ALL NOVEL Chapter 346 - Treachery
“Eric, slow the fuck down! You’re going to get us killed!”
But Eric couldn’t slow down. Not when he felt so many cards of fate, both fare and foul, focus on his flesh and blood. And most especially not when he sensed now one but half a dozen hostile reds blaze to life from concealment, at least on his map interface, the instant his danger sense flared as they tried to take a bead on him.
“Eric!”
“Shut up, we’re hot!” He shouted as the bucolic afternoon panorama of endless fecund fields and rolling hills with the occassional cluster of trees was broken up with the flaring flash of plasma rifles arcing out from multiple areas of concealment.
Quickness check made!
Fire that Eric found it far easier to avoid than the bone veli his friends rode behind him.
“Fuck! That thing almost hit me!”
“Shit, Emily!”
Eric’s alarm turned to outrage when the group interface making it clear that one of his friends had been hit, despite the general purpose defensive ward he had put on his construction.
His desperate urgency turned to hyperintense focus when he spotted over a dozen nearby ambush sights with thick foliage and dips in the terrain where well-placed goblins snipers would have cover and concealment while peppering any would-be hero eager to join the Sylvan Alliance. As to how it could have come to this with the treaties now in place, an increasingly outraged Eric thought he understood.
Aurelia’s hard-fought concessions for peace had assured equitable status for faction members only.
Nothing at all said that the bastards couldn’t cut down any humans intending to march under Elonia’s banner. Not until they were formally sworn in, and Greed and his cohorts were obviously dead set on keeping Sylvan Alliance recruitment at a dead flat zero.
Fresh examples of Bloodtear treachery that only heightened Eric’s disdain for his vile foes and reaffirmed his silent commitment to purge those abominations from his world at all costs, no matter how carefully he had to dance around Caliban.
Yet those bitter observations would do nothing to remove multiple assassins carefully concealed in countless hidey-holes that his Unified Perception skill and a damn high base Perception synergized with his Dominion Interface map finally picked up on.
For that, he’d need fire.
“Hell Vines! Hell Vines! Hell Vines!”
Eric’s voice echoed through the once lush valley as it was ruthlessly lit up into a charnel house of flame. And whatever shame Eric felt at despoiling lush, bucolic, life-giving greenery in what was now a fully domesticated territory he himself had forged and enhanced, it was soothed by the goblinoid shrieks of not one but several dozen enemy faction reds flaring to life in his interface before fading for all time.
“Jeezus, Eric! The landscape offend your sensibilities that much? I thought you elves were into that sort of thing!”
“We are, Jack. But all the goblin sniper topiary just had to go.”
Steve snorted at that. “Yeah, I think we all agree with you there, buddy. Only aren’t we getting close to your sister’s place? I just got a notice that we entered Sylvan territory… and why the fuck were goblins sniping us anyway?”
“Because goblins are slimy little monstrous murderous fuckwads who would steal your soul as quick as a demon and they all deserve to be sent right back to hell!” Eric snapped. “Because their earlier gesture of peace with my sister’s faction just meant that they’d do all they could to kill any human foolish enough to actually try to join the Sylvan Alliance long before they could actually sign up. And because this whole fucking thing is a trap meant to wipe my sister’s faction completely off the map, so enough talking, because now we are moving FAST!”
At that very moment, the air rang with a scream that brought Eric to the edge of furious desperation. If his friends thought he had been going fast before… their own panicked yells made it clear that they had no idea of just how considerate Eric had been this entire time.
The anxious panic clawing at the back of Eric’s throat as he raced toward that cry was such that he would have cut and run without a second thought if he didn’t have to fear a couple cleverly hidden snipers skilled enough that even his senses and perks had missed quietly taking his friends out unawares with their utterly illegal blaster rifles that they still had access to, the minute Eric was out of their sight.
Fucking assholes.
“Lillian hold on! I’m coming!” Eric roared as a single stray beam of steel-melting light resulted in yet another grove of apple trees being absolutely obliterated by whipping fiery vines blazing hotter than they ever had before.
