The shard of ss warped as it passed through the air warped by Funhouse. Diego''s eyes widened and he pulled back, trying to get out of the way, but he was practically on top of Alex.


    The glistening mirror shot free of the cracks in reality. It shed straight up, moving toward his face. Almost instantly, Alex realized that it wasn''t going to connect — but when something sharp was hurtling in anyone''s direction, they tended to flinch.


    Diego was not exempt from that.


    His head jerked back and he squeezed his eyes shut for a brief instant. The de of ss cut across his nose. It scraped against gray skin and spun off harmlessly, leaving a thin scratch in its wake.


    Alex didn''t care that the shard had missed.


    All that mattered was that Diego''s eyes were closed.


    It may have been for just a brief instant, but it was enough. Alex summoned a de to his palm and shed it horizontally across Diego''s face. The huge man''s skin turned gray, but Alex was aiming at the thin skin of his eyelids, and his ss was far sharper than it had been thest time they''d fought.


    His mirror cut across both of Diego''s eyes. Blood sttered across the ground, stained the tip of the mirror a ruddy red.


    A scream of pain tore out from the huge man''s lips. He swung his hands blindly, but at their proximity, even a blind attack was close enough to hurtle straight toward Alex''s head with enough force to cave his skull in.


    Alex swapped ces with the shadow that he''d formed just a few paces behind himself.


    Diego''s fist smashed through the smoky form that marked where Alex had once stood, passing close enough that Alex could feel the wind from its passing. Diego continued to swing, screaming out in agony as he stumbled, reaching for where Alex had been moments before.


    Alex burst into motion, running at therge man''s side. He leapt into the air and grabbed onto Diego''s ill-fitting clothes, yanking himself up the man''s back like an irate monkey and pping his hands over the man''s eyes.


    Diego''s huge hand shot back and grabbed onto Alex''s head. For an instant, it started to squeeze — but that instantsted just a little longer than it should have. Instead of a fleshy human skull, Diego was up against a Mind Pce enforced one.


    And, in that long instant, Alex poured everyst drop of magic he had left through his hands and through the big man''s eyes.n/?/vel/b//jn dot c//om


    Jagged des of mirrored ss carved into Deigo''s skull. The inside of his head made something akin to the inside of a watermelon getting tossed into a blender, and a wet wheeze bubbled out through his lips as his lungs deted.


    The hand on Alex''s skull went ck. Diego swayed. Alex dropped down, his chest rising and falling in deep, desperate gasps. For a brief moment, the two of them remained exactly as they were. Then the giant of a man pitched forward. Diego hit the ground with a loud crash.


    He moved no more.


    Magical energy coursed into Alex. It wormed through his veins and lit a light behind his eyes, burning so brightly that he could have sworn he could taste it. Sweet relief enveloped his body as the influx of power muted the pain of his wounds.


    Alex flopped to the grass. His heart raced at a thousand miles a second and the rush of blood in his ears was so loud that it could have been mistaken for a raging ocean. Some of the magical energy he''d spent through the fight returned as the sensation faded. It was like someone had given him a partial refill of the pool of energy he could draw from. Alex wasn''t in a position to wonder why.


    A corner of his lips quirked up. A single huff of air escaped his nose, followed by a singleugh. That turned into a soft chuckle, and that to a hysterical cackle. Adrenaline had his entire body gripped in its fist and had no ns of letting go.


    Alex could barely breathe through hisughter. It was so intense that it shook his entire body — not borne of amusement, but of excitement, fear, and the relief of tension. His body just didn''t have another way to process the emotion.


    The human mind''s greatest talent had always been its ability to adapt to any situation. To find a new normal, and to seek ways to survive in the face of the impossible. It could find faith when there was only darkness. It could deny facts for opinion. It shaped the way it witnessed the world to benefit itself.


    On that hill, kneeling beside the corpse of a mountainous man and surrounded by the bodies of monsters and survivors alike, Alexughed in the face of the apocalypse.


    And on that hill, Alex — whose mind had already been one that adapted at a speed greater than most — adapted once more.


    This was what it truly meant to live.


    A Boneraptor heard Alex''s maniacal, wheezingughter. It broke away from the horde and charged toward him. An easy target was simply too much for it to ignore. The monster made no move to conceal its attack, and Alex''s eyes snapped over to the sound of its approach.


    He lifted a hand in the creature''s direction, theughter mming to an abrupt halt. Every scrap of power he still had remaining burst free of his palm in an expanding bouquet of jagged mirrors. They carved through the air like a crystal forming in a fast-forwarded video.


    Mirror screeched against bone.


    Blue fluid sttered down all around Alex. The Boneraptor jerked to a halt, impaled on a jagged, silver lightning bolt frozen in time.


