They were not, however, the first to get there. That much was clear by the time they swam close to the highlighted area on the map, and it became even more obvious given the extraordinarily obvious ambush two abyssal elves had set about a quarter mile out from the entrance they picked. As it turned out, Pages of the Past was pretty great for finding people using stealth skills, especially if they didn’t move far from their initial location.
Said ambush would have been too much for Will and Caiyeri to take on alone. They were still both bronze rank, and though they both had one or two ways to punch above their rank, it was much easier to distract them with an explosion from Azure and use a stealthily fired arrow to teleport their way in. Azure just told them that he’d figure something out.
Water sloughed off of both of them as they crossed the glowing threshold into the clearing at the center of the dungeon, effectively drying off their clothing and armor.
“Drying charm,” Caiyeri commented. “Cute.”
“Wasn’t like this the last time we were here.”
“I imagine the sigil challenge being completed triggered it.”
To Will’s surprise, they didn’t enter into an active battlefield. Instead, they found their way at the fourth point of an unmoving rectangle.
“I really have to stop getting into bigass caverns filled with enemies,” Will muttered.
“It’s a nasty habit,” Caiyeri agreed. “We should do this faster next time.”
“If there’s a next time, I’m bringing a bomb,” Will replied. “Several big bombs, maybe. My track record with those is pretty solid.”
There were four parties present, though he hesitated to call all of them “parties.”
Absurdly, Will wondered what it would be like if a wrestling announcer announced the entries. The corners weren’t colored, but they might as well have been given how visually distinct each group was.
Will, Caiyeri, and eventually the lagging Azure counted as one, the last to arrive and certainly the lowest rank.
The abyss elves, invariably cloaked in sleek dark armor or robes, were another group. They had evidently split up quite a bit in order to place ambush points outside the sigil cave, but there were still a solid dozen or so of them gathered at one side. The entire cavern glowed with harsh blue light, illuminating their forces and preventing them from completely hiding themselves away.
The life elf contingent, on the other hand, was two people.
“Actually, ‘people’ is a bad descriptor for them,” Will mused.
“You should stop talking to yourself out loud,” Caiyeri advised quietly, leaning over to whisper. “It would do you well to at least pretend to be sane.”
He stood by his statement. One of them, he recognized as Thalia Brooksoul. Just like the rest of the elves, there was an inhuman beauty to her, but that was far outclassed by the terror that the sheer amount of magic emanating from her body and her robes. Will was familiar enough with the Hunger by now to realize that the aura she emitted wasn’t just a powerful silver-rank one—it was also that of a sigil-holder.
The other couldn’t be called a person by any stretch of the term. It was an abomination, its most recognizably humanoid feature a human head. Apart from that, its ten-foot-long body resembled a fleshy centipede with arms made of human and elf flesh stretched strangely over protruding bones.
Its aura was silver. Will silently thanked Caiyeri and Azure for their training. He was now capable of identifying individual auras in a crowd of similarly powerful Users. Focusing on it let him tell what that thing was supposed to be.
Devouring Gestalt. Level: Silver 8.
This is a clan boss.
Behold: the reason why you should burn the corpses of anyone you find within reach of the life elves. Formerly Andrew Andrews, this being is now operated by a nascent abominant mind, rendered subservient to a life elf handler. Call this little guy Katamari Damacy, because with every kill, it grows in power and size.
This is what it looks like after killing a mere seven silvers. Unsolicited piece of advice: kill it fast or run, because you’re not going to like it when it eats more people, and oh man does it love to eat people.
Christ. That was disturbing. A quick examination of Thalia showed that she was no longer marked as a clan boss, just a squad. That was… improvement, at least.
The last party was even smaller than the life elf group. Directly across from them, a solid two hundred or so feet away, was a single User. She spotted Will and Caiyeri coming in and gave them a small smile and wave.
Will’s Identify confirmed it was her. Lily Teneli. Bronze 10. Currently ranked second on the local leaderboard.
Earlier, he’d run into her in one of the Everdale safe zones. He had no idea why she was here.
Given how exasperated she looked at the moment, she might not’ve either.
Thalia and one of the abyssal elves were speaking rapidly, their cadence sounding odd to Will’s ears.
“What’s happening?” Will asked Caiyeri. “They’re speaking really goddamn fast.”
“The tongue of the Mother,” Caiyeri said. “The language ability provided by the system is not as strong as the name implies it is.”
“I can still kind of understand them,” Will said. “I can pick out, like, ‘war,’ ‘unclean,’ ‘heretic’, ‘sigil,’ uh… wow, you guys are kinda violent.”
