3 Days Later
Abner woke up and soon went to have some food with his family. As they made some small talk, his mother and father encouraged him to do well in the Dreamscape tournament, while his brother only commented that Abner should save himself the embarrassment and just stay in his room instead.
That's right, today was the day the Dreamscape tournament would take place, and he and his friends would participate in the Cohort battles.
Abner was confident that they would do well and assured his family that he would definitely win!
After eating his food, he talked with his friends for a bit before the tournament started. Kaelen was sharing some memes along with Glorielle as Alec was giving them a lesson about the Way of Dao making Brave mock him for his cultivation addiction. Abner was just enjoying the chaos along with Naamah.
After a while, they entered the dreamscape, and the tournament started.
They had the option to choose between the 'Dream of Glory' solo tournament or the 'Dream of Camaraderie' cohort tournament; obviously they chose the Dream of Camaraderie, and soon they found themselves in a dessert.
The tournament was a Battle Royale where the map would get smaller and smaller as more time passed and the top 10 teams standing win.
Abner looked around but couldn't see anything other than sand, as there seemed to be a sand storm.
They were live, and the commentator was taking advantage of their fame to boost the views of the tournament.
"These right here are the Attendants of Mysteries, all of them which are still alive! They survived the Forgotten Shores battled against Fallen Tyrants, Fallen Terrors, and Devils along with the legendary first Divine aspect wielder of humanity, The Lord of The Mysteries!"
The commentator made a brief pause for dramatic effect and continued,
"Every single one of them is a genius; to see them all working together makes me pity their competition, and I'm not the only one who feels this way! Just look at the fan favorites of this year's tournament; 71% of people voted that they think they will win! But what is the expert's opinion?"
The Expert, a Master whose role was explaining the things that happened for those that couldn't see, since awakened combat was hard to follow for mundane people, responded to the Commentator.
"Out of everyone here, I do think they are most likely to win; not only do they have the Sacred Aspect wielder Abner, but they also have Kaelen the Son of Nightwalker himself! Not to say the rest are any less impressive; all of them are top-tier Awakened! It makes me feel bad for the ones participating this year."
The commentator and the audience shared the sentiment but didn't respond to him because in the next moment the commentator shouted, "And the first team is out; the Attendants of Mysteries have gotten first blood! Let's replay that for a second and have the expert tell us what happened!"
The master pointed at the Light Abner shot at the Other Awakened in the Desert and said,
"You can practically pinpoint when they won; it's right here! Burning their eyes was what made this fight last only 3 seconds—just one move from Abner and a whole cohort already lost; it's no wonder they are the fan favorites!"
Although Abner and the Cohort were fighting groups of Awakened, they decided to let only one person fight a whole group; otherwise, it wouldn't even be a fight this time it was Alec's turn.
The team he is fighting against had three archers, one spearman, and a swordsman. Alec blocked the Arrows as he approached and left an opening for the Spear wielder to take.
The awakened took the bait immediately, and Alec took the hit while already counterattacking using both his awakened and dormant abilities.
His Dormant ability allows him to absorb the force of what hits him, and the second empowers him by using the force absorbed as fuel.
Alec hit second, allowing for his awakened ability to activate; his spear pierced through the armor of the awakened, stabbing him in the heart, while the awakened's spear failed to go through his skin.
Now that Alec had killed the Spear user, the Archers summoned close-range weapons, but with his mastery of the Spear and its superior range with his shield and aspect, he emerged victorious; they only managed to give him some scratches.
Next up was Naamah fighting against a group of 7 using her awakened ability by looking into the eyes of her enemies; she made them hallucinate, and so the archer's arrows missed swings of the swordsman hit nothing but air, and thrusts of the Spearman's did nothing but make them look ridiculous.
To them, she looked like a ghost ready to reap their souls; their fear was palpable; attacks that target the mind and soul were feared for a reason, they were hard to defend against.
Brave's turn was next against a group of five: two archers, one Spearman, and two swordsmen.
Using his awakened ability, he started shooting arrows at the enemy cohort as he slowly moved away from his cohort.
The cohort he was up against was taken by surprise by his Arrows, and an Archer already died; they immediately tried to find him; although they could see him, they acted like he was invisible, but they spotted Brave's cohort, and they decided to run away immediately,
but before they could, Brave deactivated his awakened ability, making him noticeable to them, and activated his Dormant ability.
His awakened ability made others consciously ignore him, and his dormant one made them focus on him and nothing else.
The cohort knew they wanted to retreat a moment before, but seeing the one who "killed" their friend, they decided to confront him!
Brave killed another Archer, before they got close, and activated his awakened ability again.
The two swordsmen and the spearman now unable to locate him, and realizing this is a trap, decided to run away like they previously planned to do without even saying a word.
