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Chapter 587 - Two monsters
🕑 Added 2025-03-31 08:42:35 +0000 UTCPOV Isabella Martinez
One of the doors is wide open, but the other one hasn’t moved at all. The floor’s clear like glass, and whenever we step on it, mana underneath swirls and ripples, kind of like water. Over the open door, there’s a barrier that only lets people in. Once you walk through, you’re stuck. You can’t leave. Right now, there are about 50 of us in here.
Some people are still looking around, trying to understand the situation. A few sit in the corners, clearly exhausted or hurt, whispering to each other. One guy with a broken arm keeps glancing at the barrier like he’s debating whether to keep trying to get through it.
A few others are walking around the edge of the room, checking the walls and looking for clues or hidden triggers, even though it's obvious nothing’s going to work unless we solve the mana part. Some are just standing still, watching Yama’s group with the kind of focus you’d expect from people with no backup plan of their own.
I spot one girl slowly etching lines into the floor with her dagger, probably some kind of inscription, but judging by her expression, she doesn’t really know what she’s doing.
There’s tension everywhere. Not the loud kind. The quiet, crawling kind that builds with every minute of nothing happening.
No one else from group 4 is present, but Yama and some attendees from her round are already grouped together and working on opening the locked door by deciphering the movements of mana under the floor and trying to manipulate them to unlock it.
I don’t feel movement. It’s more like a strong emotion. Whoever’s controlling Nathaniel’s body stops next to me and looks down, and I look up at him. That’s when what Nathaniel asked me to do suddenly makes sense. I can feel the emotions from the thing inside him, and I remember what he told us earlier about the lurker in his mind.
"What is your name?" I ask him, not wanting to call him Whitey.
He gives it some thought and smiles brightly, "Nothaniel."
I can only sense a kind of smug satisfaction from him over the lame joke, and I think I understand why Nathaniel would accept someone like him. Even though I sense a lot of dark emotions from him, the currently prevailing emotions are beautiful and pure.
Excitement radiates from him in waves.
Heavy responsibility that he is happy to carry.
Slight annoyance and amusement at the same time.
The bravery of walking toward his death, mixed with something so beautiful it nearly brings me to tears.
"He hates it when people twist his name into nicknames," I tell him.
"Yes," he smiles even more.
That expression is so unusual on Nathaniel's face it takes me aback.
"Are you having fun?" I ask while sitting down, and he sits next to me.
"You already know that and I won't even try to hide my emotions from you. Do you know Nathaniel is sometimes scared of you?"
"Yes, I do."
"Wanna hear some of his deepest secrets?"
"Yes! I mean, no! It would be rude."
"Are you sure?"
"I...n-yes! Don't tell me anything."
“I can hear your heart and feel the way your blood and muscles move. So why bother lying, you nosy little thing? But fine, have it your way. Why aren’t they unlocking the door?”
"It's very difficult, and they have trouble deciphering mana locks or something."
Nothaniel stands up and stretches, enjoying each of these movements. At the same time, Yama finally notices him as she looks away from the inscription that she and her group drew on the floor.
He gives her a wave, which makes her furrow her brow.
"Thank you," I call to him before he leaves.
It causes him to stop, and he looks at me with those beautiful eyes, "What for, human?"
"For being his friend and not turning on him. He still doesn’t know how to ask for help and keeps carrying everything on his own."
"He’s a mess, I know, but that doesn’t mean he needs anyone fixing him. Don’t underestimate him," he says with a nod, then freezes as I grab his hand.
It's a warm and strong hand, and he looks at me with a flash of awkwardness quickly replaced by surprise and annoyance.
"What?" he asks impatiently.
"I’m sorry he couldn’t help you, and that the rest of us never got the chance to know you."
He snorts and pulls his hand away from mine.
Then he gently taps on the floor with his foot. The mana swirling underneath gets pushed aside as if his foot causes an invisible explosion. He repeats it, but while before a single shockwave was sent, now there are five of them, each entirely different.
The mana under the surface crashes, hit by the shockwaves and swirling in beautiful patterns until it stops entirely. The previously closed door creaks and starts opening slowly.
