SB: Chapter 266 – Interlude 35 (Patreon)

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Legend Xanatos

“What did you do Justin?” I asked myself as I felt the experience come in for the skill Ritualism. A lot of experience. Even I had never gotten as much experience in that skill all at once despite everything I had done over the centuries.

The fact that Justin was still alive was a miracle. The mad lad might be trying to scare me by threatening to pull me in through the curse skill. He was an idiot if he thought I would succumb so easily to such fear. A ritual that large, would shatter a nation. I closed my eyes and focused on a Tier 4 divination skill called Thousand Meter Observation a Tier 4 support skill, Skill Projection and the location of Justin using the curse skill I had placed on him.

Normally I wouldn’t bother with something like this. It left me exposed, but I was a bit too curious about what had just happened. My one true weakness, wanting to know how something worked and then breaking it apart.

“Oh, that old Eldarin Soul Forge,” I commented to myself. Justin appeared to have used some kind of ritual inside the Soul Forge. I had been there at the end myself. The last Tier 5 item crafted by the complex, The Lost Blade. Well not crafted, just reforged. It was already powerful, it just needed something extra.

I had gotten my start as a soul mage so long ago under the tutelage of my master. A shame what Elena had done to him. Also, a shame about the Soul Forge. I had considered it a personal hideout of mine, but no matter. I would consider it a gift to Justin for all the amazing experience he was giving me.

That was when I felt the weight of a heavier gaze than mine. It was the Seraphim, but surprisingly they weren’t acting. Either against Justin or the massive explosion. Now that was interesting, what exactly was going on?

Hmm, if I wanted to see into the past I would have to be there. I considered traveling all the way there, but the past was the past. The real reward came from the future. I cut off my skills and then opened my eyes.

The demon was silently screaming on the table in front of me. “Oh, I just feel…so excited!” I shivered with joy at the mass destruction and what I was doing. I put both of my hands on the demon’s head. “Suffer.”

As I used the skill, I pushed my thumbs into its eyes. I was trying to mentally break the monster, but it was surprisingly resilient, even to my most tender of mercies. It was trying to resist, which was cute. “Suffer.”

While it had a brain, its soul resided in the monster core. As long as the core didn’t break, it would be fine. But the demon had a physical body and could think like a human. That was what the green soul fruit had done to it, forced it into a humanoid form from its previous form.

The war beasts that had been created from monsters in the past had been a failure, but I had broken out the old methods just for this project. My control was embedded deeply into the monster’s soul and core. Unless it was killed beyond all saving, it would never escape my grasp. I might be eccentric, but I wasn’t stupid. “Suffer!”

It really was being stubborn. Just let me play with your Mana, mind, body, and soul like the putty it was. Perhaps the brain was the wrong direction. If it inherited the mindset and stubbornness of a human, then perhaps a slightly lower direction. I pulled my thumbs out of its eye sockets and then turned, placing my hands on a lower region of the monster.

“Suffer!” It tried to thrash about and scream, but there was no chance of escape. “Just submit to me. You are already my slave in body, but you don’t need your mind. I can do this for years.” I really didn’t want to, but nothing had ever failed to break under my care. I wasn’t about to let my perfect streak of torture be ruined by this monster.

That was the problem with picking something that was already so strong. But if I was going to go through with this project I didn’t want something that was weak. I also didn’t think the first major stumbling block would be my torture skills to break its mind. Even at my age, it was always interesting to learn something unexpected.

Now if I had the Dark Library, then I could do far worse. But I needed to create a proxy to divert divination and other annoying skills while I went to the one place it could be hiding and taught those arrogant legends at the Last Bastion a lesson.

“Now, you need to really stop being so stubborn. Suffer!” It was going to take a long time to break this monster, but all things broke in time. What I wouldn’t give to have a Seraphim under my tender mercies to see how far I could push them.

Perhaps I would make another contribution to the Dark Library once I found it. A book called The Art Of Suffering would be quite impactful. Made from the skin and blood of legends and cursed through a ritual. While the knowledge in the book would be real, a small insidious curse to slowly torture the reader. It would be hard to make a Tier 0 skill that caused suffering, but I was willing to make the effort.

It was mostly pointless for my greater goals to do something like that, but it would be amusing and a learning experience. That was what life was about, learning and growing as a thinking being. Also suffering, couldn’t forget the suffering of course.

The Demon Malphas

I knew that the human that had escaped with my prize was responsible for the huge explosion and burst of Mana. I rushed across the frozen landscape, staring at the massive ash cloud and pillar of smoke rising in the distance.

