“Mepheleon. It’s me.”
“Ah. Sarah. I have been waiting for this call. How have you been, dearest? And you are most welcome. I enjoyed dealing with your Inheritor infestation.”
“You were just looking for a reason to clean them out before the invasion. Don’t use me as your excuse. I want to talk about the woman.”
“What woman, dear? There is only one lady true to my heart—”
“The queen. When are you going to tell the boy the truth?”
“When? And what truth is that?”
“That she’s actually dead. That you’re using her corpse as a puppet. That true resurrection is impossible unless you have the requisite Essence—and the proper Skill.”
“Oh, Sarah, why would I ever do that? Why would I ever wound this poor, broken boy to the point of invalidity? You must know how ruined he is on the inside. So deliciously close to the edge of madness. All it would take is a little push… He would have died there, you know? If I hadn’t given him a reason to continue fighting.”
“Michael…
“Oh, come now. We’re both going to be using him. He is our means to access the vault! To see the inheritance left to us—and the spy upon the universe that anchors ours. I will not tell him any truth that hurts him unless it serves me. And neither will you. After all, we both know what the cost for opening the vault is. And the Concept-Breaker… it is too dangerous a weapon to be left without some influence or control.”
-Sarah Moonscar and Mepheleon the Harbinger
II-10
Resolve (II)
Instead of using some kind of teleportation Skill immediately, William led his son down the long, narrow hall of the Third Rib. The two walked in silence, neither acknowledging the other’s presence more than they needed to, and a heavy air of tension settled between them.
After less than a minute of walking, they arrived before a massive passageway made of obsidian blocks. The framed portal was embedded into the walls, and it took up 10 full meters of space. Doors to other hotel rooms expanded on its left and right, but a set of cipher-infused barricades were placed, covering the portal as some strange berth.
With a casual wave of his hand, William swiped one of the obsidian stones, and a set of symbols lit up into the air. They danced around his hands, he and he flicked through a set of numbers and words before selecting “TOP” and then “DEPARTURES.”
After that, he made no further gestures. Instead, he started staring at the passage, waiting for something to happen.
The silence continued. William eyed Wei briefly. “So. Did you fuck her?”
“You disgust me,” Wei snapped back. He took a step closer to his father, but the man didn’t retreat. “All my life, I thought you were someone that had honor, had decency. And now… and now I see you’re just some mercenary. Some scum who descended from the heavens to speed my realm with ruin, my fate with misfortune.”
William’s tired eyes looked Wei up and down. “That wasn’t a yes or a no, Wei.”
“No!” Wei barked. “No! Damn you! You and—and Bishop! You’re both the same. No decency—no respect. I am not like you. I understand—” Wei wrestled his rage back under control. He returned to silence. “I am done. I will waste no more words on you. I will find my satisfaction by carving through your flesh with my spear and breaking your spirit utterl; completely.”
His father just nodded. “And that’ll make you happy?”
What kind of question was that? What kind of insult crafted to hurt Wei further. “No. Nothing—nothing you can do will make me right again. Nothing…” Wei blinked, willing unwelcome memories from his mind. Mou Ze—the Hundred-Names. The demons tearing through them. The screams. “Get out. Get out of my head—”
“Wei?” William said. He turned, and reached out a hand. As if he was still Wei’s father. As if he wasn’t the reason behind all this travesty.
Wei slapped his father’s limb aside and stumbled away. “Your fault. Yours. I… killing you will not be enough. Using my blade to torture you for a thousand years—for a million years will not be enough. I watched Master Mou Ze get torn apart by the hounds. I saw… I saw… All your doing. It won’t be right. I can only… I hate you.”
“Wei. Cease this.” The Shell’s words rumbled within Wei, and he felt the Skill’s disgust at his outburst. “Your Ambition is recovering. It will be restored soon. But it is no excuse for such naked weakness. Listen to your own voice. On the verge of tears before your foe. Shameful. Worthless. You might as well drive your spear through your own throat and let him have his triumph.”
