Queltsom:
Slowly, senses began to trickle into my being. The feel of the cold stone under me was the first to welcome me, making me uncomfortable. The sound of the unending silence followed, then came the mixed smell of an empty room and an oddly sweet sent reminding me of a fruit of some type. Slowly, ever so slowly, as if a flame was growing and kindling, thoughts returned, the first thing coming back being my... identity. I was... Queltsom. I had no last name–it was lost. But I had a mentor–someone who not only trained me, but cared for me like a mother. And thus, unless I knew my family's name, I would forever be known as Queltsom Worldguest, the latter being the name she gave me instead of her own clan's name. That didn't make me less important to her, it just liberated me from the burdens of the clan, among other reasons.
The flame of my mind slowly grew hotter and stronger, and memories began to bombard me like an army of friendly pets that had waited so long for my return. At least that was the case at first. Then, the last events I remembered hit me like a Land Drake. Dreadclaw's laughing like an evil witch while Dragnoria screamed in agony from the fowl demonic ash he had used on her. Fear hit me in a burst, and I screamed. It was the most enraged and anguished sound I had ever heard, and it was coming out of my own throat. I didn't have the chance to be surprised before the power within the scream discharged, shaking the ground, filling the building I was in with a bestial aura that spread outside to a few inches, along with the scream. Panick and rage took the driver's seat in the metaphorical wagon that was my body and mind. I began to analyze the situation. Cold stone, no sense of the familiar comforting aura in Dragnoria's home, the lack of any presences near me, different building size, the sense of restlessness and fear from some people outside that felt like they were observing a titan that might eat them at any moment if they made only one mistake. Perhaps they were right, as they felt pitifully weak to my senses. It didn't matter to the current me, who was gripped by fear and cold rage. They were tensing from what I sensed, their body language shouting: Let's go kill this guy. My pressure sense was my lifeline, allowing me to sense living creatures and determine their general emotional states, disposition and level of power. The emotional state was vague from this distance, only a whiff of contempt and disdain, but that was enough for me to consider them as enemies, even without their body language broadcasting their intentions out to me. I would ask where I was later. As for now, I had some prey to defeat.
Blake Wails:
Blake–second lieutenant to the captain of Elva's town guard– Vernon Rothar, fumed at yet another day where he guarded the building with the odd monster they had begun to call the Slumbering Subject due to its perplexing, still ever so incomprehensible nature. According to the reports they had received five years back. There was supposedly a strange, large and menacing humanoid monster beyond anything anyone had imagined charging out of the forest looking like it had run a hundred marathons back-to-back without any interruptions, judging by its appearance. They had said it didn't aim to kill, just drive off its attackers. Then, that same creature transformed into a young boy with brown hair and half-closed eyes, who never attacked or really did anything ever since. It was sleeping, slumbering. That caused the noblewoman who led the city– Lady Jane Silverstar– to show an almost obsessive interest in this 'subject', conducting multiple tests on it with the money and influence she had. The only sign of life it had ever shown was that it mechanically ate any food put near it, especially the food that came out of a particular wench's spacial garden. Blake really looked forward to another hunting session where they would try to force that woman into giving away that priceless, wonderous item. But alas, today was his turn to guard the Slumbering Subject and put up with this stupid town's equally stupid naming sense.
As if to mock him, the creature no longer became slumbering. A nightmarish cry of anguish and rage sounded out from within the building that served as its prison, almost ignoring the physical barrier of the door all together. He barked the order to charge at the fifty men behind him that were following him in all his shifts. With their combined might along with the Kota energy enhancing them, they blew the door open and stormed in, trying to squeeze the largest number of them at a time. It was a dark space, designed to disorient the ones within and make them as uncomfortable as possible, with darkness-amplifying inscriptions and illusions of moving shadows and other spooky objects. They were created by professionals from the big city of Raiga, west of Elva, which meant that no one from their own small town could resist them without the special items designed to exclude the one holding them from the effect. But it seemed to not affect the Slumbering Subject –which was no longer slumbering– at all. As soon as they entered, the normal-looking creature spoke in a weird language.
“Yi glenftie fyr dei, alior!”
“We don't understand your demonic language, you demon!”, one of his guards shouted.
“I know, I was just checking your level of culture. But it looks like you don't even understand Isian, which is pretty similar to the Common tongue once you figure out the kinks. Anyway, I was saying that you were the ones who asked for this. In other words, don’t blame me for what’s about to happen to you.”, the creature replied, its voice raspy from disuse but otherwise normal. Blake immediately dismissed the claims of him being some demon. Maybe the stupidity of the ones who sent the report made them see things that weren't there. Still, the boy was getting on his nerves. How dare he call him stupid, and with that nonchalant tone no less!
