Chapter 252: Stalwart Guardian (Patreon)

Raven

Trapped in a spatial storage device along with the three others being fed to the bloodtree, Raven couldn’t tell what was going on outside, but then the bloodtree was summoned out into the world and what he saw wasn’t at all what he would have expected.

Judging from the Law suppression, they were on an A rank planet, on some kind of arena-sized mechanical platform hovering about ten meters over an ocean, and there were seven people not attached to the tree, three C ranks, three B ranks, and one man who seemed to be a G rank. Of the six C and B ranks, three, one of the B ranks and two of the C ranks, were tuathans, red-haired humanoids with two sets of ears, an extra eye in the middle of their foreheads, and six fingers; one of the B ranks and the remaining C rank were humans, their plain robes showing they were likely members of the sangha, ascetic monks who wouldn’t use technology; and the last B rank was a dwarf, his racial variant obviously one specializing in the life and darkness elements, his coloration mostly black and green. But all six were hovering in the air above the platform, restrained by what looked like the same type of formation the bloodtree had been suspended in during the auction, and they were all staring at the seventh man with expressions of fear. The seventh man, however, was completely ignoring them, sitting on the ground and playing around with multiple spatial storage artifacts hovering around him, seemingly all stolen from the six powers.

Wearing a black T-shirt and black shorts, with an azure fingerless glove on his left hand, the man looked human—only with orange eyes, dark-blue semi-translucent shoulder length hair, and an almost unnatural handsomeness—but there was something weird about him, his eyes glowing in Raven’s magical senses and his aura completely neutral, like what Raven had only ever experienced from sleeping newborns.

This wasn’t some weak G rank looking over someone else’s set of captives. No, this was a powerhouse, likely an extreme one, and the lives of everyone else on the platform were all under his complete control.

“What do you want from us, sir?” one of the tuathans, the B rank, a female with golden eyes, worked up the courage to ask, her voice showing the same type of terror as her face.

And, in response, the man turned his eyes to her and smiled. “What do you think I want from you, Gua-thani?”

“You want the resources we bought?”

“No.” The man shook his head slightly and all the items hovering around him disappeared, likely into a spatial storage device of some kind, maybe his glove, but Raven’s senses couldn’t catch the transfer. “I wanted these resources, yes. But I could have had my subordinate charm anyone at that auction into buying them.

“Why do you think I chose you?”

The three B ranks all turned to look at each other, the answer seemingly dawning on them despite Raven having no idea what it was.

“You’re some kind of saint?” the dwarf, his voice surprisingly deep, growled out.

“No.” The man reached out a hand and there were suddenly 72 simultaneous cracking sounds, each limb of all six prisoners torn apart in three different places. “I’m not a good person. It’s just, when I want to kill for primal energy, I prefer those who are even worse than me.”

“Then why not just kill us?” the B rank from the sangha asked, his voice surprisingly calm. “Why torture us first?”

“Benefits.” The man smiled as death element mana appeared around the six prisoners, coming from seemingly nowhere to seep into their wounds and stop them from healing. “You’re too weak for your primal energy to be of use to me, so I might as well give you to my subordinate.”

A roar emanated from the sky, and, turning his eyes upward, Raven watched as a dragon, a C rank adult of some kind, flew down toward them, but it wasn’t any type of dragon Raven could identify. Its scales were purple, lavender, and indigo, the coloration of a balance dragon; runes were carved into each of its scales, the signifier of a runic dragon; and its form—its wings, back ridges, muzzle, everything—were clearly that of a chaos dragon.

Raven had done his research on dragons, the most famous and powerful of monsters—war dragons especially—and this dragon was like nothing he’d ever seen before, maybe some kind of hybrid of three of the most powerful dragon races in the universe, some kind of experiment to make an even more powerful race.

“But you’re still B ranks.” The man, likely an A rank power, continued, looking up at the dragon and smiling. “And your lifeforce is high. So, for efficiency, I might as well soften you up first.”

