Knives & Levels - Chapter 90

Colt moved in towards the house-shaped monster, keeping himself low and concealed within the mists as he went; now that he got closer, with the mist receding and giving way to the truth hidden beneath its twisting and forbidden interior, more wrongness stood out. The wooden paneling on the side of the house looked warped, moving slightly as it took in breath. The roof tiles had an almost bone-like look, jagged and off.

Then, once he got close enough, he used one of his old favorite skills to get a sense of what kind of creature he was dealing with here.

———

HOUSE

Description: THIS IS A HOUSE. STEP INSIDE.

———

Colt hesitated as the description filtered through. Clearly, it was wrong. “Julia, when you inspect that monster, what does it say?” he asked, keeping his voice low. The house’s breath had gotten shallower as if it were aware they were closing into it and trying to conceal its life.

“Nothing,” Julia said.

Which was even stranger. Compared to him, she didn’t get a description of the house at all. 

Colt tried his skill again. 

———

JUST A HOUSE

Description: A NORMAL HOME FOR NORMAL PEOPLE. ABANDONED. READY FOR SOMEONE TO MOVE IN.

———

Was this the system’s way of alerting him about the wrongness of this place? He hesitated further, and the house stilled even more as if it were holding its breath. Waiting for them to approach. Were he not so certain of what he’d seen, and now the odd descriptions popping up when he tried to Inspect it, it would be possible to imagine he was simply hallucinating it.

With the mist and the shifting weirdness of this place, it wasn’t inconceivable to see shadows moving in the dark and finding enemies where there weren’t.

But this was a monster. Colt narrowed his eyes and firmed his mind, screaming at the system internally that he knew what he was looking at wasn’t a simple house. That it was, in a way, alerting him of the wrongness of the situation with the hints it provided through these menus.

Despite what the system was telling him, his eyes saw the truth, cutting past the perception of the illusions and seeing what lay beneath the surface.

With that firmly lodged in his mind, an anchor, he activated his skill.

This time, it felt different. He saw the description appear, vanish, and then appear again, contesting another will as the system became a conflict.

Then it appeared.

———

House Mimic - Level 54

Description: This is a greater mimic that has taken the form of a residential house to fool unwary bystanders into stepping into its interior and making them a quick snack. Monster or human, it doesn’t matter. Oversized mimics will eat whatever they can get their gluttonous mouths on and disappear people and animals as if they were nothing. Skilled at deception, they are especially adept at concealing their status.

Notable Skills:

Hide Status [Uncommon] - Level 18

Consume [Uncommon] - Level 17

Shapeshift [Rare] - Level 19

…

Inspect (Intermediate) has gained a level!

Inspect (Intermediate) has reached level 20! This skill has advanced to Inspect (Advanced)! As this is now at the (Advanced) level, this can now overcome intermediate obstructions

———

Colt hesitated as he ran through the description of the monster. A mimic. The size of a house—it was an unfamiliar concept; who hadn’t played a game where a chest turned out to be a monster in disguise, and assuming the System meant the same thing he was familiar with, that meant that what he was looking at here was a creature of that nature.

The biggest danger with things like this was that if it caught you unaware, it could hurt you and consume you before you even had a concept of what was happening—the shapeshifting skill seemed dangerous, too… But looking over what it presented, the danger level on this was less than he’d worried about.

Stolen from its advantage of being unknown and having the element of surprise, most of the danger was gone. He out-leveled it, outpowered it… And…

Looking at the other two, he quickly confirmed that they, too, were around level fifty-four.

The only danger was the size. But he’d fought massive creatures before, which hadn’t been an insurmountable challenge to deal with, so these too wouldn’t be impossible to handle.

“Alright. Julia. They are monsters. My Skill just confirmed it.” Along with a welcomed advancement, he knew that these Core Skills would lead to his class leveling soon, too. Advancing your relevant class skills increased the class, and every time Edict Carver moved up a notch, it brought incredible gains. It had to be getting close now.

“Well, that makes sense.” Julia said with a dull note next to him, looking at the other two houses, “So we’re just going to go homewrecking and fighting massive houses in the street. You know, the idea of monsters the size of a house—it’s terrifying, right?”

“They’re a form of mimic. I didn’t see anything in there that looked like an outrageous or dangerous combat skill. We should be able to handle them with very little personal risk… But, I’m not going to use Movement to do it. I’ve got to test my new Edict.”

Colt thought about restraining his use of cut too—but it simply didn’t make sense. As his primary offensive tool, fighting without it would be too dangerous.

Though his body was much stronger and faster to an almost superhuman level, that didn’t mean he should go and let an entire house hit it. The resulting damage such a thing could do was not an experiment he looked forward to. Besides, his issue was sorting out the divide between Momentum and Movement—Cut was well-defined and didn’t overlap.

It was interesting to think of how certain Edicts had the same realms of influence and that they could correlate and cooperate. The implications of these laws’ overlap were stunning, but they also gave him a good reference point and a solid line to draw in what he was dealing with.

“Can you handle two of them while I test my power?” Colt asked, and Julia shook her head.

“I mean… I can flood the houses, which will probably ruin them. How do you fight a house, Colt?”

He paused and raised an eyebrow at her.

“You know, you just do you. Please help me out if I need it. But… Sure, yeah, I got this.” She shifted her hand on her weapon, the crystal glowing blue as she started to pull at her mana and condense down a spell, infusing it with her Edict, too, as empowerment.

