More on this book
Community
Kindle Notes & Highlights
Of course, we had tested this on a smaller scale, and it worked there, so I was almost positive nothing would go wrong… or the mountain would explode.
Then a greasy, old guy showed up and shouted at me, and I could suddenly think again.
Bob cringed as I stuck my ‘tongue’ out at him. Must have felt creepier in his mind than was intended.
“Got a lot of, ah, lightning jokes you are planning to use?”
“Huggin, you need to just let me live out my dreams. If I want to have horse-like aspects, I am allowed to do so! It’s my money!”
I snorted as I looked at the never-before-seen bug I had created. Sadly, it had almost zero combat potential. I had intended for it to eat people, but I had messed up somewhere. It flew slowly and was very loud. It did drink blood, but… I was going to have to label them a failure. I couldn’t bear to kill them all off myself, so I opened a small portal and dropped all of this type of bug into the world below. They had decent survivability, but against the much more dangerous creatures in the wild, I didn’t expect my Mosquitos to last long at all.
Maybe I could convince Dale to be a bunny summoner? Later, later.
“Come on, ya pissant little body-snatcher!” Frank growled at the unamused Mage. “Let’s see ya get in a hit!”
the same Core I had originally resided within—I realized that this was my origin. Dale was turning into me.
“Imposter!” “Nope, it’s really me.” Dale smirked at the stunned faces. “What? Can’t a guy die again and not be thought of as a fake?”
I was going to be the first person in history to take revenge for my own murder.
On an unrelated note, they did start growing mohawks, braids, and other colored patterns in their fur. After that, I tried on a willing Bob. Sadly, after a hefty dose of creativity, Bob just wanted to paint the dungeon walls, and then he cut off his own ear… who knew creativity could be so hard to manage?
“Also, even the memories I did get from you are… vanishing.” <Fleshy memory devices. Terrible design.
Unsurprisingly, the rewards are things that are useless to us. Most attackers here are fish. So the rewards are tasty fish food. I hate it here already.”
“When a big slimy eel a-bites you on the heel, that’s a moray!”
I created and dropped a jawbone on the ground just so I could visually represent the astonishment I was feeling at this moment.
Dale's voice was full of defeat, making Craig want to roll his eyes in annoyance. He held himself back thanks to his long years of training as a Monk, but it was a close call.
<I hope you live each day like it’s your last. You know why? Because I am going to kill you, but I’m also awful with dates and schedules.>
The party scrambled out of his way, which was for the best. If they hadn’t, the S-ranked man would have walked through them. In a far more literal fashion than they would have liked.
The first was easy; she merely had multi-organ failure.
Dale froze in place, shocked at the sight of a giant grey and white goose charging at him while flapping its wings. It didn’t sound like a bird; it sounded like pure evil. <He buried the Murder Honker under the snowmen. Clever.>
Who was prepared for snake-stuffed snowmen? Is anyone ever really ready for an angry goose?
“You think they would trust you more, ‘Battalion Devouring Bartholomew’?
For that comment alone, I would make sure this man was a casualty in the war.
“So much floof! I’m surprised he isn’t a pillow Mage or something. Actually, that title seems a little… indecent.”
There was a throb of power, and a solid item appeared in midair. Dale caught the gem in his hands before it could hit the ground. He flinched as the voice inside his head suddenly shouted, <A new hand touches the beacon!>
Le sigh.
Minya shoved him playfully, and he slammed into the wall. Dust rained down on him, and he slid to the floor groaning. “Oh, shoot, I’m so sorry. I forget that you are just in the D-ranks sometimes.”
“A riddle for you, Dale.” Craig took a step back and pulled some wraps off his hands. “If you have three, you have three. Two, and you have two. If you have only one, you have none. What is it?” Dale ignored him, lunging for the wall, desperately trying to blast a hole through it. He failed, yet again. “It’s options, Dale. You leave me with only one choice, which is no choice at all. Essentially,”
Dale let go of Hans and wiped his hand on his pants. “Did you have to lick my hand?” “Yes,” Hans replied seriously. “There are consequences for your actions.”
We then make like sheep and get the flock out of there.”
I hadn’t been this hungry since I was an F-ranked Core staring longingly at moss.
I felt like… a group buffer, someone who could make the party stronger but was basically useless during actual combat. Oh, celestial, was I a cleric? Please no…. but all the signs pointed to yes. Anti-infernal weaponry, giving extra abilities and power to people, sitting back and not being useful… oh no! I shook off my melancholy, resolving to change this fact right now.
