Chapter 416: Collector

Announcement to Sector Hope:

 Priam Azura has become a Collector.

The conversations in the hall faltered. Every guest turned toward the king, waiting to see how he would react.

Unlike the fools wearing constipated expressions, Esméralda nearly burst out laughing. Micro managed to twist her features into a thin smile, which she quickly hid behind her napkin.

“Impossible,” Rohan muttered. “Not this soon…”

“What’s a Collector?” asked Maxime in a low, dark voice. The king was displeased.

Rohan didn’t answer, staring blankly into the void. One of the Tier 3s, seeing his young master stunned, sighed. “Fifty Titles discovered.”

Esmée’s eyes widened. The last time she had checked, Priam had forty-eight. Two more, in just a few hours? The war against the Aelbes must be interesting.

“Really?” The second Tier 3 arched a brow. “Never heard of that kind of title. I mean, of name. You get my drift.”

The hunter waved his fork. “Remember, it’s one of the characters in The Origin of the System.”

“The collection of tales? The one written by the Dragonslayer?”

The very word struck the aether harder than a rune.

“That one—”

A surge of Aura cut the conversation short. It cracked like a gunshot wrought from magic. The nobles at the table froze, holding their breath. Silence fell across the ballroom: musicians paralyzed mid-note, servants caught mid-motion. Heads would roll tonight, and no one wanted to be the nail that stuck out.

“He was supposed to die,” the king reminded them, his tone too flat to be natural. “That was one of the terms of our agreement: the death of Earth’s and Arkana’s Champions, their corpses brought to my alchemists for study. So why are we babbling about children’s tales while Priam Azura thrives?”

Sometimes calm was more terrifying than wrath. More suffocating, too. The Tier 3s stayed silent, remembering suddenly that they stood in the heart of an Empire that was not yet an ally.

Seeing her fiancé staring at his plate without answering, Esmée nudged him under the table.

“Huh?” Rohan looked up, dazed. “I—he…”

Through his stammering, everyone could sense his stupefaction. It was an emotion they all understood. Priam had just reached a summit that Rohan had chased his entire life—and the attractive Juggernaut had done it in less than half a year.

Esméralda felt a strange surge of pride.

A vein pulsed in the king’s face, and his daughter knew she had to do something before her father’s temper boiled over. Give Rohan a chance to recover.

Her gaze flicked to a nobleman at the far end of the table. Earl Glassant. She had heard of him.

Having indulged liberally in wine throughout the evening, the Empyrean was flushed. Moreover, he had also done ample justice to the fare, only pausing upon sensing the King's Aura. His laden fork was thus suspended a finger’s breadth from his mouth, a precariously balanced morsel of meat poised at its tip, ready to be devoured.

The princess invoked one of her legendary skills.

[Plot - Trigger].

Who hadn’t dropped food at least once in their life? A faint tremor of a drunken hand, gravity’s pull, and the barest draft of air conspired together. The morsel tumbled into a bowl of sauce, the resulting splash spattering droplets as far as the king’s hand.

The noble met his monarch’s gaze and swallowed hard. This was a bad time to draw notice.

“Your Majesty…”

“Verily, Earl Glassant, you invariably choose your targets poorly. Your pedophilic escapades might be pardonable, but I have been informed that this week, once you had exhausted your cannonballs, you conceived the brilliant notion of utilizing our women as projectiles to shock the human armies.”

“I thought I was giving them a use—”

“When our colony on Proxima has one woman for every ten men, their use is abundantly clear: reproduction.”

“Majesty—”

His plea ended in a scream. A hole had opened beneath his chair, dropping him into the vast aquarium beneath the ballroom. Through the crystal table and glass floor, every guest watched as the earl hammered at the transparent barrier, like some hapless adventurer trapped under ice.

“An Empyrean with empty lungs takes between thirty seconds and a minute to lose consciousness,” the king remarked, watching his subject’s struggle with detachment. “One would think that boosted physical attributes might alter the span, but not significantly. The mightier the body, the more oxygen is required to fuel it. Thus, drowning is a swift way to perish. Yet, the time must feel interminable when one suffers so acutely. Let us spare him the wait.”