“Actually, I'm surprised you didn't laugh at that other guard's statement. 'We don't understand your demonic language, you demon' is too redundant, don't you think? The only thing that's left would be for him to call me Mr. Demon. I'm not a demon, but still, the joke's funny either way!”
Suddenly, a punch hit a guard in front of Blake, making him stumble back violently and bump into the lieutenant. A kick to another guard followed, felling him to the ground. Without waiting for his orders, the rest of the guards muscled their way into the building's entrance, which was too tight for them. One of the new guards started freaking out, jumping and punching as if hitting enemies only he could see. The idiot lost his nullification pin. Without it, he was as susceptible to the illusions and oppressive darkness enchantments' effect as any prisoner was, other than the Subject that is. With staccato cries of “I'm blind! I'm blind!”, as well as the wild jumping and attacking he was doing, he was hitting the other guards, contributing to the chaos that ensued.
“OH, you're helping me, and you're also blind like me, how coincidental! As a thank you gift, let's work together to fight our common foe!”, the boy said with a chuckle. Suddenly the man was being moved as if he was a puppet being controlled, and that made his panicked movements more targeted. More guards fell, others lost their pins like the first one had and started doing the same as their predecessor. Blake was slack jawed. He was so confused that he was paralyzed, unable to save his underlings or attack the... whatever this enemy was. He certainly felt like a demon now.
Queltsom:
Before the enemies entered the building, I started to prepare. The first thing I did was bottle my negative emotions in a mental vault, which was handy in cases like this where the overwhelming feelings would hamper my planning. It also stopped the aura of rage and fear from pouring out of me. I almost thought that I was forgetting something important, then automatically dismissed the notion, part of my instincts telling me that I should focus on the battle at hand and leave whatever my mind tried to drudge up for later. That done, I assessed my body by stretching and performing combat moves to test its performance. I felt sore, lethargic, slow as void. Thus, it wasn't time for me to fight physically. Summoning was the only way now. I thanked the God for Dragnoria's suggestion to learn complimentary arts. There were many options for that. Concocting would allow me to make potions and pills to enhance myself and my allies while providing me with income. Imbuing would let me mass-produce weapons and other items and sell them for a lot of money, due to their increased capacity of holding inscriptions and amplifying them. And finally, inscriptions would allow me to add more complicated effects to larger constructions, from the aforementioned imbued weapons, to mobile golems, to the large-scale defense formations used in fortresses. I did learn all of them, at least enough of the basics that allowed me to advance farther if I wanted or had to. But the thing that would help me now was summoning. I had a few friends I could summon who were reliable and helpful in this situation. I didn't know how long I had been sleeping, but thankfully the contracts I signed with the creatures didn't have expiration dates. Instead, they were on a basis of need. I would summon them when I needed them, and our relationship would depend on how well each of us treats the other, among other things.
I mobilized the power of my mind and reached out for all the mana I could possibly control. It was way more than I was used to, but the pressure of the situation didn't allow me to slow down and admire my increased mana capacity. I shaped the mana into the runes for speed and mind with a quick and practiced chant, then sent the rune-shaped mana into the Motion bridge within my Soulspace. It came back out as a new type of mana that I immediately distributed into my mind. My thought speed increased tenfold, and I started summoning.
“From the World of Might and Mind, I summon Beatrice, the Puppet Mistress.”, I mentally spoke, nudging the mark the creature had left on my innerspace. I felt energy drain out of my body and mind, and solidify into a distinct shape, then a foreign presence inhabited the solidified energy.
“Took you long enough to call me. I thought I wasn't getting anything from you anymore.”, the spider-like beast said in a deadpan voice.
“Sorry, I can't summon you if I'm sleeping. Anyway, we don't have enough time to talk, lemme summon Travis and we'll start planning.”, I said quickly and began once again.
“From the World of Wild War, I summon Travis, the Blind brawler.", I nudged a second mark. The marks let me shorten the summoning to only the world and a name that was agreed upon, rather than the whole coordinates of the exact place on a cosmic scale and the names of sixty of the summon's ancestors. It also allowed me to use an easy and more memorable name, because the names of those creatures were long and weird. Travis was actually Tirageranaviratus sun of Breskanestius, and Beatrice's real name was Betriaronristekal Thekari. A second presence appeared, settling in another mass of solidified energy that felt a lot more in tune with me than Beatrice's.
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“Greetings Kindred, it has been ages! How are you doing, my friend?”, Travis's voice spoke, sounding old and raspy, yet cheerful and expressive.
“I don’t know how well I’m doing, considering the whole sleeping for an unknown period of time thing, but thanks man!”, I said hurriedly. “Anyways I need you for a battle against an army of hostile weaklings that I'm too weak to fight right now. I know it sounds arrogant, but I don't have time to contemplate my opinion when all of them see me as something to do with as they please one moment, then when I wake they seek to kill me!”
