If John were Silver, he’d have more options and could consider some higher-tier items he had in his ring. Or he thought so, at least. He could and was using items meant for higher tiers, but not ones meant for Diamonds yet, the tier where a soul was refined and cultivators could technically be called Exalted, though no one used that title until they reached the second Tree.
There was a significant jump in power between gear graded for Platinum and gear graded for Diamonds.
For John’s eighth and final attunable slot, his arm slot, he had a few decent options. He wanted to plug up some of his weaknesses with that slot. To him, the most infuriating of his issues was constantly being unbound. He had mighty spells to cast, fire could billow forth from his hands, but the toughest foes he fought never let him cast anything. He wanted that to end. Sadly, there were no items he could attune that aided him with that, for any items in any slot, not just the arm slot.
The option John liked the best was a bracer that shot out a strand of essence. That essence-strand stuck to whatever it hit, and John could pull himself to that something or yank that something to himself. He could even swing around his warehouse-prison with it. Since he couldn’t use [Slip] against higher-tier opponents, he could use the bracer to close the distance quickly.
The issue with that bracer was it didn’t actually work against higher-tier opponents. When Hubaba visited John, the demon could easily unravel the essence strand once it connected to him.
John liked Hubaba a great deal and considered the demon to be his only true friend besides Avatar, but he also knew he could beat the demon in a fight with little issue. Hubaba was a Gold, but a very weak Gold. The demon excelled at unbinds and protecting against unbinds, but so did most Golds, especially the toughest ones John had faced. Hubaba couldn’t even get a spell off on the Bronze g’athu, nor could he unbind any manifestation of that same Bronze.
Granted, the Butcher was a poor test to judge [Skill] against. Even the Woods and Coppers were able to unbind John’s manifestations. The Butcher was a monster unlike any other at all tiers.
So, John’s preferred arm-slot item was placed back into his storage ring. His second choice was an item somewhat like the shield-bracer Hubaba wore, except it was meant to be more of a weapon than a shield. Infusing the bracer created a large pink spike-blade that extended a foot or so past his hand, and he could use the pink manifestation to deflect incoming attacks as well.
That bracer would’ve made sense if John wasn’t already using a shield and a sword. It would be a good backup in the event he was unarmed, but he wanted the slot to help shore up a weakness and help him against higher-tier foes.
John had three other options, all Platinum-grade, but none of them really shored up a weakness he wanted reinforced in some way.
One set of bracers supplied an additional essence-shield, and the shield was better than the essence-shield his armor provided, though the armor’s shield activated automatically.
The next option was a set of arm-bands that provided a reflect-shield like John’s cap did when it was attuned to him. He had replaced the cap with a sturdier helm that also had a chin strap allowing him to dangle the helm when he wasn’t in battle.
The last possibility was a beaded bracelet that looked as if it was made for a woman. His last bracers also functioned as an additional means to deflect attacks, something he liked. Neither the bracelet nor the arm-bands provided that function. The bracelet, when attuned and imbued with essence, would remove actively controlled hostile manifestations another was using on him up to a certain power level, the same function as his [Manifestation Defense] [Skill] provided.
Testing with Hubaba showed the bracers were a little better at removing active hostile manifestations than John’s own [Manifestation Defense] [Skill], but not by much.
John wished he had a better option for the arm slot. He thought about switching to the arm-slot band of suffering, but it was an upper arm wrap to be worn on the left arm nearest the middle dantian, which he disliked. And his head and neck-slot options were worse than his arm-slot choices. Plus, his band of suffering came from a Gold. He didn’t know if the other bands of suffering were lower ranked and neither did Hubaba.
John’s old cap and reflect-shield were Silver-graded. The arm-band reflect-shield was Platinum-graded. But reflect-shields were meant to be used offensively, and the opponents he was worried about would always be able to easily overwhelm the reflect-shield of the arm-band. He had always used the cap’s reflect-shield more defensively, to prevent damage. Essence-shields did that much better, and any essence-shield would help, if even just a little, with preventing damage from any opponent.