But Brave picked them off one by one with his arrows, giving them no chance to get away.
Their one vs. a cohort didn't last long, as eventually other cohorts teamed up to defeat them, forcing them to fight together.
The commentator shouted, "The attendants of Mysteries seemed to have pissed off the other participants with their showing off, as 20 other cohorts have now teamed up against them—that's 106 people! Just how will they handle this? Is it over for the survivors of the forgotten shores?"
Indeed, Abner and the Cohort's arrogance had pissed off the other awakened participants, and now they were running away from them!
Brave was using his awakened ability to shoot at some of them, getting a few kills, but even that was risky.
Once he shot an arrow, the arrow could be traced back to where he was, since it would no longer be ignored when he wasn't touching it.
While Abner was running, he was also sending pure light at the other Cohorts chasing them, but since they stayed far away, he couldn't damage them since the damage his light dealt decreased the further away from him it went.
The only reason they were not caught yet by the swordsmen and Spearmen was Naamah who used her awakened ability to make them hallucinate and be unable to locate them, while they couldn't do much about the archers who stayed very far other than calling them cowards.
Abner sighed as he made a risky decision: "Brave, go kill the Archers hiding far away!"
Brave nodded, although Abner didn't realize it, and went to find them.
The other awakened noticed Brave's absence, but since they couldn't find him, they just chased the other Attendants of Mysteries; they couldn't run away forever.
There were 5 archers a considerable distance away from them that Brave needed to kill; that would take some time.
Abner cursed inwardly, 'Why did we have to show off? I should have known it would be a bad idea! Argh, Curses!'
Avoiding so many awakened was proving to be challenging, so Abner was planning to divide them
Abner shouted at the people chasing him and his cohort, "Even if you beat us, there are still only 10 spots, so half of you won't even get a spot, but if you help us, you will definitely have a better chance to advance!"
However, none of them reacted to his words; they knew if the Attendants of Mysteries made it to the second half, none of them would have a chance to win.
Abner, seeing his words having no effect, gritted his teeth and kept running.
After 30 minutes, Brave had killed the archers hidden far away and their bodyguards joining up with the rest, who were just as exhausted as him, if not even more so.
Brave asked Abner, "Now that the Archers are dead, what do we do?"
Abner replied while still running, "We keep up the guerilla warfare; that's our only chance to win!"
Although Abner had a divine aspect and a reliable cohort, fighting that many awakened head-on was stupid, so decreasing their numbers slowly was much more appealing to him.
After 15 minutes, the map became too small for running around like they used to, but the number of awakened hunting them decreased to 60, so Abner decided it was time to stop running away and face them.
But that did not mean that Abner and his cohort were going to blindly charge at them; in fact, they did the opposite, waiting for them to come.
Brave tried to use his aspect to lure the close-range fighters to them, but they covered their eyes; this however left them open to Brave and Glorielle's arrows.
Glorielle had switched to a bow a while ago, since swords didn't help her attack from a distance.
Like that, six more awakened were killed, reducing their numbers to almost half the original amount.
Realizing they were just sitting ducks like this, they attacked, but as they got closer to Abner, they started cursing as some Pure Light got into their eyes. "Bastard, this aspect is basically cheating! Turn the lights off, you little baby!"
Abner didn't listen to them and joined melee combat, glowing, giving them the feeling that they were looking at the most merciless thing in the world.
However, to the people who saw him as an ally, he looked incredibly righteous and noble to those who saw him as neither; it had no effect.
With Alec, Kaelen, Naamah and Glorielle who had switched back to her War hammer, joining him in close combat, he barely managed to hold his ground until there were only 10 teams left.
Abner sighed in relief as he said, "We were lucky not all Awakened went after us; if more of them joined in, we would have definitely lost."
All of them nodded exhaustedly, soon logging off along with Abner.
As Abner left his basement, his mother praised him: "I saw the Dreamscape tournament. You did so well, Abner; I'm proud of you." His father nodded along.
Abner took a glance at the TV where they watched the tournament; the replays of the best parts were still playing; he focused on them, ignoring his brother, who was taunting him by calling him a chicken who only knew how to run.
The part where he and this cohort faced over 50 Awakened and came out on top played, and the commentator, the Master reviewing the scenes, and the public were left speechless at the sight.
Abner sighed as he thought, 'I only joined the Dreamscape at first because I wanted to see where I stand compared to other awakened, and I joined the tournament to easily win some memories, but this was way harder than I thought!'
The experience of the first round of the tournament made Abner even have the passing thought, 'Maybe I should have just asked Kaelen for some ascended memories; they are extremely expensive, sure, but he practically uses money like tissue paper.'
Abner sighed and shook his head, dismissing the thought—there was no need to resort to begging!