Soul of Blades - Chapter 72: Maddening Power (Patreon)

Authors note: sorry guys I was struggling to find a place to put in the system battle arc and as a result this chapter took a little longer than necessary. I’ll be posting a few chapters more today to hopefully hit the 20 chapters ahead mark rather than 18.

Enjoy.

Chapter 72: Maddening Power

As Alex approached the massive, opulent gate flanked by towering guards in golden armor, his gaze shifted upward, his neck stretching to take in their strange and exaggerated presence. Mei walked beside him, her gait relaxed with a flair of disinterest that bordered on disdain.

“Are those humans? they look like… tall humans.” Alex muttered to himself, his eyes scanning the intricate carvings that adorned the gate. Each detail seemed to depict some form of lizard brutally killing and in some instances, eating, things that were distinctly… not lizards.

Alex felt a weight settle in his palm, the cold of alien wood smooth against his skin, as a small box sprang into existence, pulled from the spatial dimension granted by his Inventory. Vibrations of strange energies pulsating through the container Within the thin seams of the box’s casing, a flaring light from within that ceased entirely as he opened the box with a click, gazing at the dark skill crystal that lay with.

‘The vessel of Madness’.

‘Madness’… the word caused him to pause. It promised strength but threatening madness.

[Skill 'True Sight' has discerned the energies of the item you have inspected]

[Vessel of Madness - Rank D

Effects: Skill Vairance (24 hour Duration)

A lost shard of the Endless Library. This shard acts as a gateway to the realm but offers no protection to its user. Upon use, a permanent and unbreakable connection will be formed with the realm, and one skill will be granted to the user every 24 hours, replacing any skill previously gained unless completely mastered within its 24 hour duration. Caution is advised as each skill replacement bares the risk of the rapid deterioration of the users mental state, leading to inevitable and severe mental corruption.]

My inner Focus has shielded me before, he considered. His skill had displayed a resistance to mental manipulation, proven during his ordeal with the mind-controlling broodmother. It had even thwarting the life-draining gaze of the second demon princess, resisting all influences of foreign mana. Inner Focus held the potential to shield him from any madness induced by the dark crystal.

Considering the crystal’s potential to grant him a new skill daily, albeit at the risk of his sanity, he lifted the crystal between his fingers in thought. Held beneath the light of a sun he had not seen before today, the strange skill crystals facets reflected not radiance, but darkness. The blacksmith had called this a shard from the 'Endless Library,' Alex mused internally, rereading the ominous name. Perhaps it’s an endless library of skills… A library filled with an unlimited number of skills. The name suggested that was what the crystal held, but then why is it called a vessel of madness? He wondered. He found himself hoping that whatever place the crystal pulled the skills from contained skills that would allow him thrive in the strange and long lived world he now found himself treading upon. He examined the crystal's facets and noted how its angles continually threw different shades of darkness with every twitch and move of his fingers, making the shadows around his hand seem deeper. It’s a bit creepy though, isn’t it? He observed, growing more curious with each turn.

Despite his concerns, he found himself staring at his restored leg. Past experiences of physical trauma and close encounters with death flashed through his mind— sharp pain, the heat of his blood, the thrill of death chasing his heel—each memory brought forth feelings of rage and resilience, of his determination to crush all obstacles in his relentless pursuit of power. He had survived death and destroyed an incursion alone to enter Pyra, he had defeated an army, and he had killed an imperial.

But only barely. He had died that time, too. That was unacceptable. No more, he thought. He was ready to risk even insanity for the power he felt he needed, especially now, as he ventured into deeper dangers.

Alex’s resolve hardened further than it ever had before; he needed the vessel’s power.

Alex placed the crystal back into his palm, his fingers closing around it firmly. "Assimilate Nexus," he muttered under his breath, crushing it. The small shard dissolved into his palm with a faint hiss as the mana surged, releasing a surge of energy that coursed through him and expanded, a visible shudder running down his spine and spread into his surroundings to reach at places that extended far beyond his senses.

