Offer

The metal contraption flew in between the buildings that reached for the sky, deftly maneuvering through thick cables that connected to tall poles and branched off from there to other buildings. The power flowing through them was staggering, but Ra’azel kept his attention on the contraption—a drone, as the people living here called it. The light shining from the glass lens at its front swept over the small backstreet that he’d just passed through.

Ra’azel hid behind the corner of a large container, a small orb floated around him, the carvings on its surface glowing faintly to his eyes. He knew that from the outside looking in, both he and his orb would be invisible. His construct both obscured him from sight by erasing his presence completely, and also prevented most forms of detection.

He had been forced to add some in the recent months since he had arrived to the city. The Exalted Empire had some interesting ways of scrying. Some that had even strained his knowledge.

But adapting was necessary, especially since he was still carrying the injuries from the battle that had nearly taken his life.

The drone left, not finding any sign of him. It was a powerful tool, but it was simple, it followed patterns that Ra’azel had studied.

He hobbled out of his hiding place, putting his orb of obfuscation away. Every step sent a stab of pain through his hips which made his tail twitch. Learning how to properly move with it had been another pain. During the battle, he had been too focused on other things, the muscle memory in his new body had taken care of most things. After though, he had been forced to learn everything, on top of having to run away and hide.

His injuries had been severe enough that death wasn’t too far away. His Soul had been spent and ravaged by his foes. It was a battle unlike anything he had faced before, a great lesson in why he avoided fighting when he was uncertain about the outcome.

Healing had taken a while, and it was still ongoing. If he had suffered these injuries before he had been imprisoned, it would’ve taken him decades, perhaps even centuries to heal fully. But his imprisonment had made his Soul stronger, and now he had more ways of helping the process along. After he had ensured that his presence was hidden properly, he had focused on healing. It had required assaulting a village to take resources, but even in his state it was of little concern. He had crafted items that encouraged the healing of the Soul and stabilized himself firstly. Then he had delved into the Framework, the access that he now possessed.

It seemed that fighting against such monsters and surviving so much Soul damage counted for something. None of his choices of Class had been related to his Runesmithing, which was expected, he had found no evidence of it being used here. He had spent some time recovering by studying, utilizing the Framework’s auction service to buy items and books of knowledge that could help him. He had learned about Focus Madness, about requirements for advancement and many different things.

The Framework had already granted him great boons, like achievements. And he had decided to put all of his attention in a single focus so far. He didn’t want to risk madness, despite it being an old friend. Cultivation was the hardest focus for him to find reliable information on, and skills seemed incredibly difficult as well as having more conflicting information about out there.

Class seemed the most useful to him, and the easiest to advance. He also had the innate power of his body still. He had discerned that the previous owner of the body utilized skills, and some of that power still echoed in the body. It wasn’t as if he had access to those skills, it was more like that power was part of the body. Not all of it if what he had learned was true. He had no access to any perks that he could activate at will, but the body seemed to hold a diminished piece of that power within itself.

Things seemed to happen just because he willed them to. Like how he could walk and somehow cross incredible distances without realizing it. It had made him consider attempting to use Skills, but he ultimately decided on a Class.

He had been offered two choices related to array building, both of which he had nearly taken. In the end, he had been forced to pick the third option, the one related to healing of the Soul. It was necessary, and it had been a boon. The perks of his beginning class—Stalwart Soul Master—had helped stabilize him after the battle, and the following evolutions had improved on that. He had picked choices that increased the regeneration of his Soul, and that bolstered his defenses.

And he had seen the benefits already. Even though his Soul was not yet fully healed, he could already tell that powering his runes with his Soul would be far easier. With every Class evolution, he had felt getting stronger. And what should’ve been a century of recovery, had been reduced to a year. He was close to being fully recovered, though he wasn’t quite yet there.

He hobbled out of the alleyway and headed down the street, following the direction feed to his head by his tracker construct. Healing came with a cost after all, not to him, but to others.

Finding people with strong Souls turned out to be far harder than he had expected. They tended to be more powerful, and Ra’azel wasn’t comfortable challenging anyone at the moment.

And, it appeared that the Exalted Empire had less of people who focused on things like mastery of Soul. He had considered going someplace else, but he was certain that he would be hunted, that their people would be keeping an eye out for him. Which left him with little choice but to hide amongst those who were not on friendly terms with his enemies.

