Ch241-Keep Calm (Patreon)

-

-

Ch241-Keep Calm

-

-

In terms of power, speed, and range, a spell can be in 2 circles, but not all 3.

A powerful spell will be slow, but it may have a giant range, or it might be quick, but with a small range.

A fast spell can be either strong and short-ranged, or weak and long-ranged.

But a spell cannot be long-range, powerful, and fast.

With very few exceptions.

One of those exceptions are spells cast through a bloodline. If the conditions are right, a mage with the right bloodline, and the right spell, can have an attack that is powerful, has a long-range, and is so fast that it’s nearly impossible to avoid.

Another exception is holy magic.

Sometimes.

When a god nudges their priest’s magic to be stronger or faster than it has any right to be, the spell might end up being extremely powerful, extremely fast, and with an extremely long range.

The fact that Sylver didn’t feel any sort of weakness at the moment, meant the barrier trapping him inside wasn’t boosting Sophia’s abilities. It was meant to contain him, nothing more.

Sylver estimated that the barrier had a 200-meter diameter, give or take 10 meters, going by the curve of the wall he was currently pressed up against.

Considering the sheer mass of silver Sophia was manipulating, her range was likely in the 30-meter area, further than that the feathers were likely to move significantly slower. At least, that was the hope, because if plan A didn’t work, the entirety of plan B to Z involved being impaled by undead destroying silver and playing dead.

Sylver tensed 4 different muscles in his body and allowed the aptly named “rip cord” loose. The cord did as the name suggested, and the mass of strings Sylver had sitting inside blood vessels, meant to suture his wounds, and heal him, did the opposite and ripped several portions of his insides into shreds.

It had taken him 3 attempts before he found the right combinations of internal organs, muscles, and spinal discs that needed to be harmed, for the system to lower his health below 200HP, without outright killing him.

As [Hare’s Great Escape] activated, Sylver lowered his head, and like a cockroach, scurried underneath the wave of silver blades, directly towards Sophia. Where a bunch of useful “organs” used to be, there were now loose chunks of crystals floating in an extremely dense liquid that could be considered “blood,” if it were inside of a living creature.

The decoy Sylver left behind disappeared the moment the first silver-tipped blade touched it, and because Sophia wasn’t an idiot, she immediately realized what Sylver had done.

Luckily for Sylver, she was expecting an attack from behind, or from above, because most magically capable opponents could instantly move from one spot to another and didn’t need to crawl on the ground like some kind of insect.

If this were anyone else, Sylver would have been worried about killing the woman, but he knew Sophia quite well and knew from firsthand experience that she was a lot tougher and sturdier than she may appear at first glance.

Sylver’s goal was to talk and make sure this was a genuine case of mistaken identity. It’s been 5 years since she had last seen him, it wasn’t impossible that Sophia had forgotten what Sylver’s shades looked like.

Just as Sylver prepared his legs to lunge at the woman, to set off an explosive against her stomach, to knock the wind out of her, he was blinded by a sphere of holy light.

Not blinded in the sense his eyes exploded in their sockets, although that happened too, but blinded in the sense that the air around him was charged with so much holy magic, that he couldn’t perceive anything further than what he felt with his skin.

Sylver reacted fast enough that most of the damage was limited to his forearms, which in this case meant all that remained was the bones, while what used to be his skin and flesh was now useless ash floating through the air.

Sophia’s spell bought Sylver half a second of breathing room. After the half second had passed, Sophia’s blades changed direction and were once again flying straight at him.

Sylver was at a disadvantage against her.

For starters, their range was vastly different, but what made it worse, was that Sylver couldn’t get close to her. So, his only option was to fight her from far away, which he wasn’t capable of doing. Any arrows his shades fired disintegrated before they even reached Sophia, throwing rocks, while amusing, wouldn’t do much against her, which only left sacrificing a bow or a crossbow and having a shade fire a real arrow at her.

Except then Sylver ran the risk of accidentally killing her. She had excellent defenses against blunt and explosive damage, but an arrow through the neck would be the end of her.

And Sylver liked Sophia and preferred not to kill her, if at all possible.

As he very narrowly managed to dodge out of the way of the silver feathers, and by dodge he meant they only sliced against his body, as opposed to impaling him, he realized that there was a chance Sophia might actually cripple him in this fight.

