Finn froze, staring at Lex. In his mind, he and Lex were the strongest in the academy. They were the ceiling of the participants. How could there be someone stronger than them? Someone who'd manipulated them both, played them like fiddles, and took all the prize for himself?
Lex didn't care about Finn's thoughts. She just wanted to know who the moles belonged to. Who was the god whose followers had done all this? How had two random wanderers survived the whole tournament, when their big alliances had fallen apart?
Back in the tournament field, the three clan leaders finally ran into the last remaining group of followers. Lirael stared at the thin wood elves in front of him, frowning.
It was Elara Voss's followers. The same wood elf who'd left the Conquest Legion months ago, hiding in the deep forest to survive. She had natural forest affinity, she'd known how to conserve resources, she'd lived off wild fruit and herbs, avoiding all the wars. As a wanderer, she didn't have much, so the three kings had almost forgotten she was there.
Lirael looked at the starved, tired wood elves, and thought. Rob them? No way. They robbed the rich, not the poor. These guys were worse off than they were. And they had more than enough food now. Kill them? No. They were just labor, and they had no grudge against them. Losing a few of their own people just to kill a bunch of starving elves? That wasn't worth it.
He turned to Korg. "Hey, ape brain. What do we do with them?"
Korg scratched his head. "Wait. We have too much food, right?"
Lirael's face fell. Too much. Even after stealing all those spatial bags from the Tide Pact, they still didn't have enough. They hadn't expected the underground farm to produce so much. They harvested more every day than they could eat.
Korg grinned. "Let them stay. Let them build us carts. We can give them the extra food we can't store. It's just going to rot if we leave it anyway. Might as well get something out of it."
Lirael thought about it, then nodded. He went to talk to Elara, told her what he wanted.
Elara was already stunned. She'd watched the Conquest Legion fall, then the Tide Pact, and now the moles had won. She couldn't believe it. When she heard the offer, she agreed immediately. What else was she going to do? If she stayed alone, she'd starve, or get killed by monsters. Joining them was the only way to survive, and get a good rank in the tournament.
For the last year, it was easy. They fixed up the old cities, used them as their own. Elara's followers built carts, they gave the three kings all their spatial bags. The extra food they couldn't eat? They brewed it into wine.
When the high-level monsters came? It was nothing to the Void-Forsaken, who'd been fighting void beasts their whole lives. They spent the last year in peace, packing up all their grain, getting ready to go home.
Outside, the participants stared at the countdown timer, watching it tick down to zero. No one else came out. The whole room went silent.
They'd been played. From the three big alliances, to the wanderers falling apart, to the moles weakening the other two alliances, to picking up the pieces at the end. They'd all been puppets, dancing on the strings of that hidden god.
Everyone's face was red, embarrassed. Lex sighed. "That plan. It was brilliant. It didn't look like much, but he used his followers' strengths perfectly, dragged us all down step by step. I don't blame him. We lost fair and square."
Finn looked up, his eyes bright. He wasn't sad. He was excited.
Lex saw it, and whispered. "You want to recruit him? Don't. Someone that talented must have a huge power backing him. He did all this on the fly, after the rules changed. That kind of talent… he must be working for the royal family, to fight the void and the abyss."
Finn just smiled. "The royal family has their own internal conflicts. Maybe he doesn't want to deal with all that trouble?"
Lex stared at him. Finn smiled back.
He turned. "Then we'll just have to compete for him. Each on our own."
Lex nodded. "Agreed."
Back in Laia's viewing box, she stared at the examiners walking toward her, grinning. She'd won! She was first place! She was going to get the prize money, open her sandwich shop, and everything was going to be fine!
But then, the head examiner handed her the rewards. A legendary artifact. A set of summoning cards. An invitation to study under the legendary Grand Mage Valerius.
Laia stared at them. Wait. Where was the divine power crystals? The money? She'd worked so hard for this! She just wanted the money to open her sandwich shop! The artifact? She didn't need it! The cards? Useless! Studying under Valerius? What was she going to do with that? She just wanted money!
She stared at the rewards, then at her followers, who were cheering, celebrating their victory, bringing back all the grain and wine and spatial bags.
Laia Hayes stared into space, confused. What the hell had just happened? She'd won the whole tournament, and she didn't get the one thing she wanted.