Path of the Slayer B3 69. Grand Generational Passing

While crossing through a busy, multi-block urban tree area, Thumper activated Silent Presence.

He used his Path Energy and Personal Parameters to spread the quiet and subtle Path Magic around his Domain, designating us – his party and Melody Eclipse – as the beneficiaries. With little cost to him, our existence together winked out of the perception of the mortals. As we reached the next street, I watched vehicles drive by with flashing red-blue lights while making shrill siren noises, the drivers unaware of us.

Ever since we became Veterans, I saw multiple examples of how much better it was compared to being a Young Pathwalker. All our powers had more range and efficiency within our Domains. When I paid more attention to the numerical values involved, I could trace the chance of any one factor.

I could even file the info into my System Logs.

[What’s the chance of this mortal noticing you? Below 1%.]

[What’s the chance of this mortal noticing you? Below 1%.]

[What’s the chance of this mortal noticing you? Below 1%.]

And so on.

“Thumper,” Melody called softly. “You’re not going to hide yourself further? The First Heir is angry about the death of his childhood friend. He puts the blame on Arden. He hasn’t suspected you’re alive yet.”

The royal prince smiled a handsome and wolfish smile. He shrugged his wolf-draped shoulders while moving smoothly with his hands in his pockets. That was an answer enough from Thumper, and that seemed to boggle Melody.

She swiveled her attention over to Merlin. “It is impressive, your victory at the tournament. But there are highly affluent members of my camp who find your attitude unbecoming. Are you not worried, Merlin? Shouldn’t you kneel to me?”

The wizard had his smoking pipe out. Not the gold one. This one was ivory and carved to look like a serpentine woman. He puffed out multi-colored smoke out the corner of his mouth, his spectacles sliding down slightly. “I don’t give a fuck.”

Grimmy giggled, walking close to poked at the princess’s bare feet. “I’m touching a princess. Me, a little half-gob girl. I get to touch a real princess. Poke, poke, poke.”

Melody tensed, toes squeezed together, as she looked up at me. She blinked rapidly as if she were discovering me again. “Why are you still holding me like this?”

“And have your precious feet sullied on these mortal floors? I may be a mere man, but I wouldn’t dare do that to the Dragon Princess,” I lied smoothly.

I would dare. But that didn’t matter right now as we picked up the pace and hurried toward the event. The ancestral roots were urging us onward. Even with Thumper’s Silent Presence around us, it wasn’t perfect.

Melody wrinkled her nose and pouted at my response. “I can stand for myself, sullied feet or not. Let me down. This ridiculous game of yours has gone on long enough. I must have you dealt with for your constant disrespect.”

Grimmy sprung into action, digging into one of my pouches. She pulled out a biscuit and shoved it against Melody’s mouth.

Mortified and outraged, I felt Melody’s overwhelming power surge before dropping when she tasted the biscuit. Once again, Slayer Feast had the ferocious Dragon Princess stunned. Better yet, Doomie capitalized by shrinking a little further and dancing from on top of her mom’s torso, distracting her with her shimmying hips.

I thanked Grimmy and Doomie both through the roots. Then my attention snapped toward further trouble incoming.

A half-dragon man rushed out of an alley with hands covered in burning frost. Thumper darted forth and landed a shaded palm thrust, folding the attacker in half, before jetting him back with a pulse of shadow.

From above, half-a-dozen humans converged upon us while wielding Rank 5 weapons. Merlin used his Master Cantrip: Magic Shield Spell Cast and wove in a gravity spell. The overhead ambushers ran into the spherical shield and squished together in the purple gravity center.

My pace picked up. But not by much. I had to concentrate on weaving in and out of traffic without disturbing the mortals nor Melody.

The Dragon Princess was busy nibbling on the biscuit while watching our daughter dance on her chest. That left me open to a bold advance from the front as more members of the Dragon Supremacy rushed us.

Grimmy stepped forward with a dull training sword in her hand. I expected a scary atmosphere to follow in her wake until she did something that even surprised me.

