Chapter 14

Moving On

Clearing debris and rescuing the wounded was slow-moving, but eventually, we made headway into the enemy's city and discovered the Lykaian King bound with a collar around his neck and two Majin standing guard. I was seriously exhausted, not so much within my body but within my soul. Aside from still getting used to the new Soul Ranks for my Blessings, I had strained my soul a lot recently. Hell, I even played a torture game using my soul. Yet, I kept my attacks to only physical ones and easily cut down the two Majin in less than a second.

Notice!

The conditions have been met.

Everyone who participated in the Event

will receive this Title.

New Title gained: Majin Genoside

Magin Genoside grants 3000 Astra

and a new Skill.

New Skill gained: Enlightenment S1-R1

Description: When Meditating you

will gain increased Astra, Health, and Stamina

regeneration by 500% and have a small

chance to become Enlightened.

Enlightened State grants insight into Blessing

and Skill evolution. You can gain multiple

ranks or even upgrade the Blessing or Skill

to a superior new Skill.

I read the forced Notice pop-up, and my eyes grew wide. It's one thing for me to gain so many upgrades at once. I'm a bit of an oddity. But all the survivors instantly gaining that much Astra? At least the surviving Lykaians will at least stay strong enough to hold their own while they rebuild. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw the others all with their eyes closed, clearly listening to the World Voice.

Putting that aside for the moment, I went over to the King, my new father-in-law, and tore the suppression collar off. "Are you okay, sir?"

"Yes, a little bruised still, but I'm regenerating. So, we did it? We really won? How?"

"Long story, but we got a lot of work to do rebuilding your kingdom. Come on, we'll talk more later."

After clearing the wreckage as good as they could for the day, the deceased bodies were collected, and a massive funeral took place. One by one, my party members and I took our turn honoring Hiroshem by placing a flower on his body before they set the pyres ablaze.

We spent the next two months helping the reconstruction efforts. They even asked me to supply the bulk of the Astra for their spells to raise the mountain back up again. All I had to do was channel my Astra through a ritual diagram that then transferred the power into their spells. There were many supplying Astra, but I had the most by far to aid their project.

Despite all the time we spent in this place, the uncomfortable discussion didn't take place until it was time to head home. Of course, we were given a ceremony and going-away party before then, but eventually, I knew it was time.

"Alright, everyone, I feel it is time to discuss our future," I started off the conversation. We were in our battle airship on our way home.

"I don't know about you, Zeke, but I plan on heading to the boat off this rock," Akoth said.

"Yes, about that. I, too, will be heading to the boat. We've leveled past this land, and I desire to see what comes next. What about the rest of you?"

"You don't even have to ask me," VeLana replied. "I'm with you forever."

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"Same, but not in the same meaning as Vel," Jaxon said.

Then TelVurn replied, "Well, I, for one, have been awarded by your father and have been granted freedom. However, I do not seek to move on from this place. I wish to retire for a bit."

"I can understand that," I replied to him. Then I had an idea. "TelVurn, we've been at odds with each other from time to time, but I consider you family. With that said, will you take over my part of the ownership of the restaurants?"

He opened his mouth and then paused for a bit. "Ah, yes. I would gracefully accept. Thank you," TelVurn replied while visions of delicious burgers floated through his mind.

Then, the gazes turned to Tobi, Kaelyn, and Zarrah. All three looked at each other, and then Kaelyn spoke up for the three of them. "Yes, well, we've discussed this already among ourselves, and we, too, wish to stay here. We wish to start families and raise children for a while. Maybe down the road, we'll cross the boat, but we've had enough adventure for several lifetimes—far more than we ever dreamed."

"That is understandable. We'll miss you for sure, but despite all we've gone through, I know you're still young and need time to explore life in other venues outside combat. I know you'll all make great parents one day." And what I said was true. They were still young and needed to grow in other ways before deciding to move to new and harsher challenges. And from my time in the Soul Realm, the upper Layers get tremendously more difficult.

When we arrived home, I re-broke my bed in with VeLana, then made my way down to my forge. There, I found Jaxon already hard at work upgrading items. I gave him a nod and made my way to my station. I took out another of the four legendary items I received from the Soul Realm and placed it on the table.

