Chapter 428: Like Father, Like Son

2/3; read the 427 before this one!

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It all happened in a blur. First, Priam endured the backlash of losing his meta-chance. The whispers of aether went silent. The world stopped smiling at him. His fate dulled, lost its gleam and sharpness. As the feeling of golden ichor bleeding from his soul became unbearable, the Juggernaut wanted to scream. To force the universe to notice him.

A hook from Léo brought him crashing back to reality.

Priam rocketed away, slamming into a thick branch. Some part of him sensed the tree’s wrath and urged him to stay still. Léo was done pulling punches, even to save the elves’ face. The Aelbe was too enraged to think of his clan’s reputation.

A shadow halted before Priam. Looking up, he couldn’t help but grin at the sight. A hundred open wounds, some clogged with bone shards.The burns inflicted by Pyro, searing the fur until it was more black than striped. Several holes carved out by Kazuki’s spears, one of which had deprived him of an ear. A shattered fang, a face contused by Braato’s fists. Black veins threading down a trembling leg. Shallow breath, twitching muscles, a dazed stare; the symptoms of acute radiation poisoning. Whatever happened next, Léo’s magnificence was long gone.

“For a pwoud Tiew Fouw, you got youw ass messed up,” Priam taunted, trying to pop his jaw back into place.

“Ah.” Léo glanced down at himself and grimaced. “Indeed. I didn’t think you’d be this strong. The reverse is true as well, right?”

Priam’s grin turned bitter. He had thought his victory would come cheap; or at least affordable. Hyshana, Elaine, hundreds of hoplites and nameless Gaeserts, not to mention Kazuki’s leg, begged to differ. His arrogance had cost too many lives, and if he survived today, he would weep tomorrow.

“Yeah,” murmured the Juggernaut, still sprawled on the ground. A spark flared in his eyes as he lashed out, lightning-quick. His fingertip brushed a furry paw, and he invoked [Kinetic Sovereignty] and Pyro. 

Nothing happened.

Priam’s eyes widened. He tried again for the same result. The legendary skill slid over the Transcendent as if on black ice. Even the Concept itself felt muted. As though someone had severed his connection to it. Even his Heroic Aura, one designed to pinpoint weaknesses, returned only errors.

“How?”

“Pushed to my limits by an uncultured brute…”

With one hand, Léo hoisted Priam and drove a fist into his gut.

Breathless, bile rising, Priam felt himself seized by the hair… and then the wood came up to meet him.

The Tier 4 began smashing the Juggernaut’s skull against the Tal Quercus’s bark. The first blow shattered his nose. The second burst an eye. The third crushed his face. Around then, the Champion lost consciousness—one of the downsides of tying body and soul too closely together.

For that very reason, his addon could delay the regeneration of his head via [Four-headed Hydra] for barely a minute. Any longer, and his soul would have healed wrong.

[Victory probability: low. Using Colosseum VIP Token to flee…
Cancelled by host.]

He would not flee.

Priam blinked, eyes crossing slightly as he focused on Léo’s muzzle. The Transcendent was baring his teeth, his massive hand locked around the Champion’s throat.

“Your body, your soul, and now your head… Your regeneration isn’t tied to an item. And despite the image you summoned, you’re no royal hydra. Perhaps a unique advantage? The blessing of a Tier 9? The Seven are too jealous to allow the mark of an Ascended.” A grunt. “Your soul’s too weak for it to be a Concept, a Skill, or a regular Talent and your body too frail to handle another supreme bloodline… What am I missing?”

A windblade, born from the evolution of the Cut Concept, carved a crescent into Priam’s face. The young man forced his regeneration to act, burning away lifespan just to keep from choking on his own blood.

Lvl Up: [Shear Resistance] lvl 29
CONST +7
META (Endurance) +2

“And you adapt fast… What, am I your whetstone?” Léo’s laughter teetered on madness, his eyes simmering with hate. “I refuse to believe you’re truly immortal,” the Tier 4 growled. “There must be a way to make sure you stay dead.”

