Chapter 123.5: A Tool of Fate
Ranshi found the arch at the center of town that he needed to defend. Peeking inside, he saw an expansive space—a smaller replica of the town outside. The streets were narrower and the buildings clustered closer together. It’s outwardly identical layout was intended to speed up the evacuation process. All the people could return to their own homes.
“Balthu, I’ll need your help,” Ranshi called out his familiar.
It was a massive orb shaped creature, which prominently featured almost comically vulnerable looking but glowing eyeball. Fleshy tentacles writhed off the orb body, tips glowing the same violet red as the eyeball’s iris. The familiar floated despite its total lack of propelling limbs and aerodynamic shape that should allow it to float.
Ranshi hadn’t wanted the grotesque familiar, but had grown on him, proven by its capabilities. Well, what else could he have expected when he used an octopus awakening stone with his Fire, Eye, Magic, and Avatar combination? But it was cheap, so he bought it and used it.
“Oh, what’s it this time,” the familiar muttered with a sinking tone as if he had lost all hope in the future, “Is this the day I finally die?”
“You can’t die, Balthu,” Ranshi habitually replied, “You’re an astral being.”
“What do you know Ranshi? In this wide world of magic do you believe there is no way to erase my existence. No, no. There is something that can end me, end us all, and it will. It seeks me. I can feel it. Demise is ever approaching. And I sit here, helpless, pointlessly wasting my futile existence. Why do I exist? What is the point?”
“Balthu, you don’t sit. You float.”
“Is it a remnant of a past life. Perhaps once, I was a being who sat? Is this but a dream where I float, and my true being is one that sits?”
“Balthu, we’ll having enemies approaching from the front. Just fire at them when you see them.”
“Yes, yes, I can accomplish such a little task. But more importantly, what is the airspeed velocity of an unladen swallow?”
“I don’t know, Balthu. Why a swallow?”
“Then I must calculate…” The familiar muttered, it’s eye unblinking. The glowing tips of its tentacles pulsated like flickering neurons or readings from a crystal processing board.
Ranshi was human. His magic essence hadn’t evolved his special attack affinity into a spell affinity as he hoped. He wanted to be a spellcaster, sitting in the backline casually with protection: Fate had other ideas.
Still, he had a surprising number of spells for a human. He weaved spells and guzzled a potion, placing traps around town, especially at the edge and in front of the arch he needed to protect. His smaller floating eyeball familiars allowed him to cast spells from afar. He needn’t move yet. At least, he had that.
He saw the vision of his own familiars within his own mind; a sensation that required much balance and practice. At iron rank, he had struggled with the additional input, even with an ability that boosted his mental abilities. At bronze rank, his now superhuman memory and mental capabilities had evolved his fighting style.
He conjured his spear with a similar condensed fire blade as Sen’s staff. From the familiar he had left with the iron rankers; he saw that their battle had started. It was time for him to do his part.
“It’s time to set an example for my juniors,” he said, even though no one was watching his battle except himself.
The first salvo of traps went off in the distance, killing low rank monsters outright and injuring the bronze and silver ranked ones. He had to focus on the silver rank monsters. Fighting even one at a time would be difficult for Ranshi, even at peak bronze rank. As many as possible, he needed to cull the numbers of the low rank monsters without his dedicated focus.
The monsters were ordered by Siyu to attack the villagers, but they had been evacuated. Therefore, they weren’t the rampaging bull rush that Ranshi had expected. It appeared they couldn’t sense the villagers through the dimensional space they had evacuated into. Still, with the town empty and Siyu’s directions they’d eventually figure it out. It did buy him time.
He conjured wings of flaming fire curled like tendrils, then shot upwards as if propelled by a rocket. His eyeball familiars had identified his first target. A silver rank pantherpine, a panther like monster covered in porcupine quills. It was weak for silver rank, as most beings unnaturally boosted to a higher tier were. Still, the jump from bronze to silver was that significant. It was the rank at which an essence user could survive decapitation, as long as they were healed shortly after. Monsters, with their greater vitality, had even greater gains.
He flung his spear. It rocketed down towards the monster, impaling itself in its fleshy neck, then detonating like a meteoric impact in a blaze of fire and light. Ranshi teleported downwards, yanking his spear outwards, the dripping blood of the pantherpine ignited like it had turned to blood red accelerant.
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The monster retaliated, leaping forward to bite at Ranshi. As its snarling jaw snapped past Ranshi’s head, a barrage of violent-red beams pierced through its flank, searing ominous holes with a glow that didn’t fade. Ranshi was far from Balthu, but the familiar shared Ranshi’s ability to see through his eyeball familiars.
Balthu was not fast. It floated much like a whale would, looming and cumbrous. It did however, have impressive firepower for his rank. It was a slow-moving turret of artillery fire support. No doubt, still contemplating the evolution of bird wings and the impracticality of kiwis, both the fruit, the animal, and the people, which Ranshi didn’t understand in the slightest, nor had any particular inclination to. Magic Society as he was, Ranshi had long learned his familiar’s musings were beyond him. Thankfully, the familiar was more than capable of entertaining its own chaotic thoughts and providing accurate supporting fire.