His needle was neatly wrapped up in indestructible metal, but if someone were to continuously blast him with holy energy, it wasn’t impossible that the magic might reach the needle.

With that in mind, Sylver waited until half the silver feathers flew past him, and then in a single motion, snapped one of his ribs. The mass of [Necrotic Mutilation] liquid exploded out of him, and at Sylver’s command, forced itself onto the mass of flying silver, while simultaneously sending Sylver flying towards Sophia.

She reacted quicker than he expected, and before Sylver even finished raising his hand to summon the first bomb, he was once again pushed away by a massive sphere of holy light. Sylver tried to fight through the pain, but even if his knees hadn’t buckled, he doubted he would have had enough strength to pass through the holy light.

Whatever other plans or ideas Sylver may have had before he was flung backward, went straight out the window, as Sophia disappeared.

It seemed… wrong that she could teleport out of the barrier.

But what was worse was that she could still manipulate her feathers.

They were slow, much slower than they had been a moment ago, but that was only because Sylver was perceiving the world the way a man with 550 dexterity would. And by his count in less than 90 seconds, those seemingly snail-paced feathers would go back to being too fast for him to track with his eyes.

If he had eyes, that is.

Sylver dodged out of the way, and then dodged again, each time he tried to trap as many feathers into the dirt as he could, but the thing about a handleless blade that’s sharp from all sides is that it’s hard to stop it from slicing its way out.

If he wanted to catch them, he would need to apply pressure from the sides. Which, while theoretically doable, couldn’t be done using loose dirt, doubly so when multiple blades needed to be caught, and triply so when Sylver’s magic is being fucked with by the presence of silver.

The only positive was that these were proper blades and hadn’t left tiny pieces of silver inside of Sylver’s flesh when they sliced him.

At the 68-second mark, Sylver heard the comforting noise of muted crackling.

The sound was followed by a giant blade crashing through the barrier. It landed right in front of Sylver’s face and was close enough that he could feel the hot air coming off of it.

“Don’t kill anyone!” Sylver shouted, as much as he could without the piece of crystal that allowed him to speak without resorting to auditory illusions.

The sword stretched out sideways and very quickly formed itself into a small protective sphere around Sylver. The metal barely made a sound as the silver feathers collided with it and shattered against the immovable object.

Maybe a minute passed, possibly two.

The metal sphere turned back into a sword, and Sylver was set alight with a brown-colored flame. Once his eyes grew back, he saw 7 priests, 7 heavily armored paladins, and Sophia, laying on the ground, with a giant gash on the top right part of her temple.

The priests had an identical gash in the same place, and the paladins wearing armor had a tear in their chainmail in the same spot.

“Where’s Faust?” Sylver asked.

His voice was distorted and quieter than he intended.

“I’m here,” Faust answered.

Sylver had to physically turn his head to look at him and saw that apart from a soot stain on his shirt, he was fine.

“Do you still have that ring I gave you?” Sylver asked.

Faust leaned down, reached into his boot, and produced the ring Sophia had given Sylver to contact her in case of emergencies. The band of gold metal didn’t look all that memorable, but the magic trapped inside it was unmistakably Sophia’s.

Sylver gestured for Faust to give the ring to Edmund.

“You’ll want to keep her pinned to the ground when you wake her up,” Sylver said, with a nod towards Sophia.

“I thought she would be taller,” Edmund said, as he stopped healing Sylver, and walked over to Sophia.

“Now that you said it… I should be at least a head taller than her, but she’s almost the same height as me…” Sylver said, as Edmund’s sword floated over to him, and melted over Sophia’s body.

The metal creaked and whined as Edmund reinforced it.

The small gash on Sophia’s forehead fizzled as the dried blood was pushed out of it.

As Sylver had expected, Sophia didn’t wake up quietly, or calmly, she buckled against the metal confines with so much strength that she immediately snapped the tendons in her left shoulder. Her magically enhanced screaming hurt his ears, and the light shining out of her eyes made what remained of Sylver’s uncovered, and skinless, face itch.

Her body froze once she saw the ring Edmund was holding in front of her face. She then lifted her head and looked at Sylver, then at Faust, then at Anna, and then looked at Sylver again.

