Listen, when you observe someone and see nothing but question marks behind their Class Specialization, maybe it’s not the best idea to fight them. The question marks are an indication that they have a little bit too much essence for your current Class or System to process. However, they’re not the worst kind of people to run into down a dark alley during a rainy night.
And then you could encounter those who openly tell you their Class Level. They still usually have too much Essence for you to parse, but when their Class and System is configured toward honesty… That usually indicates a open and obvious statement:
“I’m not afraid. Do your best.”
Throw in Eidolons and people with hidden Systems…
Don’t assume. Find out. Intelligence will keep you alive.
-The Trespassers’ Compendium
83
Experience (III)
Wei’s kick fell, and a Source scythe followed. The physical blow came to a rough halt against a shimmering tapestry that manifested around the demon’s body. The shield resembled a whirlwind of scrolls, pages, and contracts covered in hellish sigils and burning Essence. The middle manager simply sighed at the young master’s efforts, eyes tumbling in a derisive roll.
“Are you quite done—”
And then Wei’s Form of the Martial Harvester punched all the way through the demon’s defenses. The gleaming edge of the scythe ripped through the tumbling of papers and the demon flinched back in surprise. Destruction was something no one could deny the Concept Breaker, regardless of how much Essence they could channel, regardless of their level. All was Wei’s to break.
Wei’s enhanced Harvest Skill broke through the thin shielding. impacted the Middle Manager’s Constitution and Strength directly, and Wei tore a chunk of the demon’s Aspect out from their body. A ragged cry of surprise slipped out from the creature. Clearly, they hadn’t expected this, but it was a testament to their power that their Aspects weren’t broken outright.
Instead, the middle manager reeled back, stumbling out from a chair far too small for their bulk, their mouth dropping open, jowls peeling apart to reveal rows of spittling fangs lining the fattened clefts beneath their nonexistent jawline. “You—you dare!” Wei pressed his attack, but a new whirlpool of contracts flared into existence around the demon’s body—shifting like a set of odd arrays. Stranger still was how most of the pages had their Essences tied to a single folder on the innermost layer of the demon’s shield. You actually hit me. I… I can’t bloody believe it.”
Wei slammed into the demon again with a ragged cry of savagery. The velvet carpet beneath them was reduced to ribbons; cracks developed along the walls. And with the destruction, so too grew the young master’s rage. A few more hits, Wei told himself. A few more hits, and I would see him broken.
Bishop had fallen suspiciously silent. Perhaps the Trespasser didn’t expect him to do so well. Everyone underestimated Wei. That was his greatest advantage.
Suddenly, the Middle Manager stumbled, tripping over a carpet strand and Wei seized the moment. He launched a heart-pulping palm toward the demon’s chest.
And that’s when everything went terribly wrong.
“Wei, no! Wei!” Bishop cried out in his mind, but Wei ignored him, exploding forward, a cone of devastation spreading behind him as he pushed his Relativity to the limit. Wei crashed into the demon, a storm of palms and fists bearing down against what seemed to be a flowing shell of protective papers.
In the back of his mind, Bishop growling for him to stop, but Wei was lost to the throes of battle. Like an arrow loosed from its bow, there would be no return. Victory or death.
Once more, Wei struck the demon’s, but this time, as he tore through the pages, the Middle Manager burst into a puff of flame as severed sheets of paper filled the air before dissolving into shadow and light. Essence detonated. Wei’s fury flowed. Triumph swelled in the young master’s veins and as his Authority Advanced…
Authority Advanced > 36
Wei took another step, preparing to shift his momentum into a spiking fist. The Demon of Greed blinked back into existence right beside him. One more punch would plunge clean through the demon’s torso—
Core Ascension—
A crushing weight fell on Wei. An impossible weight, with no prelude or hint of forthcoming. The young master barely managed to scream as both his knees folded in the wrong direction with a series of sickening cracks. Flames exploded out from his armor, but without an obvious threat, the jets of fire simply carved wounds across the room. The young master crashed to the ground then, broken, wailing, the mass of a small mountain collapsing over him.
Source hissed free from Wei’s body. He struggled, he fawned, but an unseen bulk sat upon him, a font of crushing Essence gripping his form, holding him down.
“What… what’s happening?” Wei growled.
“You broke a contract of inflation,” Bishop said with a sigh.
Wei found himself entirely confused until the Middle Manager stumbled over him, holding up what looked to be a folder—that folder connected to all the other contracts. They flipped its pages open so Wei could see what was writing within. Massive lines of text embossed in gold taunted the young master’s gaze.
For whoever this may concern, upon attacking the body of [designated party Middle Manager or a connected piece of property thereof], a penalty of 300 tons will be incurred. Should a connected contract be destroyed, the effects contained herein will promptly take effect on the offending party. Attacking signals consent in the utmost and cannot be withdrawn.
Wei blinked as he finished reading through the document. His mind failed to process the information. How was this proper? Just how was this fair? Who upheld these bargains, and why didn’t Napoleon allow them to take effect?
