Lord Braxand felt something was deeply wrong. He couldn’t put his finger on why, but he was certain that there was an intruder nearby. Even more strangely, despite that belief, he hadn’t risen from his bed yet–he could barely move at all.
He tried to force his heavy eyelids open, feeling weaker and more sluggish than he had in recent memory. Had he been poisoned? No. His mortal food-testers would have died instantly from a poison that could affect him this much. But then why did he feel so lethargic?
His eyes finally opened, only to discover that two impossibly sharp spears were plunging towards his gut–mere centimeters away from piercing him. As he extended his hands to catch the shaft of the weapons before they struck, he attempted to activate some of his most powerful attribute-enhancing arts. He cursed as each one fizzled out before reaching completion, and he was forced to rely only on the power of his impaired body to fend off his attacker.
As he caught the descending weapons and slowed their descent to a near-halt, a face emerged from the murky darkness above the spears–Samantha Cray. Her face was a mask of rage and concentration, snarling down at him as she put her full body weight on the weapons in an attempt to skewer him.
He tried to redirect the path of the spears so that they would strike on either side of his torso, but it felt about as effective as trying to push over a deeply rooted tree. Like immovable monoliths, the spears refused to shift their direction even the tiniest degree. To make matters worse, each time he split his efforts trying to alter their path, he lost ground against Samantha in their battle of strength. He couldn’t even use the rest of his body to defend against her since nearly every part seemed completely paralyzed.
He resisted as best as he could, but it was clear that it was only a matter of time. Thanks to the surprise attack she had gained an advantage, and the resulting momentum was difficult to counter. She was also freakishly strong for a Peak Copper and was able to match or possibly even surpass his own power. He didn’t understand how she had managed to gain such strength or escape captivity, but he had badly underestimated her. Still, he had his pride as the Lord of House Braxand to uphold. Even if this whelp ended up killing him he would struggle until the bitter end.
Their fight lasted for several agonizingly-slow minutes, Samantha and he straining with all of their might for dominance against the other. But the deadlock couldn’t last forever. In a final burst of energy, Samantha opened her mouth in a silent warcry and her expression contorted into one of savage glee. The spears made contact with his body and seemed to suck away all of his meager remaining strength. His arms fell limply to his sides as the spears blasted through him, pinning him to the bed below and anchoring their barbed tips in his midsection.
Pain clouded his mind as he cursed his own arrogance and the insolence of this greedy brat. If he survived this, he was going to kill her. But first, he was going to destroy everything and anyone she loved while she watched.
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Lord Braxand awoke from his nightmare in a cold sweat. He stood up and flexed his muscles, thankfully finding them to be no less limber or powerful than he expected. He extended his awareness to encompass his entire bedroom and confirmed that no one was present, even going so far as to quickly scan the windows and his doorway for any sign of entry.
No one had been in here except for him.
He took a deep breath to calm his frayed nerves. It had been years since he had dreamed, let alone had a nightmare. And this one felt so real, too. Even now he could swear that he felt the phantom pain of being stabbed, and his spirit was deeply unsettled after the experience.
Now wasn’t the time to let his mind become distracted by a nightmare like a scared child. With his plans so close to bearing fruit he must be at his best, or else everything he had worked to achieve would be at risk of crashing down around him. Since he didn’t expect he’d be able to go back to sleep, Lord Braxand decided to try and be productive instead.
The head of the house reviewed outstanding business contracts, set up some requests for the job boards, and all other manner of administrative duties, but the sense of deep dread and unease never left him. He set down his pen and sighed, then got dressed to go out. He wouldn’t get much more work done anyway with this feeling of angst disturbing his concentration.
His gut instinct had never led him astray before now. Perhaps the dream had been a premonition of some disaster to come, or his subconscious warning him of an unseen danger. In any case, he knew it had to do with Samantha. It had only been a day since he had left her with the Low Bronze mercenary in the safe house, but it was better to resolve the issue now instead of letting worries linger around him like flies on rotting meat.
