Once the group is past the perimeter of the Royal Guard, Avery hisses a whisper toward the invader.

“What was that supposed to be? You just attacked a representative of the king! What’s more, you drew blood, which means it got past the most powerful armor money can buy, supplemented by magical force barrier and skin toughening enchantments. The entire city is going to go on high alert from this!”

“Pretty effective distraction then,” the invader says passively.

With all the strength of an unmodified human, Avery easily slams the invader into the wall of the alley.

“No, you don’t get to just brush me off like that,” she states angrily. “This isn’t the untamed ravages of a monster-filled dungeon where reasonable caution can be ignored in favor of decisive action to keep death at bay. This is the city where my family lives, and you’re putting a target on them.”

“If you want, we can just kill them all. You can’t be targeted if there’s no one there to target you,” the creature offers.

“That’s not how anything works,” gripes Avery, “society is based on its people. Even if I wasn’t fully aware that you’re physically harmless and couldn’t do anything on your own anyway, you killing everyone that could possibly pose a threat to my family would end up removing so many of the support structures that enable us to stay alive that it’d render us unable to live anyway.”

“You seem to have forgotten that you have at your command a rock that can infinitely duplicate any generic arrangement of atoms,” supplies the invader, “which includes anything that would be produced by that support structure. Food, shelter, army of brainless blobs, particularly powerful radio, water, and literally any other amenity of society is instantly accessible to you. There’s nothing tying you to these people, no dependence on their continued existence.”

“Life has inherent value,” argues the necromancer, grasping at straws for the purpose of not being wrong.

“And that value is pretty low,” notes the creature. “Over the course of a single day, countless people die, and are replaced at a rate even greater. If populations didn’t have continuous growth, the species wouldn’t be able to accommodate minor incidents like a city being killed every once in a while. Basic economic theory has the value of any given asset being inversely related to the supply, and as such the value of life steadily decreases over time. Sure, at some point in the past it would probably be worthwhile to protect others as a method of long term survival, but with the absolute guarantee of the future existing any individual life is practically worthless.”

Letting go of the much lighter being, Avery gives up on logical conversation and starts walking toward the source of the disturbance. She would have better luck with meat-shield backup. Even the Fightersons could be useful in a debate through the credible intimidation factor of a wall of meat supporting an argument. Theoretically.

Back in the alleyway, the invader stands still, contemplating.

“So, uh, boss, what’s the deal with the human?” tentatively asks the medically inclined creature that had, perhaps wisely, chosen to avoid the conflict through silence and attempting to blend in with the stone walls.

“Native, walked into the shark hole our fifty-four inadvertently created on arrival, has exhibited astral projective and reality shaping abilities. However, further contact has revealed those to be dependent on possession of a sapient, possibly artificial lifeform, which has shown itself to be amiable to cooperation with us,” the invader summarizes.

"As such, this particular human has no actual importance, beyond familiarity and potential use as a guide. Repairing the self-inflicted damage to its body would theoretically incur an emotional debt, but those are obviously less than reliable given the general reaction of sapient creatures to our existence.”

This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

“And our current goals?”

“Still information gathering. If we can requisition useful pieces of the limited availability equipment, the reality warping intelligence can duplicate it in exchange for protection, likely from humans. As such, it’s probably about time for me to specialize.”

“Understood. What kind of modifications should I make?”

“Given the observed properties of this area, physical power is at a premium. For some reason, the forty five has yet to return from stashing the expedition vessel, so maximize my tail.”

“As the only qualified medical unit in range, I have to confirm that you understand all your stored energy will be converted to the purpose you have described.”

“Confirmed.”

********************

In the chamber she had awoken, the girl corners the sniveling wretch that trespassed in her family’s mausoleum. He was certainly bold and stealthy, to have made his way into the royal quarters without alerting any of the guards with his peasant attire and decide that the gate she had only just opened represented a wondrous opportunity that would surely bring his entire line up from the gutters should he succeed. It was to his misfortune that she was in the hidden room, rather than the absolutely no one that typically inhabited the grave site. Were it simple mismanagement by the graveyard keeper, and she had not gotten to the blade when she had, this could very well have been the person destined to be the prophesied champion.

Missed it by twelve seconds.

He certainly wasn’t brave now. As opposed to the clear verve, sheer vim, and obvious grit necessary to risk insulting her family as a whole simply to undertake a fools gambit and steal away destiny itself, this simply attired proverbial Su'za'ine Na'ye'boo'r, caught most unlike the lower class folk hero he likely fashioned himself to be, cowered in the corner of the crypt as far from her as he could get, much like the cornered rat that far more aptly suited his true nature. Of course, the rat so cornered was indisputably more likely to bite at the encroaching threat than one with an unhindered escape route, which would lend a tinge of potential injury to a confrontation with this grave robber.

Slowly and cautiously, she closes the distance to the mediocre meddler, blade at the ready in preparation for the event that the pathetic display was merely a cunning ruse, hiding some sort of concealable weapon and waiting for the perfect opportunity to strike at the true inheritor of the blade of light, so as to disarm her and take it for his own.

And indeed, her caution proved to be well placed, as upon her entry into longspear range, the man’s body erupts with a burst of raw dark energy, blasting out in all directions. Pure anti-life invaded her organs, ripping apart the very objects maintaining the various functions of life she was sure her tutors had attempted to drill into her head at some point. Even now, in a situation where the issue were somewhat relevant, the actual knowledge was again completely useless in practice. Regardless of whether or not she was aware of how each organ worked and made her systems of living possible, the fact of the matter was that the power of darkness interacts directly with the functionality. Specifically, in stopping it. Without a direct counter, natural processes would prove entirely useless in undoing a magical halting of blood flow or heartbeat.

You should cut the head from the dark one’s shoulders.

Ignoring the thought inside her head, she took a moment to rationalize the situation as her parents had drilled into her as the proper response to such an event. Barring the act of murder somehow imbuing her with enough power to survive the pacifying energy within her, the situation had no obvious improvement with the addition of a fresh corpse among the far less recently deceased. Rather, her time spent with the blade was far better suited toward figuring out some method of syphoning the pure light into herself to counter the darkness deep within.

Closing her eyes to better focus on the non-physical dimensions of enchantment and other magics, she blocks out as much sensory data as possible to instead stretch the spiritual senses toward corralling the power of light and using it as a weapon against the defensive placidity sinking into the core of her being. Destructive energy flows through the sword, wrapping around her in a bright glow. Stabbing into her body, the aura of the sword of light strikes out at the darkness covering her heart, and once again the font of life is energized into performing its duty.

With the necessary sustainment completed, she opens her eyes once again. In front of her, the corner was empty. Spinning around quickly, she draws the blade, pointing it toward the thief sneaking out of the doorway to the entrance of the mausoleum.

“Don’t you dare try to run from your princess!”