Chapter 1312 (2/2)

“Mind if I join?” The leader of Zone Eleven, the man who called himself Warlord, walked calmly out onto the tiles. There was a flare of brightness and suddenly there was suddenly a third bonfire of light filling the ground. The three individuals grinned at each other, clearly savoring the chance to have their images clash directly. Warlord’s light grew quickly to five meters and then began to slow its expansion.

Around her, other forces began to stir. The Orders looked at each other and took several steps backward. In fact, many began to head up to the second floor of the ballroom, either to get a better view of the conflict below or in order to track Tatiana down. Theodora couldn’t help but release a weary sigh. If these tiles truly helped ground images enough so that they could be trained directly, Zone 1 likely wasn’t the only group that would want the secret.

Possessing the ability to train images in that way was something they all dearly wanted.

“This seems fun, mind if I join?”

Theodora twisted back around, surprised by who had spoken this time. Mrs. Hamilton stood at the edge of the normal tiles, grinning out at the three men. When they didn’t immediately respond, she took that as a yes and stepped out onto the stardust tiles. Almost immediately, Theodora and several other individuals in the room shivered.. Mrs. Hamilton’s image induced a deep sense of dread in half the people that were standing around the area and revulsion in the other half.

Theodora flexed her hands, feeling like her body was slowly being wrapped in spider silk and bundled away to a dark nest. Even when the movements of her fingers were free and easy, it didn’t dispel the uncomfortable feeling.

The tiles reflected the difference in this image, too. While the other three had been relatively equal in strength in brightness, Mrs. Hamilton’s image arrived and grew larger and larger until the other three’s images began to dim. Theodora Greyman wasn’t sure how reliable the tiles were in terms of magnitude, but it looked like Mrs. Hamilton was one third again as powerful as the other three people on the floor. Her light source was probably nearing ten meters in diameter.

“So that’s Donnyton, huh…?” Richter said quietly. To Theodora’s surprise, the partially paralyzed man was smiling with genuine excitement as he looked over.

“Is this a joke to you?” Mark Rowel whispered ominously. “These people are our competition in a very real way. I think it’s been made clear that the System is designed to make individuals from a world compete against each other for a finite amount of resources. And if what Tatiana said earlier is true, Randidly Ghosthound already has a vast advantage in terms of information. If we are at a disadvantage in terms of both power and information-”

“No, I understand this isn’t a joke,” Richter said lightly. He considered the leader of the Order Valorem for a moment before shrugging. “But I’m not going to pretend like I won’t enjoy the challenge. I’m tired of spending most of my time in a laboratory. I want to test my limits.”

And with that, Richter began to wheel himself forward to join the others on the tiles. However, he was not alone in that desire. Some others joined Richter in descending onto the dark and gleaming tiles. There was a towering ogre, King Phirun himself, a few chosen champions of the Orders, and also the woman with white hair who had been standing with Tatiana.

Truly, coming here might be worth it just to see the tiles, Theodora thought with a frown. But because of the competition… it also functions as a natural way to weed out the weaker parties; they won’t be able to endure images of this level for long… in fact, even I...

The individuals on the tiles spread out so that their images didn’t mix too directly. As it turned out, Mrs. Hamilton continued to reign supreme as the others began to fully release their image. Lights flickered and shrunk as more and more images saturated the floor. Most of the people were a little weaker than the original three that went out onto the floor, becoming relatively forgettable beacons around the central individuals. It was only Phirun who came as a surprise, possessing an image that was about halfway between the original three and Mrs. Hamilton.

And then the woman with white hair coughed lightly. “This feels like bullying… but I’ve felt very stifled in my professional role for the past several months... I think Randidly will understand if I let loose a bit now that I have a body again…”

Then her image spread outward. The immediate effect wasn’t that the previously unimpressive light beneath her feet grew, but rather that every other light on the tiled floor began to rapidly shrink. Those individuals that had been unimpressive before soon barely produced a glow. The original three had their halos of light shrink to about one meter. Even Mrs. Hamilton was ruthlessly pressed down until she was about half the size of the new dominant force on the floor.

As Theodora looked on in alarm at the power demonstrated by this woman, she couldn’t help but notice that the tiles created an aesthetic that was positively cosmic; it was like she was looking at a painting of the celestial bodies in the universe.

Once the others had dimmed, then the white-haired woman’s light began to grow. She achieved the largest area for her light, reaching almost thirty meters. The other people on the tile slowly backed away from her so that they weren’t standing in the area dominated by her image.

“Looks like a fun toy… ssss…. How about you let us try?”

Perhaps it was due to the constant press of images against her senses, but Theodora was genuinely shocked when she realized that another party had arrived without her noticing.

A serpent with feathered wings. A human woman followed by an undead bear. The raucous grin of the Bandit King. The weary eyes of the Obsidian Duke.

The Nemesai had arrived at the party of Randidly Ghosthound.