Eric’s eyes widened with a sudden epiphany, not giving two fucks about long term planning or conservation of resources as his go-to spell blossomed in ways both fearsome and grand and an apple grove was obliterated beyond all recovery.
He could only hope that whatever interference was making it absolutely impossible for him to send interface messages to any of his friends or relatives would also keep other secrets close as well.
Congratulations! Arcane Potential, Spiritual Energy, and Soul Reserves have each one up one point as Revelations and insights garnered on the cusp of desperate panic have given you the breakthrough you need to advance and ascend!
Your Runic Spell: Hell Vines has reached Journeyman Rank!
How do you wish to evolve this spell?
Your own experience with the Efficiency Perk makes this highly costly spell a perfect candidate for a fifty percent cost reduction! Fully multiplicative with all other—
Option disregarded.
Your daughter’s own revelations mean that Appetite for Destruction will always be available to you! Increase the sheer potency and raw destructive power of your spell by a full 50%! Fully multiplicative with all other—
Option disregarded.
Your increasing mastery over the fundamentals of magic has opened a new path of growth and advancement for you! You may now—
Option disregarded.
You are attempting to EVOLVE your essence-linked spell with a Higher Order Transformation! Goblin protocols FORBID transcendent evolutions for all native Classers occupying this world.
(be glad that you were able to squeeze a cultivation evolution through earlier! Rest assured that a certain half-step Gold patron of your enemies will be doing all he can to prevent that loophole in the future!)
NOTE! Goblin Faction has been System-Sanctioned! All previous manipulations of Standard System Protocols have now been REVOKED!
You have successfully EVOLVED Hell Vines Spell into a TRANSCENDENT version of this spell!
Hell Vines (140 Mana & Qi) - Transcendent Vines - Dare to go beyond all Earthly limitations and embrace the very origins of destruction! Your Hell Vines will now transcend fire’s mortal echo and evoke a higher order manifestation of the Platonic ideal of Flame, should you will it so.
140 Mana, 140 Qi, and 280 in Soul Reserves will be expended with every Transcendent cluster of Vines you dare to unleash upon your foes.
WARNING this is beyond your MAXIMUM Soul Reserves!
You have successfully summoned Crimson Orb - IGNORING all goblinoid edicts against necromancy!
Soul Reserves cost have been brought back down to 140. WARNING! this is still beyond your Maximum Soul Reserves! Balance will have to be directly paid in potency and life force if you DARE to cast this spell in its transcendent form!
(Standard form may be used as before without penalty.)
Eric cursed furiously under his breath as desperation drove him to grasp for power that could just as easily destroy him.
“Fuck! Even at Journeyman, why the fuck doesn’t cost go down?” He cursed to himself even as he wheezed for breath. Yet he was also reeling from the revelations the System had let slip through its so often sarcastic veneer with him. Namely that it wasn’t just random chance or the grinding gears of an impersonal universe that had the System seem so often at odds with Humanity’s best interests.
Rather it was some half-step Gold tier monster that was somehow responsible for the dead ends, pitfalls, lack of information and constant sabotaging of humanity’s efforts. It wasn’t just impersonal elites who had shaped the System to best suit them, but one particular hostile entity who had been manipulating what Eric sensed was normally a far more synergistic, even benevolent universal medium to suit its own ends. And those ends seemed to include advancing goblin-kind on the carbonized corpses and tormented souls of any newly ascended race it could get their grimy little claws on.
It was a truth that was utterly chilling as to the depths of malice and depravity that it suggested. Yet it seemed as well that that particular monster and his clan had seriously overstepped, and perhaps there were benefits to having at least played a hand in helping to resolve a certain System aberration before it could get any more powerful. And if that meant that Eric had ended up helping a System he feared as much as sought to master, well, perhaps that was the only reason why his daughter was even alive, and he was receiving a backhanded hint or two, as opposed to being left completely in the dark.
