Chapter 542 - Champion´s heart

Whitey and I sit together on the playground wheel—the kind with a disc in the center you spin to make it rotate. At first, it moves slowly, but it gradually picks up speed as Whitey cheats, adding kinetic energy to make it spin faster.

Lissandra is still on the bench nearby, watching us.

“Do you like this floor?” I ask her.

“Not quite, but it suffices well enough for some training.”

“Are you not interested in the floor quest, the mimics, and all that?”

"I have already spoken with the Mimic Progenitor and the lumoran Absolute. I swore an oath to refrain from acting against either side for three months, provided neither sets foot in this valley or the lands surrounding it."

I take a moment to process it and then simply accept it. Of course, she did something like that.

“So you are already at the Absolute level?”

"People these days... they would name anyone they pass on the roadside an 'Absolute.' I am far from such a thing."

“So how come they listened?” I start absorbing some of the kinetic energy so the wheel doesn’t break, much to Whitey’s disappointment.

Lissandra taps on the bench’s armrest. "From their perspective, which is incorrect, either of them could, in theory, defeat me. Yet, should they act against me, I might align myself with the other side. While they think they could end me, they fear I’d bring down all their Champions before falling."

“Do they even have that many Champions left? The mimics just lost six of them—some even with hosts,” I ask.

“Little pup, you’ve been here for a few weeks and still know nothing about the mimics?”

“Here we go,” Whitey smirks and uses my distraction to leap off the wheel and move over to the swings.

I let the wheel keep spinning, and every once in a while during a rotation, my view of Lissandra reappears.

“I was busy,” I tell her.

"Of course you were." She leans back on the bench. "The Progenitor Mimic, as you surely know, cannot create an infinite number of mimics. It is also the only mimic incapable of getting a host, while it maintains a sort of hive-mind connection with all the others. The stronger these mimics are, the more powerful that connection to the Progenitor becomes."

“So where does it get that many Champion grade mimics?”

"There are a few possibilities, but simply put: it can "raise" its mimics to that rank, but they must fight and level to achieve it. This Progenitor seems older—likely it has traversed a few worlds already, either laying them to ruin before moving on or fleeing them. From the strength of its mimics, however, it is not terribly ancient."

“So it travels from planet to planet, strengthening its kin and building up its numbers.”

“Yes.”

“But with all that bullshit—taking over hosts and staying hidden—wouldn’t that be really bad?”

"Only if your Absolute falters, as the lumoran one did. By his negligence, the Progenitor Mimic managed to infiltrate this place and construct a stable teleportation node."

“So either the Progenitor Mimic got the Coordinates, broke through whatever planetary defenses this place had, and started summoning others, or it crashed here by hitching a ride on a meteor or something.”

“Very likely.”

The wheel finally stops spinning, and I turn it a few more times so I’m facing Lissandra. Off to my right, I hear the swing rocking and see Whitey’s legs in my peripheral vision as he swings.

"With all these improvements and their ability to adapt to detection methods, how do you ensure you get rid of all the mimics once the war is over?" I ask.

"Once it reaches the stage it has here, it becomes near impossible. You would need either a specialized Absolute to confirm or, more likely, a Ruler to be entirely certain. Without either, the neighboring coalition of planets might very well decide to destroy yours outright as a precaution. That is likely what happened here in the first place."

“Kaboom,” Whitey shouts happily.

“Yes, yes—kaboom,” I reply. Then I jump off the wheel and sit back on my wooden horse, which is closer to Lissandra. “So the war between the Lumorans and the mimics will likely intensify.”

“Why do you think so?” She watches me with interest.

“Well, after three months, you’ll probably interfere, and they don’t know which side you’ll join, so they’ll try to finish it before then.”

For a fleeting moment, she smiles and nods. “Or they might bunker up, prepare, and try to get me on their side in any way possible.”

“I don’t think so.”

“Why?”

“You likely told them not to annoy you, or else you’d join the other side.”

“Sounds like something that silver haired cockroach would do, from what I’ve seen in your memories,” Whitey laughs, taking a few swift jumps closer.

He meets Lissandra’s gaze easily as he sits on the bench beside her. “What? Do you think I’m scared of you, human? I know about you from his memories and I don’t give a shit; at worst you can—”

Unable to finish, he crumples onto the ground, mouth wide open, body twisted in painful contortions. Yet there are no sounds, no screams coming from him.

Some people have to learn the hard way, I guess.

“Did you get that Champion’s heart from the molten lava in the pyramid for me?” I ask.

“What do you think?”

“Probably yes, but the question is whether I deserve it, in your eyes.”

"If you haven't improved, it will be of no use to you, so merely seeing whether you can use it might serve as a test in itself. You will find it after we are done here."

“I’ve thought a lot about it, and we’re already prepared for the surgery. I’m sure something will go wrong, but I should be able to survive a few mess-ups. We’ll need to ‘seal’ it partially and unlock those seals over time so it doesn’t fry me immediately.”

“Do whatever you want, little pup.” She stands and moves closer to Whitey just to poke him with her shoe. “I’m very well accustomed to demons. I have faced your Absolutes many times and have had the misfortune of dealing with them."

She drops into a squat so she can look into his eyes, grabbing his horns to force him to face her. “Though I recognize your talent and the effort you’ve invested, I do not appreciate the tone you’ve taken with me. And do not mistake my silence for consent.”

