The Wild Men pounced on Somnia and me moments after the others split off to fight the other Generals. While the Wild Men that’d attacked us were notably stronger than the ones we’d previously encountered – with some of them even passing the Level 100 range – they hadn’t been all that difficult to kill. Their odds weren’t helped by the fact that I’d reached Level 113 mid-fight. I didn’t get a chance to read the Level Scroll between cutting through Wild Men and dodging the wooden weapons and weak aura blasts they sent at me, so I had Fallen Star read it out for a change.
LEVEL INCREASED
112 > 113
UTILIZATION PERCENTAGE: APPROXIMATELY (22.6% of 500)
HP: 121
STR: 112
STM: 115
A-STR: 122
A-STM: 123
Things died down after around five minutes of nonstop fighting. I’d focused on culling General Viard’s numbers while Somnia was still stuck on her intimidation method. It hadn’t worked, though we’d both reached a point where the regular Wild Men were apprehensive about fighting us. They slowly inched away from us towards their aluminum-anthill-looking home while General Viard knelt before Somnia who’d long since beaten him into submission.
I walked to Somnia’s side as the Wild Men continued to back away from us. General Viard snorted as I approached, continuing some long-winded tirade about Wild Men being “perfect” that I hadn’t been listening to. His attitude changed when suddenly an explosion sounded from a few kilometers away from us. Every single Wild Man turned in unison towards the explosion, faces shifting to show either shock, horror, or some combination of both.
“Animals! Inhuman animals!” General Viard shouted, turning to fix Somnia and me with a hideous glare. Green, wispy aura flowed around him like angry winds. “You can’t have us so you would destroy our home?! Was that what this was? A distraction?!”
“Do you seriously think we would do that?” Somnia questioned. “We’ve been trying to stop you all from causing reckless destruction. Why would we go on to kill you all? If that was our intention, we would’ve started with that.”
General Viard narrowed his eyes as the green aura flowed even faster, now enveloping him like a whirlwind. “I can see it in your eyes,” He said, looking between Somnia and me. “You’ve wanted us dead from the moment you saw us. You’ve been itching for an opportunity to wipe us out. I don’t know what you are, but it isn’t human.”
“Should I remind you that this started because you invaded Saikou?” Somnia asked, making no effort to hide her impatience.
“I wouldn’t call it an itch,” I shrugged. “I’d call it a response. You throw yourselves at me, so I respond by killing you. Move along and you won’t ever see me again.”
Somnia gave me a disapproving scowl. “You need to stop hanging around Arch–”
The aura enveloping General Viard surged, revealing a Wild Man unfamiliar to both Somnia and me. Unlike the grunt-ish, Goblin-like creature from before, General Viard was now the height of a fully grown man. His skin was still green and his ears were still pointy, but his muscles were lined with sharp, bone-like armor that looked like it sprouted from his feet. Red, beady eyes bore into me as I scanned the strengthened Wild Man.
NAME: GENERAL VIARD
APPROXIMATE LEVEL: 188
CLASSIFICATION: HYBRID
“Today is a historic day for the Wild Men,” General Viard acknowledged. “History will remember me as the man who slayed the foreign invaders and hung their corpses from pikes to ward off rivaling species.
“How creative,” I sneered.
The second I finished talking, General Viard leaped off the ground at blinding speeds towards a nearby tree. Before Somnia or I could register what he’d done, he leaped from the tree onto the wall of the Wild Man Colony. Then, to another tree, and back to the Colony. He did this repeatedly, so fast that it’d become impossible for either of us to pick up on his movements.
“Guard!” Somnia warned… just as he’d managed to land a full-power punch into her gut.
The attack sent her flying off into the distance, leaving me with him while she recovered. I was surprised to find myself a bit more talkative than usual, though I quickly reminded myself that I’d been like this before joining the Seekers.
“Too scared to face me straight on?” I challenged. “If I can’t get to you, I’ll just get to your followers!”
General Viard suddenly in the far distance, crouched in front of a crowd of cowering Wild Men. “You think too highly of yourself, filth.”
“TOO HIGHLY?” Fallen Star shouted into my mind. “DOES HE KNOW HIS PLACE IN THE WORLD? IS HE AWARE OF HOW FAR BELOW US HE IS? HE SPEAKS BLASPHEMY. DO NOT ALLOW IT.”
“I don’t–,” I’d been muttering.
Plan on it. I was going to say “I don’t plan on it”. Instead, against my plans, I found myself face-to-face with General Viard. His hand was at my face faster than I could’ve guarded, and he’d blasted me point-blank with a fire blast. It only felt like I’d put my face onto a hot stove, which while painful, didn’t hurt as hard as it could’ve. I thanked my [VITALITY] for that. What did hurt, however, were the lightning-fast jabs General Viard unleashed upon me. If I had a System like Archie’s it’d show me as being at 40% Health, though I imagine in reality it was far lower.