Edicts were a natural fact of life, but her strength lay in her ability to work that Edict into a spell. Though she could shoot deadly blasts of water—Colt was eager to see just what type of versatility her advancement in magic would bring about. It had the flexibility to it that he barely understood, having spent most of his time and training in advancing his specific route with Soul.

In a way, Edicts were like an engine, fueling and empowering, and the skills and weapons one wielded were more like an extension of the power, letting one fine-tune it and deal damage in their ways… Maybe it could be more than that… Soul, to him, was powerful since he relied so heavily on his Edicts for direct combat, and he seemed to be fueled by that Stat, but what would it look like if someone invested solely in their physical attributes and picked up an Edict?

Too much was unknown.

He dismissed the thought as light condensed on his dagger, the golden edge erupting brightly in the mist, reflecting thousands of drops of water that hung in the air as it increased the output. He ramped up his tie to the Edict.

The house moved; it sensed something had gone wrong. In a second, it sprouted legs, two spindly black-skinned legs that reminded Colt of a chicken; a massive tongue plopped out of the front as the house ripped in half, forming a massive mouth as it hung about twenty feet above.

Turning what had been a house into something more like a horrifying, twisted giant.

Colt flung his sword out, sending an arc of death forward; before, with Movement, he could increase the speed, sending the wave of golden death faster.

As he felt it, not feeling time slow at all, he noticed something different.

The monster moved to the side rather quickly for a house, sensing the line of death headed for its leg—it wasn’t guaranteed, but Colt knew the attack wouldn’t land with the type of solid connection he was looking for, but he felt Momentum. Felt it calling to him.

With a quick yank, the invisible line of death jerked its current destination; he could control it far easier than it had ever been using solely Movement—in a second, it smashed upward, slashing into the lower part of the Mimic, and sending it reeling back as it had a quarter of its house cut from it.

Black blood poured downward as it staggered up above; Colt could see the inner workings of the monsters, the guts, and the fake interior of the house for display as it oozed with saliva and blood; the Mimic let out a warble as it spiraled downward at him.

Colt leaped out of the way and coated his weapon with the thick golden hue of the cut again, letting it carry its strength to him and infuse through his knife.

He stopped, finding it far easier to control the way his body moved as he let the Edict run through him… Before, with his advanced dexterity, it was as if he could fine-tune his flesh and make it react… But he was still limited. With the Edict active, it became even easier, applying external force and pressure to stop his body and twist it, contributing to dexterity and making it absolutely easy to twist and pivot on the ground.

If movement slows time, this gives my body an unnatural and inhuman capability to navigate space. 

Colt arrested his speed in a second, pausing at an odd angle, staring at the Mimic as it struggled to pick itself up from the ground after a failed attack to eat him.

Even the way it felt to wield the Edict was different. Like he was lifting weights and throwing his will around to make it cooperate, versus the fast-paced, adrenaline-charged way that Movement called to him.

He reached out and yanked the strength from it, feeling it contest his will as he forced it to stay in the same position. Its soul raged out against him as he stripped it of any momentum, sealing it in a zone of stillness that reminded him of using Movement at his maximum amount.

He felt his Soul strain at the effort. Given that Momentum was in its Minor form… This much, pausing an enemy of this size, weight, and power, was stretching his understanding of the Edict to its absolute maximum.

Then the Mimic shifted, fighting him and stopping it—he didn’t have enough power to keep this up, and he saw it twitch.

Colt strode forward, feeling sweat on his brow, and brought his weapon downward, cleaving the monster in half with yet another golden arc of light; he had a feel for it now and understood some of the differences between Movement and Momentum.

While Movement was more of a directed internal force, with some small powers to extend outward and assist with external control, Momentum was more of an external power, giving him a vast ability to manipulate and deal with the outside physical world. There was crossover, but he got a grasp of what the two could do. Complimented… And if they would work together… Movement and Momentum could control the entire flow of a battlefield, giving him flexibility in battle that seemed… Broken.

He watched the monster go through its death throes—and then turned his attention to Julia, who had done a remarkable job of making space and keeping the rest of the monsters away so he could test out his abilities.

———

You have defeated House Mimic - Level 54

———

The girl went all out with her magic, blasting one of the houses to the ground with a jetstream of water that tore its fake wooden walls apart and spilled the ground in a thick blood-and-water sludge.

She stopped her barrage as the second house came at her; water flowed around in a ball, the mist around them thinning as she drew into the ball, and in a snap formed a thin wall of water that the Mimic collapsed itself into, the jaw unhinging as it attempted to swallow her whole. As it hit the water barrier, it paused, moving like molasses.

Julia fled her spot, and then the wall morphed into a ball again, jamming itself down the Mimic’s throat as it hit the ground with an earth-shaking splat.

A second later, a thin stream of water burst outward, tearing holes in the scrambling mimic on the ground as she exploded the spell from inside of the monster; now the other was getting up—trying to chase after. Colt flexed his Edict again, feeling it condense on his blade with a golden light as he eyed up the other two mimics.

He’d take another one then and test himself further. After all, why not? He’d just begun to explore the start of his new Edict, and there was much to learn and conceptualize about it.

A smile appeared on his face despite the fact they were facing off against two monstrous houses.

Exploring Edicts… Seeing how far his power went—it was the most rewarding sensation of all. This is what he lived for.