Raven had so many questions, like which of their universe’s A ranks this man was, his traits not aligning with any of the powers Raven knew of, or why the bloodtree, and the four of them on it, was the only resource the man hadn’t put away. But then all his rapid thoughts stopped as the dragon transformed in mid-air, taking on the form of a man also wearing a black T-shirt and shorts who landed next to the blue haired power, Isaiah, Raven’s little brother.

With indigo reptilian eyes which seemed to reflect the chaos of the universe, long shoulder length lavender hair, and runic tattoos down his exposed arms and legs, Isaiah looked different than Raven remembered, but he was still absolutely enormous, his skin was still that same ruddy pale color, and he was still muscular to the point it would make other men jealous.

A whole mix of emotions started blending together in Raven’s brain, relief, excitement, and a whole lot less fear than before, but, more than anything, he felt the shackles of guilt he’d been under for most of his life break, and he suddenly advanced his Law Pupa of Speed to peak grade, while, at the same time, tears began to flow down his face.

“So, after using your own senses, do you still think the same?” Isaiah stood over the sitting powerhouse without any kind of greeting and looked over at Raven on the bloodtree, scaring Raven with how little respect he was giving the man.

“Yeah.” The powerhouse waved his hand again and a lot more death element mana entered into the six prisoners, the B ranks especially. “I can make them more powerful, but they’ll never advance again without a whole lot of intervention, intervention I don’t have the time for.”

“So his best option is still reincarnation?” Isaiah’s tone sounded worried.

“Yes, unless you want to sacrifice the other three.”

Isaiah looked at the other three men attached to the bloodtree—Zev Ankur, the one-eye specializing in defense; Wen Alexis, the elf specializing in regeneration; and Endless Will, the dwarf specializing in destruction. Then he shook his head. “Bah. I hate the way the universe works.”

A spear then appeared in Isaiah’s hand, an artifact radiating more power than Raven had ever felt, somehow perfectly merging the power of the Laws of Destruction and Speed, and the next thing Raven saw was a blur.

Raven himself was fast—it was what he specialized in—but his little brother put him to shame, stabbing each of the prisoners in the heart in just a split second. And, unlike strikes from Raven, Isaiah’s attacks weren’t just fast. Each of the C ranks who were hit literally crumbled into dust, their bodies completely destroyed, and, over the next several seconds, the lifeforce of the three B ranks completely faded as well, the damage from their hearts quickly expanding to their other organs, their already depleted lifeforce unable to regenerate their bodies fast enough to counteract the destruction.

“I am a knight.” As Isaiah started speaking, the primal energy of the three B ranks all began flowing into him. “I am loyal to my friends and want to protect them to the best of my ability. But my best friend is a future godslayer and his wife a future goddess, so I always feel I’m not talented enough to stay at their side.

“This feeling, however, is natural. And the day I stop feeling it is either the day I become too prideful for my own good or lose what I’m striving to protect in the first place.

“So, I’m not going to let the feeling consume me, but let it drive me, as it always has, to work harder.

“I will act on my morals and help keep my friends from going over the line. I will treat those who treat my loved ones well as people I will try my hardest to protect. And, for those who try to harm or kill those I care about, I will slaughter them without remorse.”

Isaiah’s aura, far, far more powerful than any C rank Raven had ever met, started to spread out, the excess primal energy it contained converting into some other type of energy. But then an even more powerful aura, one which seemed to come from the A rank planet itself, surrounded Isaiah’s aura and pushed it back into his body, keeping that new type of energy from escaping.

Over the next several seconds, Isaiah’s soul transformed, a fast process, unlike race and rank advancements, and then Isaiah felt slightly different, more powerful, somehow more solid.

“So, what’s the oath called?” The blue-haired powerhouse smiled at Raven’s little brother.

“Stalwart Guardian. It increases the effects of training, more so when my motives are pure.”

“Good.” The blue-haired powerhouse patted Isaiah’s shoulder. “That sounds like you.”