Ceres Chaos [Exosuit Progression]

The one-on-one fight between the middle-class slovesa and Ceres raged on in the interior of the slovesa spawner, while the other three members dodged small drones and tried to place as many explosives as possible.

Ceres was nearing the limit of his strength, feeling a sense of sluggishness that his body somehow could not ignore, despite being in a VR world. The strain of being at the peak of his ability was finally catching up to him.

Ceres kept forcing his mind and body to stay at the peak NEIR level, but he was slipping up more and more, while the middle-class slovesa was slowly gaining more and more confidence, aware of the increasingly sluggish movements that Ceres was making.

As a few minor attacks hit his shoulders, the pain from the skin and flesh being ripped off Ceres ravaged his extremely sensitive nerves.

When he started to waver and fail more parries, the middle-class slovesa finally noticed the purpose of the other three humans that infiltrated.

It gave a good forward kick in the chest of Ceres, causing the defensive plates in his exosuit to buckle and impact his chest, forming a large dent as he was sent flying to the makeshift entrance.

Ceres collapsed against the wall of the spawner, his shoulders and arms burning from the over usage, his joints overheating from the intense friction that went beyond what a human body could withstand.

A part of him was urging himself to just lie down and take a rest, but Ceres’ hardened resolve stopped that, keeping him barely conscious.

He had hardly occupied the middle-class slovesa for more than a minute.

In the distance, he heard the shouts of his squad members who were doing the best they can to buy more time by continuously dodging the middle-class slovesa, but he knew that they wouldn’t be able to outrun it forever.

As his brain ran fatalistic scenarios of his squad failing and the remainder of the team falling to a never-ending swarm of drones, a sense of desperation started to take hold within him. Ceres started to lose a sense of reality from VR, treating it as a life-and-death event.

His fighting spirit soared as he took his first step to upright himself, painting an image of a dogged fighter unwilling to submit no matter what.

As he shouted his first primal battle cry, a chunk of black goo within his body pulsated in resonance.

***

Cardenia squinted at the screen, unsure of what she was seeing. “It can’t be transcendence, it’s impossible in a 20-year-old kid, and not in VR,” Senia remarked while Zachary sat at the edge of his seat, no longer saying a word as he watched the battle happening in accelerated time, his eyes staring intently at the screen.

[I don’t believe what’s happening here, but it seems like this particular participant seems to be undergoing some sort of mythical transformation that we only see in movies. How is he still standing after taking multiple hits from the middle-class slovesa? Citizens of Athen, it looks like we have ourselves a new dark horse!]

The viewers went wild, especially those of the outer districts who finally found a role model to support in the competition. They were tired of seeing inners dominate the competition and wanted to overturn the norm, and Ceres was just the right person for the job.

Even the inner viewers couldn’t deny that the fight was amazing to watch and were content with the inherent pride in the level of Athen’s competition.

The search interest of the competition doubled as the word of mouth spread through the outer zones.

The examiners who ran the qualifiers and hence the VR world started to pay more attention to Ceres himself. They couldn’t find any form of hacking or external influence, while the invigilators on the ground double-checked the surroundings of the examiner pod.

Ann Lesion watched with the peripheral of her eyes as the invigilators accessed the internals of the pod, verifying the structure and trying to seek out any potential signs of tampering.

Her heart raced faster as she tried to control her face, sitting stoically while watching her own holoscreen.

In the ballroom, Cardenia became more and more delighted with her choice, and she had already received favourable replies from some of the more prestigious instructors she knew personally on Athen.

She smirked as she saw Ceres launch a brutal counteroffensive, landing a few extreme attacks in such a fluid reactive motion that demonstrated a peak NEIR beyond his supposed level of 1.8. It seemed as though he was breaking through to a higher rating.

The NEIR scale was exponential, so the gap between decimals as you climbed was vastly wider with each increment, a jump of 1.8 to anything higher - even 1.81 - meant his strength increased exponentially too.

However, the instantaneous strength didn’t last very long, causing Ceres to faint from exhaustion, but not before decimating the middle-class slovesa with his vibra-spears in less than 3 minutes.

Zachary finally leaned back in his chair, nodding. “Well, I thought I found a hidden gem in the outer zones, but this seems similar to the kind of strength mothers get when they see their kids in danger. If the boy has learnt how to exploit this innate strength, that’s great but it isn’t what I’m looking for.” He sighed as the future he envisioned in his head disappeared rapidly.

“I regret to say this, Imperial Prince Zachary, but you’re not going to find any transcendent humans to support you here on Athen, especially not this young,” Cardenia smirked, knowing that with enough resources, she could turn Ceres into the next generation of young stars, with her name and status forever embellished as his mentor.

