“Get out?” The first woman snorted, flipping her blonde hair over her shoulders and glaring at me. “You may be able to walk out Lady Lilliana, oh great Saintess, but we’ll get killed. Guaranteed.”
I shrugged dismissively. “I just killed the scientist guy. If you stay, you’re likely dead anyway.”
Her eyes bugged and her mouth fell open as my words pitched the silent dungeon into furtive whispers and the occasional muttered curse. I ignored it all and focused on my compatriots who I’d fought side by side with. Starting with them was my best chance for success.
“I also killed the Sire,” I said, intentionally using the local Sire title instead of Progenitor.
More shock from the battle slaves.
“Lies,” the woman hissed. “I still have access to the System.” Mutters of agreement and echoes of her accusation spread throughout the dungeon as even the slaves that had stood to the side at first were coming to see what the fuss was.
At that moment my patience was already teetering on the edge as I remained overwhelmed from the wear on my mind. I didn’t have time to deal with this.
“Silence!” I snapped, the corner of my lips curling into a snarl with the promise of wrath clinging to my words. I may have lacked the heart energy to pressure the woman but I let the sheer commanding force of my personality carry the authority of my words. “The next time you interrupt me, you will not live to see whether my words are true.”
The woman seemed more shocked than frightened but went silent nonetheless. I turned away from her and continued, looking at all the slaves around me. There were more than earlier, many of the bystanders having approached at some point during the commotion.
I could explain to them everything that had happened. Explain to them that without switching to my system, they would die miserable, pathetic deaths as slaves. A logical man may be convinced. The issue was these people were not in a logical state of mind. One who has tasted power and who has grown addicted to it does not simply surrender those new abilities for a promise of some potential new power. It would be akin to asking a sword master to lose their sword skills for the potential of being a stronger energy user.
Finally, I pushed through the throng of slaves toward an older man. He couldn’t have been younger than sixty years of age, white hair having encompassed the entirety of his head other than his eyebrows. Despite the age and the layers of wrinkles pulling at his skin, the man’s brown eyes burned with a desperate rage I would always recognize. There was also shame in his gaze. An endless, soul-sucking shame.
“What is your name?” I asked. To my relief my voice came out strong and clear, the high-pitched nature Lilliana’s voice had initially carried was no longer so obvious. Either the body was maturing or my body reformation was approaching. Perhaps both.
The man looked down at me and our gazes met in equal measures of curiosity and challenge, though the latter perhaps came more from my end. There was no fear in his gaze though he did have some semblance of hesitation when he looked around to see everyone staring at us. I ignored them, focusing entirely on the man before me.
Seemingly confused as to why I’d picked him out of the crowd, the man gave me a little shrug. “Ethan,” he said. “Ethan Brooks.”
“Why are you here, Ethan Brooks? Are you a criminal?”
Ethan winced but shook his head viciously. “No. No! I am no criminal.”
“Then why are you here?”
His hands curled into fists and his eyes dropped to stare holes into his feet. “Because I couldn’t stop them,” he whispered.
“Couldn’t stop who, Ethan?” My voice was a whisper as I asked, still unmoving and unwavering as I silently urged the man to raise his eyes by not looking away from his shame.
There was a long moment after I asked where I wasn’t sure Ethan would answer. Then, he did and I knew I would soon have an army. “I couldn’t stop the slavers from taking my wife and my daughter.”
“Did you kill them?”
He shook his head, crying now. Other than the soft beat of tears falling to the ground there was not a sound. No one whispered. No one moved. No one so much as dared to breathe lest they break the quiet tension. “I… I tried. B-but I couldn’t. They killed my son like a pig and I-,” the man cut off, taking a second to resist the sobs that had begun to claw at his throat. When he managed to bite down the sorrow, he gritted his teeth and pushed on. He looked up from his shoes to meet my eyes. “I did nothing. I watched, tied, and thrown in the corner.” Ethan swallowed, hard and I could see the absolute fury building in him. Every time he swallowed back that sorrow, his rage grew. “At least my son was dealt an easy death. At least he was able to resist. What they did to my wife and daughter and my… my grandchildren…” he didn’t finish. Likely couldn’t. His jaw was clenched so hard I could hear his teeth grinding.
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I showed him no pity. It was not pity that he wanted. Pity would get him nothing but I knew exactly what it was he wanted. “Do you want to kill them?” I asked, still staring up into Ethan’s dark eyes, matching the fury in his gaze with my own, one filled with rage.
“No,” he growled. “Death would be too kind. I want them to suffer slowly. I want them to wish for death.”