“If they were a higher rank, you would not be able to comprehend their speech. The Mother’s tongue is less an entirely different language and more a different way of comprehending our own.”
“Hold on,” Will said, pausing as the abyss elf launched into a screaming rant. Once he was done, he continued. “Your elf dialect is literally your mother tongue?”
“Yes. What’s so odd about that?”
“You—know what, I’ll just leave that alone.” Will sighed. “Can you translate, at least?”
“That I can do,” Caiyeri said. “Rowan Two of the Abyss is saying the eminent claim that the life elves have here is invalid under the Mother, that their worship is ontologically—“
“Just the major points, please,” Will said. “While I’ve got a friend who would love to hear an entire political treatise on the state of your nation, I kind of just care if we’re going to die or not.”
“The answer to that is always that there is a high likelihood of death,” Caiyeri said. “At our rank, with our positions, we will always be at risk.”
“Yeah,” Will said. “But what’s happening here?”
“The short version is that Rowan recognizes that Thalia and the construct here can incur a major amount of damage against the Abyss, but even his contingent here has enough in numbers and rank that they can overwhelm and kill her and her construct. Thalia, on the other hand, claims that she’s holding the construct back to prevent unnecessary further blood.”
“They’re not immediately attacking? That’s surprisingly civil of them.”
“The human is stopping them. Humans, I should say, now that they’ve noticed we’re here,” Caiyeri filled in. “Even if one of them can win, it’s obvious to anyone with eyes that they’re relatively evenly matched. If they start attacking each other, then the human hunter will be able to take the sigil.”
Said sigil was a simple medallion just like the one Will had. It laid on a simple raised dais at the center of the room, and it appeared to be the source of the cerulean light within the enchanted cavern.
“So we’re at an impasse then,” Will said. “Except that can’t be true, because there’s no way in hell that those are the only life and abyss elves in the area.”
“Two is not the only group here,” Caiyeri acknowledged. “Though the other strike forces have fallen in part or in whole already.”
“Then I bet both groups are calling in backup,” Will said. “You can do that through the chat window, right?”
“Within a certain range, yes. I agree. They know this as well. Nobody wants to make the first move, including the human.”
“Wasn’t she with the life elf construct at some point?”
“They were working together, yes. Evidently, the construct prioritizes its creator more.”
The author's narrative has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.
“Ouch. Well, I guess we’re stuck in the same situation, huh? If we go for the sigil, we’re going to get absolutely cooked.”
“You’re not wrong about that,” Caiyeri said.
Azure: Yes you are.
The chat message was immediately succeeded by the arrival of a bloodied Azure coming through the enchanted layer that separated the outside from the perfectly dry inside.
This entire time, Azure had carried himself in a cautious way like he’d been waiting for the other shoe to drop. Now, his entire manner had changed. He was the other shoe, and he’d dropped the facade.
“Attention, former employers and abomination experimenter!” Azure shouted, his voice magically intensified by a skill that Pages of the Past told Will was simply named Force Amplification. “And, I suppose, human.”
“Thanks!” Lily called out from the other end of the room. “I appreciate being included!”
“You,” the elf that Caiyeri had identified as Rowan said, pointing a conjured spear at Azure. “When this is done, you will be welcomed back with open arms.”
“And I won’t have arms,” Azure said disdainfully. “Or a functioning mind. Then you’ll reprogram me, send me back to the Zeroes, have them make me a perfect little soldier. Fuck. That.”
“Abyss elf,” Thalia said pleasantly. Her voice was soft and quiet but projected across the entire cavern like she was right next to Will’s ear. “You have a trick. You would not have spoken otherwise.”
“Of course I do,” Azure said, grinning ear to ear. His smile was a sadistic one that wouldn’t have looked out of place on a horror movie slasher.
“Man, why do none of your people smile normally?” Will asked. “Hold on, is that racist? I guess it is, but I’d like to know anyway.”
“I smile normally,” Caiyeri said.
“No you fuckin’ don’t.”
Will: You remember the plan, right?
The message was private, sent to Caiyeri only.
Caiyeri: My memory is better than any living human’s. Don’t be silly.
Several dozen silver-rank auras popped into existence across the cavern, saturating the entire place. A murmur of surprise emerged from every side as they realized that the auras were coming from beneath them.
“Rowan,” Azure said genially. “You know my class. I’m disappointed, really. If you were just a bit more creative, allowed to run free, you could’ve figured it out. But you’re so used to working as a pawn, hmm? You can barely think for yourself.”
