Chapter One-Hundred-and-Ninety-Four |
Before Adam finished the last touches on the ride, he made sure to carve open the body of the amalgamated knight to harvest the trophy from within. It was a marble-like sphere the size of his fist and it oozed dark energy. Chien called it accursed and wanted Adam to throw it away, but he refused, since it was worth a good amount of points.
< < Collectible Relic > >
< Core of Darkness (Rare) — The core of darkness carried by those who have entirely given themselves to the Forlorn Shadow >
After placing the core inside his backpack, which already looked like a demented cannibal’s lunchbox, he finished the carriage and asked the others what they thought.
“There’s no way I’m getting in that,” Natalia said.
“It looks like it’s designed to kill us,” Diwa added.
“It’s called artistic liberty,” Adam remarked.
No one seemed to be buying that though.
It took a few design changes until Natalia and the others were happy with Adam’s creation. They had also flat out rejected his idea of using squishy flesh as cushions inside the carriage, but he was sure they’d complain about being sore once he dropped them off in Old Town.
Adam wasn’t an expert on horse anatomy, but for some reason its shape came naturally to him, perhaps thanks to his high Sigil Responsiveness stat. It did go some way to explaining how he’d been able to sculpt things like eyes, ears, and noses, even though the internals of such sensory organs were mind-numbingly complex.
Once all of them were satisfied with the design, Adam took his seat at the front of the carriage and Diwa joined him, since being close to Chien and the brazier carrying the true flame ember was harmful to her amalgam helmet.
Adam had shaped reins out of intestines and connected them to the equine creature’s bridle, and after the others found their seats within, he cracked the reins like a whip, before pulling on the carriage with his control sigil. He only needed to manipulate three separate elements, so he kept the aspirant’s cowl equipped, since the mana-sight was quite useful for spotting things that were hidden from the naked eye.
Diwa gasped as she was pulled into the seat next to Adam, holding on for dear life since he hadn’t designed any seatbelts. Inside the carriage, only Seo-Yoon seemed to be enjoying herself, and she stuck her head out of the opening in the right-side door as though she was a dog enjoying a car ride.
The return trip to Old Town was slightly faster since Adam knew the layout of the landscape now. He wanted to go to the Red Scarves hideout, both for the objective to take down the bandit leader and because of what the priest had said about the ring he’d received from Lady Cassandra. The top of the Oath Spire mountain also called to him, since it seemed clear that it was where the twisted symbol belonged, likely having something to do with the chapel near its summit.
I’ll have to chase down those leads later, he told himself.
Whether or not the others would be interested in following him to the top of the mountain was up in the air, but he was sure they’d be down to take on the bandits at least, since fighting normal humans seemed preferable to the disturbing forlorn army.
Before they reached the city, Adam swooped by the effigy he’d made from the corpses of the two forlorn assassins and added their mass to his carriage. It was clearly far more dangerous to leave corpses behind than to mix the forlorn with his other spell material, and it made him wonder if using his Blink spell was out of the question entirely.
I may need to do some more experimentation.
It’s possible the Forlorn Shadow can’t overtake just pure bone or blood, or small bits of organic material, like a hand.
While the stage was vast, it wasn’t that densely populated, so leaving a small bit of material behind would likely not run into the same issue he’d faced in the Floating Sea, where his signal to the blood was so faint that he couldn’t target it clearly.
Truth be told, I don’t think I need to use teleportation when I’m able to fly this fast.
If I’d had the ability to use blood, flesh, and bone for transportation in the Floating Sea, I’m pretty sure I could’ve gone from one corner of the map to the other in two hours or less.
After gathering the effigy, Adam brought the carriage to the outskirts of Old Town and let everyone disembark before activating Beckoning Crimson and kingly raiment. As he reabsorbed the blood and healed himself, Adam’s left hand was returned to normal, the crushed fingers and bones snapping back into place just before the raiment’s gauntlet covered them up.
The others groaned and complained about sore backsides, and Chien seemed no less pleased this time than when they’d used the serpent. Diwa’s legs were wobbly like jelly and she needed to steady herself against her spear to avoid falling as they ambled into the city.
“We need to check if we can borrow some horses,” she said. “I can’t do that a third time.”
“Indeed,” Chien agreed.
“I shouldn’t have been so quick to shoot down the flesh cushions,” Natalia muttered.
When they reached the large church in the city, Father Adam greeted them by the door. He was surprised to see them already, but led them into the church when Chien showed him the brazier and the ember of the true flame.
