I’m drifting. The base spins slowly in front of me, getting smaller as it moves farther away. Still, I strengthen my sight and look through the glass wall on the side of the base, just in time to see Malika come back to her senses and attack Io, who is desperately searching for someone.
At the last moment, he teleports the demon away, and I see her appear in outer space to my left. She quickly regains her composure, moving back toward the base as attacks from the gilded monsters silently explode around her.
Io doesn’t move and stands there until Tacita appears beside him and strikes at his neck. But a moment before that, before even finding her, he gives up, teleports away on his own, and runs.
Tacita reaches out with her hand, and mana glows around her finger as she touches the space where he stood. A faint trace of mana glows around her eyes before disappearing, and she looks towards something deeper inside the asteroid base.
Then she glances out the window, just once before the air around her flickers, and she disappears, becoming undetectable even to me. If I am right, she intends to hunt Io, who I think had hoped to avoid this. The next time, he won’t be detecting her until he falls down dead, his flawed senses sealing his fate. For the rest of the quest, he will be forced to constantly look over his shoulder and pray she does not find him.
I’ve thought about it before, and yet I find myself turning the same question over in my mind once more. Just how much did Io have to sacrifice in exchange for the ability to teleport people without regard for their defenses, even those as strong as those protecting Tacita and me? Just how many passives, traits, and active skills went into doing this?
Is he regretting it now, since he can only use it on living beings one at a time? Is that why he did what he did, desperate for rewards, and maybe even items to help him get around that weakness?
The asteroid base moves farther away from me, and I watch it as I continue to drift towards the planet.
I allow myself to feel what I imagine I would have felt before the tutorial, and these few short moments before I start using kinetic energy are some of the scariest in my life. Scarier than the phantom goblin hunting me, scarier than hiding from the Veil Guardian, and almost as scary as those twenty-three hours I spent with my face in the dirt after our meeting with Faora and Luan.
A part of me takes it all in. Yet another experience I could’ve never had if not for the tutorial and the system. My body floating in infinite darkness while the asteroid drifts away. Left behind in this nothingness, adrift in the incomprehensible vastness of space.
One of the gilded monsters clinging to the asteroid base fires a wide, thick green laser at me, silent as it speeds through space.
I use kinetic energy to push myself, moving much farther and faster than I thought I would.
Of course. There is no gravity or air resistance to hold me back.
The first few seconds in outer space aren’t quite as bad as I’d expected. I guess even though my constitution can’t really be called impressive, I’m still superhuman after all.
There’s a deep pressure building in my head, like everything inside is trying to push outward. It’s not sharp pain, but it is constant and growing.
My eyes burn. There’s no moisture left, and blinking doesn’t help. I can still see, but it’s harder to focus. The light from the burning planet stabs at the edges of my vision, the glare making everything feel more distant.
My chest is tight, and I can feel the damage spreading. There’s blood in my mouth. Warm at first, then cold.
My movement is slow. Every small motion drags.
My limbs respond, but they feel disconnected, as if they aren’t fully part of me anymore.
I let out all the air I have left and watch it freeze as I do so. More thermal energy moves through my body.
Another projectile passes by me, and I push myself toward the asteroid, gradually adding more and more force. My speed keeps increasing since there’s no resistance, but with so few points of reference, it’s hard to estimate my actual speed.
I twist, I dodge, I disrupt incoming attacks, and keep moving back. Even in the vacuum of space, golden flames dance across my skin.
An [Empyrean Lance] forms over my shoulder, and I gradually feed it more mana.
Even with my healing, my lungs feel like they might rupture. I start feeling lightheaded. My skin feels like it’s starting to swell and potentially burst, and my vision is getting blurry.
A wide-range attack from a huge lizard with a similarly huge golden halo crashes into me, stripping away my skin and pushing me back until I observe it enough to counter it, and pass through.
Another blindingly fast laser attack crushes the arm I lift to protect my face, tearing through the layers of barriers I’ve stacked there.
My lance pierces the barrier surrounding the base and the window with ease, tearing into the defensive mechanisms inside.
I teleport through the [Ley Line] I’ve thrown ahead, and with a few more boosts, I crash through the cracked remains of the windows I destroyed with my lance. The room on the other side is empty, but I see multiple doors leading further inside.
A huge panel starts sliding down from the ceiling like a guillotine to cut off and secure this section of the base, and the lights flicker as the vacuum of space starts pulling at the air inside.
The huge gray lizard with its golden halo follows me inside, breaking what remains of the window as its body forces its way into the room. A mana-based attack fires toward me, and I activate my eyes to read and disrupt it. The monster swirls and rushes toward me, mouth wide open, moving with a speed that feels unnatural for such a massive body.
