Chapter 789 - The new guild master of the Primordial Knights (Patreon)

"I know it's you spreading those false rumors about me through Beyond."

"I have no idea what you're talking about. I want a 5 active skills combination token in exchange for the hand."

"No."

"Where is Ruby? I want to negotiate with her."

"The Ruler of Greed won't be present, and neither will the Ruler of Kindness. You’re lucky the Ruler of Wrath didn't show up instead of me. I offer an upper arcane passive and 5 million shards."

"What a joke. Mid pristine passive."

"No way in hell."

"Low pristine passive and 5 million shards."

"No. Did you just use your trait strengthening token to strengthen your eyes to the second stage as we speak?"

"They might be useful soon, so there’s no need to waste time. I can endure this much pain during the negotiations."

"You look like you're about to pass out and die. I bet the pain is more than you expected. That hand you so luckily got was about to kill you and many people in Beyond. You only survived because I stepped in, something you expected your Handler to do. The hand isn't as valuable as the Fragment from last time. Do not expect a similar value."

"Bullshit. For all of that."

"How rude. I offer a 3rd stage trait strengthening token. Plus a million and a half shards for every member of your group other than yourself. Any further offer will not include your people."

"You sneaky little... I want one finger to be cut off the hand and stored by the Ruler of Greed until my group reaches the 13th floor. It gets handed back to me then. Only then do I accept."

The Black Ant hesitates for a moment before saying, "One knuckle of a finger. Then it will be acceptable."

"Deal."

There isn't even a goodbye. I disappear from the space and reappear in my room at the headquarters of the Primordial Knights.

***

POV Talon

It isn’t that often you get to witness the crowning of a new guild master for the most powerful guild of Beyond by a wide margin. And I know the guy. If that doesn’t help my prospects, I don’t know what will. Well, maybe my charm or my handsome face. And my fancy primordial energy, of course. Stellar Wind continues to have a nice ring to it. But being in the position I’m in now, I always knew all my suffering with these lunatics would be rewarded.

The Null King Weslin and holy-fuck-it’s-Morwag-RUN are both already here, as well as all the demons currently with access to the 4th floor and Megacity. I even heard about some coming up from the 5th floor just to witness it.

Nyssa Volare is widely considered one of the most powerful attendees to enter Beyond in the past 1,000 years. After all, she killed a goddamn Champion. Alone. I don’t think there is any more guessing about who is more powerful between her and Lyraen. So, many people are curious about her successor.

The ceremony begins simply.

Drums sound from everywhere in deep vibrations you feel through the entirety of your body. The air shakes, windows rattle, and the drums continue. Beat after beat, slow at first but becoming quicker and louder with each sound. Many of the demons begin to shout in sync with those drums, and they sync their hearts to beat in the same rhythm. Slower at first, but becoming faster.

The entire purpose is to rile up everyone here. To make the hearts of these lunatics beat faster and to awaken that deep-rooted aggression in the heart of every single one of them.

The drumming is near the peak when the hundreds of demons present move to the sides and clear a straight corridor between them. That corridor isn’t very wide, just a half step or a bigger arm's reach is enough to make you touch the demon or person on the opposite side.

Once again, the drumming becomes louder, and I don't know what I hear now, the hearts or the drums. That’s when the doors open and Nyssa’s successor enters and begins to walk through the corridor.

As he does so, all the demons are so close he sometimes touches them with his shoulders, or they reach out to touch him. Every demon standing there has their red eyes wide open and heart beating wildly. I can't help but feel some of that mood, and looking around, all the other nondemon members are the same.

Nathaniel doesn’t seem bothered at all. The sleeve where he currently misses his left arm is empty and hangs along his body as he pushes through the corridor. He ignores the demons so claustrophobically close and the corridor closing behind him. His steps aren’t hurried, but neither are they slow, and unlike the demons, I can’t sense his heartbeat or any primordial energy from him.

Then he reaches the five steps that lead up to the podium and stops in front of them. From behind him, demons push close, and the drums are deafening now.

