Demonic Devourer ch. 92

“Wow,” Sierra says, looking over the mercifully-intact Death Prayer in her hands. “Wow.”

She’s recovered from her passed-out-exhausted state remarkably quickly, which was almost certainly because she now has Adapt as a permanent skill.

“I’d hoped that thing would be gone by now,” I say with a grimace, indicating the item. Sapphire’s handiwork lasts, I suppose. “Honestly, it’s a wonder it’s survived so long.”

“I went to some lengths to keep it intact,” Sierra replies. “Wow. I feel great.”

“That tends to happen,” I say. “Do you feel it too?”

I don’t need to specify what it is.

“Yes. I can’t not feel it. Not when I close my eyes, not when I’m thinking about y—anything else. I was passed out on the ground back there, and I could still see the stars.”

The Titan network is with us now, presumably forever and always. Communicating through it to each other is barely possible if we exert a gargantuan amount of effort and energy, and I know for a fact that it’s possible to use it to talk to the other Titans, but I doubt we can do that now.

“I’m getting left behind,” Adrian complains. It’s good-natured, but I can recognize the seed of fear in his voice. “Broken gods, you two are insane.”

“You are too,” Sierra says, patting him gently on the head. “You just need to lose your mind more, and maybe you’ll catch up to the two of us.”

He snorts. “If I catch up to where you’re at now within the decade and I still have a pulse, I’ll be happy.”

Eventually, we rise. The level of devastation we’ve inflicted to this area actually catches Sierra off guard.

“I… did that?” she asks, pointing at the uneven crater we created. The bottom is full of tinted, iridescent sludge, an aftereffect of the latent magic still left after our nullspaces stopped intruding on reality.

“Get used to it,” Adrian jokes. “Soon enough, you won’t be able to do anything less.”

To be honest, there might be a bit of truth to that statement.

“Where to now?” I ask.

After the spree of killings we’ve just completed, I have 1153 kills and only one outstanding objective—the quest to kill my creators, which is still at 1/32. There’s nothing I can actually do to progress that, though, unless I feel like dragging Sierra and Adrian around the world and spamming Locate until I find something.

For the first time in a while, I don’t know where to go next. There’s no immediate, pressing task that will annihilate me if I ignore it. The continued existence of the Death Prayer is concerning, but with enough protection, I can hopefully minimize that issue.

What am I supposed to do?

Adrian speaks up, surprising me. “Whitestar’s fucked. You said you killed their king?”

“The Deadmarked had control of the kingdom, I think. I did kill their leader.”

“Yeah. Nation’s fucked. They were teetering on civil war for a while, and losing two leaders this quickly? They’re going to devolve, and one of the other six of the Seven is going to take advantage of that. I’d bet tourmaline on that.”

“Weren’t you in the Crowned Islands for a year?” I ask. “How do you know this?”

“I have a minor interest in world politics.” The look Sierra gives me after Adrian says that tells me that his interest is anything but minor.

“Adrian and I are going to suffer from a lot of backlash,” Sierra says. “My contract with Aunt Marie is fulfilled, though. It’ll be normal backlash. Nothing as severe as before. So long as nobody—“

“Don’t finish that sentence,” Adrian warns. “Nothing good ever happens when you finish a sentence like that.”

Sierra chuckles, and despite myself, I join in. I… still don’t have the requisite emotions to find things funny, but I like how laughing feels.

“We’ll head to the Blossom Empire,” Sierra says. “With trains, it should be a week or so, maybe? We can work off the backlash then. Once we get there, I’ll show you around. We’ll train. I like Blossom.”

I look at her quizzically.

“Blossom Empire,” Adrian jumps in, sounding vaguely excited. “Elven led. Demographics skew more heavily elven than most on the Nire continent, though of course it’s nothing like the actual elven kingdoms deep south. Thirty percent elves, forty percent mixed, twenty-five percent humans, five percent the rest, give or take. Category 2. There’s been an ongoing political schism amongst the leading parties, and the leading side is talking about invading Tsubera, but—“

“If you let him get started, he’ll go on all day,” Sierra says conspiratorally.

“Hey!”

I smile.

The Blossom Empire. Our next stop.

Adrian summons the last of his water for a Hydrokinesis, warning us that he’ll be slower now that he’s cloaked, and we set off back towards Zelin.

The city is, somewhat predictably, in a state of emergency. I personally obliterated a fair chunk of one district in my pursuit of He Who Watches The Gate, and I did quite a bit of damage getting out of there with Adrian, too.

At least the train lines are still functional.

I wonder what it’ll be like when I walk out of a city and it’s not on fire.s

There is nothing left for us in Whitestar; in fact, there is nothing of note in the Seven Kingdoms. No objectives open themselves, and why should they? The Blossom Empire is only Category 2. Sierra and Adrian are both Category 2, yes, and I’m not even there, but we’ve advanced in different ways.

