Chapter 124: The Vampire Progenitor
Siyu had remarked on the team’s powerful healer—he was all that stood between himself and true ascension and escape from his backwater city. Whether it was his sponsor or Siyu himself, someone had enough foresight to prepare Siyu an ability that would grant him a trump card.
“The black waters of death consume all, subsume all. Life melts away.” Siyu chanted.
A powerful wave of tar black darkness bubbled up from the ground, like a hot spring of putrid tar. It washed over them, rotting and corroding their flesh.
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Ability: [Necrotic Wave]
Spell
Incantation: “The black waters of death consume all, subsume all. Life melts away.”
Cost: Very high mana
Cooldown: 1 hour
Effect (Iron): Floods an area with a wave of necrotizing darkness, dealing high necrotic damage-over-time.
Effect (Bronze): Additionally inflicts high corrosive damage-over-time.
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With the sticky darkness corroding their flesh, Eufemia and John both reacted: Eufemia cast Void Cancel and John Fountain of Life.
“No power escapes the void.” “Fountain of life, manifest!”
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Ability: [Void Cancel]
Awakening Stone: Void
Spell
Incantation: “No power escapes the void.”
Cost: High mana
Cooldown: 3 minutes
Effect (Iron): Cast a spell on a target, interrupting a target ongoing ability. You can cancel the inherent abilities of a magical creature. The ability that was interrupted is placed on a 3-minute cooldown, and mana is consumed as if the ability had been cast, up to a limit. If more than one ability is interrupted and no target ability is specified, the ability with the longest cooldown is prioritized.
Ability: [Fountain of Life]
Awakening Stone: Water
Spell (healing)
Incantation: “Fountain of life, manifest.”
Cost: Moderate mana
Cooldown: 10 minutes
Effect (Iron): Creates an endless fountain that replenishes health of nearby allies.
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The spell was interrupted, but a chill crawled down Eufemia’s back at Siyu’s sinister smile.
Immediately afterwards, ethereal water gushed from nowhere, life as pure magic, combatting the necrotizing tide of sinister black. Eufemia and John briefly met eyes, hoping that their simultaneous reaction wouldn’t spell a mistake for the team. It wasn’t inherently a mistake, the healing was not unwarranted, however, Siyu’s cackling laugh portended his assumption of triumph.
“Life corrupted, Death abound. The cycle of life and death is reversed. Nothing is sacrosanct, all is corrupted.”
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His Necrotic Wave may have been nullified, but that was not his objective. He wanted to bait out a healing spell from John. It wasn’t as powerful as he hoped, but it was enough.
“Life corrupted, Death abound. The cycle of life and death is reversed. Nothing is sacrosanct, all is corrupted.”
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Ability: [Life to Death]
Spell (zone, unholy)
Incantation: “Life corrupted, Death abound. The cycle of life and death is reversed. Nothing is sacrosanct, all is corrupted.”
Cost: Extreme mana
Cooldown: 24 hours
Effect (Iron): Transform all incoming healing in a zone into necrotic damage. Does not affect healing generated from boons, only healing from external sources. Necrotic damage does not affect you or your allies.
Effect (Bronze): Allies regain health during the duration of the zone.
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The Death and Undeath Essences were known for their perversions of healing and life. Healing denial was useful against specific enemies, but such an effect was also found in other essences, such as Blood and Venom. To be on the safe side, the Adventure Society banned the Death Essence in its entirely.
The fountain that had once extended its blessings of abundance and life transformed into rotting liquid that rotted their flesh in turn.
“Chrome! Thanatos!” Nara yelled to her two familiars. Of the group, she, Encio, and Sen suffered the least. She had immediately exited the range of Fountain of Life with a node teleport, ordering chrome and Thanatos to drag away her other party members from the spell. Chrome tossed party members on Thanatos’ back, who sprinted out of the zone effect of Life and Death as fast as he could.
Eufemia had escape with a Flicker as well, exiting the range of the fountain. She had failed to cast Reverse Power in time, but her next most important task was to finish off the stone and crystal monstrosities. She couldn’t let them recover. They would overwhelm Nara, Sen, Encio, who now had to hold the frontline as John healed himself and Aliyah.
Nobody had died yet. Their flesh was rotting away, filled with pus and a terrible stench. Bone was exposed like new paint scraped to reveal the old layer.