John attuned the bracers with the essence-shield. They were also Platinum-graded, had a shorter cooldown than the other bracers, and, being large bracers and sturdy, could also be used to deflect attacks. He still wished he had a better option, but better options had to wait until he was Silver, the tier he believed he’d be able to use Diamond-graded gear if his progression kept going as it was.
Lastly, John wanted to change Fireblade out for a better sword. He had no better options for his shield, Defiance. Even if Hubaba was willing to give him back the bracer-shield he wore, John had grown attached to Defiance. He used Fireblade because he wanted fire, and his [Least Glyph of Darkflame Jet] granted him a much better way to light enemies aflame, making the fire the sword alit with seem silly, like a toy made for children.
For weapons, John had a lot of choices. Even sticking with swords, he still had many options. One sword he saw as being the clear winner, and the reason he didn’t consider changing out his plasma-ring and using a weapon with a stronger attack ability. It was a Platinum-graded sword much larger than Fireblade.
The sword looked like a giant, single-edged long-knife. The rain-guard was nearly as wide as the cross-guard, it had no ricasso, the central ridge was thick, the fuller was much thicker, and the fuller extended to just short of the point. It could be used to thrust with, slash, and interesting to John, the fuller ran to the flat top of the blade and was thick enough he could use it for what he called blunt energy.
Even though the sword was larger than Fireblade in every way, it weighed nearly the same. And even though it was a strange type of sword, the balance and handling were excellent.
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Hubaba knew the sword was named Gird. He was there when Garioch received it as a gift from Baggodon the Blind. The runes of the sword, once imbued with essence, girded the user against unbinds. It was the only item in John’s ring that performed a similar function.
The power and concept of the essence used to imbue the sword impacted how effective the unbind protection was, and even though John’s ‘battle’ concept was only a minor aspect, it seemed to provide the greatest benefit when used to imbue the sword. If he used ‘blood’ or ‘leech,’ the buff the sword provided lasted much longer, but it didn’t take much essence to imbue. The buff it provided lasted just under ten minutes when imbued with ‘battle’ essence. Ten minutes was plenty of time in his opinion.
If John’s hand lost contact with the sword, the buff would immediately end. The buff the sword granted could also stack with the NCUs and the similar temporary [Buff] he could purchase from the NCS.
The manifestation Gird provided wasn’t flashy or exciting, but it helped to reinforce one of John’s weaknesses, and that was far more important.
John’s gear had been settled for a while. Since he’d been moved to Uttar Pradesh, he had only been visited by Hubaba once. The demon was trying to run a crafting academy and had little time to travel. With the g’athu portal north of Los Angeles connected to both Santos and Mumbai, the trip was much faster than it would’ve been otherwise, but the rulers were trying to keep the portals a secret only important people knew of.
Lilly visited John somewhat regularly. The sight of her filled him with anger and sadness. He tried to regain control of his emotions, but it wasn’t an easy thing. Every day his heart grew to hurt more and more, and he struggled to suppress his anger, as well as his desire to lash out at others.
Seeing Lilly was no help at all and made things worse. She’d cry as John yelled at her to keep her distance and stand away from him. She’d tell him some stories about Hubaba and Amber, update him on her business dealings and ventures, and tell him how sorry she was and how much she loved, missed, and needed him.
During his time in Uttar Pradesh, John’s soul also healed enough naturally where it showed in his [Stats]. It was only point-zero-one percent, but that was something, and an indication his most severe issue had a path towards being solved. And it would be fully fixed long before he was close to Diamond, especially considering how long Avatar projected it would take his foundation to settle in the Bronze tier.
Prompted by Avatar, John performed a test. He kept a little of the shen he created to see if that would speed up the process of his soul healing without reinforcing his soul too much, as happened to him before by creating too much shen. Just a little, and just once, but Avatar said it decreased the speed of his passive healing, so that ended the test.
John wanted to put more of his energy credit towards opening more NCU slots, but he decided he needed to save it for an NCS [Buff]. His guards told him there was some strange activity reported around India. Not demons, but some strange phenomenon that couldn’t be explained. He expected the demons to reappear at any moment.
So, John waited and trained and tried to get over the pain that racked his heart and filled him with such hurt and shame. He couldn’t work out why Lilly would betray him so. His mind couldn’t understand it. He knew she cared about him a great deal. He believed she loved him. So why would she do so much to hurt him? He would never hurt someone he loved.
