A... strange montage?

With act three starting, that meant the end would be nearing. The ginormous crowd would soon be able to ask any questions they had and hopefully The Host would answer.

Kai would probably ask about the fact that they were being bidded on at the current moment, but for now, all he could do was watch his own highlights.

Act three started off with Kai watching Failure's speech. Even now, Failure's charisma was undeniable. Kai was certain that it would be hard to meet anyone like Failure, even if there was countless Subdimensions.

The scene changed to the armies journey through the forest towards the Mother Tree. A few highlights of Failure talking to and Aldred later, it was time for the scene where Kai apologised to Noelle.

One strange part over the course of this whole thing was The Host had decided to gloss over certain scenes like Kai gifting Sofia those bracers, when Kai first met John and when John had saved him from drowning in that river, yet they seemed strangely fixated on any time that Kai and Noelle were together, bar their argument.

As for why that was, Kai wouldn't be able to tell you, he was just assuming that it was because both of them were in the top ten.

The crowd watched along with eager eyes as if they were watching the final scene of a romance movie, making Kai cringe in response. Why do all of his clips always have to be taken out of context? He wasn't blushing in that moment because he liked her, it was just because it was  embarrassing to apologise in general.

And just when the crowd thought that they were going to get rewarded for their patience, the all important moment came.

An abomination landing on Kai's face and blowing him up.

That moment shocked nearly everyone present, all of them wondering how the hell Kai had survived that. By now, the man who made fun of Kai earlier had learned just to accept it.

Honestly, Kai was becoming fond of that man, he seemed like someone who was slowly learning the 'don't piss off people you don't know' rule. He would probably be able to do fine if he ever encountered the necromancer.

They watched as Aldred devoured half of the falling abominations as Kai's eyes widened in shock horror.

Another song had started playing.

And while the song did suit the current situation that was being shown, Kai just couldn't believe that they had actually decided to play this song. At this point, Kai would have believed that the 'voters' were just random teenagers from Earth.

The song that was playing now was Firework by Katy Perry.

The song started playing from the very beginning but was slightly sped up to match the clip, it still sounded fine, just a little off.

People watched as the Lycan Kai emerged from a cloud of dust, all of them realising how he had survived.

Then, they watched with even more confusion as both Kai and Wa'rak scaled separate trees.

Honestly, Kai thought that the song that was playing would give away enough about the current situation.

Kai and Wa'rak both kicked off the trees, aiming for each other. Wa'rak angled himself downwards while Kai kicked off against the arrogant wolf.

And as it was obviously planned, just as Kai was about to slash the first abomination, the chorus of Firework started playing.

To be fair to the angel, once all the explosions started going off together it did faintly remind Kai of a firework show.

... If the firework show was made up of strange blood and bits of abomination flesh, that is.

The explosions continued, painting the space under the heavy tree tops in a deep red light. It was honestly quite a pretty sight, kind of like a strange demonic sunset.

Then, they all watched with wide eyes as Kai felt the effects of gravity pulling him back down to the ground.

Kai remembered this moment very well, this hurt way more than he had expected it to, only making him wince as he got to watch it from a different angle.

A cloud of dust obscured Kai as he crached into the ground, creating a crater. People watched as Sofia went to help him, only for them to watch that final abomination land directly on Kai's extended claw.

They then watched as Failure carefully took the abomination and as Noelle approached him.

And to Kai's dismay, the angel showed the scene of Noelle offering him water, followed by him opening his mouth, then they just skipped it to when they got back to walking, making it look like Noelle had actually carefully given Kai the water.

Kai grimaced. Why was it like they were trying to ship them? They must have seen the whole tutorial, they obviously weren't a good match. Plus, Kai was still technically a minor, meanwhile Noelle was nineteen. Sure that age gap wasn't that bad when compared to what it could be, but-

Kai's eyes widened as his face paled.

Now that he thought about it, what were the laws in other Subdimensions like? If there was someone like Eye of the Moon who would just snatch up random women, then that definitely wasn't a good sign.

And if what The Ever-changing said about the aging process being different, how someone can look twenty while being hundreds, if not thousands of years old, then...

Kai just stopped it there, not wanting to needlessly stress himself out any more.

After all, the version of him in the clip had just reached the Mother Tree.

The Demon was still as ugly as Kai remembered, its hideous body being enough to make anyone present grimace.

After those kind pleasantries exchanged by the Demon and Failure, Aldred and the Demon started their fight.

The camera then focused on Kai as he held back the horde of weaker abominations, his body growing in hair and size while he was engulfed by a wave of raging gray flames.

Nearly everyone recognised Kai as the person who tenth place was watching in her highlight, making it seem more plausible that Kai had gotten first place. He had technically created tenth place after all, even if that statement was a little messed up.

Kai's claws cut through abomination flesh undiscriminately as he spun around, killing the weaker abominations in a single attack.

That clip went on for a few minutes, and to Kai's surprise, the angel had decided to not play a song for it.

Then, Kai had his moment of realisation as he races to the Mother Tree. After killing that second invisible wendigo, people watched Kai continue his dash, only he was now dodging every attack efficiently.

They thought he had just gotten really good at dodging, not that he had some strange future sight that let him see about a second into the future.

Then, not to Kai's surprise, majority of his and Failure's conversation was censored, except for a few bits and a bit of Kai's inspirational speech.

Just as Kai's speech wrapped up, the Kai watching chuckled softly as another song started playing.

A song he recognised instantly from that conversation he had with Failure.

I'm still standing by Elton John.

The song was soft in the background, acting as a white noise for the still ongoing conversation.

Then, there was the moment where Kai pulled out the Miracle Bead, he then-

What?

Instead of showing Kai pulling out the Miracle Bead, the recording started to get weird.

The screen started cutting in and out of a black screen as the audio started to distort, creating a strange remix of the song playing.

It showed glimpses of Kai's transformation, his hair growing in length as his body was wrapped around by that wooden armour. It then cut to black and a few sobs could be heard, then it showed the golden shockwave that Kai was the epicentre of.

The next minute or so was a crazy mix of a black screen, static, and barely second long clips of Failure fighting the Demon using Kai's body.

However, there was one thought that was more dominant than others in Kai's mind?

Was this why he had gotten first? It didn't show him eating the Miracle Bead, and it's not like anyone had been near him to argue against that fact. Did they believe that this was part of Kai's abilities?

The next clip then showed the ground trembling as the wooden dome started to form, countless wooden objects all under Failure's control floating in the air.

A few more clips of them fighting, mixed with black screens and static.

Then, it showed the clip of Kai blocking the Eradicate attack that was going to wipe out the humans and moon beasts. The audio even returned to normal for a few moments just so people could hear Kai when he said 'leave', making it sound as if Kai was actually the one in control of his body and this was actually part of his abilities.

I'm still standing continued to play in the background of all the clips, adding to the moment.

The clips them showed glimpses of Failure and Aldred fighting the Demon, Failure ripping a chunk out of the moon, Failure's sword getting broken and Failure ripping off one of the Demon's arms. There was a strange interference in between all the clips, the song cutting in and out while the screen would keep rapidly switching scenes.

And just as the song got to the end, the clip showed a glimpse of the giant chunk of the moon crashing into the ground.

The screen turned black after that clip as a line of text appeared on the screen.

Act Three: Resilience - Concluded