I look away from them and toward him, but he’s already gone, now standing in front of Yama. She teleports away, only for him to appear in front of her again, wearing that same smile and just staring.
Her strings spiral, move, attack, form defenses, or swing, but he avoids them all with the slightest movement of his body. Every time she teleports, he’s already there, within arm’s reach, just watching her with that smile. He tracks her constantly, even as she sets up fakes.
The attacks she sends his way stop mid-air, explosions frozen as if time itself paused, flames refusing to burn and simply hanging there.
None of the people from her group can move. Since the beginning, they’ve just stood there, unmoving.
In the end, even Yama ends up the same. She’s frozen in place, not a single strand of her hair moves.
Her annoyance, which flared into anger and surprise, now barely masks her unease and growing tension.
Nothaniel steps closer and taps her forehead with that devilish smile.
"Know your place," he says.
Then he’s gone, and she just stands there, staring at the spot where he vanished. Her face remains calm and composed as always, but I notice the faintest blush on her cheeks and feel her confused emotions.
***
POV Dennis Dalton
This room is the size of a small city. It has the same cube shape, gray walls, and a red ceiling, but the floor is ankle-deep water. In addition, there are floating droplets of water, thousands of them in the room. Each of these droplets explodes when it touches you and is capable of killing even a Hell attendee.
And they are impossible to perceive with senses other than sight.
For five hours, the event went pretty well. Aaron and I were following Derick and Hector, the 6th and 8th round tournament winners, lucky to have been thrown into the same starting room.
So, obviously, we decided to stick to them. Who wouldn't do that?
Together, they dealt with the Korean King's avatar and a few Beyonder avatars. Sometimes it's hard to see because Nat likes to beat the shit out of these people, but they are pretty strong.
Of course, we also did our part. We even created a few illusions to confuse avatars so that invisible Hector could snipe them down with his poisonous, self-navigating spear. We also created a communication link between the strongest members of our group.
That got us a surprised look, and I think it's because we did it so easily without the need for an anchor, and because the connection is so stable. It's something that group 4 considers normal at this point. We even have countermeasures against people using a similar connection to disadvantage them in combat, or secondary connections hidden below the main one so the enemy thinks they got rid of everything.
It would be funny to mention to them that with Nat, we are probably a few years away from the possibility of sharing mana through that connection and a decade or two from sharing vitality or something similar.
So yes, we did well, things went well, and we cleared a few rooms.
Some of them weren’t easy. One room had shifting gravity and reflective surfaces that kept bouncing our attacks back at us. Another was filled with some kind of thick fog that messed with sound and made it impossible to judge distance.
We worked well together. It wasn’t perfect, but we weren’t just some random group anymore. We were starting to feel like a real team. Maybe even the best team. Friends for life. Angry kitten slayers!
Then Tacita's avatar appeared and Derick and Hector died within seconds, both of them.
For the first time, I understood why Nat is scared of her and why he kept telling us that when it comes to fighting attendees, Tacita is likely the most dangerous person in Earth's tutorial.
Holding a dagger with a gray blade and another coated in blue mana, she calmly steps toward us. Pale blue particles still shimmer around her, remnants of the two Kings. There are a few dozen of our illusions, but her eyes never leave the spot where Aaron and I are.
I use [Haste] and she disappears. I can't even follow her movement, but the moment she is gone, I exchange places with one of my illusions through [Connection].
When I start looking for her, she isn't there, and in a panic, I do it again, and so does Aaron. Every time, just for a faint moment, I see an attack slash through where we stood, but she is quick to catch up and already we are reduced to only a few illusions.
After a quick message, we both prepare, relying on our [Connection], which is much stronger than anything we can create alone, along with Aaron's dexterity. It’s not perfectly efficient, so some of it gets wasted, but in that moment, my speed increases dramatically, and I use [Haste] on my mind.
Aaron disappears, exchanging spots with the illusion we left far behind, and only now do I barely see Tacita's avatar.
Every surviving attendee moves in slow motion, but she still moves incredibly quickly. The water under her feet barely splashes, and she is already far away from that spot.
