[Voidknight Ascension] (Start of Book 4) Chapter 208 - Some People Have All the Luck

“Brace!” Gray shouted, his voice of command stiffening the spines of those all around him in the observation tower.

The Winders were working overtime to protect the fragile tower. Without their tireless efforts, it would have been destroyed days ago. The Maelstrom, even as far out as they were from its vicious core, was far too powerful.

Before long, we will need to find a permanent solution or else allow the Maelstrom to destroy the tower, Nathaniel Gray thought. It was a bitter pill to swallow.

While the leader of the Relagia Skyshard hated to let such an iconic part of his home be destroyed, the alternative of running the Winders ragged was even worse.

They needed to replenish their strength and they couldn’t do it if they were spending all their time and mana keeping their hastily built tower from collapsing.

It might be better to destroy it in a grand display, instead of letting the populace of Relagia see it being taken away from them.

The Skyshard shook and juddered worse than any earthquake back home on Earth. Despite his increased strength, Gray’s teeth rattled painfully in his skull from the reverberations.

People in the tower’s upper floor fell or grasped onto pillars and desks to try to keep upright. Orders were relayed back and forth through brass tubes, but even those seemed to be on the fritz lately.

Everything that he had built was threatened. The Maelstrom had snared them, using his hubris and belief that they could slingshot around and away from it against him.

They were caught as fast as any of the smaller Skyshards being crushed deeper within the swirling maw of the Maelstrom. Its green shimmering winds and bolts of angry lightning arced out and alternated between slicing up small chunks of land and blasting them to dust.

That won’t happen to Relagia! Gray promised himself.

Only when everybody looked at him with hope and admiration did he realize he had spoken aloud.

Sila nodded and stood straighter. “You hear Gray! Relagia will stand, come what may.”

All their progress was slipping away. They had spent so much time recruiting and making their home larger and larger that they hadn’t focused enough on making it stronger.

It was a harsh lesson that Gray was not soon to forget. He burned the destruction wearing away at the edges of the Skyshard into his mind. Houses and huts made crudely, but livable all the same, were whipped away as the Winders slowly relinquished control over the outer reaches.

Skyshards and other uninhabited isles of stone constantly slammed into their Skyshard. Relagia was too big to protect. They had to let pieces of it go in order to protect the whole.

People fled from the storm’s wrath, overseen by the most stalwart of souls that Gray could find. He would not allow chaos to reign in his home, there would be no looting or taking advantage of people who had lost everything due to his carelessness.

Never again, he mentally snarled.

Head held high, Gray listened to the relayed information on the state of the evacuation. “Step down the fifth team of Winders,” he told them.

As much as he wanted to hang his head, he would not. The others needed to see that he was okay with this, or at the very least, would willingly shoulder this terrible burden.

Sure, it wasn’t like the world before where people lost entire generations of memories and items when their homes were destroyed, but it was still devastating.

He had tried his best to give them a home here, and now even that was gone.

Morale was even more important at times as dark as these. With the Winders no longer needing to keep the bulk of Relagia secured, they could rotate in and out to restore their mana.

With the tower dismantled, they might be able to slow their fall into the Maelstrom by a month or more. Enough time to work on a plan, perhaps.

He had no idea how to empower his Skyshard, but it was clear that this hunk of rock was not strong enough to weather the Maelstrom. Some Skyshards that sailed past seemed to hold together better than his.

They were all smaller and more compact. They had not focused on expansion. Perhaps that was the answer.

It was worth looking into.

Sila watched him out of the corner of her eye. She was always watching him, ready to relay the most meager of commands. He wished she didn’t take her role so seriously sometimes. The girl needed a hobby. Something to entertain herself.

Even on dark days such as this, people needed entertainment and joy.

How did I go from doing world first raids in MMOs to this…?

It seemed ridiculous, and yet a surprising amount of the skills overlapped. He was good at commanding people, entrusting those who were self-sufficient with orders that they would undertake in their own way, and he had an eye for skill.

His ability to recognize patterns and devise counters to them was all well and good, but that didn’t really help with leading. There were no doubt people under him who could read patterns and devise better strategies.

A good leader wasn’t necessarily great at any one thing, but they needed to be a cohesive element. They needed to be able to pull everything together into a singular working unit. More than anything, they needed to listen.