“Don’t move,” Rowan growled, clearly restraining himself to keep from violating his own order. “The place is trapped. The entire fucking cave.”
Lily looked down with interest, as if she could see the explosives that Azure had planted if she looked hard enough. It was entirely possible that she could.
“Impressive,” Thalia said gracefully. “These would put a deep dent in even the gestalt.”
“They’ll kill it,” Azure replied, letting out a chuckle. “And you, and everyone here. Now listen carefully, because if you don’t, you’re going to find out whether or not that’s true. All of you are going to stay very, very still until I get the sigil. Then, you will remain like that until I am out of the dungeon, at which point you’ll feel those auras deactivate and you can do whatever you’d like.”
“Azure,” Rowan snarled. “I should’ve known you were going to be a problem.”
“Should’ve, could’ve, would’ve.” Azure dismissed Rowan’s sentence with a wave of his hand. “If you use a skill, you will die. If you attack, you will die. If you so much as take a step towards me, you will die. If you somehow manage to kill me before I react, you will die.”
“Is that true?” one of the other abyssal elves asked.
“He has a passive that allows him to trigger his detonations if he loses consciousness.” Rowan made a face as if he’d just eaten something bitter. “He outplayed us.”
“That goes for you two as well,” Azure said to Will and Caiyeri. “Sorry. Can’t be too careful. Best of luck to you, though! I’ll see you in the tournament if you’re still alive by then.”
“You’d best hurry it up,” Thalia said, her peaceful tone of voice still holding steady. “Others will be closing on our location soon.”
“You seem surprisingly calm,” Azure said, sauntering towards the sigil.
“My quarrel is with the Abyss, and you are not of them anymore,” Thalia said. “I have my sigil already. I will slay you when the time is right.”
“Perfect,” Azure said. “The same to—“
[First Blood] doubled the power of your attack.
Critical hit!
[Quiet Arrow] inflicted a level of [Corruption].
[Quiet Arrow] inflicted a level of [Silenced].
Will’s stealthy shot wasn’t enough to take Azure down in one hit, though it struck true and the abyss elf turned back towards him, shocked.
He had all of a quarter second to admire the pure look of what the fuck on Azure’s face before the explosions began.
#
Azure felt the arrow pierce his heart, and he released his first wave of landmines instantly. He’d been prepared for an attack of some sort, so he started drinking his prepared health potion as soon as he could. His amulet drained the corruption from him, protecting him.
The world around him became fire, smoke, and a dozen esoteric types of magic as every type of explosion under the sun triggered. Most of them were in the outer circle, and they wouldn’t immediately kill all of the silvers; he still needed the remaining explosions to threaten them afterwards, after all, and there was no guarantee he’d be able to take them all out with one large blow.
Smoke covered the room, the screeching sound of the initial explosions temporarily deafening everyone.
That was more than enough to kill any bronze rank a dozen times over. There was no way they were still standing.
Then, out of the smoke, a sword sparking with distorted electricity slashed into Azure.
You have been afflicted with a level of [Corruption].
You have been afflicted with a level of [Charged].
From the black smoke, a figure emerged. No—two of them. Two bronze-rank auras controlled so tightly that one might think they were unformed rank at first glance.
William Li-Brown. Caiyeri Seven. Both duelists that Azure had no further abilities prepared for.
“How?” Azure whispered.
Will paused, sword pointed directly at Azure’s heart. He tilted his head.
“Do you think I’m a fucking idiot?”
#
For the first time, Will showed Azure his stat sheet. He had to admit that the fall from cocksure, arrogant young master to the fear that spread across the elf’s face when he read the words Class: Reaper was far more satisfying than it should have been.
Skill: [Pages of the Past]
- Spell (divination).
- Cost: moderate mana.
- Cooldown: 6 seconds.
Bronze
Allows you to detect magical effects that were used in your immediate surroundings in the last 24 hours. If the rank of the effect is at or below the rank of this skill, you can also glean significant insight into what the effect is.
[Traces of the Past] - Also allows you to detect footsteps and read conversations made in the area during the same time window.
Over the last week, every time it was Azure’s turn to keep watch over them, he laid his landmines down, he had disappeared. Neither Will nor Caiyeri had noticed at first, but when he’d happened to activate Pages of the Past and one point, he’d realized that the trail Azure left was fresh.
He and Caiyeri had gone off to explore this, because there was no good reason for him to abandon his post. Through their exploration, they’d found this particular room, which hadn’t seemed like anything special at the time—except that every time Azure was asleep and they visited it, Pages of the Past gave Will evidence that Azure had planted another silver-rank landmine skill.
