LATEST UPDATES

Published at 29th of May 2023 09:19:43 AM


Chapter 46

If audio player doesn't work, press Stop then Play button again




Lothel, the Crowned City

“We have sent the First Elite Company into fire and flame. We have sent them to end wars before they can start. We have sent them into a hell. You’re telling me they failed?”

“Forgive me, your majesty, but they did,” Ashley Kane says, bowing her head as she kneels. “Killed almost to the last man.”

She lets the king process that. King Lysander, first of his name, has only reigned over the Crowned Islands for half a decade. Ashley still clearly remembers the night the heirless monarch before him died.

She can’t help but feel that the previous ruler would’ve handled this better.

“At ease,” King Lysander finally says, stroking his wispy beard. The gesture looks stupid on him, but Ashley is a lowly daughter of a duke, not even the heiress. Speaking here would be out of turn.

Even so, she’s tempted to give him a piece of his mind. If it weren’t for the particular circumstances of their current situation, she truly might have. Ashley doesn’t fear the king.

But this is not a political competition. For the first time in over a decade, Ashley has borne witness to something—or someone—stronger than her.

There’s a reason a Kane is delivering this message and not a designated courier.

“Almost to the last man,” the king of the Crowned Islands says. “There were survivors, then?”

“One,” Ashley says. “One survivor.”

She uses her Personal Space, retrieving a green sphere the size of her fist from her pocket dimension, and she pushes her magic into it.

Three seconds later, a gate in space opens, connecting the throne room to a certain hospital hundreds of miles away. The guards all rise in uproar at the same time, each of them offering a different threat towards the Noble Archer.

Ashley glances at them disdainfully. If she’d come here with the intent to hurt King Lysander, she would’ve killed him before any of them could even react.

“This is Jayce Bard,” Ashley says. “The sole remaining soldier from your elite force.”

Elite force. What a joke. Ashley’s never had an interest in anything military, but she hasn’t spent her entire life in the Crowned Islands. The Kane family is multinational, and she’s attended and participated in enough tournaments over the years outside this backwater to understand the true scope of power in this world.

Not that Ashley can throw stones. Though she is advanced for this place, she knows that she’s barely above average outside of the Crowned Islands. The strongest of the elites were on her level. She would do well to remember that.

“Bard,” King Lysander says. “Report.”

On the other end of the portal anchor, a heavily bandaged man speaks. “It was… a massacre.”

“By who?” Lysander asks. “The demon cultists?”

Ashley rolls her eyes. The official story is that two cultists alone managed the demonic invasion of Ravendale. She’s seen the destroyed city herself. Two people managing that level of annihilation? Here? Impossible.

Jayce shakes his head. “It was… it was no cultist.”

It?

“Then who?” Lysander asks, gripping the armrests of his gilded throne.

“One woman,” Jayce says. “It was one woman.”

Ashley’s blood runs cold. One?

“One woman…” she mutters. “You didn’t tell me that.”

Lysander barks out a laugh. “You must be joking.”

“Never, your majesty,” Jayce says, wincing. “I live to serve.”

King Lysander turns his gaze towards Ashley. “Lady Kane. I seem to recall you lead a pack of hunters yourself.”

This time, it’s Ashley’s turn to wince. “I do.”

“Then you will find her and execute her,” King Lysander says. “See it done.”

Of course.

For a second, Ashley considers killing the king where he sits. She could manage it.

Then again, this could be informative. She hasn’t fought demons in a long time. The closest she’s come recently is the anomaly extermination she conducted just a few weeks ago.

This is by no means a death sentence.

“Fine,” she says, abandoning all pretense of formality. “I’ll get my people.”

Not the ones that she brought to the anomalous site. Ashley did that as a favor. Those kids won’t last a single second against Ashley, let alone something that can devastate a city in a single minute.

Idly, she wonders what’s become of the girl she saved there. Evelyn, the guard whose entire squad was lost. Ashley wonders if she should introduce her to Jayce. The two might bond over their shared tragedy.

She shakes her head. There’s more important events to attend to right now.

The Noble Hunter runs through her list of options. She remembers names, alliances that she can draw on.

She can do this.

“The kingdom is counting on you,” Lysander says.

