[System Decay] Chapter 46: Change of Plans

The reverbations of the accelerated timetable rippled throughout the surface of the planet. Every Arcadian civilization and the majority of the communities representing sigil-holders had planned around the best of their forces disappearing out of their lives for an unknown period of time starting nearly two months away. No amount of planning could have predicted the intervention from the outer world, and as such, chaos took hold.

Lu Jie, global number one, de facto leader of the dominant faction in what had formerly been the Sichuan Province, and champion of Distortion, commanded his elites to enforce his laws in his place. The infrastructure had been set by others; his position was not one of administration, but of raw authority. Lu Jie was a blade, not a politician. He had no qualms about leaving for competition of great power earlier. The ones with soft power, however, did not see it the same way as him; without him, their defenses against the power-hungry factions that encroached against their rule would crumble.

Natalie Blurr, formerly global number two and now fallen to number four, scaled back her efforts in breaking through the hyper-nationalist extremist groups that still believed in a pure, “clean” Britain. She immediately set on raising others of New London to the peak of bronze, dumping monster cores into her companions to protect them from retribution.

Fortress, king of the southernmost nation of fire elementals and scion of Fire, initiated his successor into his position prematurely. He still remembered the result of the trials that had come for Arcadia when he was a child. The resultant devastation inflicted upon his kind had been unprecedented.

The disparate leadership of the Abyss Nation held their meeting to decide which ones of them would be permitted to carry their scant few sigils to the Elven Mother. Seven bodies later, the choice fell to a number of the templates upon whom their clone strike forces had been built upon.

Nymlera Brooksoul, champion of the same god as her bitter enemies, knew there was little time left for the plan she had prepared to unfold over the course of weeks. She kept Thalia, her sigil-holder child, close. Already, they had witnessed the goblins lose a sigil to the abyss, who had then failed to maintain their grasp on it out of pure idiocy. The other Brooksouls, however, she sent on a mission—to identify every single living settlement near them, find their weaknesses, and prepare them for subsumption into the growing devouring gestalt.

William Li-Brown, champion of two gods, glanced at the system notification, said “huh, that’s weird,” and went back to telling Nora that no, he wasn’t going to infect her with his presence, and no, she should absolutely not explain sports betting to the elf with a gambling addiction.

#

That wasn’t to say that Will didn’t need to bother with it, though. He’d just found himself tied down to a settlement, and though he didn’t know most of the people within the place that well, they were still people. While they might look at him like he was the literal devil, he suspected that was more because of his class and his sigil than any other prejudice.

Nora had opened up to him more as she walked with him and Caiyeri towards the nearest currently active store. It helped that they had at least a couple shared interests, and also that Caiyeri didn’t flinch in Will’s presence.

“Why did you even do sports betting?” Will asked. “Just for fun?”

“I was pretty good at budgeting for my sorority,” she said. “When we had some extra unallocated funds, the girls and I got into betting on our teams.”

“Everdale?” Will asked. “If so, our football team sucked.”

“Where else? We’re in bumfuck nowhere. And yes. That’s why we started learning more about it. We more or less broke even in the end, and it was a pretty fun experience overall.”

Will snorted. “Fair enough. Oh, by the way—“

“The trial,” Caiyeri cut in. Her tone was serious, undercutting the light-hearted banter Will and Nora had gotten going. “A forty-five day shift? Azure would’ve known more about history, but that’s incredibly abnormal.”

“One hundred percent,” Will said. “I figure you can hold the fort down, though. As long as the elves leave the Hill alone, it’ll be fine.”

“The town has potential,” Caiyeri said. “With proper training, I won’t even be necessary.”

“You don’t want to stay there?”

“All due respect,” Caiyeri said, “but I would much rather be in none of these places. It’s been a long life of repeating the same day, the same training. I want to see what the world has to offer. Travel the lands. Fight monsters. See if I can find those ‘Genshin Impact servers’ you spoke of.”

Nora looked at Will in horror. “You told me not to explain sports betting, and you told her about gacha games?”

“Look, it was a high-intensity situation, we needed something to break the constant threats to our lives—okay, it’s not important.”

A system notification interrupted Will in the middle of his thought.

[Mysterious Ticket] has met its condition of activations. [Mysterious Ticket] has become [Champion’s Pass].