Yet none of that changed the facts that his familiar’s frantic interparty messaging had let through, despite the arcane static in the ether.
It seemed that Greed was far more than a simple White-tier con artist, facilitator, and scumbag. He was, in fact, a hideously powerful hidden ace whose very present violated countless accords and was dead set on not just claiming the board but assuring humanity’s utter destruction while doing so. Eric had certainly had his suspicions from Greed’s negotiation shenanigans when he had pulled out so many thousands of children trapped in awful iron cages. Fears that had solidified to near dreadful certainty after the desperate living dreams he had shared with Bunbun when together they had channeled the full might and fury of their power to send their foes’ house of haunted bones tumbling down, hopefully for all time.
Yet now their worst fears had been unequivocally realized, Greed had somehow manipulated his daughter into accepting a challenge against the bastard’s most powerful shaman, and Bunbun was certain that Greed was going to rig the odds in his champion’s favor.
Because of course he was.
Eric snarled as adrenaline and Wrath surged through his body, somehow able to push himself to move ever faster at the cost of a tiny drain to his Soul Reserves as he balanced Wrath and Dominion to master himself even as his muscles thrummed with power while he rode on the cusp of a berserker’s fury.
The tiny corner of his mind that was still lucid could only pray that he wouldn’t have to use his newest trump card, for all that he reveled in the sudden frisson of insight and intensity as elevating an arcane art to its higher transcendent ideal fleshed out his increasing comprehension of a higher order of flame, the pristine multidimensional essence of consumption, radiation, and oblivion that it teased as being, knowing that his choice had been the right choice, the only choice he could have made with that spell and still walk the path of a higher order node evolution that he was chillingly certain he should have no access to at all.
“Even if unleashing that spell could age me so quick that now even those Fire Peaches will save me from shriveling up like an old prune,” he thought to himself between exhales as he continued to race toward where he sensed his familiar like a bright blazing beacon of hope, joy, and companionship… right before the palace he could finally make out.
“Fucking yes, we made it, guys!” Eric assured his friends, immediately easing up on the Wrath and Dominion thrumming like tightly strung cords playing a harmonious duet as he finally slowed down to a sane pace so as to stop his bone veli without his friends suffering catastrophic whiplash. With only a minimal amount of Soul Reserves spent, he sensed he was on the cusp of revelations that could so easily blossom into a new skill. But he had no time for relaxed contemplation or further practice.
His daughter was in trouble and he needed to find her NOW!
His eyes widened with awe despite his anxious focus as he caught sight of countless thousands of sylvan men and women dressed as lightly armored cavalrymen, all of them with bows and sabers upon cantilevered saddle sheaths, with a good fraction of the men dressed in heavier armor of plate steel with lancer spears in holster cups secured to the horse’s sides by their saddles. Yet each and every one of them, elves, and horses, officers and enlisted, were frozen in eerily still perfection. Not one twitched or shifted in their saddles, no hair was rustled in the cool autumn breeze.
Just absolute stillness and the crackling formation of a dome just a few hundred yards ahead.
“What the fuck, Eric Silver!” Yuki’s breathless gasp was enough to make Eric wince as he finally came to a stop, quickly freeing himself from his harness and turning to give his heartfelt apologies to the closest thing he had to an adventuring party he could call his own.
“You absolute asswipe,” Jack whispered, his eyes caught between horror, dismay, and wonder. “I don’t know whether that was the most fucking epic joy ride of my life, or I want to scream bloody murder and kill you.” He gave an exhausted chuckle. “Probably both.”
“I vote murder,” whispered a clearly exhausted Emily, who just as clearly was green around the gills and looked ready to hurl. “Oh fuck, I need to get out now!”
Richard shot Eric a glare as he too stumbled out of the bone veli on shaky legs. “We’ll definitely be talking about this later, Eric. But for now…”
“For now, if you could nab us some accommodations in that epic looking palace, that would be incredibly sweet,” Steve said, gazing at Elonia’s sky blue palace of crystalline windows, arching gables, graceful minarets and marbled splendor with more than a bit of awe.