She cried out, “Ah, please don’t hurt me, I’m just a cute little half-gob,” and activated her Great Skill: Little Sister Charm.

The moment the dozen aggressors in front of us hesitated, a sunny light burst from around Grimmy. She activated multiple powers and rapidly broke through the charge.

She smacked heads, limbs, and threw Veterans wholly across multiple blocks with a few swings of her sword. Thumper and Merlin mopped up the leftovers, clearing the way to the front of The Grand Plaza Hotel. It had an old facade and seemed fragile to me, but inside was a wellspring of power beyond anything I’d ever faced.

“Let’s go,” I growled as I kicked my way past the entrance greeter.

Glass, metal, and stone burst out of my way with the kick. I used pure Path Energy to catch every fragment before they could land on the mortals inside, my Domain tracking every trajectory.

A hundred Veterans crowded around the lobby. Not just the Dragon Supremacy this time.

I recognized members from all the camps, the Gigantomachy, the Crusaders, and the Peak Elves. I also recognized other sub-groups lumped in with the larger camp factions.

There were half-orcs hanging with the Gigantomachy. The Dragon Supremacy had plenty of dwarves, elves, humans, and other folks. The crusaders had mostly humans but there was the odd halfie accepted into their group. The Peak Elves had nothing but elves and half-elves, however.

Then there was my party of nomads, with the Dragon Princess in my arms. The outrage, curiosity, disgust, and shock was palpable.

“Hello there! I’m Arden the Nomad!” My voice reached beyond the walls and through the entire hotel. “These are my party members: Grimmy the Knight, Merlin the Wizard, Thumper the Prince, and Doomie the Eclipse, daughter of Melody Eclipse.”

The crowd was stunned. Having Melody Eclipse in my arms was like a hypnotizing weapon. That, and Doomie kept dancing on the bosom of the Dragon Princess.

I carried on. “Now, if you excuse us! We have ourselves a Grand Generational Passing to attend!”

I walked with all the confidence in the Realm Verse. We made it halfway to the doors before someone finally interrupted.

“Taylor Giantborn,” called out a half-giant woman with the Gigantomachy. “You’re supposed to be dead.”

“Is that truly Melody Eclipse or a trick of the Ninja King?” decried an elf with the Peak Elves.

“Unhand our princess!” roared a half-dragon man from behind my party. The pursuers had caught up.

The Crusaders pulled out their weapons. A public notification arrived.

[Alert! It appears that a destructive battle is going to take place. Your Personal Parameters will be used to regress you even closer to the mortal tier to reduce casualties and collateral. You may proceed.]

As a deeper layer of regression took hold, like a compressing vice, I fought through it. My gaze burned into Melody’s gray and uncertain eyes as she looked up into my face.

We held each other’s eyes for what felt like a long time, our faces drawing closer, and closer, and closer, garnering the type of attention that would piss off all the camps. Because who was I to kiss the Dragon Princess?

And they were right. The timing wasn’t there just yet.

I pulled back at the last split second and threw Melody bodily into the hands of the Gigantomachy. She landed in a half-giant’s arms, the big guy gawking, before outright pandemonium broke out.

Mortals fled or threw themselves to the floor as magical powers flared and flew out. Beams of ice. Balls of fire. Bolts of lightning. And more. Plenty more.

The marble floor broke apart into craters and waves with every hard impact. Columns collapsed as clashing bodies plowed through. The walls burst apart along with the furniture. Only the hardiest supports remained, but that was a near thing.

Throughout, my nomads ducked, dove, rolled, shielded, and threaded themselves past the chaos along with me.

“ARDEN!” Melody roared, swatting aside everyone in her way to me. The rage and hunger were back in her eyes.

I kept moving and fighting like a mortal while out of her reach. I kicked behind the legs of half-giants and sent them sprawling. I landed sucker punches on Crusaders. I grabbed elves by their hair, twisted them around, and used their faces as shields.

I even kicked a dwarf into Melody’s way. She swatted the man aside and she drew ever closer to ripping me apart. I noticed that as long as I didn’t use my powers she didn’t use her powers. I abused that as much as possible, striking others with dirty hits and throwing them in the way of Melody.

