Chris
With our arms full of what we could carry, we trekked back to camp. There wasn't much value in the camp but we took anything we deemed usable.
For me, that was mostly gear and weapons. They weren't the best quality, especially after we had so carefully liberated them from their previous owners, but they could be melted down for material.
My pack rattled and clanked from the numerous weapons I was carrying while Austin's was bulging at the seams. He took anything that wasn't nailed down and then some. Anything he thought might hold value was taken and he looked comical carrying the massive pack on his back.
You would think that we came prepared with sacks at the ready to carry loot home with, but you would be wrong. We had to scavenge the camp for backpacks and the like to even think about lugging anything back.
Austin used a missmash of different clothes all tied together into a massive sack. It was so big it wouldn't be out of place with Santa Claus carrying it.
The loot we carried wasn't the only bounty we received from the camp. The 200-odd defenders gave a total of 200,000 points to the two of us. Split between the two of us was 100,000 each.
They held more points than normal and it seemed the points didn't automatically flow to the one controlling them which was a boon for us. They still held onto some points from the wave hours prior. We got more than anticipated.
Sneaking a peek at my point total was some good news on an otherwise shitty day.
Points: 653,342
On the way home, we stopped to wash the blood off before we made it back to camp. Everyone there knew what we did but it wouldn't look good to come home covered in the blood of our enemies. We didn't want the kids to ask questions.
We didn't run the way back, the sacks would rip under too much force, but it was mostly because we needed to decompress. After looting and packing up, the reality of what we did hit us.
I was told that I would hold power over others with my strength but now I had a first-hand example. It wasn't like the skirmish with the bandits, that was a small fight, this was the eradication of a village.
A random person now held the power to do what I just did and it would only get worse. It produced grim thoughts. Not everyone was good in the world and some would become monsters. Not everyone was bad either and some would create utopias.
Most would walk in the middle.
At the end of the trip, I had come to a decision. Good, bad, it didn't matter. It was all subjective really. I would create my Code of Honor and stick to it. I had been saying I would for a while but this really drove the point home.
There could be no more delaying it. I needed to figure out what rules I would live by so I wouldn't become something I wasn't. It was the same reason I didn't want permanent changes to my body.
I guess some might consider it a delusion or fantasy to try to hold onto who I was before but it was something I needed. I had only been in this new world for less than three months and look how much I changed already.
I slaughtered a village for God's sake.
If I could change so much to do that, how much further could I go? I needed something to ground me, to set me straight.
For the longest time that something was my father. He was the one who taught me right from wrong and was the one I looked to as an example. He wouldn't be around forever. Death came for everyone, even me.
In a world of battle and fighting it could come suddenly. I couldn't have the thing I relied on as guidance disappear like that.
It was something I would have to think about.
----------------------------------------
Tracy
The room was entirely silent and the only sounds that could be heard were from the nature outside getting through.
After telling the man, Christopher his name was, about the camps the Mindbreaker held she had expected him to attack. That was the only of the expectations she held that turned out to be right.
She had assumed he would gear up after the wave before marching with his whole camp to lay siege to the enemy before capturing it. Everyone in the room had expected the same.
She knew he was strong from his run through the woods, but not this strong.
He treated the defenses of the camp like they were jokes and shrugged off magic skills that she would die from. She felt threatened just looking at all the attacks that had rained down on them. She still held onto the memory of watching the two charge out of the tree line.
Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.
She thought they were there just to scout, not attack the damn thing. They were only two people. Against hundreds.
They ran straight at the gate weathering a bombardment of skills that would kill anyone in her camps. One just ignored them, letting them crash over him to no avail, the other moved so quickly that nothing hit him.
For the attacks too big to dodge, he hid behind the one in front like a human shield.
It was wild. Crazy. They were lunatics.
At first, she wondered what they would do once they got to the wall but she didn't have to wonder for very long.
As soon as she saw the one in ice swing his hammer at the gate she concluded that the two were idiots. The gate, and subsequent wall, were bought from the store and had enchantments running through them that even she didn't know what they did, and she was an Enchanter. Her profession told her a lot about enchanting and the runes running through the wall were still a mystery to her.
She had expected the hammer to bounce off to no effect. She knew the man was strong, but it was a system-bought wall. She knew how strong system-bought things could be, especially the defenses.
The last thing in the world she expected was for the gate to fail. Not only did it fail. It failed spectacularly, shattering into a spray of splinters.
The hammer also broke but seeing as a weapon of ice just as easily replaced it ruined the sentiment. The two fought like fiends.
One just created a snow-filled hellscape of death and blood while the other danced through the crowd stabbing quick, fatal blows with a spear. Light rays would pierce through a line of people before all of them fell over dead.
It was lethality in a bottle.
