Chapter 485 - A Whole New Me (Patreon)

“I feel like every time I start to get a handle on something, I get an upgrade that puts me back at square one,” Zeke said to Eveline.  Not only had his efforts with his Will recently been reset when he’d upgraded the grade of his Path of Arcane Destruction, but now that he’d begun to acclimate to the flood of demonic mana that came with the corrupted version of [Triune Colossus], he’d evolved the skill to something more powerful.  He could only hope that it wouldn’t be a step back in terms of usability, because Zeke had a feeling that, going forward, he would need every ounce of power at his disposal.

“Oh, poor you, getting supremely powerful skills and paths,” she responded sarcastically.  “I weep for you.”

“Don’t be like that.”

“It is difficult not to be,” Eveline said.  “Do you know what I could have done if I’d had a B-Grade skill at my disposal?  And I expect that you’re going to get more before you reach the pinnacle of this realm.  You have an embarrassment of riches, so pardon me if I don’t pay lip service to your whining.”

“Ouch.  Tell me how you really feel,” Zeke muttered aloud as the pushed himself to his feet and looked around.  He’d been sitting atop the turtle’s corpse, which meant that he had an unobstructed view of much of the landscape.  In the distance, he could barely make out the mountain, but he was much too far away to see the temple at its base.  Nor could he discern which of the ruins throughout the surrounding jungle played host to the ratongi.

“What was that?” asked Talia, who’d been meditating nearby.  Zeke suspected that she’d also reached the threshold to gain another skill, but he hadn’t asked her about it.  She opened her eyes.  “I didn’t hear what you said.”

“Just talking to Eveline.  Usually, I keep it in here,” he admitted, pointing to his temple.  “But sometimes my responses just slip out.”

“How does that work?  Your relationship with her, I mean.”

Zeke shrugged.  “I don’t know.  She’s with me all the time.  She can hear what I hear, see what I see.  She even knows what I’m thinking,” he explained.

Eveline manifested beside him, saying, “That’s not completely true.  I use his senses to perceive the world – mostly.  But I don’t know everything he’s thinking.  I can hear him if he directs something my way – or if he shouts it in his mind, which is most often the case – but if he doesn’t want me to know something, I won’t.  Mostly.  We are intertwined, and in a way I can’t fully explain or understand.”

Then, she went on to recount how she’d become a mind spirit, ending with, “I’m still relatively new to this, but I’m learning more each day.  One day, I hope to be capable of existing outside of his mind.”

That was oddly disappointing to Zeke.  Certainly, he’d never asked to have Eveline stuck in his head, but the notion of losing her left him saddened in a way he didn’t really want to acknowledge. 

“That is interesting,” Talia stated.

Wanting to change the subject, Zeke asked, “Did you get a new skill?”

“I did,” the undead girl answered.  “It is called –”

“You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to,” Zeke interrupted. 

She cocked her head to the side, then asked, “Why would I not want to?  I trust you.”

“I…trust you, too,” Zeke said with a small smile.  “So – what’d you get?”

“It is called [Death Touch],” she said.  “It reduces an enemy’s vitality.  For weak foes, a single touch will kill them.  For higher-level people with higher vitality, it will merely weaken them.  However, if I understand the skill correctly, even then, if I [Death Touch] them enough, they will die as well.”

“That seems pretty powerful,” Zeke said.  Then, he explained his own skill upgrade.  As he began, Eveline protested in his mind, but he chose to ignore her.  After all, he trusted Talia as well, and more importantly, he wanted her to know that fact.  It was intended as a vote of confidence, a sign that he viewed her as more than simply a companion, and wanted her to know that he didn’t intend to keep any secrets from her. 

When he’d finished, Talia said, “That is uncommon, is it not?  A B-Grade skill at this level?”

“I believe so,” Zeke said.  He expected that skills followed the same grading system as stat tiers, which meant that there was still some way to go before he reached the pinnacle of power regarding skills.  After all, with S+ being the eventual goal, he still had at least three tiers to go.  Even so, Zeke felt that the skill’s grade was a notable achievement.  Yet, as interesting as discussions on skills were, they were still on the clock.  Talia’s friend wasn’t getting any better until they defeated the dungeon.  So, they didn’t have time to sit around talking about skills and progression. 

