Ethan's feed had blown up.He'd rocketed to first with a point total that didn look real. People didn't believe it. Mostly they were curious. They paid their hundred credits to see what he was doing, and then they stayed.That pack just now — if I'm not seeing things, that was a hundred of them.Only got a glance, but it was over a hundred.I'm coming from other streams. Their monsters are weak — two or three at a time, almost never a pack. Why is everything on Ethan's feed a swarm?Those things pay so many points. And he makes it look easy. Is there a bug?Check the forums. Someone explained. What he's fighting are Platinum-tier Three-tailed Dog-Cats. Strong. Innate talents. If you don't know what Platinum means, think A-rank human — except monsters are always stronger than humans of the same tier. Platinum, Level 50. Stronger than an S-rank human.The five-tailed he finished off? Five tails, five racial talents. Co

Ethan closed his eyes and waited for the end.No pain came.White light wrapped around him. The Wraiths rushing into it dissolved on contact, breaking apart into tiny points of glow that streamed down into the silver necklace at his throat. Some of the light poured straight into his own body.He stood in a white-out, no elimination, no teleport — and the Wraiths were dying all around him. He felt his spirit climbing. Fast. Seventy, eighty points at least, and still going, pushing toward five hundred. Each one that touched the light dissolved without a sound, and the glow that had scared nothing minutes ago was eating them like a tide."What — I'm not dead? And I'm getting stronger?" He had no idea what was happening.Then he felt it. Warmth at his chest. He reached up and touched the chain he'd worn since childhood.He pulled it out from under his shirt.The necklace had become a lamp. The white light flooding all around him was pouring out of it.He'd thought it was worthless. A chea

The pressure had been building all morning, and Duan Zhao had kept at it until Chao Wang had no choice but to give in.Demon Martial and Military Martial were both leaning on him. The teleport stone used to send the students into the battlefield pocket had to be compromised, they insisted. The teacher who'd been responsible for arranging that stone needed to be brought in and questioned. Chao Wang might not have wanted to make a fuss—he'd lost an arm on the line and didn't suffer committees gladly—but he couldn't hold the line against three schools at once. The argument was reasonable. A student had been thrown somewhere he wasn't supposed to go. Somebody had arranged the stones. Somebody owed the room an explanation.Then the old man arrived.Two younger teachers walked beside him, half-supporting his weight, letting him lean on their arms like they were afraid he'd shatter if they let go. His hair was pure white. He moved like a man whose bones had already made up their minds to sto

He breathed out and pinned himself to the limits. Star-Glow tier. King tier. Against those, half his tricks stopped working. And if the old tales were right, there were things above even King. Song, for instance. Whatever Song had actually been, he still didn't think she'd come close to her ceiling. A woman who slept in a lake by day and cooked sweet potatoes over his fire didn't measure herself on any chart he'd seen.The seven-tailed dog-cat saw its pack in the dirt.It came apart.wow—The roar shook the clearing, and then a third eye opened on its forehead—narrow, vertical, purple, wrong. When it fixed on him, the whole world seemed to shiver at the edges and snap back into place.His spirit held. If he'd still been sitting around four hundred, he'd have been dragged straight into its illusion domain and he'd never have felt it happen.It spent the talent, sagged for half a second, then a red glow ran through its fur and its bulk swelled. The eight six-tailed beside it whimpered,

"Good thing."His eyes lit up. He started pulling containers out of his storage one after another.He had the White family to thank for the habit. When he'd fled Jiangnan, he'd emptied his entire house—pots, bowls, basins, anything that held liquid. Later he'd scavenged through an abandoned village and picked up more of the same. Other people's trash. He was never short on containers.Now the trash was worth something. He filled every vessel he owned, and the pool didn't drop by a finger's width.The cauldron came to mind. It refined all things. Water was a thing.He brought it out and turned it toward the pool. The whole basin went in, down to its last drop—and the block of black ice he hadn't been able to shift half an inch went with it.He stared at the empty floor. Then he shrugged. Even if the cauldron refined it all, it was still his.* * *Seven hundred kilometers away, Duan Zhao's heart had gone up and down so many times it ached.He hadn't seen the final move on the feed—only