Chapter 121: Your True Intentions
It was too late to start the evacuation, but still enough daylight for Nara to pay a visit to the Adventure Society to report the situation. They couldn’t move the Adventure Society without legitimate reason, so they had needed time to compile a report. Even with Encio and Sen on the team, they couldn’t move the Adventure Society with just their names. Nara and Aliyah’s abduction had been confirmed by Adventure Society members who had been watching for Advent movement in the first place. Sen and Encio didn’t kick off the investigation so much as provide additional resources.
While Sen and Eufemia had been distracting Siyu, John and Encio had been quickly drawing out their plan of action and report for the Adventure Society. With Siyu becoming increasingly irate, there wasn’t much time left; they either had to temporarily leave the town and let him pick off a townsperson to satisfy himself and stay and hope Siyu didn’t decide that he has had enough of playing respectable local celebrity to an actual regional celebrity.
She sat in a meeting room with Ranshi Haihu, the duo Magic and Adventure Society official that was assigned to Nara and her team members and had assisted Mona with her Adventure Society examination. The Adventure Society kept the officials that interacted with teams consistent in order to build relationships. If it wasn’t Ranshi, Lee Hu was the one who’d help them, but he was usually busy as he also worked for the academies.
He was the quiet type that did his job competently and without complaint. He listened to her explanation of the situation, occasionally interjecting for clarification, and made concise notes in his own notebook of the situation. Since he was a duo society member like Aliyah, he was often a liaison between the two societies. From his unusual position, he’d developed the tactic of patiently listening for what needed to be done, and shortening the often convoluted commands of his superiors.
Encio and John had prepared a quick report which outlined important factors to consider for the situation, their fears with how Siyu may react to a bronze ranker, how they would evacuate the townsfolk in the event of a crisis, as well as their plan of action to subdue Siyu if needed. Despite the risks of enraging Siyu, a bronze ranker guaranteed that Siyu would be defeated. While it was important for iron rankers to gain experience, John was wrong that the Adventure Society would risk the lives of normal people in order to encourage that goal. Risking your own life willingly was fine, but risking the lives of those without the power to protect themselves was unacceptable. It was why Oswald’s handling of the trials had been overlooked for so long; Adventurers risking their own lives was their prerogative. Higher rank adventurers needed lower rank adventurers to balance risk in order to challenge themselves and grow. Without challenge, adventurers were mediocre and unreliable.
Ranshi checked the time on a timepiece he pulled from a dimensional bag.
“Then, I will aim to arrive tomorrow, once the sun rises again.”
“You can get there in less than a day?”
“The guild keeps several with portal abilities at easy access, such as Lee Hu. His most likely nearest portal access point is the transport city west of Crystal Quarry 6. You’ve passed by it, correct? From there, I can reach Crystal Quarry 6 in 10 hours.”
Nara had a portal ability, but it wouldn’t help—her portal range couldn’t extend to Crystal Quarry 6 from Sanshi. At bronze 0, her range was around 25 miles (40 kilometers). Each small rank would increase range by an additional 25 miles. The three-day traveling put Crystal Quarry 6 beyond the range of her portal ability. Additionally, the rank of who she could transport was limited. She could transport one bronze ranker at bronze 0, or ten iron rankers, or one hundred normal rankers. She couldn’t increase the rank of her Cosmic Path either until she ranked up fully. It was fixed at Bronze 0 for the foreseeable future.
If needed, she could meet him enroute to portal Ranshi 25 miles, wait ten minutes for the cooldown, then transport him an additional 25 miles. She’d have to astral jump 25 miles to do so, but she was limited by memory or her ability to see 25 miles ahead of herself. Having to catch up to Ranshi who could move faster than her due to rank and his own abilities every 25 miles made the effectiveness of the plan debatable. She could manage it, by teleporting high up into the air than astral jumping, as she’d done many times before, but she’d still have to be able to find Ranshi. She couldn’t aura detect through the dimensional barrier, and her aura range, while large for an early bronze ranker, wasn’t close to large enough to span 25 miles.
Astral jumping was, while convenient, not precise enough to target a location without a recognizable landmark. She could travel quickly if she did so indiscriminately, jumping horizon to horizon, but not when she needed to pick out one person, who would be moving quickly themselves, in a landscape.
“Sounds like a plan.”
Ranshi quickly dismissed himself from the meeting. He’d need to submit the report to the Adventure Society, then request a portal user to portal him to the transport city. Since he was pressed for time, he set out to accomplish his tasks immediately.
