Owen was immediately on guard, creating distance between himself and Malik. He hadn't even realized he had turned his bracers into a spear, until Malik tapped on its head, before pushing it away. "That is quite the reaction, I assume the answer is yes then?" Malik asked and Owen nodded. "Yeah, I am well aware."
"Great, I need help bringing down one of their bases on earth." Malik grinned and Owen relaxed. "You are trying to tear down one of their bases, why?" Owen asked and turned his spear back into bracers. "Hmm, I think base is the wrong word. I assume you are already well aware that each of the sponsors, as you call them, were able to create domains on earth? Well, we are going to tear one of them apart."
Owen felt a rush of excitement and Malik smirked when he noticed the smile growing on Owen's face. "I assume this is an acceptable favor then?" Owen nodded, before he felt curious about something. "This doesn't have anything to do with that god event thing, does it?" He asked and Malik nodded. "Yeah, it does and my goal is to crush my direct opponents domain, before they do mine. "
"Why do you need my help then?" Owen asked, now feeling slightly wary of getting tangled up in a group of regressor's and gods business. Malik grinned and pointed at where Owen's core would be. "I have felt an energy I am unfamiliar with, but even when blended in with other energies, I can still feel how powerful it is. Even I know that an energy that strong and chaotic has a chance to break the connection the domain has with earth."
Owen stared at Malik, while he described his Chaos energy. He was remarkably close to guessing what it was and he was right. According to Xerxes, it did theoretically have the power to break through the connection and disperse the domain. Owen nodded slowly, "Can Myra and Peggy come with?" Malik seemed to think it over for a moment, before agreeing. "I suppose it's fine, as a real life descendant of Ivar, she had to be getting crazy boosts to her skills."
"You're friend Peggy can't come though. She would get hurt by the very environment surrounding the domain." "What how?" Owen asked, but Malik shook his head. "Secrets, the World father is strong, but usually his descendants have some limitations and the energy of a sin would tear through her body like a knife through cloth." Malik said. Owen was about to argue, but he shook his head. "You can ask her, even if she wanted to come, she would be more of a liability than a help."
"I'll be back tomorrow and then we will leave for my sponsor's domain, before we go shut down a sin." Then, Malik was gone. Owen stared into the open space for several seconds, before jumping off the building they had been relaxing on. He landed on the ground, without so much as a twitch, before he went to find his friends.
He found the two of them sitting together with Kenneth and Mark. He waited for the short meeting to finish, before he moved into the room. "Hey what's up, did you hear news about Briar and Lucas?" Peggy asked and Owen shook his head. "Nope, Malik wasn't even able to find a trace, though he thinks they will probably be fine." "Well, hopefully he's right," Peggy added, though she looked somewhat crestfallen.
"Peggy, would you be able to entire the domain of one of the sins?" Owen asked and Peggy looked surprised. "No, any of those places would essentially rob me of my ability to use skills. It would probably be worse than that too." She answered immediately and Myra threw Owen a questioning look. "Fuck, Malik was right then. My favor to him is to go attack one of the sin's domains and I think he is hoping I can break it with chaos energy."
"No," Myra interrupted. "That energy is way too dangerous to risk yourself, especially so soon after getting injured so many times." Owen smiled and Pulled Myra into a quick hug, before speaking. "That was because of a different energy, but I will be careful, plus you can come along and make sure I stay safe." He said. He kept his hand on her back and ran it back and forth for a while and she thought. "I know you're right that it wasn't chaos that ruined your body last time, but you're taking too many risks in such a short time, you aren't invincible!"
She half shouted the last words into him and thoughts of Thomas's group and the two survivors that were left. It hadn't been that long and none of them were completely over it yet. All three of them had tried to take the blame, despite knowing it wasn't any of them. If they had known about the problem with gates breaking, then they might've left earlier, but they hadn't known until basically the last minute.
Owen just held her for a while, she wasn't crying, but each of them had come close to death. It wasn't anything like the tutorial, where the deaths were more separated form them. Even when gates had broken the first time, they hadn't been effected as much by all of the dead they found at the end. It was so much more personal for all of them this time.
