Nate’s Conceptual Sight took in the cocoon of mana webs they had found themselves in even as battle raged around him. Not just him, though. The combatants seemed to be taking pains not to interfere with him or Perenthia who still sat across from him. With his sight that let him see the mana woven clearly throughout the room, he could tell as the pink-haired scion of the Severing Blade Sect tugged on one thread after another.

With every tug on those mana threads, something inexplicable would happen. One of the Bodyguards would somehow, despite being clearly slower than Kiri, avoid a lethal strike. Or Frick, who was attempting to use Nate’s own System-based Skills to create a rune to shape the earth above them, would instead use the wrong Sigil and merely shape wind or joy or love. Nate himself wasn’t spared, as he created a painting within his Regalia to let him repaint his, and his comrades, position in Reality. Yet, each time, found himself painting the room they were already in, their positions barely changed.

Worst of all was Wulfgar. Kiri was losing. That was virtually unexplainable given that she was faster, stronger, and more durable than her two opponents. But it was the truth. His sister was on the back foot and was taking the bad end of multiple trades. Taking the bad end for Kiri meant getting wounded more than she wanted to without extracting a similar level of blood and guts from her opponents. She was losing but she was fine. They’d need to do a lot more than they were currently doing, even with the mana threads interfering.

No, Wulfgar was the problem because he was the weakest link by virtue of being in combat and not being able to come back from the dead or shrug off having his head removed. Not yet, at least. Instead, Nate was forced to focus on Wulfgar and the threads interfering with the Bloodborne Executioner’s battle. With twenty split minds working, it took Nate a total of eight to keep Wulfgar alive. One of the threads attached to Wulfgar vibrated and Nate struck as hard and as fast as he could, using his own Magic Power, channelled through a rune carved into his robe, to destabilise the mana thread. He struck at eight different points along the thread that seemed to be pulling Wulfgar into an overhand strike that would leave him open for a deadly counter.

Along that thread, Nate could feel Perenthia’s own Magic Power and Control as she tried to keep the thread stable. He could tell she was using a single mental focus to contest him. The thread fizzled and Wulfgar reassessed his attack, leaping back out of range before charging in again, swinging his reformed Regalia into a greataxe as he forced the bodyguard away.

Nate maintained his focus on the thousands of threads covering the room. He and Perenthia had only been playing this game for ten seconds and he already knew that, as it was, she had him beat. That didn’t mean he’d been idle. He had been taking in all the information he could. It might have been hard normally to pick out the Concept she was using but, with thousands of threads surrounding him and the pink-haired elf actively using them, he was able to narrow it down from Fate to Probability.

That knowledge had won him a small amount of Divine Energy but it hadn’t made the problem any simpler. Nate could tell that Perenthia was a master of this Concept. Her skill had to go beyond anyone he had ever met besides himself and Kiri. Kiri’s ability to Endure was perhaps the only rival with a single Concept that Nate had ever personally witnessed. That, and Ankh’s Destruction, but comparisons to the ancient dragon were pointless. The old monster was in a league of his own.

That difference in capability was presenting a problem and was the reason it took so many of Nate’s mental splits to overwhelm Perenthia’s control over her web of Probability. Nate had, at the maximum, detected Perenthia activating and controlling four mana threads at once. A four-way split meant that she wasn’t Intellect focused. Given the sword on her hip, Nate suspected a Physical and Magical split was her focus. After all, a highly skilled and powerful swordswoman who could manipulate probabilities was likely to be a peerless duelist and combatant.

Of those four splits, Perenthia was constantly maintaining a single one on each of them. Nate had so far ignored the threads on Kiri as she was surviving, if not winning. On himself, he continued to ignore them because the one time he had tried to overwhelm them the threads targeting Frick had gone from inconvenient to downright murderous, as Nate faintly recognised the possibility of a mana explosion from the portal stone for the Challenge of Balance. Wulfgar got his constant attention to keep him alive but it meant that Nate couldn’t free himself or Frick.

Perenthia seemed to know it, too. Her manipulation of Kiri’s fight was completely focused around changing the probabilities in relation to her bodyguards. They never seemed to target Kiri directly. That was an oddity since the other threads seemed more than comfortable targeting Nate, Frick, and Wulfgar directly. Nate filed that information away.

So, Nate could focus on himself and either Wulfgar or Frick might die. Or, he could keep the contest going and they would slowly be worn down. He recognised that neither was viable and that he needed to change something. Something that Perenthia wouldn’t contest and simply warp out of existence by changing the Probabilities. Nate had considered using Divine Energy but at this point Perenthia hadn’t either and Nate wasn’t ready to escalate unless he felt there was no other way out.

