Weapons of Mass Destruction

Chapter 889: A warning

I wave the notifications and the rewards off so I can check them in a few minutes and turn to the others. One sweeping gaze confirms that everyone seems okay, though Lily’s already taking care of a few minor injuries.

When she reaches me, I’m about to tell her that it might take a while with my strengthened traits and other changes. I try and almost escape, but she moves like a human-shaped snake and grabs my wrist in her vice-like grip.

I sigh in my mind, preparing for a string of cursing directed at my innocent person and at the state of my body, but she doesn’t say anything and just glances at me, though she must have noticed.

In silence, her healing mana floods me, quickly adapting and changing, and she even raises her output a few times. Then she regrows my arm and restores other parts of me, pulling from my body’s memory or whatever healers use to tell them how a part should have looked.

There are even hints that she’s triggering some sort of secondary effect to replenish my missing blood, and even as it seems to be putting more strain on my body, she also does something else to help with that. So instead of straining my body, her healing somehow relieves it.

Of course, it’s still slower than before my pre-strengthening antics, but her speed is still incredible, and I’m sure this petite maniac will continue to improve it alongside her healing marks. She always does every time I look away for a few days.

“Don’t touch it,” I warn Dennis, who stops nearby, staring at the arm impaled on the spear I made.

“It must be an Adjudicator’s, right?” Lily mutters.

In reaction to that, Dennis jumps a few steps back, even partially moving behind Maya, who tilts her head and looks at it curiously. Looking her over, I notice more visible muscle and a few new sets of mana tattoos.

“Do you think she can regrow from it?” Min-Jae asks, worried, but as expected from a group 4 lunatic, also excited in some strange way.

“That would be fucked up if she could. There would be millions of them in that case,” Sophie crosses her arms on her chest while she also stares at the arm.

“I wouldn’t be surprised if they had that many stored somewhere,” I note.

“There’s a reason everyone is scared shitless of them,” Sophie seems to agree before adding, “You could have tried harder to bring back that black box they all seem to have embedded in the middle of their chest. It’s a controller, at least according to Tess, I bet I could mess with it.”

“Sorry, I’ll try harder next time, no matter how many they keep throwing at me. You know what? I will even try to ask nicely. Maybe they will just give it to me. When I fought them, I didn’t even notice a black box on the one I met. Are you sure they weren’t upgraded since they were recorded for the setting of the tutorial?” I ask. “Are you imagining yourself with an army of near-indestructible clones of a Ruler? Blackie isn’t enough anymore?”

To my surprise, the tall figure entirely clad in its red armor turns its head to face me as if it’s listening or at least reacting to the name. The whole time it positions itself near Sophie and Izzy in a way that seems both protective of them and like a child seeking protection.

“Let’s just say I wouldn’t mind having one. And why the hell did you have to attack the Aurate Consortium? Weren’t the other corporations enough?”

“I tried to avoid them, but they seemed to have some bullshit Article 5 kind of deal. It’s not my fault.”

“Aren’t we already abusing the fact that Starless Sky’s agreed to protect Earth? What does it matter if we steal a bit of intellectual property from the Consortium?” Dennis asks, gesturing at the hand.

“Because,” Sophie emphasizes, “they’re way fucking scarier than most of the Rulers. Isn’t that enough? In 100 years we might get powerful enough or make defensive deals to take care of the other corporations, but surely not when it comes to the Aurate Consortium,” she sighs. “But who the fuck cares? Lily, do you think you can learn something from it or regrow it for me to control?”

Our healer, having finished healing me, squats in front of the arm and grabs a stick from the ground. She uses it to poke the twitching hand and then shrugs.

“I don’t know,” she says, “but I will try.”

“They likely rigged it with feedback traps, remote triggers, and security measures to keep anyone from scavenging their property,” Min-Jae says.

“Well, it’s a good thing we’re in the tutorial right now, their signals won’t reach us here.”

It’s difficult for me not to feel smug about it as I say it.

