Ch: 119.5 (Patreon)

Clawing at my wrist, I try to get my fingers underneath the bracelet clinging to my arm, but no matter what I try, it's like the metal has fused to my flesh. There was no gap to slip my fingers into, and channeling mana between them wasn’t helping either. I wasn’t in pain or anything, but that wasn’t exactly enough to keep me from freaking out.

“Why would you put on an unknown artifact?!” Tabitha berates me while reaching out and seizing my wrist.

“I don’t know,” I reply in a panic. But on second thought, why did I put the bracelet on? As someone who liked to study enchantments, I knew the danger the unknown bracelet represented. So why did I ignore everything I knew and do something so stupid?

Tabitha pulls my wrist up to her face and examines it closer. “It might be an antitheft enchantment,” she frowns.

“What does that mean?” I ask nervously.

“A lot of older magic tools were designed to only work for specific people,” Tabitha explains. “The bracelet could be simply enchanted never to come off. Or…." Tabitha ominously doesn't elaborate further. "Is it hurting you?”

“No,” I squeak.

“Then it might not be that malicious,” Tabitha lets out a small sigh of relief but doesn't let my arm go. Instead, she tentatively prods at the band, and to my further horror, it feels like she’s poking me directly, not at something connected to me.

I try to pull my hand back, but Tabitha’s grip remains firm. “Now is not the time to panic,” she says in a flat authoritative voice that oddly enough is soothing. I'm about to thank her for the reminder when she just has to go and say the opposite, “If need be, we can always cut off the arm.”

"What, no!” I shout in a panic and move to shove Tabitha off me when I realize she's laughing. "That's not funny," I whine, realizing it was merely her attempt at a bit of dark humor.

"What, not so funny when someone else messes with you?” Tabitha grins psychotically. She slowly releases her grip on me, allowing me to pull my hand back protectingly against my chest. Why did she have to invest so many of her points into Strength? I was supposed to be the stronger one, but now we were almost even.

“Not cool,” I growl as I massage my wrist. It was weird; every time my hand grazed up against the band, it felt like I was rubbing at my skin, but I knew I was touching metal. It was so easy to forget that it was on my arm that it was scary. "What do I do?" I meekly ask Tabitha for her opinion.

Tabitha shrugs unhelpfully. “Not much you can do. If it isn’t affecting you in any way, it’s not necessarily dangerous at the moment. It will likely remain inert if it hasn't done anything by now. Unless, of course, you keep messing with it,” she looks directly at my wrist, where I was still nervously rubbing at the skin around the bracelet.

I quickly pull my hand away, like I touched something hot. “And if it does start doing something?”

“Then we deal with it,” she replies calmly. “Do you want to sit down while I finish up?" Tabitha gestures at the almost full pit of bones and the pile of dirt waiting beside it.

“No,” I rasp and stumble over my words. But after clearing my throat and catching my breath, I find my voice again. "No," I repeat more calmly this time. "I can keep working. How much is left in the chamber?”

Tabitha nods proudly. “I have maybe three more trips left.”

“Alright, I’ll keep separating everything,” I tell her.

“Good,” she says, grinning at me before turning around to head back into the chamber. “Oh, and don't put any more strange jewelry on,” she yells teasingly over her shoulder as she walks away.

I could tell Tabitha was trying to make me feel better, but it wasn’t helping much. So while Tabitha disappears into the chamber, I resume separating bone from armor, but the whole time I’m working, I’m stealing glances at my wrist.

Don't freak out, don't freak out, I repeat repeatedly in my head. It’s not melting your arm off; you’re fine.

While placing more bones into the pile, I use Sense Mana to watch how Mana Skin interacts with the bracelet. From what I could tell, the hoop of greenish metal wasn't siphoning off any mana from inside my body, but there was a faint pull from Mana Skin.

It's no wonder the bracelet could activate without any input, it was faint, but it was drawing in ambient mana at a steady rate. Of course, the drain was nothing more than the usual bleed from keeping my skill active, but it was something I would need to keep an eye on.

There was a chance I could use my skill to cut the hoop off from its supply of mana, hopefully rendering it inert, but I was hesitant to try. If I cut it off completely, the bracelet might start taking what it needs from me directly, and I couldn’t have that now. I needed all my mana if I was going to try reforging the skeleton's armor, so losing any mana, no matter how small, was unacceptable.