She doubled Encio’s God-Sundering Slash twice, copied his weapon, and unleashed two waves that managed to finish off the both of the Bloodstone Servants.
For a moment, she staggered. The consecutive use of extreme mana and stamina abilities had drained most of her reserves. At iron rank, extreme cost abilities were only usable two to three times. Her increased maximum mana due to her celestine racial ability Mystic Bloodline and the team’s various mana regeneration abilities had allowed her the mana to spare after sustained fighting in the first place. But now, all her mana had been shaken out of her mana reserves, leaving her dry.
Without John to cover her momentary nausea, Eufemia was hit by a crystalline fist of the still alive Crystalline Monstrosity. Combined with her mana exhaustion, the blow knocked her out and she careened limp onto the blood and tar spattered ground.
Encio Flickered towards her, scooping her from the ground in a blitz of speed before a second blow could land.
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Ability: [Flicker]
Special Ability (dimension, movement)
Cost: Low mana and low stamina
Cooldown: 25 seconds 20 seconds
Effect (Iron): Move instantaneously a short distance away. Does not interrupt channeling abilities.
Effect (Bronze): Can be used a second time. Cooldown reduced to 20 seconds, with a use regained every cooldown period.
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He couldn’t teleport the both of them with Flicker, but he was faster on foot than Siyu, who didn’t specialize in speed. Thanks to his evolved Essence Gift into Accelerant, his speed attribute had been crawling upwards the entire fight.
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Racial Ability: [Accelerant]
Enemies damaged by your special attacks are inflicted with [Slowing Frost]. You gain an instance of [Fire Accelerant] for every instance of [Slowing Frost] you inflict. Instance limit is determined by the [Spirit] attribute.
* [Slowing Frost] (affliction, magic, stacking): [Speed] and [Recovery] attributes are temporarily decreased by a small amount. Additional instances have a cumulative effect.
* [Fire Accelerant] (boon, magic, stacking): The [Speed] and [Recovery] attributes are temporarily increased by a small amount. Additional instances have a cumulative effect.
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The Crystalline Monstrosity attacked again, its fist crunching with the sound of breaking glass into empty dirt. Encio had long escaped with Eufemia in his arms. He ran towards John, who was drawing out Grand Renewal with magic lines in the air. All ritual magic essence abilities had the secondary effect of allowing themselves to be cast by drawing magical lines, a skill that Aliyah herself gained through another ability. The difference was Enact Ritual allowed Aliyah to draw out any ritual with magic, while John was restricted to just this ability.
He was focused and concentrated, nodding briefly to acknowledge Encio as he did his work. He’d swap targets to Eufemia, have her reset his cooldowns, then heal Aliyah. None were so desperate as to immediately die (although Eufemia was now most pressing with her head injury). He subsisted them with life bolts in the meantime. He needed to hurry, however. Siyu was weakened by various afflictions, Sen and Nara fending him off alone was a difficult task. Encio had to deal with the remaining Bloodstone Servant by himself.
Out of the range of the zone, Nara drained a potion, placing the empty bottle in her inventory, not because it was proper, but because Siyu had a spell that could launch crystalline shards, and she didn’t want to add to the power of the ability. Once she had, she teleported back in to intercept Siyu. She couldn’t allow him to attack her vulnerable teammates.
Sen did the same, also downing a potion. He had escaped the range of the ability with his own teleportation, then sprinted back in at high speeds with Momentous Sprint.
Encio had used Immortality, restoring himself to full to contend with the final Bloodstone Servant. The restoration of this ability was an internal effect, and he avoided the power of the zone that still suffused the battlefield.
Most zone abilities had a long duration. Sen, Nara, and Encio would have to rely on their own internal healing once they re-entered the zone.
Nara didn’t need to communicate with Sage, so she sent all three bodies away. One was with John, which she kept there in the case of emergencies. Another was already with Sen, gradually restoring him. She moved the final body to Encio, granting him the minor restorative effect of her boons, which was more than the rest had stacked up.
“Look at yourselves.” Siyu said, who just could not resist the chance to gloat for a moment. His own combination had taken apart half of their team. “All of you, pathetic, ragged and rotting! How far the mighty Prince of Arlang has fallen. If you beg for your life, I might let you watch when I ravish your lovely team members, then transform them into my servants,” he glanced at Encio, then said with unwanted inclusiveness. “I don’t discriminate.”