Of course, the last thing I want to do is fuck up the entire floor by bringing the arm of an absolute with me. This is exactly what happened with Lycan’s hand, and it ended with Biscuit losing his primordial energy and hurting himself in the process.

I had this very, very strongly in mind when I was facing the Adjudicator, along with the fact that it belonged to the Aurate Consortium. Still, in the end, I decided it was, and that the consequences didn’t outweigh the gains Lily could make from observing it.

And as Sophie said, I don’t think any of the corporations will mess with Starless Sky, who’s likely more powerful than Wrath or Ruby.

I wonder how he scales against Cinderbear, but based on the rules and customs of this universe, I give it a small chance that he’ll challenge Pride fairly soon for one reason or another, and die in the process.

That’s just how it seems to work around here.

But even if Starless stops protecting Earth in the next 100 years, I should be powerful enough to fuck up a random corporation or two by then. Now that I think of it, does that mean Starless Sky is just chilling somewhere on Earth? Is he protecting it from a distance? Did he just leave a mark there as a warning to invaders while using the ancient Firmament to move around? And what the hell does the stigma he placed on Vic do? I need to know.

As for the Adjudicator, it’s just a clone of Kindness. A weak one at that, possessing only a body and stats around the level of a Champion deprived of mana. Scary, but there are also Arbitrators, also clones of Kindness, ones that possess a body closer to the originalʼs power. Still pretty far off, but likely around the level of an Absolute.

I wonder, what’s the best way to fight them? After all, they don’t have any mana or skills, just a quickly regenerating body. Well, that and their bullshit heart-stopping trick.

My attacks are more of a wide-range bombardment style. While I have access to an incredible penetrating attack by combining a lance with my blood, what I really lack is something powerful and mid-sized to erase more quickly regenerating types and damage bigger targets.

But I push these thoughts away as I turn back to the others and explain what happened to the floor, Lissandra, Myrra, the wyvern, and Biscuit.

At one point, Aaron telepathically joins the conversation to harshly criticize both Gwyn siblings for their weird tendency to release dangerous beings into the wild.

I have nothing to say to that, so I just keep quiet.

If you spot this narrative on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

“For you,” a soft voice to my left grabs my attention, and I look at Lily, who is reaching out to me with a very nice, smoothed-out, rounded mana stone in her palm.

The others, meanwhile, are still arguing over something and going through the loot while Izzy is trying to stop Noodle from eating the hand.

“A bonbon?” I ask, the joke sounding lame the moment I say it out loud.

Yes, she snickers, pushing it up to me. “Yup, it will help you with your severe mana deficiency. Please make sure to gulp it down with plenty of water.”

“Sure,” I say, taking it and peeking inside, quickly recognizing the style of storing information.

Lily confirms it, “I got it by trading with Savant. It contains some information on primordial energies, fragments, as well as body modifications and item crafting methods that require you to solidify mana and the like.”

“Huh, I see. Thanks. Did you get scammed?”

“Not really? He just asked for some healing marks and a sample of my [Disintegration]. After you went with the wyvern, he left very quickly. Taci kept playing with Veto while looking at him.”

“I see.”

“Taci was very happy with the dagger.”

“I would also be very happy to have something with the value of a country or more.”

“I was offered a mid pristine item too.” Lily drops that bomb on me, and as I squint and stare at her, she smiles, “A few different corporations offered me contracts that would be signed right after my tutorial. Some of the offers included mid pristine items, chances to study under their contracted Absolutes, and such. Though usually it would require me to sign on with them for more than 100 years.”

She pauses and shakes her head, laughing, “One of the offers would have had me sign a contract for 500 years.”

“Those fucking scammers.”

“Yup. Tess told me to reject everything and said that as the tutorial comes closer to the end, the offers will get much, much better.”

“I guess. Now I’m just sad. No one offered me a contract.”

“You’re well known too, but usually you tend to seem like too risky an investment. Though they know who your master is, and now that she’s free, I think you will get much more interest.”

