Chapter 114: Slow Down and Take a Breath
Death’s Embrace (epic)
A hug is nice, isn’t it? The warm embrace of a loved one, assuring you that you are not alone in this world, that you are loved ... yeah, this isn’t that. This is the cold embrace of skeletal arms wrapped around you, bones poking into you as the deathly cold that radiates from them saps your life force.
This terrifying effect can be created in one of two ways.
The first of these is to infuse you Aura with this Skill, increasing its ability to inflict damage, temporarily reducing an opponent’s regenerative ability and physical Stats upon dealing damage. This has an ongoing cost of 50 mana per minute for the Aura of the Desperate Seeker and 20 mana per minute for the Aura of the Crimson Dawn.
The second fills the space around the caster with a dark miasma that weakens any designated enemy to a degree proportional to the amount of mana invested. The target area is a circle with a diameter of 20 meters centered on the user and does not move with them, remaining where it was first cast. This costs thirty mana to activate, as well as twenty mana per minute as upkeep, and will reduce all Stats of affected enemies by 5. Investing an additional 20 points of mana will further reduce your opponents’ Stats by 10. Each set of twenty mana invested beyond that will be ten percent less effective, additively.
Cost:
Auric Infusion, Aura of the Crimson Dawn: 50 mana per minute
Auric Infusion, Aura of the Desperate Seeker: 20 mana per minute
Area Debuff: 30 mana to activate, 20 mana per minute of use, more mana may be infused at will
While the pair of them were running back to their work area, Isaac read over the description of his new [Skill]. It was pretty damn expensive to use, but would wreak havoc upon his enemies. The first way of use would stack perfectly with his ludicrous Level of [Aura] control.
The second one was pretty good as well. Unfortunately, the fact that it wouldn’t move meant that under normal circumstances, an enemy could just move out of it. However, Isaac had a second [Skill] that synergized perfectly with this one. All he had to do was suck in his enemy with [Grave of Swords], which would be almost completely covered by the field of death, greatly weakening his foe in the process. Not only that, but the combination would put quite a few foes into his weight class that would normally be outside it.
“You know, ‘godfather’ is an interesting name for the personification of death.” Raul commented, interrupting Isaac’s musing.
“Oh, absolutely.” Isaac agreed.
“So, what was that old fairytale you mentioned?” Raul asked.nôvel binz was the first platform to present this chapter.
“Basically, a destitute man wanted a godfather for his child and went looking. He met God himself, who offered to take the role of, well, godfather, but the man decided he didn’t want that because he blamed God for letting inequality exist in the world.
“Then the Devil showed up, promising the world, but was likewise rebuffed because the man said he was a liar and a trickster.
“Then, the man met a thin and emaciated being, the Grim Reaper. This was who the man chose to be his child’s godfather as all are equal in death. “
“That’s a rather depressing story, isn’t it?” Raul asked.
“Eh, it’s a German children’s story. Most of those are either dark, depressing or both.” Isaac replied.
“And are you really going to post those pictures of the carnage?” Raul asked “I mean, I can see why you would, but that’s a little fucked up?”
“Fucked up would have been heading over to that group of dead pre-teen children having a sleepover I saw in with my [Aura] and posting a picture of that.” Isaac growled “People need to remember that this isn’t a game. That there are real consequences to doing stupid crap. Putting pictures of dead children on the internet is where I draw the line, but every fucker on this stupid planet who thinks we’re being overly cautious needs to see what we’re trying to prevent, what they’re advocating for when they call us out for ‘oppressing them’. One of these days, I’m going to learn how to bring back the dead just so I can murder those bastards with my own two hands!”
The conversation came to a stop after that. They continued to hurry back to where everyone else was, not quite running, but still going at a good clip.
That was how the rest of the day went, fighting, trying not to think about the dead, instead attempting to focus on the living, the lives saved. Emphasis on ‘attempt’.
***
“How are you doing?” Bailey asked Isaac. They were strolling through the woods a good distance from everything else, with [Perception Block] ensuring no one would overhear.
“Crappy. No rest, non-stop fighting, and dead kids. The only thing that could make this day worse would be getting dumped, but I’d need be dating for that to happen.” Isaac said despondently.
“We got the preliminary casualty numbers in. 1 million deaths.” Bailey said, though his voice was merely grim “Bad, but it’s got nothing on the first one. Whatever else happened, we saved lives.”
“Sure. Maybe I’ll even internalize that some day. On the other hand ... dead kids.”
Bailey took a deep breath before replying with a simple nod. There was nothing to be said to that, and he knew it.
“I already asked the BAU gal back at camp, but did you hear anything about the background of the summoners on that?” Isaac finally asked.
“Not really. Seems to be the general ‘freedom from rules, but not in an anarchy way, but it’s still kind of like anarchy’.” Bailey growled and spat on the ground.
Isaac raised an eyebrow, so the professor elaborated.
“I’ve known people like that, and we do not get along. I get it, laws can be stupid, laws can have been created specifically to target minorities even if they don’t expressly say that ... but ignoring them because you don’t understand why they were written after thinking about them for two seconds is incredibly moronic. Drunk driving because ‘I can handle it, what do the politicians know’ and all that crap.”
“Ouch.” Isaac winced. That had sounded personal.
Bailey sighed.
“If you ever want to talk, about anything, you know I’m here for you. And if you don’t, well, that’s fine too. Just, if you ever feel like you’re about to do something you might regret, speak up. Please.”
“Thanks, Adam.” Isaac said “But I’m fully aware of how irrational my feelings are. By all objective measures, today was a win. It just doesn’t feel like this, it feels personal. They’re feelings, so I can’t just rationalize them away, but I’m also not going to let them drive me to do something stupid.”
He chuckled darkly.
“No, I’m going to go to a place where a demon lord might be summoned even though the government that called it here in the other timeline is now gone, but I’m doing that fully aware of the danger involved, not as some kind of bizarre ‘suicide by monster’.”
“I wasn’t ...” Bailey began to say, but Isaac cut him off “Oh, come on, we both know that’s what you meant, you just didn’t want to put it in plainly.”
Isaac swore under his breath in four different languages for a few moments, then sighed.
“I’m sorry, I’m ...” he lost his train of thought and stopped talking.
“You’ve had one hell of a day, I think there’s very little you could I do I wouldn’t be understanding about.” Bailey assured him.
“Thank you.” Isaac slumped “I’ll take a couple of days, get my head straight, probably go visit my family ... something.”
Bailey just nodded as they continued to walk through the woods, not speaking, just paying spending a little time together and knowing they weren’t alone in this fucked up world.
