Lily didn’t betray her colleagues but had done Nil the courtesy of sharing the identities of the fighters in the Chase. She considered it fair since everyone knew about him and would attend extensive strategy and planning sessions to prepare specifically for their confrontations. Nil knew nothing about their abilities and had watched a few recordings of their previous matches between Chase videos.

  Much to his disappointment, the man he now faced wasn’t on the list. Either the information he received was incorrect, the ludus had changed the roster, or Lily only knew about local participants. Wilson’s organization had spread to North America and also Asia. They didn’t dominate the market like Europe, but thanks to Arthurtech’s influence, things were shifting in Wilson Enterprises’ favor. He knew nothing about his opponent.

  However, except for the people in his world who knew about cultivation, Nil imagined few could fathom the extent of his recent growth and forever improving techniques. Then, there was the matter of the soul weapon. The channels had guessed that Nil’s blasts injured him unless he released them through the gauntlets. No one on Earth knew about the chassis’ expansion and the overall benefits.

  Initially, Nil had planned on keeping it a secret for as long as possible. If he kept it secret as Lily did with her golem ability, then it could potentially become an important trump card during the Cleansing. As soon as Nil crossed the gate’s threshold and his opponent charged, he decided to bother with none of that. Victory took priority. For the time being, he resisted manifesting the full chassis and threw Meatball with all the strength he could master.

  The Wilson Luduses fighter ducked and continued his charge but had to stop when the whelp bounced off the walls and pinballed all over the place, randomly firing and regrowing her spikes. She swiftly unfurled her carapace, striking surfaces with her woody tentacles to accelerate or change angles. It made her an unpredictable menace. Meatball had remembered to Reinforce, and her iron spikes ripped clothes and even drew blood.

  Then Nil’s opponent unleashed. Lightning burst from the man, spreading in all directions simultaneously. The energy seemed to linger for a moment, frozen in place, making the man look like a scraggly, blinding blue sea urchin for half a moment. A high-pitched squeak escaped as she came in contact with the lightning. She bounced away, smoldering. Nil’s chest tightened, and his jaw clenched. He resisted the urge to check on his spirit companion and sped toward

  Meatball has Regenerate. She’ll be fine.

  The frozen lightning retreated into the man. He gathered the energy in a giant sphere between his hands, and then it lanced at Nil as a beam made of rough, uneven, zigzagging lines. If it were as fast as ordinary lightning, Nil was sure he’d suffer instant elimination, if not death. He leaped out of the way just in time. Then, another swifter but narrower beam flew at Nil, leaving him no choice but to manifest the rest of his chassis.

  Armor made of glossy chrome and void-black formed around Nil’s lower legs. The manifestation shredded his boots and lower trouser legs. They coated his toes individually, letting them wiggle and move freely. His feet and ankles also retained their mobility. The extended chassis felt more like a second skin than boots. Now, when Nil pressed his legs together, angled his feet, and released a blast through both simultaneously, nothing burned. Instead, he moved in a diagonal, simultaneously dodging the attack and closing in on the enemy.

  A final lightning beam shot from the sphere, consuming it. It looked like two damaged, burning metal wires moving in an ugly helix. Nil only sidestepped it while closing the final gap between himself and his opponent, keeping a raised gauntlet up between the attack and his opponent. Energy tendrils danced on the soul weapon’s metal but did no damage to its wearer.

  Since his opponent had a pure energy attack, Absorb and Order constructs were useless against him. As a result, Nil had only supercharged speed and relied on Expend during his approach. Now, unwilling to let his opponent prepare another attack, he wrapped his feet in Anti-Friction Lattice and shot at the man.

  Wilson Luduses’ elite training showed. The man showed neither fear nor shock. Instead, he focused on defense. Lightning bathed his forearms and lower legs, fists, wrists, feet, and ankles glowing blinding blue. He successfully blocked Nil’s Superman punch but failed to defend against the roundhouse kick that followed. Suddenly, infusing Toggled Supercharging and simultaneously Expending provided an unpredictable burst of speed. Nil had never seen one of his attacks not only knock someone off their feet but also send them spinning through the air before landing. He thought something so comical was only possible in cartoons and cheesy action films. His assumption proved incorrect.

