Dawn the next morning.

In the Glass Empire and the area around it a storm was brewing, literally. Black clouds filled the sky and thunder rumbled. The emperor had asked the APT about why they sent envoys without contacting him first but they told him they sent no envoys. He then told them about the people that came to his empire and they told him Funmi was no longer part of them and the other person had never been part of them too.

This made the emperor know that there was some bullshit going on so when he saw the black clouds in the sky brimming with lightning. Communications were quickly setup and the ten Mythical members were told to stay in groups of at least 3 Mythical members so that they could kill Mira and Funmi if they appeared.

This caused 5 of their territories to be left without a Mythical race member but the emperor said he would guard those places personally. Mira appeared through a portal in one of the territories that was not guarded by any Mythical member. She appeared in her full size but controlled her radiation to not affect the people in the area.

She sent a wide spread psychic message saying “Run away from here this place is about to become a battle ground”. The people were hesitant; the Ancient grade members had told them not to leave. It was obvious that they wanted Mira to fight while trying not to harm the people.

Mira said “I will not hold back at all. I any of you dies the best I can do is ensure I kill the person that fought me as revenge”. There was no response, all Mira could feel was the fear that had set in the people now that they knew that a battle would certainly happen. There were Ancient grade members tasked with ensuring that they didn’t run away.

Mira began using the Predator’s Prey privilege to see the abilities of the Lords and their Emperor. This exposed her location to all of them but helped her determine who Funmi would have the hardest time against since she was supposed to face the 7 Mythical members. Mira sent a psychic message to Funmi who was in the clouds after reviewing the information.

She told her IP ‘Activate the Predator’s Visage privilege’. Her IP said ‘Done’. The fear in the hearts of the people spiked and it reached a level where it almost overrode their rationality. Mira tipped the balance by shouting “RUUUUUUUUUUN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!”

The people who were previously trembling screamed and ran away from the territory where they were. The Ancient grade members that were tasked with keeping the low grade members in the territory were too busy shivering to stop them.

The dread and despair that the Predator’s Visage induced in the mind of those lower Ranked than Mira could be resisted. But the Ancient grades naturally feared hostile Mythical grade beings like Mira because they believed they could never win against them hence the privilege only amplified the great fear they were already feeling, hence they could not resist since they were actually afraid.

A few of them shit their pants and sobbed as they lost their composure completely and Mira thought ‘This privilege is really neat!’ After the people had gotten far enough space rippled beside Mira and she said “You’re finally here!” to the 11 meter tall humanoid that appeared beside her, swinging an orange scythe downward at her.

Mira flew to the side and created thick layers of diamond which she compressed until they formed black diamond on her shoulder that was about to be hit. A clean slash went through her diamond with little resistance, severing her arm. The severed arm and the shoulder were consumed by the orange aura that remained after the strike. Mira used Morphing to separate the affected parts as she entered a portal that she created behind her and created some distance between her and the Emperor.

Mira’s arm swiftly reformed as she expended biomass to recreate it and her skin turned grey and her fur turned from red to white and crackled with white lightning as she activated the new ability she got from Funmi’s blessing which she now called Lightning Countenance. She planned on forming other stat improving states and calling them Countenances.

The emperor was not at all happy with the attack that had taken only her arm. First, he was aiming to split her in two but she dodged, this meant she had an agility stat on par with him. Second, he felt a little resistance when he was cutting through her diamond, the Scythe was a aura manifestation he got as a result of his race, it cut the temporal form of an object so it had never faced any resistance before since it ignored the Durability stat. But he felt little resistance.

Mira looked at the gargantuan man who was floating in the air above her and her IP denoted him as a [Rank 20 Primordial Titan (Kronos)].

The emperor was very much like Jake in that he understood a part of time. He only understood the concept of History or Past but he didn’t have as much of an understanding as Jake because of his comparatively low aura manipulation proficiency. The skill that gave him transcendent stats was his aura attribution which reminded time for anything it touched.

Mira’s bunny ears were not there just for fashion, they increased her intent sensing capabilities allowing her to almost literally hear the reason for any happening and even to the point where she could hear things that had not happened.

Mira thought ‘Is this the only manifestation he has?’ before she dashed toward him and simultaneously shot black diamond spears at the Titan. The emperor responded by sending aura slashes with his scythe. When the slashes split the spears they were quickly consumed by the remnant aura and turned to nothing. Seeing this Mira knew the fight was going to be a tough one.

White flames patterns formed on the Black Diamonds that covered her. She used the explosions from them to accelerate. She was already as fast as the Emperor but with boost of her new state that enhanced the force she produced, both speed and strength, she became way faster than the emperor. The emperor used aura attribution (which adds extra properties to aura depending on the person’s personality) while he spread his aura around himself and asked his IP ‘What grade is she?’

Mira slowed down the moment she hit his aura and began rewinding like a tape. The Titan didn’t wait for his answer and flew toward her location and swung his scythe, aiming to split her head in two. Her diamonds exploded without her consent and pushed her away at such a high speed that she teleported allowing her to dodge the relatively slow attack of the Emperor and create some distance as she finished rewinding

The IP of the Emperor answered as he chased ‘The Perfect Chimera/Gene Lord is a Mythical race’. The Emperor was stunned as the concept of a Mythical grade person matching him was something that he never considered possible. Her stats were around his own level even though she was Mythical grade. This was because the Gene Lord race had abilities that could swiftly increase the user’s stats (Gene Copy and Mutate) permanently without encode. Now all her physical stats were in the Grade 6 range. But that was also not the only reason why Mira was performing better than him.

{Excerpt from the article ‘Measures of power’ by Gog, the ever losing war. Published by Avatari, the *****}

{…

An issue that came up with many Mythical grades was why some Mythical grade races were clearly better than Celestial grade races and also why some Celestial grade races were far better than other Celestial grade races.

In my monster perspective (Since we used gradual evolution as we increased through rank) there is no such disparity between races of the same grade. As for the rare occasion of Mythical grade races beating a Celestial grade the workings are quite simple.

It is easy to assume that the higher the race grade a person evolves to the stronger the person is. This is only true for the stats of the person since Celestials have higher ‘starting’, emphasis on ‘starting’, stats. A stat is just the fuel, power provider for a skill. Many people have the misconception that stats equal power hence higher grade races are better. In a sense it is true but it is not always true.

Many people have such low skill levels (which the IP doesn’t keep track of compared to their high stats. Their skill levels are so low that when they evolve the skills they had become redundant or irrelevant compared to their race’s natural abilities. These are the type of people who get their asses whooped by people of lower race grades or the same race grades when the person they face has more skill.

Some examples are…

I assume this reliance on only stats is a result of the fact that most humans never had connections with martial arts before our appearance and combined with the fact that en-code made getting stats relatively easy. The Ancient grades had it the worst since many of them ruled settlements that gave them en-code in exchange for their protection. This caused their stats to grow while their proficiency stalled.

Although it’s too late to ay it, the best growth pattern for most people would have been to fight for every en-code they got so that their skill and combat experience would grow along with their stats. This is not to discredit you if you just rely on your races natural ability to fight, some races have amazing natural combat abilities. This is just to emphasize that people should work toward skills that are only supplemented by their race abilities and stats instead of skills that are overshadowed by them.}