An aching stone throbbed in Wei’s throat, while his insides were raw and seared with unceasing anger. But he managed to calm his breathing. He managed to look away from his father. He said nothing more. He just stared at the portal.
Faintly, he noticed William’s right hand tremble as well, and the Trespasser muttered under his breath. “Fuck. Goddammit.”
“Good. Now that your tantrum has ended, look at him. Take in his level. Feel his Essence.” Wei heeded his Shell’s words and did so.
William Yu: Marksman of the Reigning Lies Lv. 104
Three things came to Wei’s attention. The first was that he could see his father’s level now. He hadn’t been able to before—there was something blocking him earlier. The second was that his father had grown more powerful—and changed a Class Specialization somehow. The third was the fact that Wei could now observe Marquis-Tier foes now. Was there a threshold for him to become aware? No. Bishop said some people just set their Classes to public. Wei suspected that to be the case for his father.
Suddenly, a burst of activity came from the portal, and from between the cracks in the obsidian, waves of spatial Essence parted, revealing a pathway to another place. Wei’s Omniscience poured across, revealing moving bodies, Essence signatures, and more, and more, and more. There were hundreds of people out there. Thousands. All of them walking across an open air platform. Biomechanical demons halted and flew from its edges, ferrying people to and fro from the Third Rib.
Too much. It was all too much to take in.
Is this how people traverse these structures? Wei asked. He studied the portal and frowned. Why not just have it connect to other points in the city? Why have demons as transportation at all?
“Vulnerabilities, most likely,” Wei’s Shell replied. “Such easy access and the risk of spatial overload is a true danger. It also requires a great deal of cost, if the Essence we fell is accurate.”
As Wei passed over to the other side, he faintly heard someone calling his name from the hotel hallways. He paused in place and frowned, but the portal returned to being dead slots of obsidian afterward. Nothing for it.
All around him were people of various Class-Tiers and Specializations. The bulk of them were liches, their skeletal forms composed of different materials. Some were made of platinum while others were living wood or dancing flame. Rafael told Wei liches weren’t actually undead. This only further emphasized that fact. Wei couldn’t fully conceptualize binding his consciousness to another shell, but he supposed it was a statement of power.
What he couldn’t respect were the slaves. Slaves that had their minds and spirits bound to the liches, with cipher-formed shackles attaching them to their master’s skulls. There were men, women, children, and all manner of species among the taken. Disturbingly, more than a few had been modified as well, with certain bodily organs augmented to an exaggerated degree, while others were entirely nude.
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Wei averted his gaze and hardened his heart. It was a wretched thing, debasing oneself by taking a slave. Proper power was selfish and personal. What they indulged in here was base pleasure of the lowest manner. Things that distracted one from true ascension…
It was so easy to forget that this was hell. This was a fallen place. No matter what aid Mepheleon offered him, this was the realm the Harbinger ruled over and allowed. Which made Wei wonder about Ellena, about many other things.
William led Wei toward a zone with demons arriving and departing in rapid succession. The text Depatures was inscribed upon the ground and marked a waiting zone for passengers, and along the edge of the platform were strange demons that also doubled as vehicles.
Zipwing Lv. 25
The demon sprouted five raven-like wings from its sides, a tail made from pluming fire, and a head that projected a beam of light from a collection of animal snouts. An open wall of flesh revealed a set of chairs bathed in flashing light. William casually shoved a lich over the edge as they went for the same demon, and he waved for Wei to hurry. A muffled series of curses and flashing ciphers filled the air as the Trespasser boarded the vehicle, and Wei just stared in near-disbelief.
He didn’t know the man. He didn’t know him at all.
As he entered, the side of the demon closed and William waved at him. “Connect to the demon and set the destination.”
“What?” Wei asked.
“If you’re going to be living here, you should know how things work. Go to your Class settings and link your mind to the vehicle. Should be intuitive.”
Out of sheer spite, Wei almost refused, but he did as William said in the end and watched as a new notification crawled over his vision.
