Chapter 169 – Overwhelming Happiness

The main dining hall had been rearranged after lunch. The tables had all been removed to create extra floor space and each cohort, all seventeen of them, had been directed to sit near one of the piles of colourfully wrapped presents. Volunteers swarmed the room, and they weren’t doing things by halves. There were over forty of them and they had big smiles on their faces and all of them were wearing funny hats, which were far more elaborate than anything he had ever got in a Christmas Cracker.

“Look at all the treasure,” Eloise whispered.

Presents, he thought, wanting to correct her but realising that was pointless. Instead, he smiled. “If you train hard and adventure with me, you’ll get that and more.”

She looked at him strangely.

“You like all these presents. Well, I’m getting Treasure Sense when I’m older and we’ll get much more than this from it.”

“Um…” she shook her head vigorously. “No. I’m not doing that. I’m going to become a tailor.”

Tom stopped himself from rolling his eyes. Two weeks before, she had been intending to specialise as a beast tamer and he was confident that she would change her mind dozens of times before they reached fifteen. “Heaps and heaps of treasure.” He told her, grinning.

“But it’ll be at the bottom of a dusty cave.” She waved at the pile of pretty presents. “I don’t think your skill will lead us to piles of wrapped presents. They look so amazing. Do you know they’re giving out dolls?”

Tom chuckled. That was the rumour going around and he hoped none of the adults were that stupid. Existentia was a hard place. They shouldn’t pretend customs from earth were appropriate here.

“I don’t want anything like that,” Eloise proclaimed. “I’m hoping for pretty clothes. And maybe a sewing kit.”

Briana nodded. “That would be so cool because then we could adjust our clothes.”

“Yeah, I know.”

Tom tuned them out as he thought about his future plans. There was so much he would have to buy when he got access to the experience shop, but he had to admit it would be less than most. When he reached fifteen, there wouldn’t be any pressing gaps in his build that he would need to fill urgently. Even now he could fight creatures twenty ranks higher than him at a huge advantage.

That meant when he earned experience, he would indulge, as doing so wouldn’t be at odds with improving his combat strength and therefore his survivability. No purchase under two hundred thousand would make a difference to those critical metrics and it would be probably months if not years, before he could earn that much.

If Dimitri or others didn’t gift them to him first, he would focus on buying the living essentials. Necessities like hair grooming, a generalised clean spell, a specific one for brushing teeth and then a couple of scouting abilities to round himself out like Heat Sense and Low Light vision. After he had those basics, he would then save for his class and only after he had gained that would he begin to focus on the expensive abilities like Treasure Sense. Given his affinity advantage, all of his initial major purchases were going to be precognition abilities.

The darkhole rewards significantly changed his approach to his growth. Because of the attribute scaling to his opponents and bursts he did not need to push to grow his attributes like most people. Ultimately, he would still experience the same tension in trade-offs as them, but for him, at least initially, growing his skill set would be more impactful than straight attributes.

A volunteer delivering a present to Eloise broke his inner dialogue and drew his attention back to the celebration.

The ceremony had started in earnest with a couple of volunteers acting as father Christmas for each cohort. 

Eloise squealed in delight in response to receiving a small container wrapped with bright blue paper and a darker blue bow. “I hope its jewellery.” She ripped it open to reveal a skill stone that based on its elaborate trimmings was at least tier five. There was a note attached to it of which Tom only had a chance to read the first line - “To my wonderful daughter.”- Before Eloise grabbed it and angled it to prevent anyone from spying on the contents.

There was a long pause. Rather than looking happy she scowled instead and then studied him speculatively. “Here Tom you can have this.” She thrust the stone and box at him.

“It was given to you.” He protested. By your mum at that, he thought, but didn’t say it out loud.

“Don’t care. I don’t want it. I asked for jewellery or clothes not this.”

“But this is better.”

“No, it’s not!” she shouted.

He flinched slightly and wiped away the spit. Her face reddened and while she looked away in embarrassment, he identified the stone and then stepped quickly into his system room to get the description, so he knew what he was working with. 

Skill: Assess Intentions – Tier 5

This ability passively monitors and activates when people have ill intent toward you. When this occurs, you will gain an imprint of who, why and any negative plans they have towards you. 

It also provides an active ability to assess someone’s intentions. When used, you’ll get an impression of what they like and don’t like about you along with any plans or conspiracies that they’re involved in that concern you. This will have the cooldown of 36 hours.