Sen glared at him; his heavy staff held poised to strike.
“We just need to buy time for phase two,” Nara reminded him.
“I know,” Sen said icily. “I’m fine.”
Until the zone effect of Life and Death faded, Nara and Sen had to rely on themselves. Other than John, they were the two most self-sustaining members of the team.
The wouldn’t have John’s healing backup against the bronze ranker. But they didn’t need to win, just buy time.
All the other pieces were in place.
*****
Nara knew from Sen’s aura that he was more than a little pissed off. He had always been able to contain his wrath, beneath his calm exterior. He was like a searing hot plate with no heat indicator; visually safe but burning to touch.
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Throughout the week, Sen had to continually hear Siyu say degrading things to all of his team members, and he’s had to pretend he agreed with them.
Eufemia, despite her prickly attitude and sharp tongue, was self-conscious about her origins. In her own eyes, she was a criminal street rat. She may not have any actual crime on her record (prosecuted crime, at least), but she was self-aware of the dirt that covered her hands like grime she couldn’t wash off from beneath her fingernails. Siyu didn’t know that, but his constant comments about her inherent nobility, shining beauty, and superior upbringing had made Eufemia starkly aware she was the only the opposite, pretending to be what she was not. She’d never let anyone know what she was feeling, because the hurt from someone like Siyu shouldn’t matter, but Sen knew it hurt anyway. She was too good of an actor to show it.
Nara wasn’t his servant. She wasn’t anyone’s servant—even at the cost of death. Her history and values made that fact very clear. They were all equals on this team—Sen was nominally the leader, but his leadership was one he hoped to build on a foundation of trust. Everyone on the team had their own place and specialties, and he hoped each would lead in their area of strength. To ebb and flow, to listen where others were wise. That is what he sought from his party. It was an ideal that had once failed, but Sen believed that this team had the potential to succeed, reignited by Nara’s casual words after his confrontation with Raja.
Aliyah was his mentor. He was unruly with his impatience when he was younger. Like the rest of his family, he wanted to gain his essences and start training in earnest. He had, of course, been training in combat and tactics all his life, but rank progression would never start until he reached the age where he could absorb essences. It was different for every person, and for Sen, his was a few years later than the norm. His mother found Aliyah to teach him an important lesson to expand upon which Sen could learn, and to pass his time, shifting frustration to curiosity. He had been disrespectful for a long while towards her, which made Sen internally groan with embarrassment whenever he thought of it. She was a respected researcher, a genius his mother picked out to tutor him. She deserved his respect from day one. He didn’t give it to her then, but he’d make sure she had the respect she deserved now.
John was reliable, steady, and kind. Some of his unwillingness to harm others had already been carved away from him in his experiences in Nekroz and now in Sanshi, but he was a gentle soul at his core. He had been shaky at the start; failed shield timings, terrible combat skills, difficulty in managing his mana—an entirely new resource to him he never had on Earth. He was less impressive than his fellow members, but a sturdy foundation that only grew more resilient in time. If anyone could be kind through diamond and the cosmos beyond, it was John.
And Encio—despite his flashy background and attractiveness, was a person who understood how to take a step back, and when to put himself forward. He was a highly skilled burst damage dealer in a role where most didn’t bother to hone their skill, since they could use all of their abilities, then wait for their mana and cooldowns to recharge in safety. He was incredibly effective in both combat and social situations, managing himself effectively so that Sen could take his mind off of him in pressing situations. Encio could handle himself, and his extra skill meant he helped others too. The team was better for it.
Siyu would pay.
*****
Sen and Nara held a quiet focus, a flow state between the two of them that traded off attacking at the front. They balanced both of their damage they received, Sen doing his best to maintain his equilibrium state and Nara taking over if he fell too far beneath it. With Nara’s Invigorating trio of boons and stacked Integrity, stamina consumption was not a concern. In this field, they surpassed Siyu, who had no way to restore stamina other than his blood crystals. Eufemia’s familiar Runa helped: The Echo Spirit was transformed into Sen to grant him further mobility.
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Ability: [Battle Equilibrium]
Special Ability (recovery)
Cost: None
Cooldown: None
Effect (Iron): Maintain an equilibrium state. When afflictions surpass equilibrium, periodically cleanse afflictions from yourself. When health, stamina, or mana drops below the equilibrium, gain a health-, stamina-, or mana-over-time effect.