*****
It was an uneasy night for the team. They had delayed as much as possible, but Sen could tell that Siyu was growing increasingly irate. The presence of a full team of six, where other teams were lesser in number, worked against them and irritated Siyu. Six iron rankers was a threat to a bronze ranker, where three or four was less so. Despite Eufemia’s crooning and flirting, he clearly sought to satisfy other urges. He was more distant, curter, and increasingly dismissive of Sen’s requests.
They quietly hoped that the night would pass without issue as all the other nights had. Ranshi would arrive in the morning, and Siyu would have no escape.
Nara was curled up with Thanatos on her cloud bed, the softness was the stuff of cotton candy lullabies, plush, light, and comfortable. She couldn’t sleep alone anymore. Sleeping alone brought back memories of her delirium, where she had sunk herself in the lake to cut herself off from any disturbance. The presence of another tied her back to reality, a hopeful reassurance that she was no longer trapped and tormented, powerless but to wait for rescue.
A ping on the map of her Party Guide woke her. She watched with horror as one of the blue dots, indicating neutrals or friendlies, blinked out to black. Nara surged out her aura, starling everyone awake from their sleep with the sharp intensity.
“Sen, someone in the town just died,” she croaked over voice chat. “What do we do?”
“What do you mean what do we do!” John exclaimed. “We have to him from killing any more people. He’s broken his previous pattern of killing only traders. He’s escalating.”
Sen said softly, “If we reveal that we have detected him doing so and that his identity is revealed, he may begin to indiscriminately slaughter the townspeople.”
John was silent. He held his face in his hands, unable to do anything but grit his teeth. If they let this one death pass, the bronze ranker would arrive tomorrow.
“We may want to consider why he’s changed his patterns,” Eufemia brought up. “If he’s changed his pattern on his own, he may be throwing secrecy out the window. Whoever gave him his instructions was the premier reason for Siyu’s success up until now, but it’s clear he’s getting overconfident and impatient.”
“According to those papers he should have continued with the same rate of killings even after reaching bronze rank,” Aliyah added, “His progress would have slowed, but he’d still progress for much of the rank.”
“That rotten bastard got full of himself and couldn’t stick to the plan that someone literally wrote out in a book for an idiot like him.”
“Nara?” Sen said, “How is the situation?”
Nara had moved as close to Siyu as she thought she could get away with, watching for his next move. She didn’t like the feel of his aura. Arrogant was right, he was indulging like an American quarterback at an all-you-can-eat buffet. He subconsciously knew his actions were high risk, but his trill and ecstasy was evident in his aura, pulsing like electro bass. Nara tried to put the image of his lair out of her mind. Whoever he was feasting on in that house was already dead. There was nothing she could do about it.
Why would he make his move while iron rankers around, unless…
“Sen, I think he wants to eat us after he’s powered up on some normal people. An iron ranker would give more advancement than a normal person, right? Didn’t we tell him we were planning to leave soon?”
“If he’s gotten so impatient as to ruin his feasting grounds, he may plan to gain as much power as possible from the rest of us, then flee the Sanshi area,” Aliyah said.
“In our own plans to end Siyu, he was making his own plans to end us.”
Before their speculations on Siyu’s intentions could continue, something set Nara into a snap decision teleportation. Siyu had slipped into another house and started to feed on another townsperson.
“Sen, he’s going for another. I’m going to intervene.”
Sen turned to Encio, “She needs backup.”
Encio nodded, and blitzed out of the house like a border collie released into an expansive grass field. If not for Nara’s teleportation, Encio had the highest ground speed of all the members of the team. When he joined the team, his abilities were the furthest along in progress. Now, several of his abilities had also achieved bronze rank.
-------
Ability: [Swift-Footed]
Special Ability
Cost: None
Cooldown: None
Effect (Iron): Increased speed. Low stamina and mana per second cost to run on walls and water. Momentum must be maintained on walls or water to prevent falling.
Effect (Bronze): Enhanced balance and spatial sense.
-------
At bronze 0, the ability had a massive movement speed bonus over an iron ranker. Everyone else was a balding, middle-aged beer-bellied man compared to Encio’s Usain Bolt.
*****
Nara teleported past the wall of the house to see Siyu plunging his fangs into a woman who futilely struggled against him, too weak to even scream with any power. That, or Siyu had a power or artifact to block sounds from escaping in a small range. Privacy Screens were common in city culture; he could have gotten his hands on one. Her hands pushed against his face, nails attempting to break his skin, but her normal rank had no affect against Siyu’s inherently high bronze rank defenses.