Not wanting to appear paranoid or disheveled if it turned out that everything was fine, he left his estate and headed for the safehouse at a brisk jogging pace–which admittedly was still faster than a horse’s gallop. Despite his relaxed stride, with most of Yivesh still asleep at this time of night he made good time through the empty roadways and forest paths. The entire journey from the center of the city to his destination had only taken him 40 minutes.
As he made his way into the building and closed the disguised trap door behind him, he was greeted by the hired mercenary who offered him a folded slip of paper.
“What’s this?” Lord Braxand asked, taking the paper and unfolding it.
“I’m unsure, Lord. The girl slid it under the door and told me to give it to you if you visited today. I looked it over to make sure that it wasn’t anything dangerous, but I think the only danger she poses is to herself. She must’ve lost her mind.” he replied, gesturing towards the paper.
Both curious and wary about how Samantha knew he would be coming back so soon, he read the short note cautiously.
Lord Braxand, below you will find my conditions. If you do not fulfill them, I will activate my contingency plan for being held against my will:
1. You must immediately, and with the utmost haste, present yourself in person to the City Lord of Yivesh.
2. Once in the presence of the City Lord of Yivesh, you must loudly, clearly, and thoroughly confess your plans to overthrow him.
Lord Braxand looked over the note with disbelief, “What is this nonsense?”
The mercenary shrugged.
He read over the note twice more, analyzing it for some sort of hidden meaning or secret code. Finding nothing out of the ordinary–other than the note itself–he contemplated what Samantha’s purpose could be in giving this to him. Whatever contingency she intended to enact, it couldn’t possibly be worse for him than confessing his intentions to the City Lord. Although it was concerning that Samantha had correctly guessed his future plans, she couldn’t possibly know enough to threaten his position. She would need indisputable proof to make such a claim against the head of a major family, which he found doubtful.
The only other realistic possibility he could think of was trying to cause some sort of infighting. Perhaps she naively thought that, like some evil villain in a story, he would instantly kill Alex for having this information revealed to him. Or maybe she believed that Alex, inspired by loyalty to the Ruler, would release her and they would form an alliance to try and take him down together. If so, maybe he really had given her too much credit. This attempt at manipulation was incredibly shallow, at best.
However, something still didn’t sit right with him. This note by itself would be laughable, but in combination with his disturbing nightmare, it showed that this was more than coincidence. He decided to question Samantha further to get an answer from her directly.
He made his way over to the metal cell door, inserted a thread of his qi to unlock the enchantment that held it shut, and tried to push it open. The door only opened about an inch before striking some blockage on the other side. The sound of wood scraping against tile told him that she had piled all the furniture pieces in the room against the door in an attempt to barricade it. He inwardly sighed–this was just sad.
“Samantha, you know this won’t keep me out. What is this about?” he asked, pressing harder on the door to force it open further.
“20 qi per task! I invested the maximum amount I could!” she shouted.
A horrible foreboding washed over him as an unlikely scenario crossed his mind. But that couldn’t be–he was of much higher rank than her, even if she had ranked up to Low Bronze.
“If you do not complete the tasks I wrote in the note, the two Geasa I forced upon you will activate!” she screamed, making the words impossible to ignore.
His mind meridian kicked into overdrive, connecting several odd events over the last day. The way she had jerked awake when he had used the antidote to cure her was unusual. She must have used that opportunity to brush against his hand. The kowtowing and begging she performed were just that–a performance to again touch him and place a [Geas] on him. The strange dream had not been a dream at all, it had been a battle of wills as she overpowered his natural qi defenses to force the Geasa to take effect. Two spears. Two conditions. And now the final nail in the coffin had been hammered in. She had fully informed him of the conditions of each [Geas]. She had even nicely numbered them for him.
She had played him perfectly.