Still, none of us are keen on locating Sapphire and getting our collective asses kicked.

My Divine Demon class has barely increased in level since the Inome incident, though my Proto-Titan secondary class has. When we leave Zelin, they’re at levels 107 and 29, respectively. As it turns out, leveling up is really hard when barely anyone on this continent can challenge us.

Getting skills is also slow. It’s only as we discuss our future on the train on the second morning (as surreptitiously as possible, of course) that I learn that Category 0 is where new skills are learned the fastest. Now, the names of the game are improvement, evolution, and depth. I can still get new skills; it’s just unlikely I’ll find anything immediately useful at Gold or Diamond tier like I could before.

“It was the same for me,” Sierra says, pausing to eat another spoonful of pudding, freshly ordered from the service cart. She dabs at her mouth with a cloth napkin before continuing. “After I hit level 50 with Red Mage, getting new non-special skills from level-ups slowed down. At level 100, it stopped. At this point, you need to train skills to get them.”

“Yeah, that’s why multi-classing was nice at Cat 1,” Adrian says, sipping at his tea. For once in his life, he isn’t consuming a mind-altering substance, though I think that’s because he got a little too drunk last night. “I’ve got a shitload of new skills from level-ups, though those aren’t comin’ as hot anymore. Reaching saturation.”

“My second class hasn’t been so kind to me about that,” I sigh. “Sierra’d know.”

“It’s my third, actually,” Sierra preens. “I hear some people do that instead of advancing to Category 2—prioritize getting a second Category 1 ascension so that they can get a third class.”

Sierra teaches me cloaking the proper way, and though it’s still not terribly comfortable, it’s also more effective than her pseudo-cloak that she taught me earlier. It means that the three of us can exist on this train without terrifying the other passengers, who are mostly Category 1, with the rare Category 0 tagging along. The former are mostly over the age of forty.

Just like the first time we got on a train together, we have two private rooms; both are bedrooms, but we hastily convert the other into something approximating a training room.

We spend the week on the train not doing much. The training area would have been better a while back, but now, almost everything in my arsenal is horrendously powerful. Using any of it is liable to kill people around us, and though I still don’t really mind, we’re supposed to be resting, and the UCC is probably watching for attacks with our signature.

Still, I do manage to get Appraise up a few levels, though I’m not sure what that actually does. I practice Acting and Imitation alongside Adrian and a level 131 Court Jester; apparently, this train is large enough to host group activities, and acting out classic plays to a rather inebriated audience is a part of that. Sierra decides not to join us, citing a complete inability to act. Through the productions of three children’s fables, I raise both Acting and Imitation by over ten levels, which surprises me. Then again, I suppose that’s their intended use case.

I manage to get Stealth up by six levels through intentionally trying to hide my presence in public places alongside hiding any noise we make at night. I do the same with Antimemetic Cloak.

My Soulshard Rifle is somehow still intact—I found it buried within the crater that I left in the temple by Zelin. I try to train up Firearms, but the weapon has the annoying distinction of being too powerful to safely fire in a train and not powerful enough for me to want to primarily focus on practicing my skill.

We eat, and though nothing is particularly outstanding, I enjoy the meals. We train, chatting with each other about our (well, Adrian and Sierra’s) lives while doing so. Adrian was apparently in a position to begin his political journey in his city when everything went to shit for them.

I ask about the demon cult that supposedly forced them into the Crowned Islands once.

“They’re not in the Seven Kingdoms,” Sierra tells me. “You needn’t worry about that. If everything went as planned, they no longer know where we are.”

That’s the end of that conversation. Neither of them seem keen on sharing further details.

At nights, Sierra holds me close, whispering sweet nothings into my ear as she falls asleep, gaining bits and pieces of my magic as she does.

And so, the week passes, and eventually, we arrive at the end of the line.

“Welcome to Root, the capital of the Blossom Empire,” the pleasant, androgynous voice of the train conductor announces. “All passengers, please depart. The Zelin-Root Line claims no responsibility for any loss of life incurred in the Blossom Empire.”

We are among the first to depart.

The seat of power in the Blossom Empire is both more and less than what I expected. I’m not sure what exactly I pictured, but the name definitely invokes something a touch more natural than this.

Root is a sprawling circular metropolis, spiraling out from a massive tower at the center that must be taller than Novarath was deep. It seems to scrape the heavens itself, pointing up straight through the clouds. I can’t even see where it begins to end; compared to it, the rest of the city seems almost short, which is ridiculous given that the first circle of buildings around it stretches nearly a mile high.

