Chapter 208
Bracket Buster (Part 2)
Some say evil wins, when a good person goes against their morals. I never claimed to be a good person, though I tried. I really really tried.
That said, I say the only time evil truly wins is when you see an injustice and let it fester. Opting to treat the symptoms rather than the cause of the condition.
Swoosh!
BOOM!
FWOOM!
Spells burst over and around me. Spells cast by an apparent cult these Zealots of the World Tree. One that has ironically labeled me as a Heretic.
While I am fine with the idea of being called a Heretic, I am not okay with the apparent enslavement and starvation of others for the leaders of this cult’s amusement.
My plan right now is to simply solve the need for fighting for food scrap, this would be done by curing the uniquely designed Blight here on this section of the world tree, which should increase the amount of food that can be grown and eventually lead to the sustainment of life here on floor 210 and those below that are also affected by the vines that have grown from here and spread out trying to destroy the world tree Yggdraspirit.
Yet, after seeing the reaction to my words and actions, I can’t help but feel that these zealots are going to go right back to growing Blight spreading vines that produce euphoric mixtures that make the consumers feel powerful and indestructible. At the cost of destroying the very tree that they and others all live on and require for sustenance.
Seeing them and their greed, I can’t help but realize that a firmer solution might be necessary here. Continuing to keep my Forced Selective Hearing activated I go on to the next stage.
“Hear me now oh Zealots of the World Tree, I will give you but one chance to stop this. Stop attacking me, stop stealing the food from your neighbors and friends and force them to fight in these tournaments for the scraps of food from your tables. If you do this now, lay down your grudges and truly try to help your neighbors rather than watching them tear themselves apart to feed their families I will forgive you.”
“You will forgive me! I will show you…” The lead villain, or at least a leader of the zealots speaks, before releasing a beam of energy at me.
Yet despite moving at the speed of light, I feel the spell coming towards me. It is slow, energy that is haphazardly thrown together. Spell work that is so sloppy that if it came from one of my students I would dismiss him from my classes until he truly took the classes seriously. I might even make them use a weaker version of the Outsourcer-5000, all so they could eventually get proficient enough to finally be able to use and learn to gain anything from the Outsourcer-5000.
These are Bond villains, plain and simple.
People that are so corrupt and vile that killing them is a reward to the world. At least that is what I get from their cheesy dialog and character concepts.
I am close, so close to ending them, letting the sunshine down a little brighter here, and then calling it a day. But I can’t.
That last moral vestige of me is still there at my very core telling me that I cannot and should not respond with my full force.
First, they are easily two hundred levels lower than me. Secondly, none of them have awakened a bloodline, meaning that their abilities and attributes are determined solely by what their classes provide them, which won’t be much, at least not in comparison to me. Meaning that my using my full force here will only be vindictive and show that I’ve lost my sense of compassion for people.
Exhaling.
I calm myself, or at least try to as inspired by their leader, multiple other spells and attacks all get leveled and directed in my direction.
Mentally, I map them all, each and every attacker.
In all there, aren’t many. Only at most two-dozen people, but they are spread out throughout the stands, showing that the corruption of these zealots runs deeply. So deeply that unless I take action here and now, the effects of this floor will only continue to fester and rot away at the core of Yggrdaspirit. I don’t know how far up this tree goes, nor what exactly will happen to the upward growth aspect of this Tower once Yggrdaspirit dies, or worse snaps in half due to it being weakened here, but I don’t want to know.
I assume there are lives above this floor, that are all ignorant to the inherent dangers of their lives. Lives that could be forever damaged or lost if the corruption here on this floor is left to continue.
That is why I feel something break, well break is too hard of a word, maybe crack. But I feel that crack, as I realize that stopping the evil here now, will likely have greater effects to more lives than just the immediate lifeforms that are here. As there are many wonderful creatures and experiences waiting to be observed. Heck, even most of the people here deserve to continue living peacefully, if not for the fact that everyone here is starving, the people here might be truly amazing and capable of even more amazing things.
These are the reasonable and rational answers I give myself as I prepare to cross a line that I know will move me one step closer to the monster that everyone fears me to be.
This is one step closer to the monster that Mallory constantly fears that will form when I leave and she finds out that I created a new school of magic. Wondering if I am going to suddenly create the next Instant Death Ray spell that will destroy the balance of the world as we know it.
Sadly, it is my own thought of Mallory’s fear just now that gives me the quickest answer to my current problem.
Mentally, I think over other possible solutions, only to find that unless I wish to incinerate each Zealot of the World Tree member, this is the only solution I can come up with that I will be able to use and still manage to sleep soundly at night after using.
Focusing my mind, I prepare to do what must be done, but first Teleport.
Poof.
I Teleport away from the incoming volley of attacks, then I return fire. Creating a new spell right on the spot, one that would be up there with the best of Bond Villain death rays.