He studied Eloise. “It’s a good skill. Even for a crafter.”

His kind words were met with an intense glower.

This was not a fight he was going to win. “Fine, don’t worry about it. I’ll store it for you.”

“No. Don’t store. Take it. I don’t want it. I’ll never want it. I’m sick of them babying me.”

Social Silence stopped him before he called her immature. The intervention physically was unremarkable despite its effectiveness, just a slight constriction of his throat. Mentally, the impact was significantly stronger. He was shocked at his lack of control. It was like a bucket of cold water being poured over him. No one knew his internal thoughts, but he was mortified. He had almost taunted a twelve-year-old girl.

An approaching volunteer interrupted them to deliver a present to Briana, which conveniently broke the rising tensions. Tom was pretty sure it was a deliberate intervention, as at the present pile she had briefly blurred because she had been moving so fast.

Aware of their argument, Briana clapped her hands, ratcheting up her apparent excitement. “Look at it. It’s so pretty and pink.” She said, trying to distract them.

“I can see you still looking at me, Tom,” Eloise hissed, ignoring her friend’s efforts. “I don’t want it. Not now, not ever.”

“But it’s a really powerful skill.”

“It’s about control and them babying me and it’s also cheating. They’re not supposed to give us these gifts. I won’t accept it. It’s yours Tom. You can gift it to anyone you want. Bri what did you get?” she asked blatantly changing the subject as Briana was carefully cutting the paper with a dagger to reveal the contents. 

Tom didn’t really care about what they got. It was not the purpose of this festival, so instead he stared at the intricate stone that rested in the palm of his hand and pondered what to do with it. With everything she had said, it was his if he wanted it. If he used it, there would be no repercussions. Not even her parents would complain or even hold it against him, for that matter. Because what normal boy under thirteen could realistically resist such a temptation. It was already a great tier five ability and when he pushed it into the inventory, it would upgrade further. He wondered what extra abilities it would gain when that happened. Whether it would increase range, strengthen the audit results or even give him immunity from similar skills being used on him.

Not for me, he thought. It was tempting just because of its tier, but that was the only reason. This was not a skill he would use even if it was free and despite it being available it was not free. If he used it someone else who could leverage it to do more couldn’t.

However, the more he thought about the more obvious the correct path of action became. Because of his title he had to accept it, both to push it to tier six and because of the extra luck it would impart to his friend. The fact Eloise would get into a fight with her parents when they next met was not enough to offset those two advantages. “Fine,” he declared, but she wasn’t listening because she was focused on Briana who had pulled out a turquoise dress from the pink wrapping paper.

Briana frowned apparently annoyed at either the colour or the fact it was only a dress but her best friend was almost jumping up and down in excitement.

“I hope I get something like that.” Eloise declared.

Inside, Tom rolled his eyes and opened the presents as they were delivered. It didn’t escape his attention that he got most individual items. That was Kang’s work through the immense fate he was releasing. But it was still balanced. All of his presents were lower quality than what he saw everyone else receive.

It was an amazing experience. Some of the older kids whooped in joy at having received a powerful weapon or utility artifact, but it was the youngest who were the most excited. Everyone under ten seemed to be screaming at the top of their voices. Now that the formal part was done the party kicked off. Finger food was brought out along with a more substantial buffet style dinner, which included two roast boars. Every one was yelling and shouting. The bubble machine was turned on and kids were floating through the air.

The festival was a success, but most importantly it had allowed him to launder his title proceeds and send the upgraded gifts out to everyone else. He was pretty confident he could convince Dimitri to run it twice every Existentia year or every eight earth months or so, which would stop his inventory from becoming too cluttered. 

The next day was a duelling day and as always, he and Briana went to the common area five minutes before the starting point.

For Tom, with his sleep skill the early starts were effortless to attend, but he was not sure how Briana managed. They waited, chatting happily. Unusually for him, Baptiste didn’t appear. The closer they got to the duel starting time the more worried Tom became. There were only two reasons people missed their duels. They had died in real life or had left the program and Tom didn’t think it was the second.   

The time ticked over and he found himself in the room with three doors.