“Oo, an army you say? Sounds exciting, though the weaklings part tamps it down a bit. So, what is the plan, boss?”, Travis asked.
“Guys, the plan is John Mac. Beatrice, there are some strange objects they're holding that seem to counter the energy the inscriptions around me give off, so they won't get disoriented from the darkness and illusions. Too bad for them, their effects rely on someone not being blind. So, snatch the nullifiers from them and let them get confused from the combination of the inscription's illusions and the site of Travis. Travis will tangle with some of them and try to get some buffs. while Beatrice pulls a Traymus Spiral.", I said simply, both the blind humanoid and the spider mentally agreeing. I slowed my mind back down. It would be a while before the backlash of the mind acceleration hit me. That should be enough time for me to have fun with my captors and make a break for it.
The enemies in the lead entered first, breaking the door with their fists. There were around ten of them, as the entrance wasn't wide enough for fifty-one people to squeeze through all at once. I told them that they were the ones who asked for it in the Isian tongue of the Isverok Titans, and one of them ineloquently expressed the group's incomprehension. All the while, Beatrice extended her webs and aimed for one of the guards behind their leader while I was joking with the guards and mocking them. The new guard had just entered the building as part of the second wave. The webs, which were hidden by the darkness of the room, were undetected by anyone. They caught the object that countered the energy of the enchantment and yanked it away from the guard's body. Immediately, the man startled and stumbled, bumping into his leader. He jerked and moved wildly, hitting his allies left and right. Beatrice helped him in his unwilling quest by fully ensnaring him in her webs and controlling him like a marionette, showing everyone why she was called the Puppet Mistress, even if no one was actually aware of her existence.
While all that happened with one of the guards, Travis was already causing chaos by intermittently hitting the guards who weren't blinded in a random order. Whenever the ensnared guard said the word 'blind', Travis got a 5% boost to his power and speed. Beatrice blinded and snared more guards, and the instances of the word 'blind' quickly accumulated, until Travis felt like a musclebound mountain to my senses. With each defeat of one of the guards, I got a little essence as a reward. It was half of what one would get for a kill instead of an incapacitation, but I wouldn't kill unless absolutely necessary and utterly unavoidable. Still, the essence relaxed my muscles and the soreness and lethargy abated slightly. I still felt like my muscles were made of rock, but it lessened noticeably, becoming more bearable. When the Blind Brawler came near the foes who were actually blinded, they freaked out even more, shouting absurd things like 'Ghost Dragon! Spirit of Death!'. The latter got punched even harder for his absurdities. The guy didn't even know he was being blasphemous, but still, Travis lost a little bit of his temper there.
More guards fell, whether to each other or to Travis's actions. Soon, only The guard leader was left. The others all got teleported out by some unknown items on their person. It was also the time when Travis and Beatrice decided to leave the leader for me. One of the restrictions in our contracts was that they couldn't help me by ganging up on one to five people unless most of them were higher-tiered than me or I couldn't fight on my own due to an ailment, like this stiffness I felt ever since I woke. The presences faded, taking 10% of my Kota with them. Something shook within my forgotten Kota core. It snapped, and I felt momentum building within it. The energy I used to summon the creatures was a combination of native energies belonging to the body and the mind, but what they took was Kota, a pure energy drawn from a unique realm in the cosmos and cultivated into one's body as a first step in the path of cultivation. Kota was external as opposed to the internal energies I used for summoning, and had no affinity or special nature. It just did what most energies did natively, empowering and enhancing what it touched or harming and destroying it, depending on how it was used. Unfortunately, I couldn't investigate the phenomenon before the irate guard leader charged at me.
“Whatever you may be, demon or otherwise, I will make you pay! Now you have no choice but to fight like a man!”, he snarled. I fell into my battle stance. I easily got used to my body once again. The essence that poured into me from the rest of the guards' defeat kept relaxing and rejuvenating my body, lifting the sensation of having muscles made of rock from it. I realized that my body had changed somewhat from the last time I was awake. I had grown taller and now had more reach than before. I reveled in the sense of my body, which I didn't have much time to explore further before the man facing me started punching and kicking. His style was... disappointingly underdeveloped and laughably predictable . Ever since I sensed the guards and their pitiful level of power, as well as their lack of body control back when I had just woken up, I had the suspicion that I was in a low-tier world. No one was stupid enough to post civilians who knew nothing about fighting as guards, not even in low-tier worlds. That left only one possibility. I had somehow ended up being imprisoned in a low-tier world, and the God knew how far I was from Dolven or how I even got here. The bottled emotions in my mental vault almost escaped, but I locked them tight. I tried to treat this as training, limiting myself to only the pattern he followed, countering him with his own moves, but it still felt like I was a dragon toying with an ant just to make it feel better about itself, only to crush it. It was insignificant and beneath me. I wanted equals and challengers I could defeat, people who were worthy of respect not just because of their power, but also how they used it, not a bunch of weaklings to lord it over. The frustration led me to hit the man a bit harder than I had been when I was mimicking his own strength. He stumbled back with a grunt of pain. I didn't go in for the last strike, instead waiting to see what tricks he had.