This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.
Nara sacrificed her boons and slashed out with Nirvana with as much power as she could instantaneously muster, going straight for his neck. She wouldn’t kill him; her objective was to get him to stop.
Nara knew prospects were low. She could teleport, but her instantaneous power was too low to stop Siyu. He could jump from house to house, draining people, building up power, and avoiding the entire team. Nara, Sen, and Encio could catch up, but they wouldn’t be able to stop him until he decided it was time to stop slaughtering townsfolk and feast on them instead.
They hadn’t started the evacuation yet for this exact reason. At night, Siyu was at his strongest. Moreover, he had just drained a person. If they sounded the alarm to evacuate, he had easier access picking off everyone in the streets where they would be grouped up, attempting to enter Nara’s door domain.
If she wanted to buy enough time to stop Siyu, she’d need to make an untested gamble.
Nara’s advantage over Siyu was his lack of combat training. He had advanced to bronze rank solely by draining helpless victims who had no chance of fighting back. He had raw power and speed, but little to no skill. Even if he could use skill books, which was likely, he hadn’t gone through the refinement process to hone their skills that Nara, Eufemia, and John persisted through with every passing day.
Her attack worked; he was caught off guard by the enhanced blow, assisted by the fact it ignored rank disparity in damage reduction. Her sword bit into his flesh. He had been distracted by his feeding, not suspecting a surprise attack from Nara. He shoved the woman away, who banged against the stone wall of the house. Nara’s aura worked on her, but something was wrong with her. Her pallor was paper white, and her blood vessels bulged unnaturally, pushing against her skin like worms crawling just beneath the earth.
She leveled her sword at him as Siyu touched the cut on his neck that stained his clothes with crimson. He slowly wiped the blood from his mouth with the back of his hand, smearing it across his face like clown makeup after a rain.
“You aren’t just a utility adventurer.”
“It’s not a lie, I have utility abilities. I provide housing, food, inventory, knowledge, and transportation for my team.”
He looked her up and down. Meanwhile, a discrete cloth matched the shade of his pants and attached itself there like sticky gauze.
“It’s a little early, but I can start with you. You’ll be the appetizer to my feast.”
“Who’s your dessert? Eufemia? She’s more spicy than sweet, you know.”
She wanted to keep him talking as long as possible to buy time for Encio to dash across town. Siyu had intentionally targeted the far side of town, away from the nebula house. At the very least, he was careful about murdering right next to the adventurers investigating the town.
“The celestine? She’ll be the treat but she’s not the ultimate prize. I was thinking that Arlang would be the poetic climax of this banquet.”
“That's sort of, homoerotic, you know?”
“What?”
“You just said he’s your climax. Are you bi? I guess I’m not surprised people are bisexual here. Everyone at bronze rank is aesthetically attractive. And there’s the whole fertility church thing who can produce children between two people of the same sex. Have you heard about that? It’s really awesome. My world would really appreciate it.”
“Your world?”
“I guess you’re too provincial to know what an outworlder is.”
“Outworlder?”
“Someone from another world, duh. It wasn’t obvious from the name? It’s not like we’re called ‘aetherkin’ or something.”
His attention was focused on her, which was her objective. She didn’t think Siyu could resist the opportunity to eat one of the rarest meals on the planet. She was the civet poop coffee to a Starbucks medium roast. He would have to take a sip of her.
“I wonder if I taste good?” she mused, poking the proverbial sleeping tiger.
Tha was all the incentive Siyu needed. He launched towards her, pushing her into the wall. She phased through it, avoiding the damage the impact would have inflicted on her and causing Siyu to smack into it instead, breaking the wall on contact with his hard head. She dashed away from the town, careful not to move so fast as to lose Siyu’s attention.
He followed. Occasionally he transformed into a dark shadow, swooping forward. She’d have to use node teleport a few times to pull forward, else he’d catch her.
The two were at the foot of the mountain. The moon glimmered overhead, a keyhole of light in the darkness of night.
“Have you finally stopped resisting?” Siyu said, spinning his two conjured axes in his hands like a cosplay serial killer.
“It’s sort of the opposite. Resisting is kind of my thing.”
“Needles, mark those destined for sacrifice,” he chanted.
Tens of needles of blood coalesced in the air, shooting forward after just a moment’s delay. She teleported out of the way, unable to block them all or curve them all out of the way. She launched towards Siyu by stepping on her Cosmic Path, unleashing an acrobatic display only possible with the assistance of magic. Her sword sliced through skin, drawing another line of red against Siyu.