Every stab, ray of sun, or burst of light killed. It was almost as scary as the walking glacier.
One flitted around bringing death through stabbing while the other advanced slowly while crushing everything in the way, grinding it underfoot.
She was glad that she hadn't attacked the man when he showed up. She wasn't sure she would have been able to kill him before he got away. Having an enemy like that out there would make her lose more sleep than she already did.
Kathy was the most stunned of all the people in the room. The other wall leaders didn't understand the sheer scale of destruction the two men wrought. She could only share the vision of one bird with the group, but she could see it all.
It was destruction on a scale none of them had ever seen before.
All doubts about the ability of the man's camp went out the window. Now she wondered if it was the Mindbreaker that should be scared.
Though it was only one camp out of nine and it was the weakest one. She wondered if they were able to take them all like they did today.
All the rest were more advanced than the one they just saw destroyed. Still, something told her that what she saw wasn't everything they could do.
She almost felt silly offering the man what she did.
----------------------------------------
Chris
After getting back, the rest of the day went quickly. I wasn't in the mood for people and spent most of my time in the forge. After gaining my style I had been trying to advance my forging ability.
It was slow going and took a while to get used to, but it was working out better than I could have imagined. It was nice to be able to slow down and focus on forging rather than all the fighting.
The day went smoothly and I didn't have to think about the level I gained from killing people. The wave, the pylon upgrade, and the battle after all added up to two levels.
Austin beat me again with experience and gained 3. He was level 47 while I sat at 43.
With the free points from the two levels, I spread it out between the three magic stats. They were my lowest stats and deserved some love. All of my physical stats were high enough already.
3 to Intelligence, 4 to Wisdom, and 3 to Acumen helped bring them up. Wisdom was more than double the other two but it was also the most useful to me.
I couldn't help but think about how Austin was getting close to the next rank and he didn't have enough points for a bloodline yet. We would have to do something about that.
Austin had no qualms about changing or taking in a bloodline like I did, he was excited about it even. He picked out the bloodline he wanted already which was a step ahead of me. I was still looking.
His choice was on the steeper side in terms of cost but he should be able to do it before the tutorial ended. What he decided in terms of temporary versus permanent during the race upgrade was still up in the air though.
I kept my thoughts to myself, knowing him he would only do the opposite of whatever I told him to out of spite. It was one of his most frustrating traits. The thing he hated above all else was being told what to do.
Putting Austin out of my mind, I focused on a different member of our camp. With all the hectic activity the last day held I didn't have the time to look into something I wanted to.
While Austin and I were away, Jonathan managed to do something that greatly empowered him and I wanted to find out what.
Before the sun set completely, I sought the man out for the details.
"Hey, Jonathan. You got a second?"
He wasn't doing anything terribly important at the moment which was why I approached him about it now.
"Sure what do you need?" He answered.
"I was wondering about what you did during the attack. I was told you formed a spirit anchor but I don't know what that means."
"Oh, that. I was wondering when you would come and ask me about that. Admittedly, I don't know much about it myself. What I do know came from the information Abby bought after it unlocked in the store." He said.
I had heard as much but I wanted to hear the details from the man himself.
"What did it feel like? What did you do to get it?" I asked.
It was the same kind of questions I was asked when I first formed my Law. Being on the other foot now wasn't as fun.
"Spirit Anchors are the first step along the Spirit path of power, or so I'm told. As the spirit strengthens and gets larger through levels, evolutions, and experience, it needs something to keep it grounded and steady for future power spikes. Later ranks one can claim an Authority using the spirit and those hold a great amount of power." He cited from the information we bought.
Authorities were like Laws but different. Laws were grounded in the fundamental rules of the world. One couldn't gain a Law of something that didn't exist. Authorities were different. We still didn't know the full picture but it supposedly opened up the possibility of some pretty powerful abilities later on that a person could do. They also came with a downside. Without a strong enough spirit, using them was impossible. That was where Anchors came in.
"The Anchor is what works to bolster the spirit, keep it from getting out of control, ground it. It allows you to wield your spirit in battle without damaging it by keeping it anchored, hence the name." He continued.
They were also the leading way to strengthen a spirit. Doing anything that aligned with your spirit worked to bolster it and make it stronger. Jonathan's Anchor was about protecting people so every time he did that, his spirit would get stronger.
"Yeah, I know all that. I want to know what you did." I clarified.
"I found out who I am. I dug into the center of my being and confirmed what I stand for and who I want to be. It isn't something you can do in a day." He said with a laugh.
He knew I wanted to get a power-up before the next wave and worked to dissuade me from getting my hopes up.
We continued to talk about it but it didn't get any clearer.
Going to bed I couldn't stop thinking about it.
Who am I? It was a question I was asking myself a lot recently.