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Chapter 157- Hissing Snakes
🕑 Added 2024-06-04 22:59:00 +0000 UTCArthur stood right in front of Iris, so close he could feel the natural heat her body gave off. His clothes were a mess of burns and gore, soaked through with the blood of battle, they positively reeked. Iris didn’t notice anything. He gulped dryly. The Darkstar Essence Core was the perfect assassination tool, capable of removing his very existence from the plane of reality. There was no way, magical or mundane, that someone could register his presence.
An assassin with this item in their hands was guaranteed a kill, no matter who they went after. And I’m pretty sure it makes me ignore most defences too, Arthur mused. Iris had set up one of her signature golden bubbles of protection and he had managed to simply walk through it like it wasn’t even there. It was hard to defend against something the world itself didn’t recognise as real. Testing the item's limits, Arthur poked Iris on the cheek. The seer frowned at his touch, rubbing at her face, but she didn’t do anything else. This is… terrifying.
The timer before his refinement was still ticking down- he had just over four minutes left, but the former pull was no longer present. It had reached the point where it had been impossible to concentrate on anything else, but now the sensation was gone, almost as if his evolution itself had forgotten that he existed. Arthur wasn’t certain if he could completely ignore the timer or not now, though, and he wasn’t inclined to find out. As curious as he may be, now wasn’t the time for experimentation. He stared at Iris, taking in all her elfin features. The fae was easily the most beautiful person he’d ever laid eyes upon, she literally had it as an attribute on her status page. She was an incredible ritual mage and daughter to one of the most powerful people in this sector of the universe, princess to an empire that spanned entire stellar systems.
She also had a crush on him.
Arthur had suspected it earlier but now he was certain. Sure, the seer definitely had her own plans and goals and he clearly had a prominent place within them, but to ignore the feelings that had heavily affected her interactions with him would make him a blind idiot. The question was, what should he do with them? It would be so easy to walk away, pretending they’d never met. By the time she remembered him, a lot of time would have passed and he’d be nothing more than an interesting stranger she’d met long ago. Her gift came with no strings attached save the shackles his own consciousness placed on him.
He could just walk away, but it would make him a pretty shitty person. She'd gifted him something worth more than the continent he stood upon. The prospect was appealing, though, and it had its fair share of merits. Walking away would take him off the radar, at least for a while. Unless he did something crazy, like confront the lich queen, no one should pay any close attention to him. He could fade into obscurity and do things at his own pace, take things slowly until he grew bored and found a way off the planet.
That was the crux of the issue, though. Arthur didn’t have a reliable connection off-world and with the dimensional lockdown in place, he’d be trapped here for the foreseeable future. Was he willing to take the role of a bystander and leave the fate of the world in others' hands? The answer, surprisingly, was a decisive yes. He wasn’t particularly fond of the planet beyond the fact that it was his place of origin and he owed it to no one to be its saviour. There were people for that, the primes, Kazi Alukai, those individuals who’d taken dominion of their respective territories in the wake of the system's arrival. They had a vested interest in the planet's well-being. Arthur comparatively didn’t give two shits.
No, that's wrong, I do care. Just a lot less than I’d expected. The question then changed to one of profit. What did he seek to gain if he went against the lich queen? Doing so would put him back on the map of important upcoming stars to look out for, meaning he might as well stay in Iris' corner if he decided to go the saviour route. At least he'd have an established backer that way. The profit in question, however, was the decider. What exactly would he gain? As his most recent fight had shown, growth came incredibly slowly with his new class.
A smattering of levels, a few skill increases, perhaps a title or two and whatever loot he managed to steal from the lich undead corpse. When framed like that, it didn't sound too appealing. From the little fiction he'd read and Mathews's nerd rants, he knew the general gist of what a lich was. The news suggested that the monster that had invaded Earth was an almost perfect rendition of the kind popularised by fantasy novels in the recent decade. It's almost as if someone drip-fed us the information before the system arrived, Arthur chuckled humourlessly. He'd been aware of that fact for a while now but it still surprised him at times just how much society had been affected by alien machinations.
Something's telling me a phylactery is going to be an ingredient required for my ritual skill. The skill description only showed question marks but he was certain he'd hit the nail on the head. Iris put the ascended Bloodbeast's corpse in storage. If it had a monster core, then that was another ingredient found already, though he wasn't sure he wanted to use the monster as the base for his ritual. It had seemed kind of weak. At the end of the day, no matter how Arthur felt, he was a person who paid his debts in full. Ayesha had saved his life when she gave him the dragon's core, and Iris had done him a massive favour with her gift. They'd both be going to fight the lich, which meant he'd be going with them to make sure they weren't in over their heads.
Iris was the most beautiful woman he'd ever seen and she was powerful enough to keep up with his meteoric ascent or at least not to be left on the dust. Before he'd known of her origins, he wanted to take her out on a date. Is that going to change because I'm scared of her dad? Arthur was many things, but he'd never consider himself a coward. I'm not the smartest person either, am I, Arthur realised as he came to a decision. Her admirers were going to be a right pain in the arse. Hopefully, the seer was a fan of traditional Korean cuisine.