“You lied to me,” Sophia said, with such genuine revulsion that Sylver felt a metaphoric lump form in his throat.

“If he lied, he had a good reason for it,” Edmund said, with an aged gruff that didn’t match his boyish face.

Sophia’s breath caught in her throat as some sort of god-assisted intuition told her that the faceless skeleton sitting in front of her was the least of her worries.

“I…” she looked away, “I know about Nautis. And the cave. And that you’re the one who guided Melo into rescuing everyone. And that you’re the one who cursed Nautis in the first place. And that you stripped him of his perk, and auctioned him off to be tortured,” Sophia said, in a quieter voice than she would have liked, and without once making eye contact with Sylver.

Sylver waited for her to continue, but she continued looking down at the dirt.

“So what do you want to do now?” Sylver asked.

Sophia lifted her head to stare at Sylver.

“You lied to me,” Sophia repeated.

Sylver nearly responded with a quip but caught himself in time.

“I only lie when it’s important,” Sylver said calmly.

The “smart” thing to do was to apologize for lying. But even if Sylver lied, and since he couldn’t remember what exactly he had said to her it was an “if,” he was almost certain he hadn’t lied directly. He very likely did that thing Fae tended to do and lied by omission.

But Sylver had a feeling that if he pointed that out right now, it would only make things worse.

“Why did you attack us?” Edmund asked.

With both Sylver and Sophia locked in a staring match, they almost forgot other people were here.

“We saw an undead wyvern and attacked it. I had no reason to think you were you, your…” Sophia scrunched up her face for a moment, as she searched around for a good word to use, “your magic feels different,” Sophia said.

“Considering I’m 10 times the undead I was when we last saw each other, I should hope so…” Sylver said.

He and Edmund exchanged a look. Edmund pulled away the liquid metal holding Sophia down and walked to stand behind him. Close enough that if something were to happen, Edmund would be able to protect him.

Sophia stood up from the ground slowly, without any sudden movements, as if a wild animal was watching her. Sylver didn’t need to see behind him to know that that was exactly what Edmund looked like right now.

Sylver remembered that he hadn’t introduced anyone yet.

“This is my brother, Edmund. You already know Faust, and this is his wife, Anastasia Da’Munio,” Sylver said with a gesture towards Edmund, Faust, and Anna. “This is Sophia Rala, head priest of Ra-”

“Ex-head priest… officially speaking… At the moment, I’m just a [Priest]…” Sophia said.

“Why are you here?” Edmund asked.

Sophia almost, almost, asked the exact same question, but when Edmund ever so slightly tightened his grip on his sword’s handle, Sophia decided against it.

Under normal circumstances, Edmund wouldn’t threaten someone like this, but Sophia had 2 things going against her.

The first was that her holy silver weapons had wounded Sylver, and even with Edmund healing him, it would take well over a week for him to fully heal. And another month for the resulting scars to fade.

On top of that, Edmund could see that Sylver was incredibly uncomfortable right now, and the discomfort had very little to do with the fact that he didn’t have any skin. The only thing keeping his insides inside right now were the threads wrapped around his skeleton and his spare robe.

Edmund also knew Sylver well enough to understand why he wasn’t being as direct as he usually was. Why he hadn’t grabbed the woman by the throat and forced an answer out of her.

If Sophia wasn’t on their side, she was too big of a threat for them to just let her go. She wasn’t the kind of person who could be frightened into submission, if Sophia wanted something, there was only one way to stop her.

If she was working with Nautis, she had to die.

If her goal was to kill Tuli, she had to die.

It was of course possible that she was here because of something completely unrelated to Sylver or Tuli. But somehow, Sylver didn’t feel so lucky.

Sylver broke eye contact with Sophia and watched as a black bird landed on a twig sticking out of the ground.

“They think the turtle is a god and want to wake it up,” the bird said.

Sylver returned his gaze to Sophia, but she didn’t meet his eyes as she was busy staring at the raven.

“They also think you’re an apostle of Anubis,” the bird added, with a wave of the wing towards Sylver.

Sylver tried to raise an eyebrow but quickly remembered he currently didn’t even have any eyes, let alone eyebrows.

