Unwavering Craftsman: What if Damien turned around? (Part 9) (Patreon)

"Thank you," said Damien rather hoarsely, walking out of the store in fresh clothes. The amount of use [Whispers of the Void] had seen while purchasing them—trying to convince everyone that he wasn't dressed in, effectively, a bubble of blood—had left his throat raw. Human vocal cords just weren't designed to make such discordant sounds.

To add insult to injury, everyone involved had been so low level and easily manipulated that he probably hadn't even levelled from all the effort.

Greenrim fashion made him slightly grumpy, too. In the hot climate that close to a source-light, loose, flowing, light-coloured clothing was the norm. Thus he was wrapped up in a pale blue tunic; a single piece of cloth, with an attached hood that kept the heat from his head. The only other item of clothing were sandals, keeping his toes open to the breeze.

"And now the priest," he added to himself, following the directions he'd been given to Murill's temple. Even the disappearance of a goddess couldn't stop their work forever; their prayers still worked, and their services were required. Murill's disappearance didn't affect the day-to-day lives of the lesser clergy—it wasn't as if they talked to her on a daily basis—and so some sense of normalcy had returned to the temple.

"[Mindscape], please," he asked, [Eternal Flesh] having repaired the damage to his throat.

The priest clicked his tongue disapprovingly, noting that Damien hadn't dropped a single mite into the collection box, but it wasn't as if Damien had anything to give. The money for his clothing had come from a street trickster, playing a crooked game of find the lady. The trickster hadn't had any means of defeating [Foresight], but knew when to quit, and had swiftly cut his losses and closed up shop.

As a result, Damien ended up in a noisy ward, lying on a thin mat on the floor. It wasn't as if he cared; at least this time he was indoors. A few seconds later, he was back in... the real world? Did it still count as the real world if it was simply a dream of the real world?

"Yo," he said casually to the Other, which probably didn't seem very sensible to an outside observer, but Damien was starting to feel that sanity was overrated.

It didn't respond, if it was even real at all. Eyes and tentacles simply continued to rove across the sky.

"Yo to you, too," he added to the tree, which had grown substantially. "I wish I could see my individual skill levels, but even so... level twenty. Another pair of perks and feats."

This time, the feat picks were [Pathfinder], to control the destination of [Gate], and [Deadly Tears], which enhanced [Tears of the Forgotten] such that the 'victims' wouldn't merely remember the death in question, but would literally suffer any wounds, mental or physical, they had been responsible for. He had hopes using it on the corpses of his parents would permit him revenge on Valerie.

As such, upon leaving the temple, the first thing he tried was to open a [Gate] back to Thale. It didn't work; the portal simply failed to open.

"Seriously?" he swore? "Don't tell me I wasted a feat slot? But it can't do nothing."

He thought for a while longer, then attempted a portal back to the field he'd found himself in after the Isle of Mist. That worked fine. And from there, he could travel to Thale.

"Okay, so that's an interesting limitation. Can't be used for teleportation within one world... Now, back to... revenge...?"

He stuttered and ground to a halt when he realised Thale wasn't there. Yes, the landscape was the same, and the walls of the town still stood, but they had an odd glassy sheen, and within them was nothing but ash. The demons were gone. The permanent portal was gone.

His parents were gone, along with Lana and Grace.

An angry tide of blood tore around Damien as he screamed at the sky. Had Valerie done that, too? Given her power set, the erasure of Thale's ruins was likely her fault. Had she come back to finish the job, vaporising Damien's parents too while she was at it?

Just how much misery did the universe intend to inflict?

His eyes wandered back to Greenrim, to the source-light in the west.

"Screw this world," he muttered, reactivating [Gate].

The source-lights, being rather important, were thoroughly guarded. Brenhin-Tân had destroyed one, but never had the elder dragon come close to the destruction of another, despite continued efforts. But Brenhin-Tân was dead. His assaults on the source-lights were over, and the defenders knew it.

A crusade had been called to tackle a dangerous demon summoner. One who had been declared a threat to the entire bowl. One who they knew had been involved in the battle that ended Brenhin-Tân. One who the Five thought was coming for them. The 'crusade' wasn't going anywhere, but was simply waiting in Jurelli, expecting Damien to turn up there.

That being the case, the defence of the source-lights had been greatly lessened, their guards reallocated to join the crusade.

Damien's [Gate] came out at the edge of the green of Greenrim, the territory closer to the source-light too hot and dry for life to thrive. Sand crunched under his feet as he walked towards the enormous sphere of light.

"Hey! Who are you? This is a restricted..."

"S̷͈̀ĭ̴̭l̸̟̍e̵̞͝n̶̤̋c̸̥͑ë̸̫́.̷̧̀"

The guard stopped talking, [Silent Whispers] leaving him confused as to what had just happened. Not for long, though: the strangeness of the situation was enough for him to assume an attack. He launched a signal into the air, a horn sounded from somewhere closer to the light, then all hell broke loose.

