Chapter 1987

Chapter 1987

A whole crowd sat in Donnyton’s arena to watch the action broadcast on the giant screen, the viewing platform suspended over the sinkhole generated by their own challenge against the Ghosthound a few years ago. Over the past minute, the mood did a drastic one-eighty. The watchers sat in a silence that grew heavier as the challenge stretched on.

Kayle and Mrs. Hamilton sat at a raised dais, originally intended to be announcers who could explain the minutiae of the battle to those with normal Perception. Everyone understood that with so many competitors fighting at once, and with how high their Stats would be, it would be almost impossible for the average citizen to watch the confrontation and make any sense of the conflict. Even with the most high-tech cameras, their minds couldn’t recognize the movements before something else had occurred. The announcers could speak quickly and maintain at least some context for the confrontation.

Yet now, they all watched in silence. The lack of words from the announcers was just one more symptom of the realization dawning over the entire Alpha Cosmos as they observed. Kayle pressed his lips together, squeezing the table with his hands. Mrs. Hamilton kept a more neutral expression, but Donny watched from the side and could tell she was also affected by what she saw.

Donny pulled his gaze away from the watchers and back to the lightning-fast action on the screen. It’s hard, seeing him like this. The rest won’t get it, but he used to be just a hair more powerful than us. Everyone at Donnyton still remembers him as that standoffish college student who had a few dozen Skill Levels of an edge, which seemed insurmountable right when the System arrived. And now...

The Ghosthound approached the group arrayed against him with a crushing wave of tension sweeping behind him. He clashed with several of the challengers, each time crushing the images thrown against him. His Nether storm constantly suppressed their momentum, keeping them on the back foot.

His movements were methodical and vicious as he dismantled their formation. The challengers sustained more and more wounds keeping up with him. Donny glanced sideways at the dais again. The two announcers remained silent. The atmosphere grew heavy.

It’s his Nether Storm, Donny realized. He looked up and widened his perspective, relying on the power granted by the giant Nether Ritual in the core of the planet. Dark tides rippled outward from that Little Moon hanging up in the sky. Even from here, they could feel his cold implacability.

In a very real way, the whole of Expira was submerged in his dispassionate butchery. They had to feel it.

All at once, the clashes became increasingly disadvantageous for the challengers. Alana took a wound, then Kimpap and Illdan, then Paolo and Hank. The pillar exploded in a desperate attempt to destabilize the Ghosthound’s footing, but by the time they hit the ground, the remaining competitors had been defeated and smashed into the ground.

All told, the challenge probably lasted less than a minute. The silence lengthened around them. No one could articulate their feeling, their instinctual sense of weakness, before that display.

When Randidly pronounced the challenge over, Donny felt people around him begin to talk. They couldn’t believe that it had ended so quickly using several methods to rationalize the way things had gone. The most common one was that they decided not to push themselves. Even though several blows had been struck between the two sides, and the challengers had several deep wounds or severed limbs, this was a System enhanced world. Most Classers knew it was possible to fight through such impediments.

To fight and thrive. The Ghosthound’s entire history was filled with such moments.

Yet the bitterness on the faces of all the challengers as they stood up from the rubble, especially Alana Donal and Paolo, finally broke through their vague denials. Smothered by the wide Nether storm of the Ghosthound, people began to acknowledge the result. The challenge had finished.

People in the crowd began to whisper with a new desperation. Especially the younger individuals, those who came with excitement and lacked the Perception to catch some of the exchanges, wondered why things had ended so quickly.

On the stage, Kayle finally cleared his throat. “There you have it. In less than a minute, without relying on any massive displays of image, Randidly Ghosthound crushed most of the top fighters in the Alpha Cosmos. We will dissect how exactly that happened... tomorrow. For now, it’s time to head home. I think we all need a bit of a break.”

Compared to the legitimate physical challenge presented by these fighters, her political machinations seemed pointless. Even if she gathered momentum, would the shift in public opinion be able to slow him down? The Alpha Cosmos was his body, but that went both ways. If enough thoughts could influence him, he would be able to pay back that interference in kind.

With a lot of concentrated force.

Missy shivered. Of course, there were those who had the capacity to understand that devastating feeling and those who didn’t. A watcher’s senses needed to be well-honed to truly understand how monstrous the Ghosthound had become.

To understand the way his fingers curled almost lazily around them all, ready to rip out their hearts at the first sign of resistance.

“Aw, shit, I’m tired of this.” A tattooed man with a goatee blew a fat raspberry. Missy glanced over to the next cell as he began to pace. “People just blowing smoke up the Ghosthound’s ass to win favor with him. That was no honest fight. Probably to secure secret deals or something to actually make it to the Nexus and keep the average fella out of the cash flow.”

Missy raised her eyebrows, too freshly removed from her fear of the Ghosthound to understand what he was saying. But his voice had attracted the attention of some others in the surroundings.

His chest swelled with pride at the attention. He walked over and hopped down onto his bare bunk, suddenly the picture of confidence and wisdom. “Yea, look at how chaotic the footage is. Y’all fallin’ for this grainy shit? How many times light or debris get in the way of the camera; that’s how you can tell its all a setup. Kharon and Donnyton and probably fucking commie Zone Seven were all involved in this hoax to keep us in the dark. And these aliens, from other planets? Fuck. Do I need to explain it all to you?”

“What the hell are you talking about?” Another prisoner growled.

Sneering, Mr. Goatee was only too happy to explain. “So yea, we’ve got portals to different places, but how do we know they aren’t just far away places on this planet? Any proof there are other planets we can live on? Anybody ever get a Skill that lets ‘em breathe without air? And why don’t I suddenly see these new planets hanging in the night sky? What we do know is that the Nexus exists; otherwise, why did Expira- and can I say how shitty it is that the System won’t even let us say the true name of the planet- why did Expira suddenly go to shit?”

Goatee jabbed a finger forward. He truly believed every word of what he was saying. “We might have Skills and shit, but the world didn’t change. The top 1% controls everything, spoon-feeding the average dumbfuck opinions through the news and shit. This is the perfect example. After all the fucking hype of the long-ass tournament, this is the fight that we get? It felt tired and disappointing. Obviously fake. Obviously a hoax.

“And you know why? Because they had built up the Ghosthound to be a super powerful being, more than everyone else combined.” The man waved a hand. “Yet he’s just a fucking guy, like everyone else. He takes stinky shits after eating greasy food. There was no way to fake him being some sort of partial god like people whisper. These tournament winners are probably almost as strong as he is. So they just dragged everyone else down to make him look better. Made it really messy and gritty. But jokes on fucking them, we just saw all these people fight. We know what they can do. Suddenly they are shitting the bed, all at once? Yea, fuck off.”

All the other prisoners mulled this over. From a few of their expressions, Missy knew that those people with any sort of actual capability recognized this man for a fraud. Yet on others, she spotted doubt. Her eyes widened and she began to breathe more quickly. Because across all of Expira, most people weren’t very discerning. They just waited for someone to convince them.

On the television, the droning voice of the announcer continued. “Even now, it’s difficult for us to capture and recognize the true power of the Ghosthound-”

“That,” Missy blinked several times. “Is actually a really good idea.”

Goatee snorted. “No shit. I’m not in here because I’m the sort of sheep that just accepts the fucked up status quo, am I? I’m an Alpha. I see something, I take something, ya dig?”