General Viard focusing on me allowed Somnia to get a few decent hits in. She pierced him through the shoulders with these laser-beam-like aura blasts she called “Aura Shots”. They worked to get him to back off, but the impact points very quickly healed, letting off steam as his body repaired itself.
“I should thank you, filth!” General Viard sneered, staring directly at me from a few meters away. “It was your vitality that helped me–”
Somnia shot at him a few more times, but General Viard dodged them with ease. When he spoke again, he was right behind me.
“Recover.”
“HE CONTINUES TO CALL US FILTH. BLASPHEMY! BLASPHEMY! BLAS–”
I never got to hear Fallen Star finish. I never even got to turn to face General Viard. Once the Wild Man finished speaking, he snapped his fingers beside my ear, causing the searing pain on my face to suddenly combust. It was just like the Jikininki King, funnily enough. In that case, though, I’d been able to brush off the sudden combustion. In this case, though, I couldn’t. I fell to the ground and collapsed.
***
Somnia stared at General Viard as she cursed her inability to come up with a plan of attack. She’d assumed that the Hovering Hand as she’d come to call it would take over at some point, helping her utterly dismantle General Viard. Instead, the Hovering Hand decided that her opponent wasn’t worthy of the upgrade! It’d activated for far less, yet now when she needed it it refused to show up…
If you spot this story on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.
She was snapped into focus when the cowering Wild Men began peeking out of the forests with one person in their sights – Rui. They stared at him like vultures to a fresh carcass, salivating as they crept ever closer.
Somnia prepared to step in to protect her friend when suddenly General Viard waved them away with a hand. “No. Not yet. I want the filth to rise. He’s the ideal opponent to test this new body on.”
Yugo and Archie had described her “Hovering Hand” state as being a change in the atmosphere to some degree. Archie would that “the air changed” around her, while Yugo would say that “aura moved far slower” around her. Because of her proficiency with Sensory Manipulation, Somnia was able to definitively say that she noticed both things happen around Rui the moment those words left General Viard’s mouth. It didn’t help that he looked down at Rui, sneered, then stood on top of him as though he were a sick trophy.
You shouldn’t be doing that…
When Rui gets up, General Viard is going to die.
Somnia wasn’t sure what prompted those thoughts to enter her head, but she couldn’t refute them either. With each passing second, it felt as though Rui was getting unnaturally stronger – just as he had before everyone split up. She’d been too absorbed in her own Hovering Hand state to pay mind to what Rui had been doing at the time, though. So, rather than rack her brain to think of ways to defeat General Viard, she decided she’d stall and let Rui do it. Of course, it pained her to have to give up on her intimidation tactic, but that was what it meant to be a leader. Everything you did wouldn’t always work out. As long as the Wild Man majority was alive, she’d be able to consider her plan a success.
“Do you understand perfection?” General Viard asked.
Somnia paused. Was he trying to stall and wait for Rui also?
That’s a stupid decision…
“Of course, I do,” Somnia answered, though she could predict his response.
“No, you don’t,” General Viard said at the same time she parroted the words in her mind. It took considerable effort for her not to roll her eyes. “Perfection is recognizing your flaws. Knowing your imperfections and mastering them. Constant combat against yourself until, suddenly, there’s nothing left to fight. That is true perfection.” General Viard observed himself. “I am not perfect. I am far from perfect. None of us have achieved perfection. Yet, Wild Men were blessed with the ability to obtain it – something most living species cannot do. I tell you this so that you understand what it is I fight for. Why we follow Zakaria. Why we pursue higher power and greater knowledge. Our bodies are the only vessels of perfection in this world. It would be foolish not to pursue it.”
Somnia considered her next words carefully. If she said the wrong thing, she’d potentially get Rui or herself killed. If she said the right thing, he’d know she was stroking his ego in an attempt to stall for time. Therefore, she chose the third option: the honest thing.
“I… understand you. Truly. Your definition of ‘perfection’ is something I’ve been pursuing since my early teens. I want to be the leader of my family, and eventually an important pillar of Minashire’s stability; two things I can’t achieve if I’m not ‘perfect’. Even now… Every single day… Every… single… day… I find myself struggling to be perfect… because I was raised to be ‘imperfect’...”
The Hovering Hand, which hadn’t budged once during the fight, squeezed down on Somnia’s heart like a vice.