After that, she lets go and disappears.

Only then does Whitey slowly move, pulling himself up and onto the bench again with a long, painful, sigh. For a minute he sits there with his eyes closed and I can still sense pulses of contortions going through his body.

“The bitch is crazy crazy,” he says simply.

Rocking forth and back on my wooden horse, I nod.

***

When I leave my mind space after fighting Whitey, the cockroach isn’t anywhere to be seen. Instead, at my feet, a human heart is chucked into the dirt.

It’s the Heart of the Champion Laten from the 5th floor—someone who commanded thermal energy and was capable of turning the force of the planet’s largest underground volcano into mana. What a chad.

If I recall correctly, it was said he might have had the potential to become the next Absolute of that planet. However, the planet ultimately fell to the Veil, a creation born from the torture and remains of a powerful beast used as its core.

I pick up the heart and try to clean off the dirt, but the moment I touch it, it falls from my hand to my surprise.

Why?

I glance at my hand—it’s gone. Charred remains mark where it disappeared, and the burn continues to spread. I feel the intense heat and quickly cut off my arm at the elbow. That piece drops to the ground and burns.

Interesting. Why doesn’t the ground around the heart burn?

I squat in front of it and create a stick of mana to poke the heart. It instantly evaporates under the sheer heat.

So it reacts to mana? But shouldn’t it also react to ambient mana? Or is there some limit?

Over the next hour, I try picking it up with no success. The heart just lies there in the dirt, beating slowly.

I still remember the effect it had on that pool of molten metal and the entire pyramid—the heat waves it sent through everything. The fact it only reacts to my touch now likely means Lissandra did something to it, at least partially “sealing” it.

Well, this will take a while.

***

Myrra squawks and leaps into the air, her tail stiff and a burn on her hand—the one she got trying to poke the heart on the ground.

Sophie stares at her, nearly in disbelief. “Didn’t she study under that woman?”

“Curiosity killed the cat,” I say.

“Fuck off, feral one,” Myrra snarls before licking her hand, then heading over to Lily. She pokes her and extends her burned palm.

Lily smiles and heals it. Myrra ruffles her hair in thanks, then rushes back to the heart, studying it more closely.

“Didn’t Lissandra show it to you?” I ask Myrra.

“She just stored it in some box and wouldn’t let me see. She said if I wanted a look, I had to get into the box, but I couldn’t.”

Everyone in Group 4 is here. Sophie, Lily, and the twins all stand near the heart. The rest have gathered, doing their own things nearby.

Tess and Maya are up on the cliff, breaking trees and building a large fire. They’re setting logs on the ground for us to sit on. Tonight, no manabloc furniture or thermal pyramid lighting—just a good old-fashioned roasting of the food we’ve collected.

“We could probably move it if we just dug up the entire chunk of ground it’s lying on,” Sophie suggests.

I nod. “Wanna bet we’d burn the house down in the process? It’s better to do it here; the weather’s nice, after all.”

Dennis asks, “Do you think we can finish it before the tournament? It doesn’t look like it’s going to be easy.”

“It’s fine. The heart is for me, so I’ll do most of the prep. You can all continue with your training. I looked it over, and Lissandra did create a base I can continue to build on. I can use that base to create multiple seals to weaken the heart’s output, and these seals will strengthen as I connect them to the construct I plan to make inside my body.”

“Couldn’t that woman do it? It would save us a lot of time,” Sophie says, backing away from the heart. She then manipulates a thread of water and splashes it at Izzy.

Myrra laughs at Sophie’s question. She knows Lissandra as well as I do.

“That’s not how Lissandra thinks. She’d rather just chuck it into my chest and watch me either survive and get stronger or die,” I say.

Izzy, who just got the back of her neck splashed with cold water, flings Noodle at her sister. Surprised Noodle, about the length of my forearm, flies through the air before swelling up to the size of an anaconda and landing on Sophie.

Sophie falls down laughing, and Izzy charges in, splashing her with water from a nearby stream. Biscuit is there too, biting at Sophie’s legs.

Myrra watches everything with her cat-like yellow eyes wide, the tips of her ears twitching.

Noodle slithers away from the scuffle and moves toward me. I give him permission, and he shrinks before worming his way into my shirt sleeve to hide.

“Do you want to start preparing the heart or do some fixes on the Fracture first?” Dennis asks.

"Why not both? Besides, I’ll need to modify my current Thermokinetic Mana Heart so it generates only kinetic energy in addition to mana. That alone should increase my kinetic output. I’ll also consider what to do with the Vortex Core—maybe I’ll remove it entirely and try out some of the ideas I’ve been thinking about."

"Yeah, because having a second heart that could incinerate you with a single beat isn’t terrifying enough," Sophie remarks, gently nudging Biscuit aside.

"Sophie, this is important. Third Floor Nathaniel created a Kinetic Mana Heart, even though it almost blew him up in the end. I can’t let myself fall behind."

I turn my attention back to the heart. It rests in the dirt, beating steadily. Even partially sealed, it radiates a heat that warns against getting too close.

It’s a cute, dangerous little thing—quiet for now, but brimming with the potential to go horribly wrong.

And I’m all in for it.

***

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