“Shit,” he whispered. Baptiste hadn’t arrived at the last moment. Technically, he could access the duel from anywhere, but that wasn’t the plant’s style. “Shit,” Tom repeated, and then let the fear go. If his friend was dead, there was nothing that he could do about it. He would have to check with the open competitors after the duel because they would know either way what was happening. For now, he needed to get his head back into the game. 

Ten flips later with the coin having come up with his preset outcomes of H, T, T, H, H, H, T, H, T, T, he went through the shield less door and found himself in the void.

You are fighting a representative of MAKROS. It has 8 confirmed incapacitations and 0 kills.

Tom did not smile at the message.

The stakes of the fight suddenly became steeper, and that wasn’t necessarily a good thing.

These kind of matchups were bittersweet. This evil creature that tortured others to death had to die, and he was the only one in DEUS’s team who could do it and potentially the only non-terror species individual with the skills necessary but torturing a person, no matter how evil, was not something he enjoyed. Yes, it had done it to others and his actions would be justified but the process of destroying another’s soul was not one he believed he would ever be comfortable with.

The surrounding void dissolved, and then he was standing in an arena. It was a rocky, desert themed, hell scape. The heat made sweat bead instantly, and it appeared lifeless with the exception of the hardy cactus growing out of the shade of the looming red rocks that surrounded where he and his opponent stood. Even they looked pale and near death. While there was nothing between him and his adversary, once they left the immediate area there would be a plethora of defensive hiding spots. Rocks, most of them twice as tall as he was reached for the sky all around him.

It was he had to admit an environment that favoured him. Spark plus his domain meant he could see around corners and once the opponent was located, he could strike at them at will. His soul attacks only needed a location to target and given that the many spells he had incorporated in his domain could be triggered anywhere within thirty metres of him there was nowhere for it to hide.

He picked the direction he would first go once the duel started and then various other retreat paths if things would wrong and then prepared to leverage the environment to the fullest he studied his opponent. It looked like it had come from hell. It was big and bulky, with exaggerated muscles like a hound on steroids, and then it got weird. Its skin was covered with closed eyelids. Tom shivered just looking at the abomination and he was sure that when those eyes opened, they would be the vector of the soul attack he knew this creature had to possess. Unless his instincts were inexplicably off the enemy was dangerous on the physical, magical and soul dimensions.

It looked threatening, but that wasn’t going to save it.

The time ticked over and he prepared for the familiar drudgery of these duels. A flurry of activity where Tom took the fight seriously in case his opponent was somehow a match for him, while knowing that in the first couple of seconds he would discover just how terribly lopsided the fight was actually going to be. With Tom’s abilities, the win conditions were simple. If you were susceptible to lightning or soul attacks, you would lose and do it badly. Otherwise, you were likely to win because try as he might, Tom was still a glass cannon.

Because of the results of the coin tossing, he knew this was would be a case of the former. It would almost certainly be vulnerable to being stunned.

He waited for the official start.

His attributes spiked as the restrictions were released, and the creature focused its hate on him. Tom fled the starting location with a burst increasing his speed beyond the enemy’s capacity. A speed he thought in amusement that would have exceeded any athlete from earth by at least fifty percent, and he was still a child. He still hadn’t benefited from any experience purchases or class benefits.

As he ran, he began his usual offensive routine for a death match and formed two Lightning Javelin’s. The obvious one he created right next to his body to allow the enemy to spot it as it charged him. For the second, he got more creative and hid it behind the monster and used a boulder to provide extra protection in case one of the eyes on its backside opened. The thirty metre range on his domain was extraordinary especially in situations like this where the system forced them to start a mere fifteen metres apart. That was nowhere near far enough to force a linear battle from him and in his experience a handful of other competitors.

Then again, they might be hiding things like he was. He went to great pains to only go all out in death matches. The only competitors who had seen the extent of his domain and multitasking abilities were dead. He didn’t want the terror species learning how to counter him like he had the trident.

He, of course, wasn’t the only person with an active domain. From personal experience, being subjected to an acid themed version the instant the duel started had not been a fun way to lose, full GOD shield or not.

He reached the coverage of the closest boulder and noted that, as expected his opponent was charging him. Tom didn’t let that distract him. A physical, non-skill enhanced advance was not a threat, so he kept to the basics and focused on his domain.