I barely lift my dagger to block a single attack, and I swing my short sword at her, only to watch my severed arm flying through the air.
Then I realize she hasn’t even been going all out against me and Aaron until now.
What a freak.
Her dagger aims at my heart, but then she freezes, the blade just touching my chest.
And behind her, Nathaniel stands, just an arm's reach away. He is smiling demonically. Only then do I see his red eyes and white hair.
He mouths something, but the air around Tacita's avatar flickers, and she turns around and swings at his head. She doesn't even bother finishing or attacking me, fully focused on him.
Nathaniel dodges her attack with these erratic, impossible movements that look even more confusing than usual, and Tacita keeps avoiding attacks I cannot see that send shockwaves through the water or cause the water behind her to explode into geysers.
They move all over the place, slipping between the attendees without even rippling the surface of the water. Even with all my effort put into overclocking my perception, I can barely track them.
But I notice that even as quick as Nathaniel is right now, he can barely match her. She even seems to be faster than him.
At first, it seems to annoy him, but it is replaced by a vivid grin.
In a burst, he sends her flying backward and she slides across the water's surface before coming to a stop.
She tosses aside both of her broken daggers and pulls a new one from under her clothes. It’s dark red, its glowing tip leaving a trail in the air with every movement. She takes a stance.
Nathaniel mirrors her, taking a stance unlike any I’ve seen from him before. A deep thud sounds from his body, shaking the massive room and causing all the floating water droplets to explode. Several burst near Tacita, forcing her to dodge.
He appears at her side. Despite moving at incredible speed, he stops so abruptly the deceleration alone should’ve killed any normal person. The red dagger slices through the air, its glowing tip carving a line that just misses him. Then he regains momentum and crashes into Tacita with the same force he had before stopping.
***
Comments
JJB4345_80_815
Quote: Whoever’s controlling Nathaniel’s body stops next to me and looks down, and I look up at him. That’s when what Nathaniel asked me to do suddenly makes sense. I can feel the emotions from the thing inside him, /Quote What did Nate ask Izzy to do? This has been bugging me a bit. It feels like I'm missing something...
Tom Hammer
>when you let the demon inside of you out to play
Asterrahl
I laughed a lot over these couple chapters. Poor Yama, especially, who was going about her day innocently when this maniac appeared and wiped the floor with her confidence, adding "Know your place." for good measure. Btw, I also would blush if someone were to use their devilish smile to tap my forehead. It's embarrassing :p
Kirin
Thank you for the chappie!
Johnny
Love Izzy’s insight into L’s emotions…makin ME emotional! Every chapters better than the last it’s been ages since I was this pumped about a series
Jayden Martinez
The way Izzy describes Nothaniel's emotions, bright and pure and beautiful. He had no regrets except that he can't get to see the end of Nathaniel's journey, that he has to stop here
Ivan Jelenić
Yama has the hots for Nat? 😂 What did L read off her with his kinetic senses?
Ivan Jelenić
Sooo good! Love all these POVs, and L going crazy.
RingoSeto
hes probably teaching nat how to fight tacita... and tacita will prob off nat avatar
Dual.
tftc!
Brendin Olsen
Let's be honest, there wasn't a fight
jax rammus
Skipped the Nathaniel avatar fight?
Goblin
Thanks for the chapter
asdfmeepman
Tftc. So good
Andrew
Thank you!
CptJimmy42
Even Cerim has trouble telling them apart, lol
Bcampbell1017
I think Loriel is my favorite character so far besides Nat. Gonna suck to lose him
D Pryor
interesting thought. would an increase in dexterity stat increase his kinetic energy efficiency? Obviously kinetics and dexterity are related in the real world, but in my head, I was thinking of k-energy as a way to circumvent low Dex. Not sure if Cerim has explored this connection or not. It would make sense that Nat's low k-energy fine control is due to his low Dex stat
Lestrat Shadow
Thanks for the chapter.....nat vs tacita....go go go
Néstor Rocha
I think Nothaniel will drag this fight out a bit. We're finally seeing tacita go all out, which will help Yesthaniel see through all her tricks for this tournament.