Rather than turn on Azure immediately, Will had figured he would wait to see what it would end up being used for and disarm that plan if it happened to be one that worked against him.
Pages of the Past had proven to be worth its weight in gold, giving him enough details about the skills he saw to understand how to counter them.
As it turned out, Azure’s landmines had a fuse and explosive component, both of them magical and both counting as weapons for the purpose of Will’s Weapons Free. Importantly, even though he couldn’t replicate the effects of the skill or understand exactly what the magical circuits in the skill did, he could understand how to break it.
It wouldn’t have done to break every mine. That would have been too obvious.
But he’d destroyed enough of them to create gaps in the coverage. Enough for Will to teleport to in case they started going off.
And teleport to them he had. In combination with his silver-rank ring of adaptive shielding and Caiyeri’s Emergency Shield, they’d been more than capable of tanking the edge effects of the explosions that they definitely couldn’t have survived head-on.
Even then, these were silver-rank bombs. Caiyeri had armor to clear the rest, but Will? Escape Artist made the lack of armor a necessity.
Enter Favored Element. For the last three days, Will had gone through the motions of the ritual, ostensibly picking water. Although he wasn’t skilled enough to use the skill for a broader category like “explosions,” he had been able to render himself immune to force damage, which the bulk of the landmines inflicted.
Preparation had paid off. They had both survived without a scratch.
Azure was not a fighter. Both Will and Caiyeri knew this.
“To be honest,” Will said, “I thought you’d be smarter.”
The thought of escape wasn’t even in Azure’s mind right now. Will’s aura control had grown stronger, in part thanks to this traitor, and the sigil had an exponential effect on that power.
Though Will’s slayer sword was still bronze rank, it had entered the final stretch of the rank. Even as a bronze using a bronze weapon, Will had advantages beyond what the system showed.
Azure’s armor was meant to let him move quickly and stealthily, not to protect against weapons. Will’s blade slid through it like a knife through hot butter.
[Mark for Death] increased the power of your attack.
[Slayer Sword] inflicted a level of [Corruption].
[Slayer Sword] inflicted a level of [Charged].
The sword held fourteen charges, which did make it more difficult to charge it all up, but the sword grew more effective with every hit, which generated another charge.
He slashed over and over, Azure’s silver-rank physical attributes protecting him from the worst of it.
But Azure couldn’t fight back.
“This is going to end you,” the elf huffed desperately, his leathers soaked through with blood. “The detonation will kill everyone here.”
Will tilted his head, spreading his aura senses out.
“I’m not the only one making a move, it seems,” he said. “Caiyeri.”
“On it,” Caiyeri said, training her seven-shooter on Azure.
Will teleported instead of sprinting, finding himself thirty feet closer to the center. Wind Walker and Escape Artist did the rest, moving him faster on his feet than anyone else could even at silver rank.
The sigil’s aura reminded him of the Hunger’s after it had fallen off Axl’s body, though it was less overbearing. Though the power was still clearly divine, it seemed less angry and more arrogant somehow, as if it knew its place was so high above Will’s that it wouldn’t even bother meeting him face to face.
Caiyeri: I broke his amulet. He’s going to die very soon. Those bombs are going to go off. We need to move.
Will took a deep breath, sensing the charging elves, human, and messed-up monstrosity through the smoke.
Here goes nothing.
He took the sigil, and magic started coursing through his veins like springwater. It was, all things considered, a much more pleasant experience than anything the Hunger had given him.
In an instant, a million images flashed before his eyes. A prompt appeared
Become a champion of [Elys, Lady of the Lake]? [YES / YES]
A timer started ticking down on the right. Fifteen seconds.
Shit.
Unlike the Hunger’s quest, this one didn’t give him any requirements, but it also wasn’t letting him select no. Will didn’t know if he liked that.
But like always, there was a more immediate concern.
Will sprinted, then teleported again.
Azure was fading out of consciousness. His face was bloodied, his eyes glazed over.
“Shit,” Will said.
“Shit indeed,” Caiyeri agreed, hefting Azure by one leg. “Help me.”
Will took the other leg. “Yeah, let’s get the hell out of here.”
Halfway to the exit, all hell broke loose.
You have defeated [Azure Four].
Level up!
Quest complete: Sigil-holder
You have become a god’s champion. You are the 1494th User to become a champion this cycle.
Reward: You’re about to find out.
You have become a champion of [Elys, the Lake].
[Sigil Skills] are now available.
[Sigil Skill] unlocked: [Clear Water].
Then, the explosions began.