“I’m going to guess Anubis is the god of dead things, rot, evil, and murdering innocent children,” Sylver said with a tired sigh.

The raven Chrys was using to speak through ruffled its feathers for a moment.

“God of funerals… Responsible for making sure the dead are prepared for judgment,” Chrys explained.

“Why are they trying to wake up a god?” Sylver asked.

There were… at most, three or four “good” reasons for wanting to wake up a god. And one of the “good” reasons was because you wanted to sleep with it.

The light in the raven’s eye flickered briefly and was followed by a hoarse groaning noise. It took Sylver a moment to see the source of the sound was one of Sophia’s unconscious priests. The woman was bleeding from both eyes, and congealed steaming blood was oozing out of her nose.

Now that he was looking at them, Sylver saw that all of the unconscious priests and paladins were bleeding from their eyes, and every now and then Sylver saw a faint glow shine through their closed and bloodied eyelids.

Sylver nearly fell backward as his body was impacted by a wave of holy energy, but compared to what Sophia had cast earlier, the burst was negligible.

A gentle smack on Chrys’ wrist to stop her from further digging through the heads of the priests and paladins. Sophia turned around and kneeled near the priest to heal her.

“She needs the turtle’s help to stop the Moon Demon,” Chrys said. She sounded surprised but didn’t sound particularly afraid, or worried. More than anything, she sounded annoyed.

Sophia in turn froze in place.

She didn’t move, didn’t breathe, Sylver was fairly certain even her heart stopped beating for those 5 or so seconds.

“The Moon Demon,” Sylver repeated.

The words stuck to his teeth like dry ash.

It was all so tiresome.

It didn’t matter where he went, or what he did, every single step he took was right onto a rake that bashed his front teeth out.

“Sophia,” Sylver said.

She resumed whispering at the bleeding priest, while she held the woman's head between her hands.

“Sophia,” Sylver said a bit louder.

When she didn’t respond, Edmund snapped his fingers, and a wall of fire surrounded the unconscious bodies for less than a second. The wounds on their head fizzled and fell off as if they were a large scab and didn’t leave so much as a trace of their existence.

Sylver tried to stand up but couldn’t put enough strength into his legs. He had to prop himself up using [Deadly Darkness] and his robe. As if he was some sort of limp doll missing its strings.

“Sophia,” Sylver said. He didn’t shout, but the woman turned around as if he had. “I am not your enemy,” Sylver said.

“Prove it,” Sophia said as she scrambled to stand up.

Given that Chrys had seemingly nearly killed her friends, Sophia’s distrust was more than understandable.

But in Chrys’ defense, she was paranoid about anything concerning her safety and most likely assumed Edmund would be capable of healing any damage she might cause.

The reality was that Chrys just didn’t care. Or rather, she cared significantly more about herself, than the lives of a couple of unnamed priests.

“Prove what?” Sylver asked.

“Prove you’re on our side,” Sophia said, as she crossed her arms over her chest.

Sylver just looked at her.

If it was just the general distrust, he could understand it.

If Sophia wanted proof because she was afraid of him, he could understand that too.

If she was doing this because of a sense of personal betrayal, Sylver wouldn’t even argue with her.

But the way she said it struck a raw nerve.

“Who are you talking to?” Sylver asked.

The night had been cold, but Sylver’s voice made it feel as if their only source of warmth had just been snuffed out. A tree fell over and scattered their campfire into a mess of sparks and quickly cooling coals.

Sophia was the only one in her group who didn’t take a step back.

“I am asking-”

“Asking who?” Sylver asked.

This portion of the forest hadn’t been particularly loud, but as of this moment, even the rustling leaves ceased their noise-making.

Sophia uncrossed her arms, but she kept them near her torso as if she was trying to protect it from an impending attack.

“I only-”

“You want proof you can trust me? All the proof you need is standing right here!” Sylver said with a bony hand pointing at Edmund. “Prove I’m on your side? Your side?” Sylver repeated.

“You should-”

“Every single fucking time I have to bend over backward just so people will talk to me. You want proof?” Sylver lifted his hand up to his face, dug a piece of silver out of his cheekbone, and flicked it away.

Just as he was about to say something he couldn’t take back; Edmund placed his hand on Sylver’s shoulder.

