Chapter Seventy Four - Karma is A Cruel Guide

I looked sadly at Seth’s paralysed body. It didn’t need to have come to this. I wasn’t sure if I was glad the attack hadn’t killed him outright or not, though. The man on the floor was immobile, but furious in a way I had never seen a human. His features warped, unsure of what happened but knowing it was my fault as he looked up at my now standing form.

Seth’s abilities were top notch. It was a genuinely deadly scenario, with everyone surviving only because I was able to take a bit of a beating. Had I been less of a prime target and focus of Seth’s rage, there would have been casualties. There would have been nothing I could do to stop him. That thought was quite lethal, as far as Seth mattered. It was that thought which forced a consideration at all.

I had taken advantage of his lack of combat ability. Skills and high levels and apparently classes all give strength, but they can’t teach one how to use themselves. While the System shores up a lot of the initial experience required, none of it helped when it came to feints that combined with attacks faster than the eye can see or the body can react to. With a smash of the Alternating Armament, Seth’s skull had rotated nearly all the way around in an anti-clockwise direction. It was gruesome to see and now I was forced to ask myself one, deathly serious question. Would I kill him?

“Is he… dead?” A timid voice asked, and I had to turn to see whether it was Larry or his brother Morris. The large duffel coat was finally removed to his inventory as Larry worried for its safety. I shook my head. The injury would have been the end pre-System, but now Seth’s vitality made this gory scene play out differently.

“I can feel magic at work fixing him even now.” Impressive magic, too. While I was able to carry on a conversation and think, a lot of my attention was focused there. Not only was it different to how Naea healed, it was a more personal recovery ability, and the way Seth’s mana was moving was giving me ideas. Most of them were in regards to how using mana in healing worked, but some of them were much darker.

“So… what are you going to do?” Larry didn’t meet my eyes as he asked, even as I stared towards him as I gathered my answer. It was no simple matter, the life of a man in my hands. Yet, even as I weighed that portion of the scales, I found it severely lacking in substance. Seth’s life was not the only one I was balancing, and he was outmatched by each of the many souls counting on me.

“He’s too powerful to be left to his own devices,” Hassian rumbled. His words were slow, mostly due to his large jaw and an accent which made him sound like an orca whale trying out its first words. I didn’t dismiss his opinion, though. The System had poisoned what Hassian described as an idyllic life on his planet of Gibral, and to survive that life meant following certain rules. “His path and your’s have collided, forming a thoroughfare.”

“That’s poetic,” I murmured, moving the group away from the twitching body on the floor. Looking at the situation objectively, these were about the most grim circumstances I had ever been in. The leader of a generally neighbouring city at my feet, that same city outside waiting for one of us to clear this dungeon. “So you suggest ending him?”

Hassian looked uncomfortable, if I read his facial expression right. His head turned and he regarded me with one of his large brown eyes, looking even more like the shark which his people seemed to have evolved from. He regarded me for a quiet moment, weight shifting from foot to foot. He wore boots, but I absently wondered if he had webbed toes. Hassian’s fingers were long, dextrous and without webbing, after all. My eye twitched as his hands reminded me of the Amphibious Attack Animals I had fought before.

Standing to one side felt awkward to me, so I produced some chairs for the group to sit in a circle. As much as I’d have rather ignored the issue, I made sure I was facing the still prone body of Londimin’s leader. Hassian sighed. “The path of fate is one we follow whether we want to or not. This is a known concept for your world?” When he was met with general agreement, Hassian nodded. “This is how The Tree works, yes. A thousand thousand threads, each as real as the next, but only one is your true path. As choices are made, the spindles click and tie to past off in knots. The roped storyline of our lives which have already happened, with no change possible. Is it always the same path?” Hassian shrugged. “How can our path be simple when others can become tangled in the pattern?”

“You’re suggesting that we’re… bound, in some way?” That was a troubling idea. I hadn’t made many enemies in my life, but the idea that we were intrinsically linked because of the animosity was daunting. I thought of the Storm Dragon, and my current trajectory to one day fight the beast, all because I had faced an already impossibly strong shade of its power. “I don’t like that idea.”

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“Most do not.” Hassian nodded. He said no more, but the implication was clear. End this issue before it becomes larger in the future. While I was sure Morris and Rashid had their own thoughts on the matter, they were pointedly keeping them to themselves. I respected their position. None of us humans were making life or death decisions a few months ago.

Not a human.

