August Intruder- Chapter 202- Still Dying (Patreon)

Dorthna of the beginning.

Melmarc had never heard anyone refer to Uncle Dorthna with that title. A man powerful enough to draw him into a separated space—which could very easily just be his mind—was here asking about Uncle Dorthna. Melmarc couldn’t really say that it surprised him.

How did he know Uncle Dorthna? That was not a difficult question. The answer was also a very simple one. It rested on the tip of his tongue, but Melmarc hesitated.

He was dying in a portal, which meant that the man standing in front of him wasn’t human.

Actually, that was a misconception.

Veebee had taken him to a world similar to his but different before. Jabari was human, but not from his world. From a different world, powerful enough that he moved through worlds.

What was it that Uncle Dorthna had said about those beyond the world?

They were powerful, amazingly so.

In their presence, the strongest Delver on earth was nothing more than a child.

To an ant, even a dying dragon is still a dragon. Uncle Dorthna had said something along those lines.

Melmarc looked at Jabari, watched him. His legs were still numb, his body slightly stiff, but his attention was still active, and he fastened it on the man.

Jabari was tall, maybe a little taller than Uncle Dorthna. That meant that he was shorter than Melmarc. He had a simple build, average, if the priestly cassock he was wearing was not deceiving. His grey eyes were unmoving, uncaring. Even as he spoke his expression never shifted. It was simply there, precise, lacking of interest.

It was that calm casual existence of power.

That answered that. Melmarc could definitely not lie to the man in front of him. He was not scared of him, though. There were a lot of people out in the world that were scared of powerful people. Knowing Uncle Dorthna, however, made it difficult to be scared of the powerful simply because it was powerful.

It was much like dog owners against those who did not own dogs. If you owned a big dog long enough, you developed a familiarity that made you unable to fear big dogs. Not even the ones that you did not know. However, should a big dog you did not know begin to show signs of aggression, you definitely developed some level of caution.

The man in front of him did not show any signs of aggression. In fact, he did not show any signs of anything.

Melmarc came to his conclusion once more. The truth was the better option.

“He’s my uncle,” he answered.

“Uncle. I see.” Jabari turned and pulled a very long sword out of thin air. “Interesting.”

Melmarc broke out in a cold sweat. The weapon was clearly longer than six feet from blade to hilt, curved like a katana. But it was no katana. The name of the weapon came to Melmarc easily.

An Odachi. He had watched enough samurai movies to know the name. He moved a step back, his mind commanding a body that could not obey.

Melmarc remained in place, on his knees.

“Don’t kill me.” The words came out of him, sounding odd in his ears. Despite his fear, there was no tone of submission.

The man ignored him and slipped the end of the Odachi’s blade into the ground where itt remained. A massive sword waiting to be drawn. A sword in white.

Once that was done, Jabari looked at him. “Commanding. Declaring. Most people say ‘please, don’t kill me.’ Others ask if they are about to be killed. You.” He took one step forward and was suddenly standing in front of Melmarc. “You command me not to kill you. You declare it.” He tilted his head to the side. A thoughtful action. An expressionless face. “Is this the famous arrogance of the [August Intruder] taking shape?” He squinted. “I raised one of you once.”

“What became of them?”

“She,” Jabari said as if correcting his pronoun even if it was not wrong. “She ruled and died to a man with a mana heart.”

Melmarc searched the man’s eyes and was not sure what to say to that. Somehow it sounded as if the man had given a sad story.

“I am sorry for your loss.” It came out as more of a confused consolation than a genuine one.

Jabari shook his head. “Don’t be.” He turned around, took a step and was suddenly standing beside the Odachi. “Her death was preordained. I raised her so that her life would make an impact.” He looked at him, a hand on the hilt of the Odachi. “Everyone dies, child, at some point or another.”

He moved his two hands to each side of his hips and drew another sword out of thin air. Two, to be precise. There was something odd about each weapon.

Something empty, desolate. He could feel them. The weapons were alive, living without living. It was terrifying to think of, to look at.

Melmarc’s eyes widened in shock at them, the thought of them. The very existence of them. They felt very wrong. Like hollow shells with no fillings inside. Empty but unfillable. How could something be empty yet nothing be able to enter them. It swore to ruin his mind.