  Anti-Friction Lattice rapidly wrapped around Nil’s feet, and he used his current momentum to close in on the fallen man and broke bones before he could recover and strike back. Immediate surrender followed.

  Forty-five challengers remain. The gates will open when only thirty-two remain.

  The Schema Interface also included a counter, which immediately ticked down to forty-four and then forty-two a couple of seconds later. Instead of watching the descending numbers, Nil checked on Meatball, brushing the screen to the periphery of his vision. She chirped when he picked her up, sounding more sad and embarrassed than hurt. Black flaked off her carapace, and young, green wood replaced it, rapidly darkening with every passing second.

  “You did well in there,” Nil told her. “Good job during the approach too. You’re incredible, Meatball. I’m proud of you.”

  A soft, happy squeak followed. The whelp nuzzled his hand, and he understood what she wanted. Meatball had resisted the temptation of feasting on the many Cursed Ones and Cursed Beasts that they had left behind. Nil offered her a range of compressed cubes to pick from. She took one of compressed magical plant matter and savored it for the remainder of the rest period.

  The gates opened exactly nine minutes after Nil defeated his opponent, and he understood one of the reasons the Chase was a race. The first person to reach the gates got to pick their opponent. However, the first person to win the fights got the longest break. They got to start the next leg of the event, refreshed, rested, and refueled.

  The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

  Instead of spiders, giant furry humanoid monsters haunted the next leg of the Chase. They looked like most fantasy interpretations of yetis, bigfoot, sasquatch, and similar entities, but with twisted, mottled hide wherever fur was absent. Cursed Energy billowed from the giant flat nostrils, and eyes glowed an ugly orange. They weren’t as much of a nuisance as the spiders. Nil had an easier time cutting them down. He didn’t bother going for hearts and only took out legs and heads. It was enough to slow them and race onward.

  Meanwhile, Meatball insisted Nil throw her. She disabled Cursed Ones or their smaller counterparts with every strike bounced or swung around and then returned to him, ready to repeat the process. Nil put Energy Instinct’s latest upgrade to good use. He sucked in the violent Cursed Energy filling the atmosphere and let the ability do the rest of the work. His core seemed to work like a filter.

  The high-speed rotations seemed to make it work like a centrifuge, separating the pink, purple, and orange flecks by density. Meanwhile, the dark, black vapor that carried them got pushed out by the spinning and dispersed into the atmosphere before breaking down into nothingness. Nil didn’t recognize the orange, but it carried incredible power and made him noxious. He expelled it. The pink felt like Mind Magic, while the purple reminded Nil of Watcher’s Source Sphere. The black had reminded him of the endless blackness of outer space, but he failed to identify the faint purples and blues within.

  Nil didn’t know what to do with the energy he gained. He circulated it through his system as he moved. Every time the pink and purple passed through his core, some of it lost its color and became one with him. It wasn’t in the same form as Brutal Battery’s stores, and Nil failed to use it in the same manner. However, the Source Gauntlets allowed him to use them in place of Balance. It didn’t make a big difference, as Nil only ever needed enough of the colorless energy to coat his constructs and create their outer shells.

  During his weeks of training with the upgraded Source Gauntlets, Nil had tested his limits in every possible way. The experiments involved pushing the boundaries of Armmaster’s Disappointment. Energy swords and spears were still off-limits. Katars, punching daggers, and the knuckle-duster blades were not. The last had swiftly become his favorite for their slashing power. Because of their curve and length, he could cut through enemies swiftly in smooth, flowing motions. Meanwhile, the three-finger blade stood on top as a chopping and deep penetrating tool.

  Once again, someone beat Nil to the gate. He faced another challenger. Instead of Wilson Luduses’ colors, the woman wore a logo from a well-known elite group in Canada. They trained in the wildernesses across the country, and the facility in Banff National Park had a reputation for creating some of the world’s best arena fighters. In fact, one of Adrian ‘Wildshape’ Wilson’s top rivals hailed from the group and was now on the organization's board of directors.