“Oh, shit,” Will said. “This might be important.”

“Huh?” Nora asked. “Oh. System stuff.”

Item: Champion’s Pass

Epic, silver

Always rewarded from the first silver-rank or higher loot box that a User receives before the Trial of the Champion. At higher ranks, this offers advantages in the trial itself. Unfortunately for you, no higher rank loot boxes were rewarded. From the bottom you start!

Grants one entry into the Trial of the Champion. No sigil is required.

Will swore. “Okay, this is really important.”

He showed Caiyeri and Nora the item.

Nora shrugged. “Doesn’t seem too useful to me. That Trial thing is basically certain death, right?”

“And certain power,” Caiyeri added. “If you want to be the strongest, you need to be in the Trial. The greatest of the Zeroes were forged in fire during theirs.”

“Who wants power?” Nora asked. “Can you eat it? Gamble it? Play with it? I’ll do what I have to if it means that I don’t die, but power for power’s sake is boring.”

“Seriously?” Will asked. “I mean, live and let live, I guess, but I can’t really wrap my head around that kind of thinking. There’s always going to be another crisis.”

“Then people like you can handle it,” Nora said. “I don’t mind!”

“I do,” Caiyeri said. Her posture was rigid, tense with the same predatory energy that she’d exuded during their entire time in the Arcadian caves. Will hadn’t realized she’d relaxed so much outside of it until now, seeing her pose again. “I need to be in the trial.”

“Can you get the Hill trained to survive against the monster surge in three days?” Will asked. “That’s how much time we have left if you join, and I’m not going to let my friends die while I’m gone.”

“Easily,” Caiyeri said. “You only took a day to get to something resembling functionality.”

“I didn’t stop for eight straight hours,” Will countered. “Not everyone can do that.”

“Yes, but they’ll be enough. I need this, Will. I’ll do whatever you want me to do in exchange. We’re not likely to enter the tournament together, with the numbers as large as they are this cycle, but if we meet, I will support you in any way possible.”

“Then sure,” Will said. “I don’t need this anyway.”

He handed the ticket over.

“You have my undying fealty,” Caiyeri said.

“That’s weird as shit,” Nora said.

“I have your fealty until you find someone more worth fighting besides, you mean. Words are words.”

“True,” Caiyeri said. “You requested that I train your people, yes?”

“They’re not exactly my people, but yeah. The residents of Survivor Hill.”

“Then there’s no time to waste. Will, you can cover Nora. I will return and begin immediately. Every minute counts.”

Caiyeri took off, locking the visor down on her helmet to give herself the speed boost she needed to return as fast as she could.

“Oh,” Nora said, watching her run. “Well then.”

“Sorry. Caiyeri’s a bit intense like that sometimes.”

“Don’t apologize for her! She’s so cool. I wanted to ask her about her skincare routine, too, but…”

“I don’t think you need to worry about that,” Will said, peering at her face. “Pretty sure ranking up to bronze gives you some benefits in that regard. Anyway, I was apologizing because you’re stuck with me now. I’ve been made to understand that my magic is not pleasant to be around.”

“You’ve been made to understand correctly,” Nora said. “You seem like a pretty decent guy, though. First impressions aren’t always right.”

Will sighed. “World ends and I still can’t make a good impression to save my life.”

“Hey, at least you’re saving lives. Now let’s get shopping before you get warped off to hell. I’ll calculate a spread for you!”

“Thanks,” Will said dryly.

#

Nora, not caring for progressing in the same way that Will, Caiyeri, or even Lev did, had taken monster cores until she was bronze. Now, she was at Bronze 4 with the class of Merchant. 

It didn’t sound that exciting at first, but she had a passive that let her get favorable discounts on everything at every store as well as opening up additional options that Will couldn’t get.

After the tutorial had completed, the price of items in the shops had increased greatly, and the variety they’d gotten had also diminished heavily.

Nora spent most of the money she’d brought buying supplies for the Hill, including a few pieces of standard enchanted armor and a basic sword.

Will had given her his credits to spend on an item for him—a bronze-rank item box. They could only get one of those a day from the closest shop, which was installed inside a shallow cave, so Will made sure to thank her for giving it to him.

The item wasn’t amazing, but everything counted.