Merlin cleared the way to the event’s doors with blasts of spellcraft. Thumper slid in and out of the thinnest shadows while looking less human and more wolf-like, catching a specific half-giant and smashing her face into the floor. Grimmy was tucking and dancing through multiple attacks by the barest margins and snapping out expert sword moves.

I didn’t see Doomie until I ducked away from another of Melody’s attacks. Doomie was holding onto her mom’s ringlets of silver hair while still small.

I stopped near the doors to my destiny. I dug into my pouches and pulled out what little I had left from my last feast.

Melody swiped for my face. I ducked under and pivoted around a snappy kick. The claws on Melody’s toes sliced my cheek, but no more.

She growled, and I darted in, taking a rib-breaking palm thrust to my chest. It was worth the sacrifice. I shoved half a shawarma into her mouth.

That stopped her in her tracks as she rapidly ate it. With my free hand, I took Doomie out of her mom’s hair and hugged the avatar close.

Melody finished eating the shawarma and raised her hand. The nails grew even longer. They could pierce through mortal steel easily.

I risked it all again anyway, taking a bloody slash to the chest. As a tradeoff, I shoved a piece of my soufflé into her mouth.

Her hands dug into my chest, close to taking my heart. Melody stopped again to consume the offering. The anger in her gray eyes dimmed. So did the hunger.

Shakily, she pulled back and left my heart with me. A draconic whine slipped out of her. A flicker of hunger resurfaced in her sharp gray eyes. Then she extended her long tongue and lapped my blood off her fingers.

“You’re delicious, too,” she growled.

As my party gathered around me, I grinned. “I know.”

The chaos between the camps carried on around the lobby. I moved on and kicked the doors leading to the heart of the event.

Melody received my open back as I led my nomads. We entered a theater holding the most important individuals of the Realm Verse.

I counted three young-looking and powerful Veterans – the First Heir of the Gigantomachy, the Purest Child of the Peak Elves, and the Chosen Prince of the Crusaders.

Among them were four older Pathwalkers with unfathomably deep powers even while regressed. One was an elderly half-giant who was ten feet tall. One was a silver and graceful elf woman dressed like a monk. The third was an old human man dressed in heavy armor. And the fourth was an elderly half-dragon man with ruddy red scales, broken horns, thinning hair, and graying eyes. His face was covered with hideous scars.

It was the First Heir who broke the ice. “Taylor?!”

“Hey there! How long has it been? Missed me?” Thumper waved a human hand, his Bloodlines hidden again.

The First Heir looked from Thumper to who I assumed was the Senior Giant the Primordial on Path of the Giant. The ten-foot-tall old man looked at Thumper with murder in his eyes.

Next to speak was the elderly half-dragon man, his attention turning to the one stumbling in behind us.

“Melody? What tomfoolery is this? This ceremony is supposed to be for the forerunners,” croaked Senior Dragon.

The Dragon Princess was still licking my blood off her fingers. I took full advantage.

“I am a forerunner,” I said as I made my approach.

“I’m assuming this disgusting creature is the one who deems himself Arden the Nomad, the Ninja King,” said Senior Monk, the silver-haired elf woman standing behind the silent and demure-looking Purest Child. “There isn’t enough negative karma, little wretch, that can stop me from extinguishing you on the spot if you don’t mind your manners.”

“You all see a wretch? A problem? I see a fellow human who knows how to grab attention!” cheered the Chosen Prince. Senior Crusader remained silent and patient behind the tall and regal young man representing humanity. “Come. Join me on my side. You can’t really become a forerunner like us without a Primordial to back you. But I’ll be attentive enough to you and your people’s needs if you serve my whims.”

I stopped once the lane leveled out in a cleared space near a stage. The fighting behind us quieted. Doomie wriggled closer against my side while the rest of my party stood ready for anything on my right and left. Then there was Melody Eclipse standing behind me. I felt her hot breath against the back of my neck. All it would take was one bite.