He takes the first step, and a wave of kinetic energy throws the demons behind him away.

The drums beat, and he takes the second step up, and the air around him shakes. All these beautiful stained glass windows on the buildings around explode. The colorful shards of glass begin to rain down, only to be halted mid-air, and from the fake sky of this floor, light shines down. It sends colorful reflections all over the place and colorful rays as the light passes through the glass and shines on the ground.

Nathaniel takes the third step, and my teeth rattle. Both of his hearts begin to beat in sync with the drums and the other demons. More than anything, it feels like he is teasing them.

He passes the fourth and fifth steps within one heartbeat and, at the top of the podium, he turns.

Everything else falls into shadow, leaving only for his eyes. A raw, unearthly gold flares with the intensity of a dying star, fighting to pierce from behind his pupils, but with his chilling, iron willed composure, he suffocates it, bending it entirely to his whim.

All the drums stop at once, and just the heartbeats of hundreds of hearts fill the place as he waits there for anyone to challenge him. Someone to disagree with his role as the strongest in the guild and, by extension, the new guild master.

A few demons take a step onto the first stair, and then the amount of primordial energy Nathaniel generates increases at a terrifying speed that no one here is able to match. They get suppressed as thermal and kinetic energy seep out from him. A circle made of golden flames forms behind him, its edges shaking as his kinetic energy seeps into the area.

All the demons that took that first step stagger back, but Nathaniel doesn’t stop here. The amount continues to increase, ramping up until it is his heartbeats that drown out everyone else’s.

Even now, his expression doesn’t change, he keeps that same emotionless visage that, in combination with his eyes, makes him seem so exceedingly arrogant. And he challenges everyone to face that arrogance, for them to prove it is misplaced and brittle.

But no one can. Demons stare at him, they sense his challenge and face his will, but no one takes a step.

As quickly as they came, the primordial energies around him disappear, pulled to his body with ease and in amounts that make me shudder. Then, instead of those, his mana begins to rise. It is wild like a torrential sea, unstoppable currents that circle him, moving around and towards the sky and crashing all around him like waves breaking against the rocks.

Not for a moment does it seem like he is out of control as the amount continues to ramp up. It becomes denser and visible to the naked eye. It feels like I could touch it if I stretched out my hand. Like I could smell it.

Nathaniel takes a step and faces both Morwag and Weslin in a clear gesture of challenge, but neither of them accepts it today. They lower their heads slightly in an acknowledgment of the power of someone widely called the Mana Tyrant.

Hundreds of demons follow in the same bow as his eyes sweep over them.

Then, from behind Nathaniel, the vice guild master steps out with unhurried steps, stopping near him and putting a mantle on his shoulders. That mantle is deep red with fur at the top that covers his shoulders. That fur is brown at the top and white below. A ceremonial item belonging to the demons and one of only a very few mid pristine items in Beyond.

Nathaniel reaches out his hand, and the tree that grows from one of the gardens, one that is surrounded by restrictive arrays, begins to shake and shrink. It breaks down into a small piece of crystal that flies from there and merges with the one on the back of his hand.

Standing with the mantle resting on his shoulders, he then waits for exactly ten heartbeats for anyone to challenge him.

No one does.

The new guild master of the Primordial Knights has been officially accepted.

***

POV Nathaniel

I’ve been to the 5th floor of Beyond likely more than any other attendee ever. That sentence itself sounds cool. There is no need to add the reason why I visited it, though lowering my constitution that way might sound badass as well.

As I stand here again, it all begins to feel more real. Our plan is to fight an actual Champion while none of us are close to level 450, meanwhile, the Champion is four question marks, likely level 450 to 599. Actually standing here feels different than just talking about it. Before, it was just a "what if," a sort of game we played.

That reality is further emphasized now by the two places in the explorer rankings taken by Christoph and now Nyssa. What a monster that demoness is.