Another sequence of rattles sounded from the young master’s torso. Most of his ribs were caving inward. One of his lungs popped.
Source: [3/190]
Blind heavens. He was being taunted. Rage and frustration boiled over. Once more. Once more, he faced indignity. Once more, humiliation. He had been trapped by this toad of a creature—this festering boil of a monster. And they took his Eidolon too…
“Once more, you learn a useful lesson,” Bishop said. “Maybe don’t roll up trying to fight every motherfucking demon in the Claimed Hells before figuring out what they can do.”
“And you couldn’t have just told me?” Wei hissed internally.
“Nope,” Bishop said, blandly. “It’s something you best learn through experience alone.”
“So,” the Middle Manager said, adjusting his tie, far too small for his rotund body, “are you finally done with your little tantrum? Shall we discuss proper punishment for this misbehavior?”
Despite their domineering posture and prideful tone, Wei detected a quiver of fear in their jowls and an uncertain gaze in their eyes. They also kept two meters of distance away from Wei, as if he could go off at any time. A volatile bomb instead of a man..
No, Wei growled to himself. No, I am not done.
He reached out for his Eidolon, but it wasn’t there. It was near. He tried to re-summon it once more, but it felt blocked from him, seized by a greater force. He needed it back. He wouldn’t let some Demon of Greed take what was his.
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Wei pushed against the ground. But though he was stronger than he’d ever been, the mass of a small mountain was still far too much, and all he could do was strain. In vain, his body slowly came asunder.
“All right, son,” Bishop muttered. “Time to call it quits. You did a little bit better here than the previous ones, but—”
“I’m not done.” Wei spat. He kicked. He thrashed. He strained every muscle he had, but he didn’t budge an inch. Darkness crept along the corners of his eyes, and once more, death began to encroach. All that did was feed the young master’s ragee.
“Listen to me, boy,” Bishop continued, “there’s no point in being stubborn and stupid. You learned what you could. Now, I’m going to punch into his mind, and I’m gonna make him give you back your little spear. We’re gonna be gone from here. And after that, we’re going to talk about—”
Wei spat at the Middle Manager, spite and scorn fueling the last rags of his strength.
“Yes, yes. Express your discontent, you feeble barbarian,” the demon garbled. “Now,...”
The demon pulled out another contract—one promising the weight would be lifted off Wei’s shoulders if he only gave verbal consent to serve the Circle of Greed for the next millennia. Ten thousand years. Wei would have rather died. Once more, he spat. But this time, he felt it—a trickle of power.
A strand of Source leaked out with his saliva, connecting to him, a part of him. And a wild impulse consumed the young master. He drew upon his Form of the Martial Harvester once more. Instead of spitting at the demon, he aimed at the invisible shroud of swirling essence holding him down like a wrathful claw. Wei spat, and a small scythe cleaved deep into the unseen weight.
The young master took a shuddering inhale. Was the weight lessening? Was he simply growing more delirious?
Bishop had fallen silent once more. No longer lecturing him. Yet the young master took that as a sign. Pouring more of his essence against the crushing force, Wei spat over and over, his hatred turning back to focus as he ejected spittle with such might that unseen spider webs began to form around his body like a lattice.
“What… what is this?” the middle manager said, taking a few steps back.
Source began to hiss free out from Wei. With each blow he landed, he focused not on harvesting aspects, but rather dissolving its structure, destroying its concept and returning it to the most foundational form of existential energy. Source. Light and darkness. The samsara of creation and destruction.
After the fifth globule, Wei finally managed to fight his way back to his hands and knees. His whole body still struggled, but it was like he was carrying a small building on his shoulders instead of a collapsed city. The Middle Manager’s mouth opened and closed, eyes wide with disbelief.
A series of cheers erupted through the open door. The other Sinners were watching Wei rise, and in the back of his mind, Wei heard a scoff escape Bishop.
“Fucking Keter, man.”
Balling his fist, Wei struck at the Essence congealed around him. His first jab could barely be regarded as such. It quivered, as if a punch thrown by a man with palsy, pushing against a roaring river. But with each subsequent blow, the weight around him weakened. Cracks spread, and momentum built within the young master. A Dilation-Echo formed. He watched as a blow came from him in the future. The Middle Manager would fling an object through Wei, delivering upon him a fated end.
Just then, in the present, the Middle Manager snapped out of his stupor and tore what looked to be a golden pen from his inner suit pocket.
“No, I’m going to need to catalog you. Hold still for a minute, young one. This will only hurt quite a bit.”
But before he could cast his item, a detonation of shadow and light swelled out around Wei. The pen slipped through the Source's staining erosion damage before passing through where Wei once stood. But rather than impaling the young master, or pinning him down by whatever effects it possessed, it carved through open air and detonated against the far wall, as a sudden pulse of purple leaped out from the young master's body. Bishop’s influence receded a moment after. A sphere of oblivion sucked in all surrounding matter and energy where the pen structure before it collapsed into an ink black marble that bounced off the ground.
