Chapter 272 - Erased

A white-scaled fist impacted Nate’s barrier, launching him through the sky. Above him, his flight was mirrored in the portrait hovering over

A white-scaled fist impacted Nate’s barrier, launching him through the sky. Above him, his flight was mirrored in the portrait hovering over the city. The painting was meant to show the Severed Empire that Nate could single-handedly defeat their so-called God Emperor. Currently, it was showing Nate taking a slight beating. He rewrote his position in that same portrait and suddenly he was shooting like a rocket into Severen at point-blank range. A miniscule amount of Divine Energy was leaked into the Barrier Rune within his Regalia so that it wouldn’t shatter on impact.

Nate hit Severen with enough force to send the man flying backwards but nowhere near as far as he had hoped. White scales on the man's forearms were shattered but they were knitting back together at a visible rate.

“How are you violating Reciprocity?” Nate asked curiously.

In theory, taking that much energy from the Gem should’ve been a violation of the Law of Reciprocity. Unless…

“I raised him. I raised them all. From street rats to the greatest Elites of the Severed Empire. But the deal was spelled out perfectly. Everything they are, everything they gained, would belong to me. Even their souls. I am just taking back what is owed. A life for a life, the perfect exchange,” crowed Severen.

Nate’s frown transformed into a glare. He hated that he could see how such a deal would be balanced. So long as Severen provided opportunities and mana, The System would be satisfied that a debt was being incurred. The Elites had apparently even agreed to the terms, solidifying the deal as balanced in the eyes of The System. Kali’Terra was clearly far from infallible and here was a man, a Lesser Divine, who had been abusing that fact to the extreme.

Worse, in Nate’s view, was how much stronger Severen had become. He might be sacrificing his Empire's future, but the results were hard to argue with. Especially for a man who obviously considered his life worth more than anyone else's. Nate had gotten a rough idea of how powerful Wulfgar was. Assuming every Gem of the Severed Empire had a similar debt to Severen, then the man should be a match for Wulfgar. If anything Nate would’ve bet on Severen out of the two of them.

“If you’re this strong, why did you lose to Wulfgar?” asked Nate curiously, buying himself time as he thought about possible solutions to the problem.

Severen snorted in derision, “I suppose a genius like yourself wouldn’t understand how hard it is to raise even a single Gem. The costs and time involved. They must have showered you with wealth and mana to raise you so quickly. When Wulfgar rose I hadn’t even managed to raise a single Gem. It took decades to expand our borders to the point that we had control of enough dungeons and implemented enough mana syphoning enchantments to get to where we are. Even now, you see how many Gems the Severed Empire is capable of supporting.”

Nate could see that, in fact. The age of the Gems was like looking through a family tree. The oldest clearly closing in on the end of life while the youngest was still probably at least a decade older than Nate. Thinking about it, even Bordain had been older than Nate by around a decade, and the man had access to a Legendary Dungeon. Even then, Bordain hadn’t been a Gem when he launched his coup, though towards the end there he would’ve been the equivalent of one.

Seeing the march of time on display in the Gems supporting Severen led Nate to another question.

“You’re what, five centuries old? How old is the oldest of your Gems?”

Severen smirked, his pink tongue sliding over scaled lips, “Two hundred roughly.”

Nate’s eyes narrowed, “What happens if they are able to bridge the gap? What do you do if they ascend?”

Severen's smile turned hungry, “A life for a life.”

Nate felt his anger growing inside of him like a roaring fire. Severen had been raising these Gems, street kids he called them, preparing them for the slaughter. Just potential bottles of Divine Energy for the snake to feast on if they reached the right level of maturity. And if not, well he had his fallback to keep himself alive. The man may follow a Path related to Serpents but as far as Nate was concerned he was more like a leech.

Coming into this fight, Nate had expected to use some of his Regalia’s resources, but his goal had been to keep it at less than a fifth. Even that would take over a hundred days to refill on its own, but he’d been thinking ahead. Planning for the Heartlands and the Seeds he would face there. Seeds who could potentially be stronger than him, albeit with less potential. There was nothing to say that some of those Heartland Seeds hadn’t started at Legendary, evolved to Mythic at their first evolution and then remained Mythic at their second evolution before ascending to Lesser Divine at level one-hundred-and-twenty.