“You're not too bad, demon! I don't know where you learned this precious combat style, but it's time for me to get serious. Remember that the one who brings you down and renders you a measly servant is Blake Wails, Second Lieutenant to Guard Captain Rothar of Elva's town guard, beholden to our leader, Lady Jane Silverstar, just like you will be!”, he said in a voice dripping with self-importance. He was just masking his terror at seeing fifty men fall with his own eyes, some from an unseen enemy punching and kicking them to unconsciousness, and the rest defeated by their own kin, manipulated by another unseen enemy. I could sense it clear as day, now that I was close.
The man acted, absorbing Kota into his body. But instead of taking it from its proper realm in the cosmos or using his internal stores of Kota, he absorbed it from the air. Didn't he know that the Kota in the physical world was impure and weak? He also seemed to have integrated his Kota core into his body permanently, absorbing everything else in his innerspace. He couldn't even advance any longer. Sure, it gave a considerable boost in power, allowing him to go toe to toe with most Vak cultivators whose Vak possessed an affinity related to the body aspect at the early realms, but everyone would leave him behind after that, and he would be forced to chase advancement with barely any gains for the rest of his life, with the nature of kota itself and all. The enhanced Kota core generated Kota in addition to storing it, and the combination of the Kota generated by the core and what the man was drawing from the air created a pair of loops rotating in opposite directions, further enhancing strength and speed, while also generating strange sparks of destructive power that felt similar to my [Final Fist] attack, though quite a bit weaker. The strange phenomenon in my own innerspace was agitated and accelerated from the presence of the man's boost, doubling the intensity of the vortex of unbelievably dense Kota inside my spirit. I managed to ignore the pain and prepare myself.
He lunged at me with his tripled speed. I activated [Steel Body] and blocked his punch. Suddenly, a problem emerged. I was able to block his attack just fine, even with the increased power born of his Kota, but what was troubling was the increased intensity of the vortex inside my innerspace. The man kept attacking, and I kept blocking and countering, and all the while the speed of the Kota in my innerspace increased exponentially. The pain was building up, and I didn't know how to stop it or even slow it down. The man didn't leave me a chance to retreat, as the sparks from the opposite flows of his Kota caused him to go berserk. I did know that it was possible to drastically increase the power of a Kota cultivator enough to deal with people a stage higher, but it changed them into monsters that attacked indiscriminately.
The man suddenly roared, and his Kota solidified into the shape of what I recognized as a blade. With the sounds of tearing flesh, his Kota circulation increased, and so did the clash sparks. He was overdrawing his body, feeding his own cells to his core to generate more Kota. With speed I didn't expect, he tried to slit my throat. I had enough time to block with my hand, sacrificing a deep gash in my right hand in exchange for my life. Time suddenly froze. What I intimately knew was a drop of my own blood floated in the air near me. The overwhelming Kota inside my innerspace rushed toward it as if the blood called to it. All that bottled power tore through my body, and I screamed in pain. With that, all my pains came to collect their due. The backlash from my mind acceleration earlier hit me at the same time. Then the king of all my pains returned with overwhelming force. I had forgotten about the pain that I had always felt from the moment I was aware of my thoughts. It seemed to be sentient and alive, pulsating in a rhythm akin to laughter and joy at being triggered. I didn't know how it was triggered, but it caused me to feel enraged. I had just woken up imprisoned. I was just at the edge of being free, but it was all being snatched from me. The Kota left my body in a burst unlike anything I had ever felt before, and I enjoyed the thought that at least I was taking the man down with me if I was actually going to die. I prayed to the God, and something came to me, the memory of a dream. It was the first dream I remembered ever having. The voice of a man screaming in desperation and longing. His presence was familiar. I hadn't felt it in anyone I had actually met before. No, it felt more like a greater and older version of myself. I repeated the words he –my still unknown yet unmistakable father– said to me.
“My Child! My Heir! Remember this and follow it as law!”, he said, and I screamed the words he uttered next, saying them in the first person rather than the imperative form he spoke them with.
“I'll Conquer the Storm! I'll Avenge the Kin! I'll Spurn the Shadow! I'll Walk the Path!”.
Then, new words from another dream followed.
“The Path of the Outcasts, the Path of the Oppressed, the Path of Truth! I walk the Targedim!”
*Boom*
With that explosion, I lost consciousness, welcoming the oblivion and thanking it for releasing me from the unbearable pain that had caught me in its net.