Weapons of Mass Destruction

"I'm sorry!"

"Sorry won't cut it, Tess."

"I can clean your room if you like."

"Fuck off. If you so much as move a single book, I'll burn your ass so badly no healer will be able to fix it for the rest of your life. And why the fuck did you bring so many people here?"

"You’re using the word 'fuck' too often. Reduce it a bit, please."

"Fuck off, Tess."

"I'm sorry!"

The short vyssari jumps to her feet, carefully putting the book down before moving between stacks of books taller than she is before coming to a stop in front of me.

I return her gaze as she stares at me. "Fucking hell, man, what kind of fossil left that mark on you? That shit was old school millennia before I was born."

"Hell no." She says, smiling brightly with a wave of her hand. "But still answer my question before I kill you."

The aura around her shifts, her expression growing serious.

"Anger wells up inside me, but I shove it aside. 'Sure. I met her in one of the worlds we visited before coming here. Later, we crossed paths again, and she named me a Champion candidate after I passed her tests. As you can probably sense, read, or whatever it is you're doing, she is—or was—an Absolute. It’s... a bit complicated.'"

"See, it's not that difficult. You guys came to my house, perhaps even to ask a favor. So tell me, is it wrong for me to expect to have my questions answered without having one asked back?"

"When you say it like that, it sounds very reasonable."

"I know, right?" She says, pacing in front of us before coming to a stop in front of Sophie. "If you hadn't come here with Tess, you would’ve been dead already."

Before Sophie can respond, the vyssari comes to another halt in front of Izzy, who stands just slightly shorter. Izzy’s cradling Biscuit in her arms, with Noodle, coiled around her arm, as always.

The vyssari looks from Izzy to Noodle, and then to Biscuit, whom she observes a bit longer. Then back to me from him shaking her head as she does.

Without a word, she moves over to the twins. She gestures for them to lower themselves and pokes at their cheeks, pulling them while observing their faces.

"Handsome," she notes, touching their blond hair and looking into their blue eyes.

I notice right away Dennis opening his mouth to spew out some stupid joke, but he stops himself at the last second, remembering exactly who we're dealing with here.

But the vyssari Champion notices and turns to him. "Tell me what you wanted to say. If you lie, I will beat you."

Dennis looks over at Tess, who smiles gently and nods.

He turns to the vyssari. "Declare me a Champion candidate if you think I'm so handsome. I’ll even flash you my best smile—free of charge."

Oh my.

The moment the words leave his lips I get ready to fight, and I notice the other members of our group do the same.

The vyssari blinks a few times, staring at Dennis before a laugh slips out. A light, cheerful sound, and as it fades, she shakes her head in disbelief. Then a sudden crackle of lightning flares behind Dennis, zapping him square in the ass and drawing a startled squeak from his lips, more an expression of surprise than pain.

Without a word, the vyssari moves along, coming to a stop in front of Lily, her eyes tracing a path from the huge bone axe to Lily's face.

Her expression takes on a more serious bent than before, "Tess, where did you find this one?"

"She’s my friend."

"Your group surely has more than its share of monsters," the vyssari says, shaking her head but not taking her eyes off Lily. "I declare you a Champion candidate."

She says simply, as she turns around and heads back to her chair with a book in hand. Glancing at Tess, she asks, "Happy?"

"Thank you very much!"

Lily looks around a bit confused, but I can see her reading a message invisible to us, and her title is something I can feel now.

Tess moves closer to the vyssari with a big smile. "Can I do something for you as thanks?"

"How about you just shut up?"

Tess smiles even more, still happy. Gesturing for us to stay quiet, we leave the room.

Before we fully exit, the Champion calls out, “Tess, come back in an hour. I’ll show you how to properly use that Primordial lightning of yours.”

“Sure! Thank you, ma’am!”

“Yes,” the Champion replies, waving her hand to dismiss us."

As we leave I check a few of the titles on the books.

