Path of the Slayer B3 5. Tools & Bulls

Outside on the mountainside, among the gardens and fountains and gazebos, Edwago huffed through his wide nostrils. He shook his big head, his large horns sweeping through the motes of light that floated about under a clear moonlit night.

The distant battles across the challenge floor sounded muffled beyond the walls of the Final Rose Auction House. Grass crinkled under his heavy steps as he moved away from the rest of the nobles who were clamoring or recovering from the embarrassing slap fest they’d suffered.

Along the way, the large half-minotaur grabbed an entire cask from a garden party. He ignored the squawks of some indignant calves who would’ve served better being veal than someone’s witless and softly Leveled scions.

Edwago ripped off the top and chugged down the fancy liquor, letting some of it dribble down his chin and onto his wide and hairy chest. It burned. It helped dull the roaring beast inside.

It wasn’t yet time for him to lose control.

He had to focus and serve his mistress.

The anomaly had entered the Auction House with his ragtag squad of misfits. The anomaly had refused to take the bribe, despite Edwago’s best efforts to forge a deeper connection.

The half-minotaur hadn’t lied about anything he said to Arden. But Edwago wasn’t going to drop the calculative mind he’d forged over the years when most others thought him a simple and brash brute.

Edwago could already sense the distaste from the other nobles who had the audacity to call him scum or bootlicker without hiding it much. Under different circumstances, Edwago would’ve laughed.

He’d done scummy things. He’d licked a boot once. He’d done much more terrible things than that.

The fact that someone like Arden could exist while having a strong and unbroken sense of self made a pit inside of the half-minotaur’s stomach feel raw and ugly. It also didn’t help that Edwago’s arm, shoulder, and torso were throbbing with pain.

His muscles were ripped. His joints were torn. And he had fractured bones.

He’d done his best to hide it in front of Arden despite the damage.

He could’ve healed it by now, but Edwago took in the throbbing pain as a measure of Arden’s capabilities. The young man was too strong. Way too strong for Exquisite.

Edwago was certain that Arden could be more dangerous – he hadn’t used that horrific phantom of his during the slapping event.

There was the red metal arm of his, too. Edwago was certain it was a cursed thing. He would swear on it if he had to.

Reaching a dark and secluded spot under a large apple tree, Edwago lowered his large frame onto a sturdy stone bench. He finished his cask of liquor, tossed it aside, and pulled from his spatial pocket an enchanted device to block sound and obscure his face.

That way, anyone who was well-versed in reading lips wouldn’t be able to.

Then he pulled out an orb for transcommunication. After inputting the proper runes, he waited until the voice of someone he dreaded most picked up on the other line.

“My lovely tool of a bull, what are you calling about?” asked a melodious woman on the other line.

She sounded cheery, friendly, and welcoming – to the unaware. To Edwago, she was the incarnation of his trauma, his Brand, and the shivers of fear that jolted along his spine.

“My mistress, this tool of a bull has something to report. There is a huge anomaly at the Final Rose Auction House. And he’s heavily linked with the Dragon Princess.”

Once he got out the words, he waited with bated breath. She liked to make him wait, stretching out his dread.

“Hm? How lovely. This is about Arden the Nomad, yes?”

“Indeed, it is, mistress.”

“You’re not the first to reach me about this news. You won’t be the last, either. Perfectly timed.”

She laughed like her teeth would sparkle and invite everyone to laugh with her. Edwago couldn’t stop himself from shivering as his injuries kept throbbing from being unhealed.

His mistress carried on.

“Interestingly enough, it’s our friends on Path of the Defiled Covenant who’ve reached out to me about this fellow. But let me hear your thoughts on the matter before I speak on.”

The defilers being involved weren’t a surprise – Arden had made it quite public where his business with the Dragon Princess would take him after the auction. But to hear that the Defiled Covenant was responding this quickly raised the hairs on Edwago’s neck.

Still, he told his mistress everything he’d gathered so far.

Edwago started retelling the public conversation where Arden had criticized the Dragon Princess of all people, publicly embarrassing her. Then Edwago talked about how Arden had slapped aside nobles of powerful families who would’ve had someone like him wiped out immediately if it wasn’t for the touchy politics of offending the Dragon Princess.

And Arden had done all of this while leading a bunch of nobodies with no fame, no backing, no anything. They weren’t even made of more elevated folks. They were mostly halfies like Edwago.

“Wow!” his mistress exclaimed. “Broken System, madness in our eyes and guts, this guy is so fun! I bet he’ll bleed the brightest red!”

The more she talked. The more her melodious voice changed. She sounded less like a happy woman and more like a devilish monstress.

“First, he killed over sixty assassins by himself and got a Veteran annihilated by the System! And now he’s bossing around the aristocracy. Oh, ho, ho, ho! This is going to be so fun! This is what our Path is made for! This is what you’re made for, Edwago, my special, special tool of a bull.”

Edwago nodded. He was on the same Path as his mistress.

But that was just one Path out of two that Edwago had, and his mistress knew that as she spoke on excitedly.

“You won’t be first. No, no, no, my love. You’re too special to go first. I know you’ve been waiting for a long time to leave behind Pathwalker and be a Veteran, but I need you to wait a little longer. There’s another one of my lovely tools in the area. You won’t know who they are, of course, but they’ll strike first. You just observe. Feed our Path. Then when the time is right … unleash yourself on Arden the Nomad.”

“Yes, mistress.”

“Oh, System! I wish I was a Young Pathwalker again! It’s so exciting. Maybe if you’re lucky, my first agent will fail. Then you’ll get to be everything you’re meant to be, my tool of a bull. All of that rage and hurt you keep inside. You can take it out on Arden. Wouldn’t that be fun?”

“Yes, mistress.”

“Anywho, I have to go do boring High God stuff. Ugh! I should’ve stayed a Demi-God for longer. They really sell you on the God-life. Then many years later, you’re a High God, and you don’t recognize how awesome and sexy you were back in the early days when you could rip off heads and eat the hearts of your chosen enemies whenever you want without thinking much about politics. Oh well. Have fun! Toodles!”

The call ended.

The transcommunicator orb crumbled apart.

Edwago kept the obscuring enchantment going as he bent over on the seat and clenched his shaking hands together. The gnawing pit inside of him grew. The tension all over his body grew.

The injury from the explosive handshake kept throbbing painfully, and yet Edwago still refused to heal it. He crushed his hurt hand in his other grip and took in the pain.

Then he mixed that fresh pain with the memories of all the pain he’d suffered. Next, he took all of that combined pain and imagined one person on the receiving end.

Arden the Nomad.

Edwago’s tears of trauma became tears of ecstatic rage and gleeful red madness. Only for a moment.

He couldn’t let the truth out, or he would blow his cover completely. But for a moment, he was two Paths at once.

Path of the Bull, Level 91, the Path that he put on the forefront to hide his greatest secret, his second Path.

Path of the Nemesis, Level 100, a nearly unbeatable Path once an enemy was properly researched.

He was almost a Veteran. He only needed one Path to hit Level 101 before he could finally go on the Veteran Placement Quest.

Maybe facing Arden in truth would get him to that next step.

It would certainly be satisfying.

“Please, don’t die to the first one,” Edwago groaned, mashing his damaged hand in his other hand, his mind a whirlwind of tragedy, thrill, and madness. “Please survive. And let this tool finally unleash himself. It’s been so, so long … since the last time I can be … a Nemesis.”