Such individuals would have the current Nate in the hole by at least thirty levels worth of Stats and potentially the same for Skills. And that was assuming they were still level one-hundred-and-twenty, which he doubted many were. Even if they had put no Divine Energy towards their Divine Class, they could’ve raised their Secondary and Tertiary Classes. Better to assume they were closer to level one-hundred-and-sixty.

It was a huge gap to bridge, though Nate was confident he and Kiri could bridge it in time by improving their Divine Vessels. But, at this point in time he was working under the assumption that Stat for Stat and Skill for Skill, he would be weaker than some of the Heartlands Seeds. That was where he intended to rely on his extra Divine Energy and his Regalia. Power that could bridge that gap and make him competitive with the best the Heartlands had to offer. To do so, he had planned to conserve as much of his Divine Paint as he could.

That plan was going out the window as he stared across at Severen. Nate was in a tough spot. He couldn’t target the Gems directly, as that would violate Reciprocity. The Gems in service to Severen were staying out of the fighting below, though the Guild would eventually get through the Platinums and Golds of the Severed Empire. But until then Severen could just keep killing off his Gems for power ups that made him stronger than Nate at face-value.

So, Nate had two options. Drag the battle out, which would likely cost him more and more Divine Energy and paint from his Regalia. Or put his own backup into play.

“Seems like I need you to get involved after all,” Nate sent to Frick.

“And I can use the Paint?” Frick replied excitedly.

“Go wild.”

Below them one of the castle walls exploded, bricks and dust flying everywhere as Frick marched through the gaping hole in ogre form. His blue skin was entirely covered in Divine Paint, with whorls tracing Sigils over his body in whites, reds and blacks.

“THE UNDEFEATED HORDE! GOBLIN-MODE!” roared Frick as he broke apart into metre tall painted goblins that charged the Gems of the Severed Empire.

Nate sensed it all without taking his eyes off of Severen. Paint began swirling around Nate’s feet as he released more of his Regalia’s stores, runes beginning to form beneath him. They were all defensive. Barrier and Reinforcement met with Durability and Power. He needed to buy time. Because the next rune he was forming was ridiculously complex and he couldn’t afford any interruption.

Severen moved, flashing through the sky, the sunlight reflecting off his white scales as he started hammering at the barrier surrounding Nate. Each blow sent ripples through the barrier, as the paint beneath Nate’s feet flaked off and dispersed into nothingness, Divine Energy returning to Reality. The staccato blows rained down on Nate, a drum beat that counted the time he was taking to form the new rune in milliseconds.

Nate felt the prickle of Divine Energy forming as a wave of venomous yellow-light washed over his barrier, Severen finally dipping into his limited reserves of Divine Energy. The energy tasted like battery acid and the paint beneath Nate flaked away faster. But his Barrier would not fall so easily. His defensive rune incorporated not one but two Divine Sigils and was being powered by Divine Energy in the form of his Regalia’s paint. He was effectively outspending Severen in terms of Divine Energy on a scale of ten to one. Nate didn’t pause as he continued to craft the new rune, an inversion of one he had already created. A core ability for his future.

Beneath them, the battle raged through the palace grounds of the Severed Empire. Metal flashed and magic screamed as Golds and Platinums in service to Severen fought against their counterparts in the Adventurer’s Guild. Blood was being spilled on both sides and the dead were already piling up, but such combatants, on equal footing, did not die quickly or easily.

Frick was draining Nate’s own mana at a prodigious rate as the Divine Energy empowered Familiar was making liberal use of Nate’s Skills, coupled with the Spirit’s own. Even so, he was just wearing the Gems down. Then Wulfgar was among them. Disguised as one of the many Fricks, a Gem attacked the Lesser Divine and suddenly there was a smear of blood across the mirrored stones of the palace outer grounds. 

A small part of Nate’s mind noted how Reciprocity was something of a joke since it could be so easily tricked. Maybe that was Kali’Terra’s goal all along. It didn’t care about the abuses so long as the aggregate abided by the letter of the Law.

Severen’s attacks had grown more desperate and Nate felt two more Gems wither and die as the Lesser Divine swelled with stolen power, transforming his body in the process from that of a scaled man into something more likened to a Naga. Where legs had once existed, a white scaled tail stretched. In the place of one set of arms there were now two and the man's neck had entirely vanished becoming a cobra-like hood with a gaping maw and two long sharp teeth.