All of this goes through my mind as the wind pushes against me and I look over the plains of the 5th floor. I don’t think I’ve ever seen this floor as anything other than constantly cloudy, with those clouds hanging high in the fake sky. Like any other floor in Beyond, this one is also just a cave, enormous, but a cave nonetheless, with the sun often replaced by shining crystals on the ceiling.

Here, no one knows what generates the light, as there are plenty of rumors of even S-ranks dying when they flew into those clouds.

Vegetation is sparse, so it is mostly rock, often interwoven with various metals. I think someone said that out of all the Beyond floors, the metals here are the most valuable and highest grade. If you didn’t need to sacrifice 15 stat points or face such dangers, you could earn a lot of shards by mining.

Actually, there is a single tree, the Fragment of the Nameless Tree, that I planted two days ago when we arrived. I’ve been feeding it to make it grow faster. The array I’ve been working on is connected to it, as is my natural connection that allows me to use it as a node.

To finish the image, there are also crystalline structures. Sometimes they are small, up to your knees, other times they are the size of buildings, creating almost a forest. Be it blue, white, or green, there are many of them. None are valuable as material, but they add bits of color to this bleak floor. Though sometimes, as winds pass by these forests, it creates an unsettling sound.

Inside the tent we have set up, I listen to Weslin go over the plan while Morwag just lazily sits nearby. Near him is the low pristine armor he will be using, as well as his Obsidian Spine Chain. Other than that, there are 14 hand-picked A ranks, mostly demons, but there is one lynthari, two velnar, and two humans among them.

Weslin continues to repeat the things most of us already know, but this time, I don’t mind it. Having certain information and a firmly set plan feels freeing.

"From the information we have, the thylarin Champion’s passive detection range is 50 miles for primordial energies and 100 miles for mana. When he actively focuses on detection, that range multiplies by at least five, so not the greatest, but also not that bad. His movement is fast, but that speed is reliant on mana-based body strengthening and a skill reminiscent of [Shadow Step] that allows him to move an unknown maximal distance, however, movement over 10 miles with a single leap has been confirmed. Active skills are all expected to be within the level 80 to 87 range. Confirmed are only three skills that he uses most actively in recorded clashes from previous attempts: [Entity Tracking], [Mana Blast], and [Friction]. Suspected passives are..."

I filter out the rest of the words and, taking a few steps, I exit the tent. Looking into the distance, I detect a presence that let itself be known to me. Using Wraith Dance a few times, I reach the place where a purple crystal pierces the ground at a 45-degree angle, resting against a boulder.

Near that boulder, a lumoran man stands. He has black skin, but those crystalline features that most of their race usually have are almost nowhere to be seen. Only diadem-like protrusions poke out of his skin, creating a circlet around his head with a bigger crystal at the center of his forehead. His right hand is entirely made from transparent white crystal, and within it, his bone is visible as well as the constantly moving mana that shifts there.

"I hope you don’t mind. I just wanted to observe the mark she left on you," the lumoran smiles at me, even as his presence continues to choke me out, not even intentionally from his side.

"And how do you like the mark?" I barely force out of myself.

"It is indeed as ancient and impressive as I have heard," he says with another smile. "While still surprising, it begins to make sense how she was able to kill Master Tyven, even as a mere shadow. But now, good luck on your adventure. I won't stay, I worry my presence might harm you, despite my best efforts to restrain it."

He walks away with an almost playful grace, pausing to glance back one last time. "I considered killing that Champion you’ve been eyeing, but... that would be dreadfully childish of me. Still, I might have provoked it just a touch. If I were you, I’d hurry. It likely knows you’re coming."

A short laugh escapes him, and then the newly crowned Ruler of Envy disappears in a movement I can't follow, continuing his passage through the Beyond floors, a right he gained when he became the Ruler.

Meanwhile, I turn around and burst in as quick a movement as I can back towards the others, hoping it isn't too late. The mana in my crown compresses, all of that massive amount, and turns pitch black as I reach for the arrays spread out and connected to the Mana Tree I planted.