As this realization hit him, the Geasa activated with their full power and removed any doubt that she could be bluffing. He felt the dense bombs of energy roil and rage within him with each passing millisecond that he stood here not fulfilling the conditions. Considering the 40 qi invested into the two techniques, if he didn’t leave right now he could actually be so damaged by the backlash that the Geasa could destroy his core and turn him back into a Copper. The madwoman had no idea the havoc such a large qi investment could wreak on a person’s system. His only chance now was to kill her and disperse the art before it could force him to complete the conditions.
He put 35 points of qi–half of his available pool–into his most devastating combat art, [Focused Blast]. On the surface the art was nothing fancy. It was a simple attack art that added an explosive force to any physical strike he performed in the next second. The beauty of the technique, however, was that there was no upward limit to how much qi could be invested in it at once–though the user’s body could easily be blown apart if it couldn’t withstand the force of the blow.
He released the full force of his killing intent around him, the power of it dropping the Low Bronze mercenary to his knees and hopefully stunning Samantha as well. He punched the semi-open metal door with all 30 points of his Strength and let the art fly freely into the reinforced cell beyond. The enchanted door first bent inward as his fist connected, then as [Focused Blast] activated, shattered into shrapnel like he had punched a glass pane. The metal flew through the air and the concussive explosion turned the wooden barricade behind the door into deadly confetti. He prayed it would be enough to turn her into paste.
Even expecting the blowback from the force of his strike, he was still thrown backwards through the air until he struck the opposite wall of the hallway. Unfortunately, the mercenary was also caught in the crossfire and tossed through the air like a ragdoll. The hired man bounced along the floor as clouds of dust and debris rained down from cracks that had formed in the ceiling of the underground structure.
Quickly, Lord Braxand checked his cultivation system and was dismayed to find that the Geasa were still in effect. In fact, they were on the cusp of blowing up since he still hadn’t complied with either condition–he had run out of time.
He screamed in frustration as he sprinted towards exit and past the dazed mercenary.
“KILL HER! NOW!” he ordered, using his voice amplification art to ensure that his command could not be missed. He couldn’t spend even a second longer here.
As he ran, his mind raced to address the now dire circumstances he found himself in. He quickly parsed the words of the Geasa in the search of some workaround, and found a loophole that would buy him some time to salvage the situation. The task demanded that he needed to “immediately, and with the utmost haste” make his way to the ruler, but most conditions in Geasa were at least slightly open to interpretation. For example, the task did not state that he needed to take the most direct route. In addition “utmost haste” could indicate a sense of urgency, but that didn’t necessarily mean that he had to sprint at his top speed all the way there. He would have to test the limits of his tasks to see exactly how much time he could buy.
As he experimented with the conditions, he pulled out one of his single-use communication artifacts to contact his top agent. The spirit beasts herds would still be a couple days out at this point, which was useless to him at present. However, Samantha wasn’t the only person who formulated contingency plans.
The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.
Activating the artifact, the scripts on the jade stone lit up with brilliant blue light and a female voice came from the rock, “Your orders, master?”
“Initiate plan B.”
“Understood.”
After a few more moments giving instructions, the jade turned to dust in his hand and he discarded it. He began to travel a long, circuitous path through the forest that led in the general direction of the city, hoping that everything would be ready in time. If he survived this night, he would ensure Samantha and her family suffered for what she had done. If he did not, he would not pass on into the next life before haunting her and bringing her down with him.
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Samantha lay shaking on the cold tile of her room, sweating profusely from her exertions. She had almost failed to force the [Geas] on Ol’ Man Whisper.
She hadn’t properly taken into account the sheer qualitative difference between a High Bronze cultivation pattern and the Mid Copper cultivation pattern she had been using. Even though Samantha should’ve essentially been four times as effective in her intrusion attack against her opponent, she had still barely managed to eke out a success. She decided then and there that she would give up on trying to learn the High Copper version of the Vital Wellspring Cultivation technique, and instead would find a proper Low Bronze pattern to study.