Postcards from Eternity

The Cartographer’s Lover

Echoes of Forgotten Cities

Through a Thousand Sunsets

A Court of Starlight and Shadows

I notice her watching me, so I stop reading and quickly make my exit.

We move a floor lower, entering another room, almost the mirror of the one we just left, with the exception of actually having nice furniture in it.

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"Congratulations, Lily!" Tess shouts, hugging our poleaxed healer.

"That was... simple?"

"That’s just how she is, don't worry about it. For now, we'll stay here a while to avoid annoying her further—otherwise, she might snap. In the meantime, we should be safe. Speaking of which, how's your progress, Sophie?" Tess asks, leaving Lily for the others to congratulate.

"It’ll be done soon, but..." Sophie gestures out of the window.

Far in the distance, the blood-red sky can be seen, gradually expanding further.

"Domain?" Tess asks, this time looking at me.

"It’s probably something like that," I confirm.

"How bad is it?"

"No idea, to be honest, but I don't want to stay on this floor long enough to find out."

"Did you want to go back to your old base and get some of the materials you left there?"

"Yeah, that huge anvil and a few more golden chains, plus that massive hammer. I also wanted to go to the Mana Desert to get some more sand. But I got most of the valuable metals here, and Sophie bought and looted more for me, so it's fine—they’re just items anyway. I’ve still got a small box of the white sand left over, at least that’s something."

"The items and materials we got from Archon's palace should be well worth it. You should thank Lily; she stole anything not bolted to the floor and broke into several vaults," Sophie notes.

At this, Lily smiles shyly. "As you said, take anything not glued down."

"...anything not glued down," the twins say, mirroring Lily in perfect harmony.

Min-Jae looks between them, confused.

I continue my work on the base for the array, modifying it to Sophie’s specifications. It's reasonably similar to the one I used to evacuate the others from the mana desert, though this one’s much more intricate. I guess it makes sense, given the way it’s meant to allow movement between moons, planets, or wherever else it’s supposed to lead.

What I don't like is that Sophie has the coordinates and something akin to an activation sequence, especially since I don’t think I could replicate it on my own, and neither does Sophie.

It's basically a code we can only use once, if only because we don't understand it enough to replicate it.

The best we can guess these sequences—the coordinates themselves—have to be tuned to pass through things like planetary defensive arrays, spatial locks, and other such mechanisms. It only makes sense for most of the planets capable of such travel to have those defenses in place.

This is just a floor quest though, so I think all we need to do is activate it to fulfill the requirements and open the entrance to the 7th floor. But outside of the tutorial, it would probably be more difficult. I mean, how can you guarantee the coordinates won't teleport you to some empty spot in space?

I think it should be possible to gain some information from the coordinates themselves to make sure that doesn't happen. Sophie also theorizes it should be possible to perform something like a "connection check" before deploying the activation sequence. The problem is neither of us knows how. This sort of thing seems to be ridiculously advanced, and we’re still at the level where we can just barely remember the text without fully understanding it.

The main thing I noticed, after going through it all, is that the system seems to have simplified things for the purpose of our escape if only to make it possible at our current level of ability and mana control. Situations like this have come about before, and since it's a tutorial, there’s bound to be some logic to it.

During that time, the blood-red domain—or whatever it is—expands even further, filling the entire horizon and stretching far into the distance. Tess says she can even see some of the fleshy veins stretching across parts of the sky, shaping a number of enormous inscriptions.

And I can confirm it won't be anything good. My eyes and senses can easily detect the amount of mana collecting in the distance—the Bloodroot Devourer is likely approaching its power as Champion.

The vyssari Champion continues to sit in her wooden chair, occasionally glancing toward that blood-red patch of sky. But the spread seems to stop and doesn’t seem to be trying to stretch its way any closer to the floating island within the storms, so she doesn't seem to care.

She merely continues to give her lessons to Tess and read her books, content to be left alone.

