[Abyssal Fishermen]

  Instantly, Nathan felt the world bottom out. His limbs flooded with heat, and his limbs went weak. The sensation continued for a few more seconds before it stopped, as if nothing had ever happened.

  He checked his stats screen and looked down at the skill list.

  To his pleasant surprise, the skill had already appeared.

  [Astral Fishing] - Diamond

  Yes, I was listening, and I thought it would be funny to rename it. You're welcome.

  Nathan rolled his eyes. Thanks, Thalassa.

  To use the Astral Fishing trademark skill, simply focus on extending your control of water across the dimensional planes. Easy, right?

  Warning: Thalassa is not liable for any injuries sustained while in the process of fishing across dimensions. Further information? Figure it out yourself. Bozo.

  Helpful as ever.

  Going by his previous skills, this one would be a pain to practice as usual. He would spend the entire Circle working on it and be incredibly frustrated until it finally came in handy at the last second.

  He held out his hand toward the floor and tried to concentrate on his "domain," as Thalassa had put it. Of course, he had no idea how to do this, so really he was just vaguely tapping into the same feeling he had when he controlled water.

  Unlike with the other skills he used up to this point, something instantly clicked inside his mind. The ground shimmered like water, ripples spreading out from the center where his palm was pointed.

  He blinked. Had he really managed to…?

  He kneeled down and held his hand over the rippling waves. He stared at it for a few more seconds before he plunged his palm into it.

  His hand froze. Instantly, sharp, frostbite-like pains ran up his arm and seemed to strike him at his heart. He pulled his hand away and looked at it in surprise. Thin icicles were growing on the tips of his fingers, and his skin had turned a disturbing white.

  The other side of that portal was cold. Really cold.

  Whatever the others were talking about, he completely managed to phase out. Right now, there was just him, this strange pool of pseudo-liquid, and—

  His fishing pole.

  He pulled it out of his inventory and looked it over. He hadn't had much of a chance to inspect it during the battle against Leviathan, but looking at it closer, it was a work of art. The metal was a deep blue, and the white, wavelike patterns seemed to roil like the actual ocean when Nathan looked at it a little too closely.

  After a second, Nathan shrugged and then cast the line into the water. The hook fell into the dimensional portal and slipped into somewhere, presumably beyond Nathan's reach.

  A tug hit him immediately. He frowned sharply and pulled back on the rod.

  He hadn't been expecting a catch so soon. Well, that suited him just fine. He reeled in slowly—thankfully, it didn't seem like whatever he caught was struggling too hard.

  The object he grabbed poked out through the portal and shimmered bright gold. He continued lifting and then set it off to the side.

  The thing he'd caught was a leather strap attached to a gleaming rifle.

  [AK-47: Final Form] – C-Rank

  An ordinary AK-47, but dripped out in enough gold to buy a small micronation. What does the gold do? Not much, honestly. It's more of a fashion statement. Anyway, it's a gun! And it shimmers gold! The explosive firepower is capable of putting down just about anything, given enough time. Also, the ammunition is magically created, so you don't need to worry about finding that anymore!

  Nathan tossed the gun over to Mara. She was still talking to Lily when she snapped her head toward the gun and grabbed it out of the air.

  "Think that would be a good upgrade?" Nathan asked.

  "Yes…?" Mara ran her hand along the barrel of the gun. "Definitely yes."

  Nathan fished for another thirty minutes and got a disturbingly high number of extremely good loot. Swords, spears, a phone, of all things, a few more guns, some explosives, and even a sardine can.

  You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

  Nathan opened up his town portal and dumped it unceremoniously through, then shut it. His townspeople would be able to put it to good use, either equipping some of his elite guardsmen or melting down the parts for materials.

  Once that was done, he turned his attention back to his erstwhile companions. Chad was still yapping into a camera. Mara had gone quiet, inspecting her new weaponry. Bree, meanwhile, had struck up a conversation with Lily, who looked downcast, petals wilted and head facing toward the ground. Granted, it was a little bit hard to tell, given the fact that she was, you know, a flower, but Nathan was pretty sure that was what was going on.

  "Guys?" Nathan clapped his hands. "Are we ready to go?"

  Chad glanced away from the camera and nodded. "Yeah, been ready."

  "Always." Mara slipped the AK-47 into her inventory.

  "I'm eager to explore and hopefully find out how to get to the next circle," Emi said.

  Nathan nodded in affirmation when he noticed that somebody hadn't spoken. He looked over at Lily and noticed that she hadn't so much as twitched.

  "Lily? Are you okay?"

  The sound of his voice seemed to break her out of whatever funk she had been in. Her petals seemed to flex back into a straighter position. "Yes, I'm good. Let's get going."