She had been stubbornly determined to learn all the secrets that the Granvich’s tome held because the book was rare, but realized now that she would only be handicapping her progression if she continued that mindset at Bronze. Even an average Low Bronze cultivation technique would vastly improve her qi pool size and regeneration rate compared to the rarest of High or Peak Copper patterns. Instead, she would leave the tome with Thomas when she ascended, since he would get much more use out of it now than she would.
She spent several minutes taking deep breaths and recovering from the spiritual strain from the battle of wills, waiting until her body tremors mostly vanished to stand up. As much as she wanted to, Samantha couldn’t afford to spend too long resting in case her opponent came to see her right away.
The process of how to force a [Geas] on someone without access to system notifications was well documented, as it had been used against many mortals over the years. She needed to clearly communicate the conditions to her target before informing them of the art being forced on them. The only difference here was that Lord Braxand had an active cultivation system that would be damaged if he didn’t obey the Geasa. For mortals, in lieu of harming a dormant or inactive cultivation base, it would shorten their lifespan or outright kill them depending on the qi invested.
She fetched a pen and paper from inside the small desk and wrote everything out exactly as she had described it in her Geasa, ensuring that there would be no excuse for the art to not activate. She then knocked three times on the door and slid the paper through the small gap at the bottom so Alex could pass it along to Ol’ Man Whisper.
The last thing she needed to take care of was ensuring that she could survive long enough to communicate that she had actually placed two Geasa on Lord Braxand. If he found out what she was doing before she could properly announce her intentions, her plans could be ruined.
She looked around the room for anything she could barricade the door with and determined that the few sparse pieces of furniture would have to do. She pulled the bed and desk over to the door, angling them so that if the door was opened they would wedge together between the edge of the door and the nearest perpendicular wall. This would not do more than briefly slow the man down, but as long as she could get the words out in time he would be forced to leave the premises or risk breaking the conditions of her contract.
Samantha switched her mentality to [Hyperfocus] in preparation for the battle she fully expected would come. Now all she could do was wait for his arrival.
While she waited, she decided to experiment a bit with her ability to share senses with her bond. Looking inwards, she sent her perception along the binding thread and first tried to peer through Silas’s eyes. It came to her more naturally than she expected, but she was surprised by how differently the world looked to Silas compared to her own vision. His field of view was very similar to her own when she was using [Prey’s Awareness], but there was a distinct lack of red tones. Instead, everything seemed to be shades of blue or green.
Expanding her sensory experiment further, she attempted to fully immerse herself in Silas’s perception. She was able to successfully hear, feel, smell, and–with a quick request that Silas snack on a nearby blade of grass–taste what Silas did through the ability. She became so absorbed by the experience that she even forgot for a moment she wasn’t in her own body and she tried to walk forward. Unsurprisingly, this did not affect Silas at all, and only resulted in her own body flopping around on the ground. Not wanting to risk Silas missing Ol’ Man Whisper’s arrival, she promised to set aside a time for him to share senses with her later.
The next few hours were arguably some of the most anxious of her entire life. Even with Silas keeping watch to notify her of Lord Braxand’s appearance, she did not know if his intentions would be information-seeking or violent. This uncertainty put her on edge as she did her best to stay alert and be ready to act at a moment's notice. She imagined that his arrival would not take long, given that half-completed Geasa usually gave people an ominous sense of foreboding. He was clever enough that he would probably suspect her immediately, if he didn’t know that she was the cause of his discomfort already.
After Silas alerted her that Lord Braxand had arrived, she mentally prepared herself for multiple possible scenarios. When she finally heard his voice in the hallway after Alex had given him the note, she was relieved to hear that his voice was more confused than angry. That was one of the best cases that she could’ve hoped for, since it meant that he had not yet discovered exactly what she had done to him.
When she heard him unlock the door, that was when she put her survival plan into action.