Arrows and spells rained upon Damien, but [Bloodwave] deflected the worst of it and [Eternal Flesh] healed anything that got through. Tasked with defending the source-lights from dragons, the defenders had perks and feats that protected from fire or aided in piercing scales. They were ill-prepared to fight humans, and their higher tiers had left to defend the terrified gods.

Tendrils of blood lashed out, the melee fighters dodging and blocking.

"S̷̨̅t̶̼̊ó̸̜p̸̲̌,̶͇͛" ordered Damien, and for a second, they froze. A scythe of blood ensured that when the second was up, the front line had been reduced to corpses.

With the front line gone, the rear line was unable to stop his advance. He approached slowly but surely, launching bullets of blood at the defenders, or lashing out with bloody whips whenever one came within range, but he never stopped moving towards the source-light. This close, his heat defence perk was required to stop the source-light from melting the flesh from his bones, but by accident, thanks to his preparations for Brenhin-Tân, he had come prepared.

"S̷̕͜h̵̫̉a̵͕̔t̸̯̊t̸̡̃ẻ̷͈r̶̻̔,̶͓̌" he ordered the god-forged artefact, and the light flickered. "B̵̼͒ŕ̷ͅë̴̮́á̸̢k̵̛̬.̴̹̎ ̶̼͆B̸̫̕ë̸̳́ ̴̗́ĕ̷̖x̸̛̺ẗ̴̪ị̴͘n̷̖̓ǵ̶̢u̸̜͆i̶̲̚s̶͇͝ḥ̵̍e̶̢̎d̶̤̋.̷̲̚"

Spears of blood hammered into it, along with the [Whispers of the Void], but despite his orders, it did not break. Nothing made by Grungle the Maker would be so fragile. He wrapped it in sheets of blood and squeezed, once again achieving nothing.

And then [Foresight] showed him what was coming, and he grinned, turning his back on the source-light and facing his new opponent.

The alarm raised by the defenders had run further than Greenrim. Even before the source-light had flickered, those in Jurelli knew. But with the crusade so far distant, what could they do?

They turned to the most mobile fighter they had available, and Valerie had leapt at the chance to redeem herself. She flew through the skies at her maximum speed, making a direct line to Damien, not even following the contour of the bowl. And as she flew, her flame grew. A fireball she hoped would be capable of ending Damien, gathered throughout her entire flight.

And Damien welcomed it. He waited for her to dive, leaving her meteoric attack uncontrolled and on course for him, and then made two massive casts of [Gate].

The powerful fire magic vanished into one and popped out of the other, straight into the source-light.

For a brief moment, the light grew blindingly bright, and then it flickered and dimmed as a wide chunk of magical material was blasted from its side. S̷̕͜h̵̫̉a̵͕̔t̸̯̊t̸̡̃ẻ̷͈r̶̻̔,̶͓̌" repeated Damien, and the source-light finally broke. Shards of the silvery stuff it was made from rained down upon the desert sand, dark and cold, as blue ripples rolled across the sky.

"Thanks for the help!" called out Damien to Valerie, before using [Gate] on himself to flee. He knew he wasn't a match for Valerie—yet—and his mana was spent. Besides, he didn't need to fight her to take some measure of revenge.

Valerie's expression twisted into one of horror as she realised what she'd done. How she'd been used. That Damien alone lacked the strength to damage the source-light, and had she not charged in so blindly, it would still be intact.

"Murill... Help me..." she muttered, almost crying.

There came no response but silence.

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Grace rushed through the skies of Greenrim, riding a giant eagle tamed by someone with a higher tier tamer class than her own. Someone who'd had the means to make use of it and grow. A small part of her was jealous, but it was only small. She knew she was one of the lucky ones, as people with unusable classes went.

She'd recently spent some time with Lana, after all. More or less forced into taking over the family forge, given that she'd taken her father's abilities, she was unable to get away from him, and he'd made it quite clear the sort of fate she'd have suffered if not for Damien's intervention. Of course, the bitter man refused to make any money in that way himself, instead sponging off the forge, despite being next to useless there.

He wouldn't be able to do that any longer. With Lana's execution, there had been no-one left with sufficient ability to keep the forge viable. The other children were forced to leave home and seek apprenticeships elsewhere.

The aforementioned tamer and a group of guards from the immortal legion flanked her defensively as they raced towards the western source-light. Alas, they were too late. They saw it flicker, and then they saw it break, close enough to watch it shatter.

"Damn it!" shouted the lieutenant of the legion, who was leading their little group. "Too late by minutes."

"At least that means Shigeo and Fleta will make it to the others in time," said Grace. "They'll stop him."

"They'd better... Why did that damn boy not use [Foresight], just this once?"

He had; it had simply shown him being immolated by Valerie. However hard he fought, he was unable to last against her for long enough for Grace to arrive. Thus, he never saw her alive.

Thankfully, Grace was correct. Similar groups had flown south and east, Shigeo scowling angrily as he stood at the bow of a southern ship, and Fleta waiting patiently in the east. Their goal was simple; not to fight Damien, but to show him they were alive. That he needn't continue his rage-fuelled rampage.

The scolding for what he did to Thale would come later.