The time until the Spearbreaker's release is limited yet we still remain uncertain about his Dao. For lack of stronger evidence, we suspect that he does not use Dao like we do. Whereas we weave intent into our Dao-Bound abilities to empower them with our Dao, he appears to wield intent directly from the Primal, forcing out a power that is strange, impactful, and direct. It has reminded our archivists of the Primal abilities of rare and old undead.
Our bloodline specialists originally analyzed samples of his blood to determine if the Spearbreaker was also undead, but quickly confirmed that he was not. We then sought to identify his bloodline, so to mimic his power using a variety of variant blood transformation techniques. What we found was disconcerting, to say the least. He has no bloodline at all.
I refresh this knowledge, so that perhaps the captured cervidian can offer us more information.
– Director of Prospero Station, 28th Centennial Leadership Summit - Cazoran
Chapter 25 – Swarm
Toki stepped out of the library sanctuary with more questions than answers. As the heavy door groaned shut behind her, she walked with deliberate steps back towards the fork.
Her mind churned like gears, each thought meshing with the next in a relentless sequence. The specter of Obie's combat style flickered in her thoughts—it worked and was familiar, meshing insights from Golgheim’s MC hammer time style and the adaptable Twice fire ability. But Kristina’s right—a shadow’s not a flame. And I’m not Obie.
Currently, Toki's [Lessons] was simply being used as a more powerful and flexible telekinesis, but she knew it was wrong. Forcing my skills in such a way would limit my potential. [Lessons, Dearly Departed] should be used in a different way than Obie’s fire. There’s more here to the ability. I know it.
As she pondered how she could improve her combat style, she also worried about the evolving karma with Kristina.
It was Kristina, more so than Golgheim and Oberon, whose influence Toki found most difficult to untangle. Her wisdom and subtle interference in every interaction was enthralling and enticing, drawing her towards a powerful path not of her own making. Kristina's wisdom, itself, warned of this very challenge. Toki knew that reliance upon the spider Queen's insights would tamper in the self-discovery she sought to kindle, especially in the Path of Sentience. Toki felt the uncanny feeling that she was falling into the spider's web.
I must forge my own path.
As Toki arrived back at the fork, the sound of gnashing teeth and wet, tearing sounds, shifted her attention ahead. She saw a macabre feast before her, where vermin swarmed over the remains—now rendered indistinct in death's grotesque embrace.
The rats moved with uncanny coordination, their bodies slick with blood and viscera, a writhing mass of fur and filth. They consumed the carrion with voracious hunger—a frenzied scramble for flesh. In the dim light cast by flickering torches, the horror unfolded, and within that horror, Toki could see nature's cruel indifference.
Toki's breath caught in her throat. Fight or flight.
Her instincts screamed at her to run, yet her feet remained rooted to the earth. The sight of humans, their forms brutalized in death, twisted her gut with revulsion. Monkeys, too, lay among the fallen, their stories turned to sustenance. This was the cycle unmasked, the raw truth of decay feeding life. She attempted to retreat with care, intending to let the rats claim their spoils, and then return when they had left, but Toki's withdrawal was a futile gesture. The hush of her steps was a call to the swarm.
The feast had turned silent.
Heads swiveled in her direction.
Hundreds of glinting eyes, as soulless as the darkness itself, gazed towards her—a collective glare that could consume her directly.
Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Can’t touch this. Toki chanted under her breath, the mantra a thin veil over the dread that clawed at her chest.
The shadow claw, an extension of her will, unfurled—seeking to carve safety from peril. 50% manadraw. It swept through the air in an arc, only to pass through the horde with scant resistance. At least they’re mortal and low level.
[[Dearly Departed] has pilfered Swarm Tactics (12/500)]
[[Dearly Departed] has pilfered Chimeric Entanglement (3/100)]
[[Dearly Departed] has pilfered Dao of Sentience (12/500)]
There were deaths, but meaningless as droplets in a tide. She collected fragments in the swipe, not only from the rats, but also from the dead monkeys and humans, but Toki could not afford to lapse her concentration to examine the spoils. She switched to 20% manadraw for five appendages, but even still, a mere handful were crushed beneath her power, soon replenished by their kin with frenetic haste.
[[Dearly Departed] has pilfered Swarm Tactics (26/500)]
"Shards be damned," she cursed, watching as the wave surged forward, undeterred, a living tide threatening to engulf her.
Panic beckoned her backward, toward the illusory sanctuary of the library door. Yet, as she backpeddled, a grim realization settled upon. The door, with its enchanted mechanisms and ponderous weight, would not open quick enough. She would be swarmed, consumed before she could activate it. And even if the door did open, they would simply follow her through.
Caught between the hammer and the anvil, Toki though, forcing calm into her voice despite the rising fear within. The Twice family might have deemed her unworthy, but she'd be damned if she'd submit to such ignominious fate without a fight. A manasmith, she reminded herself, forges tools of survival from the very essence of adversity. A good story always gets you a good ‘chant.
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Think, Toki. Think like the cunning rogue you fancy yourself in stories, she coached herself, her mind racing through the annals of knowledge she had amassed. There had to be a way—a means to turn the table on these verminous usurpers of life.
With the swarm advancing, every heartbeat now a drumbeat to action, Toki braced herself as her claws opened up the vanguard again. Out of urgency more than inspiration, Toki rushed forward and called upon [Bindings of Tyndall], jumping upon the mote. Using it once more, she built a series of footfalls in the air to create a path of escape. They were strong in the dim light and as she ascended, each step gave her space and time.