Effect (Bronze): The condition to reach equilibrium state is reduced. Gain damage resistance to damage below equilibrium.
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Sen’s Battle Equilibrium was constantly in use once he fell below half health, and was one of his few abilities that also reached bronze rank. The bronze rank effect raised the equilibrium state slightly, to around 60% health. Combined with the new damage reduction below that point, Sen was deceptively resilient at lower health thresholds.
When another Blood Crystal manifested, Nara didn’t react to destroy it. Instead, a fast cutting wave of sword energy swept past, smashing the crystal and destroying its stored contents, life energy and blood dissipating.
Feeling the pressure again, Siyu had called his monstrous familiar back, his thundering steps leaving fragments of shattered crystal in its wake, mingling with bloodied dirt in fractured glass caltrops.
Encio kept on the familiar, his force blades and high-speed chipping away at flesh and crystal. Since Siyu had called his familiar back, Encio could stay with the other two and assist. Siyu’s best move was to keep his familiar away and pushing after John to force Encio to combat him, but he lost his nerve and wanted the assistance the monstrosity provided.
Sen and Nara adopted a more mobile pincer strategy, intentionally putting Siyu between themselves and the monstrous familiar. If the familiar swung at them, it risked hitting Siyu. Siyu kept trying to re-conjure his blood crystals so that they could passively steal life force, but Nara, and now Encio, kept denying him that. Siyu didn’t have the coordination to use Necrotic Shadow with the right timing to instead reverse pincer Nara and Sen, further evidence of his lack of mastery over his abilities—while it was something that Nara could do with Phase Shift.
The main issue was the afflictions Siyu inflicted on them. Wounding afflictions absorbed healing, which cut Nara’s self-regenerative abilities. Sen’s Battle Equilibrium fought back against the tide of afflictions, but it struggled since they were higher rank.
After fighting Siyu for so long, Nara had adapted to his attacks. Her health regeneration may be next to nothing, but her mana regeneration was at its peak, and she avoided most of his attacks and therefore avoided more application of his afflictions. Soul Legion worked against them; she was, for the most part, in a state of slight positive condition gain, as long as she didn’t suffer a large hit.
When Siyu tried to chase John and finish them off, Encio, Nara, and Sen fought fiercely to keep him away. Trying to push forward past them opened him up to dangerous amounts of damage. His frustration grew that he couldn’t pick off their weakened comrades.
When he shifted into shadow, Nara shifted her own blade to become incorporeal, one of the effects of Blade of the Boundary she did not often use to damage an enemy. She occasionally used it to slip her blade through someone’s own, but that was a high risk tactic that often meant trading blows.
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Ability: [Blade of the Boundary]
Awakening stone: sword
Conjuration (sword, affliction)
Cost: Moderate mana
Cooldown: None
Effect (Iron): Conjures [Horizon’s Edge, the [Blade of the Boundary]]. Normal and special attacks made with [Horizon’s Edge] deal physical and rending damage and will inflict an instance of [Dimensional Instability] and inflicts or refreshes [Dimensional Rupture]. Horizon’s Edge can be made incorporeal at will.
* [Dimensional Instability] (affliction, magic, stacking): All rending damage suffered is increased. Additional instances have a cumulative effect.
* [Dimensional Rupture] (affliction, magic): When inflicted or refreshed, suffer additional rending damage proportional to current instances of [Dimensional Instability].
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It was another ability that was close to bronze rank, but had not made it in time for this fight. Sen’s evolved Essence Gift, Inescapable Wrath, also allowed him to affect Siyu in this state as well.
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Racial Ability: [Inescapable Wrath]
Abilities affect all beings. Intrinsic immunities are treated as resistances. Physical attacks can affect incorporeal beings.
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It was one of Sen’s silent workhorse abilities that made him almost universally effective. Encio’s Blue Shift provided him with a similar effect, although it was conditional.
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Ability: [Blue Shift]
Special Ability
Cost: None
Cooldown: None
Effect (Iron): Attacks and abilities that reach a speed threshold can affect incorporeal entities. While moving at speed, gain increased resistance to hostile dimension effects.