The amount of fame and power that came with being a mentor of a future transcendent would be immense.

Too bad Zachary didn’t have 20 years or more before his succession race, but Cardenia had all the time in the world on this boring planet. She had finally found her new toy.

A large bustle was seen at the front of the ballroom, where the deputy head of the examination council was busy arguing with a few interns who were obviously workhorses.

“Maybe they are arguing about the excellent performance of my prized Ceres and making him skip the qualifiers. I haven’t been watching any other participants, but they must be discussing this shocking event!” Cardenia thought to herself, as she watched Ceres get carried out by his squad, detonating the spawner successfully.

The smaller and larger slovesa drones collapsed, while the low-class slovesa warriors were easily cleaned up by the rest of the team. They were victorious.

His unconscious body was being paraded around as his small squad of bombers spread exaggerated rumours of his ‘legendary’ fight with the middle-class slovesa. The rest of the team was elated with the destruction of the spawner.

Ceres could easily claim to be one of the top participants in this kill and his leadership.

Some of the viewers even felt he could even go beyond to take down yet another spawner, however, what came next put a sudden stop to their expectations.

[I’ve just received news from the examination council and it seems that the second stage has abruptly ended! All players who have not killed a slovesa or another human player will be eliminated, which surprisingly only leaves ten thousand players!]

[The reason given is due to the destruction of the slovesa spawners, which was done by Ceres alone who is now the dark… hold on… it seems that Ceres wasn’t the only one who destroyed a spawner, but others have also destroyed a total of four other spawners, effectively clearing the second stage’s hidden condition!]

Cardenia’s smirking face was immediately replaced with shock, as she glanced at Oliver Athen who had the widest smirk on his face, not even looking in her direction.

His confident stature seemed to have further enlarged, while the rest of the ballroom looked excitedly at the expressions of the two wager participants.

[Chad Athen and Gwen Derfas, both exosuit repairers, have led their own respective teams to destroy the spawners. In fact, Chad Athen has been destroying them with only three members! Please watch a replay of how they tackled the spawner!]

The announcer himself was at a loss, as he had been solely covering the largest mass of participants. He had been underestimating small squad battles and trying to entertain viewers with large-scale conflicts fought in the middle of the city.

The video showed Chad walking forward with his own retrofitted exosuit with confidence, while he pummelled any low-class slovesa that got close, destroying them with a single punch while his two teammates covered his flanks with rifles that shot with surgical precision.

As he tackled the middle-class slovesa, he showed none of the soul-stirring emotions and spirit that Ceres displayed, simply dodging the attacks and nonchalantly counterattacking, decimating the middle-class slovesa in a matter of seconds.

[What a dominating performance! Despite the fighting aura and emotions shown by Ceres and his team of orphans, what could he possibly do against Chad Athen? It seems like he is destined to be the champion no matter what other participants try to show off!]

In just a matter of seconds, the public opinion amongst the viewers shifted from celebrating Ceres to worshipping Chad Athen.

Even the majority of the outers were also shell-shocked by the overwhelming dominance of Chad Athen’s power! How could Ceres hope to fight against that?

Cardenia was also equally shocked by the gap that Ceres had to overcome, but her internal pride kicked in, proudly proclaiming to herself in her mind that she will polish Ceres way beyond Chad Athen.

Calling up all of the resources she was willing to muster, she started to prepare to win the wager. No one looks down on her and gets away with it, especially not on this shitty backwater planet.

***

Ceres was laying in his VR pod, with Braton and Erik waving at him through the cover. A single invigilator was checking the vital signs through the monitor, while Ceres tried to raise himself up. The cover popped open, letting forth a gush of heat as though the pod’s interior was a sauna.

“Holy shit, Brother Ceres, what the hell happened to you?” Braton held his nose as an intense pressure of male body odour formed an aura that flooded the hall from Ceres’ VR pod.

The examiner was already wearing a mask so he did not react, while the other students started choking and running away. Braton and Erik almost gagged, but they had smelt it before in the Gladius, so they held their friendships over the smell and stood their ground.

“Must be puberty,” Ceres joked, but he too couldn’t figure out why it felt like he just ran halfway across the planet at his full strength.

He was dripping in sweat, while a continuous sense of fighting raged within him, taking most of his mental efforts to restrain the urge to punch something or anything.

He looked down at his hand and realized that he was gripping the corner of the VR pod so tightly that it was about to bend.

“That was amazing, Ceres, I watched the video of your fight, I didn’t know you learnt to unleash the power of friendship!” Erik remarked, a cheeky smile forming on his face.

Ceres responded by trying to hug Braton and Erik, who naturally ran to avoid hugging his dripping body, leading to a laughter-filled chase around the hall.