He had spent a few months outside of the so-called Settled Territories, in the wild, but that had proven dangerous as well. Powerful monsters were drawn to him, and his injuries had caused a few close encounters. And in the end, he wasn’t content with waiting for his Soul to recover naturally on its own. Hunting and grafting pieces of healthy and powerful Souls accelerated his recovery, and he didn’t have the time to waste.

That’s why he had come here, to the city of Nyutall, in the heart of the Exalted Empire. It was as far away from the territories of his enemies as one could get, and it was a large city where he could get lost among the masses.

True, a drake walking around amongst mostly cthul was an oddity, but there were enough other races that he wasn’t more than that. The reason why he chose it was exactly because of its size and age, it was an old city, with an old population, powerful individuals. And with so many of them there, a few disappearances here or there were far more easily missed.

The cthul technology was strange, true, but Ra’azel had made a point of studying it before. He had gotten enough countermeasures to be sure he could avoid detection.

He cast his eyes up at the towering buildings, the constant lights that shone everywhere, the flying chariots that traveled in all directions. People who walked on the bottom level of the city were the poorest of the city’s occupants, the downtrodden, the ones that no one would miss.

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It would be easy for Ra’azel to snatch them up, but sadly the ones that were the easiest to get were not the ones that would be of much use for him. And yet, among these wretches, Ra’azel had found the perfect hunting ground.

He reached his destination, a small building nestled in between two towering ones. He approached and took the stairs that led him down inside. The door slid open as he reached it, and he stepped into a dimly lit lobby. Two people sat in the corner, both cthul, and wearing tight skin black combat suits that the Exalted Empire seemed to favor. Ra’azel had already studied them in detail. They had few arrays installed in them, mostly for protection fields, but their main purpose was to serve as a kind of an interface.

Cthul utilized strange constructs that they implanted inside their bodies and which allowed them to interface with the rest of their creations. Ra’azel understood the thinking behind it, he had done much the same, only through a different means.

He had constructs with runes woven through with threads of his Soul that he could control through his very being at a moment’s notice. It was a way to bypass the failing of his body, the speed of his physical mind. It required one being able to disassociate body from Soul, which was not an easy thing to accomplish.

The cthul went in the other direction, they attempted to overcome the limits of their physical bodies by augmenting them with their creations. Ra’azel even saw some ways that he could benefit from such things as well.

The two guards stood as soon as they noticed him, their hands hovering over the rifles slung over their shoulders. They paused for only a moment, as they took in his appearance.

The heavy cloak and hood draped over him were insufficient to hide his nature, the snout his body possessed stuck out, and his bulk betrayed him as a race other than cthul.

Before they could react, Ra’azel thumbed the small disk in the palm of his hand while at the same time using his ability—[Soul Grasp].

The pulse from his construct hit the building, smothering the Lightning Essences that powered most of the constructs within, while his ability caught and held three Souls in its grip. The two guards and the female cthul that sat behind the counter on the other side of the room.

The three Souls were unremarkable to his senses, so he just smothered them with ease and harvested them for meager benefit. The three dropped to the ground as Ra’azel continued walking, heading deeper into the building.

He could hear yelling from within the room beyond, his Soul Sense perk came to life and he identified twenty three other Souls ahead.

He had watched the building for a week, had planned his attack well. The criminal element of Nyutall was active and free for the picking.

He knew that their leader was present, that a new shipment of slaves had arrived and that he was there to inspect them personally. Ra’azel abhorred such practices, but ultimately, it worked for him. Criminals such as these were easy to find, and it was far easier for Ra’azel to make them disappear. Their absence was far easily attributed to conflict with rivals than to a lone hunter.

Though, not to say that there wasn’t any danger for him. Ra’azel had inspected the organizations he had hit well enough to know that some had links to very high places in the Exalted Empire leadership and enforcement organizations. Eventually, someone will ask questions. Which was why this was Ra’azel’s last target before he left for another city.

It was time, and he felt like he was close to being discovered. His last attack had been… strange. Things seemed to fall into place with far greater ease than he had expected.

Ra’azel pulled out two constructs, made from skull bones of high level cthul, or high tier as people tied to the Framework called them. Then, he kicked down the door and let the constructs go. The people inside turned, some of them had helmets on which allowed them to see in the dark, but they didn’t have the chance to react. His construct floated into the air and released the mental attack was released. More than half of the criminals fell to the ground, unconscious as did the slaves in the cages, while the rest dropped on their knees, unable to move.