There, he thought in satisfaction as he felt the itch that indicated that a magic spell was being originated above his head. It was a tricky ambush attempt, but it didn’t phase him at all and he adjusted on the fly. Rather than pausing and hunkering behind the apparent safety of the massive rock as per his initial strategy he switched to escape plan number two. Two steps later there was a boom from where he had briefly hid followed a moment later by a pressure wave that pushed him away from the impact site.

What the? He thought. Was that an attempt to kill me? The power packed into that spell was not what he expected from someone trying to only incapacitate. It had definitely been stronger than that and he couldn’t help but wonder if the monster had been spooked by his previous successful incapacitation and deviated from its usual attack methods as a result. If that was the case, if gloves were off, he would need to be more cautious.    

As he sprinted, the javelins finished forming, and he released them. The obvious one, the decoy was blocked easily by one of the three levitating black metallic shields the monsters used. Luckily for Tom it lacked a three-hundred-and-sixty-degree sensing domain potentially because all of its special eyes were closed so it was oblivious to the attack coming from behind. Its arrogance meant it didn’t actively counter the strike. The magical javelin, enhanced with all of his remote spear skills flickered pink just before it stuck the terror. Its personal shield shattered and with a crackle the point of the projectile struck and tore through the taunt skin and sent its electrical discharge deep within the monster.

The creature spasmed and collapsed as his spark took advantage of the broken shield to stun it again.

Game over, he thought happily. Now all he had to do was to finish things in a way that ensured it would never torture anyone else to death. 

He stopped running and launched a Soul Rend.

It washed over the creature, doing no damage.

Tom didn’t start cursing. Yes, seeing the resistance was frustrating, but he had more options now than in previous fights.

Tentatively, he used Scalpel and was disappointed when it only delivered a scratch. Give him eight hours and it would do the trick, but he didn’t want to take on the strain of such a long drawn-out battle. For now, Tom shelved the idea and labelled it plan B.

Before he did anything, now that he had confirmed that it was to be an extended engagement he had to disable it, at a physical level at least.

He produced his latest acquisition: a dagger rather than his spear to better manage the close in work. This was a gift from a rock like creature from his bracket in appreciation for his disks, allowing it to triple the points it would have otherwise managed. When it had been gifted to him, it had been a crude, ugly thing. One of the gifts that was more about the sentiment than their practicality and it had been completely un-tiered. His title had thought differently.

Item: Crude Vengeance Dagger – Tier 3

This weapon does not look like much, but it was crafted with hate and appreciation and has a wickedly sharp cutting edge.

When fighting terror species or feral monsters, this dagger will cut 80% better.

It was this not a spear that he needed for this fight.

His opponent, the terror torturer had crashed to the ground and Tom delayed approaching it.

With his advantages, he didn’t need to. Touch Heal at a thought became active and allowed him to diagnose the creature and just because it was funny he even healed some of the long-term damage that had been done to its equivalent of a liver.

Tom grinned. Now his magic was considered a genuine healing spell it would be even harder for the enemy to notice it and try to block it. He sucked in the valuable anatomical information and sorted it into more manageable chunks to let him more efficiently hurt, incapacitate, or kill it. Knowing a creature’s weak points was a massive advantage. The health data also confirmed that it had many eyes and also suggested why they were kept shut. Every single one of them had suffered extensive scarring, implying an incompatibility with a skill regularly run through them.

The access provided by the spell also allowed him to determine when the stun was due to expire and right when it was about to do so, he struck it with another Spark, then he approached it with his knives drawn. A little selective maiming would restrict its ability to counterattack.

It reacted to his advance. Six of its eyes snapped open, and Tom felt like his soul was being bathed in fire. Fateful Earth Body allowed him to lunge forward almost as fast as an assassin would teleport, and his knife stabbed forward and punctured one of the eyes.

The creature screamed like a whistling kettle and the other five eyelids slammed shut. The inferno dancing over Tom’s soul to his immense relief vanished. Touch Heal told him why. Those couple of seconds had torn up the delicate inner structures of the monster’s eyes. That was definitely where the scarring had come from, and it couldn’t keep them open for more than a few seconds.

It was helpless, and he intended to make it even more so. He wanted to destroy every single eye to stop it from burning him again.

His knife plunged down toward a closed eyelid. The skin was tough and provided a noticeable amount of resistance. So much so that the normal weapons supplied by the trial and unenhanced by skills wouldn’t have been able to get through, but he was using a tier three dagger that had a special property allowing it to cut almost twice as well against this specific creature.

