-

-

Ch242-Oh Fuck

-

-

While Sophia and her lot prepared for prayer, Sylver sat on top of a nearby tree and looked over his skills.

[Skill: Undead Mastery (VII) [S]]
Skill level can be increased by raising undead. (Repeat raising of the same undead will not increase skill level)
I – Turn a corpse into an undead.
II – All undead under your control have +35% to all stats.
III – Upon death all undead will return 40% of mana through [Dying Breath].
IV – Duplicated shades will have 45% of the original’s stats.
V – Cost of raising humanoid undead decreased by 50%.
VI – At the cost of reducing HP to 0, the creature that delivered the most recent attack will receive a defeat notification.
VII – Increase the range of [Greater Undead Channeling], and [Greater Undead Empowering] by 100%.
*Quality dependent on the corpse.
*Quality dependent on the soul.

The reason Sylver picked this specific effect, was simple.

He wanted distance.

Between him, and whatever he was fighting. There wasn’t a whole lot of point in having an army of undead, if the opponent was close enough to ignore them, and go straight for Sylver.

An increase in range also meant Sylver was able to use more undead simultaneously. The archers would have more room and Sylver could empower a greater number of them, which meant that the volley of arrows he shot at his enemies would not only be denser, but stronger overall.

And it made running away easier, in the event a priest or something tried to kill him.

[Skill: Mutating Override (IV) [F]]
Skill level can be raised by overriding primal energy field.
I – Mutate biological matter by overriding its primal energy field.
II – Decrease the MP cost by 5%.
III – Increase range by 10%.
IV – Decrease the MP cost by 25% when overriding personal primal energy field.
*Quantity of MP required dependent on rate, volume, and complexity of primal energy field being overridden.

This effect would have been significantly more helpful before Sylver merged his Ciege body with his old lich body, but he wasn’t about to complain. Given that his only method of “healing” himself from silver and holy magic was by manipulating his body’s primal energy field, this would speed things up by a lot.

And of course, since Sylver’s “personal primal energy field” could encompass whatever he so wished, such a corpse pumped full of his blood, or even a plant growing inside of him, it meant that he would have to spend less mana experimenting on things.

[Skill: Mirage (V) [A]]
Skill level can be raised by using illusion magic.
I – Create visual and auditory illusions.
II – Create translucent illusions.
III – Cost of illusion magic decreased by 10%
IV – Deceive C rank or lower sensory skills/perks/traits by increasing the amount of MP per illusion to 1,000%.
V – Create solid illusions.
*Quality of illusions dependent on caster’s ability and understanding.

Functionally, solid illusions weren’t all that different from what Sylver did to his shadow via [Deadly Darkness].

Solidified light didn’t weigh anything, it had the durability of brittle clay, and while a talented illusionist may be capable of creating solid illusions that moved, Sylver wasn’t so gifted.

But the purpose of Sylver’s illusions was never to truly make his opponent believe what he was seeing is real, his illusions were a distraction, and that was all they needed to be. A moment of hesitation, a millisecond of doubt, just enough wiggle room in a person’s perception for one of the shades to wiggle a dagger into their neck.

Technically, the same result could be achieved by creating the right solid shape out of mushrooms, or dirt, and then overlaying an illusion on top of the object. But that took time and a lot more than a half-second of thought.

The biggest advantage of this particular effect was that Sylver could make solid illusions form at a distance from him. Such as a tree someone might attempt to use for cover, a door that leads to nowhere, an explosive, or a suspicious puddle of glowing red liquid.

[Skill: Necrotic Mutilation (V) [F]]
Skill level can be increased through use.
I – Manipulate biological matter.
II – Empower a creature or item using manipulated biological matter.
III – Increase the range of [Dead Dominion] by 50% for [Necrotic Mutilation].
IV – Increase maximum density by 25%.
V – Increase durability by 50%.
*Quality dependent on biological material being used.
*Quantity of [Flesh] increases power.
*Quantity of [Bones] increases durability.
*Quantity of [Blood] increases duration.

This choice didn’t need much consideration.

One of the biggest weaknesses of [Necrotic Mutilation] was that its defensive properties weren’t up to par. Sylver had a layer of it acting as armor underneath his robe, but the amount he could wear without seriously impeding his speed meant it barely protected him.

Forming it into a floating shield was pointless for a similar reason, it was more efficient to dodge out of the way than to waste mana moving it into the path of an incoming attack.