The almost literal artillery fire staggered the pantherpine. Ranshi unleashed a special attack of searing fire, cutting deep another cauterizing wound. The pantherpine’s body shook, and its thorns shot from its fur in all directions. Some were absorbed by a shield boon, an effect of one of his racial abilities, but others made it through, large needles piercing deep into his flesh. He yanked them out with a hiss and threw them aside, his own blood self-cauterizing his wounds to stop blood loss.
The quills on the floor quivered then shot back towards the pantherpine as if attracted by a super magnet. Ranshi dodged them, dancing around those comically oversized needles like a needle dodging the thread. It was as if he had eyes at the back of his head—He did have eyes at the back of his head. Two eyeball familiars floated behind him, showing him his anterior view. With his boosted mental capacity, he could process this additional information, providing him with a genuine 360 degree view. Another eye floated above him, warning him of attacks from above.
The two exchanged blows—Ranshi was light on his feet, a mobility fighter. He didn’t have as many movement abilities as Nara, and he couldn’t take as many blows as Sen. The accurate, well-timed, and powerful blows of his familiar compensated, interrupting powerful blows, shaking the patherpine’s balance by blowing apart the ground or targeting it’s feet. For all of his familiar’s flaws, it had the processing mind of a gold ranker.
Eventually, its attacks blew apart a limb entirely. Then, a hole in the side of the pantherpine’s abdomen. Ranshi seized the opportunity, a blast of fire searing the panther’s eyes as he moved in, jabbing it’s spear into the cauterized cavity and detonating his spear again. The fire and explosion from his flames washed past him harmlessly, but it ravaged the pantherpine, popping the monster like an explosive charge had been detonated inside.
“One down. On to the next one, Balthu.”
Balthu’s answering salvo simply pinned the next target.
Ranshi dashed down the main street. The road was pocketed with holes and monster bodies as if an army had strolled down the street and been decimated by explosive mines.
Ranshi jabbed his spear forwards, sending out a swirling horizontal tornado of roaring fire in front of him, roasting the smaller monsters that dashed down the main way. Balthu was behind him, his beams of fire screaming past Ranshi yet never hitting him with the impact. He could trust Balthu with his back. If Balthu had precognitive powers, he believed it. Never had a shot mistakenly clipped him. It was as if Balthu was a archer battalion, and Ranshi was the protagonist avoiding every shot just by walking forward. Even as Ranshi executed his own high mobility maneuvers with explosive steps and jets of fire, he was never hit in the crossfire.
The main road was a blackened like an overused grill, monster bodies already transformed into charcoal by the continuous fire.
“What a massive monster wave, we’re about to be overwhelmed. Is this my end? Consumed by a ravenous vampiric horde. Can a familiar be vaporized? Will control of my body be stolen from me, my spirit a helpless puppet forced to watch as I commit atrocities? If control of my body is stolen from me to commit atrocities, am I still morally responsible for my actions? If my mind is compromised by brainwashing, what is me and what is external influence? What can be forgiven and what cannot? If I commit murder, who am I to be forgiven even if my agency is compromised? I can not revive the dead or undo my actions. If I allow myself to be taken over, if it my fault? Is that my moral culpability?”
“Balthu, you have your will right now and you’re killing monsters. On your left, Balthu.”
Ranshi had expected Balthu’s tentacle to shoot out an impale the monster that was dashing past it, yet it made no action. He was surprised, stopping in his tracks as the iron rank monster crossed the archway into the dimensional space.
“Balthu!”
But the familiar ignored him, still rocketing glowing bolts of violet-red down the main way.
Ranshi was horrified but prepared to launch himself back to the portal to catch up to the monster. He was much faster than it, and he’d make it through before it could cause any harm, but that would be neglecting the more dangerous monsters approaching. Balthu could do much, but he couldn’t solo defend the archway, and he was vulnerable to direct attacks.
Before his very eyes, he saw the monster stagger and fall to the ground, ravaged by damage and afflictions. It dragged itself forward, rabid with the vampiric curse, behind it a slug trail of tainted blood. When it finally died, it evaporated into a puff of rainbow smoke, monster blood disappearing with it.
“Balthu, did you know that would happen?” Ranshi questioned, focusing back on his battle at hand.
Balthu saw much. He saw the iron ranker’s battle again Siyu. He saw their afflictions. He saw how hers faded, he felt the sensation of her aura, the whispers of the astral.
“Possibilities and probabilities, or is it all the design of fate. Some divine hand, writing out our future like pages in a book. Everything predetermined, we march along the path as unknowing unwilling soldiers. Blessings and curses, transformation and stagnation. All ripples in waves in the ebb and tide of time. I can sense it, how the cosmos twists itself around us, forming the sensations of reality and astral.”
“I’ll presume that’s a yes,” he said with a sigh, “How about advanced warning next time, Balthu?”
“The trapping of fate change as it is spoken. When the oracle speaks her prophecy, is it to be changed or to seal it within the book of destiny? Does she seek the annihilation of prophecy or its cementation in stone? That which I know, I should know. That which you know, you should know. But should you know what you should not know, if I say what I should not say, what becomes of us? Do we have our will if we move according to predictions? I may be but an instrument of fate, but shall I condemn you to suffer the same fate, just a tool to weave the tapestry?”
“Alright, don’t tell me,” he said resignedly, spear absently impaling another bronze rank monster. “Keep your secrets.”