“Isn’t this wretch supposed to be a sacrifice of sorts?” asked Senior Monk, the silver elf turning to Senior Dragon. “It’ll be a crude way to start things off, but have at it, if you must, as long as you rid us of this nuisance.”

“Leave Taylor to me,” growled the First Heir.

“I’m not going anywhere, dude. You and me until one of us is dead,” Thumper said viciously.

“That thing,” the Purest Child murmured, pointing at Grimmy. “It doesn’t belong. It’s impure.”

“And you look stupid and weird!” Grimmy shot back.

“Is everybody picking a forerunner to fight?” Merlin looked left and right before settling on the Chosen Prince. “Oh, no, it’s almost fate. You look like another young master itching to get their ass kicked.”

“Well now. You won’t be the first who believes themselves capable. And you won’t be the last,” replied the Chosen Prince.

“Melody, please end this so we can proceed,” Senior Dragon requested. “We’re waiting on you, after all, oh ultra goddess. Are you still stuck on playing with ants?”

The hostility dimmed.

The moment of truth arrived. Melody’s presence felt far larger, far older, and far scarier behind me. The distance disappeared further. Her chest pressed against my back. With our heights being similar, her lips were at the peak of my neck, the base of my skull.

“I think it’s best I move forward,” Melody said hotly, lips brushing ever so slightly. “I wasn’t brought into the Realm Verse just for you, Arden.”

I chuckled. “And I’m not here just for you either, Melody. I’m here because the System needs her Slayer.”

Other than the chaos back in the lobby, the silence surrounding the thirteen of us was glorious. Then Thumper burst out into a chuckling fit. Grimmy laughed along with him. Merlin turned to look at me with frankly open eyes.

“What the heck is the Slayer?” the wizard asked.

“It can’t be.” Melody stumbled back a few steps. “If this is true, I can’t just eat you. Not here. Not yet.”

“Exactly,” I said. This was why dark romances and deadly politics could never scare me. “I’m the Slayer.”

“Impossible,” said Senior Dragon.

“I’m the Slayer,” I repeated a third time.

“No,” said Senior Monk.

“Yes, it’s true. You can sense it, can’t you? Truth from lies.” I growled like a beast. “I’m HIM! I’m the SLAYER!!”

“Well, I’ll be damned,” said Senior Crusader.

“END HIM NOW!” roared Senior Giant.

The Primordials flared their power. One alone felt like an endless ocean of magical might. Three of them converged on me while I was incapable of doing much of anything. Nor could my fellow nomads help.

Time stopped.

My awareness remained. I sensed we were all aware. But neither the Primordials nor the Veterans could move. Only two creatures could.

Doomie crawled up to my shoulder and took a seat there to watch the show.

A different woman walked in with a sway to her hips. I was about to think Britta had fooled me again until the newcomer drew closer and revealed her visage.

She wasn’t Britta. She was no woman I’d ever seen before.

She was surprisingly short though, falling at four-foot-nine, while having pear-shape curves on the verge of being outlandish. She had rich tan-gold skin. She had cosmic-colored and curly hair that spanned half her height, circling around her head with starry, galactic lights.

Her eyes were pools of abyssal darkness filled with glints of dying lights shining brightest before the end. The smile on her face was toothy, a white slash of danger framed by full brown lips and long incisors. Other than her street-casual clothing that made her distinctly earth-like, there was her most bizarre feature.

A monkey tail that was longer than she was tall. It waved about casually as she sauntered into our time-frozen circle.

The alien and short-stacked woman dawdled up to me. She swayed from side to side, giggling, eating up my visage with her abyssal eyes. Then she teetered around and jumped up.

She kicked three times and landed back down. Then she snapped her fingers. Time resumed. All three Primordials crashed backwards explosively.

Magic flared from around the theater, leaving us all unaffected. If not, the entire city and beyond would’ve been obliterated.

“God-Queen,” muttered Senior Crusader, the old man bowing a little.

The First Heir, Purest Child, and Chosen Prince kneeled. Thumper, Grimmy, and Merlin followed their example.