Item: [Jumping Ring]

Common, bronze

Grants the ability to use the [Jump] skill at bronze rank once per day.

[Jump} (bronze): Your jump distance is quintupled for the next minute or until you choose to end the effects of this skill.

Will put it on his already occupied ring finger, joining the silver-rank ring of adaptive shielding.

“Y’know,” he said. “I think I have a skill combo I can try with this.”

“Try it later,” Nora said. “I want to see whatever training Caiyeri’s going to put us through.”

#

Will had to admit that it was kind of funny watching a bunch of his friends and their new companions getting absolutely rinsed by a single elf woman. Even four on one, they couldn’t beat her in a straight hand-to-hand fight. As it turned out, basic rules of engagement no longer applied when the system came into play.

He trained on his own, using Caiyeri’s breathing exercises as well as basic physical conditioning with as many weights strapped to him as he could without failing. It was a strange feeling, doing push-ups and sprints with a hundred kilograms of weight tied to his arms. That would have been a flat-out impossibility only weeks before, but now it was just a fact of life.

[Power] advanced to Bronze 4!

[Power] advanced to Bronze 5!

[Speed] advanced to Bronze 7!

[Perception] advanced to Bronze 4!

[Perception] advanced to Bronze 5!

Will really wanted to figure out more applications of Hunger Phantasm. It was useful as it was, but it was basically one-dimensional. He experimented with using it to carry weapons like he had against the armadillo turtles, enhancing his ability to use Weapons Free. It turned out to be a very effective temporary armory, allowing him to have more of his weapons in play at once.

That was only the beginning of what he wanted, though. He gave it enough physical form to create a disk out of, then tried standing on it and transporting himself on it. That worked—but only for a bit. The phantasm’s physical form could only take so much weight, and moving it was a bit harder to do.

What he really wanted to do, however, was augmenting his body with it.

Will gave himself wings with the material, expanding from his shoulders past his arms, then leapt off the side of the roof of Survivor Hill’s tallest building, which happened to be a watchtower.

He promptly fell on his face, shattering the phantasm.

Undeterred, he drank a health potion and tried again, making the wings wider this time.

Again, he fell, but he could swear he’d moved more this time.

For several hours, Will leapt from the watchtower over and over, getting successively closer to a success but falling just short each time.

He started building up a crowd of viewers, though Caiyeri got them back to work after a few minutes of watching him fall.

What got him to finally figure it out was realizing he needed as broad a surface area as he could and initial speed. There was some physics involved, but everyone who was better than him at physics was in the process of getting beaten within an inch of their life in Caiyeri’s training, so he dealt with it himself.

With mock wings that looked more like a mixture of Batman’s cape and a hang glider than any bird’s, Will got back as far as he could on the watch tower’s roof, sprinted forward with every movement skill active, and leapt off at inhuman speed.

Instead of collapsing to the ground in a half-glide like he had before, Will flew. He whooped, manipulating his direction with the phantasm. The fine control near his body gave him enough power to tilt himself in either direction, adjusting his heading.

 It wasn’t true flight, not yet—he had no extra magic to power his movement with, but as the wind whipped his face, he found that he didn’t give a damn.

Under his own power, he could take to the air. Will didn’t want to use it now, but he was certain that with the jumping ring, he would be able to have a moment of flight at will.

He kept himself aloft for over a minute before he had to touch down.

Lev: Man, I can see you smiling from all the way over here, and I can barely see straight after your elf friend finished with us. This is so unfair.

Will: You try getting tortured by a god sometime. I earned this shit.

Lev: …

Lev: I’m not even gonna ask.

#

Lysbeth Brooksoul was not the fighter or the priestess that her sister Thalia was, but she was still a Brooksoul. At Silver 4, none of the humans of this cycle would be able to touch her. That Nymlera had even suggested she take a contingent of other elves was an offense. These were inferior beings.

She was half-tempted to tell her mother that she didn’t even need to send a scout to the human settlement. Clearly, the gestalt would be able to roll through it at any time without problems.

That said, Lysbeth was not so hot-headed that she would defy a direct order from her mother and the leader of her clan.

At this moment, though, trudging out the last mile to the settlement, she dearly wished she had been a bit bolder about her questioning. What was the point?

Maybe she would take the head of the leader and bring it back. That would show Nymlera.

Yes, that sounded quite nice.