“What?”
That was as far as the Middle Manager got before a series of three punches and two kicks slammed into his midsection. Scythes flicked through them with each blow, his Strength, Mind, and Constitution were utterly savaged. The Demon of Greed cried out in surprise, and his bellow quickly turned into a scream of despair.
Authority Advanced > 39
Fortification Advanced > 31
[9/10] Aspect Advancements to Core Ascension
Wei dismissed the other System notifications, and continued beating down on the flagging Middle Manager. Ignoring the pain of his broken body, Wei flung himself, Source pouring from his shattered legs as he sailed through the air. With every punch, they became less, and he was more. The creature gave a ragged snarl, and Wei caught another Dilation-Echo, a backhand almost too fast to perceive that would have separated his head from his shoulders. He ducked just in time, but the demon’s claws still raked an inch deep into his scalp.
Source: [2/190]
Searing light filled Wei’s eyes, and he nearly stumbled, his head spinning with dizziness and nausea. But he kept pushing. Either he would fall, or this demon would.
His knuckles were mangled fragments, insufficient to do proper harm to the demon’s staggering constitution. But even so, his harvest could not be denied. He reaped, even as his Intent dropped, even as trauma barely suppressed flooded his mind. He reaped, drinking away the demon’s strength, slamming an elbow into their thin thigh for good measure.
Mighty though the Demon of Greed was, if they could have just managed to land a single hit more, Wei would have greeted his final end. But that was not their nature. Their sin was one of want and possession, but they lacked the virtues of pride or wrath. When the possibility of death came, their spirit broke before their body ever did, and they tripped as they stumbled backward, trying to flee from the young master. A spiral of contracts formed over their body in a defensive cocoon.
For a moment, the demon of greed and the young master glared at each other from across the shattered room. They were at an impasse. The Middle Manager was terrified, though the demon was only entirely harmed on a physical level. The rapidity of their blinks and the choking breaths they took revealed the depths of their fear. Their Aspects had been damaged—quite severely if Wei was to guess. Adding all his Class and System Aspects together, he had more than a few stats that were well past the hundred range. The demon, with their Class level being registered as a question mark, probably had something well into the few hundreds, maybe even a thousand. But even that could be worn down.
On the other hand, Wei felt his every wound, and was on the verge of death once more. Another clean hit, that would be all it took for the demon to finish him off. So neither moved, both observing the other, waiting for something to give.
Waiting until Wei noticed a faint purple tinge pulse behind the demon’s irises. Suddenly, their contracts vanished, and they bowed their head low. A vacant expression consumed their mind, and immediately, Wei had a guess as to what was going on.
“Bishop,” he growled, pain and frustration co-mingling. “I had him. This was my fight.”
“It was your death,” Bishop replied. “Give him another second, and he would have pulled something out. An item, another deal, hell he might have brought an Invisible Hand down on you. Contended his selection of sins against your own. All you had was a mental edge, boy. But—” The trespasser trailed off. “You damaged him enough for me to slip in and do this… Not half bad.”
“I’m full of surprises,” Wei gasped as he triggered Lesser Hollow Mind.
At once, he entered a passive state of meditation, his body slowly knitting back together, wounds closing, bones snapping back into place. The Source, hissing free from his wounds, wafted to a sudden halt, then began to reverse in direction. Tendrils of shadow and light coalesced from the world around Wei, pouring back into him to fuel his reconstitution.
Class Level > 37
Free Points: [65]
It took the better part of a minute for him to find the strength to stand. He staggered before the inert Middle Manager, a scythe burning black and bright over Wei’s body. Time to see his System fed. What was cracked might as well be made broken. But before that— “Bishop, a favor, if I might ask one.”
“You wanna know where he’s keeping your Eidolon?”
“Yes.”
“Wait a second.”
Suddenly, another pulse of psionic opulent energy rushed down from the demon’s mind, and they flicked a finger, drawing a vellum-veiled contract to the forefront. As Wei reached out and grasped the fluttering papers, he felt an internal storm of Essence shift between the pages. What once was little more than a stack of Essence-inscribed ink shifted back into the Broken Crescent with a burst of crackling lightning.
FEE ABSOLVED
“I’m not gonna be able to hold onto this body for long,” Bishop said, speaking through the demon now. He flung out a series of other contracts, placing them at Wei’s feet. “These will come in handy soon. I recommend that you finish breaking this body. Should be pretty good for your System’s advancement.”
Wei bit his lip, sour that he only achieved a partial victory. Could he have won without the trespasser? Could he have danced that edge and secured victory for himself? There was a question that would go unanswered in this life.
“Don’t fixate on that,” Bishop finished. “A win is a win. Take it, live it, and the hell with all the rest. Now finish things out here and get going.”
Wei lifted his spear and just as he prepared to plunge it through the demon’s eye, he froze and looked at the other Sinner. He stared at them. They stared at him. And a new opportunity presented itself.
Enlightenment Advanced > 26
Core Ascension Available
“So… does anyone want to join a sect?”