A shadow loomed behind the flailing noble. An instant later, the sea-titan that inhabited the tank surged forward and bit him in half. Glassant’s face froze in shock as he realized he no longer had legs. Then the rest of him vanished in a second gulp. With a flick of its fin, the beast swam off, leaving only a crimson cloud where an Empyrean had once been.

Esmée tore her eyes from the blood and noticed several nobles frowning. The king noticed too.

“My friends,” he said smoothly, “Earl Glassant did not die for splashing me. He died for sabotaging our civilization. In wartime, stupidity carries the price of treason. His execution was simply expedited.”

Several heads nodded. Esmée realized the king was bending their opinion with his words. Past a certain threshold, charisma was little different from a mind spell.

“He leaves behind a vacant generalship,” the king continued. “I expect your applications on my desk tomorrow.”

The promise of scraps of power brought the smiles back to the table.

Idiots, Esméralda thought.

At least, the performance had achieved its aim: derailing the king’s fury. He turned back toward Rohan. “Let us have dessert in my chambers.”

*

A few hours earlier.

One of the alien cylinders belched fire, and Gaelle leapt back. A heartbeat later, a steel spear slammed into the ground where she had been, then exploded.

The Tier 2 Aelbe snarled. Wasting good metal was bad enough, but this kind of attack was near unreadable. Her aether sight was useless against hoplite machines.

The cannons kept firing, forcing the huntress into retreat. Once she was far enough that they could not easily hit her, they tilted skyward. Artillery painted the heavens in flame, like a furious sunset. The invaders were backing their Champion.

High above, Kazuki Arashi raised his spear against Felix. A mechanized armor rode the wind, confronting an elder Aelbe sustained by a mythic image. The Transcendent was not classified as a fighter by the System, but even so, he was more than capable of crushing a Tier 0. And indeed, the General had lost at first. 

The tide had shifted the moment the spearmaster passed his High Tribulation. So overqualified it was difficult for Gaelle to even comprehend, he had cleared the ordeal in seconds. No longer shackled by the limits of his soul’s Tier, his Supremacies had unfurled their wings. Since then, Felix had been on the back foot.

Suddenly, Gaelle felt the light of the Necromoon blaze once more across the battlefield. Looking up, she saw the colossal cumulonimbus dissolve.

“Aelbes, fall back to the manor!” Felix commanded before swallowing his mythic image. It overlaid his frame, magnifying his very existence. Wreathed in his Transcendence, he turned to the hoplites. “Invaders! End your lives and atone for your sins!”

The command cracked across the battlefield, laced with Aura. Against the charisma of a Tier 4 specialized in commerce, the hoplite soldiers froze. The weak willed started to cut their own throat. 

Gaelle didn’t wait to see how many would succumb. She spun on her heel, seizing the opportunity Felix had bought, and bolted toward the manor.

She had barely gone a hundred meters when a scream cut through the rubble of a half-collapsed building. Cursing, she scrambled up the debris, shoved aside a broken beam, and smashed through the door beyond.

Inside, a woman lay pinned beneath a fallen ceiling. The lifeless body stifled the screams of something still alive.

“Fuck.”

Strength had never been the huntress’s primary attribute, yet her claws tore through the wood as though it were fat. She pried the crushed beams off the mother’s body, only to find a bundle wrapped in linens beneath.

Two forest-green eyes locked on her, and the baby stopped wailing. The little girl sniffled adorably, her juvenile face shifting from outrage to wonder.

“Sorry, sweetheart. I’m not your mother,” Gaelle sighed. Aelbe children didn’t open their eyes until their second year of life. Before that, their sight was little better than a mole’s, their life guided instead by scent.

Gaelle rose, meaning to leave, when a shadow fell across the ruin.

Oh, fuck. I lingered too long.

The hoplite platform loomed overhead. For one fleeting moment, Gaelle pictured sabotaging the killing machine—then glanced down at the fragile life in her arms. Guess you’re my responsibility now…

She waited for the hoplite command craft to move on. It never did. Instead, the massive platform steadied above her like a sword of Damocles.