[Vessel consumed]

[Connection Established]

[Skill Selection Pending]

Wha?— that’s weird, I thought it was randomised? He thought with confusion.

Alex blinked. And then everything around him changed.

When his eyes opened, the gates were gone, replaced by a surreal landscape that defied comprehension. The ground beneath his feet felt unnaturally soft, each step producing a muffled thud as his boots sank slightly into the mist-covered floor. His hand moved to shield his eyes as he scanned the horizon, where shapes seemed to wobble and shift at the edge of his vision. Figures moved at the periphery of his vision—shapes that might have been people or something else entirely. Each time he tried to focus on them, they morphed into vaguer forms, slipping away just as his mind seemed to grasp their essence.

The air around him felt thick, charged with an invisible tension that tingled on his skin and caused a slight pounding in his head.

With a tentative step forward, Alex felt the ground beneath him give slightly, the sensation muted and alien. He turned his head, attempting to stabilize his view, but the landscape seemed to resist focus. Every attempt to clear the blur sharpened the images only momentarily, quickly reverting as a piercing pain, like a nail being driven into his skull through his eyes, punished his efforts.

His every glance was a battle against the rising tide of confusion and pain, each clearer vision bought at the cost of his sanity. His surroundings ebbed and flowed in clarity, a constant assault from the realm’s alien nature. The more he understood what he saw, the more he realized the futility of his understanding, a paradox that gnawed at his resolve.

He could see myriad energies and magic surrounding some shelves, though some others were beyond the realm of comprehension. The entire place seemed to remind him of the dao, somehow. But less so.

It was bizzare, but much less… overwhelming. He felt that he could navigate his way here to take whatever he needed. A distant silhouette shifted. Alex squinted, the figure sharpening into something momentarily humanoid before it blurred again when he blinked away the pain. Looking up, he saw more figures flitting about. They were barely more than blurs, shifting too quickly to discern their true forms. Each time he tried to focus, the pain in his head sharpened, a nail driving through his skull.

He paused, focusing on a less painful perception: the feel of air currents around him, vibrations from the subtle ground— the sensations gave a fleeting sense of orientation in the maddening expanse.

So this place messes with my vision. It's a good thing I have more than just vision then, isn’t it? Alex closed his eyes then, and began to truly see his surroundings, his Bestial Senses and Outer Focus providing more clarity than his eyes ever could.

And it felt as though he had been transported to a realm of endless shelves and storage structures— at least within his immediate vicinity.

Among the countless volumes, many appeared mundane at first glance, but others were far from ordinary. Some tomes actively spoke in indecipherable tones. or watched him with eyes embedded in their covers, and a few are disturbingly crafted from what seemed like human and animal skin. However, most were impossible to discern clearly.

He saw a blurry figure walk on two legs to approach a scroll; the figure touched it and vanished in a flash of light, leaving Alex to insight on how to leave the realm, granted by the fleeting reality of what he had just witnessed.

To his left, a towering structure that hinted at being another bookshelf drew his attention. He was surprised to see that even without his eyes, his surroundings still seemed to sway and morph slightly, as if everything in this realm was insubstantial. Approaching cautiously, he noticed that the closer he got, the more his head throbbed, as if the very act of seeing was painful.

Among the fuzzy silhouettes of scrolls, tomes, grimoires that burned with mana, and simple mundane books. One appeared slightly more solid, its edges less indistinct than the others. He stretched out a hand, pausing midway, the ensuing headache overwhelming.

But this one was brighter than most around him. Distantly, he could feel there were items that blazed with mana, containing veritable storms of mana.

But they were too far away.

This space, whatever it was, seemed to exist just beyond the reach of normal comprehension, holding secrets that his mind could glimpse but never fully grasp. The sensation took Inner Focus’s to its limits, forcing him to bolster the skills use with concentration, moulding and shaping his mana defensively with constant surges of will.