On top of that, all the alternative effects were oddly small, to the point Sylver was initially suspicious of the giant 50% increase. But if there was a catch to having one of his main methods of attack receive a 50% boost, he was yet to see it.

[Skill: Vigorous Conditioning (VI) [A]]
Skill level can be increased by receiving damage.
I – Increase resistance against [Positive Energy] by 25%.
II – Increase resistance against [Physical Damage] by 40%.
III – Increase Stamina Regeneration by 50%.
IV – Reduce body weight by 20%.
V – Increase resistance against [Physical Damage] by 25%.
VI – Increase resistance against [Positive Energy] by 10%.

For a while, Sylver just stared at the skill and fantasized about being completely immune to positive energy. He doubted the system would ever allow him, or anyone for that matter, to get to 100%, but it was nice to think about.

It wouldn’t make him invincible, but it would cut down the number of viable methods of attack by half. At the height of his power, he could brush off most types of magic, with the obvious exception of holy and light magic. But he couldn’t be cursed to death, couldn’t be torn apart, you couldn’t even really vaporize him, your magic had to be very powerful to so much as leave a mark, let alone damage him.

Having said that, a very high percentage of Sylver’s opponents were more than capable of leaving a mark. Then again, his perception was biased since most mages Sylver faced dropped dead before they even saw him.

As a rule of thumb, your magic has to be really fancy to block an Arch-Necromancer’s instant death magic.

Sylver could see Sophia and her lot preparing for dawn from his tree branch.

She was standing barefoot on a large circular piece of cloth and sprinkled dark ash onto it. Each of Sophia’s steps caused the ash to shift, as the fabric moved around.

Curiously, not all of the ash moved. In fact, about half appeared as if it was glued to the fabric, instead of sitting loosely on it.

The fact that merely looking at the cloth caused Sylver’s eyes to water meant it wasn’t just the moisture in the air creating a random pattern. He would later learn that there were shards of broken glass sprinkled amidst the ashes, and Sophia’s blood was the reason for some of the ash sticking to the fabric.

Bit by bit the darkness of the night faded.

The clouds above rumbled with a warning for the storm that was about to come.

As the first light of dawn found its way around the horizon, Sylver felt something grab him by the spine.

It wasn’t a gentle hold over his backbone and wasn’t quite the feeling he got when someone crushed his vertebrae with a pair of pliers, but it was closer to painful than not. As Sylver managed to push away the uncomfortable contact, his silver-touched scars began to itch.

But the worst was yet to come.

As he approached the praying priests and paladins and was joined by Edmund and Faust, Sylver felt his insides shiver.

Not because he was afraid, but because the waystone inside his shoulder was vibrating with such intensity that it was causing Sylver to stumble.

Just as the vibration became intense enough that Sylver worried it would splinter his bones, the sky crackled with thunder, and an impossibly bright pillar of sunlight descended onto Sophia. Sylver’s legs gave out from the sudden attack, but Edmund caught him before he fell.

The blast of light had lasted for less than a second, and as Sylver’s blurry vision slowly cleared, he saw a framework had been burned into the ground.

To Sylver’s eyes, the framework was as impressive as a pile of shit. It didn’t have the right shape, or feel, and almost appeared to be the sort of thing a drunk apprentice may create.

And yet, nonsense excrement or not, the thing was undoubtedly functional.

“What’s the plan again?” Faust asked.

“Kill everyone, and don’t die,” Edmund answered with a wry grin.

“Alright, just wanted to make sure,” Faust said with a nod.

Sylver made a noise as he took a step forward.

“That reminds me, I know I said it at least 10 times by now, but please don’t touch the pillar. Even if it starts ominously flashing, or you see darkness emanating out of it, leave it alone. You won’t do anyone any good. If you for some reason get to the pillar before everyone else, wait for one of us,” Sylver said with a gesture towards himself and Edmund.

It wasn’t that Sylver didn’t trust that Sophia’s people were well trained, but 3 of the women had a “heroic” glint in their eye. Thankfully, all 3 of those women, a priest, and 2 paladins, got the subtle message Sylver had repeated for the 11th time tonight.

The fact that he made direct eye contact with all 3 of them, 1 at a time, helped.

Sophia didn’t bother to ask if everyone was ready, because even if they weren’t the spell on the ground was adhering to its own schedule.

The waystone in Sylver’s shoulder hummed uncomfortably, as it resonated with the framework on the ground, but the discomfort barely lasted a second.