But that all changes when we go to visit the vyssari for the first time in two days.

The inscriptions far in the sky activate with a single powerful pulse of mana, and its effects wash over the surface of the Astral Prison. It reaches us in an instant, and our mana briefly goes out of control, destabilized as the wave continues to spread at incredible speed.

A sudden thud echoes as the book slips from the vyssari Champion’s hands, falling to the floor.

The lightning surrounding the floating island is gone—the very same weak residual lightning she was allowing the prison to siphon off to defend the area. Without the constant barrage of thunder, the silence is eerie, as the sound of crackling lightning begins to emanate from the vyssari instead and her hair stands on end, caught in the static.

There is extreme rage in her eyes as she stares in the direction of the blood-red sky.

"How dare you." The words themselves are calm, unlike her expression, almost unbelieving.

The metal choker around her neck pops open with a sharp click and falls to the ground, its effects nullified by the eye’s assault, only to be torn apart by the lightning surging around her.

"How dare you," she repeats, her voice taking on a dangerous edge. She leaps from her chair, the ring on her finger sparkling wildly, lightning crackling through her hair and flashing in her eyes.

Her words carry a weight that seems to travel for miles. They aren’t loud, but they hold an edge of authority laced with a dangerous undertone. And something answers—a pulse of mana rippling from within the blood-red sky.

"As you wish then," she says solemnly, her voice steady as the air around her thickens with an almost tangible tension. The mood shifts sharply, like a storm gathering strength. She steps forward, her presence commanding, "I call upon the ancient right. By my will and by my strength, I stand against this insult. Let power itself decide our fate." Her words reverberate, carrying a weight that seems to press down on all who hear them. The sky darkens and in that moment of silence she says, "I challenge you."

I'm certain these words can be heard across the entire surface of the moon. They are not loud, they do not cause pain, and they are not meant for us. Yet, they reverberate through the air, inviting us to witness this Champion's challenge.

There is no wager, there are no rules. Just a challenge between equals.

And the Bloodroot Devourer rejects that challenge.

"Coward," the vyssari declares and lifts her arm toward the sky.

A single lightning strike crashes down, blinding us all and seemingly tearing through the air rather than simply passing through it. It strikes her arm with the ring on it and lingers there, like the purest form of lightning suspended in time, stretching to the length of a spear.

(We are leaving! Nat, right away!)

Something in Tess's voice makes me listen, and even though I continue to stare at the Champion in front of me, as I throw a [Ley Line] as far away as I can.

With the prison's locks in shambles from the eye’s escape, it's simple.

The vyssari takes a step, pulling her leg back and preparing to throw the thing cradled in the crook of her arm. White and red lightning cracks around it, shattering the air itself in its wake.

I teleport all of us as far away as I can. Immediately using my mana to form a barrier around us. Sophie strengthens it, the twins cooperate in an attempt to shore up the gaps, while Tess and Min-Jae create shields of their own. Maya creates and boosts her own barrier. Lily's healing skill floods the air, and she cuts off one of her arms, forming the bone within into a hemisphere, enclosing us inside as her blood drips down on us.

Even here, I can sense the crazy reverberations, as our barriers break one after another under sheer pressure until nothing remains.

Our view opens up again.

The once dusty sky is clear now that the miles of dust that once blocked it have been blown away. A single star shines through the hole—harsh, cold, and strange. Its light is a pale white streaked with faint crimson. The glow cuts through the cleared sky like a blade, casting sharp shadows across the broken ground.

The floating island is gone in its entirety, and where it once stood, a small figure floats—the blonde vyssari with lightning flowing through her hair and crackling around her ring. Her small figure is bathed in the star’s light as she hovers in place.

There is a trail of lightning hanging in the air, stretching on for miles in the direction of the blood-red patch of sky.

The mountains that once seemed to graze the sky have largely evaporated, only to be replaced with a great yawning crater.

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