Demonic Devourer ch. 93

Our target location is a small, temporary settlement built around a cave that’s marked with “Root Dungeon System 771 - Potential Value HIGH” in Common. There’s a few other lines of text below that, but I can’t read them.

Well, I assume this was a settlement. It’s in shambles now. The wood-and-leather huts alternate between being on fire, collapsed, or both. The sparse woods around the settlement have largely collapsed, making this place look more like a messy logging expedition than an adventuring site.

There’s a fight ongoing, it looks like. The “twelve casualties” expressed in the request is no longer an accurate estimator. According to Blood Sense, there are a total of a hundred or so people here—largely half-elves—and maybe sixty of those are still alive. A brief assessment reveals that the majority of these people are barely level 100.

The sky serpent, as it turns out, is nearly a hundred feet long and has no limbs. Sierra and I use Personal Telekinesis and Bloodpath, respectively, arriving at the site just in time to watch the cloud-white serpent slither through air like it’s the ground, reaching speeds faster than either of us can achieve.

I Appraise it as the white blur unhinges its jaw and opens its mouth, bisecting three more half-elves.

Name: Foril

Age: 188

Race: Sky Serpent (Tower)

Class: N/A

Level: 244

Last Used Skill: Blitz

Foril has been slowly gathering energy in Root’s Tower for a long, long time. It has no conception of the outside world, but it knows it wants to rule it.

“Shame,” Sierra says as we step towards the destruction. “It’s too fast for me to take from.”

“When it’s dead, it won’t be,” I say.

Somebody screams for help.

“We should probably get going,” Sierra says, offering a hand.

I take it, and we uncloak for the briefest of moments. Sierra uses our bond to guide me through the speed of it.

It doesn’t last long enough for the survivors of the settlement to notice, but the serpent is perceptive enough to detect it. Foril turns in midair, comically fast, and it starts dashing towards us.

This time, it uses more than a skill. I squint, trying to understand what it’s doing, and the world around it starts to turn white.

Ah. A domain. Judging by the increasingly panicked screams of the half-elves scattered throughout the settlement, it hasn’t revealed this yet.

Sierra and I are more than ready for that.

As the domain starts to wash over us, Sierra Manifests her nullspace for a fraction of a second, cancelling the effect entirely, and I follow it up by activating Descent, snatching a chunk of the serpent into my nullspace, where it promptly proceeds to die.

If the UCC is watching, they will almost certainly notice, but our Titan signatures disappear as quickly as they come, and Kirin hasn’t shown his face since Zelin. Nobody watching us here is strong enough to face a Titan and live to tell the tale, so they certainly don’t realize what we are.

The sky serpent’s tail drops to the ground, bereft of the rest of its body. The earth around us has been flattened, leaving a perfect bed for it to hit.

Our objectives complete at the same time, granting us a fair amount of XP.

“I honestly expected more of a fight,” I say.

“It lived in the Tower,” Sierra says, shrugging. “Monsters there tend to… lack some knowledge.”

“Well, that’s that then,” I say.

I begin Devouring the remnants of the body. The experience granted is lessened because of that.

A cacophony of sound in the background catches my ear. I tilt my head.

“Why are you still screaming?” I ask the survivors.

The first quest brings us 1,500 gold, which Sierra says is just about enough to pay a year’s worth of rent for her apartment. We run through one more today, though it takes longer; rather than pure extermination, we follow a mid-Category 1 objective to retrieve a lost magical crystal sphere buried deep within a dungeon. The posting says that it has some significance to higher ups in the Blossom Empire, but I really don’t care.

What I do care about is the fact that we’re not able to abuse our Titan powers while within the dungeon. The objective calls for “minimal destruction” because this dungeon system is supposedly critical to Blossom infrastructure, and our nullspaces are… not minimal. In any sense of the term. Minimal survival, maybe.

It takes us a few hours, but we do find it in the end with heavy usage of Locate, some thousand feet beneath the surface. None of the monsters that prowl the lower levels of the dungeon pose any threat to us.

By the time we get back to claim our reward—1,000 gold, this time—the sun has begun dipping under the horizon, casting the iridescent city in pink light. The city of false flowers looks as if it’s burning.

Adrian is at the hub when we return, noticeably chagrined.

“I’m going to do a tower run or two,” he says. “Without the two of you, because as much as I hate to admit it, you’re just too much stronger than I am. One of my old contacts is willing to add me to their group. It’ll be a few days each time, but I’m not going to go too far. I assume we’re going to settle here for a while?”

That word—settle—sits oddly in my chest. On the one hand, it runs antithetical to a part of me that insists that I never stop moving. It’s the same part that wants me to continue being the unforgivable monster, leaving Root in the flames that I’ve inflicted upon every civilized place I’ve been in.

