The pitter-patter of rain masked the battle raging below the top floor of the tower Ribberman, Heike, Dun, WeabooMike and Sepukku4me_n_u were on.

Sepukku4me_n_u fired an arrow at the man, attached to its tip were several of Ribberman’s tentacles.

Effortlessly, the white-feathered harpy snatched the arrow with a now solid tentacle, snapping it in half.

“He can solidify his tentacles too!?” Ribberman thought.

Their foe didn’t even find it appropriate to speak to comment on the attack.

Ribberman fired more tentacles his way, each on was countered by the harpy.

“I don’t think I introduced myself yet, you can call me Reznit, like ree-z-nit! Remember it well!” he smiled.

Reznit lifted his hand and from it came a dozen tentacles, they all rose up and solidified like a sword as he swung the tentacle-sword down at Ribberman.

He tried to evade but found his feet were tangled, his tentacles wouldn’t make it in time to his legs.

Seeing no other way out, he fired a tentacle at Reznit, even if he got split in two, at least he could damage their enemy.

Suddenly the tentacle blade was stopped, Ribberman looked forward and he saw WeabooMike, holding the wriggling sword back with the chain of his weapon.

“Dispel Curse!” Heike caused the tentacles holding Ribberman down to let go as they wriggled uncontrollably.

“Homing Arrows!” Sepukku4me_n_u thought.

“Interesting…” Reznit remarked as several green, glowing arrows flew at him from behind, they were all caught by Reznit’s tentacles.

Reznit pulled his hand back only for it to be grabbed by a root coming from the ground.

Effortlessly, he snapped it with his immense strength stat as below, a massive explosion shook the fort.

Once again, Ribberman shot a tentacle at Reznit, this time he was barely able to dodge it.

“NICE!” Reznit was now grinning ear to ear, more than before.

“This is the kind of fighting spirit I expected from the others!” Reznit exclaimed.

Reznit fired his tentacles at them, tangling around their torso, Ribberman, Heike, Dun and WeabooMike were trapped.

“Dispel Curse!” Heike exclaimed, he sprinted up to the harpy, staff in hand.

Reznit got ready to counter any spell as he suddenly felt Heike’s fist smash into his cheek, knocking him to the ground.

“Quit being such an ass!” he exclaimed.

The punch was weak, pathetically weak.

Even so, Reznit couldn’t help but laugh loudly.

“Nice, nice, nice!” he placed his hands over his head.

“Perfect!”

Uncomfortably, Heike backed away.

“This is the kind of spirit I expected from JohnWillStab and his group!” Reznit thought.

He looked up to the group.

“But they’re too weak…”

From his back emerged one thousand tentacles, each one longer than any tentacle John could muster.

Ribberman summoned as many tentacles as he could muster, that being just under one hundred.

“Reznit! Now I’m certain it’s you…”

Reznit didn’t reply, he silently awaited Ribberman’s conclusion, his smile never wavering.

“You’re a first-generation tenecirus!” he exclaimed, pointing an accusatory finger at him.

Reznit shook his head.

“Wrong, I’m a second-generation tenecirus from the thief-type…”

Ribberman furrowed his brow.

“You’re lying! I saw your remote tentacles! Those abilities belong to a spatial-type tenecirus!”

Ribberman was buying time while he thought of a way to defeat him.

“They do, though I can use them thanks to a little made-up ability I like to call ‘chain of command’ – you see, the ability belongs to KakyuholeInChest, but he belongs to me,” with a snap of his fingers, Reznit produced hundreds of souls, several of which belonging to tenecirus users.

Ribberman felt a burning hatred inside him, he could recognise some of the souls he showed.

“Now, the three I just captured don’t seem very keen on joining my ranks, so they’re more like souvenirs than anything!” he laughed.

Reznit placed his hands in his non-existent pockets once again bringing attention to his nudity.

“Now then, since you failed your test, I’m going to wipe everyone off the face of this world…” Reznit began.

“Unless…” Reznit smiled.

“Unless what?” demanded Ribberman.

“Unless you can kill me.” He replied.

“…”

“Kill you?”

Reznit nodded.

“No need to hold back! Remember the world is on the line!”

“Show me that you have to strength to defeat a foe such as myself and I will release all the souls and perma-die!”

“Of course, I will be fighting back!”

“Why?!” Ribberman demanded.

Reznit breathed a sigh.

“Oh, does that really matter? No – no it doesn’t!” he answered his own question.

They all remained silent for a few seconds.

“Thought so…” Reznit sighed.

Ribberman crossed his arms.

“You’re being unrealistic. With the exception of those who can get an XP boost potion from an alchemist, there’s no realistic way to get to level one-hundred!” he finally said.

Reznit froze.

“…”

“Huh?”

He looked shocked.

“W-well…” he scratched his head.

“P-perhaps I was a little too hasty…”

He breathed a sigh.

“Yeah… yeah two months was definitely too soon…”

Reznit looked over to Ribberman.

“Fine… let’s just forget about today… I’ll give you… one year and ten months, so after two years in this world I will challenge this world once more…“ he sounded very apologetic.

“Again, sorry about this whole thing, I just… y’know… thought the mc would get stronger a bit quicker…” Reznit admitted.

He reached into his coat and pulled out the three souls, he released JohnWillStab, Bonifacius and Crown allowing them to respawn.

“Now then, make sure to say hi to John for me!” Reznit announced, with that, he simply used his ungodly strength and athletics to jump away.

Later…

JohnWillStab, Crown and Bonifacius respawned, they rushed to the tower where they found all the soul-monsters dead.

Alistard was hurt but still alive, looking very smug and surrounded with a load of empty magazines, at some point, there were so many he built himself a chair out of them, then table, over time he made himself a bookcase and everything.

That was when Alistard discovered his passion for carpentry, good for him.

After Crown healed him up, they headed up the partially exploded stairs.

Chaz and Abutron were sitting, propped up against the body of a massive, white soul-monster, Abutron tried to get Chaz to fist-bump him, while Chaz desperately refused.

Eventually, they made it to the top where Ribberman, as well as the remaining members of the group, took some time to calm down after the fight.

Ribberman filled JohnWillStab in on everything that happened, he explained that he was able to by everyone just under two years to come up with a plan to kill Reznit and he spent the rest of the time bragging about himself and the others.

While Bonifacius seemed proud of the bravery and strength displayed by his group, John felt out-edged and regretted not having more screen-time in the fight.

And so, as expected, the final day of the jGuardian training camp ended horribly, leaving a deep, lingering fear of impending doom on everyone’s mind expect John’s.