As a result, it cut through and destroyed the hidden eye underneath.

Tom smiled. That would make things more efficient, as it meant he could rely on his muscles instead of resorting to spear and skills to penetrate the tough skin.

Systemically, he popped all the eyes he could find. There were dozens of them and as he worked, he began casting his tier four spell to lower soul defences. 

The fight was as good as over. Just like always with these duels, it was just a matter of going through the motions.

It might have been lightning stunned and its soul attacks neutered, but it still had access to the third pillar of its offensive threat. Some sixth sense meant it knew Tom’s position and every few seconds he felt the itch in his domain warning him of the attack. It was some kind of force spike that would blast forward from its anchor point. There was no subtly, and before the deadly magic came into existence everything about its trajectory and power was known. Like with the first attack, it liked to strike from above, but when that proved to be futile against his domain, it switched to shooting horizontally and the limited range of the spell became clear. The missile dissipated within two metres of the egress point, making its deficiencies clear.

Tom having popped the eyes butchered the creature with deep stabs into its vital organs and then more precise ones to disable the legs. With it unable to physically threaten him neutered Tom backed away.

The magic attacks continued to form, but after he got three metres away from it became clear, it could no longer track him. He circled around the monster and was amused as it randomly attacked the wrong spots.

His second soul defence lowering spell struck it and this time when he unleashed a Rend it didn’t bounce away having failed to penetrate. But while it landed successfully, it didn’t cut through the soul layers like a knife through butter like usual. It did however, inflict only ten percent of its normal damage.

Tom, smiling grimly continued to stalk around the creature. A few more, Lower Soul Defence spells and it would be as vulnerable as everything else. Spark kept it subdued and well placed Earth Spikes made sure its healing never got it back to a functioning fighting level.

It was blind and its one magical attack had proven easy to dodge.

All it would take was time. His Scalpel spell tore its complicated skills to shreds. Rend did exactly what its name implied, leaving gaping soul wounds. Tom, within minutes of casting his third Lower Soul Defence spell was confident that if the bout ended now he had done his job. It was already permanently crippled

It was no longer able to form the magic attack.

So he closed and expertly removed unneeded organs, butchered the limbs and cauterised the wounds using a quarter of a drop of an acid he had been given. The tier one version that he had received had been secreted by the shark like marine creature. In its society, it was injected through the teeth and triggered as part of the killing bite. The acid unencumbered by opposing healing would then run riot and tenderise the meat. Tom had gotten as a gift of gratitude and the person had probably imagined him using it for culinary purposes. His title had other ideas and with it being boosted to tier three it was absolutely lethal.

Expertly, he brought the monster closer to both physical and soul death in tandem. Only his healing was keeping it alive, and he had stopped using Rend and had resorted to Scalpel to do the maximum amount of damage possible.

His soul attack dug too deeply, and the arena disappeared all around him.   

Briana was next to him, uninjured, and there were no signs of anyone dead or dying anywhere. His body language analysis reported triumph from all directions. The only issue was that Baptiste remained missing. With mounting fear, he tried to make eye contact with one of the open competitors, as he knew they would have access to his friend’s status.

Baptiste materialised in his usual position. It was only five seconds late, but when everyone else appeared instantly, it was noticeable.

Tom focused on his friend in alarm with all of his hunter instincts going wild. He wasn’t the only one. Everyone present was an accomplished fighter and trained to recognise any shifts from normal patterns.

Baptiste was still. Even his usual fluttering leaves were not moving. Abnormally so, in fact, and the body language interpreter told him that posture meant immense, happy excitement. If he was human, he would be jumping up and down in joy.

It made no sense to Tom. It was physically impossible for him to have just dueled because if he had, he would have been deposited back in the open foyer with the rest of them, no matter where he started the duel from. If he hadn’t collected his coins, why would he be delighted?

“Baptiste,” Briana yelled happily having most likely recognised the same facts as he had. “Where were you? What’s the news? Why are you so happy?” The last was said in a whisper as everyone else had turned to look at them and her shyness had kicked in.

The plant basked in the attention of the entire room, and then all of his leaves turned upwards.

Ecstasy was the explanation the system gave him.

It made absolutely no sense to Tom. Had he had children or had his family done something amazing.

“My people are saved.” He told the room.

Confused silence greeted the words. 

“What do you mean?” Briana whispered, because every eye in the room was turned their way.