[Inner Focus 14 > 17%]

He stepped forward, each movement tentative, as if the ground might shift beneath him. A shape loomed closer, resolving as he concentrated—a shelf lined with books, but not quite books, as their edges blurred and pulsed subtly. Reaching out, Alex touched one. The texture felt unfamiliar, smooth yet constantly shifting under his fingertips. The title, if it was a title, swam before his eyes, never settling long enough for him to read. But from somewhere within the tome, knowledge of an unfathomable magic seeped into him, a skill suddenly within his reach.

[Grade E Skill - Electric Arc (Temporary) gai—]

[Electric Arc - (Active, 10-second cooldown, no duration). Releases a short-range arc of electricity that shocks and stuns a single target.]

[- ̶̯͇̈́̈͛Error̶̯͇̈́̈͛—]

[Nexus Assimilation Initiating]

[Target Primary Class: ̷̷͎̠̠̖̳̮̿́̏̄͝͠Sys̵̞̈́͆̓̓te̸̪̟͇͕͂mic S—]

[System Message: Grade E Class Skill - Electric Edge (Passive) gained!]

[Electric Edge - Temporarily (Passive) - The electric edge of sovereignty cows all. Any blade in the user's possession swung with sufficient speed releases a short-range arc of electricity upon connection that drains the users mana to shocks and stuns targets.]

He withdrew his hand quickly due to the throb building behind his eyes, only to see his previous world returned, complete with Mei a few steps ahead, standing bored as if waiting and paused before the massive gate. She turned her head slightly, peering back at him with a tilt of her posture in mild surprise.

“Woah, you just totally disappeared for a second. Like you wasn’t actually here” her eyebrows arched high as she spoke, her arms gesturing towards the spot where he stood. “Since when could you teleport?”

"I can’t teleport," Alex replied, clenching his hand to stop the residual tingling from the lightning that had coursed through it. He showed her the empty palm, where the dark crystal had once lay. "I used a skill crystal."

“Skill crystals don’t do that.”Mei tilted her head towards him in skeptikal disbelief.

Alex sighed. “It was a special one, took me to a place called the Endless Library” he responded, brushing off his hands as if wiping away the remnants of the library's dust as the painful pulse behind his eyes receded to nothing. So that was a real place, he thought to himself, picking at the grey speck of… something, that clung to his clothes.

Mei raised an eyebrow skeptically, assessing Alex for a breath.

“A library? That’s dumb. Fine, keep your secrets. Teleporting is lazy anyway. Like, just walk?" She huffed, turning sharply and stepping toward the gate.

Alex paused before the her, and withdrew his dark demonic blade, Eclipse. The blade appeared in his open palms as ominous as ever, it’s evil eye held wide to witness all.

Experimentally he turned to face away from the gates and its massive guards. He swung at nothing, using about 80% of his speed.

The sword cut through the air in a whistle of sound and burst of dust, but not much else happened.

Gripping his blade with white-knuckled focus, Alex raised his sword high, stepped forward, and swung with all his might.

A brilliant arc of electric force burst from his blade like the swing of an enraged elemental, sparks of thick electricity crackling along its length. It tore scorched gouges out of the soft ground for several feet before its path, lighting the area like a flash of lightning across the sky.

It left nothing but a smoking crater in the wake of his swing.

The cost to his mana seemed negligible, about a single percentage’s decrease in his total supply. Although the fact that it was a passive felt a little problematic, he could release 100 of those powerful arcs before he completely ran out of mana. And that wasn’t considering the additional 30 seconds worth of usage granted by ‘Mana Burn’. Not bad, he thought with a grin, storing Eclipse away with a gesture.

"Nice! Do that again once we’re inside!" Mei called from some distance ahead, "Just kidding guys!" She added again after a pause, yelling back through the silence that seemed to last much longer than felt natural.

One guard, a towering figure of muscle and sinew clad in a mountain of defensive gold, shuffled nervously, his eyes wide and tracing Alex’s scorched lines of destruction.

“Our lord awaits your arrival.” A second guard rumbled in hoarse tones that shook the gravel beneath their feet. The guard held a golden scimitar so tightly the metal creaked, but appeared otherwise unphased, eyeing Alex’s every move.

Alex followed after Mei without a word, into the depths of an Ancient Dragons palace.