  A pair of tomahawks flew at Nil as soon as he entered the dueling ground. Even though the weapons appeared ordinary, Energy Instinct recommended that he avoid them, and he obeyed. The weapons moved like boomerangs, following a curved trajectory. They flew through where Nil’s waist had been a moment ago before returning to their owner’s hands.

  Soul weapon?

  After throwing Meatball at his foe, Nil charged with explosive speed. Once at a controllable velocity, he activated Anti-Friction Lattice. Nil had observed that the ability allowed him to wrap his feet in the energy weave while in mid-air. It lasted until after he landed and took one or both feet off the surface again.

  The Ironroot Whelp interrupted the woman's follow-up attack. She only released one tomahawk. It went wide before circling back toward the woman. Much to Nil’s surprise, it flew past her before speeding back toward him, gradually accelerating. He let it get close before dodging toward the nearest wall with an Expend blast. The axe once again changed direction and came for him. The edge glowed a faint fuschia interwoven with emerald. He saw no choice but to leave the ground using an empowered leap as it got close. The weapon took a sharp turn and followed.

  Meanwhile, Meatball successfully kept the woman busy. Speeding around and occasionally leaping or trying to tangle her leg with a woody tentacle. She landed a glancing blow every now and again, but the woody carapace flashed red just before each collision, and the whelp suffered little more than shallow gouges. Following Meatball’s chaos took practice, a cool head, and patience.

  Nil wrapped his feet in Anti-Friction Lattice and angled himself so he hit the wall foot first. The energy weave helped him cling to the surface as he sped along in it. Hand blasts kept gravity from changing his trajectory and also kept the axe just out of reach.

  Anti-Friction Lattice has progressed to Iron 7!

  Once lateral to the woman, he launched off the wall and shot at her. Meatball appeared to have better spatial awareness than her. She got out of the way just in time for Nil to clothesline his opponent. He took her to the floor, but the woman harnessed surprising strength and threw him off. Nil flew toward the wall almost as fast as he would send Meatball flying. Instead of trying to slow himself, he activated Absorb. As a result, he didn't crash into the wall but came to a gentle but abrupt stop and regained most of the energy he had lost.

  Nil shot at the woman again, reactivating Anti-Friction Lattice once at the desired velocity. The woman had kicked Meatball away and regained control of her axes. She threw both at Nil. He didn't dodge and threw up an Order barrier at the last second. Despite the energy weave wrapped around his feet, he stopped. They didn’t override Order’s need to bring Nil to a stop. The axes didn't stop after striking the barrier. Their speed dipped for a moment, but the weapons accelerated again. They followed the wedge-shaped barrier’s angles to fly in opposite directions.

  Returning to Expend and taking off with hand blasts help Nil pick up speed again. Energy Instinct warned him of the axes hot on his tail. He ignored them. The knuckle daggers manifested, and his opponent prepared to grapple. Toggled Supercharging’s upgrade gave him the ability to use two boosts simultaneously. He did so sparingly since the drain multiplied by three, but the time for conservation had passed. Nil infused speed with extra energy while also increasing strength.

  An Expend blast knocked Nil out of her grab at the last second and sent him into a spin. The woman screamed as he dropped into a crouch while passing. Fiery hot blood sprayed Nil's bare arms and vest, leaving minor burns. They were nothing in comparison to what he had suffered during his early uses of Expend.

  The twenty-centimeter-long Source knuckle-daggers had shortened. Nil didn't bother wrapping them in Balance before the attack. His focus had gone into ensuring he didn't strike any vitals while avoiding her monstrous bursts of speed and strength. When he turned around, his opponent was gone. Only blood and a leg remained. Nil had severed the limb halfway between the knee and waist.

  Nil hoped the woman wasn’t in the middle of a compulsory wait period and could take a quest. The regrowing of muscle tissue had been incredibly painful. He didn’t want to find out how horrid doing the same with bone would be.