Ayesha Murker was a minute away from Arthur’s house when she felt it. An arrogant aura of power and dominion descended upon her like the wrathful gaze of an apex predator. There was no finesse to it, no specifity, almost as if the creature didn’t deem her worthy of any attention. What is that? High Tier 2? Tier 3? Ayesha was shocked, nothing of the sort should be present on Earth yet.
It was too early on the timeline. The planet still had nine months of leeway before visitors were allowed entry. Even then, there was no reason for someone so powerful to visit. With such a low ether density in the baby tier 1 world, they’d have to spend a fortune on ether stones to simply stabilise their presence. An avatar then? No, the aura’s far too powerful to come from an avatar. Unless… Ayesha didn’t finish the thought. If a tier 4 decided to visit, she was in way over her head and needed to flee as fast as possible.
She was so shocked she didn’t even realise she’d been slapped. Twice, in fact by her best friend. Grimacing, Ayesha caught Iris’s hand before she launched a third. “What the hell was that for?” she cursed, rubbing her cheek. She glared at the seer who for once didn’t look like she was privy to an inside joke at everyone else's expense. The serious expression looked so out of place on her usually smug face it stopped her train of panicking thoughts.
“Ah, you’ve finally snapped out of it. You’ve just been standing there for ten seconds muttering under your breath.” Iris ran her hand idly through the air, ripples of purple and blue appearing around the moving limb as if she’d run it through water. “That one insidious skill. It’s not even targeting us and you still got caught in a negative mental loop,” she explained. “Wait so it’s... not an aura?” Ayesha asked, visibly confused. It wasn’t that she didn’t trust her friend- as fae-blooded, the seer was far more magically sensitive than her- but her words were directly at odds with what her brain was telling her.
“Yes and no,” Iris replied. That didn’t answer any questions so she quickly explained herself
“It’s a domain-type skill that perfectly mirrors the user’s aura and throws it across a massive distance without affecting the potency at all so I guess it technically is an aura, though it gives the illusion that it’s far stronger than you first perceive.” She raised a hand to stop Ayesha from speaking. “I’m not telling you anything else. You’ve learned enough that I shouldn’t even have to tell you this much. You have the tools to figure out the rest yourself. If I spoon-feed you everything, you’ll never learn anything.”
Ayesha glared at her best friend but quickly realised she wouldn’t be getting anything else out of her. Huffing, she closed her eyes and focused on the energies around her. At first, she wasn’t getting anything, but slowly, she began to feel something, a strange tingling sensation. It helped that she knew what she was looking for and she latched on to it as if it was a spool of hanging thread. It didn’t take long for the mystery to unravel after that. As Iris had suggested, there were discrepancies in the aura, it was far too uniform to be naturally generated, like a piece of repeating code instead of something organic.
No matter how powerful someone was, there'd be slight distinctions in the potency of their aura depending on how close you were to the centre of it. That wasn’t the case here, it was a single simple pattern, and the realisation helped her solve the remaining mysteries. Even if it originates from a skill, the potency from the aura is definitely in the tier 2 range. Whoever it is, they’re still ether starved. Ayesha knew how expensive that was. It was the main reason why she hadn’t brought some of her more powerful retainers to the planet. And the fact that it was highly illegal.
Someone, however, clearly had more money than sense.
“Damn it Aish. You almost had it. Look closer. Don’t ignore the truth just because it’s impossible to believe.” Iris whisper-shouted into her ear. Frowning, she took a finer comb to the skill and looked for what she had missed. Ayesha could feel ‘something’ there, an itch that she kept missing with her fingers. A nagging suspicion entered her thoughts but she dismissed them as the ramblings of a panicked mind. Except the longer she looked, the harder it became to ignore the facts. There was a familiarity to the pervading presence, so subtle she might have missed it without Iris telling her to focus.
Once identified, though, it was all Ayesha could see. It was hard to miss when that same power had been burning a hole in her pocket for the past few months. And if she could sense it with her less-than-stellar perception skills then-
“Oh shit, we’re fucked, aren’t we,” she whispered under her breath. Once her family found out she’d willingly given away a dragon core, there’d be hell to play. She'd been ready to deal with that, but now it looked like the divine creatures would be killing her first.
“Shit, shit shit.” she cursed. “I thought he was using the cores in some weird ritual to improve himself.”
Had that been the case, a wandering dragon would have been displeased by her actions but understanding. Dragon cores were some of the most sought-after commodities in the universe. Ritual magic clearly hadn’t been used here though. “Iris, please tell me I’m wrong,” she whispered weakly.
“No, my lady. I don’t think you are,” her friend replied wryly, returning back to the formality she favoured when something amused her.
“Oh fuck!”
Arthur Ward had eaten the goddamn dragon core.
”Things aren’t all lost, my lady,” Iris tried to reassure her. “He’s got a scrambling skill on his aura. If we teach him a technique or two, add an item and we should be golden. Unless someone comes directly for Arthur, he should stand up to almost any scrutiny.”
This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.
"His aura is already pretty good at hiding, at least certain parts of it are obscured. It prevents any divining magic I want to use on him and you know I’ve been trained by the best.” Iris explained.
Her words might sound boastful, but if anything, Iris was being modest. Her father was one of the most powerful fae in this sector of the universe and Iris had inherited his strength. The only reason she worked for a backwater noble like Ayesha was because she wanted to, claiming some sort of fae ‘instinct’ guided her. Ayesha knew it was really because some weird string of fate had led them to become playmates as children. They'd become close friends and the rest was history.