With that in mind, Zeke said, “I think we need to get to the ground before I loot this thing.”

Indeed, in the past, he’d looted huge monsters and ended up falling hundreds of feet.  He could take it, but he wasn’t so certain that Talia could.  Besides, it didn’t make sense to put either of them in danger – even if it was remote – when it wasn’t necessary.  So, over the next few minutes, he and Talia descended from atop the slain turtle until, at last, they reached the ground. 

The earth was barren, stripped clean by [Wrath of Annihilation], and they were at the bottom of an enormous crater.  That lack of flora truly gave the area a desolate, alien appearance.  It was humbling, seeing the consequences of his actions.  Often, Zeke forgot about the implications of his path as well as the skills he’d earned.  But looking at that crater, it was difficult to ignore the reality of his nature.

He was a destroyer, and if he continued on his path, nothing would dare stand in his way.  With the level of devastation [Wrath of Annihilation] could bring to bear, Zeke couldn’t help but speculate what any upgrades might entail.  Would he graduate from destroying miles of the landscape to obliterating planets?  After that, would he become capable of destroying galaxies?  Universes?  Whole realities?

That was the terminus of his path.  Zeke knew that right down to the core of who he was.  He’d spent far too much time meditating on and inoculating himself against his Will to not see where his Path of Arcane Destruction led. 

The only question was how he intended to use the power at his beck and call.

Once he and Talia had reached the nadir of the crater, Zeke reached out and rested his hand on the turtle’s shell.  For a moment, he left it there.  He knew the creature hadn’t been real.  It was a construct created by the dungeon, and it would return the moment someone else entered.  However, beneath his fingers, it felt real enough that he couldn’t help but feel awed by the monster’s implied journey.  It had spent thousands of years as the king of this little world. 

And he had killed it. 

The same was true of the roc, though to a lesser extent.  That creature had felt old, too.  Powerful.  It was a ruler of its little corner of reality.

No more.

What would Zeke do when he was forced to battle something similar in the real world?  Would he hesitate?  Would he try to reason with it?  Or would he adhere to his nature and destroy anything that dared to stand in his path? 

Zeke knew the answer.  His track record spoke for itself.  But he hated what it said about him.  At the same time, though, he reveled in the fact that, for all the powerful creatures and people he’d faced, none had been capable of stopping him.  He had won.  There was enough of his personality wrapped around competition and victory that he could at least take solace in that. 

“You can be more than a destroyer,” Eveline said.  “You are.”

“Am I?” he asked, closing his eyes.  His path wasn’t just another means of power, though it was that.  It was so much more, though.  It was a reflection of who he was.  A prediction of what he could be.  If he wanted to reach the end of that path, he would need to become more of the same.  He needed to embody destruction. 

That was the problem with his path. 

To a creature whose very existence was wrapped around destroying whatever lay before him, everything looked like a candidate of destruction.  Would that grow to encompass innocents who happened to be in the wrong place, at the wrong time?  What about his allies?  Neutral parties? 

The old saying that, to a hammer, everything looked like a nail, felt more applicable than ever. 

“You saved the kobolds.  The beastkin slaves, too.  All those former Knights of Adontis,” Eveline reminded him.  “You’re in here right now so you can help save Talia’s friend.  So you can help her defeat her enemies.  That is not destruction.”

“It certainly feels like I’m destroying a lot of things.”

“Selectively.  You choose your targets.  So long as that remains the case, you’ll be just fine,” Eveline pointed out.

Zeke sighed.  “I hope so,” he said, activating his looting power.  The shell disappeared beneath his hand.  Then the mountain of meat.  Tons of sinew that he suspected would be used for crafting.  And finally, the Heart of Goliathan, satisfying that  portion of his quest.

Now, they only needed the Ratongi staff before they could open the gate and ascend the mountain. 

“Anything useful?” asked Talia.

Zeke shook his head and said, “Not immediately.  That shell might be good for armor or something.  The meat will go to good use, too.  We’re almost out of cyclops.”

“Cyclops?”

