“It’s about time,” he sighed. “I’ve been waiting a long while for this plan to come to fruition. I thought I might have a few extra minutes to kill you individually, but alas, we ran out of time. I’m sorry to inform you, outsider, but this is a coup d’état. The Archer family is taking over. No longer will the most powerful climbers bow to the rules put in place to enslave them. They deserve to rule as they are the strongest!”

So that was what this was all about. Power. The Archer family felt like they didn’t have as much of it as they deserved and they were willing to kill and hurt people to get more of it.

This was the exact danger the climber president had told him about. The shifting concerns of humanity as individuals grew in strength and power leaps and bounds beyond their common peers.

This was the very destructive impulses and tendencies that had led to their original world getting destroyed. It was what led to the formation of this city in the first place.

And now the Archers wanted to burn that all to the ground.

They couldn’t let them win, Max thought. Not if he could help it.

He squirmed in place.

He tried to do the mana bridge technique once more, but nothing happened.

“Your little mana bridge trick won’t work now,” said Cyrus. “So long as I have this buffer here. My mana cannot be overpowered by yours.”

Crap.

What am I going to do, thought Max.

Easy solution, he thought. He’d already figured out how to work around Cyrus’ trait. Last time, he’d used Cyrus’ trait against him, but that was harder now with the buffer present. Even still, he could still use his own trait, shadow blink. The ability didn’t require any actual physical movement to perform. In fact, the shadow blink ability operated in defiance of physical laws.

The only problem Max could foresee was if he did use shadow blink, would he still be paralyzed when he reappeared? He didn’t see why he would be though. By shadow blinking, he’d be escaping the clutches of the bind trait’s mana thread.

The next question was, who should he target: Cyrus or the buffer?

He’d pick his target, shadow blink, and then knock one of them out. He had a feeling too that his punch might be more powerful than normal.

Cyrus and his companion stood in the middle of the arena, grinning.

Cyrus had given his smug speech already, so they were just waiting. That was their role in this operation on the tower-zone. Paralyze everyone so that there could be a smooth and hostile takeover of the city.

It wasn’t going to be so smooth any more now though, thought Max right as he triggered his shadow blink ability.