“Ceres!” Ann Lesion ran towards Ceres, hugging him instead, catching him off-guard. Braton and Erik were more shocked at the fact that the director was willing to hug his sweaty body more than the fact that she even showed affection in this manner at all.

Ceres was stunned! Not even Uncle Dawn would have hugged him in this situation. Was this what it was like to have a mother?

“Are you alright? How are you feeling? Don’t push your limits, Ceres, you’ve only just recovered from your coma!” Ann Lesion started to swap between a caring mother and a lecturing one, causing Ceres to groan. “I’m fine, I feel better than ever! It’s been quite a while since the coma!”

“No you’re not - you’re coming with me to the hospital again for your check-up. I’m glad the qualifiers stopped instead of going on to the third stage!”

As Ceres was dragged off, he looked back at Braton and Erik, mouthing a few words: “Team, execute Plan D” The two boys grinned.

***

“Welcome to The Qiu Dumpling Stor.. oh it's you, get out!” A short kick to the shin caused Ceres to double over in pain.

“I’m a legitimate hospital patient that was just discharged! Why are you kicking me for doing well at the qualifiers!” Ceres cried out, as Lisa Qiu stomped back into the store, while Braton and Erik waved him over to their table.

The restaurant was packed, and a few of the regulars patted Ceres on the back and cheered as he nudged his way over.

“Hey everyone, how’s Plan D going?” Ceres grinned, to which Braton showed off the bill. They just ordered approximately a hundred steamed dumplings for themselves, and Ceres arrived right on time.

“Oh wow, Trissa, you actually came along for Plan D.” Trissa didn’t reply, just giving a quick look at Ceres before quickly returning to her vacant gaze at the terminal monitor that showed replays of the second stage qualifier.

She watched replays of fights of all other participants, a tiny smile forming every time someone was killed or got knocked out, though none of the boys noticed it.

The three boys joked a bit, with Erik seemingly trying to get Trissa involved in the conversation but she hardly uttered a word, staring blankly at the videos of other players. It was only when the dumplings arrived that the team including her got up to do a customary cheer.

The rest of the restaurant joined them in cheers, some trying to even sneak Ceres a beer or two despite being underaged.

“Look at that outer, think he’s all hot stuff. Chad would wipe the floor with him.” A few customers weren’t exactly local to Zone 17 and were only in the area to receive their training or certification from Gladius.

For those who had seen other planets’ competition, Ceres was considered nothing, especially with such a one-time-off gimmick that didn’t seem reliable.

One of them even stood up and shouted at Ceres: “Don’t get cocky you fuck, any other kid out in the Beyond would’ve wiped your ass. You wouldn’t even last a second there!”

“Well, you’re not going to last a second here!” Two swift kicks hit the knee of the customer, causing him to scream as his legs bent the wrong way, falling to the floor.

“The rest of you, get out!” Lisa screamed while the rest of the restaurant who had been cheering for Ceres swapped over to cheer for Lisa.

The group of customers decided to leave instead of attempting to start a fight with the entire restaurant, carrying the whimpering guy away out of the store. The cheers in the restaurant got even louder, while the customers got progressively even more drunk.

Amidst the ensuing laughter and celebration, Lisa had been continuing secretly kicking out customers who didn’t think very highly of Ceres, throwing them out of the store.

A faint smile grew on her face every time she saw Ceres and the team smile and laugh as he was carried around the restaurant or given a drink.

As the closing time and curfew of the orphanage got near, only the five kids were left in the restaurant, while Mrs Qiu and Mr Qiu were cleaning up. “Any ideas on the third stage, Ceres?” Erik asked.

The entire Team Dumpling was in, as plenty of students were too afraid to even leave their starting points or too weak to fight a slovesa. Considering the achievements of Braton, Erik and Trissa, they were definitely on the road to participating in the main competition!

“The third stage was meant to be in series with the second stage, so I assume it would’ve been a full slovesa invasion. They didn’t expect students to be good enough to take down the slovesa spawner, despite making it easier than in real life.” Ceres answered.

“What about Chad Athen? If it comes down to a team battle, can we win?” Braton asked, a bit frightened by the power demonstrated by Chad in the various videos that have been circling the web.

Even other planets such as Strathon, the main capital of the star system was taking notice. The customers from before all supported Chad much more than Ceres. A division was already forming between those who supported different participants.

Erik too was a bit humbled when he watched Chad’s video, while Trissa only got more excited. They were also aware that the support for Chad Athen was much higher than that for them! Looking towards Ceres, they were waiting for him to come up with a plan!

Ceres finally chuckled slightly and with a large grin, he stood up, raising a dumpling with his chopsticks.

“Of course, when coming across such a strong opponent, there’s only one thing we as a team can do best.”

“We run!”