He didn’t even need to say it, the look in his eyes was enough. Sophia’s silver and magic were poison, eating through Sylver’s body, grinding against his soul, and it’s very difficult to remain calm and rational when you can feel yourself slowly slipping away.

Edmund had kickstarted the healing process, but Sylver’s body still needed to filter all the harmful mana out of him, and the only way to do that, was to wait.

“Alright… Good luck with it,” Sylver said, as he sunk into the ground.

Edmund adjusted the collar of his shirt, while he waited for Sophia to stop staring at the spot of dark soil Sylver had disappeared through.

“Allow me to introduce myself. I am called Edmund,” Edmund said, as Sophia lifted her head and fixed her gaze on the young-looking human boy.

“Sophia Rala,” Sophia said.

The tension that had been present while Sylver was speaking had lessened to the point it was almost gone.

Almost.

“We are not your enemy,” Edmund said calmly.

“Then why did he lie to me about Nautis? About the cave? His bird almost killed Briana. And how does the bird know that Sobek is a turtle?” Sophia asked.

Edmund waited a moment to see if Sophia would add any other questions.

“He lied because he’s paranoid and was certain you were trying to find the turtle to do something horrible to it. He didn’t want to risk it. And in his own words, he didn’t want to have to kill you over it. As for the bird, her name is Chrys. Why did you almost kill Briana Chrys?” Edmund asked as he turned towards the raven with the glowing eye.

“Something bad would have happened if I let things continue as they were,” the raven said.

“So you were in a rush, and weren’t as careful as you should have been,” Edmund clarified. The pause was just long enough that everyone noticed it.

“Yes.”

Edmund nodded at the bird and turned to Sophia.

“A clairvoyant is controlling the bird, in case that wasn’t clear. As for her knowing that Sobek is a turtle, she knows that Sobek is a turtle, because we told her,” Edmund explained.

In the same way Edmund was capable of riling people up, get them excited at the idea of fighting to the death, he was also capable of calming them down. It was one of those things that seemed to be magic but was merely a byproduct of Edmund being the way he was.

***

Sylver rose out of the ground, and on his own two legs, walked over to the campfire Edmund was sitting next to. Faust and Anna were in the tent on the left, while the priests and paladins quietly worked on repairing their equipment on the right.

Sophia had gone somewhere northwards and said she would return in a few hours.

As Sylver sat down on one of the logs surrounding the campfire, his head burst into flames. The dark brown flames wriggled around as if they were long strands of hair swaying in the wind.

“Do you need surgery?” Edmund asked as the dark brown flames sputtered with sparks of gold, and strands of muscles appeared on Sylver’s face.

“No, some of the silver cut a bit too close to my core, but I got it all out. Tell me about the Moon Demon,” Sylver said.

Edmund made a slow circular gesture towards Sylver’s head, and gradually lowered his hand. The brown flames followed suit, and the fire flowed down into Sylver’s robe.

“What’s there to tell? It’s a demon, with the ability to control the moons. During the next winter solstice, it will start to rain, and over the course of a few months, the whole world will drown,” Edmund explained. He seemed to find the concept amusing, as opposed to annoying.

“Sounds about right… Did you eat anything?” Sylver asked.

“I did. Caught some fish in the river… How are you feeling?” Edmund asked.

Sickly red steam came out of Sylver’s mouth as he spoke.

“Not great... But the worst is over. What did you tell her?” Sylver asked.

“That you were in an unimaginable amount of pain and were keeping yourself conscious through sheer force of will. And that you weren’t in the best of moods to begin with,” Edmund said.

“What did she say?” Sylver asked.

“Well… She was upset that you lied to her. And I get the impression she feels that you deserved this for lying. On the other hand, once it occurred to her that you might die from silver poisoning, she looked like she was about to burst into tears,” Edmund said.

“I see.”

“Aside from being a zealot, she seems nice. Although knowing you, the fact that she is a zealot is half the reason you like her,” Edmund said, with a knowing grin.

The red steam leaking out of Sylver’s mouth became darker. As Edmund made a gesture with his hand, the steam began to leak through Sylver’s robe.

“I like women who know what they want,” Sylver said.

“That’s one way of putting it.”

