“You are probably asking yourself why?” The Astrologer was keeping his distance from me. I didn’t respond but glared at him while I thought how quickly I could kill him. “Imagine my surprise, when I got a visitor with a plan to kill the Divine Empress.”

“Aaavaaa,” I couldn’t say the full word as rage encompassed me.

“The Avatar or the High Priestess. What a remarkable lady. We had quite a productive conversation. Hmmm, Astral Projection. Astral Projection.” A man in a hooded stary robe appeared to the side. What the adult Astrologer looked like, since it was clearly based off the Homunculus, which was based off his main body. The child’s body changed as energy swirled around it, and a shell formed around the body, making him look like Hei Long’s and his son, Qi Ji Long.

It clicked. It all clicked at that moment. The reason why the Astrologer wanted the child gone, but still alive. Why she wanted the Astrologer rescued. “Ahhhhh!” I screamed in rage.

“There all tied off and stable. I would claim this is nothing personal, but it is. I would be just as enraged as you. Don’t worry. Once I kill the Divine Empress, you will be next. But you still have a role to play.” The Astrologer gave me a creepy smile.

Air Burst. Acid Shot. What?! Why weren’t my skills working?!

“Trying to use your skills. I am disrupting your energy. Refraction, instead of resonance, dispersing your ability to call on the System for your skills. The moment you let me heal you the first time was the moment you were under my control. I did remove all of the tumor I could though. I am a man of my word.”

“There is no meta-point at the top of the tower, so you can have all of them,” the Astrologer chuckled a bit in Qi Ji Long’s appearance. “Once she is dead, well, that will fix all my problems. Then I will be killing you and taking all your stats. A shame you don’t have any meta-points since I would have taken those as well.” I struggled as I listened to him, but nothing was working.

“Why am I monologuing? It is amusing and despite being an idiot and falling for this trap, you still can think. Also, it feels good to gloat and trick people.” The Astrologer walked over to me and then laid a child’s hand on the back of my neck. “Can’t have that block being removed any time soon either. You are quite persistent and your stats are quite high.”

“I would have just killed you right away, but you brought the Divine Empress here. She is sitting right above our heads. If I hadn’t instituted a stilling barrier, she would have heard everything. Soon, I will have her stats and meta-points. Then I will have your stats. A shame you don’t have any meta-points for me to take from you. A small dessert after the main course, but with all of that, there will be no one left to challenge me.” The Astrologer removed his hand from the back of my neck.

“Haaaaate,” I growled out. The sheer amount of rage coursing through me was immense. This was it. I was going to die. This man liked to hear himself speak way too much and there was nothing I could do about it.

“Yes, hate. I am sure you hate me. Hate is a thing that blinds idiots like yourself. The Avatar hates the Divine Empress, arranging all of this. Delaying your climb to empower and grow the tumor before you reached the top, to give me the strength for what is to come.”

“You have always been in the palm of my hand Michael. Ever since my Homunculus first implanted the tumor into you, so long ago. Once the Divine Empress is killed, then I shall truly be invincible. It has taken far too long to reach this point.”

Looking inward, I focused on what he had done to me. There was a block of energy inside of my neck and another tumor that had quickly grown. I focused on removing it and smoothing out my energy, so I could move. It was hard to control even my own energy.

“Good, everything is holding together. Holding together. Hmm, my voice needs work.” He adjusted his tone and said something in Mandarin. He did that a couple more times. Carefully enunciating his words.

“Perfect, just needed to perfect that. Now for clothing. Hmmm. Astral Projection.” Western style clothing appeared on his body. “Now to adjust its energy and how it is displayed. Need to take into account all the details you know.”

“The Divine Empress is no idiot unfortunately. But even she will let her guard down at the sight of her child.” I wasn’t paying that much attention to the Astrologer anymore, trying to focus on undoing what he had done to me.

I was chipping away, slowly but surely. But it was not quick, simple, or easy. I had to force my energy to flow a certain way and hold that in my mind. To visualize and maintain that visualization not matter what. I was trying to imprint that onto my physical body, to remove whatever the Astrologer had done in my neck.

This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

It was clearly rushed, since I could easily sense it. But I guess you couldn’t have a stealth tumor and refraction tumor inside someone’s body, disabling their skills at the same time. It wasn’t painful, but the tumor was constantly sending intermittent spikes of energy through my body.

“And done. I think. Hmmm, this needs to be perfect. Absolutely perfect. I can’t afford any screwups. No mistakes at the very end. No mistakes. No mistakes.” He clearly wasn’t right in the head as well. Getting stuck here clearly wasn’t good for him.