Ashley knows enough about the green king to detect the hint of poorly-masked fear in his voice.

“I won’t let you down,” she says, turning. “Before I go, Jayce. I’d like a name. That would make this much easier.”

“I… only saw for a second,” Jayce says from his bed. “My Appraise was only active for a second before Last Resort saved me.”

“But you got the name?”

He nods once.

“Evelyn,” he says. “Evelyn Carnelian.”

The gate closes silently. Ashley looks down to see the remnants of the anchor, crushed in her hand.

She’s gone before the king can say another word.

 

9th Line Railway Service, somewhere in the Crowned Islands

“Your tickets, please,” Anderson Wiles says.

The two men in row twelve, car three hand him their tokens. Anderson draws subtly on his Magnetic Grasp, drawing the fingernail-sized bronze circles to his hand. One of the passengers whistles appreciatively at the demonstration of magic, tossing him a copper coin as a tip.

Anderson tips his hat, gratefully taking it. He used the skill out of laziness, not a desire to earn extra coin, but he’ll take his opportunity to run these assholes’ pockets.

With one hand, he accepts their tip. With the other, he continues his Magnetic Grasp, drawing a few extra silvers from their unguarded bags, nodding and smiling at his marks as he does.

“Thank you for your patronage,” Anderson says, and he moves on. With any luck, they won’t notice he’s stolen from them until long after he’s left the car.

He sighs, continuing towards the back of the train, collecting tickets as he does. Today’s take isn’t bad. Anderson’s shift is done soon.

I’ll get off at one of the coastal cities, he thinks. Good food, good wine, the services of a pretty girl.

At last, he’s at the back of the third car. Row twenty-five, car three.

Anderson stops short when he sees who’s sitting there.

Two young women perhaps half his age and twice as beautiful as every woman he’s seen in the last month combined look up towards him with an expression that he chooses to parse as eager.

“Your tickets, please,” he says, barely able to contain his excitement.

The third member of their party—a brown-haired, green-eyed boy—stares towards Anderson with a glare that could melt steal.

He ignores him.

“We… we don’t have any,” one of the girls says. The red-eyed one.

“Evelyn—“ the other one starts.

“Shush,” ‘Evelyn’ says, cutting her companion off. “I want him.”

“He hasn’t done anything wrong,” the other girl says. Anderson mentally labels her as the unfun one. “Though I’d ask you return those coins.”

“Huh?” Anderson says. “How—what coins?”

The unfun girl stares at him and sighs.

“I’m going,” Evelyn says. “Stop me if you want.”

“Not my problem if he’s too much for you,” her partner replies.

So even the unfun girl can be entertaining.

Evelyn rises from her seat, flashing Anderson a flirtatious smile. “Shall we?”

She takes his hand and kisses it, setting Anderson’s heart pounding like his hammers. Anderson doesn’t even notice that she’s leading him until the door between train cars is open and she steps out.

An instant later, the world flashes red and Anderson feels a sickening lurch of movement in his gut.

When it clears, somehow, they’re standing on top of the train.

“Anderson Wiles,” Evelyn says, every bit of her warm demeanor gone. “You have something I want.”

Every single instinct in Anderson’s brain tells him to fight. Rusty habits from years on the battlefield return to him as the wind blows at him where he stands.

“I can gain skills on a level-up if I get them temporarily,” Evelyn mutters. “I like your magnets. Care to share?”

The girl who seemed so warm just a few seconds ago has become an entirely different person.

“I don’t know who you are, bitch,” Anderson says, activating his Electromagnetism for the first time in over a year.

He might be rusty, but by the gods, he’s still the strongest enforcer the Ravendale mafia ever had. At level 21, he can easily tear a girl apart with his power. It’ll hurt him to ruin a face this pretty, but his instincts have never failed him.

Lightning flashes around him, and he forces it to surge forth, conducting himself along with it.

And then his lightning stops.

Black and red energy meets it, and somehow… it’s eating his magic. His lightning disintegrates, feeding into a vortex in front of Evelyn’s hand.

“Not bad,” Evelyn says, and then she melts into blood.

Before Anderson can even react, he hears her voice again behind him. “But not good enough.”

He feels cold metal touch his throat, and then he feels nothing at all.