Each of the twelve concentric circles that make up the layers of the rest of the city are lower than the last, until they reach the ground level where we are. The buildings are primarily glass, steel, and other metals that I don’t recognize. Every last one catches the glint of the sun in different ways, giving the impression that the entire city is overrun by flowering buildings.

And there are flowers; lots of them, in fact. None of them, however, touch the city itself. Instead, they carpet the walls of each of the circles, covering them from top to bottom in an ecstatic explosion of colors.

I think the emotion I’m feeling right now is supposed to be described as “awe.”

“Wow,” I say. “It’s beautiful.”

In a rare departure from habit, I try to step into the minds of those who designed this city. Are they proud? Are they awed by their own work? Are they fulfilled?

What would it be like if I could use these hands to create instead of destroy?

“There’s an apartment in the fourth circle that I’ve been renting for the last three years,” Sierra says. “There is just one problem.”

“We’re broke!” Adrian says cheerfully. “I’m down to my last dozen gold plus about three hundred silver.”

“I am not in straits nearly as dire as Adrian’s, but yes,” Sierra admits. “We need more gold.”

“And how do we get that?” I ask. “I have a suspicion that your answer is not going to be ‘kill people and take their possessions.’”

“We’ll kill monsters and take their possessions,” Sierra says, equally as cheerful as Adrian. “And we’ll get paid for it!”

“And normal people will spit on us if we walk past them in the street,” Adrian adds. “But we’re experiments anyway. Adventuring on top of it ain’t much worse.”

“I remember seeing adventurers,” I say, recalling the late Lady Kane’s noble entourage back at the lab. “They weren’t very effective.”

“I brought you to Root for two reasons,” Sierra says. “The first is that it’s one of my favorite cities on this continent. The second is that.”

She points at the tower that dwarfs every building in sight.

“That,” she says, “is an Angelic Tower.”

“Angelic Tower,” I repeat. “There’s angels?”

A part of me constructed by soul amalgamation recoils at the term angel. I’m not fully sure what they are, but one thing is certain—they will be anathema to me. My fragmented memories have an awfully high rate of associating the word angel with Titan, and I’m not sure if I like that.

“Once you ascend high enough, yes,” Sierra says. “There are a few dozen of them scattered throughout the world. The areas around them tend towards one of two extremes—wastelands and mighty cities. Tower climbing brings in adventurers from nations away, and dealing with monster outbreaks from within is a common way to earn money in these areas.”

“What’s at the top?” I ask.

“Nobody knows,” Sierra says, shrugging. “The highest floor anyone has ascended to and survived to tell the tale at is in the three hundreds. They were several miles off the ground, but even then, they reported that they couldn’t even get a glimpse of the top.”

“‘Sides, we’re not climbing that shit,” Adrian says. “I don’t fuck with angels or demons, present company excluded, and you will one hundred percent run into some kinda angel if you’re going anywhere worth going in there.”

“Maybe once we’re stronger,” Sierra says. “The AT is not Category restricted, if you’re curious. That highest recorded climb was made by a Category 5.”

I raise an eyebrow. That actually does sound intriguing. Even if I’m actively trying to relax, I will always pursue ways to improve myself.

After all, there’s a half-elf at the end of all of this who desperately needs an unmarked grave.

I shrug. “If there’s an opportunity to earn XP, I’ll take it. Gods know I need to level up.”

“That’s the spirit!” Adrian cheers.

“You need levels the most,” Sierra says.

I have to hold myself back from instinctively punching the first half-elf woman I see in the face. She doesn’t even look that much like Sapphire, but the reminder is irritating.

Navigating through the circles is surprisingly easy. Mass teleportation has been standardized here, and we pay a small fee in order to be transported to the circle of our choice.

Rather than the fourth circle, we select the first one.

“We have been cooped up for a while,” Sierra justifies. “I assume you’re okay with taking a fight.”

“Of course,” I say.

“I’m going to hit a bar,” Adrian says. Before either of us can make fun of him for that statement, he continues, “I have climber contacts here from way back when. You two are right. I am falling behind, and I need to fix that. I’m going to see if I can get better tools to do it with.”

Sierra shrugs. “Suit yourself. Meet us at the apartment at sundown?”

“Works,” he says, giving her a two-finger salute. Adrian leaves, sauntering down the wide, oddly clean streets.

A few passersby give us odd looks, but neither of us really mind. We walk hand-in-hand, Sierra leading me through streets both crowded and sparse, past buildings in every color and design under the sun, and we make our way to a busy building marked BLOSSOM CLIMBING AND ADVENTURING HUB: CIRCLE 1

It takes us a while to make our way through packed lines of people clad in various levels of armor, their power levels ranging from the middle of Category 0 to the bottom of Category 2, but we find our way to a clerk eventually.