On the other, I can still progress here. I am technically still Category 1, though my true power clearly reflects otherwise, and killing monsters here does give me sizable progress.

More importantly, I have someone to stay for.

“We are,” Sierra says. “At least until the next crisis.”

I shrug. “So we are.”

The three of us make our way to Sierra’s apartment from there. It’s about thrice the size of the inn’s room we shared in Ravendale, which is more than enough for me.

Sierra and I take turns showering, and Adrian cleans himself by walking through a giant sphere of his own water.

“You better not drop that,” Sierra calls to him. Adrian says something in response, but he’s still in the water, so all we hear is gurgling.

By the time Sierra and I change out of our dirty, bloodstained clothes--which I have to borrow from her again, taking from her Personal Space—the sun is more than halfway set.

“Now, then,” Sierra says. “We need to go shopping. We can hit the city market.”

“Oh, shit, yeah,” Adrian jumps in. “I need a better sword. This one was great for the Crowned Islands, but it’s got nothing better than a durability enchantment on it.”

I smile, remembering Sierra’s promise to me. Back then, she’d pointed out how Adrian didn’t really do anything but drink, smoke, and gamble. Something’s changed in that man. There’s a new life in his eyes, a drive that’s been sparking since he reached Category 2 early.

“I’ve never been shopping,” I say. “You’ll have to show me around.”

The “city market,” as it turns out, is a sprawling complex that takes up nearly the entirety of the sixth circle. As night falls, the entire circle ignites with lights both electrical and magical, scintillating in an entirely different color scheme from the day. Each of the many, many buildings packed into the streets offers a service or sale of some kind. Every ware under the sun is being peddled here.

Adrian stops at a stout three-story building with Arlan’s Ascetic Armory printed in massive metal letters on it.

“Magical swords in here,” he says, indicating the building. Adrian has 500 gold of his own, acquired from what he tells us was a bounty on a Category 1 creature hiding in the city sewers. “This is my stop.”

We wave him goodbye, and Sierra leads me through the streets. There’s a lot of people out even though it’s past night, running the gamut from Category 0 children to wizened elders at the peak of Category 2. Unlike Ravendale, the people here tend to have pointed ears and fangs; it really is majority elf offspring here.

I assess each and every person we pass on instinct, determining whether I could take them in a fight (yes) and if they would offer me anything useful upon death (other than XP, probably not).

Sierra notices at some point, and she tugs me closer, wrapping an arm around my waist and leaning into me.

“You’re safe here,” she says. “You’re safe anywhere on this continent. We’re safe.”

She’s not wrong, and I know that. The majority of this continent is capped to Category 2 at the maximum, and though both of us are at or underneath that cap, our actualized power far outstrips that.

Nobody can stop us.

I’m almost tempted to see someone try.

“Come,” she says, bringing me into a store that I barely catch the name of. “This is one of my favorites.”

The Discerning Lady’s Outfitter. I’m not sure what to expect after seeing the stylized title outside, but what I end up seeing is… well, I don’t have expectations, so it’s not in line with those, but I quickly understand why Sierra favors it.

It’s split into three floors labeled Weapons, Clothing, and Accessories, and the inside looks like a castle. At least, it looks like my amalgam’s impression of a castle. Any real castles I may have been in have never survived long enough for me to get a good visual of.

“We’re not going to be going all out in every fight, and I assume you do want to continue enhancing your less explosive skills,” Sierra says, pointing at a rack of knives. “Would you like to purchase some?”

I have never nodded so quickly.

At this stage in my advancement, I can create knives made of blood or soul energy with relative ease; what I can’t do is apply other magical effects to them, so that’s what I set out looking for. Knives aren’t the only weapons offered here, either—there is a reasonable selection of small firearms, though nothing large like the UCC uses.

Sierra helps me, though she insists on having me hold up every weapon to my eyes.

“I don’t get what the point of having a weapon aesthetically match me is,” I say. “Are my enemies going to care that my outfit is coherent when they’re bleeding to death?”

“No, but I care.” Sierra sniffs. “You should, too.”

She seems to be having fun sorting through the various items, and there’s something about her mood that’s infectious.

We—and by we, I mean Sierra—end up deciding on a reddish-purple knife, one of the highest end blades we can get without burning all of our money. It costs us 500 gold, but the effect is quite nice.

Sunset Dagger

Category: 2

Tier: Bronze

Charges: 0/???

This item’s tier scales with its charges. A Sunset Dagger can be charged in two ways.

1. Absorbing the last rays of sunlight at dusk.

2. Absorbing blood from a creature that it has dealt a killing blow to.

The number of charges gained depends on the sunset.

