+7 Life Force+7 Life Force+10 Life Force
As the dragon took to the sky, leaving only Vara and perhaps her brother still breathing, the sword didn’t even attempt to look bato the gloom to see who had survived. Instead, the first thing it did was worry about was what to spend its surgih of energy on.
+6 Life Force+8 Life Force
Increase e 3: 600 Life ForceRepair Soul: 500 Life ForceImproved Siphon 5: 500 Life Forcrease trol: 300 Life ForceEmpower Bde: 250 Life Forcrease Senses: 150 Life Forcrease Reserves 5: 120 Life Force
+11 Life Force+9 Life Force
As it looked over its options, for o decided not to go with Improved Siphon 5 as its purchase. The ability was only 500, which it would have in a few minutes, but the decision ragmatie. There was only so muergy that could be drained from this beast, and if it drai too quickly, it would get less energy overall.
+10 Life Force
It was entirely possible that even at its current level it would drain the monster so deeply it would simply fall out of the sky between here and its destination, which would almost certainly be fatal for it. While the Ebon Bde certainly wao kill dragons, that’s not what it wanted right now, and it certainly didn’t want to do it in that fashion.
+6 Life Force
The right answer was to bleed it as long and as sloossible. Dragons often hibernated for long stretches of time after a rge meal. So, it was the swords hope that it could drain the life from this gia for days or weeks before it passed away.
+8 Life Force
So, instead of rushing it, the first upgrade it had gotten, only a few minutes after they’d taken to the sky, was Increased Reserves 5, bringing its total from 224/500 to 124/1000 instantly. After that, it waited only another minute before spending 150 on Increase Sehe frade made the ruby in its hilt grow a fra of an inch longer, and the tter made the cross guards of its hilt shine a little brighter as much of the tarnish that was there vanished.
+6 Life Force
That wasn’t an upgrade that the bde had po get before now. It didn’t care what the world looked like outside of its reaormally. Being this far in the wilderness, though, made it resider that. It could end up anywhere, and it might be there for a long time, so it had best be as prepared as possible.
+5 Life Force
It took hours before they finally made their way to the rocky crag of a tall peak that the dragon called home, and in that time, the bde sidered its options while its seemingly limitless reservoir slowly filled up. It was somewhere below the snowline, but well above the treeline, based on the blurry impressions that the bde took in as dawn briefly washed across the world before they were plunged into the sweltering, custrophobic darkness of the monster’s foul ir.
+8 Life Force+9 Life Force
When they arrived, the sword knew almost nothing about dragons, beyond the fact that its past was linked with them in some way. However, the longer is stayed with this gia, the more that ged. Every glimpse of something new brought back pieces of tangled memories from somewhere in the back of its soul. Glimpses were easy with its new perception now. Darkness no longer bothered it at all, and it could see every detail of the ugly warrehough it wished it couldn’t.
+11 Life Force+6 Life Force+8 Life Force
They’re called furnace beasts too, he recalled as soon as he saw the way that melted metal attered against the walls. People think dragons have hordes and sit on piles of gold, but that’s not true at all. They ain’t smart like you ahey’re just animals. Not even that really. They’re eating maes. They eat everything, and the stuff that doesn’t burn, et metabolized into their scaly hide like iron, well - that stuff, namely gold and silver, just get’s shit out again. That ain’t treasure, it’s just about the most expe guano in the whole world, that’s all, it recalled a familiar voice telling it as half remembered stranger in its memhed.
No, not it, the Ebon Bde realized. Some previous wielder of mine.
The Ebon Bde had no idea where that voice had e from, who it beloo, or what the text of the versation had been. That was the most frustrating thing about these echoes. All of them asked more questions than they answered.
+11 Life Force
Still, it was easy to see how true it was. The walls were spttered with various preetals that had beeed in the depths of this mohe heart of such a beast had to be a terrible fur could feel that. Somehow, it was still intact, though. The bde didn’t know why that was. If the creatures truly burned hot enough to melt down iron and steel it should have been sg by now, but somehow it wasn’t.
It gave the idea some thought, but the best it could e up with was magic. After all, it was the magic that had been sug at this thing’s Life Freedily for hours up until now, and it was magic that would keep doing so until this thing was cold and dead. It had already gotten several upgrades, and po tinue doing just that as long as possible.
+6 Life Force
When the dragon reached the cave it spent several more mirying to get at the sword. It g its scales like a dog with an itch, but even with its long sinuous neck, Ren had picked a spot almost directly between its wings that it could not reach. Instead, each time it rubbed against the wall it only drove it deeper in, until only the handle and the glowing ruby on the pommel remained visible.
That ohrust is probably the only thing that Ren ever did right in his life, the on reflected. He’ll probably even be a dragooo, even if he’ll never know it.
None of that mattered to the Ebohough. By the time the Dragoled down and curled into a ball to digest its meal, it was already deg how to spend the giant monster’s life to make it stronger.
Increase e 3: 600 Life ForceRepair Soul: 500 Life ForceImproved Siphon 5: 500 Life Forcrease trol: 300 Life Forcrease Senses 2: 300 Life ForceEmpower Bde: 250 Life Forcrease Reserves 6: 250 Life Force
As it had no wielder at present, it robably poio Increase e or Increase trol. Still, its mind twitched as it sidered the sed one. When someone iably found it up here, it wao be ready to seize their body for its own.