“Congratulations on the Tier-up.”

“Thanks.”

Gaelle turned toward the cracked slats of wood forming a makeshift wall. She knew that voice. Barely five meters away, Kazuki Arashi stood—a being capable of clashing against a Transcendent, even if a non-combatant one.

[One with Nature].

Her skill worked better in the depths of a forest, but she enabled it anyway, trying to veil both her and the baby’s presence. Please let it be enough.

The ground shuddered with impact. Something—or someone—heavy had landed.

“The High Tribulation?” came a gravelly voice. Gaelle recognized it at once: Braato, the Gaesert leader.

Her expression crumbled. Her odds of surviving this had just plummeted.

“Destroyed,” answered another famous voice.

Gaelle had to bite back a curse as she placed it. Priam Azura. Bloody System, why did these monsters all decide to gather in the middle of nowhere?!

A growl. “You mean dispersed.”

“I mean destroyed.”

“Impossible.”

Gaelle found herself nodding despite the absurdity. No one destroyed a High Tribulation. It was a law of the universe, as immutable as gravity or death. Maybe more.

“It takes a Tier 8 to tamper with Laws on a local scale. You expect me to believe you’ve got that tucked in your pocket? Ridiculous.”

The liar sighed. “I swear on the System: the High Tribulation was destroyed.” Gaelle’s gaze flicked skyward, expecting lightning. None came. “Satisfied?”

“By the System’s balls,” Braato breathed. “Either you can lie to the System, or… Fine, how?”

Even as death stood closer than ever, Gaelle was asking herself the same question. 

“A Law dies when its universe dies.”

Gaelle abhorred such cryptic replies. Had not such profound fear gripped her, she would have lunged at the Juggernaut. Then, she would have perished.

“As expected from the First,” intoned a metallic voice.

Gaelle stifled a curse as recognition hit. Arnold NetSky. Four monsters surrounded her now, each a prodigy who could devour a Tier 2 like her for breakfast. Sensing her distress, the infant in her arms squirmed, and the huntresse hushed her with a forced smile.

Stay calm, little one, or we’re both dead.

“So everything unfolded as you wanted?” Kazuki asked.

Priam barked a laugh. “No, it went wrong every step of the way… but I suppose the end result is fine. You?”

“The Aelbes resist. Not only the soldiers, but civilians too. With casualties mounting, I chose to bomb them.”

“…”

“You disapprove.”

A silence. Priam exhaled. “Yeah, but I can’t ask you to throw your soldiers into the grinder. Truth be told, we’ve had this conversation before and… I get it. I don’t condone it, but I understand your way.” Another pause. “The Tier 4s?”

“One Transcendent came out to delay us. The other two are missing.”

“Griffe—the Aelbe’s shaman—must be helping Leo back on his feet,” Braato interjected. “He didn’t look well during the tournament.”

“You bet. He’s more irradiated than a miner in Chernobyl.”

“Meaning?”

“In short, he’s suffering from severe radiation poisoning.” Gaelle’s eyes widened. If Priam spoke true—and he had no reason to lie—then the Aelbes’ days were numbered. “The Transcendent fled the moment the cloud cleared?”

“Correct. The Aelbes must plan to turtle until their savior recovers.”

“Fat chance. That barrier in the distance…?”

“Each clan holds artifacts left by our founders,” Braato explained. “The shield raised by the Aelbes is a relic forged from the fulcrum of a Tier 5’s inner world. You see the manor, but in truth, it sits in another world. You’d better have a real plan to break through, because you can Breathe at it all day long for nothing.”

“What about nukes? Radiation can corrupt aether below the High Tier.”

Gaelle’s stomach knotted at Kazuki’s suggestion. The hoplite had lost his mind. That proposal spat in the face of every treaty she knew. Which is two.

“As Champions, you’re free to try, but I want no part of it,” Braato declared. “The elves won’t be so forgiving with me if I touch that can of worms.”

“There will be no nuke. Not yet.”

“Priam—”

“No nukes. Kazuki, there are hundreds of children in that manor.”

“And they all want you dead.”