First, Samantha used [Cloud Step] to plant herself in the most strategic ceiling corner of the room. On the same wall that the door was set into, on the hinged side of the door so the opening of the door would face away from her, she hovered in the air on a single qi platform. Next, she scrunched as tightly into a ball as she could and activated [Translucence] for stealth. Then, using her arms and legs as a shield for her vital organs, she sheathed each extremity with the power of [Indomitable Body]. Lastly, she screamed out the final words needed to enact the Geasa so that Lord Braxand would have no choice but to hear her and comply.
The killing intent that poured into the room in retribution nearly disrupted all of her active arts, and the explosion that immediately followed the wave of malice was catastrophic in its power. Samantha was battered by the air itself as everything immediately in front of the door was disintegrated into unrecognizable chunks of wood and metal. Even the ceramic tiles lining the floor and the stone walls did not emerge unscathed from the High Bronze’s fury, as many of those cracked or broke as well. If she had been standing anywhere inside that cone of destruction, she didn’t know if even her newly formed Rebirth Core could have brought her back from a death like that.
As she had hoped, her corner of the room was the least affected by the attack–though she didn’t emerge completely unscathed. Samantha dropped to the ground and checked herself over for injuries. Her mundane clothes were completely tattered and ragged, but the skin beneath only suffered from mostly small cuts and bruises. Her fortified arms and legs had taken the brunt of the damage for the rest of her body. The one thing she did not account for protecting was her ears, which were freely bleeding and ringing with a loud high-pitched tone. She felt dizzy and off balance for several uncomfortable moments, but luckily her passive healing kicked in to repair the damage and quickly restored her to normal condition.
Before the dust had even had a chance to settle in the room, she heard rapidly receding footsteps right before a baleful voice thundered through the complex, “KILL HER! NOW!”
The first stage of her plan had been successful, but the night was long and she had only just begun.
Samantha felt the first trickles of additional healing energy being passed to her from Silas, “Do you need more healing? Or, is this enough? The boom was so loud that the earth shook! Are you okay? Do you need help?”
They would need to develop a system to communicate to each other how badly they were hurt, since they now didn’t have a reliable way to keep track of the other’s condition. However, that was a problem for her to solve later. “I’m fine, but we need to fight! Defeat the Dire Wolf, if you can.”
Samantha quickly peeked her head into the hallway to see if she could safely exit the room. It was difficult to see clearly through the dense cloud of dirt in the air, but she could make out the form of a man on all fours in the middle of the hallway. It had to be Alex.
She had a choice to make. Her first option would be to run past him while he was getting his bearings. He would likely follow her soon after and they would fight, but she wouldn’t be stuck in an enclosed space with him. This would allow her to make more use of her movement focused arts. The second option was to attack as hard and fast as she could, taking initiative and hopefully gaining an advantage by securing the first damaging blows in their battle.
She decided that if she had to fight the man either way, she’d rather do it while he was disoriented and injured.
Samantha had 46.8 qi available to her, having used 10 points to hide herself in the corner of the room earlier. She spent another 7 to prepare for her opening volley of blows–5 into [Swift], 1 into [Flurry], and 1 into [Indomitable Body] to fortify her heel. She rushed forward down the hall with an effective 32 points of Agility and jumped up into the air, lifting her right leg upwards towards the ceiling before swiftly bringing it down in an axe kick. She drove her reinforced heel deep into the flesh of his upper back near his spine, using the full force of her falling body to empower the strike as much as she could.
Alex let out a grunt of pain as the kick knocked him back down to the floor, but Samantha panicked slightly as there was not more of an effect. She hadn’t even felt a rib break. She immediately continued her assault, pummeling Alex across his torso, arms, and legs as he flailed on the ground and tried to get up. He was always careful to angle himself in a way where it was difficult to strike at his head or used his arm to soften blows, but this meant that the rest of his body was left relatively open to attack.
During this time, Alex scrambled his way over to the nearest wall and braced his back against it to support him and began using his legs to slowly stand while he continued to defend with his arms. Seeing that this would probably drag out into a more extended fight, Samantha reduced her qi expenditure while maintaining the pressure she was putting on him. With only half a qi point in [Swift], and 1 in [Flurry], the speed and impact of her kicks lessened slightly. However, she tried to make up for that fact by focusing solely on striking one of his thighs–attempting to cripple the limb before he could fully right himself.