KipBR
You give the most skilled user of kinetic force you can find in the tutorial the most ridiculous output of kinetic force in the tutorial, and this is what you get. Whitey finally started to get slightly serious here, I don't think Tacita will last long.
ramir
Oh okay appreciate that bro!
Funny guy
It even has the Beyonder guy
Funny guy
Danks fur da chappie!
anonymous patreon
1st round CarrotCake - Jean Duran - Canada, 30y 2nd round Klara - Klara Novak - Czech Republic, 25y 3rd round Maxim Sarov - Russia, 11y 4th round Victoria - Victoria Gwyn - USA, 25y 5th round Noname - Nathaniel Gwyn - USA, 22y 6th round Hector Valdez - South America, 33y 7th round Monte - Spain, 55y 8th round Derick Kelley - Ireland, 34y 9th round Yama - China, 40y 10th round Baek Kwanseok - Korea, 27y Here you can see "Kings" of each round. Yama is "king" of 9th round
starhunter34
TFTC! Also, this line, “There are a few dozen of our illusions, but her eyes never leave the spot where Dennis and I are.” should probably say Aaron instead
Al
I think Lis would disapprove bc it’s not Nathaniel acting. I think the reason she set him up this way was to continue to push him as her student so he would grow quickly. By passing control to Whitey he circumvents that. However, I suspect he’s observing Whitey and learning even more about kinetic mana, so I low key think she will decide to be ok with it bc it still serves her overall purpose - make Nathaniel scary strong
Val the mysterious Jedi
It's more that tacitas is op when it comes to fighting people, she is pure assassin build so one shooting people
Val the mysterious Jedi
Pure dex build so super speed
Val the mysterious Jedi
Dennis with that subtle group 4 flex about the connections and how nat dunks on other kings making them look like minor league
jj
I am loving the slow pace of this event and Nothaniel's antics. Why would Liss disapprove though? If anything Nothaniel has even less inhibitions about showing how good he is and he's crushing the competition. Arguably, the only reason Nat has access to him is because Nat defeated him already. Can't wait to read more!
Edmund Dillon
Tftc!!!, Nothaniel putting people in their place😂😂
Apollo Greed
So dope! Tyftc!
agentjongon
Iirc The lady with threads who’s the strongest in the 9th tutorial or something along those lines
Ronnel
TFTC!!! i'm gonna have to reread the whole tournament from the start..so many names..
ramir
who is yama again?
Michael McMahon
💯
mitchell kaiser
But that’s what makes the chapter all the better, so we can appreciate it more.
Zaim İpek
Ooh, yeah. The hair change definitely gives that Super Saiyan feel and aesthetic.
HeadpatsOnly
omg… that final section of the chapter give me chills. whitey is a monster… i hope he somehow sticks around or comes back in the future :(
Adrian Rake
Tacita is faster ? 😳
Tsorov
Well, she has an only Dexterity build. While yes, Lioren has plenty more of his kinetic energy, Nat's base stats are as far from her Dexterityjas they are from his mana.
Zach McDill
I’m gonna miss whitey :(
Oaktree
“Know your place” should be the last thing everyone hears from nat this tournament.
Miguel Anjos
Tacita is such a monster... No diffed 2 Round Kings like nothing. This just means Nat's Round is waaaaay over the normal standard
zoarian
People outside of Group 4 will be so confused, they won't even know it's someone else in the driving seat lol. I expect at least one Super Saiyan joke on his card.
firte
Thanks for the chapter
Madje Tobi Marc'Avent Tchona
Tacita with a dexterity crown would be op. I'm surprised she faster than even lioren
Michael McMahon
The last few chapters have been absolutely amazing. Im gutted that Whitey is going to disappear and cannot be saved but what a way to go out in style.
vEnviouz
TFTC!!!
Mateusz Lokś
Shit, I figured watching from the perspective of others would be amazing, but I didn't know it would be so amazing.
Lonnie
Nothaniel if having a lot of fun for his last run
Venno
I love this action.
Belmont Igneul
Nuts
Shawn Treants
Love these pov chapters!
Borbino the great
Hell yeah
BlackRazaras
Thanks for the chapter