 

UCC Underground Site 17

“What’cha make of this, Sy?”

“Knock it off with the accent, Rin. They don’t talk like that here.”

“Fiiiiine.”

Simon sighs, placing a hand to his forehead. “What I make of this is that someone higher up has left a mess for us to clean up.”

“Yeah, no shit,” Rin replies, dropping the cutesy voice. “You wanna just void this shit? Torch it with some of the good stuff?”

“This is the Crowned Islands, Rin,” Sy says. “What do you think the Coalition’ll do to us if we excise part of it into unreality? We’ll do this the normal way.”

“Aw, maaaan,” Rin says, drawing out the word. “That takes so loooong. You really like the rules too much, Sy.”

“And you’re just waiting for a chance to get yourself demoted, Rin,” Sy replies in turn. “Come on. We have a site to clear.”

Rin sighs petulantly.

Sy rolls his eyes. Rin is two years his senior and level 49 in her cloaked class. There’s no reason that she should be acting like a child.

Then again, she’s always been like this. At least she’s reliable. Strong, too.

The two of them set off, exploring the run down site. The majority of US-17 is a bog-standard UCC site. It’s the only one in the entirety of the Crowned Islands, but it doesn’t differ much from the usual. Rin and Sy have cleared at least a dozen of these by now.

They all have the same stories. Of course, the way they get there is different, but every single tale can be boiled down to a few simple steps.

First, an anomaly gets loose.

Second, site personnel either utterly fails to contain it or the anomaly demonstrates power far beyond what it should have.

Third, it unleashes havoc upon the site.

Last, the sudden increase in anomalous behavior tears further rifts in reality, creating a self-perpetuating cycle that leads to annihilation of the staff in the area.

US-17 has all the hallmarks of a standard breach.

All except one.

“This place is awfully not-trashed, isn’t it?” Rin asks, running her hand along a wall.

“Yeah,” Sy says, looking around. His Arcane Eye is always watching, observing the area for anything out of the ordinary, but he can’t help the reflex to look around manually. “Evac was successful.”

“You don’t see that much,” Rin mutters. “They have warning or something? I don’t think the shitters we sent here would be able to survive a breach even if they were ready.”

“Nothing contained here was particularly dangerous,” Sy says. “They locked it down all nice for us, too.”

If they hadn’t, the two of them would have come here far earlier. There is a difference between an active breach and a sort-of-sealed breach, after all.

“The anomalies in the area are surprisingly quiet,” Sy says.

“Makes sense aboveground,” Rin says. Her eyes glow softly, an indication that she’s staring into the past. “Site countermeasures were deployed. Entire place is glassed for a mile in every direction.”

“Yet the lab is still intact,” Sy says. “I wonder why.”

He draws harder on Arcane Eye, pushing it out, and then he pauses.

“I think I may have found some signs of life,” he says. “Shall we put them out?”

“On it, boss,” Rin says sardonically.

The two of them clasp wrists, and Rin triggers her Timeslip, using a location provided by Rin’s skill and convincing the timeline that yes, actually, we were walking here.

They appear in a broken laboratory. Crushed skeletons doused in dried coppery blood dot the floor.

“Not here,” Sy says. “Wrong place. There’s nothing living here.”

“It’s my skill,” Rin replies. “I’m never wrong.”

Her eyes glow even brighter, and Sy imagines he can see the images of the past in her pupils.

While Rin stares into the past of this broken lab, Sy uses his Arcane Eye, reorienting himself in the labyrinthine site.

This time, he sees the life clearly.

Sy frowns. Something is trapped in an airtight coffin in a section marked Experimental Errors, which he’s reasonably sure is non-standard.

Should he kill it? Doctrine insists that he do so.

Suddenly, the facility rumbles, nearly shaking him out of his observation skill. He almost falls over under the force of it, but he’s far too experienced to let that happen. Exactly five seconds later, it stops.

An earthquake? Here? Now?

No. Whatever’s just happened is not a coincidence. It never is. Not when Rin and Sy are both here.

“Shit,” Rin says, gasping as her pupils return to their normal purple. “Let’s torch this place and get out. We need to do it fast.”

“What?” Sy asks, reorienting his skill. “What do you mean?”

The coffin is open.

