Chapter 111: The Seeds of Sabotage (Patreon)

I felt a little better knowing that my situation in Pandora was taken care of, even if I had to make regular visits back there to terrorize the Aspirants as Doctor Walter. The Abyss guild needed its prestige back, and soon if we wanted to survive what’s to come. At least I no longer had to worry about leading a triple life, as if having two identities to keep track of wasn’t bad enough already. Now I could focus all my attention on screwing over the Restus. But there was a problem.

I hovered around the outskirts of the city, still trying to wrap my brain around a feasible plan. My initial idea was to sneak into the place and observe the people, it was my standard approach for situations like this, but I had forgotten one crucial issue. The inhabitants of the city were lizard-spider things. How the hell could I blend in? 

I had no stealth skills, I couldn’t transform into one of those things either, and I couldn’t exactly use Noe’s Absolute Luck constantly to evade notice. Sure I had over 1500 Luck Charges, but would I bet my life on it lasting the whole time I was inside the city? No. Which means that I was severely limited in options.

Okay, let’s assess what tools I did have at my disposal. The first no-brainer was Noe’s Absolute Luck, although it was too nebulous to count on when planning ahead. I didn’t have six years to grasp the nuance of its use. Next was the new system skill. This was really useful for when I had already infiltrated the city, but next to useless prior to that. That left me with the handful of Titles that I had.

I thought for a moment before frowning. The secondary titles were useless, but how had I forgotten about the main skill at my disposal? 

Noe, show me my first Soul Title again.

“Acknowledged, my Host.”

Primary Soul Title: Level 11 Popular Xollon Idol [Devourer of Truth]

Progress to next level: 108,877/1,000,000

Progression requirements: Have 1,000,000 individuals idolize you

Title Passives:

• Xollon Anatomy Stage 2: Your body has begun to incorporate more of a Xollon’s internal anatomy. Your Xollon mind will filter out all mental pollutants. You take 10% reduced damage from all sources and are unaffected by most poisons.

• Xollon Physiology Stage 1: Your body has started to incorporate a Xollon’s external anatomy. You can utilize and extend your primary feelers through your human hands.

Title Skills:

• Idols Voice (Soul Passive)

• Secondary Xollon Form (Level 11 Soul Active): The user assumes the Secondary form of the Xolloid Race. The user gains all the physical characteristics of the race and will have all physical attributes increase by a factor of 5 for the duration of the skill.

What the… I was a popular Xollon Idol now? When did that happen?

“Shortly after you finished your speech, my Host, your Soul Title underwent a quantitative change after advancing past level 10 and will do so again once it passes level 20,” Noe answered, “I apologize for not notifying you earlier.”

I frowned, Noe’s never failed to inform me of such important things before, unless you count her stint in that weird darkness dimension. I think having my Soul Title literally evolve would constitute an important thing.

“I will ensure that such an error does not happen again,” she said with a hint of remorse in her voice.

Hey, no worries, we all forget sometimes. 

“Thank you for understanding.”

I returned my attention to the information presented. The immunity to mental pollution was a nice touch, I’ve been dealing with a lot of that and Noe had to burden herself with addressing that, so it was nice knowing I had a natural way of counteracting it. What was most surprising was the cooldown for my skill. There wasn’t one.

Does that mean that I can just use the skill whenever I want like my doctor title?

“That is indeed the case, my Host.”

I smiled. Now this gave me more flexibility to work with. Just to make sure that what I planned could work, I took out the information package that the stupid imp gave me previously and reviewed the information.

I nodded to myself; I was right, the Restus have had dealings with Sponsors of their own, and had a rigid belief system already in place. Better yet, their deities didn’t necessarily look like their species. I could work with that.

Alright Noe, it’s time to start this show. Activate my Soul Title’s active.

“Acknowledged, my Host.”

My body transformed into the familiar form of the Xollon, although much diminished from the real thing. Still, I had all the needed physical characteristics for my plan to work. Now the only issue was infiltrating the city without being spotted. 

I recalled that I could borrow my tentacles into the earth, and I was practically just a mass of tentacles in my current form. I couldn’t see why I couldn’t just dig underground like some kind of horrible eldritch worm, and it wasn’t like I had eyes to worry about to see things in any case. 

I tested my theory and found out that the Xollon form was remarkably adept at burrowing, I was able to easily swim through the dirt as my frills pushed away all but the largest rocks. The large ones I couldn’t shove were destroyed by my maw, and navigating underground was as easy as walking. I could still perceive all of my surroundings through the superior senses of a Xollon. 

According to the information package, the Restus were nocturnal. With the sun out in full swing, the streets of their city were already starting to empty out. There were still a few late-night, uh, I mean late-morning goers, but finding a quiet spot to unburrow wasn’t too difficult. However, since no one seemed to notice my presence below the surface (and I’ll be honest, the cool dirt was kind of soothing), I decided to take the time to scout out these new Aspirants. 

