Greed God chapter 195 (Patreon)

April 7th 2016 Brightedge City, The Perigrinator's Club, 9:00 PM EDT

On  a scale of one to ten, I'd give the ghost rising up through the table a  six on my 'what the fuck' meter. Which, honestly, isn't that bad. I've  been to magic kingdoms and have a fairy living in part of my soul. I've  seen some shit. Still, the effects and everything, while not bad,  weren't enough to really impress me. The actual ghost itself was  admittedly a bit more of a threat.

[Appraisal  function initiated. Fear Construct detected. Fright Knight- D ranked  ghostly champion. The bound spirit of a powerful knight, chained in  service to his master for all eternity. An implacable foe who tears at  the soul.]

Once again, these fucking descriptions  got less specific the stronger the enemy. Helpful. Regardless, I could  feel the power radiating off this thing. While it WAS D rank like the  last one, if was MUCH stronger. D rank was a big divide. I was on the  upper end, and The Hob had been near the bottom. This fucker was at last  top ten percent, and I suspected given a bit of time he'd break through  to C rank. Which, you know, I obviously wasn't going to fucking allow.

Which  was why I reached down, picked up a plate, shoved as much raw Primal  Force into it as I could manage and hurled it at the son of a bitch like  a frisbee before he could actually strike. Everyone froze, and even the  specter was caught momentarily off guard as a spinning disk of glowing  green magical power and physical energy spun at his face so quickly he  barely had time to move. The imbued force turned the plate into a shell  from a damn rail gun, and even as he moved out of the way it shattered  the sound barrier and flew into the wall behind him, dissolving a huge  hole in it as the energy detonated on impact.

Everyone was  staring. The fucking GHOST was staring, at the bus sized smoking hole  in the wall of the dining room where the random plate I had just tossed  had landed. "Damn it." I said in annoyance. "I wasn't done with that." I  glanced over at a nearby Talon waiter. "Hey, bring me some more lamb. I  should be finished with this by the time it gets here." I wasn't  joking, this food looked really good, and I was fucking pissed I had to  miss out. If I didn't get some of that lamb I was going to take it out  of the summoners ass when I finally found them.

Siegfried  barked out a laugh and slammed the rest of his brandy, letting out a  roar of excitement and triumph as he rose, drawing a leaf blade sword  about the length of my forearm from...somewhere. "Spirit!" He boomed.  "You trespass on claimed soil! Remove yourself or face the end of you  paler shadow of existence." The swordsman's brown eyes were starting to  shine golden, and I was pretty sure his teeth hadn't been that sharp  before. Cool. Dragon bros.

Despite not having a mouth or  face and being a pair of green eyes floating in an endless black void  inside a helmet, the Fright Knight gave the impression of sneering as  his deep, resonant voice finally spoke for the first time. "Fool! I come  for blood, and come for doom. The time your lives will end is soon.  Your paltry blades, their edges weep, and so you find eternal sleep."

"Oh  yeah, well...you're a bitch." Everyone looked at me in confusion and I  just shrugged. "What? I don't know how to respond to a fucking rhyming  ghost." I didn't even bother to put on my formal authoritative tone,  this wasn't the time for it. "Also, why are you fucking idiots just  sitting there? There's a GHOST coming out of the table. Run and hide,  morons!" With that, I grabbed the edge of the dining table and shoved  up, flipping the table out of the way and towards the ghost and the hole  in the wall, so as not to accidentally smash some of the people I was  supposed to be protecting.

I saw Silver make a gesture to  the waiters and they all stepped up to pull the guests away to safety  (fucking finally) as Siegfried and I started to circle in opposite  directions to split the Fright Knight's focus. Sadly, despite being C  rank, I was pretty sure Siegfried's power lie mostly in defense. Still,  having a dragonslayer on hand was better than nothing by a damn sight.

I  jerked my head slightly, and he nodded, getting my point, before  lunging at the ghost with another roar, blade flashing. Looking closer  at the sword, I could see black lightning flickering across the blade,  and as the Fright Knight brought his own glowing green sword to meet it,  there was an echoing boom and he was forced back a step. His green eyes  widened in surprise at the power of the blow, and I wasn't far behind  him. "What sorcery is this?" Snarled the specter. "Your blade clashes  with Soulripper and does not falter?"

I was pretty sure I  knew why that was, having heard the story of Siegfried, and sure enough  when I used appraisal on the weapon, it came back fucking TERRIFYING.

[Appraisal  function activated. Treasure detected. Gram- B ranked demon sword.  Reforged in blood and fire. Bane of dragons. Unequaled in might. Wielded  only by the chosen.]