“Oh.  Yeah.  I killed this huge cyclops in my first dungeon.  It was a few thousand feet tall,” Zeke said.  “When I looted it, I got a mountain of meat.  But apparently, kobolds eat a lot, and the population in the tower just keeps growing.  So, it didn’t last as long as I expected it to last.  This should help.”

“Very interesting,” Talia said.

After that, the two wasted no time before leaving the remains of the turtle behind.  There were plenty of bits and pieces that hadn’t been looted, so there was a small mountain of useless organs, bones, and other viscera.  So, Zeke was more than eager to vacate the area before the smell became too strong.

At first, Zeke didn’t use his new skill.  Part of it was due to him being a bit nervous about it, but it was also because he didn’t think he needed it.  However, the latter was quickly put to the lie when he noticed how often Talia had to wait on him.  So, even before he reached the edge of the crater, Zeke used [Titan]. 

The familiar sensation of transformation enveloped him, and Zeke grew, quickly taking on a new form.  However, there were some key differences that immediately became apparent.

The first thing he noticed was that he could no longer choose which attunement – or lack thereof – he used as fuel.  Instead, the form drew a little from all three sources.  At first, Zeke found that alarming, but he quickly realized that the cost was much lower than it had been before.  His natural regeneration would have no issues with keeping the skill active indefinitely. 

For a moment, he focused on that trio of mana sources – unattuned from his core, earth from the ground beneath his feet, and demonic from all around him – twisting into a braid that reminded him of his two techniques.  However, unlike Worldbreaker or Runebreaker, it was entirely stable, with each of the threads supporting one another until they were much stronger than before. 

Zeke also noticed that, even though two sources of mana came from without, he could easily fuel the skill with the naturally occurring attuned mana in his body.  So, he wasn’t entirely dependent on the environment, now.  That alone would be incredibly helpful. 

Next, Zeke saw that he was much bigger, now.  Previously, his largest form was the earthen colossus, and it topped out at around thirteen feet.  The [Titan] form was at least twenty feet tall and built with the stature of an NFL linebacker.  Wide shoulders, thin waist, and a thick bottom half gave him an appearance of unmatched athleticism and power. 

That was interesting, but size didn’t always correlate to power.  Zeke had killed plenty of creatures much larger than himself, so he knew that better than most.  However, it only took one step for him to recognize the difference.

“It’s stronger and faster than the demonic form of [Triune Colossus],” he remarked inwardly.

“It’s a B-Grade skill, Ezekiel.  Of course it’s better,” Eveline said.

That made sense.  But before he really put it through its paces, Zeke removed a large mirror from his storage space and inspected his new appearance.  And he was more than a little surprised by what he saw.

The reflection was clearly based on his normal appearance, though it was an idealized version, without the flaws he was so used to seeing.  But even more shocking was the composition of the form.  It was primarily silver, though without the shine he was used to seeing, with a web of cracks covering his upper body.  From those cracks glowed three colors.  Yellow that felt like earth mana, black that was clearly demonic, and white that was unattuned.  The result was both intimidating and beautiful. 

Finally, Zeke recognized one other factor that came with his transformation.  He had an ability associated with the form.  Tentatively, he prodded it with some mana, and he instantly grew twice as large, with an increase in power to match.  And what’s more, Zeke felt that if he were to flood the skill with mana, he would continue to grow, both in power and size. 

Until the mana ran out.

Which, given how greedy that addendum to the skill was, would be quite soon.  Clearly, it was meant to be a temporary boost to his power, meant to help him overcome desperate odds. 

Zeke cut the ability off, returning to the normal [Titan] size.  When he did, he experienced a brief moment of disorientation, but it quickly faded. 

“Strong,” Zeke remarked, pulling Voromir from his storage space.  It grew to match his new size, which was both expected and appreciated.  “Very, very strong.”

“Are we happy with our choice?” Eveline asked.

“I am,” he answered, giving his hammer a few test swings.  “If I’d had this against the roc, I could have made quick work of it.”

“Not the turtle, though.  Goliathan was much more powerful than that bird.”

Zeke agreed with that.  Then, without any further conversation, he resumed his journey, catching up with Talia much more quickly than before.  Part of that was due to his longer legs, but much was because of his increased power. 

“I could definitely get used to this,” he said.