“I don’t have to be here. I’m going to resign.”

“Wh… what?” Briana stammered.

“I don’t have to be here,” the plant repeated. “My people are saved.”

“How?” Tom asked a sense of wonder flowing through him as he responded to the overwhelming joy his friend was radiating.

“I’m resigning from here to give another species a chance,” Baptiste said solemnly. “It’s wonderful. The chance to be here was amazing. Meeting you guys, earning coins to allow my people to triumph but now I don’t have to. Everything isn’t dependent on my stem. I’ve never felt so relieved. I only came now to say goodbye to you guys and say that I hope you visit.”

“Wait,” Tom said desperately. “How are you saved?”

Baptiste shifted to the leave profile that was the equivalent to a human looking at another. It wasn’t exactly like that as it always had a perfect spherical perception of his surroundings, but this was Tom guessed was its way to show its primary focus. “Powerful strangers, master trainers came. They’re in the capital and will teach us the skills and spells necessary to create all the classes that once made us great. It’s incredible.”

“Are they your people from another cluster?” Tom asked, amazed at the news. For everyone who was not human, here in the divine champions trial, this was the dream that they all knew had no chance of happening, but they all talked about it as a possibility, anyway.

“No. They are not my people but a different species, but we’re saved. They’ve given an oath on the GODs to serve until death or five hundred years, whichever comes sooner.” Baptiste’s leaves went perfectly still again. The body reading magic had him basically vibrating with overwhelming joy. “It’s even more incredible. All five were a powerhouse and when they got here, they abandoned their existing class, skills and spells and regained the abilities our people need.”

The words crashed into Tom. They echoed inside of him, a portent of doom that was at completed odds with the happiness that was spreading through the rest of the room. He felt his gut clench, like someone had punched them.

He wanted to scream out in defiance instead he clamped down on his emotions. It was not right to rob his friend of his happiness, and his fears couldn’t be real. “Um…” adrenaline was pumping through his system, demanding explosive action. With an effort of will, he kept his emotions under control. At this point, everything might just be a figment of his overly active paranoia and imagination. “Um… Did you get a description of them?”

Baptiste rustled his leaves in the equivalent of a shrug. “They are not plants.”

The anxiety increased. His mouth was dry, his blood thumping in his veins. “Then how can they teach you plant magic?”

“I don’t know, but they can.”

“Do you have a description?” Tom repeated, while trying to keep the anguish out of his voice. This was amazing for Baptiste and his people. A ray of hope for all diminished species, but if Tom’s suspicions were right, that was not the case for humans.

“Six legs all of them that of an animal designed for clawing and tearing. They’re bigger than you and…” A tendril emerged from the plant and poked Tom’s chest. “Their equivalent of this is like two hundred fingers which lets them manipulate anything.”

Blood thundered in Tom’s ears.

He recognised that description. The different facts confirmed everything.

“Tom, what’s wrong?” Bri asked in sudden concern.

He couldn’t stay here he realised. This was Baptiste’s moment. It wouldn’t be right to taint it. He shut his eyes and fled.

An instant later, he was in the system room. He looked at the wall and the ladder appeared. Now that he was ten for the raw numbers he didn’t need to wait on the Gazettes.

His eyes focused on the middle and then flicked to the top.

It felt like he was falling into an infinite abyss.

“Fuck.”

Right, there in front of him was the evidence. Proof of his fears. 

He remembered previous conversations. The facts and the speculation. None of them had guessed this. They had been known to be spreading out in small groups to do something… But not building artefacts like they had speculated.

The truth was both more wonderful and terrifying.

Anger flared and despair that had nothing to do with a curse. Wordlessly, he screamed at the roof of his room as he released the anguish of decades of sacrifice.

On one hand. It was right and great, and he remembered his friend’s unbounded joy.

The strategy was brilliant, insightful, compassionate and beautiful, and he hated them for it.

They were doing great things for the world. An act that should have him crying in appreciation. Steps that were far more impactful than his Danger Sense bracelets.

But the but.

But for everything he had strived for.

It was undone and useless.

All of his friends who had died.

For nothing.  

And they had killed him!

He hated them.

Tears streamed down his face. But their solution and their approach. It was so beautiful. How could he hate them? Was he in the wrong?

AG. I've been looking forward to this reveal for months. I hope you enjoyed it.