“Do you think you can get that justice with Orpheus’ System?”
The man shook his head. “The power subsides whenever I leave the arena. Even if I were freed…” He looked down at his shoes again.
“I can give you a chance at your justice, Ethan.” The man’s gaze snapped up. There was a sound of sudden muttering from somewhere but I kept my focus. It didn’t matter if some outliers began to whisper doubt at this point. Those who would desire my deal would take it once they saw its effect on Ethan. “But there is a cost to pay for that power. Nothing in this world is free.”
Ethan nodded and I saw in his eyes that the decision was already made. There was still doubt in them, and a worry that I was giving him hope as some sort of trick. But that was a leap of faith he would have to take to be the first. The first of many.
“If your word is true, I will pay whatever the cost,” he said with a set look of determination.
“The cost is simple. All I ask for is allegiance. I will give you the power you need and I will not interfere in your Path. But when I call, you will heed the summons. When I tell you to bow, you will kneel.”
Ethan laughed with tears in his eyes. “Is that all? If you are true and the power you bestow upon me opens a door to my justice, my life is yours, Lady Lilliana.” As he spoke the doubt in his eyes was quickly subsumed by hope. It was an odd feeling, to be someone giving others hope.
I didn’t dislike it.
“Dralos,” I commanded, motioning the resurrected one to my side. “Give me your dagger.” Dralos obeyed without a word.
I reached out for Ethan’s hand and, just like Dralos, he gave it to me without a word.
“Are we being serious?” The woman from earlier asked, incredulous. “This is a child. A noble child. Do you truly believe she has such power? This is a mockery of our pains.”
Ethan didn’t look at the woman and instead stared straight at me. “Perhaps Lady Lilliana is a fraud. Perhaps she is blessed by a god. Perhaps she is a devil or demon in disguise. I do not know. But I do not see what reason there is for her to lie and we have all seen what she can do with her heart energy. I choose to have faith that this is not all there is for me. Perhaps I am an old fool. In a moment, we shall see.” I gripped his hand tightly and drew the tip of Dralos’ blade across his palm. Red blood seeped through the cut to mix with his forgotten tears in the dirt under our feet.
This time, he didn’t wince.
I repeated the same action with my left palm, the pain a small, dull ebb shadowed by the pounding exhaustion cracking my mind. Unlike Ethan’s blood, mine came out red and black.
I didn’t take the time to think about what that meant and slapped my cut to his.
The air around us crackled with palpable tension as the Deal was struck, binding us together in an irreversible exchange. The atmosphere in the dungeon darkened, light given by torchfire and the vibrant hues of the world drained to a muted, twilight gloom. The shadows in the gloom grew and lengthened, twisting and curling in an eerily unnatural way.
A bone-deep chill radiated out from our clasped hands. It was a cold not of our worlds, biting through the skin and muscles of our bodies, and eating its way to the center of our bones. The temperature plummeted, our breaths coming out in frosty puffs of condensation. For a moment, just a moment, the memory of warmth ceased to exist within my mind, a figment of a distant reality.
I could feel part of the System splitting away from me in that chill, reaching out into Ethan and burrowing itself in the deepest part of his existence. At first, only a single streak of blue dripped like a tear from one of his eyes. Then more began to trickle out the corner of his mouth. Then, in a sudden burst of dark blue ooze from his orifices, the Desire System purged Ethan of the Main System’s influences.
As the deal was sealed, a surge of unknown energy erupted, a shockwave of power that caused the dungeon walls to tremble in cowardice. The pact was sealed, I knew, etched into the fabric of our reality. As the chill faded and the trembling, after effects ceased, an intangible force began to burn a mark along the cut of Ethan’s hand. The man stared in shock at his palm as his flesh burnt slowly into the shape of a crescent moon. Then, the instant the shape was finished, his flesh let off a soft hum and then it was as if all light in the world blinked off. When the light returned just a fraction of a second later, the crescent moon on his palm remained without light. Instead, it was filled with a deep, endless pitch-black.
And then there it was, a red glint in the corner of Ethan’s eye. The Desire System.
[SYSTEM ANNOUNCEMENT: You have gained your first Paragon. Congratulations!]
[Reward: You gained the ability to reap a percentage of a Paragon’s heart energy whenever the System rewards them with bonus energy. Do you accept this reward?]
[Yes]
[No]
I immediately slapped my hand against the red [No] button. There was no way I would voluntarily bind my growth to the rewards of a System. I would bind others to it. But I would remain free.