theodore [Blinked] toward the Hydra's corpse. They followed, closing in, battered, bleeding, excited, furious. Theodore spun, facing all of them at once just as the Hydra's heart detonated.

  The explosion was everything Theodore had expected and worse. Pure thermal annihilation expanding outward at impossible speeds. The heat alone should have vaporized him. The kinetic force should have scattered his atoms across the continent.

  Time slowed down to a crawl. A white-hot sphere of absolute destruction appeared and expanded. His mana whipped outward, invisible chains of force wrapping around anyone too slow to dodge, sucking out kinetic energy from their movements as well as thermal energy, and binding them with mana. Most broke free immediately. Peter snarled as he tore through the restraints. Victoria flash-froze the mana constructs. Eddie's lightning disintegrated them.

  His left hand locked onto Peter's throat, fingers sinking into the muscle. His right hand clamped onto Victoria's face, his thumb digging into her eye socket. The explosion expanded outward like a second sun being born. Pure white and heat. It would vaporize anything it touched. And it consumed them all. Theodore [Blinked] closer to the Hydra, teleporting longer distances than he'd shown these people.

  Even with Theodore's grip crushing his windpipe, Peter hammered his remaining fist into Theodore's face. Crack. Theodore's jaw detached, hanging by a single tendon. Crack. Theodore's nose flattened into a mess of cartilage. Victoria was no less brutal. Trapped in his grip, she conjured ice daggers directly inside Theodore's stomach. She twisted them, disemboweling him while the heat of the coming blast began to peel the skin from her own back.

  The white wall of the explosion arrived.

  It was beautiful.

  First, their clothes vaporized. Then, their hair vanished.

  [Parallel Processing]. [Elemental Mastery]. [Heal]. [Severing Aura]. He used many of his skills at the same time. His mind splintered into many threads, his brain burning under the strain, trying to absorb the thermal and kinetic energy from the blast. [Elemental Mastery] screamed. Too much. Too much thermal energy flooding his pathways. His skin cracked, fissures of light splitting across his arms, his chest, his face, his arms, his whole body. The heat was cooking him from the inside. It was far too much. His body started cracking, skin splitting, blood boiling beneath the surface.

  But he didn't turn into slime, for this was an excellent way to train his skills.

  Theodore held them tight. He anchored himself, his boots melting into the liquefying earth.

  He pumped mana through every inch of him through [Heal]. [Basic Armament] coated him in a shell of hardened mana. [Mana Reinforcement]. [Mana Convergence] pulled energy from the surroundings in a desperate whirlpool.

  It was still not enough.

  [Severing Aura] flared around him, trying to cut through what he couldn't absorb. Reality itself seemed to fray at the edges as he threw everything he had at survival.

  3 seconds.

  His flesh peeled away. Theodore's grin split his face even as the skin peeled away from his cheeks. Bone visible through charred muscle in a dozen places. Eyes burst from the heat. His lungs filled with blood and heat. He couldn't heal fast enough.

  Theodore's grin only widened, eyes long vaporized. There was darkness, but those he held were faring far worse, and they pummelled his body with everything they had.

  2 seconds.

  They screamed, struggling against his grip, but he held them tight even as his fingers burned down to the bone.

  The explosion's core reached him fully. Everything he'd been holding back, everything he'd been absorbing and severing and deflecting—it crashed through his defenses all at once.

  The timer hit zero just as his body was incinerated.

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