Level Up!
Level 124 —> 125
Level 125 —> 126
Level 126 —> 127
Level 127 —> 128
Quality Points awaiting allocation: 4
Fortitude 115 —> 119
Redmane gazed at what remained of General Fabian.
His punch had split the back of the general’s head open like a bloody shirt, his shaggy hair and bleeding flesh parted to reveal a gleaming metal skull. The skull, along with the rest of his hulking figure, was now embedded in a black stone wall, deep cracks branching out from the point of impact in every direction, as if he’d been caught in the center of a spider’s web.
Based on what his third eye had revealed to him, he’d have expected this man to have been more formidable. Tacito Fabian had put entire worlds to the sword, Redmane had seen as much as if he were there.
Or perhaps it was his own strength that surprised him.
He had grown powerful indeed.
Vos appeared to be having the same sort of thoughts. Redmane glanced his way, found Vos staring at him with a mixture of awe and confusion in his eyes. But they only had a moment in limbo, before the battered Centurions closed ranks and pressed in upon them, meaning to skewer them on the points of their gleaming Star-Steel spears.
They were sturdy things.
Redmane razed them in fire, and Vos put them to the sword, and still they fought as if they had not already sustained dozens of grievous injuries each. Only when the first of them fell did they seem to lose a portion of their toughness. And then the second one fell, and the third, and each time they became more and more mortal in their constitution, until at last they fell before the divine duo.
Level Up!
Level 128 —> Level 129
Quality Points awaiting allocation: 1
Fortitude 119 —> 120
When it was done, and the two gods stood at the center of a circle of broken bodies, Redmane transformed his belly into a gaping maw and devoured them all by way of vortex.
Corpus: 62,762
—
Skills Consumed:
Command Presence
Legionary Skill
Passive
The Legionary exercises command over his subordinates at all times.
This Skill enables the Legionary to issue mental commands to any of his subordinates, irrespective of the physical distance between them. Any creatures with the Legionary type which have been assigned to his command are compelled to carry out those orders without hesitation.
Further, from the moment Legionary units are assigned to the command of the user of this Skill, he is at all times aware of the location and status of said creatures until they are either destroyed or removed from his command.
Unbreakable Bones of Star-Steel
Legionary Skill
Passive
The Legionary’s skeleton has been plated in Star-Steel, granting several benefits:
+20 Fortitude
+40 Armor
450 Damage Ablation
Attacks which repeatedly target the same location cannot reduce the Damage Ablation provided by this Skill.
God Slayer’s Arsenal
Legionary Skill
Passive
The master of arms is the master of the arsenal.
This skill grants the Legionary access to the God Slayer’s Arsenal. At any time, the Legionary may call a weapon from the Arsenal to hand with a mental command. A mental image of the desired weapon suffices. This weapon appears without delay in the Legionary’s hand or hands, and will be dismissed back to the Arsenal if it is thrown (at which point it will only return after the completion of the throw attack), or if the Legionary releases his grip on it,
Consequently, if the Legionary is disarmed by an opponent, the weapon will also vanish back to the Arsenal instantly.
Specific weapons may be summoned forth, but only if the Legionary is personally familiar with the weapon or weapons in question. The God Slayer’s Arsenal contains weapons forged or acquired throughout Numantian history.
Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.
—
The General had three Skills tied for highest. Not surprising.
But the Centurions possessed an interesting Skill of their own.
—
Skill Consumed:
Shield Brother
Legionary Skill
Passive
The Legionary strengthens his comrades, and in turn his comrades strengthen him.
This Skill provides 100 Damage Ablation to the Legionary, plus 100 Damage Ablation per Legionary creature in possession of this Skill who is conscious, in proximity, and fighting with the Legionary as a cooperative unit.
—
The vortex consumed them all, leaving a crater, a few bloodstains, and Vos, the First Sovereign.
The younger god continued to stare at his father as if he were looking at a stranger. Redmane wondered what was so bewildering about it. He was indeed a stranger. His son had literally knocked the memories from his mind with a hammer crafted for that very purpose.
“Didn’t I tell you I’d like to get to know you better,” said Redmane.
Vos’s gaze hardened. “You cannot be allowed to persist,” he said.
“I must become whole. I only pray it will be enough to repel these parasites.”
Vos looked past Redmane, at the chaotic scene playing out all around them. It was a battle of three forces fighting one another; his stone sentinels, Redmane’s motley crew, and the uniform ranks of Numantians closing in around all of them.
Redmane watched him try to work out what was going on. Vos came here specifically to stop him, and the intervention of the Numantians must therefore have been a most unpleasant surprise. But their appearance did not distract him from his purpose here, not by the look in his eyes. He supposed Vos was merely working out which foe to attend to first, the one in front of him or the one all around him.
“You didn’t fail in your task,” said Redmane.
Vos’s eyes snapped back to Redmane. His eyebrow rose.
“You carved me into pieces and sealed me away. You and your five mortal friends. I would have remained in that state, were it not for the Numantians. It was an accident on their part. But believe me when I say their plans for Volos are much worse.”
He paused, to let his words sink in. They stared at each other tensely.
Redmane supposed it must have been difficult to work out which existential threat was worse. He imagined Vos would choose to fight the one he was more familiar with. It was plain to see that the memory of what he had been in ages past weighed heavily on Vos’s thoughts in the here and now.