What Jabari had brought out were not swords, not by any right of the word. They were black, almost as much as the man’s cassock. and massive, as wide as a grown man’s two hands placed side by side. Their lengths were no longer than short swords, maybe even shorter. If he was to go for accuracy, he would say they were overgrown daggers, slightly longer than they had any right to be. But what was truly terrifying about them was their thickness. With sharp edges and a tip that came to a fine point they held the girth of three swords.

They were monstrosities.

The one in his left hand bore a series of intricate veins spreading all over it the color of maroon. The other looked like the surface of one of the trees around them, rough. And when he twirled them, the one in his left hand left a trail of red streaks in its wake.

Melmarc’s interface came alive.

[Optimum Existence 46.3%]

[Optimum Existence 46.4%]

[Optimum Existence 48.1%]

Jabari turned and looked at him. “48.1%.” He looked at the swords he held. “The emptiness, I guess. They are almost fitting.” He returned his attention to the swords. “It is good to know that you can still grow even now. The first [Namer] must be proud.”

He nodded once.

“This,” he held up the sword in his left hand with its red veins, “is Dainik. And this,” he held up the other, “is Varmei.”

Melmarc had heard of [Crafter]s creating powerful things. He wondered if these weapons were truly powerful. After all, he felt nothing but emptiness from them. The overwhelming sensation of them was not in their strength but in the wrongness of them.

It was like looking and knowing that you were staring at a real weapon, yet it was nothing but a dud to his senses. Like picking up a cup of water that had no weight or bathing and not feeling the water.

It was wrong.

“Did you…” he hesitated. “Did you make them yourself?”

“Close,” Jabari answered, face blank, uncaring. “I only helped. These are actually the famous soulsmiths Dairnk and Varmei.”

Melmarc had no idea what a soulsmith was. But the word smith in it made him think of crafting, like blacksmiths or gunsmiths.

Had he just said that the weapons were people? People that crafted… souls?

“They were soulsmiths of questionably pure cores,” he went on, unbothered by the fact that Melmarc had no idea what he was talking about. “And these were their last works. They gave their very beings to the creation of these weapons. They entrusted its finishing to me before their passing.”

“You put them into their swords,” Melmarc realized. “You killed them.”

“They had a wish. I made it come true.” Jabari shrugged.

Melmarc had no idea why the man was telling him what he was telling him. He had no idea the purpose of this conversation. Still, he latched onto it, giving it his undivided attention. Why? Because the alternative was to return to his pain.

He did not want to do that.

“What is important,” Jabari continued, “is that they are not desolate as your optimum existence seems to think.”

This was definitely not what Melmarc needed right now—another being outside of Uncle Dorthna that could read his interface.

Just how many such people existed outside his world. He buried that worry, hoping it did not show on his face.

“Then what are they?” Melmarc asked.

“Empty,” Jabari answered.

That made a lot of sense, which was funny because it did not make sense. “Huh?”

“It’s a concept you are too young and not powerful enough to understand. All you need to know is that it is the final form of desolation, and that Dainik repels mana of any kind.”

“And Varmei?”

“Varmei feeds on mana of every kind.”

It seemed like he wasn’t going to die. At least the man wasn’t going to kill him. Then what did this mean? Was he about to offer him the weapons? Just when Melmarc had been contemplating that he needed weapons if he was going to keep being summoned to fight against monsters?

It would solve that problem when going into Portals when he became a Delver, but what about being summoned randomly like he had been? Would he have to keep a weapon on him at all times?

“Are you making me an offer?” he asked before he could stop himself.

The man paused, studied him, then answered.

“No.”

Then what had the entire presentation been about? Was he just showing off his cool weapons?

“Seeing as you have given hope to ???? something that even I could not do, I will offer you some knowledge.” The man allowed both shortswords to hang in the air. “I have good news and bad news for you.”

Melmarc wasn’t sure how he felt about this. It was not everyday a stranger took you to a strange place that you didn’t understand, showed off his many weapons, asked of your uncle and then offered you good and bad news.

“But first, tell me,” Jabari continued, “what do you know about the [Namer]?”

Melmarc wracked his brain. He didn’t know much about the class except the basic things. So he told him what he knew.

