Faker

Mike's journey through the chasm continued with relative peace afterward.

It seemed like after his earlier display, a lot of the creatures residing there realized that he was no easy target. As such, he was no longer as prone to being attacked out of nowhere.

That wasn't to say that the creatures had completely given up, though. Instead, they merely waited. Either for the moment he was dealt a serious blow by another similarly powerful creature, or the moment they could take his scraps as soon as he was taken out by something stronger.

However, Mike had no intentions of being taken out by anything.

He continued to follow Theresa's trail, occasionally moving on all fours as he hopped from branch to branch, his tail allowing him to keep his balance almost perfectly.

'I like this.' He thought. Feeling the wind brush past his face as he continued to move rapidly was liberating and enjoyable. He'd even pulled his helmet back, allowing his hair and ears to flap freely in the wind.

'I wonder what the others are doing...' His mind wandered a bit as he moved.

He was pretty sure that Kris was fine. Even as he was right now, he wasn't too sure he could beat the mostly silent guy in a fight. Similar to him, he was most likely making his way towards Theresa.

Theresa's situation was a bit more mysterious, though. This chasm was filled with some dreadful monsters, and Mike had already gone past numerous beasts he was sure were stronger than the Atrixa he'd fought not too long ago.

Moreover, the deeper he went, the stronger the average levels of the monsters became, and somehow, her pod seemed to have taken her right extremely deep into the place, making him wonder if there was another opening it could have entered through.

'She should be fine. But still...' Mike huffed. His instincts were silent, meaning nothing bad had happened. Not yet, anyway. But his rational, human mind was coming up with all sorts of scenarios.

What if she were surrounded by dozens of dangerous monsters, but she wasn't aware? After all, he doubted she had senses as keen as his that allowed her to be aware of everything within a certain radius.

Or what if she was already fighting and was in a desperate situation, hoping that Mike or Kris would appear quickly to support her?

Granted, if that were the case, she could easily just send out a beacon for the ship in orbit to come and be extracted from the planet. But that would mean her disqualified from the event, and Mike would feel super guilty if that were the case.

His wolf instincts were letting him know that there wasn't an issue, and his human side was constantly coming up with the worst-case scenario.

'Sigh. I guess I can only trust her.' He shook his head.

There was another reason why he was worried, though. Ever since he'd landed in his place, he felt a gaze.

He couldn't properly describe it, but it was fundamentally different from every other gaze he'd felt since he appeared in the chasm.

It felt... older, and... more.

Moreover, it came from all around him, and while he didn't feel any nefarious intent from it... he still wanted to leave as soon as possible.

Because whether it was, he knew it was stronger than everything he'd encountered thus far, and probably stronger than a lot of the things he would encounter, too.

If he could help it, he would avoid a confrontation, but he wouldn't leave without Theresa. As such, he decided to just get there quickly and leave this chasm even faster.

***

'Probably should have thought about that sooner.' Theresa exhaled as she stared at the scene before her.

Shed scouted out the area she was in after killing the chameleon, and she realized that she seemed to be in some sort of hole. It was a couple miles in diameter and over a dozen deep. Moreover, other than up, she discovered that there were only two ways to leave.

Well, she said leave, but chances are that those entrances would merely lead her deeper into whatever subterranean world awaited her.

After waiting for a while, a few beasts had come through one of the entrances, and she swiftly dispatched them, but more came from the other entrance shortly after, and what followed was a few hours of Theresa going back and forth between each entrance and killing whatever came through.

Their rate of entry wasn't fast, though, so she never worried about getting swarmed, but that sentiment started to change with the more stuff she killed.

It seemed like the more she killed, the more they came, and Theresa thought about it for a while before facepalming after realizing the issue.

Beasts devoured each other to get stronger, as such, they naturally had an acute sense of smell to tell when a beast had fallen, allowing them to go and devour it.

Theresa's kills usually bled a lot, so naturally, the smell must have attracted beasts from further within, and the more blood she spilled, the more beasts smelled it and were attracted.

Realizing this, she did something she probably should have done from the beginning.

She burned the corpses.

Staring at the large burning fire of monster corpses, Theresa sighed. While the large number of kills translated into points for her, she wasn't dumb enough to fight an army of hungry monsters and get herself overwhelmed.

She returned to her pod and sat down to replenish some of her energy. Luckily for her, the hole was placed right where Naraka's sun would shine, and it was currently noon, so it was shining into the hole where she sat, allowing her to replenish her energy faster.