With a plan for the future made, Arthur turned his attention to Ayesha. The woman had a frown on her face and kept chewing her lip, intermittently glancing up at the sky. Whatever she was looking for didn't make an appearance, at least not initially, but when it did, it travelled so fast Arthur couldn't be sure he'd even seen anything. The sudden appearance of the woman in their midst was the only confirmation that he hadn't imagined her rapid flight down to Earth.
Despite her incredible speeds, her landing didn't raise so much as a dust cloud, a complete defiance of the laws of inertia as he knew them. A closer look at her, however, revealed that the woman was hardly a woman at all. Whilst her features looked normal at first, they didn't hold up to further inspection. She was a sculpted construct, her face a frozen mask of green jade, the craftmanship so perfect it would have art critics frothing at the mouth. Her lips, eyes, nose, ears, and every other part of her were created with maximum sensuality in mind, her creator's vanity leaking through in her design.
The way she moved, though, was wooden and stilted, and when she finally spoke, her voice came from the centre of her chest without any movement of her lips. "Greetings, Iris Goldenhand. I must say I was shocked to find your name amongst the contributors for this quest. 73%, too. That's a percentage even your father would have struggled to match at your age, though I'm surprised the paranoid man let you out of his sight for so long. Does your father know what you've gotten up to on this new planet. I'd hate for any misunderstandings to occur when he finds out. Or if you got hurt." The woman's voice was saccharine sweet and about the most passive-aggressive he'd ever heard.
Iris obviously thought the same, judging by the frown on her face. Nonetheless, she was able to put a smile on, a strained taught thing that looked like it would snap any moment. "I'm under Ayesha's employ right now. The quest was addressed to her too, Sleyca. I think it's prudent you address her first, is it not?" The seer and construct looked like snakes in the grass, all venom and scathing remarks, which was honestly impressive considering the construct was limited to a single facial expression. Once he realised the conversation had devolved into a game of petty insults, Arthur tuned it out and went over what he'd learned so far. it seemed eating the Darkstar essence core had removed his name from the list of contributors for the system quest and assigned his merits to his teammates instead. The more he saw the item in action, the more terrifying it seemed.
Unfortunately, even the legendary item had its limits. He'd forgotten one glaring issue. Ashley Rhye, someone everyone had recognised as a failed bloodbeast had somehow miraculously recovered. They didn't expect the presence of a third-party healer, at least not overtly, but Lady Sleyca's construct was paying far more attention to the woman than he felt comfortable with. It wouldn't do if he saved the lady only for her to end up strapped to a table as a lab rat to find out what was so special about her unique constitution.
Iris put her foot down there, stating in no uncertain terms that she'd report the noble to higher authorities if she so flagrantly broke the rules. It was strange watching the seer secretly. Any compunctions he'd had about her kindness being an act she'd put on for his benefit rapidly evaporated. Sure, it wasn't exactly the heights of morality to prevent someone from essentially getting kidnapped and enslaved, but he could tell a lot from how someone reacted to the abhorrent deed. Captain Arencia, for example, was ambivalent to it, especially after hearing what Lady Sleyca was offering them for their silence, whereas Ayesha merely frowned in distaste. Iris, however, was downright disgusted by the suggestion, so much so that he was surprised she didn't try to end the construct there and then. She certainly looked angry enough to.
Unfortunatley for Arthur, his time spent watching the drama unfold finally came to an end. Just when they started to get serious, too, Arthur mentally grumbled. Lady Sleyca had finally brought up the rewards they'd be receiving. His refinement, after delaying it by twenty seven minutes, had finally come calling, and Arthur found that his newest stealth abilities weren't enough to resist the inexorable pull. He could feel a massive amount of energy gathering in his navel, fuelled by his skills and stats, every facet of his being was drained to fuel the growing core of energy.
It was tinged with the heat of draconic fire, entrenched in the darkness of a shadow panther's footsteps, regenerating with the vitality of a lesser hydra. Every core he'd consumed had a hand to play and things were starting to get dicey. The magical energy showed no signs of slowing down, ramping up at a terrifying pace that dwarfed everything he'd ever seen.
Threaded throughout the energy was the magic from the Darkstar core he'd consumed and Arthur was certain that without it everyone in the United States of America would be able to feel the gathering power in his navel. Arthur leapt away from the gathered nobility. He trusted the Darkstar to hide him, but when the world itself started to funnel energy towards him, in quantities that surpassed any expression of power he'd witnessed, getting the fuck away from bystanders was probably the wiser choice. Amazingly, the Darkstar essence core STILL somehow managed to mute his presence if barely, relegating the incredible magical phenomenon to an ordinary breeze in everyone else senses.
Shadow Panther core detected...
Rat king core detected...
Draconic Liverthion core detected...
Augmented Titan Boar core detected...
Water-claw kingfisher core detected...
Scorched Cow core detected...
Lesser Hydra core detected...
Flame dragon core detected...
Commencing refinement...
Comments
Haden Snodgrass
I think you missed a portion of the chapter, it literally says that the Darkstar core rewrote history so that his 40% was attributed to his teammates.
Benjamin Collins
Tftc I just skim it and missed that one detail
Joran Spans
what about the darkstar essence core (it says its a core, sooooo) yeah, yeaaaaah