With some of his split minds free as he oscillated between defending Wulfgar and Frick, he finally, after another fifteen seconds of constant high-speed battle, arrived at a few conclusions.

Perenthia was a Reality Manipulator. She had said she liked everything about him. Her exact words. Had she been drawn to him because they were alike? It was true that he had never seen anyone else change Reality with their Skills. Because it was clear that is what she was doing. She wasn’t reading the flow of battle and then making the perfect decisions like some kind of chess grandmaster. She was actively changing Reality to suit her needs by effectively telling Reality that the probability of something happening was incredibly high, perhaps even absolute.

Nate could acknowledge it was similar to what he did, albeit different. Nate could’ve painted a chicken into being and made that the truth. Reality would’ve accepted it, with a hint of Divine Energy, and a chicken would have manifested itself. Maybe Perenthia was capable of doing the same but, for her, the cost would’ve been variable, based on the likelihood of a chicken existing. That would mean she could do it cheaper in a chicken coop than Nate could but it would cost more in this hole in the ground in the middle of these Bleeding Woods.

Nate didn’t have anything to confirm his theory, but he was pretty confident it was correct. The second thing he realised was that Perenthia didn’t seem to want to hurt him. She was preventing his escape, and targeting his friends, a situation Nate had found himself in before. But she wasn’t actively trying to harm him personally. She wanted something from him. He could use that. A plan formed in his mind and he put it into action.

“Why are you doing this?” he asked.

Perenthia’s eyes widened as she realised he was talking to her.

“Because we’re perfect for each other! You’re perfect. I’m perfect. Together, we’d be perfect! This isn’t how I wanted this to go,” she whined. “The Probability Web was just a backup in case you tried to run before I had a chance to tell you how much I love you. I thought… I thought when you saw me, you’d see in me all the things I see in you.” She actually seemed to tear-up a little. “I thought that a love this pure, this perfect, would be enough. I knew you wouldn’t leave that ugly trollop behind, but I hoped that I could show you that I could be better for you than them! Better for you than anyone! That I could be all you need!”

Nate watched Perenthia closely, seeing how intense her pink-eyed gaze was as she stared at him like he was an island and she was lost at sea. He needed to keep her talking. After all, he only needed one split mind to engage in conversation, keeping nineteen free. She needed one as well, but that only left three for her to pluck at her Probability Web.

“You can see the lines of Probability, right? How couldn’t you see that it would go this way?”

Perenthia scrunched up her face. At any other time he would have found it cute. With her actively trying to harm his friends, he found it infuriating.

“I didn’t know you would be able to see it. Nothing told me you could see it. The mana threads themselves are so thin no one with Manasight or its variations ever notices. But, of course, you can see it! You’re just so amazing! I can’t believe I didn’t consider that you of all people would be able to see them!”

Perenthia’s hand seemed to move towards her hair of its own accord before she realized and jerked it back down.

“It just shows how much better than everyone else you are. Just like me! Surely you must see it too!”

Nate took the information and used it. It was true that the threads were so thin that he couldn’t see them based on the mana. They would have blended in with the ambient mana perfectly. But Nate could sense Concepts, especially when they were powerful and pure. It was an impossibility that he wouldn’t notice them, yet Perenthia hadn’t known that. She knew other things but not that. And she never targeted Kiri directly. It had something to do with Soul Energy. It only took Nate a few seconds to find the problem.

All sentient beings exchanged their own soul energy with the Spirit Realm, a constant back and forth. Kiri, however, had her Soul Sanctuary—a protection to make her hard to find or target within the Spirit Realm since she effectively stored a part of herself there. That would be enough to make her hard to read and influence for someone getting their information from the Spirit Realm. The second part was that Nate himself had some protection on that front. A limited protection to hide his Divine Vessel, and the abilities he had carved into it. The Sands of Erosion, a gift from Ankh’aris, was likely filtering out some of the soul energy he was exchanging with the Spirit Realm.

Now that Nate knew, he started weaving their way out of this problem. He’d deal with the leaks in the future. Escape came first.

“That’s because I don’t use a form of a mana sight,” he explained. “Your Path, is this the core Path of the Severing Blade Sect?”

Perenthia snorted in derision and, as she did so, Nate began unweaving the threads bound to him, burning them away with pure Destruction.