***

Sylver kept his hands clasped behind his back as he turned around in a circle and inspected his surroundings.

He was undoubtedly inside Tuli, but as far as the location went, he didn’t have a clue. Even if he was familiar with turtle anatomy, Tuli was as much a turtle, as Sylver was human. The general shape was right, but the inside was a wholly different animal.

Wherever Sylver was, there was a ton of empty space. He wasn’t inside a vein, or artery, it wasn’t a cylinder, but what stood out most to him was how soft the floor was. If Sylver wasn’t actively enchanting it to hold his weight, he would have been buried up to his neck.

It took him a while to notice, but it wasn’t dark in here. One of the walls was stretched to the point it was thin enough to let light through.

Given that Tuli wasn’t bioluminescent, probably, the presence of light meant Sylver was somewhere close to the surface.

Or that there was someone behind the wall creating the light. The faint shadows moving on the bottom edge of the wall suggested it was the latter.

The walls, floor, and ceiling were a very dull pink, and while they looked like they were moist with liquid, they were in fact dry to the touch. The only exit that Sylver could see didn’t go anywhere, the corridor of pink walls bent left, right, left, right, left, right, seemingly to no end.

He waited for all of the scouting shades to return, while he placed his hand on the paper-thin wall and felt around for a weak spot.

Truth be told, Sylver expected this.

Even with the fate of the world on the line, a god can’t help too much.

The fact that the teleportation spell hadn’t torn him to shreds, and then soaked the shreds in holy magic, was a miracle in it of itself.

Edmund seemed to be equally unharmed, Sylver could feel him moving around, through the various shades hidden within Edmund’s shadow. Faust was stationary but given the that shades weren’t moving in the “something is wrong” pattern, Faust was standing still on purpose.

Sylver would have liked to leave a few shades with Sophia and the others, but the holy mana they leaked out everywhere would incapacitate even the strongest shade Sylver had to offer.

Sylver gathered his mana into his fingertip, and ever so gently, made a pinhole in the paper-thin wall.

To his surprise, instead of tearing down the middle, the wall stayed exactly as it was, save for the barely visible hole, currently being blocked by Sylver’s finger.

Sylver released his finger for a moment and allowed a handful of shades to pass through the hole.

There were 3 figures standing around a contraption of some sort.

The room was small enough, and sealed off, that Sylver was tempted to try out one of his mushrooms. It would take a couple of minutes for there to be enough spores to incapacitate everyone, but it would be a good test and would make for a very easy fight.

The problem was, Sylver’s mushrooms were meant to be used on the living, creatures that breathed air, or had a pulse. The ones that affected the undead came with the risk of infecting the undead spreading them around.

Sylver was in the middle of making a decision when a pair of arms wrapped around his torso. The man pressed Sylver up against the wall and hugged him so hard that the joints in Sylver’s elbows got crushed.

Under normal circumstances, Sylver would have either turned into fog or had one of the shades stab the person in the back of the head, but Sylver chose to handle this differently.

Sylver pretended to struggle, as the man’s fangs pierced his neck. He even went as far as to gasp when the man’s spiked tongue attached itself to Sylver’s neck and sucked the “blood” out.

Perhaps a half second passed between the moment Sylver’s “blood” entered the man’s mouth, and the moment the man began to violently vomit. The liquid that came out of the creature’s mouth and nose was frothy and a mixture of grey and purple.

Sylver turned around in a smooth motion, lifted his hands to the side of the man’s head, and while pushing the man’s head down, hit the underside of the man’s jaw with his armored knee. The purple froth gained a violent streak of red, as Sylver’s knee squashed the venom sack vampires had underneath their tongues.

As was the norm, the vampire’s body went into shock and refused to comply with whatever demands its owner might have tried to make. Sylver lowered the paralyzed man’s body down onto the ground.

[Hirudu – Cloudy Prowler – 122]
[HP: 44,557 – 96%]
[MP: 11,211 – 62%]
[Stamina: 53,454 – 86%]
[Corpse – Lesser]
[Soul – Petty]

Sylver plugged up the hole he had made in the wall using [Deadly Darkness] while he knelt down near the paralyzed vampire. The man had a human appearance, save for the slightly bulging bright red eyes, and looked like he was in his 20s. In terms of armor, he only had a small sheet of lightly enchanted metal over his heart, held in place by 3 leather straps, on top of regular travel clothing.