Priam darted a glance toward the shattered remains of the hoplite war platform. Léo followed his gaze, lips curling back.

“Exactly what I was thinking.”

Lvl Up: [Deception] lvl 2

VIVA +1
MEM +1
CHAR +1

Had Priam not been dancing so close to death, he would have laughed aloud. The first level of [Deception] had been earned against Rohan.

His prey in hand, Léo leapt from Log-a-rhythm. He strode toward the ruins of the manor and swept them aside with a titanic windblade, revealing a metal hatch. A single kick shattered the lock, and he dropped into a bunker as large as a tennis court. 

[Ideal Dark Vision] outlined a warded table beside a counter stocked with saws of varying sizes and a collection of tools whose very shape spoke of cruelty.

“Torture, really?” Priam rasped. With Micro silencing his nociceptors, pain shouldn’t have scared him, but the Aelbes had surely accounted for that.

Léo gave him a contemptuous look. “If I asked Griffe to brew elixirs that nullify Micro, she’d slap me. This table’s used for skinning beasts, not sapients,” the Tier 4 replied, throwing him down.

Priam longed to fight back, but unlike his tormentor, he knew he no longer had a safety net. The next serious injury would kill him, especially if the Tier 4 used his Mastery IV. Burning lifespan meant nothing when the Transcendent’s claws targeted his very soul.

Hence why he let himself be chained, wearing disdain like armor. His nature howled against the restraints but Priam wasn’t a beast. Victory mattered more than pride.

While fastening the cuffs, Léo paused, frowning at his hand. The blood matting his fur gave off faint wisps of smoke. Poison.

“You really are a loathsome existence,” the tiger warrior muttered.

Priam ignored him. Rather than straining against the chains, he studied them. Alchemically treated metal, etched with suppression runes. His sphere of authority waned with each lock, until he could no longer summon a Concept or use a single active skill. His only remaining tool was raw strength… and while not his weakness, the Juggernaut wasn’t known for outmuscling Tier 3s.

When a collar clamped around his throat, pinning his head to the wooden table, Priam finally noticed the far end of the room. Seen upside-down, six familiar cones were lined up there, each roughly human-sized.

“The hoplite nukes,” he murmured.

“Planted in our camp before the hostilities even began.”

“You’re forgetting Eleha,” pointed Priam before counting again. “There were nine.”

“We buried three beneath the Gaesert encampment.”

“That’s what I call selective outrage.”

The Aelbe said nothing and reached for a saw. After a moment’s hesitation, he set it down. “I’d cut your dick for the satisfaction, but I suspect the pleasure wouldn’t be worth the risk of gifting you another Merit point.”

Priam wisely refrained from mentioning he already had [Genitaless] thanks to his son.

Léo’s silhouette loomed once more in his inverted vision. The Tier 4 stood by the warheads. “Did you know radiation breaks down low and mid Tiers aether? That’s why your poison keeps killing me, even though I embody a Myth. So whatever your little secret is, I doubt it’ll survive this. Or temperatures rivaling a true dragon’s Breath.”

A runic formation flared beneath the thermonuclear warheads as Léo stepped back. Even upside-down, Priam could read the sigils. It didn’t take long for him to reverse-engineer the glyphs and find two interconnected systems. The first was a countdown Léo had just triggered. After one minute, it would activate the second phase.

That second sequence emitted a radio signal, certainly the one the bombs were waiting for. The Aelbes didn’t grasp nuclear fusion or hacking; they had simply hijacked the hoplites’ remote detonation method. Though encrypted by complex algorithms, Kazuki’s army signal hadn’t stood a chance against divination skills.

[59s before atomic detonation.]

The sound of the hatch creaking open pulled Priam back to the moment. Standing on the last rung of the ladder, Léo paused. “In the end, you won’t beg?”

“Not my style.”

“And here I thought I’d shattered your hope.”

“Believe it or not, that’s not the reason. I just don’t beg.”

“... So, you were a tiger too.”

Léo climbed out, and the hatch sealed shut with the finality of Hell’s gates.