“Why do people have to keep changing the language with weird mash-ups?” Tom grumbled. “I have a hard enough time with it as it is normally; there are just too many consonants. Sounds like a bunch of snakes hissing at each other.”
“Just wait until the C-ranks, Tom,” Hans told him. “You can get up to an inch extra each rank. Just ask Dale.” Dale nodded with a straight face. “If anything, Tom, I was feeling a little bad for you.” Tom’s hands twitched, as though he were hoping to take their necks and squeeze. “The two of you are not funny. If these were true facts, there would not be a man alive who didn’t do his utmost to enter the C-ranks.”
Dale’s words flowed evenly and powerfully, raising the spirits of the others around him. Their morale, that is. Not some kind of phantasm. He wasn’t a necromancer.
With a deep sound of inhalation - since I didn’t actually breathe
I could keep speaking endlessly - as I didn’t breathe - but I thought it would be best to let them imagine a few grand scenarios on their own.
No lungs? No need for air? All that means is that there is no need to slow down when eating!
What if I tried to direct the power to turn into air instead of earth for a while? I did so and found that I was fortunate to be incorporeal. A cubic foot of air formed from the convergence of Essence and corruption that was so dense it created solid air; solid like a rock. What happened next shocked me. Not actually, I didn’t form lightning, but it was somewhat startling. There was a massive, explosive, decompression of air. The ground that it had formed over was blasted apart, and for a half-dozen feet, the earth was churned and tossed around.
With a smile on his face, Tom swung the massive hammer in an uppercut at full strength, right as the infernal being turned toward him. Now, lesser demons were considered to be equivalent to B-ranked Mages, but even they were subject to the whims of physics if they were unprepared. When the warhammer cut into the being’s chest, the force enhancement Runes activated and attempted to send the creature into orbit. “Four!” Tom shouted gleefully as he watched the creature shoot upward, only to be caught in the crossfire of A-rankers battling above them. There was a flash of black fire, and the demon
...more
The Mage stumbled back, not hurt in the slightest but still thrown off and confused by Dale’s actions. As he straightened, something clinked against his teeth… from the inside. His eyes widened a fraction as the pre-crushed beast Core Dale had shoved into his mouth gave way and detonated with all the stored Mana Manny the Manticore had once contained.
<Oh, hey, that’s bad. Dani, that gigantic setup is designed to pull two objects together. I have no idea how he is going to power it, though. I’m pretty sure that sucker is designed to latch onto the smaller moon around the planet and pull it close enough to collide with the world. Even a triple S like he claims to be shouldn’t be able to generate that kind of power.>
The deranged cultivator somehow avoided all attacks by moving into strange, confusing or provocative poses.
“Tsk, tsk. Bad dungeon! Punishment!” Xenocide smiled directly at me somehow, raised a hand, and smacked the mountain that was hovering in the air above him. A massive chunk of stone on the side of the mountain was blasted into dust, at least a few hundred tons worth. The rest of the strike sent me spinning through the sky. By ‘me’ I, of course, meant the entire abyssal mountain. If I had a stomach, it would have been emptied on the floors, walls, and ceilings. As it was, the humans that remained on my surface and outdoors were tossed off and sent falling to the ground far below. The ones
...more
“We were all wrong. We were manipulated, we lost sight of everything we had hoped for, and all of the world events in the last five hundred years that brought us to this point were calculated and plotted.” “What? Who would…?” Chandra’s voice faltered as Xenocide waved at them lazily. “That was me! Thank you for the recognition! Do you have any idea how hard it was to convince the entire world to hate each other? Alright, fair enough, not that hard, but still, it is nice to be noticed for your dedicated efforts. Nap time!”
“Ha, as if! We’d never survive the deeps!” Dani chuckled like I had made a joke, and when she realized that I was serious, her tone completely changed. “Cal, you do know that the most powerful beasts in the world live in the deep oceans or deep underground where the Essence concentrations are highest…?”
He stepped out of nothing, appearing in the room with all of us. The collective butt clench could have created a diamond if there had been a Mage nearby that could harness the sudden pressure.
Bath version two: Imbrem Aureum. Strange name, but very fitting. It had started as a massive water elemental and had been eating air and celestial types like Dale ate jerky. Too fast for their own good is what I mean.
“Ah. Yes.” Gomei almost smiled, and even the slight twitch showed more mirth than Brianna had ever seen from him. “Dale calls me ‘Grumpy Old Moon Elf instructor’ under his breath and turned it into an acronym. He thinks I don’t hear him, but I plan to use it as a training aid for our next lesson.”