It slithers under the closing metal panel, and the field around me expands, mimicking one of Lioren’s favourite uses of kinetic energy.
The lizard freezes in place, unable to move, not even to twitch.
I sense it building up a strong mana-based attack, but the metal panel above it comes down and, just like a guillotine, takes off its head.
[You have defeated Gilded Beithir - lvl 365]
[Lvl 326 > Lvl 327]
The door seals shut with a hiss, sealing off the section. The space becomes quiet and still. The sound of the alarm fades, leaving only the flashing white light on the ceiling.
I take a deep breath and remain still. Thermal energy gets to work on healing my wounds, and, just in case, I activate one of Lily’s healing marks.
Then I look down, dust off my clothes, examine the head for a few minutes, and step back into the base, this time alone.
After a few hours, as I’m slowly moving through what looks like a complex of gardens, I climb up and sit on the body of a gray creature I just killed. It looks like a mix between a spider and a giraffe, which is the best way I can describe it. What a creepy thing this is.
Its big halo now floats over my head, and after bridging the connection, I send my message.
(I am still not sure if Io was cooperating with you, or if you just had similar goals.)
(That’s an interesting welcome message.)
(I think we can skip niceties and get straight to the important stuff at this point.)
(Like satisfying your curiosity?)
(Like satisfying my curiosity,) I confirm. (You do your evil monologue, which makes me sit here and listen, giving you time to prepare to kill me.)
(I wonder what you would have thought if that behavior had caused your end. What would’ve been your thoughts in your last moments?)
(A lot of cursing, I would guess.)
(How very human. As for your unfortunate colleague, what can I say? Desperation draws people into desperate acts. Foolish ones. The sort that leads one to try their hand at playing every side at once, and in doing so, ensures that they inevitably stumble.)
(Sounds about right. So he was working with us to use the threat of our presence to shake a better deal out of you, while reducing our numbers to get better rewards, all the while planning to screw you over in the end, finish the quest, and maybe even reduce the numbers further?)
(What a simple and direct way to put it.)
I turn the other way to place the spider-giraffe’s head out of view and face the patch of trees that seems to stretch about half a mile into the distance. Somewhere, I even hear the sound of a waterfall, and note the artificial wind blowing through the area, carrying either the scent from the flowers or from a hidden scent dispenser.
Something activates in the ceiling, and a liquid starts dripping from it.
I push my mind into overdrive and examine it. After confirming it a few times, I stay where I am and make no move to dodge it.
The liquid doesn't turn out to be acid, nor is it poison. It’s just water, artificial rain. Even the scent changes to that of the ground after rain, and the sound of droplets falling on the leaves of the trees fills the room.
My hair gets wet as the rain pours down on me, and I comb it back with my fingers, flicking the water away from my forehead.
(What a dick move,) I send.
With a hidden sense of humor and amusement, the elf answers, (So then, what is your plan, candidate for Greed’s weapon?)
(There are a few, but in the end, it comes down to who ends up stronger, who can improvise better, and who can push themselves further without breaking.)
(I will allow myself to disagree.)
(That’s fine. So your goal is to go to E-3 and collect the Fragment of the First Star in your pristine cage?)
(Indeed.)
(I am a bit confused here. Apparently, the Fragment destroyed an entire planet. But at the same time, it could be held by someone who hadn’t even reached the rank of Champion. Also, there’s the matter of an item at pristine rank, suitable for someone at the level of a weak to average Champion, has no problem trapping said Fragment. Champions usually top out at the level of continental destruction, only growing stronger with the help of items or by sacrificing their lives, while Absolutes are planetary destruction. This Fragment seems to be at the planetary destruction level.)
And the elf who likes to hear his own voice, at least the replica as it is at this level, answers with the same amusement, which implies that he’s looking down on me without seeing me as a valid opponent.
(The more powerful Fragments, such as the Fragment of the First Star, are not as simple as you might believe. Some planets are far more fragile than others, especially those that have never experienced a Pairing. And after burning for centuries, the Fragment on E-3 has weakened, just enough that even a Low Pristine item could contain it.)
(Lies.)
This time, he laughs softly, very shortly, and quietly. (There are other preparations I have made, ones that will aid me in containing it. That, however, is not something you need to hear about. As for the rest...)
The doors behind me open with a hiss.
I comb my hair with my fingers, sweeping it back over my scalp, and turn toward the replica of the last elf, but even now, I do not see his body. Instead, he’s clad in an angular suit, made up of rigid panels of a golden metal that catches the light like a polished suit of armor. The heavy helmet tapers forward into a narrow, slit-like visor, leaving only a thin line for him to see through. Every surface gleams with heat-reflective plating, giving it an uncanny presence.
"I have made my preparations, so there is nothing more to discuss," the somewhat muffled voice says, and the artificial rain stops.