Chapter 253: Vanar Tedros (Patreon)

Vanar

“When you move your qi down your arm, you should slow it ever so slightly while it passes your elbow.” Vanar Tedros altered the posture of one of his students, specifically how the young man was holding his sword. “This will reduce the strain on your body, allowing you to fight longer. And it will enable you to more easily use your mana on your blade as well, activating any artifact effects.”

Then, moving back to the edge of the large room, a wood-covered hall capable of holding a few thousand people, Vanar looked over the hundred or so youngsters practicing, all only G ranks, and felt a sense of peace.

A half-human half-tuathan with long gray hair, three blue eyes—one in the middle of his forehead—and sharp angular features, Vanar was old, a little over 82,944, and 20,000 years before he’d been badly injured, blocking any possible advancement to B rank and leaving him by this point with only a few thousand years left to live. For a while, he’d raged, killed, and tried to battle against the heavens to get his old life back, but now he was at peace.

For the last 82 years, he’d lived on this small F rank planet and trained the youngsters of this small sect, and it was so much more relaxing than the endless wars and battlefields of most of his life.

“Master, master!” One of his elder students, an F rank young man, human like the rest of the world’s population, ran in through the training hall’s door. “There is someone here to see you.”

“Who?” Vanar smiled at the youth.

“I don’t know.”

The confidence with which the youth spoke the words put Vanar slightly on edge. “What does he or she look like?”

“I don’t know.”

Now, watching the youth smiling, Vanar became worried. There were no signs of foreign aura on the boy, at least none Vanar could sense. To the youth, it seemed to just be normal to not know who had sent him to come find his master. And, if such a thing weren’t impossible for anyone but a couple A ranks and at most half the gods, all signs pointed to the boy’s memories, his soul, having been somehow directly manipulated.

“You care for the boy’s wellbeing. Interesting.” A voice, feminine and laced with interest, entered directly into Vanar’s mind. “This is contrary to the information publicly available about you, Devil Blade.

“Is it a new development in your final years of life, or the type of feeling you usually hide?”

Vanar didn’t say anything, instead just grabbing the youth’s wrist and sending his own energy into the boy’s soul to see if he could find any foreign power. But there wasn’t any, and Vanar found himself becoming even more unnerved.

“A new development. Good.” The voice seemed to be able to read him like a book. “Follow the boy to come see me and I’ll make sure there’s no damage to him.”

“Everyone, continue training.” Vanar turned to the young students in the room. “I need to go speak to a guest.”

Then he followed the youth out of the training hall and into the nearby mountains, to his own home, a log cabin next to a small lake. And there, sitting inside on one of the two chairs by his fireplace, was a woman.

Human, she had long blonde hair, deep blue eyes, and a rosy complexion, feeling like nothing but a G rank. But, when the youth ran up to her, she patted him on the head and he immediately fell asleep. Then, with a wave of her hand, a portal opened up to what Vanar recognized as the youth’s own bedroom in the main compound of the sect, and she used telekinesis to gently move the youth onto his bed before allowing the portal to close.

“He’ll be fine when he wakes up.” The woman, an absolute beauty, smiled at Vanar, indicating for him to take the other seat. “He won’t remember me, the same as everyone else on this planet, but there will be no damage to him.

“If he trains hard and proves talented, there won’t be anything blocking him from advancing even all the way to A rank, at least not from my actions.”

“What is it you want?” It was obvious what the woman was doing. She was showing off her might and testing his reactions. Sending the youth to him when she could have contacted him directly was to see if he was still the arrogant war hero of the past, or if his personality had changed. Meeting him in his own home without his permission and offering him his own seat was to see if he would bow to a higher authority. And the obvious mental manipulation magic was to show just how powerful she was and that trying to fight against her would be a very, very bad idea.

“I wanted to see if you are still the same man who took the 173rd place in the last C rank Universal Tournament or if your power had degraded after what Taravan did to you.” The woman’s smile was pleasant, warm, and Vanar didn’t trust it at all. “But count me pleasantly surprised to find your three Laws have all advanced, and that you’ve even gained a new one and somehow raised it to an even higher level.

“You more than meet the criteria my lord has set, and I’d like to make you an offer.”

“What offer?”

“First sign a confidentiality contract. Then I’ll tell you.”

[Blank] has sent you a contract request.

Terms:

1. For one standard hour, neither you nor [Blank] can tell a lie to the other
2. Any information shared during the next hour must stay confidential and cannot be shared without the explicit permission of the other party

Punishment:

Death

Do you accept?

Yes/No

“And what will you do if I don’t agree?”

“Who knows?” The woman just smiled at him and Vanar wasn’t at all sure she wouldn’t just blow up the planet on a whim if he didn’t agree, so, reluctantly, he did.

Then he immediately checked the contract and he wasn’t at all surprised to see he’d accidentally signed his life away.

Terms:

1. You may not reveal any secrets about the initiator of this contract or anyone from her force to anyone for any reason
2. You may not take any actions with the intention to harm the initiator of this contract or anyone from her force
3. You must follow all the orders of the initiator of this contract

Punishment:

Death

Do you accept?

Yes/No

“A ranks and gods, curse them all.”

“I don’t know.” The woman just smiled at him. “I’ve met a couple A ranks I like, and one I wouldn’t even curse at.”

Then she rose to her feat and started walking out of the cabin. “Come on then. Let’s get going.”

But Vanar didn’t move from his seat. “And what if I just decide I’d rather die.”

“Then you’d miss the best lucky chance you’ve ever gotten in your life.” The woman stopped in the doorway and looked back at him. “Yes, I effectively just enslaved you. But, by falling into such an obvious trap to try and save the lives of a bunch of G and F ranks, you passed my lord’s final test. And your reward is a chance at reincarnation with your memories intact, enabling you to retrain from the beginning and rise to B rank.”

Her smile became mischievous. “More important, you’ll have the chance to take revenge on everyone who crippled you as well.”

Vanar took a few seconds to absorb her words and decided they were most likely utter crap, but, if they were true, he couldn’t deny he was interested.

“And you don’t have to worry about the people on this planet.” The woman’s voice, for the first time since they’d started speaking, grew serious. “I’ve already confirmed none of them know who you are, and I’ve altered all the memories which could reveal my presence, so, after I fake your current identity’s death in a couple days, none of our enemies will come bother them.”

With that, she left his cabin and Vanar followed her, looking at the woman’s back as they moved toward the planet’s teleportation platform, pondering over her last words. Then, as they teleported, Vanar felt weird, the trip unlike any he’d felt before, taking over a dozen minutes instead of less than a second, and, when he appeared on a teleportation platform on what felt like a B rank world, it wasn’t hard to figure out why.

They hadn’t teleported within the prime material universe, but into another universe, and the laws in this universe were far more primitive.

“Are you another universe’s invasion force?” he asked the woman as she stepped off the platform located in a sandy desert and started to fly toward a set of mountains around 20 km away, using one of his skills to step on the air and follow her.

“Are you an idiot?” In response to his question, she turned around while still flying, her expression one of mild amusement.

Vanar then realized where he’d gone wrong. Despite being in another universe, his connection to the System was still active, meaning this was a universe their own universe had taken over, not the staging grounds of an invasion.

“Talk to the men on the bloodtree. Follow the rules they’ve been authorized to set. And don’t hurt anyone in ways which could create permanent effects.”

The woman in front of him, the woman who, while he couldn’t feel her aura at all, he’d been sure was solid, then vanished, and Vanar realized he might have been talking to an illusory clone the entire time.