I nearly choked as both of my Dao voices told me off at once. There was a value in maintaining my humanity, but the magical side of me didn’t care for it. There was also a strength in embracing our individuality. I was a Stormborn, not a human. Physically, the changes weren’t obvious until I used magic, and even then it could be explained by that same magic to most, but I had changed. The System changed me more than most. Would I continue to allow that?

I looked at the body on the floor, and the magic within which promised not just life but complete recovery. Whatever was happening in his body was impressive, and likely from a specific Aspect entirely focused on healing. The speed of recovery, even ungoverned by an intelligent force like Naea, was shocking. I may have problems with Seth, but I conceded a single point. His healing techniques were better than my own. Healing a shattered spine and neck in minutes was damn cool. It wasn’t even something I was sure I could survive, let alone heal from.

Intimidated.

I took a deep breath and stood, hiding my grimace by returning my chair to its space in my inventory. There was essentially a sizable apartment’s worth of furniture and comforts in there. People gave me strange looks whenever I made use of the function, but they didn’t know I had more space than I knew what to do with. I could probably have taken everything not nailed down in Home Base and still had room to spare for supplies, but even then, most of what I needed was carried on my person.

I was intimidated. Not by Seth, exactly. I wasn’t thrilled to have a potentially destined enemy, but he wasn’t really important. Our challenging battle was as exciting as the fight against Nezzerul, just with higher stakes that killed a little bit of the casual mindless joy. No, I was frightened by what his existence might suggest.

I had interacted with the man briefly, and he had grown in power to a massive degree. It was arrogant to think another person’s growth was down to me, but when a pattern began to emerge, it was hard to avoid seeing it. Recognition of signs had kept my human ancestors alive thousands of years ago, when the creatures in the dark were as dangerous to life as they are once more.

Naea, my little sometimes psychotic best friend. I still hadn’t run into another dungeon fairy, likely because of Naea’s presence and the fact I simply didn’t need one, but Naea was not like the others. I didn’t need to see them to know. She was strong, stronger than any of the humans I had met, or even the ones who had trained with me. Our connection was written onto my very soul, so her matching my pace wasn’t strange or anything to consider… until it was.

The Ascent. My guild, who were all hopefully thriving without my presence to hold them back. Each of them had walked into that first dungeon without a clue, but were now more powerful than anyone else I had met. Was that because of me? And not just the specific training and attention I gave to help them, but because they had been wrapped into my weave of fate?

Newtown and Ascentown. Picturescue and pastoral, it wasn’t just the location which made the people there happy and generous. There were resources and land available, because Naea and I were able to provide an aura of protection beyond our physical presence. Even now, Steel remained in the area and as a constant press against my spirit. The powerful being, born right from the System specifically to face me. Even the three men I had brought with me into the Elite dungeon, and Hassian, had seen growth they wouldn’t have otherwise experienced without me. Most likely.

With each passing moment, each healed bone in his vertebrae, Seth’s life became heavier in my hands. The choice I felt made the most sense became harder to make, slipping through my fingers. The ease at which I could scrub this problem from my life ironically just added to the difficulty. With less exertion than flicking my wrist, a Mana Bolt could solve the situation.

I had another choice, though. More final, perhaps. Maybe destiny really was at play, because once I had the thought, it became the only solution I could imagine. The Dao Breaker achievement was powerful, but it was the source of that achievement that was truly frightening. My Dao surged, moving with my half-decided intent. Seth looked up at me with a sneer and I took one final, deep breath before lowering my hand down onto his chest.

Physically, he was fine. The magic of Drain activated and I clutched my hand around the strange, cancerous growth of Seth’s class. It was easy, the class not having enough time to properly bond. Maybe it never could have. Now it never would. I gripped and, almost too easily, the structure attached to Seth’s soul crumbled into nothing. Seth was struggling slightly but as his class disintegrated, he fainted, eyes rolling into the back of his head.

“Let’s go,” I told the group, not wanting to spend another minute here.

———————————————

Seth tumbled through an infinite darkness, welcoming the calm of it. Everything had been so loud and hectic recently. This was okay, wasn’t it? To fade into a long, long sleep? He had tried to live up to expectations but things were just too hard. No one helped him. No one understood.

Except for him.

Grant Kaeron was everything Seth thought he was. Naturally powerful, confident and capable of using the System in strange, incredible ways. His presence had forced the magic inside of Seth into a frenzy, so much so that the last few days had been a complete haze. He realised he had been floating in this darkness for a while, and it was only now that he could feel it. Seth didn’t have the strength to fight back the darkness.

He just enjoyed the quiet as he faded deeper into unconsciousness.