And what Gray was hearing around him, between every swear when the tower shook, when a hunk of rock slammed into their flying Skyshard, and in between the furtive looks, was that his people were afraid.

They needed to be assured.

“Tell teams six through eight that we’re pulling all the way back to Prospect Street,” he told them with a heavy heart.

Sacrifices needed to be made before they were forced to make them. Being seen to give ground was a damn sight better than being made to flee. This way they could control the evacuation to make sure everybody was safe at the center of the Skyshard.

Harvey, the up-and-coming Bladedancer looked horrified at him. “But…sir, that’s nearly half the Skyshard.”

“Better to divest ourselves of it now,” Gray said. “We’ll be dismantling the tower to erect a temporary shelter soon. All those who have been unhoused will need a place to stay. Nobody is going to be sleeping out in the streets.”

The looks shot his way were fearful, but determined. They had a course to plot and Gray hadn’t let them down yet. They would trust him on this, even if it unsettled them.

Join the club, he thought to himself ruefully. This was not what he wanted, but it was for the best. Relagia would survive.

It must survive.

With a significantly smaller Skyshard, they could invest more mana into protecting what remained. It would mean cramped living conditions, but that was better than losing even a single soul to the caustic winds and terrible blasts of lightning.

Soon even the tower would be gone, but turning it into a shelter with its materials would make it look like a necessary sacrifice rather than a retreat.

Above all else, Gray and the whole of Relagia needed to appear to have everything under control.

Especially since they didn’t.

A few weeks, Gray thought to himself, and we’ll be pulled apart at the seams no matter what we do. There has to be a way to get out of the Maelstrom’s grip.

If there was a way, he would find it.

***

Sam looked out across his Skyshard, the burgeoning kingdom of Sil’mara. His kingdom.

It still seemed so strange that a no-name retail stocker from Hawai’i would end up becoming a king. A king with a handful of subjects, but a king all the same.

Komachi curled up on his shoulder, tucked against his neck and cheek.

Sam reached up and scratched beneath her chin. His fluffy cat purred like a V12 engine.

Compared to the destruction that nearly destroyed his home, the breezy weather outside was more than welcome. Their Skyshard was powerful enough to weather the Maelstrom’s caustic winds and chaotic bolts of green lightning.

It was rather terrifying at first, but now the shield of energy that surrounded Sil’mara looked like an aurora of beautiful greens and blues as the overwhelming destructive energy failed to lay a finger on his home.

Oddly enough, he felt at peace. It was relaxing to watch the pristine nature of his home, untouched by the storm wrecking havoc outside.

The giant crystal that was the [Sourcestone] glowed a soft blue, and the Sacred Tree’s golden leaves swayed gently in the calm breeze that swept across his Skyshard. The two settlement cores were standing strong, even after everything they had been through.

Of course, Sam’s Ascension to Tin Rank helped a great deal with his mood as well. The wellspring of bonus points it provided was absolutely nuts.

From the second story smithy at the heart of his new settlement, Sam watched the golden leaves flutter in the gentle breeze. It was all that managed to get through their shield.

Doesn’t even compare to an average day in O’ahu, Sam thought to himself with a smirk.

He turned his gaze inward. He had a whopping 205 bonus points to spend and he was damned sure going to do it before he got distracted.

Now that Sil’mara was safe from the Maelstrom–for the time being–there was a list a mile long of things that needed to be done.

Starting with seeing what my new Tin Rank Blacksmith can do, Sam thought to himself as he pulled up his status and began to assign points.

[Status]

Name: Samuel Hunter

Race: Human

Legend: [Voidknight (Lv.30 - Tin)]

Job: [Swordsman (Lv.34 - Tin)]

Path: [Void (Lv.34 - Tin)]

Profession: [Blacksmith (Lv.22 - Tin)]

Health(HP): [19,084/19,084]

Mana(MP): [5,040/5,040]

Attunements

[Void Mana] (F-Class Apocalypse Gate) (★★★★ Legendary V)

Affinities

[Fire Mana] (F-Class) (★☆ Uncommon III)

[Metal Mana] (F-Class) (★☆ Uncommon II)

[Void Mana] (F-Class) (★☆ Uncommon II)

Physical Stats

Strength(STR): 648 (+35)

Dexterity(DEX): 357 (+16)

Agility(AGI): 219 (+3)

Vigor(VIG): 647 (+23)

Awareness(AWR): 178 (+18)

Magical Stats

Arcane(ARC): 148 (+12)

Control(CTL): 111

Resonance(RSN): 105 (+7)

Mind(MND): 192 (+12)

Insight(INS): 176 (+17)

With 205 bonus points, Sam could easily have doubled several of his stats, or gotten his Strength nearly to 1,000. With all his Talents in Strength, the 205 points would be worth more than 300. That would almost be enough to hit a major milestone.