“Fuck yes,” Yuki concurred with a nod. “Screw my uncle’s high-rise. This is where I’d like to rest my boots after delving in twisted pocket realms… wait, Eric, where the fuck are you going?”
But Eric didn’t dare waste another second, having only slowed down for his friend’s sake, and now he could sprint unimpeded, racing towards the shimmering dome crackling with endless possibilities and the faint taste of utter oblivion, before he caught sight of that which sent him racing forward in a sprint with a furious, outraged scream.
“Lillian! Behind you!”
Because his daughter wasn’t locked in a hundred yard diameter prismatic dome of indestructible portal magics with a single Bronze-tier champion, monstrously unfair as that would be.
She was trapped with a full dozen of those smirking goblin bastards inside. And a sneering Greed that Eric caught sight of only now wasn’t content with somehow twisting the odds that much in his favor.
No. The slimy bastard Eric really should have killed while he could was clearly taking no chances, as the same slinking little cutthroat assassin that had once hid in Greed’s shadow now stalked Eric’s daughter with the sneer of a predator who savored violating his prey, and was just a heartbeat away from striking even as Lillian braced herself for what might be a very gruesome death at the hands of a full dozen goblin shamans that Eric swore in his heart right then and there that he would see dead if they harmed a single hair on his daughter’s head. But that didn’t mean shit if they were the faint and the assassin was about to strike right—.
“BUNBUN! SAVE OUR DAUGHTER!” Eric screamed in his mind as he raised forward, his fists clenched with monstrous heat and Greed firmly in his sights as he embraced the blinding fury threatening to consume him, paying no heed to the countless familiar Sylvan faces gazing at him with looks raging from awe to desire to primal terror… before the entire dome erupted in brilliant crimson light blazing as brightly as the sun.
“SANGUIS FULMEN!”
Eric blinked away the spots in his eyes quicker than most of the surviving Sylvan command present, including Lord Drevan and his daughter Annika who had come so close to claiming him, along with Sufia who was also there, looking every inch the elite ranger bodyguard who for some reason didn’t seem at all startled by his presence, flashing Eric a cheeky smile even as others gazed his way with trepidation and fear.
Lady Valorn was giving him the strangest look, caught between desire and dread. Even Captain Teila was present, who didn’t look an iota different than he recalled her being when she had first helped Rica and himself leave Gilton along with countless other refugees. Though the desperate look she was sending his way was the farthest thing from comforting.
Every elf of significance within his sister’s faction, save for his sister herself, seemed to be there.
Yet all Eric had eyes for was the conniving monster who had so gleefully put a pain collar around his neck before sending all his revenants to a starship foundry that seemed closer to a pit of hell than any high tech marvel. A monster who Eric now understood intended nothing less than the destruction and the eternal torment of humanity in its entirety, while profiting mightily in the form of billions of credits for every starship built on the tears and agony of sentient souls in torment that he could build.
And to top it all off, that monstrous abomination had just tried to assassinate his daughter, who only lived now because her mother had thrown herself on the dagger meant for Lilly herself.
And all the shameless monster could do was stare at Eric’s mother with a look of awed disgust.
“That bitch is just shy of rupturing a world gate! Who the hell did your son fuck to create that?”
Only in that moment did his mother, who had seemed utterly oblivious to his presence, choose to look Eric’s way, her hypnotically beautiful eyes locking with his own, reading all his struggles, insights, trials and tribulations, understanding her son utterly in the blink of an eye, as she no doubt always had.
Her throaty chuckle sounded just like it had for a million avid movie-goers once upon a time.
Yet now her words were for Eric alone.
“That’s an excellent question, dear Greed. Why don’t you ask him?”