I remained standing, and so did Melody, who circled around from behind to face me. Then she turned to glower down at the short-stacked God-Queen.

“You lied,” Melody accused. “You kept telling me the Slayer was out of the game.”

“I didn’t say he was out of the game. I kept saying the Primordials and their High Gods made successful attempts in containing the Slayer and that things are mostly out of my hands.” The God-Queen cartwheeled to the side.

She transitioned into a dance on her hands while upside down. “It’s not my fault you didn’t use all of your resources to investigate if that was true or not. As cocky you act, Melody, you definitely leave yourself to being outwitted easily.”

Melody glowered down at the upside down and dancing God-Queen before turning back to me. “Dammit all. This … complicates things. You’re this multiverse’s leading chosen one. That makes you both scrumptious and absolutely vital.”

“You really want to eat me, huh?” I asked.

“It’s part of my ultra bloodline. The instinct to hoard what interests me most is powerful. I don’t like keeping people like that. So, eating is the next thing that interests me a lot. I could always have you reincarnated for the trouble.”

Okay. That confirmed things.

“You’re far different from all of us.” I looked from Melody to the frivolous God-Queen. Doomie had descended from my shoulder and joined the God-Queen in dancing upside down. She wasn’t that successful yet. “Are you more like her?”

Melody sighed. “I’m not answering that. I’ve broken my role far enough. I need you to pledge to my camp. It’ll be in your best interest to do so.”

“Don’t listen to her, Slayer! You’re the leading man of the Realm Verse for a reason! And all these other Pathwalkers are already kissing her ass far too much anyway!” Another factor entered behind us. I had a hunch of who.

The defiler.

He waved cheerily. “Hello. Hi. The Covenant Prince, Adrian Darkrun, is in the house. And don’t worry! I’m not like the other Darkruns! I promise I won’t crash out!”

Melody snapped. “You let in a Darkrun? I thought it was supposed to be just me!”

The God-Queen laughed. The tension in the air rose, but only from the ones who were ultra. The other forerunners looked exasperated, but were staying on their knees.

As for the Primordials, Senior Crusader waited patiently still. The other three reentered our chaotic circle with their bodies mostly intact even if their dignities were shattered. Their attention remained on me instead of the ultras.

I did what I do best. I acted boldly. “The Slayer is here. You all know what that means. I don’t need your acceptance to enter as a forerunner.”

“We made an agreement that this will be an event with Primordials providing insight for every forerunner. Whether they’re Realm Verse Native or Ultraverse Outsider, you need a Primordial,” Senior Giant muttered. “I suppose you’ll have to fall under one of us, Slayer and friends.”

“Nope. He doesn’t. I got him his special reward for completing a Divine Quest.” The God-Queen stopped acting a fool and pointed to the side. “And what’s behind mystery Door A! Can you guess what?”

“Something none of us would expect,” Thumper murmured. 

“More Slayers!” squeaked Grimmy.

“The amount of twists and turns makes me think we’re hitting a climax,” Merlin said.

“Merlin, keep up that genre savvy snark and I might gift you with feet pics,” the God-Queen said.

Merlin sputtered.

The doors opened. I roared with laughter. I couldn’t believe it. My life could only get better and better.

He wore round spectacles on a pinched and wrinkled face. A shock of white frizzy hair covered his head. He was small, narrow, and dressed in robes that didn’t quite fit him and were the color of bookshelves, light brown and easily dismissible. He shuffled forth as if he should be curled up in the nook of a library somewhere instead of being at the biggest event of the entire Realm Verse.

“I should’ve stayed a Demigod,” muttered Senior Codex.

The other Primordials reacted with different degrees of shock.

I kept roaring with laughter. It took me a while to regain my composure, but by then, I had the God-Queen herself sitting on my shoulders. I couldn’t recall how she got up there.

She wasn’t inclined to budge. Her round thighs had my head pressed with a strong vice.

“Alright, I think that’s all the major players. Darkrun, who are you lining up with?” The God-Queen snapped her fingers at the Covenant Prince.