Effect (Bronze): Increased maximum [Speed] attribute. This applies to external effects, such as allied boons. Increased resistance to effects that decreases the [Speed] attribute.
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Since all three of them could damage Siyu in his shadow form, it wasn’t the escape card Siyu thought it would be against this particular team. It was a costly ability too, although not to the ridiculous cost of Nara’s Phase Shift.
Siyu’s trump card spells, while easy to use and powerful, had already been burned in the middle of the fight. What he was left was with his short cooldown spells and special attacks which he was not particularly good at using, as they required skill and experience to use most effectively. He lashed out at Nara and Sen repeatedly, but it wasted stamina and mana with little return.
“We’re fine,” Eufemia said through voice chat. Her voice was a relief to the others still fighting. “Let’s finish this.”
The other three rode back on Thanatos, dropping off from his back onto the ground. They were weary, but ready for the next phase.
Nara, Encio, Chrome, and Eufemia prepared for their part. Nara and Encio dashed around Siyu, crossing around him to the far side. Sen, backed up by John, held off Siyu for just a moment, Eufemia having already reset his cooldowns. Aliyah’s Binding Light interrupted his movements, but Siyu didn’t have the spatial awareness and fighting experience to track so many moving targets, nor the sense of who to prioritize. He could only focus on those in front of him.
The four reached down and activated the sun lamps that had been set up beforehand and hid by concealment rituals drawn by Eufemia. Since concealment rituals, aptly named, specialized in concealing objects or other rituals, Siyu with his lack of training in both magic and perception lacked the capabilities to detect them despite his higher rank.
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Item: [Sun Lamp] (normal, common)
Classification: object, lamp, light source
Lamps designed to absorb the light of the sun to release at night.
Effect: Absorbs and stores the light of the sun.
Effect: When activated, releases stored sunlight. Can be configured for light intensity.
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While glowstones were the most popular light source in Erras, it was not as if there were not alternatives. There were normal non magical lamps, often sold as a specialty item in low magic zones. Sun lamps were one such option.
From four corners, blinding sunlight poured out of the lamps, rapidly draining their stores of sunlight, directed towards the center where Siyu stood. The burning light seared his eyes and skin, and he rapidly accumulated instances of Sunlight Madness. The sunlight from the lamps didn’t need to be high rank—the local magic converted it to magical sunlight.
He tried to escape with Necrotic Shadow. In preparation for these final moments, Eufemia downed a bronze rank spirit coin. As she felt the power coursing through her like a drugged-up blood servant addicted to a vampire’s blood, she voided his ability, shutting it down for three minutes. She had seen the ability many times already, and expected his attempt to escape. The boosted power from a spirit coin lasted only a couple minutes. Her high iron rank prevented its immediate degradation, allowing her to finish her role in the final phase of this fight.
Eufemia reset Binding Light, and Aliyah used it to tie Siyu in place, his lowered attributes from the sunlight preventing him from tearing himself free. Encio used Dimension Flux, further nauseating Siyu and disrupting teleportation, denying him any chance of escape.
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Ability: [Dimension Flux]
Conjuration (dimension, trap)
Cost: Moderate mana, low mana-per-second
Cooldown: None
Effect (Iron): Wildly distort space in a small area, disorienting anything that passes through. Denies the area as a teleportation egress point. Only once instance of this ability can exist simultaneously.
Effect (Bronze): Area of spatial distortion is increased. Disorientation effect persists for a short time after leaving the affected area.
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John and Eufemia dashed in both holding Solar Judgements, the most powerful weapon they had against the vampire: The power of the sun condensed into a shotgun. Eufemia’s was enhanced to the max, once again the target of Hero’s Moment. Since her ability to copy weapons came from an ability, it benefitted from John’s Bolster.
The whole team flung everything they had at Siyu in that moment. Every spell, every ranged special attack, fire and light from every available familiar. For a moment, Siyu’s position was a brilliant corona of light, and the team was staring into the sun; the setting sun of a dying vampire.
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-[Vampire Progenitor] has been wholly annihilated and automatically looted.
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When the system message appeared, the whole team felt themselves releasing a breath of relief, collapsing onto their knees, and hugging each other with joy. It was mainly Nara hugging all the others, with the others seated on the floor.
A silver grey light arose from John, who sighed with frustration after reading at the status message.