Thankfully, nothing else unsurprising happens while I work. I don't find any more hidden jewelry inside the skeleton's armor, and the bracelet remains inactive.

Tabitha helps me push the dirt back over the hole I dug, and together we stamp it down until only a small mound is left.

“Rest peacefully,” Tabitha bows to the patch of dirt, and I copy her as a show of solidarity.

After that, we walk back into the chamber together. There was still a lot of bone dust on the floor, but it was easier to ignore it now that all the piles of bones were gone. And now that we knew the chamber was safe, I could examine the second half of the mural I missed when we first entered.

While the castle and noble quarters surrounding it naturally drew the eye, there was a second landmark that stood out among the regular buildings. Above the statue of the nameless god, quite a bit ways away from the center of the city and its castle, was a depiction of a grand arena. The same arena we were hiding in now.

Like the other impressive buildings in the mural, the arena was also shown to be made from the same grey stone. And though I wasn't sure if everything was to scale, it looked like the arena was bigger than the castle and more heavily fortified, as odd as that sounded.

I also didn’t miss the outline of the robed god superposed over the arena, with its hands stretched out like it was holding the massive structure in the palm of its hands. Not creepy at all.

Looking above the statue and not accidentally glancing down at it was hard. The hypnotic effect it produced wasn't as bad when you knew what to expect, but that didn't detract from how unnerving it felt being drawn into its stony featureless face.

Wait, what?

I flinch back because while I was looking at the statue, my right arm, which had the bracelet on it, had subtly stretched out toward the effigy. I could pull my hand back after noticing it, but there was still a subtle longing to walk over and touch the sculpture I knew wasn't my own.

"Something the matter?" Tabitha notices my awkward movements out of the corner of her eye and turns to me, looking concerned.

I briefly consider lying to her and telling her everything was okay, but I swallow my pride and admit to Tabitha, 'Everything wasn't okay.’ “Something’s drawing me to the statue,” I lower my gaze to the floor, trying to hide how worried I was from Tabitha and not to look at the statue again accidentally.

“The bracelet?” Tabitha smartly focuses on the only thing that could be causing the problem.

“I think so,” I confirm with a slight nod without looking up.

“Child, why does trouble always seem to find you?” Tabitha pessimistically remarks before putting a supportive hand on my shoulder.

“Just lucky, I guess,” I finally look up with a strained smile.

“That you are,” Tabitha mirthlessly shakes her head. "Do you need to leave?" She asks, ready to carry me out of the chamber if I ask her to.

Running away was tempting, but I wasn't raised that way. Though I didn't particularly appreciate how I was being manipulated, I didn’t feel any sense of danger from the statue. And if there was even a minuscule chance that going along with these urges would help us, I had to take that chance.

“You’ll pull me back if something happens?” I ask Tabitha, knowing full well how she is going to answer.

“Always, kid,” she grins supportively.

No more running, I tell myself as I turn and look directly at the statue across the room. I'm tired of everything getting the drop on us; this time, I'm getting ahead of what's happening, not playing catch up. Without hesitation, I walk over to the statue of the nameless god, with Tabitha trailing just behind me. And as the distance between me and the statue shrinks, I feel a slight but noticeable shift in my soul.

Silly me, I should’ve checked that after I realized the bracelet had influenced me to put it on. I couldn't sense anything different with the band on my wrist, but I could sense its faint connection with my soul—specifically, a connection to my soul skills because, of course, it was connected to them.

Well, here goes nothing. My right hand slowly comes up as I stop directly before the statue. My fingers touch the grey stone, and the world around me starts spinning.

I swear the bracelet on my wrist was humming, but I ignored the sensation as I was forcefully dragged into my soul once again. I’m used to the sensation, so when I open my eyes, I’m not surprised to find myself standing in the same spot I always appear in.

I waste no time extending my senses as far as they go, checking every crevice of my soul for anything different.

“I see this isn’t your first time in your soul,” I look around as a voice whispers in my ear. “You have quite the soul,” it lazily continues as I turn in place.