But all the same, he saw confusion. And a glimmer of something like remorse.
Whatever it was, Redmane didn’t have time for it.
He made to walk by Vos, to descend the stairwell to the caverns concealing the Seal of the Dragon, and be done with it.
Vos held out his golden blade to halt him.
Redmane stopped, glared.
Vos appeared to be at war with himself. The corners of his eyes were strained. His jaw set as though his teeth were gritted behind his closed mouth.
Again they made eye contact, and it was like a clash of blades.
“You pursue this only out of a desire to slay these devils?” said Vos.
“No,” said Redmane.
Vos’s eyes widened. He gripped the handle of his sword tighter.
“I will reclaim what was mine, because it was mine. If that were the only reason it would be reason enough.”
Vos did not step aside.
Redmane felt his blood begin to boil. If it was going to be another fight, they might as well fight.
He flexed his claws. That golden blade changed angle slightly, ready for an upward cut.
“The Seal is trapped,” said Vos.
Redmane’s eyes narrowed.
“If you breach the Seal by yourself, you won’t come out again. You’ll need someone with you.”
With a look on his face which suggested he could not believe what he was doing, Vos turned to lead Redmane down into the caverns leading to the Seal of the Dragon.
Redmane caught his arm, stopping him.
Vos side-eyed his father suspiciously.
“If what you fear takes place, and I lose myself, let the trap deploy. Leave me buried down there and slay all these blue-cloaked demons in my stead.”
Again confusion touched Vos’s expression. As if altruism, or anything like it, was the last thing he would have ever have expected from his father.
But all the same he nodded, and they proceeded into the dark.
Jarel Craith watched the name ‘Tacito Fabian’ vanish from the map, and he sat back in his chair in the command tent with his arms folded in grim thought.
He felt a mixture of tension and relief.
Relief, because Fabian’s word carried weight with people in higher places than the command structure of the Venturian Sixth. And tension, because those same people were about to become keenly interested in what was happening out in this backwater colony, and who was responsible.
He was the only responsible party left.
If he didn’t resolve this situation himself, the fall from grace would be much worse now.
Which led his mind to the next source of tension.
Another Class One Divinity. A Lawbringer class.
Fabian deployed right in front of it, and it bested him and his retinue in moments.
It had to be an ally of Redmane. Some god recently re-emerged, roused by the effects of Blight.
Why else would it be there?
Indeed, Redmane had summoned all of his other allies to this place.
He was there. Somewhere.
He found some way to evade the eyes of the System, but he wouldn’t escape forever. Soon his territories would be reclaimed. There would be nowhere left to run.
The Praetor rose from his chair, called his sword to hand, and readied a translocation rift for himself.
There would be nowhere left to run because it was about to end. Today.
Arnth Turan looked out over his balcony at the city of Taracon with a certain satisfaction in his tired eyes.
The repairs from Praetor Craith’s attempted arrest of the Governess were proceeding well ahead of schedule. His staff of junior Artifexes were all working tirelessly, perhaps to impress him.
Because Mecia Porsena was gone, after all.
And Lar Tathvaal was gone.
And Jarel Craith was out contending with some provincial demon, the cause of the Blight, or so he had been told.
If he was fortunate, the Praetor would perish and Arnth Turan would find himself promoted from Artifex to Provisional Governor, or even better, Governor.
A most pleasing career development indeed.
He would select a fine replacement for Artifex first, of course. And he would oversee Gnosis extraction as well, It wouldn’t do to oversee a colony operating with sub-optimal efficiency, not with a Governor who had an education in engineering.
It was all very pleasant to think about, until it wasn’t.
A familiar rapping on the frame of his chamber door brought it all to an end.
The sound made his heart sink like a stone.
It was the sound of lacquered fingernails. A sound which had only one source.
He wiped the dismay from his expression and turned to greet the Governess Mecia Porsena, who stood at his doorstep in a queenly gown, not one hair on her head or article of glittery jewlery disturbed. As if she had not gone missing in a nocturnal battle in the skies over Taracon.
But the Governess was not alone.
To her left stood an old woman who looked as though she had walked from some rustic fairy tale crafted to scare children into eating their vegetables. A wrinkled old crone with a beak for a nose and a crooked grin and a threadbare robe nearly the same color brown as her weathered skin. The crone’s eyes betrayed her nature, however. They gleamed green like polished emeralds, her mere gaze brimming with Gnosis.
And to her right stood a set of quadruplets.
At least, he thought they were quadruplets. Four tall women with blue-green hair and eyes, wearing plain white gowns that flattered her light brown skin. They were smiling and looking about, and there was something uncanny about the way no two of them ever had their eyes on the same place at the same time.
“Ah.. Governess. Pleased to see you’re well,” said Arnth Turan, as he bowed deeply to the Governess.
Mecia smirked.
“No you’re not. Just come with me though, there’s no time to explain things.”
“Where are we going?” Arnth asked.
“Central processing. We’re initiating Terminal Drain.”
Arnth Turan’s eyes went as wide as dinner plates. All of the color in his face drained out in a moment, leaving it as white as the marble floors.
“Wh-what?!”
PATREON