Charges can be expended to activate one of the following skills at the associated tier:

> Sunset

Greatly enhances blade’s piercing damage and imbues it with light or darkness magic, depending on which one a target is more vulnerable to.

> Rejuvenating Dawn

Heals every target within a certain radius of the caster.

> Shadow Step

Step from shadow to shadow. Range and speed depends on tier.

> Sun Step

Step from light to light. Range and speed depends on tier.

It’s similar to my Soulshard Rifle, though it’s much more versatile. It’ll be a valuable tool if I’m in a situation where I lack the magic reserves to use Descent or Manifest.

“It brings out your eyes,” Sierra insists. I’m not sure I believe her, but she swears she’ll pair it with “something pretty.”

Sierra buys herself a jet-black six-shot revolver, also for 500 gold.

Wild Magic Revolver

Category: 1

Tier: Diamond

Charges: 6/6

Regains one charge every 9 hours. Firing a bullet from this activates a random skill at a random level. Applying magic to the bullets influences the type of skill used. There is a 5% chance that any given bullet will activate a special skill. There is a 0.01% chance that any given bullet will activate a domain.

It’s not actually that useful, but she looks happy to have it, and I have to admit that the seemingly-odd combination of her staff and the new revolver is aesthetically pleasing.

“There’s no concern in selling weapons in this facility?” I ask Sierra, flipping the knife around in my hand. I haven’t trained Knifefighting in a while, but it did advance to Gold tier during the series of massive powerups I received.

“Nope,” she says, shaking her head. “Any building that can stay in business for longer than a quarter year gets integrated into the elven security system. Spill a drop of blood here and you’ll have half the city’s response force on your hands in moments.”

“Sounds like a lot of cheap experience,” I say.

She laughs. “Come with me. Let’s get you an actual wardrobe.”

Root - 12th circle

Kirin stumbles into existence with the Parting Gift in one hand and the Angel’s Vengeance in the other. The items vibrate in his hands, threatening to detonate from pure power overload. Though his mind is hazy, he recognizes enough to know that he can’t have these out for long. He stows the midnight-black dagger and the angel’s wing into Hammerspace immediately, feeling out the area around him. Category 3 and 4 weapons can and will experience backlash if used for too long, and he’d rather not nuke another city. Not on accident, at least.

This is a Category 2 area. Judging by the designs, one of the Blossom Empire’s capitals. Kirin was planning to visit the empire later during his vacation, but he supposes he’s here now. The heightened sense of awareness he’s learned to hone over his century of life is completely unnecessary to tell him that this is not, in fact, part of his vacation plans.

He frowns, furrowing his brow. The fog in his mind is clearing, but the situation isn’t getting much more transparent. There’s a gap in his memories.

The last accurate memory he can be reasonably sure of is real is finding and locating Clearwater’s signature while searching for Sierra Jade, one of the charges he was supposed to be observing. Given the vast variety of attempts on Clearwater’s life that had failed, he decided to try a high-power obliterating blow to conceptually sever her from existence. A three-weapon attack—the last charge of the Tracker’s Fast-Travel Ring, the complete targeted devastation of the Angel’s Vengeance, and the guarantee of death from the Parting Gift.

Clearly, that failed.

Afterwards, there was magic, and there was darkness. Kirin can almost remember words, phrases tickling his mind at the very edge of his perception, but they slip away like sand through his fingers.

All except one. Callen. Where did that come from?

The name slips his mind as quickly as it comes. There’s something important there, he’s sure, but casting his restorative spells… there’s nothing.

What is he trying to do, again?

He shakes his head. Clearwater has escaped, but that only marks this as the latest in a long, long series of failed containment attempts on the woman. She disappears off the face of the planet each time one of these happens. It’s on record, again and again. Kirin makes a mental note to add this to her file. The Coalition is coming up on a hundred of these incidents.

But before he does that, he still has a job to do.

Why he came out in Blossom, he doesn’t know, but he does catch the explosive flash of a Titan’s signature as he takes stock of the situation. A very familiar Titan signature, alongside one entirely new.

Curiously, no Coalition alert goes off. Kirin knows that there are other operators in this empire. Are they dead, or did they simply not notice?

Well, even if the signature only lasted for that brief moment, his target is alive. He has someone to track down.

Kirin holds out a hand, willing a random Category 2 weapon into his hand with Lucky Chance.

An unbalanced double-bladed sword appears.

Misfortune’s Blade. He wonders if that’s a sign.

“No point in worrying, Kirin,” he mutters, setting off.

He hopes he doesn’t have to destroy this city, too.

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Author's note: They get another peaceful chapter! Let's see how long that lasts...