Priam barked a humorless laugh. “Since when do the weak get a say?” A pause. “You aim for Tier 10 to save your people. I aim for the Zenith to be free. And my definition of freedom is simple: to do whatever I damn well please.”

His tone shifted, and Gaelle guessed he had turned.

“And what I want hasn’t changed. We cut off the Aelbes’ head. They schemed against us and against our civilizations—they die. The innocents, indoctrinated or not, will have one final chance.”

“The last one?”

“I promise. I’m kind, not stupid.”

“Okay. Still, without Tier 3s or Tier 4s, they’ll fall fast.”

“Hekthorn will take the survivors with him. They’ll be safe among the elves, and he owes me that much for Sumstreh.”

“Some will come back for vengeance,” Braato warned.

“Considering how many scrying attempts hit me every second, they’ll have to take a number.” Another bleak laugh. “Besides, with the Necro event ongoing, they won’t reach Oasis before I’m either dead or far beyond their reach.”

“Mmh. You know what? I like it. Too many people choose the easy road, not worthy of their power. My clan will help you minimize losses.”

“Thanks, Braato. Then let’s get to work… but first, the two little kittens should come out.”

Cold dread washed over Gaelle, freezing her where she stood. Perhaps her fear had rippled through her to the child, because the girl’s lips quivered toward a cry.

Oh no!

An overwhelming force seized the ruin as the child was starting to cry. Debris lifted skyward before massive beams were tossed like twigs, hurled aside. In moments, Gaelle stood exposed on bare flooring.

Clutching the child to her chest, she raised a hateful gaze toward the four monsters watching her. A giant in mechanized armor, whose gaze was piercing her very soul like a spear. Another colossus, covered not in metal but in scars, his hide tougher than enchanted shields. A machine with burning red eyes, its soul colder than any undead.

At the center, a young man clothed in mist and fire. A fool might have mistaken his beauty for vanity, but the storm in his gaze forbade such thoughts. He advanced, and Gaelle saw a force of nature incarnate. Not for an instant could she imagine turning him aside from his course.

A silver Aura cascaded over her, and suddenly she could breathe again. More than words, the heroic charisma in that Aura whispered a promise: he would not harm her. The child must have sensed the same thing, for she ceased her crying. 

Before Gaelle could retreat, Priam crouched before them. His eyes flicked from the infant to the mother’s corpse, and a weary sigh escaped him. He tapped the child’s cheek and smiled when she attempted to bite his fingers. The tiny canines stood no chance of piercing his skin.

“Go home. Tell them what you heard. That there’s still hope with the elves. Léo must die, but he isn’t the Aelbes. At the very least, the young don’t need to pay for the sins of their elders.” His gaze went distant, clearly drawn to one of the System’s invisible windows. “For the next twenty-three hours, any combatant below Tier 3, and any crafter who leaves the manor, will be escorted to the High Marshal. If a Tier 3 hunter or a Tier 4 walks out, they’ll be executed.”

Gaelle swallowed. “And after that?”

Priam turned to Kazuki. “The hoplites have bled enough. After that… the nukes will fall.”

*

“Why twenty-three hours?” Kazuki asked once the young woman and child had vanished into the distance. The two Champions stood alone. Braato had left to rally his clan and secure the manor’s perimeter, while Arnold had gone his own way.

With a flick of his hand, Priam set the mother’s body aflame. The Necromoon would not desecrate her.

“The girls will be back in a day, and I want all of this wrapped up before they return. Just in case Esmée’s plan runs into complications.”

Priam trusted both his Shadow and the princess, but caution was wise.

“But why grant the Aelbes so much time? The three Transcendants will surely use it to prepare.”

“[He Who Eludes Death] comes off cooldown in nineteen hours, and I’ve no desire to tangle with the Tier 4s before then. Since I’m almost certain Léo and his lapdogs will try a breakout just before the truce ends, I set the window a little higher,” Priam explained, before smiling faintly. “Besides, they won’t be the only ones preparing. You just hit Tier 1, didn’t you? I bet you’ve got things to test.”

Kazuki acquiesced. “You too?”

Priam smiled.

Title won!

[Witness to the End - Bronze] - …