And silent.

  I just lie for a moment, dark edges creeping into my vision. Exhaustion. The sky is blessedly empty of overly zealous murder spiders, though a taut strand of webbing still vibrates overhead. The earth’s embrace is pleasant, comforting. Especially since I didn’t imagine I’d get to keep feeling it.

  “Up, Competitor. This isn’t over.”

  What do you mean?

  “You didn’t absorb any soul energy.”

  Fuck. She’s right in the worst way. As I watch, my soul energy proudly doubles from a single point to two. Doublefuck. If he’s not dead, then I soon will be.

  Groaning, I force myself to sit up. The path of arboreal carnage is marked with a series of deep furrows and upturned soil from one end of the glade to the other. The Soul Loom seems to have finally been affected, silk drooping to the earth like streamers after a party. It hums with an angry sort of discordant murmur.

  Clug’s maybe a dozen paces away, his body a broken mess, limbs snapped into horrific angles where they aren’t outright missing. There’s a slight twitch to one of his legs, but only life’s blind stubbornness holds him to this world. I force my exhausted legs to move. He’s worse up close, vital stuff leaking from deep cracks in his carapace for the soil to drink.

  Most of his eyes waver in an agonized dance, but several freeze when they catch sight of me. I kneel down next to him, my face made of stone.

  “My people…” he whispers, his thorax clicking with the exhalation. “Doomed.”

  “Maybe.”

  There is a soft whisper as the gathered Laranya close the circle. They are as diverse as humanity, some short and some tall, some stout and some lean, each carapace revealing its own unique coloration. I should probably be afraid. I just killed their champion, and the weakest among them could take revenge right now. But I think that, despite how much bullshit it normally means to people who proclaim it, they will stand by their honor.

  When the circle can get no tighter around us, they sing. It is a piece of the Mother’s song, a piece of sorrow and hope. A song of a journey and its end. My soul hums along, though I don’t dare open my mouth. Not now. Even if I could sing worth a shit, this isn’t my moment.

  “Doomed…” Clug whispers with soul-deep anguish. “Darkness… all I can see… darkness.”

  His eyes begin to rove, his mind losing what little focus it can still muster. I bend close to him, forcing him to look at me. What I see there breaks me somewhere deep.

  “Hey. Hey. Listen to me. Focus.” He does, attention sharpening. Somehow. I don’t look at his body again. “The Laranya are good people. You should be weaving and singing and living in fucking harmony, not dying for a war you never asked for. We should never have had to do this. My species, yours, any of them. Gods who demand this shit of people are no gods of mine. So I’m going to make you a promise, Clug. I don’t know how, I don’t know if it’s even possible, but I will save the Laranya if it is the last thing I do. Your people are mine. You hear me, Clug? I don’t care what it takes, I don’t care if I have to break heaven itself, I’m going to end this fucked up cycle.”

  I only know he isn’t dead because there hasn’t been a notification. My shaking voice feels hollow, pointless. I mean every word, every fucking letter, but I’m not sure it matters.

  He just stares at me. I know what he sees. A thin girl, soft skin, weak. Mortal.

  Powerless.

  A touch slips across my leg. I glance down to see one narrow limb, absent its deadly glowing light, resting on my thigh. I take it carefully in my hand, feeling the soft hardness of his carapace.

  “I cannot… see…” he whispers, his voice a crackling wheeze. Suddenly his head lifts, and his eyes lock on my face. “But I… believe. Do it… human. Tear it all down.”

  He sags back, more fluid gushing from his broken body. There is a rattle, low in his thorax. I’d think it was his final breath, but something in it tickles at my ear. A melody. A different song from his fellows. A song…

  The rest of the Laranya go silent the moment they hear it. It is a shocked silence, almost scandalized. The song is deep, rousing, stirring my heart to beat faster. His voice is weaker than crinkled tissue paper, but still it straightens my spine. He only manages a few seconds, long seconds, before his chest finally goes still. The light leaves his eyes.

  The silence he leaves over the glade is absolute.

  Achievement! “Ingest the Infinite!”

  You have defeated an enemy with a thirty level advantage over you!

  Reward Upgraded! That enemy was a sentient Competitor.

  Reward: Your Skills and Boons bear the weight of the strongest enemy you’ve slain, stacking with your previous rewards. (Current: 67, max affected 97)

  Stolen content alert: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.

  Achievement! “Soul Collector 1”

  You’ve successfully slain ten sentient Competitors of the tournament!

  Reward: At the conclusion of this stage of the Tournament, your choice of Boons will be upgraded based upon the souls you’ve claimed.

  Achievement! “Crownbreaker”

  You’ve slain the Tournament’s highest level Competitor of an entire species (minimum level 50)!