“From order to disorder,” she chanted.
-------
- [Entropy] has been resisted.
-------
Well, fuck.
He swiped at her with his axe, almost catching her across the cheek. Using her hand, she pushed off against Siyu himself, casting Astral Judgement as she pirouetted over him. It wouldn’t do much damage at all, but it was better than nothing.
She’d last only as long as her mana held up. Dimension Node was her second cheapest mode of defense, only behind Dream’s Wake which costed nothing. Thankfully, Siyu wasn’t so intelligent that he’d thought to destroy her Dimension Nodes. That’d double the cost of that method of evasion.
The two engaged in back and forth combat, Nara had equipped night vision goggles, thankfully, so she wasn’t completely impaired by the low light conditions. Siyu, evidently, could see through the dark. She eventually managed to land Entropy, her afflictions now ticking up automatically, winding the clock to his destruction.
While tense, the battle was going relatively smoothing for Nara. Her ability set was specialized against fighting a single opponent, and escalating damage against opponents with higher health pools than her own, both of which Siyu fulfilled. A rotting hand burst from the ground, catching Nara’s leg in a vice grip that immediately crushed flesh.
-------
-You have been inflicted with [Inescapable].
-------
For control abilities, Inescapable was a common affliction. Control wasn’t much use if your target had a teleport, they could use every few seconds to escape from it. Nara enhanced her blade with resonating-force damage, sharply cutting down to sever the zombie hand. One attack wasn’t enough; Nara lamented her lack of instantaneous damage that Sen possessed in spades.
Thanatos shot out from her shadow, slamming into Siyu to buy her a bit of time. Chrome launched himself at his back, digging a sword into his shoulder blade. Nara made a second attack, severing the zombie hand. However, her ankle was badly damaged, muscle crushed into bone, cutting her mobility. Her damage resistance from Tribulation of Self had spared her broken bones.
Siyu transformed into a bat, slipping away from Thanatos and Chrome’s dual-pronged assault. He transformed back midair, chucking one of his axes to hit Nara. She managed to dodge it, but a second axe right at her exit caught her solidly in the shoulder, imbedding itself into her flesh. Her nodes were hard to detect, but not undetectable. She stumbled and fell to the ground. Her ankle was badly damaged, and a ragged obsidian axe had lodged itself into her shoulder. She yanked it out, tossing it aside on the ground so that the wound could slowly heal.
Since Nara was now no longer a threat, he turned his attention towards Chrome and Thanatos, his obstacles to his objective of draining Nara of all of her life. Thanatos was the easier target, and the one who could not teleport.
“Return, Thanatos!” she called out to him like a Pokémon trainer. If she survived this, she needed him for the fight ahead. Thanatos hesitated; his unwillingness clear in his body language. His teeth were bared in a growl, flaming black fur ablaze. He could be resummoned if destroyed.
Siyu grinned, taking great pleasure in unleashing a kick that cracked Thanatos’ ribs even as dark flames licked his body in turn. Evidently, not the first time he’s kicked an animal, as if he needed to be any more detestable.
“Than!” She shouted again, pleading with her disobedient familiar.
“I don’t approve of this plan of yours, Nara,” Chrome said over voice chat as he eyed Siyu attentively, “You should be escaping now.”
So, he’d noticed she was intentionally not fighting at her best. And here she thought her performance was convincing.
“And then everybody else in the city dies.”
“And so they die,” Chrome said, uncaring. “You aren’t responsible for their deaths. He is. Someone has already died. Isn’t it time to regroup, and attack together? After some healing, the six of you are more than likely to defeat Siyu.”
“Can we? If he’s constantly juicing on people throughout the fight to recover health and increase his power?”
“You have an extremely talented tactician on your side,” Chrome countered. “You may not see the path to victory, but he does. You haven’t told him your contingency plan because you are afraid he will deny you. If you hear it from him, you can’t pretend it’s still a good idea. Nara,” He seethed, “Now is not the time to push the boundaries between life and death. You feel guilt for the death of Tyler since you did nothing but watch him die. Aliyah and Lieke too. This isn’t the way to prove you’re willing to sacrifice to save others.”
“If I succeed, we buy time for Ranshi to arrive.”
“If you succeed. Do you hear yourself? Even you expect failure,” he spit out.
Nara remembered that moment vividly in her mind. At the time, she wasn’t sure if it was another nightmare bug induced hallucination. Her senses were clouded by constant pain, and her mind feeble from a lack of restful sleep.