Not that Sam thought anything major would happen when he hit 1,000 Strength, but damn would it be nice to have such power. It was his greatest stat for a reason.

It allowed him to wreck everything.

Still, there was a possibility he could use the points to shore up some weaknesses. He wasn’t that fast, despite having over 200 Agility, and his Awareness could definitely use some tuning up.

With all the uses for MP lately, there was Mind as well.

Eh, Blacksmith covers that. I should stop spending so much on it. I know I wanted to keep my MP at a set fraction of my HP, but with all the crafting I’ll need to be doing, that should happen on its own.

His Void mana was plenty strong on its own, making him wonder if Arcane was a good call to enhance. Granted, he had the most Talents in Arcane. At 71 Talents, it was swiftly approaching the territory where it doubled any points he put into the stat.

Perhaps the Shardrune is trying to tell me something…

There was no denying that his power was something to behold, but what he truly lacked was proper control. Getting so many bonus points at once should be spent improving himself, not unbalancing his already ridiculously physical-heavy stats.

With that in mind, Sam split the points between Arcane and Control. Arcane because it had the most Talents, and seemed to be the magical equivalent of Strength, while Control was something he severely lacked.

Nearly everybody else could do more complicated things with their mana than he could, and that was largely because his Control stat was so pathetically low. With a huge store of mana at his disposal, he wanted to refine his control.

Just because I can afford to be wasteful doesn’t mean I should, Sam thought to himself.

Looking over his status again, Sam nodded. He had spent his points well without too much dithering. Now it was time for him to see how much doubling his Arcane and Control really did.

Komachi sniffed his ear, raised a paw as if to bat him, then sniffed it instead. Smirking, he watched her out of the corner of his eye.

“Hey Sam, ya ready for your next special commission?” his cat asked. She seemed to be in a good mood too.

After gaining Merchant as Komachi’s Profession, and leveling up quite a bit, she gained the ability to offer commissions and special commissions to other crafters in Sil’mara. Typically, these were requests for various materials, refined goods and even equipment. Once completed, the crafters earned sizable amounts of Experience points. The Merchant did too.

The last special commission Sam handed in had actually pushed him to Tin Rank. Thanks to that, along with everyone’s collective efforts and Sam consistently pushing himself beyond his limits, he became the only Paragon of the first layer.

Maybe others would follow suit, but nobody else would be the first.

Only Sam held that title. And he was quite proud of that.

He hoped the next Paragon would be Komachi or Raiko, rather than some random rival on another Skyshard. Though, how either one of them would achieve that without having to resort to using the [Black Storm] poison, he didn’t know.

He didn’t want Komachi to go through that. Raiko could handle it, but he couldn’t stomach the idea of that either.

He had already nearly lost her once. And with Haman missing, her otter-like companion, Raiko’s condition was growing worse by the day.

It’s not like you could stop her, he told himself. If Raiko really wanted to do something, she probably would, no matter what he said.

Though, considering how angry she had been about the [Black Storm], maybe she wasn’t willing to inflict that torture upon herself.

He was less certain, now that everyone knew that it had been one of the instrumental steps for Sam to attain Paragon, or at least Tin.

Komachi prodded his face with her paw. “Sam?”

Sam reached over and petted her face. Maybe she considered it a bribe. Maybe she was distracted, but she seemed to enjoy the simple contact. Shutting her eyes sweetly, his magical talking golden furred cat looked like the picture of peace. It was hard to remember this was the same cat he had rescued back in Hawai’i.

He mulled over her question. Komachi could get quite creative in what exactly she requested with special commissions, which helped to create their very first building.

Why not take that a step further?

“I actually have an idea for that,” he said.