“Category and class type,” he drones.

“Category 2 for both of us,” Sierra says. “Mage for me, spellblade for her.”

The clerk fiddles with something behind the counter before handing us a pair of rune-engraved tablets. “Confirm mana signature.”

I tap the tablet, passing my magic into it without comment. If he tries anything shifty with this, I will simply burn this entire place down.

Nothing of the sort happens. He simply confirms that whatever we just did worked, then returns them to us. “Reminder that loss of BCA property will be charged against you. Failure to pay will result in a fine, imprisonment, or execution, depending on the gravity of the offense.”

Sierra takes both tablets, wishes the clerk a nice day, and moves on.

“You pick assignments from these,” she says, showing me the tablet. Magic swirls on its surface, displaying a web of dots that start and white and slowly grow deeper red. “They used to do physical boards—still do, in some places like the Crowned Islands—but these are way faster.”

She finds the reddest dot on the tablet and is about to tap it when a new one pops into existence, this one an even deeper shade.

“Convenient,” she says, tapping it. The magic swirls once more, beaming text into both of our systems.

URGENT: Cat 2 outbreak EMERGENCY EMERGENCY

Recommended Adventurer Level: 200+

Reward: 1,000 gold

Description: A Category 2 sky serpent broke out of the 100th floor and descended outside of city limits, targeting a dungeon settlement. Closest teleport circle is 12Q. IMMEDIATE RESPONSE REQUESTED. 12 CASUALTIES AND COUNTING.

Accept? Yes / No

I look at Sierra, schooling my expression with Acting to become completely serious. “I don’t know. Category 2 is kind of high.”

She stares back at me for two entire seconds before bursting out laughing.

We accept the quest, and a fresh objective appears in front of my eyes. I shove it away as we make our way towards the nearest teleportation circle.

“Let’s try not to die,” Sierra says, though she can’t make it more than halfway through the sentence without doubling over.

“Let’s,” I say as the attendant activates the circle.

“Be careful out there,” he says. He’s level 187. Funny to think how someone like this, who would’ve rolled over me just last month, is powerless against me now. “Adventurin’ is a dangerous line of work.”

“We will,” we say together, and we start laughing again. Two proto-Titans playing at being ignorant weaklings, assuring a Category 1 that we’ll be okay.

The circle activates, sending us off towards our training for the day.

Anomalous Fragment 001-CALLEN

Alexander Callen watches his prey. With data from Sapphire’s innumerable skills, he’s been able to craft a mechanical contraption that nearly perfectly mimics her ability to see nigh upon everything the world has to offer. In combination with a strain of Titan magic, harvested from a piece of Skoton, Titan of the Neverending Night, it’s simplicity itself to follow his target.

A backwater, a baby, and a whore, he thinks. Three proto-Titans in as many days.

He himself has not made the leap to that status. It is, in theory, possible. He has created no less than three of his own, though none were viable, and he knows how he can touch divinity in his own way.

When Callen makes the jump, though, he wants to do it right. Proto-Titan is an intermediate stage. An imperfect intermediate stage.

When he ascends from the limitations of the standard Category system, he plans on becoming the eighteenth proper Titan.

Silence, he commands, spreading his domain through his fragment. If there’s one thing he can boast that his peers can’t, it’s the fact that he can use his domains without rest. At level 357, he has never taken a secondary class. Category 3 has been kind to him, and funneling all his power into the same class has proven to be fruitful; his mana pool is deeper than most nations.

Proto-Titan Incident Report 32-5 / 33-2, he types, watching the battle take place in a roughly analogous point int he real world.

Well, to call it a ‘battle’ is an affront to the word. This is an execution. Twin nullspaces flash for a matter of milliseconds, and the sky serpent loses over ninety percent of its mass.

At last. The demon has reached the minimum threshold for viability, both as an experiment and as a test material. He has free reign to kill it and subsume it.

I will do what you could not.

He prepares every last dominating force of magic in his repertoire, and he waits. Though his mana pool is almost endless, it takes him time to prepare everything he needs for a true ambush. Neither of the two proto-Titans have even discovered that he’s watching them, so he can afford to spend days, weeks, even months readying an attack that will Silence them all.

Soon, both Carnelian and Jade will be his to devour, and he will become greater.

Callen has already thought of a designation. Once he uses the power of their nullspace-infused corpses to catapult himself to becoming a Titan, he will designate himself as Titan number 17 in the UCC database and take his place in history by eliminating every last useless monkey on the Nire continent.

Callen, Titan of the Silent Continent.

He likes the sound of that.

___

Author's note: The end of book 2 approaches! We have a few more chapters until it ends, but I figured I'd let the gang have a break. They deserve it.