After hours of digging around, I had to stop myself in fear that I would cause the city to collapse from all the tunnels I had created. I had learned quite a lot about the race that was to be our enemy. 

For one, their society was brutal. I had seen the weaker members of their race tortured and beaten by the ruling few for what seemed like minor infractions. Then again, I didn’t bother reading the 84-page report on Restus social norms that the imp gave me, but I was fairly sure that they were minor mistakes after consulting Noe. 

Yet remarkably, those beaten up Restus would all invariably recover quickly before going around to beat up someone they thought was weaker than they were, and this trend continued until I found the group deemed to be the bottom of the food chain. These Restus were downtrodden and had even less hope in their eyes than even the worst B Group Aspirant from back home. 

They had given up all hope and were regularly abused by those who passed by them, although they were ignored for the most part. These were the true social pariahs of the Restus. I thought about it for a moment but ultimately decided to skip this group. I liked to work from the bottom up, to prop up an underdog, but even I couldn’t do much with this bunch. 

Instead, I moved up the food chain until I came across one particular group that was not so far down the power structure that they had completely given up hope. If I’ve learned one thing about this race, it was that they valued power above all else. They would do anything to raise up in status, to feel that euphoria of besting one of their own. This was a perfectly exploitable weakness. 

Now to wait for my opportunity to strike. I remained underground, keeping track of each member of the group I wanted, and waited for the moment when one of them would inevitably do something foolish to someone stronger than they were. I didn’t have to wait long. I saw one of the Restus approach another of its species with hatred in its eyes.

The being it confronted chuckled when it saw the other Restus stomp over, “You’ve come to get beaten again, Bakren?”

The Restus known as Bakren snarled, “What did you do to my spear? It is my property won from the Proving Grounds!”

The other Restus laughed again and took out a pile of broken metal from his inventory, “You mean this? I thought it was garbage.”

Bakren howled, “You go too far Maar! There is no honor in breaking a warrior’s weapon!”

The other Restus barked in amusement, “That’s a good laugh, to think you would consider yourself a warrior. You’re barely fit to fight even the Broken, let alone a true opponent.” 

Bakren lunged at the bigger Restus, his claws flashing with venom. The other being didn’t even bother trying to dodge and just allowed the other creature’s claws to rake across his scaled chest. The wound was massive, but it closed up almost immediately. 

“Ah, that was nice,” Maar said with a sigh, “Mind scratching my back for me as well? I have a hard time reaching back there.”

The first Restus continued his assault, using wide swings that would have destroyed boulders and uprooted trees, all the while the other being remained stock still. Maar didn’t even budge from his spot, his taloned feet having dug deep into the earth. 

Maar sighed, “Now this is just embarrassing, even for you.”

Bakren shouted incomprehensibly again but was cut short when a causal swing from Maar sent him flying across the street. He slammed into a nearby building with an explosion of force. Whatever the city was built of here was damned sturdy, because I couldn’t even see a dent in the structure.

The first Restus struggled to get up; one of his many arms was bent at a strange angle and his chest was all but caved in. Yet he was still alive, I had seen others like him take much more damage.

The other figure sauntered leisurely towards the fallen foe, laughing all the while. He picked up one of the broken pieces of the destroyed spear and stabbed it into the other’s arm, pinning him in place. Yet despite the considerable amount of pain that Bakren was experiencing, the Restus never begged for mercy. No wonder the Overseer chose this species to pair against us. If even the weakest members of their race were like this, then I dread to see how the elite stack up.

The one known as Maar spent the next 15 minutes just pounding the other man into paste, but eventually he stopped, evidently from boredom than anything else. He threw the fragments of the spear in Bakren’s face before spitting on his battered body. He never broke a sweat in that entire exchange.

“You’re free to come back anytime, little ‘warrior’,” Maar spat, “I’ll be glad to obliterate you again. You lose a few more times and maybe you’ll join the other Broken! Your losses are adding up.”

Bakren looked up but didn’t respond, mainly because his jaws had been dislocated and he physically couldn’t speak at the moment. It wasn’t until almost an hour passed before he had recovered enough to move about, and a few more after that to stand on his hind limbs again. 

He was defeated, still broken, and resentful, everything about his body language screamed rage and hatred. Now it was time for me to make my entrance, he’s already so emotionally amped that I think it’ll only take a subtle nudge to have me do what I needed. 

I unborrowed and made my presence known. 

Noe, activate my new skill to maximum capacity. 

“Acknowledged, my Host.”

The creature noticed my approach immediately and made a feeble attempt to defend himself. He was obviously unsure what this strange tentacle being was, and I made sure that Noe was amplifying his sense of unease. He started to back off subconsciously as I made my way closer and closer to him, Noe was ensuring that every fiber of his being told him that I was to be feared, to be respected, to be worshiped. 

I walked slowly towards the still battered Restus and turned those emotions up to 11 before speaking softly, “Hello Bakren, I have a deal that I would like to offer you. Would you like to hear it?”