“A cleanse boost racial? That couldn’t have come a little bloody earlier?” he complained after reading the message, throwing his hands into the air in his exasperation.
*****
Nara sensed Siyu’s soul attempt to enter her inventory. He was drawn to his Crystalline Phylactery no matter where it was, but he could not enter Nara’s inventory without her permission.
“Should I let Siyu’s soul into my inventory?”
“What do you mean?” Aliyah asked, always one for clarification.
“I can sort of sense that he wants to get at his Crystalline Phylactery. The one I put in my inventory a while back.”
“Is that dangerous?” Sen asked.
“To me? Not at all. I’m the god of my little astral domain. Even if he let in, he doesn’t have any rights unless I give them to him.”
“What if you don’t?” John asked.
“He dies. That’s it. His soul is guided by the Goddess of Death onto the path of the Reaper.”
“How long do you have to decide?” asked Sen.
“A few hours, maybe, before his soul can’t maintain its connection to reality and is led away. He has a strong attachment to life. It’s longer than most.”
“His life was so worthless, yet he has a strong attachment to it?” Eufemia said, “Why is it always the evil bastards that are tenacious?”
“Or a property of being a vampire,” Aliyah suggested academically. “They are known to revive themselves.”
“Is there any value in keeping him alive?” Encio asked, unintentionally savage.
“The Adventure Society could question him,” Nara proposed. “We found those papers that someone had given him and convinced him to take a Death Essence. They also provided him with some awakening stones, a method to set up his storeroom, and kill the townsfolk without getting caught. So, what should I do? I don’t care either way.”
“You’re fine with that?” Sen asked, “Letting him die?”
“I already killed someone, Sen.”
“Doesn’t make the second any easier, or any death after that. I never find it any easier either. I never hope to.” It wasn’t entirely accurate, but his sentiment was understood. Siyu was, after all, very easy to detest, and Sen was wrathful.
“Thankfully,” Nara said, “Siyu has made it very easy for me to not give a shit. I think most lives are equal, but his is not even worth a single fuck. Even if I let him live, they’ll kill him afterwards, right?”
“They will,” confirmed Sen, “Death Essence users are killed on sight. There’s no exceptions.”
“Then?” Nara prompted.
“It’s all rather unsatisfying after our spectacular performance,” said Eufemia, huffing as she examined the blood-stained battle grounds, “but we let the bloodsucker live. For now.”
*****
Siyu awoke in his crystalline phylactery. He was relieved it was still intact after those adventurers had exploded his secret storeroom. (If he was smarter, he would have realized there was no way his phylactery would have been left alone for any reason.)
He sent his perception and aura outwards, only to realize he could not. He could not manifest a new body either—a function of the phylactery that contained a massive amount of life force. He was trapped, a soul within a crystal cube, a bug in a glass display. Static thrummed through his mind, and he tried to ignore the cruel seed of panic that had sprouted.
No, he denied. Not him. He wasn’t afraid. Fear was for lesser beings. His prey.
He tried to do anything. To talk. To see. To hear. To feel.
Nothing.
Was there something wrong with his phylactery? It was the most complex artifact he had ever created, the knowledge of how create it granted by his racial ability, Crystalline Phylactery. Truthfully, it was the only artifact he had ever created.
The claustrophobic space caused the panic to bloom. His soul felt boxed in, restricted. He couldn’t experience anything but his own thoughts, and he drowned in them.
This was his failsafe! His escape! He’d fool those adventurers into thinking he’d died, then make his way to the church of undeath. They…they’d shelter him. He’d become a priest! Those ‘evil’ gods always needed followers. He was valuable. He was. He was!
No matter what he told himself, dread clawed its way up from the pit he desperately tried to smother it.
Something was wrong, very wrong. He felt it all around him. An oppressive vastness that saw him as little more than a speck of dust in the sands of time. A mere drop of water in an infinite ocean.
He felt all those lives he’d taken screaming at him, a droning sound growing in strength like a feedback loop.
“Look at yourself Siyu,” they told him, “Look at how worthless you are! You aren’t any better than the rest of us. You killed us all, for this?”
“Always so arrogant.”
“So prideful.”
“You never could achieve anything on your own, could you?”
“Just as backwater as your family.”
“A failure like your father.”
“This is your eternity.”
A question. An observation. A condemnation.
The only thing he could do was scream at the cube encasing him.
No one heard.