Focusing on infusing both Light Magic and Spirit Magic, two schools of magic that should never exist together but were for some reason given to me, I fuse them together. Forming a densely coiled threaded beam of energy.
Holding my left hand up, with two fingers up in a meditative pose I focus the newly created beams of energy right at the tips of my two outstretched fingers. Then spiraling them together I shoot off quick but focused bursts at all twenty-five Zealots of the World Tree members that are still trying to attack me. Using my wings I spin around on an axis, while firing modified death rays at each member of the fanatical cult. Like the ultimate disco ball of death, I fire beams that move at the speed of light striking only my chosen targets, while being able to easily avoid any nearby bystanders.
Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
The moment the beams strike, I am met with a number of system messages, though I can only feel frustrated.
I don’t have to look, but I do so anyways, as I watch all twenty-four individuals drop to the ground clasping at their chests, as they no doubt cry out in pain.
This is the time when the system decides to inform me that I might have missed a few steps in my investigative process, but I ultimately ended up at the correct end result.
New Spell Created: Core Shattering Death Ray [Tier XIII] (C): A spell created by Cassiopeia Spiritlight that finds, targets and destroys the magical and Qi related cores of a targeted individual. Conditions: must have both Light and Spirit Magic to utilize.
Newly Discovered Quest (Ongoing): Stopping the War Pigs I (Completed): You have come across a fanatical cult calling themselves Zealots of the World Tree that spread a modified mutation of Blighted ivy that could produce hallucinogenic nectar. While you managed to neutralize their followers on this floor, keep an eye out for more followers of this cult and attempt to find out their origin and motivations. Current Status: Zealots neutralized (25 / 25). Rewards: Experience, Bloodline Marker Identified, experience completion bonus.
Experience Gained:
125,000 / 62,500 / 62,500
Ding.
Level up.
Akashic Qi Master has increased by two levels to level 251.
Ethereal Simulacrums Master has increased by two levels to level 289.
Ethereal Healer has increased by two levels to level 384.
Bloodline Markers Identified.
The Bloodline Markers are always just a prelude before Bloodline Perks, while I have no clue what Bloodline Markers were actually identified, I can’t think that having Bloodline Markers related to creating miniature death rays that burn out the magical and Qi cores of individuals is anything I truly want to have as part of my bloodline going forward.
Worse, I feel slightly tainted that I unlocked my ability to choose my Akashic Qi Master aura from this quest.
I can already feel a mental prompt all but asking me what I want to choose for this new aura, but I decide to hold off for now. My mind is not in the correct space to make this choice.
At least that was what I told myself when I first got the option to choose, which is likely exactly why I decided to choose that moment to make my decision, particularly if I could use it to try to hide myself.
Akashic Qi Master level 250 class evolution chosen. Concealed Cultivation Aura. Concealed Cultivation Aura: Produces an area effect around the class holder that generates an N% reduction of people’s ability to identify your individual Qi signature, or cultivation levels. Radius and efficacy of aura is equal to one tenth of user’s Willpower. Aura will be considered passive and unnoticeable via mana or Qi consumption. Note: This aura will not mask magical effects, items, or magical signatures.
Yep, rather than being able to generate my own specialized Qi fields around me, I chose instead to be able to at least hide my Cultivation level and progress from others. The thought is that I can always use the level 500 aura to create a cultivation aura around me, additionally if I truly needed Qi, I could just convert that from my mana and mana generating auras. This isn’t the best as obviously cultivating Qi directly is better than converting mana to Qi then cultivating that Qi, but at this moment and for a while now, I’ve wanted to be able to hide myself and at least my abilities from others.
Given that I chose focused death beams to complete this quest, I feel the need to hide myself even more seriously than ever before.
Silence.
Yes, I made my aura selection so fast that the audience that had gathered to watch two starving people come together to burn each other alive for scraps of food were now in complete shock at what was happening.
“What did you do?” One of the masses cries out, clutching their spiritual representative tightly as they try to understand what exactly happened.
“You move on without this corruption. You ween yourself off of the poisonous waters of this plant that is killing not only you, but the home you live in. If you want food, you will now be able to grow it, rather than this poisonous ivy that has taken root in your lands and sucked out the natural resources of your home.” I state, still using every decibel allowed by my Forced Selective Hearing, I focus the narrative to focus away from the poisonous cult that sprung up here.
A cult that I can apparently expect to run into later on, whether my run ins will happen on higher levels of the Aracnarus Tower, or if they will occur out in nature.
I can almost imagine it a doomsday cult trying to slowly destroy the world through growing drugs that kill the land and poison the users with threats of power and rapid growth.
Then I realize the annoying truth that this incident will invariably bring about, the idea that I am some type of anti-recreational task forced enforcer.