“Oh shit, the soldiers have started a Blood ascension, they’re not just awakening normally," Iris exclaimed, her skin rapidly paling. She looked around frantically but whatever she was looking for didn't reveal itself.
“What the hell changed? There's no reason to do something so drastic!”
Ayesha grabbed her friend's shoulders and forced her to stop babbling. She’d lost touch for a while when first encountering the powerful domain but it was time to take back control. Panicking right now would get her nowhere. What were the facts?
Arthur had become significantly more powerful than they’d expected, by literally consuming the dragon core, no less. That would become a major problem if they didn’t deal with it quickly. Secondly, the vampires had decided to invest in a blood ascension instead of simply awakening their victims which was significantly worse. That could only mean one thing. The vampires wanted Arthur dead, not alive. They were willing to give up a permanent source of powerful blood for his corpse which could only mean… what?
Try as she might, Ayesha couldn’t figure things out. As much as she’d studied vampires, she was by no means an expert on the subject and she couldn’t for the life of her figure out what they were thinking. She was pulled from her musings quite literally as Iris grabbed her and pulled her back. Being significantly weaker, she could do nothing but stumble backwards, trying to regain her balance. Iris retrieved a golden warding talisman from her ring and quickly ripped it, then a black one she didn’t recognise and finally a green one for healing.
Not a moment too soon.
Ayesha had her eyes wide open but she could scarcely believe what happened next. One moment, there was a massive building of steel and stone standing before her and the next it simply disappeared, as a flash of crimson energy exploded past her. The crimson wave was strange, certain things it touched were destroyed completely, some things were crushed or torn apart, puddles of water from the recent rainstorm were set aflame and some objects were simply left as they were. Within the barriers of protective energy, Ayesha and Iris saw a sight few ever lived to see.
They experienced it.
The wave of chaotic soul plasma travelled faster than she could perceive and lasted for all of a second, but it left the world forever changed in its pausing. A stream of system notifications exploded across her vision but she ignored them in favour of the armageddon unfolding around her. Ayesha knew what that explosion was, it was a threat all nobles were warned of, every system sapient across every stellar system. Someone had just gone supernova and judging by what was already happening in the world around her, they’d done so with a deliberate purpose in mind.
The priority one system notification that superimposed itself across her vision without disappearing only confirmed things.
Tier 3 system access: Cleared...
level check: Failed...
Noble Rank: Failed…
Error… You have been deemed as the most appropriate individual on the scene…
Access requirements: Passed
The vampire coven Ozasah has initiated a hostile takeover of planet Earth. They have established a territory spanning 1.6km via a directed soul explosion. A highly illegal act, their access to the system has been revoked and they are to face the punishment of death. Should their plans be allowed to fester, the risk of losing Tier 1 planet Earth, has been estimated at 11%. Prevention of subsequent soul explosions is of utmost importance.
Soul explosions prevented 0/4. Time remaining 3:59 seconds.
Reward: Skill inheritance level 40
Stat potions [25] x3 for use on stats below 1000
Direct tutelage of an ascender
Ayesha read through the system quest, her stomach dropping. The rewards offered were incredible, practically unheard of even on tier-two planets and yet when she looked at the task she was being asked of, she didn’t think they were enough. Territory establishment was a highly regulated privilege offered only to a species who’d proven their claim to a land beyond all shadow of a doubt, usually by performing a great service for the system. Even her family hadn’t managed to establish a territory and they’d been the ruling power on their planet for 400 years.
The vampires had ignored due procedure and simply forced the issue via soul detonation. She’d heard of the phenomena before but always thought it was a tall tale of some kind. A simple soul explosion would never produce such a strange result. However they’d managed it, the vampires must have spent an exorbitant number of resources. It also meant that the vile bloodsuckers had a vested interest in the planet. The three that had come over wouldn’t be the last of their kind.
“You got the message too right,” Iris said, her voice subdued. Ayesha nodded her head. “Go and help Arthur. I can sense him fighting ahead. I don’t know how the man’s not dead yet, he was at the centre of the explosion, hell, I don’t know how he’s strong enough to hold his own against those blood beasts. Somehow, he became far stronger than either of us predicted. Maybe he always was.”
Once again, Ayesha nodded grimly. She could hear it, now that the streets were devoid of all the sounds inherent to city life, the loud booming in the distance was all she could hear.
Somewhere ahead, Arthur was holding his own against four Bloodbeasts. They had four minutes to kill them before they too went supernova. If they failed, the planet's future would be in jeopardy. The weight of the world, quite literally, rested on her shoulders. Already, signs of the new territory were making themselves known. Pools of water now resembled splashes of blood and she could see them gathering together to form humanoid creatures of red. A host of notifications flashed across her eyes, all conditions and status effects neutralised by Iris’s talisman. The land itself had turned against them. If they failed, the world itself would fall.
“Hurry and go,” Iris shouted. “I’ll do what I can to slow the territory's growth end then I’ll be right behind you.'' She pressed a golden talisman against Ayesha's back and a barrier of blue energy surrounded her. Her father’s words suddenly came to mind. Sometimes, all you can do is fight and pray for the best. There's no time for planning, no time for strategies. All you can do is act and hope you’re enough.
Ayesha started to run forwards.