“I get that a lot,” I sassily retort, not pinpointing where the voice came from. "Stop with the theatrics; I'm in no mood,” I growl when I don’t sense anything around me.

“Well, aren’t you no fun,” I hear whispered disappointingly behind me.

Slowly and with an annoyed look on my face, I turn around as a hooded figure materializes out of my soul. I pretend not to care as the exact figure depicted in the statue outside solidifies, but beneath my dismissive exterior, I’m doing my best to backtrack where the fragment of the god came from.

And it was a fragment I was dealing with that I was sure of. The robed figure gave off the same feeling as Ebeon’s and Ilia’s avatars did when my soul was in trouble. Plus, I couldn’t sense a connection to any of the moons overhead, further confirming my suspicions. Also, there were some noticeable differences between the figure in front of me and the goddesses’ avatars I was familiar with.

Unlike the two I knew, the hooded avatar before me wasn't giant in stature. In fact, he was shorter than me, only reaching eye level because he was floating a foot above the ground. And its reduced stature wasn’t the only thing off about it. The figure in front of me was almost see-through, and I felt like I could force him out of my soul if I wished.

However, I wasn’t going to do that just yet, as I still hadn’t pinpointed where the avatar originated from.

“Would you like me to save you the trouble?” The robed avatar asks mockingly.

I guess even though he’s weaker than Ebeon and Ilia’s avatars, he was still a god. “You would do that?” I fold my hands in front of me and give the god a suspicious stare.

“Why not,” I could hear the mirth in his voice, despite it still sounding like he was whispering in my ear. "We won't be able to converse if you don't trust me."

"You can say anything, and I wouldn't trust you," I retort. "I'm only here to figure out what you did to me, nothing else." I project an air of confidence, despite who I was talking to.

“Nothing bad, I assure you,” the avatar rubs its hands together much like a merchant would.

“Then I don’t suppose you’ll tell me how to remove the bracelet,” I counter.

“And why would you want to do that?” The avatar floats around me, sizing me up. “Many would destroy kingdoms to have what’s on your wrist. It holds a whisp of my power, after all."

“I don’t think that’s a very good selling point,” I huff in contempt. “I don’t know if you know this, but I don’t exactly like deals with shady figures.”

“Me. Shady?” The avatar feigns shock. But quickly starts laughing creepily. "Tell me, child, what do mortals say about me these days?"

I debate how I should answer that question but quickly conclude he’d probably realize it if I tried to lie to him. So begrudgingly, I tell the truth. "That's a difficult question to answer, considering I have no idea who you are.”

The avatar pauses for the first time since he materialized, and all the delight vanishes from his voice. "Truly, you have no idea who I am? No idea of my name?"

It takes a lot to make all the hair on my astral body stand on end, but the way the faceless figure looks at me, makes me break out in a cold sweat. “I’m sorry, I don’t,” I struggle to answer with suddenly dry lips.

"Then my siblings really did follow through with their threats," The avatar mumbles darkly before looking up at the moons hanging in the sky above my soul. Specifically, at the seventh moon, I've never felt anything from. “They destroyed me.”

The sheer emotion in those three words sends me collapsing to my knees, shaking like somebody caught in a blizzard naked. Every instinct told me to stay down and be quiet, but my curiosity got the better of me. "You look surprisingly alive for somebody dead," I remark.

The heavy atmosphere vanishes as if it didn’t exist in the first place, and I'm again free to climb to my feet. "Please, we both know I'm only a fragment," the avatar's voice whispers in my ear. "A fragment left behind in the statue you touched, channeled through the bracelet you now wear," he explains.

“And your name?” I can’t help but ask.

The hooded figure doesn't have a face, but it feels like he's smiling at me. "I was known as Zelous, God of the System.”

My soul under my feet trembles at the name, but I ignore the shaking as a million questions spring to mind. I had always wondered who created the system, but I figured it was a combination of all the gods, not just the work of one of them. "You created the system?" I repeat in wonder. “I thought gods embody aspects of nature?”

My question earns me another chuckle from the avatar hovering in front of me. “Met a few of my siblings, have you? True, each of us gains power through governing the laws of this world, but that only concerns the aspects we choose to represent. While my siblings selected to embody the fundamental elements of life and death, I elected to be different. While they were crafting this world at the dawn of time, I sacrificed part of myself to view other worlds and realities, expanding my knowledge of what is and what could be.”