Item: Soul Battery

Description: A superior source of power, greater than any Monster

Core found on the first Five Layers. It can also boost Soul Blessings,

Soul Skills, and Soul Arts of anyone within Aura range by 20%.

I ejected my Ultimate Monster Core and then carefully removed the Fission Reactor from within my Combat Prosthetic. The residual energy within the Nanobots allowed the arm to remain functional for a time. Previously, the Fission Reactor would power the arm, but then when I added the more powerful Monster Core, I rigged it with Runes to utilize the Fission Reactor to refuel the Monster Core, kind of like an alternator in a car. Now, however, I was replacing the Monster Core with the Soul Battery, which required no such need for an Alternator.

It didn't take long to modify my arm to accept the new power source. Nanoites were remarkably adaptable, especially with a living sapience named Harry guiding the process. The next project was to remove my failsafe self-destruct fission bomb and modify it with a more powerful Fission Reactor and a Monster Core of the Ultimate classification. The base damage of this bomb took out half a lake along with a bandit camp, which killed several B and A-Rank monsters in the process. This new modification would bring the level of devastation to such a degree that even I might not be able to withstand the explosion, much less than the city or even an entire mountain. Nearly everything would be turned to fire and ash within dozens of miles away.

Why do I want such stupidly powerful weapons? I'm American.

"Hey, Zeke, come give me a hand on this, will ya?" Jaxon called out. I left Harry in his floating body to continue the modifications and walked over to Jaxon.

"What's up?" He had his four arms from the backside of his armor aiding him with his work, so I couldn't see him really needing an extra pair of hands, but then I saw what he was working on. "Is that…"

"Yes, it's my new Gatling gun creation. Well, to be more exact, it is a new weapons armament system utilizing your nano-technology. This baby can morph into any weapon of my choice with a mere thought. The real issue is the Rune technology merging with nanite technology. Each form has to re-arrange the nanites to reform new Rune pathways. I can manage it, but what I'm really having trouble with is creating a brand new Rune for allowing a Rune Shift. As you know, Runes are both specially arranged pathways to harness the power, and special engravings on the Monster Cores. This setup requires at least sixteen Rare Cores to function correctly. However, aside from spacing issues, I can't seem to figure out how to move the correct Rune into place while still being able to protect them. Obviously, having one crack and explode during use wouldn't be great at all."

I nodded at his explanation thus far.

"I know we can shift bullets from dimensional storage to the weapons, but those Runes are not working for shifting other Runes. The Aura signatures interfere with each other. Now, obviously, I can create a revolver of sorts to manually move the Runes into place. However, it interferes with most of the weapon designs. Any suggestions?"

I gave it some thought. Naturally, the way we shift bullets is that the Rune magic is linked to the material object, in this case, a clip with a serial number. Every time we reload, the next in line is shifted into the magazine, while the empty clip is shifted back to our storage ring. During the first few years, we simply hand-loaded each empty clip when we had the time, especially since it required us to refill them with our various forms of magical fire. But then Jaxon came up with a way to auto-reload the empty clips, and then we just had to imbue our magic into each batch of clips all at once, which sped up the process a bit.

But we couldn't link one Rune to another Rune for shifting because those Runes already had engravings on them. Adding a linking engraving would nullify the original engravings or cause unknown cataphoric failures. So, it seemed simple enough to me. He needs to create an encasing around each Rune that would have the linking magic engraved and then he'd have to redesign the base chamber to accept the encased Rune instead of just a Rune by itself. I relayed my thoughts, and his eyes widened at the simple solution.

"Remember this acronym: K.I.S.S. It's rather silly, but it stands for Keep It Simple Stupid."

"Huh? What does that mean?"

"It means you're stupid if you try and overthink or over-engineer something when a more simple solution is often best."

"So, you're calling me stupid?"

"No, that's just the saying."

"A saying that you said."

"Well, yes, but…"

"So, you think I'm stupid then? Because I have, you know…"

"Okay, never mind, you missed the point. I'm just saying…"

"That I'm stupid since now I can't even understand the point!"

"Ugh…" I groaned.