RUSTLE RUSTLE

A sound reached her ears, and without hesitation, she summoned her bow and drew it, manifesting a flaming arrow in less than a second.

She immediately switched her vision to thermal, allowing her to see through the thick vegetation. However, to her surprise, she saw a humanoid frame emerging from the bushes.

Shifting her vision to normal, she saw a familiar figure and exhaled.

Mike.

His gauntket covered hands were raised, and he had a strange expression on his face as he looked between Theresa and the burning fire of corpses.

"... I see that you've been busy." He said before dropping his arms as Theresa lowered her bow, and she shook her head.

"Small miscalculation on my part. How did you get here so fast?" She got straight to the point, and he just shrugged.

"I ran here fast."

"..."

'This guy.' She sighed

"Fair enough. So, I'm assuming you have a way to leave this place?" She asked with a raised brow before looking up. In truth, she probably could have climbed out, but that would take a lot of time. So if Mike had a better way to leave, that would be ideal.

"Yeah, but I found a pretty smooth path. There will be a lot of climbing involved, though." Mike nodded.

"... Alright. Well, I have nothing to do, so we might as well get going. Lead the way." Theresa eventually said, and Mike smiled.

"Great. Let's go." He turned to start walking, and as soon as he did, Theresa drew her bow and released an arrow. It flew fast and struck him right in the back, exploding and sending him flying forward.

A pained scream entered her ears, but she wasn't perturbed as she drew her bow once more.

When the smoke cleared, the figure of the bow bent over with his hand on his back that had a pretty bad sear on it was revealed.

"Wh-What the hell?!" He turned to her and shouted in pain and anger. However...

"I told Mike that as soon as he arrives, he has to give me back my scarf, and if anything happened to it on his way here, he has to start with that before anything." The flames that made up the arrow started to turn a deeper shade of red and orange as the surrounding heat intensified.

"Moreover, such a basic attack wouldn't have been able to catch him off guard, and even if he did, he wouldn't have taken so much damage. So tell me, who are you, and who sent you? Or are you a creature that is especially adept at camouflage?" Hearing this 'Mike's' face paled.

"H-Huh? What are you talking abo-"

BOOM

Theresa let her arrow fly, and it struck the doppelganger right in the chest before exploding, completely engulfing his figure in flames.

There was a brief yell before they were completely eviscerated, leaving nothing but a burnt piece of ground.

Despite this, though, Theresa was sure she hadn't killed the person... because they hadn't been a person in the first place, or even a beast.

They were a clone.

When Theresa had used her thermal vision to see the person in the bushes, she didn't notice them due to their body heat, but the lack of it.

As such, she quickly surmised that whatever it was wasn't a person, and that suspicion was quickly confirmed when she saw 'Mike' and interacted with him.

Activating her thermal vision again, she looked around as a certain name entered her mind. Among their year, other than those from the Apex Families, there were a few individuals who were known to be quite talented and powerful.

She knew of only one person within their grade who could do something like this.

Tristan Umbra from the Umbra family, also known as Faker.

"I won't lie, I'm genuinely surprised you noticed so quickly. Was that Thermal Gaze? With how people from your family talk shit about you, I assumed that you didn't know the technique. I guess I was wrong." A figure came out of the bushes.

His hair was black as night, and he had a lithe figure. His features were very sharp, to the point of it being unnerving, but there was a calm smile on the face.

"... What do you want?" Theresa asked as she drew her bow once more, and Tristan chuckled.

"You don't know? Well, I guess that's better. You see, a certain someone is offering a lot to either eliminate you from this thing early or kill you. Now, I'm not in the habit of killing my classmates, so I'd rather you didn't force me to get my hands dirty. Okay?" He offered amicably, sounding like he was offering her a legitimate service despite the implications being grim

Theresa just stared at him for a few seconds before letting her arrow fly.

It struck him and exploded, drowning his figure in flames. However, she knew that wasn't the end of it.

"That's disappointing." His voice came from her left as he appeared again and shook his head.

"Well, whatever. Can't say I didn't try." He held out his hand, and all of a sudden, his shadow expanded from beneath his feet, and from it, an oily black blade emerged hilt first, and Tristan grabbed it before tossing it between his hands.

"How about we get this over with?" He said with a bright smile.

Theresa responded with another arrow.

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