I was trembling with excitement. This was the knowledge I desperately craved from Ebeon and Ilia that they refused to give me. I hung on every word of Zelous, committing everything he said to memory. There had to be a reason he was telling me all this, but I wasn't going to interrupt while he freely gave out important information.

“By the time I stopped scanning the expanse, my siblings had already finished crafting this world and filling it with life,” he continues. “They drew power from the mortals they helped to create, and in doing so, it made them exponentially stronger than myself, who chose knowledge over power. I needed to embody an aspect, but all the major ones were taken. I could’ve fought to seize partial control, but that would’ve meant my death.”

"I asked my siblings for help, but they mocked me for looking out when I should've been looking in. But their mockery quickly turned to jealousy after I made the system," I could hear the mad delight in Zelous' voice. “You see, my siblings created the world and reaped its benefits, but they cared little for the mortals who inhabited it, treating them as sources of power rather than anything else. So when I used my knowledge to create the system to bolster them, they started worshiping me instead."

“And unlike my siblings who needed to wait for specific conditions to gain power, my system provided me a constant source of divinity," Zelous brags. "Over tens of thousands of years, I grew in power to rival all my siblings. And then, once I was about to eclipse them, they begged me to include them in the system. Of course, I accepted, but with the stipulation, each needed to bind a part of themselves to it; that way, once they did, they could never dismantle my masterpiece.”

"Even now, with me gone, my system remains," Zelous cackles like a b rank villain, and I question if everything he's saying is true. He sounded more than a little unhinged, but that could be because he was only a fragment.

“Why are you telling me all this?” I swallow a nervous lump in my throat.

“Why indeed,” the avatar replies cryptically. “Maybe I want someone to know my legacy. On the other hand, maybe it's because you have two of my skills,” Zelous points down at the surface of my soul, and I feel both Soul Devourer and Experience Transfer react to the gesture. “I created those skills so mortals could challenge the gods; remember that."

"What?" I'm about to demand he explains further, but before I can get the words out, the sky above my soul shatters, and two of the moons overhead turn into giant eyes.

“It seems I was finally noticed,” Zelous’ avatar looks unflinchingly up at the eyes.

Before I can do anything, Ebeon, and Ilia's avatars materialize between Zelous and myself. Then, with a casual wave from Ebeon's avatar, my consciousness is flung backward away from the god of the system.

"Sisters, what took you so long," The smaller avatar taunts the two larger ones.

“How are you here?” The light coming off Ilia is so blinding that even with my eyes closed, it feels like I'm looking at the sun.

I'm about to call out in pain when suddenly, the light is blocked. Tentatively opening my eyes, I spot Ebeon’s avatar before me, her darkness shielding me from her sister's light.

“It’s not him, Sister,” Ebeon’s avatar places a placating hand on her sister’s shoulder.

“I know that!” Ilia snaps, continuing to rage to the amusement of Zelous.

"That's right, dear sister, I am but a fragment left behind in the dark, hidden by the system until someone worthy should come along,” Zelous avatar looks past his fellow gods at me. “Remember, traveler from another world,” Zelous’ hooded featureless face pierces through me until I feel his gaze in the core of my soul. "Never stop. Never settle. Climb higher until my siblings fear you. Avenge me. Become my champ….”

Before Zelous can finish his sentence, Ebeon and Ilia wave their hands, and the already fading avatar of Zelous explodes into countless motes of grey light.

I barely have time to process the countless specks of light impacting the surface of my soul before Ilia turns toward me as her anger shifts targets. “Why didn’t you call for us!?” Ilia’s avatar steps toward me, and my soul trembles with each step.

“I, I, I,” I can’t stop stammering under the sheer amount of animosity directed at me.

“It isn’t her fault, Sister,” to my relief, Ebeon shields me from her sister’s wrath. “He was hidden from our sight; not even our fragments sensed him until his power started to wane.”

"Yeah, but," Ilia starts, but Ebeon cuts her off.

“Sister, do you truly believe a mortal could’ve done anything in front of our brother? Fragment or not, he is a god.”

