Chapter 559: Amicable talk
Reena looked at Michael with complete disbelief in her eyes. She felt like she was seeing a dream.
"He did it... he defeated them..."
Against all odds, he triumphed against two formidable fighters working together to defeat him. Even with their surprising synergy, Michael was still able to assert his victory over theirs.
She realized now how foolish she had been all this time. She thought that Michael was foolish trying to take on the Rising Six all by himself. After all, she fought tooth and nail to get to the spot where she was now.
But Michael proved beyond a reasonable doubt that he could contend with the best of them.
She wouldn’t have been able to defeat Erlos or Reptar by themselves. And together, she stood no chance even if she was in her peak condition.
Yet Michael did it, with his eight-elemental mastery, his mysterious time-stopping Aubility, and his strange, hovering metal weapon. All of those combined gave him power beyond anything she or anyone had ever seen before.
Her father was right. Michael was much more powerful than she gave him credit for. Maybe he was right in other aspects as well.
Daughter...catch his heart!
Reena’s cheeks turned beet red, with smoke almost coming out of her ears. She couldn’t help but let her imagination run wild.
She saw herself in a white gown, carrying two babies in her hands with hair as yellow as gold. And the one right by her side was a tall, dashing man with the same golden hair as her children. And once she looked closer at the man’s face, she saw none other than...
"WHAT AM I THINKING?!" she screamed under breath. She shook her head, trying to get rid of the thought, but it persisted in her mind like an endless painting.
Meanwhile, Reptar plopped down on the ground, completely exhausted. "That was a Mithril Artifact, wasn’t it?"
"Yes it is," Michael replied.
Reptar tipped his cowboy hat in respect. "I hate to admit it, but you defeated us fair and square. Actually, it’s not even fair since we ganged up on you."
Erlos groaned as he picked off a long stem of grass and tied it on his wounds, keeping it from bleeding any further. "I guess it’s our bad luck that we encountered you this early. Good fight though. You sure gave us quite a beating."
Despite the loss, both were very amicable towards Michael. Just like they said earlier in the fight, this was just a game and anything that happened within it was not personal.
In fact, losing to Michael made them like him even more now. There was a sense of familiarity and friendliness that could only sprout once they had battled near death.
"Three of us are down, meaning that there are three others left in the game. What are you planning on doing next?" Reptar asked Michael.
In response, Michael shrugged. "I don’t know. Maybe I’ll wait it out until my teammates find a key."
Reptar and Erlos disagreed with his current plan.
"Beau’s crewmates are one of the best there is. They may not have Aubilities, but their fighting skills are top notch. Not only that, but they are specifically trained for all sorts of situations, including finding hidden treasures in a location," Erlos said. "They’ll find all the Keys soon, if they haven’t already."
He was trying to say that Beau may very well be on her way towards the Glass Dome to claim the five drops of Soo hidden inside it. Michael had no time to wait. He had to strike.
"You’re pretty strong," Reptar admitted. "I think that you’re even better than Phim, making you the second best fighter in all of the Rising Six. I suggest that you find the other remaining players in the game and try to convince them to team up with you. That’s the only way to make sure that Beau is eliminated before she can get the Soo drops."
Both of them were rooting for Michael to win the auction now. That way, their defeat against him wouldn’t be too humiliating.
"Is Beau really that strong?" he asked them.
Reptar and Erlos gravely nodded. "She’s the top of the Rising Six for a reason. It’s not just the fact that she’s at the 6th stage of Body Formation. It’s also because of the way she uses her Aubility to dominate her opponents."
Michael was a little bit concerned after hearing that. He knew he could defeat someone one stage above himself. But two stages? That would stretch the limit of what he could achieve.
For a second, he considered their suggestion of teaming up with the other players to defeat Beau.
However, this thought quickly died down.
First of all, he wasn’t that kind of person. He would much rather fight fairly and lose.
Second of all, he wasn’t that thrilled about cooperating with other people he didn’t know about. It also meant that he would probably have to share the Drops with them in the end.
He might be called selfish for this, but he wanted all those five drops for himself.
Just then, that familiar sound echoed throughout his mind again.
"..."
His head twitched as he tried to listen to the sound more closely than before. He tried to discern what it was, but he still had no clue where it came from or what it meant.
It was like he was trying to recall a word and becoming really close to remembering it to the point where it was on the tip of his tongue. But no matter how much he tried to think of it, he just couldn’t remember it.
This unsatisfying sensation frustrated him, to the point where his face was visibly scrunched.
His weird behavior was quickly noticed by Reptar and Erlos.
"What’s wrong," they asked him.
Michael waved off their concern. "It’s nothing. I just keep hearing this sound. At first, I thought it came from somewhere around me, but now, I feel like the sound comes from my own body."
Reptar and Erlos both looked at each other. Their eyes signalled recognition.
"You’re hearing things?" Reptar asked. "What kind of sound is it?"
"I don’t know. It doesn’t really sound like anything I know. It’s kind of abstract, like a passing thought. But whenever I try to"
Erlos’ eyes widened. "And this sound—does it give you a new thought... like an instinct?"
Michael nodded. "That’s right. That’s exactly what it is," he told them.
Reptar and Erlos looked at Michael as if he had just told them that he didn’t know what water sounded like.
"You don’t know what that is?" Reptar asked, as if this was common knowledge.
"What is it?"
"That’s your Diva communicating with you!" Erlos exclaimed.
This surprised Michael. "They can talk?"
"No, they can’t talk. But they can communicate with you through nonverbal signals. This happens when the Diva is trying to tell you something, when it is teaching you the power that it contains," Erlos explained.
"When Divas do this, they are communicating to their user that they are on the brink of discovering a new power, a new Aubility!"