Well, that was much more  direct then most of them. Also holy fucking shit. That sword was B  ranked. Aside from the Sun King and Doctor Fate it was pretty much the  most terrifying thing I'd ever seen. I kind of wanted it, but that last  line strongly rang of warning. The system didn't warn me lightly. I  didn't know what would happen to a not-Siegfried person who tried to use  that sword, but I was pretty sure it would be unpleasant, especially  with the whole Bane of Dragons tagline on there. Oh well, having a  drinking buddy with a magic demon sword was almost as good as having my  own. Almost.

I dove in, shifting to my draconic form as I  lashed out with wicked claws, imbuing them with my Primal force. The  Fright Knight swung an arm up and conjured a black metal shield from the  dark flames coming off his arms. My claws sparked off it with a shriek  and I grimaced. Whatever that armor was, I was guessing it was its own  thing on top of being part of him. It seemed stronger than it should. It  didn't matter much though, I had energy to spare, and I'd just keep  going.

I rained down slash after slash as Siegfried did  the same. The Fright Knight was actually pretty good with a sword, plus  his broadsword was way longer than Gram, and he was abusing the shit out  of his reach advantage. I wasn't sure how close this asshole was to C  rank, but I was pretty sure it was closer than I was, because I didn't  think I could have managed this. Of course, he might have just been  hyperfocused on physical attack and defense, but I was pretty sure he  was just terrifyingly strong.

Sadly, that guess was proven  correct a second later as he shouted and a wave of purple flame rolled  off him, driving me back as I raised my arms to cover my face. The  ghostflame licked at my scales, which were harder now than they had been  after drinking more brandy, but only barely. I expected the Fright  Knight to follow up, but he was too scared of getting backstabbed, and  instead turned to harry my battle partner away with his longer reach,  causing the immortal warrior to grit his teeth and retreat. When he did  however, I saw his eyes flick to me, and one of them close in a barely  visible wink.

As I adjusted my position to take advantage  of the lull, Siegfried lashed out with another series of powerful blows.  The sword strikes were fast, showing me that he wasn't ONLY C rank for  the defense. He wasn't as strong as me, but he didn't need to be. He  just needed to be fast and skilled and the fucking sword did the work  for him. The Fright Knight was on the back foot, deflecting every blow,  and while I was pretty sure he wasn't about to lose, he seemed to be  having trouble compensating for the superior weapon now that Sieg had  gotten serious.

Which, of course, was the fucking point.  Stepping up behind him, I inhaled, stoking the fire inside me as I  funneled Primal Force into my lungs, compacting and condensing it all  into the tightest possible ball. I aimed it so that any spillover would  go through the hole in the wall anyway, but I didn't exactly want to  burn this place down while I was inside it. My girls had all backed off  with the other guests, smart enough to notice that I didn't ask for  help.

Finally, I got enough power compacted into my  breath to most likely kill the bastard, again, but before I released it,  I had a pretty terrible idea. I'd picked up my glass of brandy before  flipping the table out of reflex, since the shit was expensive. I'd seen  people breathe fire with liquor before, I kind of wondered what would  happen if I tried it was dragon alchemist brandy.

Giving  the glass a considering look, I took a swig, pursed my lips, and BLEW me  breath out on a spray of brandy. I expected a puff of fire or maybe a  slight increase in the radius, but I HADN'T been expecting the fireball  to come out fucking green GOLD, shooting forward like a rocket and  smashing into the purple flames at the Fright Knight's back. The specter  threw back its head and BELLOWED in rage and pain as cracks began to  form on the armor.

Green and gold light flickered from the  cracking plate as it poured through the face plate of the helmet, and I  saw Siegfried's eyes widen in panic as he turned and bolted through the  hole in the wall, throwing himself to the side and out of the blast  zone. I had the presence of mind to grab ahold of the energy and focus  it up as the explosion went off, lucky my Primal Force still obeyed me  once it left my body.

There was a thundering boom as a  pillar of green gold fire erupted up through the ceiling of the club and  split the sky, dying the darkened sky bright gold. I looked down at the  glass, then back up at the sky. "Um...oops?" I subtly tossed the glass  as far away from me as possible as I stepped to the other side. Note to  self, do NOT use brandy with dragon breath without more testing. I  didn't know what that pillar of fire was going to do, but the fact that  it was lasting so long was concerning. Oh well, at least I'd made an  impression.

Turning to the rest of the room, I grinned at  them, my face still exposed by my altered mask for eating. I imagined in  the flickering of the still blazing column of fire I looked like a  nightmare come to life, and I relished the fact that whichever one of  these fucks had summoned that ghost was probably wetting themselves  right now. Plus based on what I'd been told it took a lot of fear to  nurture a construct to that level of power. Between that and The Hob I  doubted the bastard could have THAT many more at that level. Faster  growth only went so far.

Of course there was no way to  know how long he'd had the Fear System, but I liked to be optimistic. In  any case I doubted he'd try any more shit tonight. "Now." I said  urbanely. "I believe we were about to discuss the allocation of the  city. Did anyone have any questions or concerns?" I managed to keep from  laughing as the room dropped into a deathly silence...but only barely.