Even as a snarling Greed spun around far, far faster than the showman he had presented himself to be less than a week ago should have been capable of, Eric felt the presence of Sulia before him, making full use of her enhanced stats and Wind Cultivation technique to move the forty yards at blinding speed, holding in her hands a prize he had honestly never expected to see again.
“My prince. Your blade. I return it to your care.”
Eric’s eyes widened, more touched than he wanted to admit to be presented with the weapon now in his hands, attuned as it now was to the elements of both Wind and Flame.
It was a blade that instantly called out to him, bound as it already was to his soul.
As fast as thought, both blade and sheath had disappeared, only to reappear right on his hip, hands upon hilt and sheathe as his right foot slid forward, in perfect position for an iado strike as Greed finished spinning around to confront the Contender he had tried to hard to kill.
“YOU!” Greed roared, glaring at Eric in surprise, fury, and no small amount of fear.
Eric’s smile widened. “Me.”
And a heartbeat before Eric gave physical manifestation to the fury he felt, unexpected words of reason filled the air.
“He’s under Blue Corp protection, Eric!” Annika cried. “He’s on the cusp of reaching for Silver! Don’t let him bait you, or you’ll lose, even if you win!”
“You shouldn’t even be here,” Greed snarled. “You should be DEAD!”
Eric’s white-hot fury froze to bitter cold focus. Before his lips curled in a smile, knowing the play to make.
“Sorry, Greed,” Eric sneered. “Wasn’t really feeling it. Sloth, on the other hand, now he’s DEFINITELY feeling the dead.”
Eric felt a fierce glorious surge of vindictive hate at the look of horrified dismay on Greed’s features… before feeling the first tinges of apprehension that he absolutely refused to call fear when the shyster before him began to twist and bloat in ways both hideous and chilling, somehow growing as vast as the stormy clouds above without growing an inch. Yet all the same, Eric had to fight against the sudden vertigo he felt.
“You DARE to strike at the House of Asmodeous, you pathetic WORM? You and your daughter will pay with your souls!”
Eric’s lips stretched wide in a feral grin revealing all his suddenly sharp teeth as he laughed up at the massive demonic form that now took up his whole field of vision. “Bring it, motherfucker, and we’ll see who ends up in hell!”
Greed roared and seemed to bloat in size before Eric’s very eyes.
Eric’s fists abruptly blazed brilliant with pristine flame that made even Greed flinch, before the air grew heavy with static energy like the mightiest storm under the heavens.
Yet Aurelia’s smug grin made it clear it wasn’t her doing as the air grew crimson with light far more fierce than any setting sun.
Eric’s eyes widened, both awed and amazed even past his desperate fury, to see none other than his little girl stepping forward from the shattered shell of a dimensional rift, her delicate rabbit ears now crackling with lightning so fiercely bright that half the elves present cried out and flinched.
Eric was profoundly humbled, just sensing the sheer power held within the crimson lightning crackling between her ears.
And Greed, clearly no fool, sensed death at his back only to spin around, somehow a dozen steps away from Eric before he had registered the little shit moving an inch.
FUCK! For a heartbeat, Eric was chilled to realize how outclassed he was even in his favored characteristic by the monster who shouldn’t even be permitted on this world.
Yet the look on Greed’s face was anything but triumphant.
“You destroyed them.” Greed’s voice was void of all inflection. “A dozen of my most elite shaman, Each of them having proved themselves as Bronze. A dozen levels each for a dozen of my prized tools… and you’ve obliterated them all to ash.”
Eric stole a glance despite his determination to keep his eyes on Greed, awed despite himself to see the absolute devastation within the former dome.
Where the surrounding grass was lush and fecund, every inch of earth had been scored and atomized by bolts of lightning closer to nuclear plasma than mere electrical discharge. Nothing but scored bedrock remained, and a single perfectly preserved bunny.
Eric felt his heart fill with a desperate furious ache, before he took solace in the shimmering corona of crackling power surrounding his daughter, who was now gazing at Greed with the eyes of an avenging angel.
“It’s time for you to die, Greed.”