A wave of yellow miasma washed over Nate, the venomous cloud once more infused with Divine Energy as Nate was forced to feed more of his Divine Paint to his protection rune. An expensive fight, and he wasn’t done spending yet. Through the vision-obscuring yellow cloud, Nate could feel the beat of four arms, sharp claws scraping across his shield as Severen tried to get at him.

Beneath Nate, with three Gems down and Wulfgar once more disguised among the Horde, the tides were turning. More dead lay scattered but the remaining Gems of the Severed Empire were clearly confused. They couldn’t pierce the Divine Painted Illusion that concealed Wulfgar, which meant any attack against one of the Undefeated Horde could result in their instant demise. They were focusing on defending and as such, were being ground down piece by piece.

As the cloud of miasma finally cleared, Severen seemed to agree with Nate’s assessment as, out of spite or fear, the man drew on his connection with the remaining Gems. The pull was enough for Nate to finally sense and recognise the Concept in use and a small amount of Divine Energy flowed into him.

“Exchange? Really? Like some watered down version of Reciprocity?” he derided.

Severen was swelling, growing larger in size as white wings sprouted from his back in some attempt at appearing draconic. Instead, he looked like a caricature of a dragon, with too many legs and stunted wings. An incomplete transformation.

“I merely worked with what The System provided,” roared Severen as he prepared to dive towards Nate.

Nate held up his hands, cupped around the rune he had created, and Severen blanched in fear, turning to run.

But it was too late.

“You’re just a snake who dreamed he was a dragon,” announced Nate, his voice echoing over the city.

From his hands the rune expanded, ballooning out to surround Nate, much as it had done in Ankh’Aris’s throne room. But this time Nate was not looking towards creation. Where the original version of the rune had been beautiful in blues and golds, this rune was terrible, appearing in blacks and muted yellows.

In the portrait hovering in the sky above, Severen’s parody of a dragon vanished into a cloud of black dust that dispersed over the city.

“Life Imitates Art,” proclaimed Nate.

The rune roared, the Divine Sigil of Destruction embedded within attempting to erase Severen from existence. Nate felt the ancient Lesser Divine fight back, throwing his last paltry stores of Divine Energy against the rune and coming up short. A look of shock and horror was the last thing in the serpent’s eyes before he disintegrated into a cloud of black sand that blew away on the breeze.

The roar from the Guild below was deafening as Nate looked to his portrait in the sky, the picture changing to zoom in on his face, the sight of the Guild supporting him from below as he made one final announcement.

“By right of conquest, I claim the Severed Empire.”

Then the painting dispersed and Nate floated down to the courtyard below where the last of Severen’s elite forces were being corralled and bound. Once they proved to not be seditious, they would be put back to work for the good of the Severed Empire.

Wulfgar joined him a moment later along with a grinning but wounded Frick.

“You’re fucking scary kid,” muttered Wulfgar, quietly enough that no one could hear.

Nate just smiled sadly. He’d spent more of his reserves than he had intended. Both in terms of Divine Energy and in terms of wiping out key powerhouses of the Severed Empire. It would be decades to rebuild, even with the Emporium improving existing mana pipelines. Nate just nodded to himself before glancing at Wulfgar.

“Our agreement stands?”

“Of course, lad. We’ll get the connections sorted and send word to your people back in Etrua. Might take a few months but we’ll uphold our end of the bargain. You still haven’t told me how you’re going to smuggle me into these Heartlands though.”

“You’ll see,” replied Nate, already moving away to start building a portal to connect the Severed Empire to the Guild Headquarters and ultimately Etrua. As he got to work, he wondered how Kiri was faring.

*************

Kiri sipped from the potion bottle. The taste was zesty and electrifying.

“And what’s this one do?” she asked.

Jemima sobbed on the ground before her, legs, ankles, and feet all broken.

“It’s a necrotic poison infused with a small amount of Divine Energy. It breaks down flesh and blood.”

Kiri took another sip, “Yeah you can really feel the burn. Not bad. Alright, what’s next?”

She tapped her foot as Jemima continued to sob, handing over another potion.