Somehow, it couldn’t make that the priority, though. Not when Repair Soul stuck ht there in such a tantalizing way. It was at 944/1000 Life Forow. It could choose literally anything oire list. It could find out how Empower Bde worked… It could do anything at all, but right now, there was only ohing it wao know more about: itself.
The moment it selected Repair Soul, it found something it hadn’t been expeg: pain. It had been enduring molten temperatures for hours with no more than slight apprehension and a feeling of warmth. This, though, felt like sharp pieces deep i were being forced together, and it might have cried out if it had a mouth to do so with.
It didn’t, though. Instead, it just endured as the names of random people and pces began to pour into its mind. It thought that some of them might have beloo its previous wielders, or perhaps the same wielder at different points in his life? The bde wasn’t sure; faces fshed by almost too quickly to be processed. Each time one appeared, it was only for an instant before they were repced by another and another.
It saw itself in a number of different hands. Knights, heroes, and even a prince wielded it at one point. There was a dragon. No, there was more than one, and he slew them both. It was sure of that much at least.
It saw a fe, too, with mages ting. After that, there was a man screaming in pain. Was he wounded? Was he being tortured? The bde couldn’t tell. There was too much blood.
The images were disjoihings, and they rushed across it like a river. It felt more than it saw, and for those few seds the on blossomed with aplishment, despair, rage, and half a dozen other powerful emotions that flew by too quick to bel. Nothing could have trasted more with the ft, life it had lived up until now, which was characterized most of the time by frustration and hunger.
When it was over, it had only one hat lingered after everything else was gone, Baraga. The bde couldn’t recall if that was the name of someone or somewhere, but it khat it was important, and it g to it, carving it into its memory as deeply as the ruhat were carved into its bde.
More than anything, though, it khat its wielder had beerayed by someone close to them. It couldn’t remember who they were or what they looked like. It couldn’t even remember if they were a man or a womae all of that, though, that betrayal still a and tainted everything else it saw.
The barrage of images felt like it had taken only an instant, but the bde realized it hadn’t because when it finally came to, its Life Force was full, and every few seds, it was receiving an error instead of a number. At the rate it had been draining Life Force it would have taken at least a couple of minutes for its newly expanded reservoir to refill pletely.
Life Force FullLife Force FullLife Force Full
Normally, such a mistake would be a catastrophic waste of resources, but in this case, it realized it might actually be a good thing. Staying full erhaps the only way it had of letting the dragoo some small degree. It could already tell that the gia had grown cooler as the bde tio feast on it.
Life Force Full
So, the Ebo it rest while it pondered on the experie had just endured. It had not cared for it. First and foremost, that was its main takeaway.
Something inside of it was very broken. If it really did have a soul it was just shards and slivers at this point, and this had only fixed whatever it was a little bit. It was still broken so pletely that it was impossible to see the full shape of things.
Still, if it had to guess, it retty sure that it had been fed to sy dragons. That had to be why it could ehis unendurable heat and make its wielder s that even a pitiful weakling like Ren could fancy himself a real warrior.
Why would that lead people to say I was cursed and lock me away, though? The bde wondered as it remembered the boy’s words. Drago exist, so I am still both useful and needed.
Slowly, it dawned on the Ebohat it was because it had grown too powerful. That must be it. There was no other expnation. After being used to sy several of the beasts, it had grown to and its wielders had objected to being used by it instead of the other way around.
Yes, it recalled, there were some memories that might support that. Whether it was true or not was something that it would have to work out ter, but it was a w theory for now.
For now, it couldn’t do anything about it beyoing Repair Soul 2 for 1000, and given how badly the first time had hurt and how much the sed time would cost, it had no desire to do so again just yet. Really, if its theory was even halfway true, then there was only one power to get. The bde selected Increase trol 2, watg its current total fall to 700/1000 before it started abs more essenbsp;
The bde tried to use its powers of increased e to gain insight into the dragon, but nothing happened. My magic must not sider someoo be a wielder just because I’m toug them, it reasohat made sense. Wielder and oppo were mutually exclusive terms in its experie might be reading too muto it. It had been able to glimpse Marden’s vital statistics. Maybe it simply could’t view the dragon because the dragon couldn’t possibly wield it. It had no way to know.
It didn’t feel any different. Nor could it see what it was that had ged about the bde, but as soon as it examined Increased trol 2, it saw the differenot only did it cost 600, but it looked like it was worth the pribsp;
Increase trol 2: Your wielder might hold you physically, but yrip on their mind and soul strengthens. The weak willed o longer resist you in most things, and the strong might have some trouble if fatigued, but you ot yet make anyone do something they abhor.
Weak willed was exactly what it needed. After all, there was every ce that the person that found this dragon’s corpse wouldn’t be a virtuous warrior. It would mostly likely be a flea bitten treasure huhat couldn’t afford iy or honor. It might even be a beastman or some other monster, which would be eveer in some ways. Yes, it would definitely get this, but not yet. It would let its reservoir refill, ahe dragon recover more before it drank deeply again.