“They are a class of identifiers,” he said. “If something has a name, no matter how hidden, they can find out what it is. It’s been said that they read the person’s… being. If that makes any sense.”

Jabari shook his head. “Not the class, the title.”

“Oh.” Melmarc didn’t have to think again. “I didn’t know that it had a title.”

“I see. Then I shall give you your news—”

“Do I get to—”

“—in the many futures,” Jabari was saying, without missing a beat. “There are nexus points, hotspots. Futures that are inevitable. A few people tend to have the one, and there are scarcely any variables that can affect them. You have countless futures.

“There are millions of futures where you die in millions of ways. Old age is one of them. Betrayal is another. Sacrifice is also one. You are killed by a god in a few and by a king in another. There are multiple where you are killed by a [Creator]. There are a few where you die during this conversation and others where you die after it.”

He paused here, as if he had done something out of character, like an introvert who had spoken too much.

Melmarc looked at him, expectantly, waiting for him to finish. It took a while before he said anything else.

“That is all on that matter.”

Melmarc frowned, still on his knees. “That is all?”

“You have received your good news and your bad news.”

“That there are countless futures?”

Jabari looked at him. Then he made a face. The expression was so false that Melmarc did not know how to react to it. It was very obviously the man copying something he had seen. Melmarc got the picture, though.

Jabari thought he was dense.

“I considered giving you a gift, but I have changed my mind,” he said. “You think too much, you are too curious. You remind me of a boy I met in a world much unlike yours. Not the brightest, but he knew how to struggle through whatever hardship I threw at him. For stumbling into me, I was going to give to you the gift of the Lucky One.”

“And what did the boy get?”

“The gift of The Struggling One. But we digress.” He tapped a finger against his thigh. “I was going to gift you, but you are not so lucky. As I do not see the need to save you, luck is not on your side.”

Melmarc was still trying to figure out what the good news and bad news were in the man’s earlier statements. Was it because he knew the possibilities of his death? Because he knew he could be betrayed, was he supposed to be careful of who he kept around him?

He was going to be killed by a king. Was that an actual king or a [Demon King]? He hoped that it was not a [Demon King]. There was also the god part, but Jabari said by a god not by god.

What could he possibly have done to gain the ire of an actual god?

His pain was subsiding now, regressing until it was deeper inside of him, hiding away from his thoughts, it seemed.

So, what was the part about him not having a nexus point? Melmarc wondered, still trying to figure his news out.Was it so out of place to not have a point in the future that was unshakeable; a point that would never change no matter what? Melmarc did not like the idea of a future that could not change.

He was not a fan of destiny, so he guessed he liked that he did not have one. It meant that relatively speaking, his destiny was in his hands.

He would like to keep it there.

“You are slow and wasting my time,” Jabari said, his voice cutting through Melmarc’s thoughts. “I will break it down for you, then I will leave you to your fate.”

Melmarc wanted to argue that he was sure he could figure it out by himself, but he did not. There was something in the man’s bland tone that said it was not a negotiation. He was telling him what was going to happen.

So, he waited, while the pain continued to slowly slither its way deeper into his mind.

“The good news is that even in this moment, you have millions of potential futures,” Jabari explained as if he was pointing at a color and naming it. “Millions of ways in which you die. It means that there is no certainty that you are to die today. If you fight hard enough, like you already are, you could possibly survive.”

That was definitely good news.

“And the bad news?”

“You have no nexus point. You have no assurance of a length of life you can practically work towards. Your future is ever changing. You could live today and die tomorrow.”

“That is grim.”

And it was. It gave Melmarc hope and took it right away. He could very well die from his injuries when he returned home.

“It is.”

Both words were a weight on Melmarc’s mind. At first, he thought they carried power with them, until he realized what was actually happening.

His mouth fell open in a soundless scream as everything returned all at once.

Melmarc was still dying.

…

Something had happened. Veebee had no idea what it was.

Jabari bent down and slipped his hand into the pocket of Melmarc’s pants and pulled out a device. It was chiming, ringing.

Veebee had seen a lot of people from Melmarc’s world with such a device. He had never seen it ring before, though.

Returning to his full height, he studied the ringing phone, touched the screen, and put it to his ear as if he had been using such a device for forever.

Then he spoke.

“Hello, brother.”