  Nathan was willing to bet that Lily was, in fact, not good, but he didn't really have time to deal with whatever her issue was.

  He did have suspicions as to what was happening. She'd been virtually attached at the hip for… basically her entire life. It would be a little bit startling to suddenly not be that way.

  Still, Nathan pushed it out of his mind. There would be time to talk to her later.

  "Will you be able to keep up with us? Can you travel around the same way you do inside my soulbound town?"

  Lily flexed her roots, and suddenly she disappeared under the ground with a plop. A few seconds later, she reappeared up the hallway, sending shards of dirt and stone out of the hole that she'd come from.

  "Yeah," she said. "It's not too hard to travel, actually."

  Nathan was a little bit flabbergasted about the fact that she could apparently just burrow through solid stone, but that was part of the deal.

  He took a single step when a loud rumble caught his attention. His heart nearly jumped out of his chest.

  "What was that?" Bree's eyes shifted around.

  "I don't know, but whatever it is, it can't be good," Nathan muttered. He tensed his legs. "Let's go."

  They ran onward through the hallway until he finally came across a large open room with a spire in the center. There were three spots outlined in white chalk arranged in a perfect circle.

  “What is this?” Chad stepped forward into the room. “This is strange.”

  Nathan was fairly certain that the noise had come from here based on the echo and the loudness of the sound.

  Someone else had been here. He looked as subtly as he could toward the ground and noticed the faint outline of dirt arranged in the shape of a footprint.

  The footprints were of varying sizes and shapes. Multiple people had come through here. A whole group, in fact.

  Nathan walked ahead with his hands shoved in his pockets.

  He came to one of the chalk circles. It was just big enough for one person. He stepped inside out of curiosity. Instantly, the chalk particles turned green.

  Nathan jolted, then stepped out. In response, the chalk circle went back to white.

  “Chad,” he looked back. “Come take a look at this.”

  Chad jogged over to Nathan. “What’s up?”

  “Put a foot inside of the circle. I want to see what happens,” Nathan said.

  Chad nodded and looked over at the chalk circle. He brought the tip of his toe inside of it. Rather than bright green, the colors changed to a dark red.

  Nathan furrowed his eyebrows. What was the difference between the colors?

  “Everyone, come over here,” Nathan said.

  Once everybody had come over, Nathan experimented by passing different people in and out of the circles. He tried having Bree stand there. As with Chad, it flashed red. Same with everybody else.

  Everyone else except for Emi, oddly enough.

  This pattern was the same for all of the circles in the room.

  What was the thing that he and Emi had in common?

  Nathan cupped his chin and thought before it struck him like a bolt of lightning.

  He popped open the leaderboard. There he was in solid first. A little bit down the line were a few of the other humans, and in sixth was Emi. Number three was Fenrir.

  That was the name of the orc king, wasn’t it?

  Emi was the highest-ranked elf. Nathan was the highest-ranked human. Presumably, that meant that the third circle—all the circles—were meant for the highest-ranked person of each species in the apocalypse.

  As far as Nathan remembered, there were no other species. It was just humans, orcs, and elves. Even back during the tutorial circle, had the instructional guide said something to the effect of three species duking it out for the chance to survive?

  A few whispered words came to mind.

  For the longest time, everybody who’d been through the circles had said that the sixth circle had an “impossible challenge.”

  Nathan hadn't taken too much stock in this. Perhaps it was a bit arrogant, but after having defeated the system, he was fairly certain that he would be able to find a way to win against a task of any difficulty.

  Yet…

  Nathan was getting an inkling of where this was going, and he really wasn’t liking it.

  There’s no way that the system would have the three ingredients to whatever this was so far apart. Which meant that Fenrir had to be somewhere close by.

  The footsteps.

  The sound of metal clanking together in the distance took him out of his thoughts. He looked over toward one of the tunnels and narrowed his eyes.

  Figures emerged at the far end of the tunnel.

  Their green skin instantly clued Nathan in on who he was looking at.

  Chad perked up and looked over in the direction of the noise. “What is that?”

  Bree glanced over. “That can’t be good.”

  But Emi…

  Emi had frozen.

  Her face turned pale, and her shoulders were as taut as a stretched-out rubber band.

  Nathan licked his dry lips.

  The figures stepped closer and closer. Off to the side there was a familiar face… one Nathan could barely place.

  An orc.

  Bjorn?

  The orc at the front came to a stop at the exit of the tunnel. The skin of a white wolf was tied across his shoulders. He was the biggest orc by far, and his skin was a darker shade of green.

  “Well met, strangers.”

  His voice rumbled like a car engine.

  “My name is Fenrir. Who are you?”