Suddenly sensing an increase in activity and anxiety on the base, John assumed it was time. A guard ran in and told him the portal reappeared southeast of Bhopal. Many demons streamed out of the portal, including three Golds and twenty-four Silvers. The strangest part was that the demons were not moving or attacking. The demons stood their ground and did nothing else after they formed up outside of the portal.
John prepared and waited. Hubaba, Amber, and Lilly were on their way to the base. He decided he wouldn’t wait for them if he heard Stretch was giving battle to the demons. He would not miss out. He needed to fight.
The hours passed and Stretch never appeared near the demons. Hubaba, Amber, and Lilly finally arrived. Shortly after, Stretch showed up too. Earth having two Golds of her own, Hubaba and Stretch, would go a long way towards evening the battlefield.
Petar Kostov was already on the base with his elite squad of soldiers using the Wood-tier lasers and shields John acquired from the War Academy demons. The Bronze minis were the only ones humans could fit into, though not perfectly, but Wood essence couldn’t power the Bronze minis, nor could it power the Copper or Bronze lasers.
Earth was close to making its own minis. Lilly owned a large percentage of each of the three companies making them.
John tried out one of the demon minis some time ago, but it only slowed him down and hampered his abilities. If it fit his form correctly, that could’ve been a different story. The power of a Silver mini would probably have been a great boon to him in battle, but those were much too large for any human to utilize.
Lilly had John infuse her laser pistol with his Bronze and far more potent essence before they had to attend a long briefing with generals reviewing the battle plan. He was dismayed that the battle plan only considered the demon Golds to have capabilities seen before. By their larger size and black clothing, John knew two of the Golds were from the War Academy, as were sixteen of the Silvers, and would be much stronger than the Golds of Circle Xakariz.
Knowing the battle plan being reviewed would not survive a few moments beyond initial contact, John still forced himself to listen. He knew Amber would be nervous and not want to fight, so he made a show of how closely he paid attention, hoping to settle her nerves. He was glad she was in her demon form as she was far more prone to nervousness in her human form.
Many soldiers had already departed the base in vehicles. Everyone else, besides Stretch, started to load into helicopters. John knew Stretch was fearless and would join them in battle, so he wasn’t worried Stretch would miss out.
The helicopters landed outside of Bhopal, between the city and the demons. Lilly drew a large trap ritual and a protective circle with a block for herself. She had John infuse both. Hubaba was a Gold, but John had plenty of essence to spare and his own was more powerful than the demon’s.
Close to dusk, word finally came down that the demon horde was on the move. As the horde came into view, John’s heart filled with excitement. The army was massive. Thousands and thousands of demons filled the distant landscape. He purchased a temporary NCS [Buff] that assisted in preventing unbinds. Then he infused essence into Gird.
John would not have his manifestations unbound. Not on this day. He needed this battle. He needed to share his pain with the demon horde. They would be consumed by flame, the same as his heart was being consumed by the pain of great betrayal. He hoped the battle settled his spirit and took much of the hate burning inside his chest out of him, allowing him to regain control again. If not, he hoped to fall in battle and just have done with it.
When the demon horde stopped too far out to give battle and a Silver demon came forward holding a white flag high in the air, the flag of peace, John cursed silently to himself.
As the Silver approached, John heard the soldiers whispering, hoping the battle could be avoided. A general was called for to negotiate.
John sighed. There was no need for words. He would not have this battle stolen from him too.
The Silver, still far off, yelled out, “I come to talk peacefully, under this banner of truce. I’m calling for a parley. Our leader…”
The demon’s speech was cut short as he was bathed in darkflame.
John slipped to the demon but left it screaming as it burned. He slipped through the shadows towards the massive horde behind the Silver. When he was in range, a mighty jet of fire billowed forth from his right hand. The darkness in his heart was replaced with joy and glee as many, many enemies were lit aflame all at once, screaming out shrieks of immense pain and suffering as they ran around, slowly burning to a crisp.
It’s even more wonderful than I ever dared dream it could be, thought John, a smile of pure bliss upon his face.