While it would probably escape, I was completely incensed by what it had done. I had never been so humiliated by a weaker being before. Well there was another human and a monster I had to run from in the past, they weren’t worth mentioning since they had been stronger.

The trick with the sled had been clever. I had followed it and found nothing. By the time I backtracked to try and find their trail, they had completely vanished and I had no clue which way they had gone.

While other lesser demons might put the explosion to coincidence, there was nothing happening on this continent for a long time and then two events happened close together. There was some kind of relationship between them.

Perhaps the human had been consumed by the explosion, but I doubted it. With its caution and knowledge of runes, it clearly wanted to blow something up. Perhaps the object that had been hidden in the ground.

Hmm, that was a possibility, an annoying one. Then my prize would truly be beyond me. I needed to go faster. I adjusted my perspective and leaned forward as I kept kicking off the snow and ice while streamlining my body as much as possible.

If that human was still there or he had left a trail, I would find and kill him.

That was when I sensed a great danger. I kicked off the ground, twisting my leg, and moving to the side. A beam of golden light plunged into the ice and snow where I would have been. The ground shook and I screamed in pain as the blast wave containing a Seraphim’s Mana struck me.

Not since the last battle of the Great War had I felt something so awful. My body wanted to collapse, but I refused. I forced myself to stand back up even as my body smoked and bled from the shockwave of the attack.

Looking up at the sky, I cursed those beings hidden away in their pocket dimension. What I wouldn’t give for a chance to invade it and consume their flesh and blood. There was no second attack, but it was clear that the Seraphim was intentionally slowing me down.

I wanted to go back to my previous speed, but my body was damaged and it was taking time to recover from the curse damage the Seraphim had left behind. If the Great War started up again, I would be ready to kill those cursed flying bastards no matter what.

Divine Seraphim Glorious Light

“Intrepid Spirit you can finally rest. A worthy sacrifice to change such a fate,” I replied while casting my gaze onto the massive explosion.

I took a moment to gaze into the threads of the future. My gaze shifted to the demon racing across the Great White Waste. If nothing happened the human would eventually die. The demon would eventually catch up with him and there would be nothing he could do.

His greed would be his undoing.

That was an impressive Tier 4 weapon. While still incomparable to the might of the Divine Seraphim, it could present a minor threat. He had also accomplished a great deed. While I could have intervened at any time and would have if that sword had been freed, he had accomplished the task on his own.

Then there was another watcher. Just as I was about to trace the thread of their fate, to see who had such skills, the gaze cut off. My attention turned back to the future.

As Intrepid Spirit would have pointed out, there were no winners in war. But the humans had reached far beyond their station, especially that Eldarin Empire. The High Vostner were much easier to deal with.

I suppose a small bit of assistance wouldn’t be a poor thing. The demons were our natural enemies and the human had killed a great beast as well as two demons. Intrepid Spirit would have looked at me and told me I should do something. Vorunhusk The Soul Shredder was the kind of opponent Hardened Purpose would have enjoyed fighting. He would probably be annoyed at me for interfering without giving him a chance to fight, but he would trust me and obey.

I calmly brought up a single finger and sent a beam of Mana at the demon using my Tier 7 attack spell skill.

“Seraphim Smite.”

The demon would dodge in time, but it would slow down and hesitate. That would create enough time for the human and his companions to escape.

A bit reckless of me, but anyone who completed Intrepid Spirit’s final request deserved a small bit of help in return. I felt my heart tighten as the Great Enemy peered out once more, looking for us Divine Seraphim. Since I hadn’t killed anything or damaged anything important, the threads of fate would be harder to trace back.

In the past I would have never felt its gaze, but I had trained myself to sense such things at a distance. It was why we had gone into seclusion and stayed out of mortal affairs as much as possible.

I withdrew my gaze. No need to take a pointless risk and restart the old conflict. A shame that I couldn’t cast my gaze further forward. Each time brought unprecedented risk as well as knowledge. A rare mistake on my part.

By letting my grip on the world go, we were drawn into less of the world’s conflicts. That was something that had taken far too many lives and time to learn. It wasn’t about stopping everything, but stopping things before they grew beyond our ability to counter. Let the other races fight each other and drag each other back down.

The Divine Seraphim would remain eternal and continue our duty until the end of time itself. I closed my eyes to rest for a while. That Tier 7 skill was incredibly exhausting to use.

Boris

I could only keep screaming in my mind. I wanted to go home and escape this nightmare I was a part of.

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