I’m not, at least I don’t consider myself to be, so long as you are not poisoning the world around you, go ahead and poison yourself to death. Wow, I can almost hear my mother in those words.
Then, before I realize it, I find myself looking upwards. A completely useless gesture, as I can’t see anything extra with my eyes, instead my vision is subjected to the sphere of vision around me. Yet, that is part of why I came here. Part of what keeps me climbing.
At the top of this tower resides Zero’s mother, and hopefully details of where my mother and father are.
I don’t know how many levels of this tower I must climb to reach the top. Nor do I know what other mysteries await me, as I make my way upwards. Yet, I can’t help but feel that I will find my parents at the top, or at least another clue that I can follow to find them and bring them back.
“You can’t do this!” People are protesting, many of the protesters are those that I just neutered magically. I did to them, what would be a death sentence to me, I took away the art and ability to use, interact with, and wield mana or Qi. I took it away and forced them all to stay living.
Knowing that if they now took part in the poisonous pools of energy that were being produced by their Blight Ivy, they would likely poison themselves and eventually die from high energy exposure.
Still, I have a lot of land to cleanse, despite this, despite everything I have managed to keep my Cleansing Rain spell activated and will need to continue to do so for a few more hours at least. First, I need to burn away the Blighted Ivy, then cure the Blighted lands that will be left, then grow plants that can help feed the masses, all while avoiding future retaliatory attacks.
With that last thought in mind, I Teleport up above the rain clouds that I have created. Clouds that along with my newly chosen Concealed Cultivation Aura, can be used to mask my presence from anyone wishing to track my presence from down below.
After a while, I find myself taking up a meditative pose, while still floating weightlessly in the air.
Tingle.
Only after a few hours of this focused meditation on continuing to keep the Cleansing Rain clouds going, I long ago let go of my control over Forced Selective Hearing, does Zero come out of his tattoo on my arm.
Deep yawn.
Zero comes out and stretch-yawns the way an excessively limber cat would. That is if the cat was long and flexible like a flying eel.
“Good morning,” Zero asks, then turning his snout to me, I can feel him opening his third eye to gaze directly into my body. At which point, he pauses and then continues, “is everything okay?”
I want to tell him that I’m fine. That everything is okay, but seeing him. Realizing that he is one of the very few who will understand me. I reach out with both arms, at which point he without even having to be told runs into my lap and curls up into a tight ball as I wrap my arms around him.
“No,” I finally manage to say.
Silence.
That nice silence that lasts for a minute while you familiar just accepts you for who you are. Not judging you in the slightest, despite the fact that you hate what you did, what you felt needed to be done.
Drip.
Only after a moment do I realize that a tear has fallen from my face.
The tear falls and lands directly on Zero, causing a cascading ripple of energy to shiver out from his magical dragon scales.
“Wanna’ talk about it?” Zero asks.
“No,” I answer honestly, before continuing, “but I think I need to.”
“What happened?”
“Well, you know how I’ve been watching these people put their lives and livelihoods on the lines for scraps of food.”
“Yeah.”
“Well you also remember the random cultivation pools of energy that seem to be all over the place, along with the Blight Ivy that is killing off plant growth on this floor and others.”
“Yes.”
“Well, it took me a while, but I finally managed to put all the pieces together. But only after…” I began, and like that I began the long cathartic process of explaining what happened, including finding out about the random cult, and how the cult was killing off the world tree. Then of course, I ended with my creation of the Core Shattering Death Ray, and how I used it not once, not twice, but twenty-five times, against each cult member who was actively trying to attack me.
Then I paused waiting for Zero’s condemnation.
“And?”
“And? I obliterated their magic and Qi cores. They will never be able to use, touch, or experience magic or Qi ever again.” I protest.
“Do you regret your decision?”
“Well no, especially not after I was told that I got everyone.”
“Then what exactly is wrong?” Zero pressed.
At that, I paused trying to find out what was wrong. “By all accounts I did what I had to do. I was even rewarded for doing so, but yet, why do I feel so empty for doing what needed to be done?”
“Sometimes life is just hard, and you have to do things that you dislike in order to make the world better for everyone.”
“That’s a slippery slope.” I note.
“It is, which is why I’m glad it is you creating the modified death rays, than others.”
Silence.
After that it is just silent, the two of us just sitting comfortably washing away the evil invasive plants below as we are both left to our own thoughts and devices.
Finally, I state, “thank you.”
“For what?”
“For just being there for me.”
And like that I let my mind wander to other aspects of life, which of course is when I am met with a warning from the system.
Warning: Attempting to do this procedure will have dire consequences for you in the future.
“What? What were you going to do this time?” Zero asks, suddenly up and putting his snout right in front of my face.
“Hey, I… yeah maybe I shouldn’t be left alone.” I reply.
“I was right here, now out with it, what did you try to do?”
“Well I was thinking…”
“Oh no, here we go…”