She remembered the look on the faces of the researchers as she said she wouldn’t save any of their lives. That she was prioritizing her life to save her friend. Jiro had told her adventurers weren’t expected to sacrifice their lives to save others, but she didn’t need her aura to sense their devastation, weighty in the room like the ocean over the Mariana Trench. They may know logically and culturally she shouldn’t have to sacrifice herself, but still wished to be saved. Everyone wanted to live; that was natural. She wouldn’t change anything in that situation. There was nothing to change, nothing further she could have done.
“No, Chrome,” she said telepathically. “I’m not trying to die. I have a plan. If it doesn’t work, I have a way out. I want to do what I can. Not only because I want to save the people in this town, but because I think I can do it without dying. There’s more that I can do.”
She could push the envelope without puncturing through it. She was sure of it.
“You’ll use your own portal?”
“Yes.”
“I still object to this,” Chrome said reluctant but relenting.
“Someone needs to be the voice of reason against insanity.”
Chrome teleported to her side, subsuming into her aura. It was just Nara and Siyu left. The events that unfolded were a repetition of the first attack that seriously injured her. A rotting hand with surprising durability shot from the ground, grabbing hold of the same injured ankle, bloodied fingernails puncturing flesh and scraping bone.
She hacked once, then again, severing the zombie hand. She teleported, but Siyu predicted it, grabbing her out of the air and swinging her to the ground in a hulk smash which disoriented her.
“You’ve gotten predictable, adventurer,” Siyu chortled before he plunged his fangs to her neck.
-------
-You have been afflicted by an instance of [Vampiric Curse].
-You have been afflicted by an instance of [Paralytic Venom].
-You have been afflicted by an instance of [Vampiric Curse].
-You have been afflicted by an instance of [Paralytic Venom].
…..
-------
As he drank away her life force via her blood, she was repeatedly inflicted with instances of Vampiric Curse and Paralytic Venom.
-------
[Vampiric Curse] (affliction, unholy, curse, stacking): When [Vampiric Curse] reaches a threshold determined by rank, transform into a lesser vampire or a ghoul, dependent on rank.
[Paralytic Venom] (affliction, poison, stacking): Causes muscle paralysis for a short duration. Instances are rapidly consumed to maintain the duration of the affliction. Resistance to paralytic effect increases as duration increases. Additional instances can accumulate but do not have a cumulative effect.
-------
Siyu was triumphant. He had bested the adventurer who kept stabbing him like a dagger-beaked hummingbird. He gloated despite the fact he was punching down a rank—something all other essence users saw as universally shameful. But as he drained her life force away, a burning sensation arose within his body that quickly grew more torturous.
It was as if his blood had been turned to oil and ignited, then plunged into the freezing cold waters of the north. He felt simultaneously hot and cold, an ice cube on fire yet un-melting. Next was the sensation of sharp blades, as if microscopic blades cut down the entire length of his throat and through every vein and artery in his body.
He staggered backwards, screaming out from the pain. Unlike other essence users, Siyu was unforged metal. With an easy life of preying on the weak, he hadn’t suffered any genuine pain. Even so, this pain was torturous and ubiquitous, running through every part of his body with each pulse of his vampiric heart.
Next was a pain that felt like all of his muscles in his body constricted and contracted, as if his body was a rag wrung out by a god. He collapsed to the ground, throwing up unseemly onto the group a mixture of dinner and spattered blood.
“I’m predictable?” Nara said, weakly laughing. “You’re the one that’s predictable. Chrome?”
“My pleasure,” he said, his voice suffused with vitriol. She retrieved spheres from her inventory that resembled round potion vials, dropping them directly into Chrome’s hands. She pushed herself backwards towards a portal arch she conjured as Chrome went to work.
He aimed his arm backwards, the perfect stance of a professional baseball player, delivering consecutive fastballs of the potent iron and bronze rank poison Nara had stored within her inventory from the Celestial Book survival trial. They exploded into a dense poison cloud and shower of corrosive liquid: a Henri original.
Siyu screeched and screamed, his skin rotting off his body. His eyes burned away, and his vision was pocketed with pain as if he swam through a pool chlorinated with acid. Noxious gas rose from his body; a combination of rapidly rotting and corroding flesh and toxin clouds. He staggered towards his lair. The lair was nearby as Nara had intentionally led him there.
“Chrome? Pick me up?” she said, pretending to be cute.
His sigh was full of disappointment, but he reached down to heft Nara partially onto his shoulder and drag Nara towards her portal.
“Next time, you go on your own two feet.”
“One step at a time.”
“You aren’t taking any steps at all.”