[45s]

Head pinned to the table by a collar as thick as a U-lock, Priam sighed. Instead of wasting time raging at his chains, he listened. His high perception caught the sound of wood burrowing through clay, and a second later, the floor cracked open. A root slithered in, tasting the air like a serpent’s tongue before coiling around Priam’s elbow.

“Good boy, Log!”

[40s]

“Activate the barrier.”

Once the hatch closed, the room was completely cut off from the outside world. Through his connection to the tree, Priam sensed a forcefield rising above, strong enough to halt a strong Tier 0 Prince. The spherical dome encompassed the manor, the bunker beneath it, and the Aelbe leader—nothing else. It was the only way Priam had found to kill a Tier 4 fighter: nuclear fire.

The ground trembled. Léo was trying to break free, and might well succeed. I’d better leave too.

“Pull.”

Despite its reluctance, Log obeyed, and Priam groaned as immense force first dislocated his shoulder, then tore the arm off. Squandering lifespan, the Juggernaut regrew the limb in seconds, effectively freeing one arm from the cuffs. If he could release the rest, he could vanish into Log-a-rhythm and escape the nuclear blast.

[25s]

Priam brushed the tip of his thumb over the next manacle, reading the runes like Braille, and grimaced. His glyphwork knowledge barely reached high school level, while these required a PhD. Even with both hands free and a month to work, I couldn’t crack these. Perhaps Hecate's New Moon could do something, but it's most likely that the curse will disrupt the Aelbe detonator. Fuck!

Priam considered freeing all his limbs in the same manner as his arm, but the collar dissuaded him. Even burning lifespan, he couldn’t regenerate his head fast enough to survive decapitation.

[20s]

The bunker stopped shaking at that same instant Priam’s link with Log-a-rhythm crashed. 

You have just left Elysium…

“He reactivated the dimensional barrier to shield himself from the conflagration. Still had one trick left, huh, Léo…”

Priam’s eyes locked onto the nukes, and he hesitated. He could flee at any moment by using his Colosseum VIP Token or his Viscount ability to return to Log-a-rhythm. If he did, he would live. So would Leo, though, trapped between the spatial barrier and Oasis’s dome. Cornered, yet out of the nukes’ reach.

Priam could already picture what would follow: the Aelbe leader would leave the Tal Quercus alone, massacre the Gaeserts, then head back to the Empire to rejoin his clan. Oasis would stand as the island’s last surviving faction. On paper, it was perfect.

And yet Priam balked at it. At letting the murderer of Hyshana—and so many others—walk free. At fleeing before an enemy only to hide behind the elves’ political power. At accepting defeat. That wasn’t him. That wasn’t the man who had conquered an Impossible Tutorial. The competitor who had always pushed beyond his limits.

Priam wanted to live by his own principles. For him, that was freedom. 

“I want to avenge my friends. I want my enemies to pay. Above all, I want to win,” the Juggernaut admitted aloud.

Deep down, he knew that regret was a poison for which there was no resistance.

[10s]

Raising his hand, Priam gathered what little aether still lingered within his weakened Domain and wove a runic key. Like a shooting star, it streaked toward the Aelbe ritual, sank into it… and triggered it early.

Léo, I’m bringing you a foretaste of hell.

*

Status: 

PHYSICAL:
Strength 1 263
Constitution 2 675 (+11)
Agility 1 665
Vitality 2 246
Perception 998 

MENTAL:
Vivacity (D) 667 (+1)
Dexterity 988
Memory 1 231 (+2)
Willpower 1 323
Charisma 1 126 (+2) 

META:
Meta-affinity (O) 1 474
Meta-focus (P) 923
Meta-endurance 1 712 (+3)
Meta-perception 945
Meta-chance 810
Meta-authority 1054 

Potential: 42 476 (+5)
Tier 0

[Tribulation]: Six Tribulations pending.

Next thresholds: 12 attributes > 1 200 / 3 attributes > 1 800 / 1 attribute > 2 700

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Léo - Transcendant (wrath)