  Reward: Having killed the most promising Competitor of the First, your achievement will grant you the ability to more effectively combat every member of that species. Your defensive, offensive, and spiritual Skills will affect the Laranya more readily, and you will be more resistant to their defensive, offensive, and spiritual Skills.

  Conversely, you are now marked in their eyes. Any Laranya you meet will know that you are their Crownbreaker. Should they manage to slay you, their entire species will receive the previous benefits against Humanity.

  The series of achievements make me want to vomit.

  Ten living, thinking organisms.

  The hope of an entire people.

  All dead because of me.

  Energy blasts into my body like a tidal wave. My Ravenous Soul drinks and drinks and drinks, taking so much of what once was Clug, and maybe still is, that my skin feels like it's ripping itself apart.

  Congratulations! You've absorbed soul energy! Spend it to evolve yourself!

  Fuck.

  I become aware again of the gathered Laranya, hundreds of them packed into a tight ring. I’m not sure what the mark of this ghoulish achievement is, but I’m sure they’re seeing it. A chill creeps down my spine. Maybe I was right, and they’re going to honor Clug’s word, but maybe… seeing that…

  A stout spider with deep green markings steps forward, every one of his many eyes locked on me.

  Identification: Zkreltickut, Laranya Stalward

  Level: 13

  Strengths: Strength, Toughness

  Weaknesses: Agility, Charisma

  The first of many? The boldest? I don’t know if I have it in me to murder them all, neither in power nor personality. The thickset Laranya tilts his body with a click.

  “You need not fear us, Samantha Foreman. We have seen your actions, known your words, and judge them to be truthful. Trmclugtgouplpak was known for his sight before the Mother, but he was equally known for his deafness. His belief in his visions, and himself, have led him to this end.”

  “I’m sorry,” I say softly. “I didn’t want to kill him.”

  “We know. And we know how Zaratiumynya was led astray. You are not our enemy, regardless of what these messages claim. Any who survive will sing your song to all who hear. We cannot be certain to reach all of our people, not in this place, but any Laranya we meet will know your story.”

  “I didn’t want this. I meant what I said before. We shouldn’t be here, any of us. If I can find a way to break it, I will.”

  He steps close, his eyes glinting. His carapace clicks into a facsimile of a smile.

  “The Laranya stand with you, Crownbreaker. Do not forget us.”

  “Can I ask you a question?”

  “Of course.”

  “That song… the one Clug was singing before he died. What was it?”

  There is a stir among the gathered arachnids. At first, I think it’s at my question, but then my senses pick up… something. A sound…

  Zkreltickut’s head puffs into a white mist. The whip crack of a gunshot follows a second after. The stout spider topples with a soft clatter of lifeless chitin. Wellington. It has to be. Wait, fuck…

  In the sudden silence, a familiar voice echoes from the treeline.

  “To the twig!”

  A high pitched roar explodes from the trees all around us. The Otachai have come.

  To save me.

  Oh, no. oh, shit. Shit.

  I throw myself to my feet. The Laranya, so many of them low level pacifists, look to one another in panic. Surrounded. Lightning arcs and thunder booms. A high, beautiful, haunting voice lifts in a battlecry. My brain swims. That voice can only be Vesyla’s, but… here?

  “Three! Vesyla!” I push myself into the crowd of glittering eyes. Or try to. In their fear, they press closer to one another. There’s nowhere to go. “Please, let me talk to them!”

  The circle contracts. The impact sends me sprawling. I scramble up. The circle tightens. Suffocating. Flashes of magic and Skills activating at the edges. More lightning. A deafening boom. Laranya scream and die.

  A brave few struggle to reach the front to defend the rest. Unsuccessfully. I’m screaming, begging, but I may as well be trapped in a void.

  Not enough air. Not enough volume. Not nearly enough. My Soul Sight knows death. Souls leave bodies, pieces of their glowing essence devoured greedily by their murderers.

  A Laranya stiffens beside me. A gunshot rings. It—she, I think—turns, half her face missing, glittering eyes frozen in question. Like a child, wondering why the world could be so cruel.

  I can’t let this happen. We should not be killing one another. Not us, not these people. I have to stop them, now, before…

  The vibrant circle of my power flashes into being, and I stretch it, wider than I ever have before, wide enough to encompass the clearing. I have to tear them apart. I have to.

  Stretch. Shift. The weight of the souls in the circle makes me gasp. None are impossibly heavy like Clug or Assless, but their collective weight is staggering.

  “Competitor. There are too many.”

  I know.

  “You’ll die.”

  I know that, too.

  “Think. They will die regardless. These creatures are nothing more than fodder for the strong. For souls like yours. You have the chance to save your species, to give all of humanity the chance to keep living. Don’t throw it away for the dead.”

  If I let this happen and do nothing, humanity doesn’t deserve to live.

  Gravity Manipulation.

  My soul flashes out of me in a tidal wave.

  And I am empty.

  Empty.