[[Dearly Departed] has pilfered Swarm Tactics (42/500)]
Suspended above the maelstrom of gnashing teeth, Toki’s gaze swept across the swarm. The rats watched her warily, but then resumed their feast, indifferent to her vigil above. As mindless as they seemed, they surged and ebbed like the solar tides of Eastern Summer's beaches, their movements almost ritualistic in cadence. I wonder how long I have to wait.
As Toki stood above them, she looked at the rewards from [Dearly Departed].
Swarm tactics is from the rats. So there’s method in madness, she thought. As she watched, she observed the rats take turns in the banquet. It was this eerie order within chaos that sparked a flicker of insight within Toki's mind—a revelation wrapped in repulsion.
[Swarm Tactics (43/500)]
“Swarm tactics,” she breathed out, acknowledging the cruel genius of nature's design. So, I can gain fragments organically too.
She shook her head. Why waste time, though?
Her [Lessons], lashed out once more. From above, she was like an unreachable turret rending through the horde of rats. Where the claw passed, it left ruin—a swathe of stillness in the living sea. Each strike honed her skill, the knowledge seeping into her essence, etching the knowledge of [Swarm Tactics] into her memory.
[[Dearly Departed] has pilfered Swarm Tactics (120/500)]
Again and again, she cleaved through the masses.
[[Dearly Departed] has pilfered Swarm Tactics (250/500)]
"Scatter, foul creatures!" she cried, her voice the herald of their doom. The rats recoiled, fear gleaming in their myriad eyes, as the shadow claw carved a message of terror into their collective memory.
[[Dearly Departed] has pilfered Swarm Tactics (390/500)]
[Level up: Level 46]
And for an instant, the cavern held its breath. The tumult below began to wane as the shadow claws took their toll. The rats now recoiled en masse from the carnage wrought by Toki's hand. They scurried in a frenetic exodus, their retreat a mix of squeaks and scrabbles that faded into the hollows of an adjacent tunnel. Not the monkey tunnel. That’s a shame.
[[Dearly Departed] has pilfered Swarm Tactics (480/500)]
Toki watched them go, her heart hammering against her ribs like a blacksmith at the forge. “Wait, so close!”
[Bindings of Tyndall] dissipated, leaving her suspended above the scene for a fleeting moment before she descended, gravity claiming her once more. Her boots met the cavern floor with a soft thud, and she willed claws to claim the remaining twenty lives to acquire the remaining fragments of [Swarm Tactics]. In the distance, into the tunnel she saw another pair of eyes, different, bigger, and filled with fury. She paid them no mind, and slashed at the stragglers.
[[Dearly Departed] has pilfered Swarm Tactics (500/500)]
A satisfying release of knowledge flowed through her. The mechanics of swarms, their use, and their interplay seemed to flow from the shadows into her. She understood the unsaid rules of the swarm. She considered the purpose of a swarm, and three rules popped into her head. Directional flow, proximity, anti-collision. The varying degrees of separation and the tolerance needed for effective swarm movement became like muscle memory. It was foundational knowledge, but its breadth was incredible. Not that I know what to do with it.
She received another prompt.
[[Chronicle Cascade] would like to create a Dao-Seed from Swarm Tactics – Y/N?]
Yes
[Requires 6 hours of synthesis]
That's anti-climactic. So I have to infuse these memory fragments with six hours of 100% manadraw to create the seed. Toki briefly looked at the collection of human and monkey fragments.
[[Dearly Departed] has pilfered Chimeric Entanglement (12/100)]
[[Dearly Departed] has pilfered Dao of Sentience (15/500)]
Toki desperately hoped that she would not fill the Dao of Sentience with the dead bodies of humans. As Toki shifted her focus to the surroundings and as her adrenaline faded, she finally caught the stench of what remained. She moved through the aftermath, her eyes wide with a horror that seemed to burrow into her very soul. The bodies—or what remained of them—were strewn haphazardly, flesh and bone laid bare by the rats' insatiable hunger.
A wave of nausea surged within her, overwhelming in its intensity. She doubled over, bile rising hot and acrid in her throat, and disgorged the contents of her stomach onto the cold stone. It wasn't much. The retching convulsions racked her slender frame until nothing was left but the bitter taste of bile and the burn in her esophagus.
Get it together, Toki, she chided herself, wiping her mouth with the back of her hand. A bitter laugh escaped her, the sound mirthless and hollow. Her gaze lingered on the half-eaten forms, or at least the remnants. Perhaps it’s my luck that they died here. I may not have survived the ambush otherwise.
Gathering her composure, Toki set about the grim task at hand and inspected them for anything salvagable. She retrieved a lantern abandoned in the chaos. It would come in handy and let her focus her flame. She ignited her flame inside and wielded it like a lighthouse, banishing shadows as she sought out the monkey beast cores. The glimpse of Dutch Eternal’s enchanting still haunted her thoughts. It was unorthodox, sure, but it was beautiful. Oh, the stories she must have woven.
All the rats were mortal. Weak alone, but dangerous in numbers. Unlike the howler monkeys which were stage-one, mortal beasts have no core. On Aris’s surface all beasts were mortal, hence the need to import beasts from other worlds, leading to a shortage of beast cores and also suitable enemies to hunt for levels. Her fingers brushed against the cool surface of one of these monkey cores. It pulsed with latent power. The bodies were too ruined to understand Dutch Eternal’s infernal enchantments, but she collected them with purpose, pocketing them to attempt enchantments when she had a chance.
With the lantern's glow casting long shadows upon the macabre scene, Toki turned away, determined to leave the feeding frenzy far behind. Toki stepped into the large tunnel that beckoned her onward. The very tunnel that housed the mocking howls she had run from earlier. The lantern clasped in her hand cast rays into the distance as she started the descent deeper into the underground.
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