No ordinary earthquake indeed.

“I read the past,” Rin says. “One of the priority targets was here. Clearwater.”

Sapphire.

“Fuck,” Sy says. “What was she doing?”

“Creating something,” Rin replies. “A demonic being. I don’t know how she infiltrated us this fast.”

“Then torch,” Sy says. “Shit. Do we know if the experiment was successful?”

Is that even a question? Site 17 experienced a breach, after all.

Rin nods. “I have enough information to do a basic back-trace, but, Sy?”

“Yes?” Sy is already kneeling, drawing a magic pattern on the ground.

“She knew I’d be coming for her.”

Sy looks up. “She’ll always know. We need to get out before more of her plans can come to fruition.”

Things start falling into place. The lone surviving anomaly. The cleanliness of the site. The sudden rumbling.

One coincidence is luck. Two is a pattern. Three is enemy action.

Rin helps him with the ritual. It’s simple, and long years spent repeating it with each other make it a cinch to use.

They draw a burning black star on the ground of Underground Site-17, calling on the well of power that the UCC has bound to its core.

“As above,” Sy starts.

“So below,” Rin completes, and the star flashes bright.

The air becomes heavier from one instant to another, marking the transition between realities. It’s an expensive ritual, one that undermines the UCC’s central power to use. This reality will degrade over the course of the next hour, utterly annihilating the entire broken site in the time, but it’ll cost the life’s work of dozens of UCC mages.

“They aren’t gonna be happy about this, are they?”

“Of course they won’t be,” Sy sighs. “I’ll explain.”

“You’ll explain later,” Rin says. “I have a lead on the demon girl. Caught it in the blood. It’s faint. Gotta follow it while we can.”

“Fine,” Sy says. “We’ll link up with whatever site is in the area. Where are we heading?”

“The Seven Kingdoms,” Rin says. “You ready?”

“No.”

Rin laughs, clasping wrists with Sy once more.

This time, it’s his turn to cast. He uses a Plane Shift to return them to reality.

The Seven Kingdoms, huh?

“Off we go, then,” Rin says. “To our next adventure.”

They never even think to check on the gaping void in reality behind them.

 

UCC Underground Site 17 (Nullspace)

But something is still in there.

And he survives.

He has survived all this time, and he’ll not stop just because he’s been isolated from this reality.

Until now, he has known nothing but a coffin that has tried to kill him in every way possible. Drowning, fire, poison, acid, blades, esoteric magical effects… and now, the void.

Void Resistance [Progress: 37/100]

He’ll find any way he can to follow those he’s witnessed. The female demon who chanced upon his coffin. The two that have just abandoned him in a dying world. Everyone in between.

Name: ???

Age: 0

Race: ???

Class: Adaptor

Level: 0

XP: 0/100

 

Resistances

Universal Resistance (Tourmaline) - lvl 99

 

The Nameless Sea

“Six days until landfall,” Sierra says. “How are you feeling?”

“I’m wondering why we didn’t use an anchor,” Adrian grumbles.

“Too easy to track, silly,” Sierra says. “Also, it’s in our contract with Marie. No teleportation.”

The Warrior sighs. “I’m going back belowdecks. I don’t do well with the ocean.”

I raise an eyebrow. “Hydrokinetic can’t handle the water?”

“He’s tried to control the ocean before,” Sierra reveals. “The entirety of it. Hasn’t enjoyed it much ever since.”

I chuckle at that.

“I was serious,” Sierra says. “How are you feeling? Are you going to be okay?”

“Okay?” I ask.

Okay is a foreign concept. There is only the Evelyn that pursues her goal and the Evelyn that doesn’t, and all I know is that I’m currently the former.

“I guess so.”

“Good to hear,” Sierra says. “It’ll be nice to have a fresh start.”

“A new world to explore for me,” I say.

“People will be following us,” she says quietly, changing tone. “With how much of a mark you made, I won’t be surprised if there’s people waiting for us too. They’re not going to be peaceful.”

I smile, drawing a knife and tossing it up in the air.

As it falls, I Devour it, reducing the blade and hilt into nothingness.

“And neither will I.”

The boat continues on, ferrying us to the next chapter of our lives.





Please report us if you find any errors so we can fix it asap!