Sylver used his finger to pull the man’s upper lip out of the way. Given how few veins he had along his gums, he had been a vampire for less than a month.

“Edmund is going to love this,” Sylver said to himself, as he let go of the man’s lip, and lowered his hand down to the man’s left ear.

The slit along Sylver’s palm opened up and a single tendril came out of it and disappeared into the vampire’s ear. The tendril pierced the man’s eardrum and continued deeper into his head.

Sylver felt the other two approaching the hole and decided this was good enough. Sylver stood up and pulled the vampire’s head along with him. He pressed the man’s face right up against the wall and using the blood inside the man’s head, forced him to turn feral.

At first, the vampire tried to get out of Sylver’s grasp, but because of its position, it couldn’t get enough leverage to pull its head away from the wall. It took a bit of effort to properly direct the vampire’s attention, but eventually, it teleported through the wall.

Sylver did the same and using [Fog Form] materialized on the other side.

There were two people there, and since Sylver’s feral vampire targeted the man, Sylver went for the woman. She was so distracted by the sight of her companion attacking her other companion, that Sylver almost reached her before she noticed him.

She tried to grapple his outstretched hand but made the mistake of making physical contact with Sylver when the only right move was to teleport away and run like the fucking wind.

Going by the way she positioned her legs, she planned to throw Sylver over her shoulder, and while he was in the air, either slash his throat open or bite it.

What happened instead was that the woman discovered that Sylver was a lot heavier than he appeared, and more importantly, that touching him resulted in him using [Draining Blight] to suck out the vampire’s health, mana, and stamina.

The woman was caught by a shade, as Sylver sent a tendril of fog toward the last vampire. Sylver waited for a beat for the man to pull his clawed hands back and materialized directly in front of him.

Sylver pushed his hand forward, into the crook of the man’s elbow to stop him from skewering him through the head, and while shoving his thumb into the man’s right eye, headbutted him.

The man’s head made a thunk noise as if something empty had been struck.

[Hiduru (Short Prowler) Defeated!]

Damn…

As the feral vampire behind Sylver prepared to lunge at him, Sylver snapped his fingers, and the feral man fell to the ground unconscious.

Sylver let go of the one-eyed corpse, and while the shades searched the bodies, walked over to the device they had been standing around.

In the purely physical sense, it was a cylindrical metal rod stuck into the ground.

In the magical sense…

It was very obviously demon magic, but Sylver couldn’t figure out what it was supposed to be doing.

While Sylver considered how best to interrogate the only vampire that wasn’t feral or dead dead, he heard a soft wooshing noise behind him.

Instead of turning around, he pretended he didn’t hear that, and then pretended he hadn’t glanced behind him using [Lesser Perception]. Sylver held back a sigh since he didn’t see or hear anything that would have required a sigh.

“Did you by any chance find any journals detailing their plans along with a map marking all the important paths and locations?” Sylver asked, he extended a tendril of mana toward the metallic object.

There was a moment of silence, as Spring and the shades exchanged looks, while Sylver gently inspected the metal device with his mana. When he didn’t feel any sort of reaction, Sylver reached out with his hand and grabbed it.

Nothing happened.

Sylver pulled at it.

Nothing happened.

Although that wasn’t completely right, since something did happen, but it happened because nothing happened.

One of the skills every mage, proper mage, knows is to reinforce whatever you’re standing on. Be it rock, dirt, wood, glass, brick, metal, snow, water, and if you have the right attribute, even air. It’s not quite flying, but the people capable of standing on air, are more than capable of flying.

From a certain perspective, the spell required to do this is a primitive variant of telekinesis, except instead of moving something, a mage uses the spell to stop the ground from moving.

Later on, the mage learns how to extend that spell into things he wants to hold or lift. It’s the reason Sylver is able to lift a tree trunk above his head using only one hand. Without that spell, the small surface area of Sylver’s hand could cut through the tree, due to its weight, especially if he tried to move it to throw it.

In Sylver’s case, it also came in handy because he should, by all rights, be too heavy to walk on anything softer than solid rock. The spell is also great for reinforcing structures, at higher levels the spell can be used to outright ignore how much weight a single wooden plank should be capable of holding.

But the thing is, that sort of reinforcement spell has a very specific mana pattern to it. Similar to how bees found the hexagon to be the best shape to store honey, mages found that very very specific mana pattern to be the best for reinforcement.

But as good as that pattern was, it wasn’t perfect. There is always “wiggle room,” even an Arch-Mage can’t reinforce something perfectly.