“Such is the limitation of humanity,” General Viard mourned. He reached a hand out to Somnia. “I admit, child. There are limits to what I can learn in this body, and there are limits to what you can achieve in yours. If the two of us merged our strengths in the form of a Contract, perhaps we would be able to–”
“Do you know how easy it would be to kill you? It would’ve been so much easier to kill every single one of you. Culling your numbers in the streets of Saikou, destroying your strongholds, and burning your villages, leaving no survivor behind. Removing the Wild Men. That was how I was raised. That is what my mother raised me to do. Living in Minashire, following these claustrophobic rules… Speaking with you, allowing you all to live, attempting to negotiate and use diplomacy instead of pure slaughter… Everything I do. Everything I have done for the past four years has been done in the pursuit of ‘perfection’. Even now, it’s taking everything in me not to rip you apart!” Somnia took a very deep breath, gathering herself. Just as quickly as it’d come, the Hovering Hand vanished. “But I need to be more emotionally mature than a fourteen-year-old, so I won’t.” She forced a smile. “Thank you for the Contract offer, but I’m going to have to respectfully decline. And please, if we meet again when you revive, don’t tell me that I don’t understand ‘perfection’. I’ve been a slave to it far longer than you have.”
General Viard didn’t say a word. He glared at Somnia, frowned, and bared his sharp teeth, then resumed his rapid jump attacks. Beneath where he’d been standing, Rui twitched as dark purple aura flowed into and around him. Somnia didn’t have a lot of time to watch, though, as General Viard launched a flurry of those life-leeching punches into Somnia. They didn’t hurt thanks to her Aura Armor, but they still had their intended effect of healing the Aura Shots she blasted into his chest the moment he got close.
Not that she had to worry about that being an issue, though. Rui stood to his full height now, staring at General Viard as he’d been attacking Somnia. Recognizing this as the end of the fight – and her aura reserves, Somnia kicked General Viard into Rui who caught him by his neck.
“Welcome back to the fight, fil–”
“BLASPHEMOUS,” Rui declared, his voice overlapping with Fallen Star’s.
General Viard must’ve finally begun to feel the shift that’d happened in Rui because his cockiness vanished just as quickly as it’d come. He tried to speak, but Rui’d been squeezing down on his neck, leaving the Wild Man only capable of a few weak gurgles.
“RECOGNIZE YOUR BETTER, FOOL. YOU COMMITTED THE GRAVE SIN OF LOOKING DOWN ON GOD, AND NOW YOU HAVE LOST THE SINGLE MERCY LEFT TO YOU – A QUICK DEATH.”
With each word, the dark purple aura that’d been oozing into and out of Rui poured into General Viard’s mouth like it was a vacuum. As General Viard’s body stiffened, Somnia finally recognized what was happening. She knew she’d seen this type of aura before!
Is it a bad time to say I’m proud of you? I know you’ve been working hard to learn Poison Manipulation.
“THERE WILL BE NO MERCY SHOWN TO YOU. NO CONCESSION OFFERED. YOU WILL NOT BE SURVIVED, AND YOU WILL NOT BE REMEMBERED. TODAY IS THE DAY HISTORY–”
Crack!
General Viard’s body went limp.
“HOW UNFORtun…ate…?”
Rui looked up at Somnia, his voice no longer overlapping with Fallen Star’s.
“I was… in my Mindspace while Fallen Star took over my body. Not that I had a choice.” His face shifted to one of genuine concern, something Somnia wasn’t sure she’d ever seen on Rui. “I didn’t hurt you, did I?”
Somnia snorted. Then chuckled. Then laughed. “Ask General Viard, not me!”
He looked to the Wild Man he’d been clutching in his hand, unsure what to make of it.
“Did something special happen?”
“You poisoned him!”
Rui did a double take. The dark purple Poison-Attuned Aura still flew around in weak wisps. Even more of it poured out of Viard’s mouth, though not enough to be considered dangerous. Finally seeing his handiwork, Rui also laughed. He tossed the corpse to the ground and walked to Somnia’s side, laughing the whole way.
“She always told me it’d just come to me. I guess it did!”
“Can you replicate it?”
“I can try.”
Just as Rui prepared to blast Viard’s corpse with a blast of poison, the entire crowd of Wild Men poured out of the forest. Both of them sank to battle positions, but they were both completely ignored by the Wild Men. No, they only had eyes for Viard’s corpse.
Without warning or fanfare, the Wild Men began to eat Viard’s corpse. They tore him apart like tender meat, eating him like scavengers on a battlefield. Rui charged a small puff of Poison-Attuned Aura and prepared to cover the scavenging Wild Men with it. Somnia slapped his arm.
“What? You asked me if I could replicate it. I can!”
“Those guys are the innocent ones! We need them all to launch the offensive against Zakaria! This is just how they… grow… I think. We can’t have… weak troops, can we?”
Rui gave Somnia a dirty look. “Well, at least I know you’re as uninterested in the whole ‘sparing’ and ‘intimidation’ thing as everyone other than Archie is.”
Somnia blushed, turned away, and then shot him an equally dirty look. “Don’t judge me based on things I say in my Hovering Hand state!” She scoffed at him. “Unless you’re gonna call me a ‘blasphemer’ for telling you not to kill a few Wild Men?”
Rui looked away.
“That’s what I thought.”
ONI MAJORITY. 95% CONVERSION(?)
*WARNING: SIGNIFICANT POPULATION CHANGE DETECTED.*