“Please do the honours of guiding the ember to the central brazier,” the priest said.
Chien marched across the stone floor, before carefully lifting the ember out of the small brazier in his arms using a pair of silver tongs provided to him by the priest. He moved it all the way into the bottom of the pile of pale Centennial Oak and then stepped back.
“Well done,” Father Adam praised him.
“Is that it?” Diwa asked. It was her first time inside the church and she stuck close to Adam, since he knew how to avoid the holy mana floating about.
“A True Flame is not easily extinguished and even its ember burns with great vigour,” the priest replied. “It will take until the morrow’s dawn for a flame to sprout, but when it does, you should return to me, as I will have a new task for you to undertake. If you are willing.”
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< < Quest Complete > >
< Restore the Flame >
< Rekindled the True Flame in Old Town >
< < Quest Unlocked > >
< Carry the Flame >
< Return to Father Adam after dawn >
“We will be back,” Chien promised.
“Before you go, I have a reward for you,” the priest said.
A pulse of holy mana flowed from his left palm with a simple gesture and took on physical shape, becoming a relic chest made of gleaming silver.
That will definitely hurt me if I touch it with my bare skin.
[Since you completed your quest quickly,your rewards have gone up one Rarity level,] their cubes announced.
Adam really wanted to be the one to open the chest, since he would get four options rather than three, increasing the odds of them unlocking the legendary relic for the stage. However, he didn’t want to cause his goodwill to deteriorate, and it would easily be seen as him trying to hog the reward.
“Before you open it,” Adam said to Natalia, “put this on.”
He handed her a choice ring from his backpack.
“Do you think a legendary will appear?” Natalia asked.
“At the very least, all of them will be epic rarity,” Adam said. “So we may want to get two items out of the bunch.”
“Good thinking,” Chien praised him, but Adam could tell the thought of a legendary made his pulse quicken, even though he schooled his face into neutrality.
All of them were excited about what could be within the chest, even Adam.
The legendary for this stage is quite strong, Adam thought, recalling Emelia’s description of it. In her stage nine, two players always fought over it, and he could understand why.
Maybe it’s better if it doesn’t appear, he briefly considered.
The only one who wouldn’t be able to put it to much use was Diwa. Everyone else would surely want it for themselves.
Natalia took a deep breath and pushed open the chest. The holograms of a silver ring, a cape of shadow, and a beaked close helm appeared.
< < Relics Available > >
< Sanctity (Epic) — Activate to cure an Affliction from yourself. Relic breaks after curing eight Afflictions or when unequipped >
< Mantle of Atrophy (Legendary) — Activate to consume all Afflictions on a target, delivering the remainder of their effects immediately. If the target dies as a result, the Afflictions are spread to all applicable targets within 20 metres with their durations renewed. 10-minute cooldown | Every time you apply an Affliction, your Affliction Effectiveness goes up by 1% and your Affliction Resistance goes down by 2% for the duration of the current Stage >
< Intruder’s Helm (Epic) — Become immune to immobilisation, slowing effects, and knockdown >
There it is…
The ring was quite strong, but since he couldn’t swap it out, it would permanently hog one of two ring slots, and Adam only had one, since his flame glove occupied his right hand. The helm was quite powerful as well, but the mantle was definitely one of the strongest relics he’d seen, even with its snowballing resistance debuff. If used in a way where you were outside the range of its affliction-spreading effect consistently while delivering afflictions, such as with a bow or spell, or if it was possible to get complete immunity to afflictions, it would be absurdly powerful. Its ability to grow effectiveness with each affliction applied would become insane after just a few days of grinding the ability, and could be easily cheesed by relying on afflictions that didn’t deal damage.
Granted, with a stacking resistance debuff, a papercut could easily one-shot you after boosting the relic’s power a lot.
All that being said, it’s powerful for builds that don’t even utilise afflictions, since a single upgrade can grant bleed or venom to most attacks.
The others were clearly doing the math in their own heads as they looked at the mantle. Adam tried to get ahead of an argument breaking out over who should get it by saying, “Natalia should take the Sanctity ring, since she has the affliction spreading weakness from her patron.”
“You’re just saying that so I won’t be allowed to get the mantle!” she accused him.
“I want it,” Diwa said, her eyes gleaming with desire.
“You can’t even use it,” Heiner told her. “It should go to someone with ranged attacks.”
“It would be wasted on you, since you are destined to die,” Chien remarked coldly. “It should go to someone who can put it to use and benefit humanity across future stages.”
“At last your true nature comes out,” Heiner replied disappointedly.