“Well, with the Slayer leaving my many great aunt high and dry, I’ll be glad to support her game of hardcore smurfing and dunking on the noobs.” Darkrun sauntered around to stand close to Senior Dragon. “Ah, don’t give me those looks, my little, little friends. I know it isn’t fair that the Dragon Supremacy is uber out of your league, but we are here to help take the load off, aren’t we? You just have to accept we’ll be better at it than you.”

Melody sighed. “Yes, we are here to help. To fix a problem of your own making and provide corrections to subpar hoard management, right, Senior Dragon?”

The Primordial dipped his head like he was the junior in front of the elder. Even I found that mind-boggling to see.

The woman in charge of us all carried on. “Well, I guess I’ll start off by saying hi. My name is Juliette Luckrun, and I’m your God-Queen and Sole Multiverse System Administrator. Just like Melody and Adrian here, whom you may consider Realm Verse Outsiders, I’m an ultra goddess from the Ultraverse, and I’ve run into a bit of a problem. A problem started because of our Primordials.”

“Here it goes again,” muttered Senior Monk.

“Keep blaming us for lobbying changes to fix your messes,” grunted Senior Giant.

“Do you know what stupid thing she’s blabbering about?” Senior Dragon asked Senior Codex.

The bookish fellow shrugged, and Senior Crusader remained in the backdrop.

As for the young forerunners, they all waited on their knees like good peons. Though the First Heir kept glaring murder at Thumper. Grimmy picked grit off the carpet and flicked it at the Purest Child. And both the Chosen Prince and Merlin were absorbed with the grand circumstances taking place.

My heart was thundering in my chest. I breathed in and out slowly, calming myself, ignoring the thick and heady indescribable scent of the God-Queen all over my head. Then it occurred to me that God-Queen Luckrun was waiting on someone.

Me.

“What’s the problem?” I asked.

“Why thank you for showing genuine interest in our shared issue, my Slayer.” She patted me on the head. “Well, you see, for a long time now, the Primordials and their little minions succeeded in an area that never happened before. They trapped the Slayer. For nearly an entire Cycle.”

It dawned on me that I’d never asked how long the Slayer had been trapped.

The more God-Queen Luckrun spoke, the more eerie her words became. The more the atmosphere shifted. The more it felt like danger was closing in all around us, but a type that was alien, deep, and mind-breaking.

“The Slayer exists because he is a regulator. He is a power who keeps things in check at the bottom while I keep things in check at the top. He is my blade. He is my butcher. He is my hero. Not all Slayers are the goodest of good, but more often than not, all of my Slayers have done the greatest good he or she could for our little multiverse. And sometimes the greatest good they could do is keep the other half of the Realm Verse from breaking into your half.”

The Dragon Princess and the Covenant Prince stood unaffected by the news.

The Realm Verse Natives looked like they had no idea what the God-Queen was talking about. Many of us looked toward Senior Codex, presumably the most knowledgeable person among all of us natives.

Senior Codex shook his head. “I don’t know about another half of the Realm Verse.”

A shiver traveled down my spine. Juliette Luckrun giggled like a nightmarish gremlin. She combed her fingers over my scalp. She curled herself even tighter around my head, her tail encircling my torso. Her words came out like a hungry, fiendish purr.

“Of course you don’t, silly. That half was only for the Slayer and your incredibly deadly counterparts. And there hasn’t been a Slayer in a while. Thus, the Grand Generational Passing, a chance to Level Up far faster and way higher than anyone else while up against the Patheaters.”

The name Patheater shook my Path of the Slayer. A deep part of me hated that name. Another part feared it more than anything else, shocking me.

Nothing had made my Path afraid before. How many Slayers had died alone against these mysterious Patheaters?

“What happens if we fail?” I prompted.

God-Queen Luckrun giggled evermore darkly. “They’ll consume you all. Then I’ll have to eat what remains and start from scratch, and I really don’t want to do that. This is my third multiverse. I don’t want to mess it up again. That’ll be so embarrassing for me!”