The blinding light radiating from Ilia’s avatar starts to dim. But that didn’t mean I was in the clear yet. “Still, she knows too much now," Ilia does not attempt to hide her hostility towards me. "You heard our brother; she could be dangerous for us in the future.”

Ebeon doesn’t immediately refute her sister, which scares me, but there's nothing I can do. I was utterly at the goddess's mercy.

Finally, Ebeon sighs, which is weird, considering her avatar doesn't have a mouth. “My sister has a point,” Ebeon admits, causing me to flinch back in shock. “However, knowledge does not warrant execution. And due to the limits we all agreed upon, we can’t dish out punishment unwarranted.”

“I haven’t done anything,” I shout in defense.

“You have not,” Ebeon confirms. “You are rightfully confused; you have heard only half of a story. I shall tell you the other."

“Sister, you can’t,” Ilia exclaims.

Ebeon ignores her sister's protests in favor of focusing on me. “What our brother said was partially true. We were jealous of his power and sought to take part of it as our own, but that is not why we destroyed Zelous.”

“Yes, he advocated for mortals to grow stronger, but it wasn't completely out of the goodness of his own heart. We didn't realize until after we had all sacrificed our power to improve his system that he gained small amounts of power through everything the system did. Every skill a mortal earned or leveled, each kill, each item crafted, Zelous gained more power. And as his power grew, so did his desire for more."

"He devised new skills to take advantage of his system and gave them to his most loyal followers. They, in turn, became monsters only interested in gathering more strength. As a result, his people conquered and slaughtered any who stood against them, all in his name,” Ebeon explains in a sorrowful voice. “It took all of us empowering our own followers to combat Zelous’ forces.”

“The great war thousands of years ago,” I mumble in realization.

“The very same,” Ebeon confirms.

“The crater we found, the city that used to stand there?” I ask.

“Once one of the grandest cities devoted to Zelous,” Ebeon tells me. “One of the last to fall. It was only thanks to our other sister Sepia’s champion sacrificing everything that, in the end, it was destroyed. But apparently, it wasn't enough. How many other fragments of our brother are still out there?” Ebeon muses out loud.

“And I’m going to be punished for having his skills?” I nervously ask.

For a painfully long time, Ebeon doesn’t say a word, and when she does, it isn’t necessarily good news. “It all depends on you,” she warns me. “Our brother’s skills are the quickest way to gain power, but….”

"But they come at a cost," I finish for her, seeing where she’s going with this.

“Exactly," I swear I could feel Ebeon's avatar smiling at me, though it felt gentler than when her brother did. "You have shown great resolve in using our brother's skills where many would succumb to their temptation. If we could’ve, we would’ve sealed all his skills away, but even with him gone, we six cannot change the system he designed. So it is up to you how you use the skills you’ve earned. For good,” Ebeon holds up one hand. “Or for evil,” she raises the other. “It’s all up to you.”

“No pressure,” Ilia’s avatar growls off to the side.

Ebeon nods. "It's time you return to the real world," she says as I'm about to ask more questions. She makes a flicking gesture, and I feel myself being flung back to reality.

“But what about the bracelet?” I shout as everything becomes fuzzy again.

“It is the same as your skills,” Ebeon’s voice echoes in my head. “Use it, or let it use you. Make good choices; we'll be watching," it's hard not to notice the thinly veiled threat in there. "All of us."

What does that mean; I wonder as I open my eyes back in the real world. This time I don’t get an answer from Ebeon, and maybe that was a good thing because I had a lot to think about. But I'll have to be quick about it because even though I got a fantastic history lesson, nothing I learned will help us against the lesser dragon.

Knowledge is power, but not the kind of power we need at the moment. I learned, for now, the bracelet isn't dangerous. But that just meant I could focus on other things without worrying.

It was time I started the final preparations to face the lesser dragon.

*********

4,300 words.

This has been a terrible month for me, and it’s barely even halfway over. My family suddenly lost my uncle the other day; he was only 46 with two kids; it really puts your life into perspective. I don't know when the funeral will be, and I'm sorry, but updates might remain a little erratic for the next couple of weeks.

I’m still writing, but yeah, things aren’t great.

Sorry for the sad news; I just felt everyone deserved an explanation. Please tell me what you think of the chapter, and as always, stay safe out there.