Seo-Yoon skipped over to the chest and tried to swipe the cloak, but just as she was about to touch it, it vanished and appeared in Natalia’s arms. She immediately equipped it, dropping her captain’s cape to the floor of the church.
“Natalia, what the hell are you doing!?” Seo-Yoon shouted. “You’ll kill us all if you use it!”
She wasn’t wrong. Natalia was the worst person to get it.
Before anyone could try and stop her, she activated her mongoose chargers which she’d been building up with stamina, firing herself out through the open doors of the church.
Seo-Yoon raised her staff and Heiner lifted a javelin, but with a sweeping gesture of her shield, Diwa knocked their weapons aside. “Are you insane!?”
“She is getting away,” Chien remarked. Even though there was a note of irritation in his melody, he at least hadn’t thought of stopping Natalia with force.
Adam swapped to his crown and pulled on his armour, flying after Natalia who was rapidly getting away in the streets of Old Town.
She was fast with her mix of the chargers, chimaera helmet, and strange moveset of the Nimble Prince, but Adam was so much faster.
It took him hardly any effort to catch up to her unnoticed, and with a simple manipulation of his armour, he created snake-like ropes from three fingers on each gauntlet, wrapping them around Natalia and arresting her momentum and movements in an instant.
“Let me go!” she exclaimed, writhing against her restraints.
“Natalia, calm down,” he told her.
“I’ll fucking kill all of you!” she screamed.
As he settled down onto his feet and pinned her against the ground in an alleyway that was two streets from the main plaza, he sensed curious melodies from up ahead that were coming to investigate, and the violent and angry melodies of his party running towards him at full tilt.
Adam frowned, knowing what had to be done.
With a slight alteration of one of the gauntlet fingers, he created a needle that pressed into the side of Natalia’s neck. As it pierced skin, a flash of golden energy revealed that his lighthouse boon activated on her body. His mana flowed into her body while he quickly attuned the resonance of his desired melody, containing calm, a tinge of fear, and regret.
Then Adam pushed that resonance into her melody, warping and transforming Natalia’s state of mind to his desired outcome. He felt no less horrible about it than when he’d used it to do the Flayed Lady’s bidding, but it was the only way for him to save her life.
Natalia didn’t seem to understand what he’d done, but he could tell it had worked, and as he eased off his restraints, she slowly picked herself up and unequipped the shadowy cape, handing it to him. Adam equipped it and gave her his nightfarer’s cloak.
“I don’t know what came over me,” Natalia muttered.
Adam sighed.
“I’m sorry about that,” he said and meant it.
Heiner was the first to approach, flying over the buildings and pausing in the air once he spotted them. He raised the javelin in his hand but Adam stepped in front of Natalia, covering her with his armoured body.
Then the others came up through the alley, Diwa lacking behind due to her new armour slowing her down, but clearly eager to save Natalia from the wrath of the others.
Adam panned his gaze across them, trying to gauge their expressions and melodies for signs of an imminent attack.
“It’s done,” he said, raising his arms, but making it clear that he would fight if they challenged him.
The others looked between him, Natalia, and the cape on his back.
“Why do you get to have it!?” Heiner yelled from the air, his fingers clenching the javelin in his hands.
Adam pointed the index of his right gauntlet at him. With his magic, it was no different than aiming the barrel of a gun. “You’re the last person I want to hear that from,” Adam retorted.
Heiner immediately snapped back to reality, realising the position he was in. If not for Adam tracking him down, he would’ve been dead to the Capgras Demon, and without the illusionist’s mask, he would’ve been unable to be close to any other person ever again. He slowed the flap of his wings and settled down atop a nearby rooftop.
“As Horst said earlier, this weapon is too dangerous for someone who isn’t using ranged attacks,” Adam told the others. “I would’ve thought Seo-Yoon should have it, but then she tried to steal it. Since both her and Horst also tried to shoot Natalia in the back, I don’t think either can be trusted with this kind of power. I don’t personally have much in the way of afflictions, but it’s better that the cape not be used at all rather than be used poorly, and clearly the only responsible person here is Diwa, with the rest of you being total morons who let simple greed blind you.”
He let his condemnation sink in as Diwa pushed past the others to stand in front of Natalia as well.
“If you want to survive this stage, then we have to work together,” Adam said. “All of us.”
With Natalia pacified, and Heiner realising what a fool he’d been, the argument was settled then and there.
“With that out of the way,” Adam said, “let’s find some horses and go take down a bandit lord.”
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