“Good, as it should be.”

“Do you plan to accept some kind of contract?”

“Nope, but some good offers would flatter me.”

Lily flashes a smile. “I felt the same.” She then reaches towards me and starts poking my arm with the tip of her finger. With each powerful poke, her mana floods inside of me and places a healing mark there. I quickly notice that they’ve already been modified and are vastly different from the previous version. Adapted the moment she healed me and observed the changes to my body.

Watching her faint smile as she keeps poking me almost sends a chill down my back.

“Of course I took plenty of the ‘gifts’ they offered me. They all tried to act sooo mighty and so rich. So I acted in exactly the way they expected, an innocent, wide-eyed healer on the brink of accepting their incredible offers.”

Lily stops poking me and glances at the arm surrounded by the other members of group 4. “The Aurate Consortium didn’t give me an offer, but I saw Raga watching me. She and that special Adjudicator. Can I be honest with you and vent for a bit, Nathaniel?”

“Go ahead.”

“Sometimes I’m scared when I see so much interest in me. I don’t know what’s going to happen if I get in over my head. I’m afraid I won’t be able to control it. But on the other hand, I like it a lot. I like the way people notice and care for me, even if it’s only for my abilities and not me as a person. Izzy said it’s probably because of how lonely I used to be.”

“That makes sense.”

“Isn’t that weird?”

“Lily, you already know what I’m going to say.”

“Yes,” she smiles.

“Do you want to hear me say it all over again?”

“Yes, from you.”

“So what if it is weird? Do whatever you feel like doing.”

“That’s a new version of that sentence.” She continues to smile, but lets it fade away before nodding. “It is weirdly calming to hear you say it with such confidence and that expression of yours. Do you have anything you want to complain about? I’ll listen.”

“No true complaints for now, but thanks.”

“My offer still stands. And if you ever find me annoying, just go ahead and fire me and look for a new healer.” Not waiting for an answer, with pretended arrogance, she twists around and walks back to the others with a straight back.

Once there, she slams into Izzy and pulls her into a tight hug, only for our empath to groan and try to push her away.

I’m sure that even if I did fire her, she’d still heal me, so just how silly is that? I think out of everyone I know, Lily feels the most… well… kind and selfless. In some ways, even more so than Izzy.

It might seem strange with all the times I’ve seen her use her [Disintegration] to erase people off the face of the earth, but I still believe that.

Well, whatever. I push these thoughts away and open my notifications, glancing over at my skills as I do.

Active skills (9/10):

Focus - Lvl 86

Perception - Lvl 79

Redistribution - Lvl 82

Eclipse (Pride) - Lvl 77

Empyrean Lance - Lvl 68

Manifestation - Lvl 63

Weave - Lvl 49

Mana Manipulation - Lvl 88

Selective Adaptation - Lvl 36

How nice.

I want to see Nyssa’s stats. Or Lyraen’s.

But only if mine are better.

Then there’s the rest of the notifications.

The objective of the cleared 11th Floor quest has been influenced by an unexpected occurrence, and your rewards have been altered.

You have acquired:

Passive skill combination token (up to low pristine rarity)

Ten-minute Disciple Communication token (x5)

A warning

Well, not really good, or terrible. After all, we didn’t even gather any talnium during the 11th floor. Even though I found some, I still lost it on the real Xyphos, and the others dug it out for me. Even funnier is the fact that I think I actually got a bit more from my last minute looting.

I can probably sell some to Crimson Forge and still keep some for experimentation. But I need to be careful to avoid getting scammed. Just a packet of talnium is probably worth most of what Crimson Forge has, or close to it.

Simply put, I was already rich, and now I’m disgustingly rich, well... only if I can manage to sell that talnium.

Let’s ignore the last “reward”.

Now, let’s see what this floor quest is about.

Floor Quest:

Help stop the end of the world

Rewards:

Decided by the Ruler responsible for the floorʼs setting