Lysbeth reinforced her aura, drawing on her Blessed skill. Her attacks would be imbued with power above silver-rank. These bronzes wouldn’t stand a chance.

The first indication that something was wrong came when the settlement came into view.

Lysbeth had to give them credit for being so brazen in their construction. Yes, their position gave them insight into their enemies, but it was horrendously exposed. Drop the gestalt on it and there would be nowhere to run.

But as she looked at the solitary watchtower, a sense of dread chilled her spine.

Nerves, she thought. That was an unfamiliar feeling and an unnecessary one, but try as she might, she couldn’t discard it.

The second sign came from the shadows.

Lysbeth had a basic stealth skill on, one that sent a pulse of obscuring magic around her. Anyone who was affected by it would see nothing where she stood—and yet, somehow, she got the impression that the burst of darkness that came from the tower was looking at her.

That must have been the human sigil-holder. What good fortune for her!

His presence made this interesting. Maybe this would actually be worth her time.

After firing off a quick message to Nymlera, Lysbeth advanced.

Then, the shadows moved, confirming her suspicion that they were aware of her. A massive, dark shape clouded the air, gliding towards her at intimidating speed. She readied herself for battle.

Instead of fighting her with honor, however, the shadow split into a hundred pieces, each of them spearing towards her.

Lysbeth surged forward, seeing the darkness-cloaked figure at the center of the power, no longer protected by his conjuration.

This was a bronze-rank familiar or phantasm. It wouldn’t be able to hurt her significantly.

That was her fatal mistake.

She had thought that she could just ignore and avoid the blades of shadow, focusing instead on the man controlling them, but her rush took a sudden stumble when she got close enough, her stamina siphoned away from her with horrifying speed.

Lysbeth needed to end this quickly—but she wasn’t able to avoid all of the shadows. Some of them were immaterial, she saw, and they chilled her to the bone. Lysbeth felt them leave some withering affliction within her, but she was a silver-rank life elf. These afflictions were too weak to beat her self-purification, and the shadows that did have enough substance to them to hit her did nothing except siphon her stamina more.

That is, until the levitating hands created from the hunger phantasm sliced her skin with unformed-rank daggers coated in William Li-Brown’s silver-rank corruption.

A bell tolled, and Lysbeth’s body failed. She froze, indescribable pain coursing through her.

No. This was a trick. A bronze-ranker couldn’t do this much damage. Lysbeth pushed through, reestablishing her dash.

Then, the dark figure leapt, fleeing from her like the coward he was. The shadows that had grazed her retreated, reforming the massive shadows around the sigil-holder.

Lysbeth fired a skill after him, but it was already too late.

She had lost before landing a single attack.

Even in flight, the dark figure cloaked by shadows of the Hunger sent paralyzing fear through her heart.

Lysbeth ran, incoherent thoughts jumbled through her mind. She had to make it to the water. Her class. The trees of life. This was corruption. She could cleanse herself in the water. The lake. One of them—she had to get to a body of water. A mile away. Lysbeth could do this. She could—

Will was already there.

The dread in Lysbeth’s system abated for a single, shining instant, replaced by hope, and then his mana signature changed.

He held up two fingers, and she understood.

As the fresh water around her abandoned her, refused to be used for her ritual, as she choked on corruption in a now-dry portion of the lake, she sent a message.

Mother save me, she prayed, but the goddess was not listening. It had never listened to her. Thalia had been the favored child. Always had been.

Always will be.

But as much as she hated her sister, she could not let Nymlera throw away their years of planning against this one boy.

Lysbeth: I was wrong. This boy is a monster. Do not send the gestalt until he is gone.

Lysbeth: I’m sorry.

#

Will watched yet another silver-rank die. Experience surged within him, filling him with warmth. Not quite silver, not yet—there was a breakthrough beyond simple experience that he needed to get there.

But he was climbing.

Achievement earned: On the Board

You are now 3rd on your regional leaderboard.

Reward: 1,000 bronze credits.

“You feel that?” he whispered, knowing the Hunger could hear him. “That’s the feeling that says that, no matter how little a say you had in it, choosing me was correct.”

Will couldn’t tell if it was the god or his own body reveling in the sensation of a silver-rank’s experience flowing into him, but he thought he felt something like grudging acceptance.