Welcome Sinner.
Please set your destination.
From the outside of the demon, he heard a muffled shout. “Sirs. Sirs. That was very rude. You will be hearing from my lawyer soon.”
“Ignore him. Lodge will handle whatever suit comes my way.” William crossed his legs. “Got the destination down yet? Tell it to go to Trespasser’s Lodge, Local Branch.”
Wei mentally did just that, and to his surprise, a route formed in his mind. It showed the Zipwing jumping from building to building, and showed the entire trip running twelve kilometers and lasting for eight minutes.
Payment: [500] Sins
The young master frowned as he acknowledged the cost. And then, the Sins required were drained out from him, leaving with his note of acceptance. Suddenly, the demon started moving, and Wei felt a node of spatial essence build around its cone-shaped nose.
“Non-tangible currency. Convenient isn’t it.”
Wei eyed his father and took a seat across from him. Still, he said nothing. He intended to spent this entire trip in sile—
“Did you ever think about telling the truth?” The words left Wei despite his intentions. They were like a knife that needed to be pulled from his flesh. “Did you ever… did you ever love mother? Was anything about you real?”
Finally, after everything, that was what made William truly flinch. An ugly grimace passed over William’s face as he opened his mouth. But offered only a sigh. “Doesn’t matter anymore, does it?”
That wasn’t what Wei wanted to hear. But here he was, expecting closure from the man who burned his world, who murdered his mother.
“A pitiful boy,” the Shell snarled. “Why not throw yourself in his arms and weep, ask him to give you your mother and sect back. Ask if he still wants to be family.”
SILENCE!
The internal scream he directed at the Shell came as an explosion. The Shell’s words were unwelcome right now, and he stewed in self-loathing silence, both inside and out as their ride began.
Unlike the Crawler, the Zipwing injected itself from place to place across the den. It jumped from building to building at rapid speeds, projecting itself away from the Third Rib with a burst of flame from its rear. Its head created a needle of spatial stability, and it traversed the skies at a far faster place, with the distance between it and other structures shortened immensely. Such was how it crossed the city so vast. And such was how Wei found himself going from the heights of the Third Rib to the valley of demonic structures and urban streets between the Cherub’s ribs.
They passed over a series of structures, with Wei noticing what seemed to be a massive tree with sprouting a series of platforms and a walking castle that sprayed steam into the air. Demonic traffic was high in the air as well, with hundreds of vehicles flitting here and there. But among them were Classed as well, some choosing to fly themselves rather than take a ride.
Wei sneered. If he knew that was an option, he would have let his father use the demon while he raced it with his Broken Crescent.
They shot from place to place so fast that Wei failed to get a good look over the city, but his mind wasn’t in the sightseeing anyway. In a few moments, he and his father would be greeting each other blade to blade, and Skill to Skill. He had yearned for this moment. Waited for it. But now, it was going to be the start of his revenge. Seever was dead. As were many Inheritors, but their true masters remained, and after he broke his father, he was going to tear every last detail about these bastards from William’s bastard tongue.
You have arrived!
We hope you enjoyed flying with Zipwing!
The (Crossroads) appreciate your patronage!
The side of the demon opened up again, and Wei found himself facing his father in a stare-off. Neither said anything. Neither made the first move to disembark. Only the sudden interjection of Bishop’s voice snapped both out of their stupors.
“Hey, you two gonna get off or what?” The muscular Trespasser stood there, folding his arms. He looked annoyed and had some kind of burning stick hanging from his mouth.
“John,” William said, speaking without looking at his friend. “I told you don’t need to be here for this.”
“Bullshit,” Bishop replied. “You need a third party to sanction your duel, and it might as well be me. Shit, fucked up family feud aside, the slight chance of you getting your ass kicked by the kid also means I might get some good entertainment.”
“Slight,” Wei said, his voice cold.
“You jumped his unprepared, new Class having ass last time,” Bishop said. “William’s here a lot of things, but, uh… don’t think the odds are with you. Known him too long to be that hopeful.”
