Schedule Update
Hey guys,
From now on, the release schedule here will be daily.
If you'd like to read up to 20 chapters ahead, you can support me on Patreon:
https://www.patreon.com/cw/Thanarit
Thank you for all your support. it really keeps the story going.
"So." Ren turned from the sparring room wall and looked at all three of them. "Are the results satisfactory, my dear patient and my dear Guild Master?"
Lu Changcheng, Chu Xinghe, and Lucy all turned to face him at the same time.
Their brows twitched in unison.
Is he bragging right now, Lucy thought. He is bragging. To the Guildmaster. Who has been at Mythical rank for eighty years. He created a Mythical rank skill out of nowhere and he is standing there with his hands behind his back asking if the results are satisfactory.
Lu Changcheng smiled, though the smile had a particular quality to it. "More than satisfactory."
"Are you the goddess?" Chu Xinghe said, pleasantly. "I'm asking sincerely. Are you a god? Because skills come from the world system. The goddess determines that. And you just handed one over like it was a receipt."
"I have a method," Ren said.
"A method," Chu Xinghe repeated.
"Yes."
Have you considered my feelings, Lu Changcheng thought, not saying it out loud because he was the Guildmaster and had a reputation to maintain. Eighty years at Mythical rank. Eighty years. This man sets up a clinic on my forty-fourth floor and starts producing Mythical skills. I have thoughts about this.
"It's more than satisfactory," Lu Changcheng said again, because that was the honest answer. "Can we discuss payment now?"
"Yes, actually." Ren folded his arms. "S-rank monster material. Or magical artifacts with peak destruction potential. Preferably fire or thunder element."
Chu Xinghe considered this. He had expected something more complicated. An oath of loyalty. A rare ingredient that required three months of hunting. A blood contract of some kind. The price was significant by any normal standard, but for a Mythical rank skill it sat considerably below outrageous.
"Guild Master," he said, "please use my guild credit to open the vault."
"Sure," Lu Changcheng said.
. . .
Ren sat behind the reception desk of the Clinic of the Ruin Gospel and looked at the S-rank thunder magic amplifier orb on his desk.
It was roughly the size of a large grapefruit, deep violet with gold current running through the interior in slow branching arcs. Peak destruction potential, thunder element, exactly what he had asked for. Chu Xinghe had handed it over without ceremony.
He turned it once in both hands.
I think, Ren thought, I have a perfect use for this.
He set it down and opened his notes.
. . .
The underground prison had no natural light and no smell. The cells on the lower block were for the ones who were not getting out.
The newest figure in Cell Block D was chained to the wall at both wrists and both ankles, chains set at a length that allowed standing and nothing else. The cell was cold. The floor was stone. Whatever he had been wearing when they brought him in was gone.
Axel Krane. Major General of the Azareth Empire's Supernatural Division, Mythical rank Berserker, veteran of forty-seven gate raids.
He was bleeding from several places that had not been cleaned. His face had taken damage that would scar. His breathing was measured.
So this is my fate, he thought.
Steven. I'm sorry. I couldn't protect your family.
After the day he had helped Nox in the Outer District, the retaliation had been exact and complete. Axel's family, gone. Steven Bright's family, gone. They had not spared the children.
Tears moved down his face and he let them.
Then, from somewhere in the dark of the cell:
"Amitabha."
Axel's head came up.
A figure sat against the wall opposite him, cross-legged, entirely still. He had not been there before. The cell door had not opened.
He was a middle-aged monk. Fat, genuinely fat, the kind that looked comfortable rather than unhealthy. His kasaya was orange and clean, which was strange given the environment. His face was round, his expression open and warm.
"Benefactor," the monk said, looking at Axel with warm attention. "You are a person of fate. My Buddhism has business with you."
Axel stared at him.
"Are you willing to convert?" The monk folded his hands in his lap. "I can guarantee your life and your freedom. You would serve at the side of the Buddha."
Axel looked at him for a long moment. The chains at his wrists. The state of his body. Malvick Siven somewhere above him in this building, holding every position he had always held, entirely intact.
One trap to the next, he thought.
But if he was dead, there was no revenge. If he was dead, the people who had done this to Steven's children walked free forever.
"Before I agree to anything," Axel said, "I need to understand what I'm agreeing to. Tell me about your Buddha."
The monk smiled, warmth settling into his face.
"My name is Eon," he said. "This little monk serves Mahākāla, Devourer of Kalpas, Sovereign of the Black Eternity, Keeper of the Final Hour." He paused on each title. "He has jet-black skin. Many red arms, each carrying an instrument. His face bears a blank expression. He holds authority over all obstructions, the power to erase what stands in the way. He can also heal."
He tilted his head.
"His other title, the one we who serve him prefer to use, is Father."
Axel went still.
The name landed somewhere familiar, a frequency he could not place.
Why does that sound so familiar.
"You look confused, Benefactor," Eon said.
"The instrument thing," Axel said. "What kind of instruments."
"Surgical instruments, primarily." Eon's expression stayed warm, giving nothing else. "Father has an interest in the body. In what the body can become when the right hands are applied to it."
The chains at Axel's wrists were cold.
The Outer District came back to him: a plague doctor mask and a white coat in a rubble field, two hundred and thirteen soldiers paralyzed under anesthesia, old blood giving way to clean air as something moved through them one by one. A figure who had walked away before anyone could ask the right questions, who had stood at Ralph Waibel's grave with a white lily and a bottle of whiskey.
He was very good at pattern recognition. Forty-seven gate raids had made sure of that.
"Does your Father," Axel said, "wear a mask."
Eon smiled. "Father wears many faces."
"That's not a no."
"It is not," Eon agreed.
Axel looked at the chains around his wrists. Malvick Siven was somewhere above him in this building, entirely untouched. Steven's daughter had been seven years old.
"If I convert," he said, "what does service look like."
"You would be healed," Eon said. "You would be free. Father's work requires capable hands. A man of your rank, your experience, your understanding of how this Empire operates." He spread his own hands. "You would have purpose and the means to act on it."
Axel was quiet for a moment.
"Tell me more," he said.
Eon folded his hands back into his lap, settled his weight, and began.
Why, Axel thought, underneath the monk's voice, does that name sound so familiar.