Several minutes passed, before Myra squeezed Owen hard. "Fine, we can go, but as soon as we destroy that thing, were are coming back and having a vacation." Owen grinned and picked her up and spun. Peggy also had a grin on her face. "I'll come up with plans for what to do!" Peggy said excitedly, before her face fell a little. "I can't come with, but I don't think it would've been smart for all of us to leave anyways. Go give em' hell!" She rushed out of the room after that and Owen turned to Myra. "I suppose we should go get ready then, though he doesn't get back until tomorrow." She shrugged. "I still have a little bit left I have to do, but I'll make time to get ready."
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Lucas cursed his luck as once again they had needed to slow down, so that Briar could collect monsters bodies. They had moved from broken gate to broken gate, all while keeping their march north and after several weeks of travel, every inconvenience was exhausting. Lucas sighed as he slowed onto his back and stared into the night sky. He had thought he would've easily become more than this, but he had now almost spent as much time hiking as he had learning how to use the system.
Shifting into a sitting position, he stared out at the mountain that they were aiming for. The terrain around it was mostly forest regions and they hadn't seen other people since entering them. "Briar, it looks clear, I don't think we are going to have another gate break again, before reaching the peak of that mountain." Sickening sloshing sounds echoed through the air as Briar absorbed the a monsters insides.
"I should have enough now, though hopefully more gates will spawn in this area." Briar said as they stood up and pushed the body into a storage ring. Lucas wasn't sure he was a big fan of the macabre display, but he had been traveling with Briar for long enough that it didn't really bother him any more.
Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
They spent the next several hours moving at top speed, as they navigated their way towards the mountain. When they arrived at its base, Lucas grinned. "Recognize those steps?" he said pointing a finger and rushed forward without waiting for Briar's response. They were a perfect recreation of the steps that had led to Xerxes's home at the peak of his mountain. It made running up the mountain slightly easier, though Lucas could still feel himself getting winded.
By the time he reached the top, he couldn't stop himself from sweating. Sitting down to recover for a couple minutes, he stared out and sighed. Instead of a martial school, the peak of the mountain had a single building, that was a perfect copy of one of the actual buildings from Xerxes's compound. Sitting down surrounding the building were people that shouldn't be there. Each of them had turned to face him and he immediately got into a defensive position.
"Which Initiate of Wrath are you?" One of the figures said as they inched closer. Lucas did a quick scan with his skill and felt the color drain from his face.
*Initiate of Wrath - Level 46
Initiate of Wrath - Level 54
Initiate of Wrath - Level 49
Initiate of Wrath - Level 60*
He cursed under his breath but put on a big smile. "I was sent here directly by my sponsor, to claim it as my own." Even from the distance they were standing apart from one another, he could see the man raise an eyebrow. "You were sent here by wrath? Then why do you reek of that zodiac prick?" This time Lucas was confused. He had expected to have his bluff called, but what would this guy know about the zodiac? Before he could answer, Briar joined him at the top of the stairs and looked out at everyone present.
"Are they intruders?" Briar asked. Lucas turned and grinned. "Yeah, let's take them out." He sounded more confident than he was, but they were much stronger than when they had left Rochester, Briar even more so.
Normally, Briar stayed in human shape and simply looked like a weird plant monster. Most of its body had managed to give it something that resembled human features, but it was still just enough to give him an uncanny valley feeling, despite looking far more human. During his travels with Briar, despite it being stuck at level thirty, it had continued to grow stronger and gain skills. Each time it had absorbed a monster, it grew in strength and they had blown their way through several gate breaks.
Briar shifted in the shape of a giant and giant clouds of red mist appeared as it lumbered forwards. Skills were thrown and several of the enemies tried lighting Briar on fire. Lucas winced at the attempt. Large plumes of red smoke covered the battlefield and several copies of Briar were created from them. The ones that didn't change into a clone were slowly focused on the enemies and Lucas could see the life draining from them. Lucas had chosen to stay far away as Briar stormed into the group of four.