Despite Bishop’s words, William just looked resigned. Hardly a confident victor-to-be. Wei, for his part, simply scoffed. “We will see, then, won’t we, father?”
They got off the demon thereafter, and Wei found himself standing at the end of a long marble path flanked by gleaming green lawns. Behind, the cityscape of the Cherub’s Corpse loomed, with towers and buildings marching on naked human legs, the districts reorganizing themselves. Further ahead stood a soot-gray mansion with a slightly rounded exterior, a set of brilliant windows, what looked to be a broken moon hovering over its apex, and a terrifying powerful entity composed of shifting chains levitating above the moon.
Tribulator Lv.???
“Remember,” Wei’s lawyer suddenly reappeared on his shoulder, “we’re in the Heights. So don’t attack people without proper cause or it’ll be off the court of courts with us!”
The trio crossed the grounds, but Bishop hummed all the way. Of the three of them, he seemed absolutely carefree. Wei spotted other individuals present as well. All of them exhibited high spiritual pressures—Marquises at the very least. He saw some of them turn and stare at him, their expressions shifting ever so slight to betray their curiosity.
Arriving before the large gray mansion, Bishop turned over his shoulder and gestured at the house. “Local branch here’s literally called the Gray House. Once we make for Earth, you’ll probably see a larger, whiter house during the invasion.”
Wei noted that. It didn’t seem overly special. The architecture was a bit out of place, but at least it wasn’t partially a demonic monstrosity.
As Bishop pushed two wooden doors open, Wei found himself stepping into a large, open, and ultimately empty chamber lined with a floor made out of reinforced wood. Yet, Wei could also feel a power brimming deep beneath him. An Essence of… restoration? Mending? Faintly, he heard notes of a song. A song not so unlike that which the Trine used to sing.
“Doesn’t look like the lobby,” William said to Bishop.
“Didn’t want to waste time. Set it straight to the dojo so we can get this dumb shit over.”
“Classy as always, Bishop.,” William snarked.
“Yeah. Well. Only one of us murdered our wife here, right?” Bishop sneered back at his “friend.”
William’s expression turned into a momentary snarl before it flattened again. Summoning a form out of his Inventory, he handed a document over to Wei.
“What’s this?” Wei asked, hesitating before accepting the papers.
“Read it and find out.”
Looking through the contents of the contract, Wei saw that it was a formal declaration to duel, with the end condition being incapacitation or unconsciousness. Lawful safeguards will materialize and “bind” the loser somehow to prevent them from facing true death. However, what caught his full attention were the terms.
If the side (Wei An Wei) prevails in this duel, the agency of side (William Yu) will be his to decide, with the latter becoming a bondslave unable to reject any of the former’s commands.
If the side (William Yu) prevails in this duel, the side (Wei An Wei) is required to do nothing.
Wei frowned. Nothing. “What is this?” Wei asked.
William shrugged. “The terms. Are they acceptable.”
“What do you want?” Wei said. “Your conditions of victory—”
“I was supposed to do a job,” William began. “I was supposed to capture a certain world, to rule over a certain realm, and await further instructions. Then, I was to destroy the realm and secure the System it was housing. If I managed that, the Inheritors would have scrubbed me from the Fathoms—offered me a new life, a new reincarnation away from the shit. From the Dying Queen. Didn’t work out. What I want isn’t happening, Wei. So.”
William shrugged, a flash of light shrouded his body. A cloak made from dancing mist formed over him, and he looked his son up and down. “You’ve been getting stronger. Survived the trials. All to hunt me down. Well. I’m tired of running. And I got nowhere to go. So. You think you can take my fate from me?”
“Yes,” Wei said. His words were cold and true. They had to be. Even if the heavens willed against him.
“Alright, then,” William said. “Let’s do this. Bishop.”
“Yeah. I’ll come in after you two are done. Make it quick and don’t hurt him too bad. Moonscar’s gonna wanna talk to the boy after.”