“Anyway… So how will Sobek waking up stop the Moon Demon?” Sylver asked.

Edmund just shrugged.

“Sophia is on a quest from Ra himself. If she doesn’t wake up the turtle, the whole world will drown, and it will be her fault. That’s all she has to go on,” Edmund said.

Sylver lowered his face into his bony hands and sat like that for a while. Edmund continued healing him, as much as he could.

He told Sylver everything Sophia had told him, which wasn’t a whole lot.

The reason she thought Sylver was an apostle of Anubis, was because Sophia had wrongfully assumed that the god brand on Nautis’ neck was the source of his curse. Because it was easier to believe that Sylver was being backed by a god, than that he was capable of using curses that required the power of a god to cure them.

Sophia’s group had used some sort of holy artifact to heal Tuli, but right after they started the healing process, Nautis chased them away. After that, their attempts to get anywhere near Tuli had been fruitless. Nautis didn’t attack them directly, he merely teleported them away.

And as was usual with priests, Sophia’s current plan mostly consisted of waiting for her god to answer her pleas for help. But despite the safety of the world hanging in the balance, Ra was yet to give Sophia so much as a hint as to how to deal with Nautis.

At some point, Sylver felt his two most important organs solidify and snap into place.

[Undead Mastery (VI) Proficiency increased to 100%!]
[Undead Mastery (VI) rank up available!]

[Mirage (IV) Proficiency increased to 100%!]
[Mirage (IV) rank up available!]

[Necrotic Mutilation (IV) Proficiency increased to 100%!]
[Necrotic Mutilation (IV) rank up available!]

[Mutating Override (II) Proficiency increased to 100%!]
[Mutating Override (II rank up available!]

[Arcane Insight (IV) Proficiency increased to 58%!]

[Vigorous Conditioning (V) Proficiency increased to 100%!]
[Vigorous Conditioning (V) rank up available!]

While Sylver was busy reading through the various effects his skills offered him, Sophia returned.

At first, he thought it was a trick of the light, but as Sophia got closer, Sylver saw that Sophia was taller than she had been earlier. By about half a foot.

And as she got close enough for the campfire light to illuminate her body, Sylver saw that Sophia had new tattoos, that reached down to her forearms.

“We’re going to attack Nautis at sunrise. I would like you to help me,” Sophia said.

Her voice was… it was soothing, but at the same time, it hurt Sylver’s ears.

Normally, Sylver kept his distance when god-empowered priests did whatever it is they did.

But this was the rare case where their interests were aligned. And given that Sylver didn’t have any alternatives, his choice was to either join Sophia and her priests and paladins or sit around twiddling his thumbs while he waited for some sort of epiphany.

“Sure. But we’ll need to wait for Ed to fly Anna to Novva first, and come back,” Sylver said, as he stood up, and brushed away the shimmering steam leaking out of his robe.

Sophia shook her head.

“Our only chance is to attack while the suns are rising. If he isn’t back by sunrise, we’ll have to go without him,” Sophia said.

Sylver and Edmund shared a look, after which Edmund floated off towards Faust’s tent. He returned a moment later, and Sylver could see by the silhouettes on the tent wall that the two people inside were quickly getting dressed.

“It will be close, but I can do it,” Edmund said, as the sword he had been using as a seat floated off the ground and attached itself to his back.

“Why not bring her with us? You said she can’t be harmed,” Sophia asked.

“Because I would take it very personally if she were to get kidnapped,” Sylver answered.

As Sophia said, Anna can’t be hurt, but she could be stolen, and hidden away.

And as Edmund said, he’d be back in time to help them attack, so they weren’t losing anything by sending Anna away.

Sylver could handle anything dark magic related that Nautis’ people could throw at them, and Sophia and her lot were powerful enough that, if nothing else, they would be capable of buying time for Sylver or Faust to handle things.

“We strike at dawn,” Sylver said to a half-awake Faust.

“What’s the plan?” Faust asked as he watched the fireball in the sky that was Edmund and Anna.

“Follow Sophia, and hope for the best,” Sylver said, in such a relaxed tone of voice, that Faust couldn’t bring himself to ask for details.

If Sylver considered this an acceptable plan, then Faust trusted that it was as good of a plan as any other.

NEXT CHAPTER