He was already too well aware of the effects of that mist and had almost run himself dry of both HP and MP when he had tried to fight with Briar. Instead he just watched and let Briar have their fun as he moved towards the single building in the center of the peak. He could see someone messing around inside, so he picked up the pace.
The small building was spatially expanded on the inside, but contained a single room. It seemed to be almost the size of the peak, but jars, chests and crates of items were strewn about the floors making it hard to accurately guess the real size. The man scrounging through the items turned when he heard Lucas enter. "Ah you must be the worthless child connected to this location, a pity." They spoke and their voiced echoed ominously through the room.
As their words left their mouth, they disappeared from sight, but not before Lucas's skill activated.
*Adept of Wrath - Level 70*
Lucas didn't let the level deter him and activated another skill. It almost made him laugh as the man that had turned invisible was inching his way through the room on the tips of his toes. he tried his best not to let the man know that his invisibility didn't work, so he began attacking the air at random. Spears of water were thrown around the room at each of Lucas's thrusts. Finally, Lucas allowed one to hit and grinned as it pierced the man's side.
The invisibility immediately dropped and the man cursed, before activating it again. This time he didn't inch around and rushed towards Lucas. He watched as the man's hands turned into blades. Realizing he was probably a high attack focused stealth user, Lucas didn't hesitate and began an intricate dance of death as he danced through his opponents attacks. His movements quickly made it clear the man's invisibility didn't work, but when he tried to back peddle, a true invisible wall blocked his path.
Each of Lucas's attacks were made to create space, but when blocked by the wall, they became a deadly dance that led to the man's death. He had been stronger in stats, but Lucas was far beyond him in skill. When the fight ended, Lucas was barely able to keep from throwing up. The energies that rushed through his body were very reminiscent of severe nausea and he took the chance to curse his boosting skill. it was amazing, but the backlash once it ended was usually enough to put him out of a fight almost immediately.
Briar had finished up outside as well and they raided all of the containers in the room. Most of the supplies were useless for him, but they would help all of the normal people of Rochester. The real treasure Xerxes had left him was the building itself. The area inside the building let off an ambient energy that was cultivated to make mana gains through meditation easier, but also increased peoples innate understanding of combat.
It was essentially a priceless treasure and he couldn't help the wide smile that spread on his face. He spent several minutes trying to find the method to collapse the building into a movable model. When he finally did it, he turned to Briar with a bittersweet smile on his face. This was probably one of the last times he would see the creature. It felt weird to be leaving what was currently his only friend to go help Owen, who was barely more than an acquaintance. But he knew in his heart that he couldn't stay with Briar as they created their hive.
Owen was also a force of strength on his own and more than capable of pushing those around him to the top as well. Lucas didn't understand it, but he knew that being by Owen's side would help him reach the top as well.
Briar had already changed back into their human form and the plant created face had the same sad smile on it. "This is goodbye for now." Briar said and Lucas hugged them. "Yeah, but I'll get everyone to visit when we have the chance." Briar let out a laugh that made Lucas's skin crawl, but it was still a joyful laugh. "Don't hurry, if I want to join you all at the top, I must push on my own for the foreseeable future."
They stayed together for another hour, as Briar had Lucas wait, so they could prepare gifts. Lucas wasn't sure how it was possible, but sections of Briar body were separated then transformed from its energies into four separate condensed spheres. Small seeds were contained in each of them and Briar passed them to Lucas who stowed all but one of them immediately.
"Wait to consume these for one year. They should each grant one of my skills at the end of that time." Lucas's mind boggled at the idea and a part of him wanted to consume all of them. "They are specialized to each of you. This is the last gift I can give before I begin my work. When you visit next, this mountain will be my home."
Lucas left shortly after that. He was able to run almost twice as fast without Briar's limited speed, but it didn't make him happier. He forced himself to focus on the path in front of him, as he aimed for Rochester. If he kept up at his current pace, he should arrive in less than two weeks.