Ra’azel entered and raised a hand, the tips of his glove glowed and six beams of piercing light punched through the heads of the guards, killing them instantly. He walked over to the last member as he recovered and stood, his target and the leader of this organization.

His suit and helmet flickered as power was restored to it, which surprised Ra’azel, his construct was still suppressing Lightning Essence. It had to have some additional backups or protections.

His target tried to move, but Ra’azel didn’t allow it. He knew better now than to give people a chance. He used [Soul Lash], grimaced at the dull pain, and struck at the cthul’s Soul. He felt the shudder the natural defenses of the Soul attempt to fight him off. But Ra’azel, even injured, was ancient, his Soul far greater.

Still, this Soul wouldn’t be a good target if it wasn’t powerful. The cthul had a Soul related Class, and Ra’azel felt him trying to defend himself.

He triggered his perks as he walked over to stand in front of him. Sunder Resistance, clawed at the cthul’s very being, lowering all of his resistances, and his Soul crashed through and engulfed his target’s.

He pulled out a construct, and set it on the floor, then he used Soul Drain. Usually, he would accomplish all of this with his constructs and runes, but to make a construct able to do this, he would need to sacrifice more of his own Soul to empower the runes. And he was unwilling to do that in his current state. Thankfully, his new connection with the Framework had given him another path.

As the Soul in front of him cried out in agony, Ra’azel focused on using what he gained to encourage his own Soul to heal faster. His latest Class evolution, at the level 360, the Harvester of Souls, had given him great benefits for draining Souls, and he used his construct to ensure he gained the most of it.

Once he was finished, he looked around, the rest of the criminals and the slaves in the cages were unconscious, and their Souls, unremarkable. He thought about it for a moment, then fired beams of light to kill the rest of the criminals, those that kept others imprisoned woke memories that Ra’azel didn’t like. The slaves, he left alive.

It wasn’t some great act of kindness on his side, but it wasn’t like he really needed them dead either. He made his way out of the underground base then froze.

A being stood in front of him, undetectable to his senses or the constructs on his person. It was a cthul, wearing an armored suit that covered it from feet to top of the head, even covering the tendrils over its mouth. The sleek black material had armored plates over vulnerable areas, but the rest looked like fibers woven tightly together in a way that made Ra’azel think of muscles.

Lines of golden glowing light flickered over it seemingly at random.

The person made a gesture with its arms, placing them in front of its chest with palms facing each other.

“Greetings, Ra’azel Equinar,” the figure said through modulated speech coming from its helmet.

Ra’azel’s first thought was to kill him, but some instinct warned him against it. He could feel nothing from the figure, in a way that reminded him of his fight against the monsters that had injured him so. It was almost like an absence of everything. Though to a much lesser degree. This person was strong, Ra’azel had no doubt about it. And the fact that it knew his name was concerning as well. Through agony, he moved his Soul, preparing runes for a fight.

“Who are you and what do you want?” Ra’azel asked.

The cthul dropped its hands and spoke. “I am the Sixth Emissary of the Machine, servant of Atalar. Your name has become known to us, as have your activities in our lands. The Machine God wishes to speak with you.”

Ra’azel blinked. He had overheard cthul talking about their Machine God, he hadn’t spent much time thinking about it, but he knew that they believed and followed the will of something that they considered a god.

“I carry a gift from the Machine God,” the figure said, then slowly reached behind and pulled out something. Ra’azel stiffened as the Emissary pulled out a piece of fabric with a symbol written on it, a symbol he recognized.

“How? Where did you get that?” Ra’azel asked as he took a step forward.

“It, and more is yours, if you consent to speaking with Atalar.”

Ra’azel reached and took the fabric in his hands, it was weathered, but not nearly as much as it should be. In truth, it shouldn’t even be here at all, by now it should be only dust. And yet, here it was, the banner of his house, of his home.

He raised his eyes and met the glowing visor of the cthul. “Why does your god wish to speak with me?”

“That is for Atalar to know.”

Ra’azel debated killing the cthul and going to find this supposed god on his own, to find answers. But he pushed against those thoughts, it was the part of him that was mad. He was injured still, and though he knew he was a match for most that lived in this world, he didn’t wish to engage in conflict until he was fully recovered.

It was a risk, but… he wanted to know.

“Lead the way.”