The Astrologer turned back towards me. “Always have a plan and a backup, and then an emergency plan. So many ways I had planned to kill the Divine Empress and now I am scraping the bottom of the barrel. Well, once I leave here, I will just replace you as Champion Michael.”

“So, don’t worry, your name will live on. That is why I cast my old name away. Names have a certain power. Oh, you didn’t know. Champion Michael,” he said, and I felt my energy shudder. “Still got it. Resonance, it truly is a dangerous weapon. Honestly the Divine Empress is just so stupidly overpowered, that she has lasted this long.”

“I mean, seriously. She punches things. Or claws them to death with her Kung-Fu. Completely and utterly insane that woman. But one has to give her credit for her tenacity and unrelenting aggression. Well time to make an appearance.”

I got to my feet, my body moving without my control and the projection of the adult body of the Astrologer came around behind me and put an illusionary right hand on the back of my neck. He did the same for the child’s body he was actually in and had the adult Astral Projection put a right hand on the back of his neck.

“Perfect. Absolutely perfect, alright time to get into character.” There was sniffling from the child Astrologer as I was forced to slowly walk to the pillar. The child floated up and put both hands on the pillar. The elevator began to move up and the child Astrologer quickly went back into position on the ground.

I kept working on the block in the back of my neck. I needed to be able to use my skills. I could sense what was happening. The tumor there was sending out pulses of energy, drawing it in and releasing it. There were thoughts in that energy, which were interrupting my skills. Clever, but I just needed to silence it or time my skills.

The moment the Astrologer struck the Divine Empress, I would strike him. It was my only chance to come out of this alive and kill both of them. It was stupid of him to let me live, but he had a way to take my stats. His greed would be his undoing. He also might want to sell the illusion or trap a bit more.

However, he had altered the energy on his Astral Projections made it impossible to tell them from a real person. It was honestly incredibly scary how good he was at manipulating energy, but he had nothing else to do for years except practice.

The elevator reached the top, the fiftieth floor. Looking out the one-way gate from the safe room we were in, we were on the roof of the tower. Thank goodness. I saw a golden pillar in the center of the tower.

The Divine Empress suddenly appeared in front of it. We advanced out of the saferoom through the one way gate. There was a slight breeze. I was out of the tower, finally. “Divine Empress,” the Astrologer said with an adult voice. A glance sideways, showed me that he was timing the movements of the fake mouth and manipulating sound to come directly from it to hide that it was an Astral Projection.

“Astrologer. Champion Michael. Qi Ji Long, my son. How do you have him?” she asked. I could hear the barely constrained rage in her voice. She had fallen for the Astrologer’s trap. I noticed her voice was no longer raspy. Whatever damage I had done to her, she had already fixed.

“He was hidden in the tower with a group, inside a saferoom. The one place impossible for you to check. I must admit, Champion Michael is quite clever, or perhaps the Avatar he mentioned.”

“Let him go Astrologer,” the Divine Empress said. I could see the child that was the true Astrologer looking back and forth. But the adult Astrologer made it appear that he had a solid grip on his neck.

“So, you can kill me. I think not Divine Empress. Let me plant a tumor in your brain, then you can have him back,” the Astrologer said. I was making slight progress on the block in the back of my neck. I might get one skill off per every other second. That wasn’t enough.

“No.” She took a step forward. “If you want to kill him or plan to torture him, go ahead. I will kill you no matter what. You are weak Astrologer, and I will not let your recover.” She took another step forward.

The child let out a scream. It was fake, but the acting was impressive. The Divine Empress froze. I could see the worry etched into her face. “So quick. If you plan to strike me, I will move him in front of your attack, whatever it is, so you kill your own child.”

“I will not let you go. If he dies, he dies, but I will make you regret it,” the Divine Empress angrily said.

“Regret, I am past the point of regret, Divine Empress. Far past that point. What can you offer me for your child?” The Astrologer asked. The silence stretched out. The Divine Empress did not have an answer to that question.

At this level of power there were only interests and personal power. She had no empire to give up. She would not let herself be weakened. I was confused about the Astrologer’s final plan, but he couldn’t just give her child up.

Was he hoping that I would act and make a scene? Then the child would escape in that moment, and somehow the real Astrologer would kill the Divine Empress close up. That was devious. Well, I wasn’t going to act. Come up with your own plan.

A minute passed, then two. The block in my neck was gone, but I didn’t act or say anything. I had recovered control of my body as well. The Astrologer was clearly hoping I would do something, but I wasn’t going to. The Divine Empress had to die no matter what, but I wasn’t about to draw her focus to me.

The Divine Empress took another step forward. That was when the child, who was really the Astrologer acted.