    Tinkling ss rained against itself as the mirrors crumbled away from Alex''s palm and poured to the ground like grains of sand in an hourss. The destruction traveled up the veritable shimmering statue he''d just created, eating it away until nothing remained.


    The Boneraptor crashed to the ground, dead before it could even make an attack. Energy flowed into Alex, but it was only a trickle. The monster hadn''t been much of a challenge. Not anymore. He looked down at his palm and flexed his fingers. Then he looked out at the battlefield.


    Towntown was still fighting for its life. The buildings at its edge had been torn to pieces. Rubble and bodies littered the ground. Makeshift barricades dotted the battlefield, abandoned or destroyed.


    He shook his arms out, then scanned his surroundings for more monsters. There was almost no magical energy left in his reserves, but it was trickling back. In a few minutes, he''d have enough to fight another Boneraptor as long as he didn''t go pulling any stunts like the one he just had.


    The sounds of battle rang out in nearly every direction, the majority of them concentrated around the town center. Alex didn''t know how many monsters he''d killed. He didn''t know how many were left — but he wasn''t done yet.


    I wonder where I ce now that Diego is dead. I think I have been somewhere around 30 or 40 kills, so unless anyone really elerated, I think I should be around first or second ce.


    With a thought, Alex summoned the leaderboard.


    Local Leaderboard — Initialization Event


    Ash (Novice 7): 86 Kills


    Gentlewind (Novice 7): 62 Kills


    Fangs (Novice 6): 49 Kills


    Ben-10 (Novice 5): 21 Kills


    NoIDontWantAName (Novice 4): 10 Kills


    Daggerman (Novice 3): 6 Kills


    Joe (Novice 2): 4 Kills


    RockRocks (Novice 2): 4 Kills


    AAAA (Novice 2): 3 Kills


    Dorriv (Novice 1): 2 Kills


    …


    Barbarara (Novice 1): 1 Kill


    Lisa (Novice 1): 1 Kill


    Alex blinked in surprise. He refreshed the leaderboard once again, but the numbers didn''t change. It said he had 86 kills — but that couldn''t have been possible. He hadn''t killed anywhere near that many monsters. He was certain of it.


    He looked down at Diego''s body. Right before the fight, his score had gone up by five out of nowhere. Alex''s head tilted to the side. 5 — the same number of kills that the man who had vanished from the leaderboard had possessed.


    Shit. Killing other people gets you their kills.


    The back of Alex''s neck prickled. He didn''t know if anyone else had figured that out yet, but it wasn''t exactly impossible to make the connection. Especially if someone had been watching the leaderboard before and after Ogre had disappeared from it.


    He stood on the hill for several more seconds, staring at the leaderboard to see if he''d missed anything else. ire was still alive — at least, he was pretty sure she was. Alex doubted anyone else would have picked Fangs as their name unless they were a furry that was a little bit too much into roleying.


    If he went back into the town, then there would almost certainly be people gunning for him. Killing him would instantly ce someone at the top of the leaderboard and nearly guarantee a victory.


    Alex had absolutely no desire to hunt other humans for sport. It was just tasteless, especially when killing monsters earned him the exact same reward. He hadn''t be that depraved yet — but if someone went after him first… well, that changed things.


    Based on these numbers, there''s a pretty good chance that Gentlewind has been killing people as well. Maybe ire too. The three of us are so far above the rest of Towntown that it''s basically iparable.


    There was always the option to just stay out on the outskirts of the battlefield and go for the monsters there. Unless someone killed ire, Alex''s victory was functionally guaranteed. He just had to keep hunting the monsters out here and his lead would likely be more than enough to win.


    But if he did that, there was a chance ire could get stabbed in the back. If he did that, he turned down the chance to get even more points for himself. The chance to weed out anyone that was willing to try and go for his neck now, rather than wasting time and letting them get even stronger in the future.


    He would waste the opportunity to get even stronger for the sake of easy power… and that didn''t sound fun at all.


    Alex wiped the sweat and blood from his face on the sleeve covering his shoulder. He stood in silence for several minutes, simply watching. No more monsters approached him. The majority of them made their way toward the center of town, seeking out the survivors within it.


    He waited until enough of his magic had returned.


    Then he set off toward Towntown. There was too much left to aplish for him to sit around and wait. Alex had to do more than just get to the top of the leaderboard. He had to excel. This wasn''t just about the challenge. It was about pushing himself to the very limits of what he could do.


    It was about getting strong enough to eventually find Teddy. There was no doubt in Alex''s mind that he was still alive. Teddy had never done anything for no reason. Somehow, Teddy had known something. Alex was going to find out what — and why.


    And to do that, he had to be as powerful as he could.


    This event was far from over.