So the fact that Sylver felt exactly zero wiggle from the metal rod meant one of two things.

Either Nautis figured out how to perfect the imperfectible.

Or the piece of shit created a fucking realm anchor.

“They uh…” Springs's voice was distorted on account of all the mana leaking out of Sylver’s body, not to mention he was struggling to maintain his composure due to the sheer amount of anger Sylver was experiencing. “Why would they guard it?” Spring asked.

Sylver was so confused at the question that he lost his anger-fueled train of thought.

“What?”

“If it’s an actual realm anchor, why would they guard it?” Spring repeated with a touch more confidence.

Sylver focused his vision on the metal stick in question.

“They wouldn’t…” Sylver said, mostly to himself.

He grabbed the stick again and gave it another pull. He trusted his mana-sensing ability to feel the metal’s magic wiggle if it could wiggle, but even when he exerted enough power to make steam come out of his hands, the thing remained perfectly motionless.

“Why would they guard a realm anchor?” Sylver asked himself.

“Because they had to make sure it was working,” Spring answered.

“If they were just making sure it worked, they’d only need 1 person... And I didn’t get the sense any of those vampires were magically gifted enough to even tell if it’s working or not,” Sylver said, as he sent a pulse of mana into the “ground.”

“Why vampires of all things?” Spring asked.

“Another good question,” Sylver said, as he stood up.

High in the air, Sylver saw fluffy white glowing clouds. It was a basic light spell, Sylver had seen bottles of it sold just about everywhere. Adventurers used them in place of a torch when they wanted to illuminate a dark area.

Sylver flicked his hand at them, and fluffy clouds stopped shining.

But instead of being engulfed in darkness, Sylver saw a faint glow coming from the “wall” to his left.

The current area he was in was a lot “fleshier” than the one he had been in earlier, due to the light shining through, he could even see a few capillaries. But unlike the previous one, this space was enclosed.

It was the shape of a squashed sphere, slanted away from the wall the light was coming from.

Sylver walked over to the wall, placed his hand against it, and then froze.

He felt the shades inside Faust’s shadows disappear.

At the exact same time, Sylver felt the shades in Edmund’s shadow disappear.

Truth be told, that split second of warning should have been enough. Sylver had more than enough time to spread out his mana and destabilize the spell coming toward him.

But as skilled and quick as Sylver may be, there is a very good reason it’s universally accepted as a bad idea to attack a mage that has home-field advantage.

Sylver’s struggling bought him maybe a fifth of a second before the teleportation spell finished covering his body.

***

Sylver breathed out a sigh of relief, as he felt that the shades in Edmund’s and Faust’s shadows were nearby.

In other good news, Sylver’s feeble attempts to stop himself from being teleported against his will did work. Because he was fairly certain Nautis didn’t intend to teleport Sylver into the space beneath Tuli’s shell.

Far in the distance, the direction from which Sylver could feel Edmund’s and Faust’s shades, Sylver saw the giant metallic pillar.

Except it was no longer just a pillar.

It was now a tree of metal, with metallic spikes reaching both high and low to suck the life out of Tuli. The cactus-like tree had an enormous crystal sphere floating directly above it, inside the protective metallic branches.

As if it was some precious delicate fruit.

Obviously, it wasn’t any sort of fruit, it was some kind of demon-summoning ritual. Maybe it was an egg, but if the wild crackles of pitch-black lightning dancing around the sphere were anything to go by, it was more likely just a portal to the demon realm.

When Sophia spoke about the Moon Demon, Sylver had interpreted it in the sense that the demon, and its rampage, was going to happen vaguely in the future. Not 500 years, or even 10 years, but at least a month. 2 months if he was lucky.

He would have accepted 2 weeks, even 1 week would have been somewhat fine.

But Sophia and her god seemed awful relaxed for a situation that needed to be resolved right fucking now.

On the bright side-

Sylver had to shield his eyes as he nearly became blinded by an impossibly bright torrent of pure white fire. It washed over the metal branches, and even from this far away Sylver could both hear and feel the creature trying to force its way into this realm scream in pain.

With a giant grin on his face, Sylver jumped as high as he could into the air and turned into fog.

Because, as bad as the whole “drown the world” thing might be, the bright side of the situation was that Sylver wasn’t having to handle it alone.

But before Sylver could join Edmund in breaking down the demon summoning tree, he would first need to handle the small army of vampires blocking his path.