“No. Even Father acknowledges that I am a genius. The Severing Blade Sect follows a variety of Paths that revolve around Severing and swordsmanship. But I am something unique. Something special. Just like you! Say the word and I will let your friends go and we can leave together. This competition is a waste of our time. Father would welcome you into the Sect and we could be together forever. Pleeeeease.”

The last entreaty had the tone of begging and Nate could see how this spoiled child of a powerful Sect was willing to abase herself to possess him. Because, in his eyes, what she wanted wasn’t a relationship but ownership.

He’d kept her distracted long enough, though. Her eyes widened as she took in the destruction he’d wrought through her Probability Web even as she opened her mouth to respond. He beat her to it.

“I’ll have to decline. Goodbye.”

Then he activated Life Imitates Art and the four of them vanished from the underground and appeared in the Bleeding Woods above. He couldn’t hear her scream of frustration but he thought he sensed it through the vibrations of the bloody forest.

“Time to go!” he called and started flying deeper into the woods.

Wulfgar and Kiri caught up a moment later.

“Why aren’t we taking to the skies?” asked Wulfgar, watering the already bloody grass with his own lifeforce as his wounds sealed slower than usual.

Kiri just smirked next to him, already having figured Nate out.

“Because we still need to get you the Peak-Grade Divine Artifact that made this forest, obviously. It’s perfect for your Path,” answered Nate.

“And the crazy girl?” huffed Wulfgar.

“Here’s how we throw her off her game,” replied Nate, as he launched into an explanation about the runes Kiri was about to imprint on their souls.

*************

Kalin Silverscale sat across the table from Head Merchant Wu To’sama. Kole Darkscale joined them a moment later and Kalin had to grit his teeth to refrain from chastising the man for his tardiness. The Head Merchant, an ephemeral title assigned to the highest ranking member of the Starbreaking Guild on a given world, was important enough that he could raise the prices on them if he felt they were wasting his time.

“How can the Starbreaking Guild help you, Prime Seed Kalin Silverscale of the Worldforger Sect of the Dynasty of the Heavenly Serpent?” asked To’sama.

“We wish to buy information on some fellow competitors,” answered Kalin easily.

“Who is it you seek to know more of?”

“Nathaniel Weber of the Risen Sun Sect and Kiri Beaufoy of the same,” interjected Kole.

“I see,” To’sama replied, the bald old human looking uncomfortable. “The price is ten Peak-Grade Divine Artifacts.”

Kole was on his feet instantly and Kalin was forced to throw out his hand to prevent the situation from devolving further. The price wasn’t just high, it was ridiculous. Beyond ridiculous. If there was anyone who could afford it, he didn’t know them. He’d need to go into the Sect vaults and, even then, ten Peak-Grade was a stretch.

“That price seems unreasonable, Head Merchant,” he forced out through gritted teeth.

In response, To’sama made the Leaderboard visible for all to see.

Individual Leaderboard (Top 12)

1. Nathaniel Weber - Risen Sun Sect (1249)

2. Kiri Beaufoy - Risen Sun Sect (978)

3. Wulfgar Bjornson - Risen Sun Sect (642)

4. Perenthia Illari’svell - Severing Blade Sect (175)

5. Kalin Silverscale - Dynasty of the Heavenly Serpent (174)

6. Kole Darkscale - Dynasty of the Heavenly Serpent (167)

7. Sel’kin Might - Flux Industries (163)

8. Captain Borin Vaughn - The Golden Tide (155)

9. Lunar Sylvin - Dynasty of the Heavenly Serpent (151)

10. Drim Hall - The Eternium (147)

11. Wu To’sama - The Starbreaking Guild (146)

12. Gee’k Dumma - Dynasty of the Heavenly Serpent (144)

“The Starbreaking Guild has deemed that it is unwise to cross these individuals lightly. As all our trades are a careful calculation of risk versus reward, we have set the price appropriately,” answered the Head Merchant.

“And what about crossing me?” asked Kalin in a hiss.

“Unpalatable, but of lower risk than crossing the Risen Sun Sect individuals. I wish you luck in your hunt, gentlemen. I think you’re going to need it.”

Kalin stormed out of the tent with Kole on his heels.

“Did we at least get a lead on Drim?” he asked his fellow Sect member.

“He should be here to trade some of his findings in a couple of days. Lunar, as well.”

“Not a complete waste, then. Let's send the teams out to collect what they can. We can’t remain idle for too long. Though, if we pull this off, our victory will be uncontested.”

Kole nodded, heading off to give the orders to their teams while Kalin remained behind, wondering if he was making a huge mistake. An hour later, he still didn’t have a good answer to his own question.