Before the next second ticked over and she would need to spend more qi points to sustain her arts, her opponent gained his bearings and faced her with a solid defensive stance. He looked to be battered and bloody in some areas, but the fire in his eyes told her that he was far from defeated.
The lightning quick counter strike she narrowly avoided caused her to take a step back, and he launched himself forward into his own impressive assault. It was only due to a combination of her [Translucence] still being in effect and flickering her sphere of dominion on and off to speed up her perception that she was able to dodge effectively at all. He was incredibly fast, so much so that even by increasing her [Swift] investment back up to 5 points a second he still outpaced her. Now that she was facing him in a serious battle, the difference in capabilities between them was terrifying.
For the first few seconds she attempted to exchange blows with the man, but his punches and kicks felt like they rattled her bones even when she was using [Indomitable Body]. She went into a purely defensive stance in the hopes that Alex would make a mistake or give her an opening to deal a decisive strike. As she was waiting for an opportunity to present itself, Alex took in a deep breath and let out a qi-infused scream. Shockwaves pulsed through the air between them, causing a visible ripple in the suspended particles of dust. As the wave of sound reached her, every muscle tensed up in immobility.
You have been affected by Bond Ability [Debilitating Cry].
Qi Defenses Overcome! Temporary paralysis is in effect.
Her eyes widened in fear as she recalled his Dire Wolf having used a similar ability against Silas when the two had fought for dominance during their first meeting. Her dread increased rapidly as Alex turned his back to her and pulled something from beneath a nearby pile of rubble–his straight sword. She did everything she could to break free from the ability’s influence, flaring her aura and trying to get her body to move again by sheer force of will. She actually felt the paralysis effect begin to weaken with her efforts, but the progress was too slow.
Alex grabbed her roughly by the throat and shoved her back against the closed wooden door of the study. Seeing the sword approaching, she invested two points into Indomitable Body to give 10 Resilience to her head and torso for the next six seconds, desperately trying to delay the inevitable as she fought tooth and nail to regain control of her limbs.
The sword tip met slight resistance as it was pressed against her chest, but after Alex applied more pressure to the weapon the art gave way to the force of the blade. It cut through her flesh, only stopping once it had slightly embedded itself in the bone of her sternum and rested just above her heart. She cried out at pain, the sensation fully breaking the hold that the paralysis had on her.
The primal, animalistic survival instinct within her took over her mind as rational thoughts left her. She reached up and grabbed the double edged sword with both hands, vainly striving to pull the metal out of her. Blood poured freely from the deep cuts she received as her palms and fingers slid across the naked blade edge, but she hardly registered the fresh injuries as her entire focus was upon saving her own life.
“Call off your bond now!” Alex growled, pressing the blade deeper.
With her mind still in disarray from terror, Samantha didn’t immediately understand what he was asking for. Dissatisfied with her lack of response, Alex tightened his hold around her neck until the edges of her vision became splotched with darkness.
“Call off your bond’s attack NOW!” he yelled, a hint of genuine panic in his voice emerging.
Samantha looked into the man’s eyes, still struggling to process his words as the sound of her racing heart drowned out all other sounds. A moment later, his expression twisted into a grimace and he breathed in a shuddering gasp. He suddenly looked sickly, his skin turning ghastly pale as a fresh sheen of sweat coated his face.
“I did it, Samantha! I killed the wolf!” Silas cheered, unaware of her precarious position.
Before she could form a coherent response, Alex looked up to her with hatred in his eyes. The sword was thrust forward and cut through her with ease, not stopping until the blade had sliced through the wooden door behind her and the hilt slammed into her chest.
“Your bond… will not have such an easy death.” he said darkly, his voice ragged with rage and grief. Then, as cleanly as he had skewered her, he pulled the sword directly back out and released his grip on her throat.