Chapter 105

With an ear-splitting shriek, like that of a tea kettle boiling over, the little woodland sprite ran around aimlessly, looking like a chicken with its head cut off. Waving its arms about frantically, flailing this way and that, as it was slowly, but surely, immolated to death. 

Jun’s boot came around hard, punting the crispy little critter a good fifteen paces. The arc of its trajectory a beautiful sight to behold. Just as the plonk it made as it sunk beneath a layer of pond scum was like sweet sweet music to his ears.

“Gods I hate fairies. Tell me again, why do I hate fairies?”

Because they are markedly better at negotiating than you are?

“No, the other reason.”

Is it because of the time they fleeced you out of your limited edition, jade carved, yellow mountain gogi set?

Silence.

Or the time they made you hop around on one leg like a fool, rub your belly and pat your head, while singing nonsensical children’s rhymes at the top of your lungs?

Silence.

Or maybe you’re referring to the time they somehow convinced you to sign a two year contract of servitude as their courtly jester? You know, in which the majority of your time was spent as the butt of their many practical jokes?

“Nope. Can’t say any of that’s ringing a bell.”

There were a couple of breaths wherein the system knockoff refused to respond. You could practically hear the reluctance held in that silence.

Because they’re shitty little liars and they cheat…

“Because they’re shitty little liars and they cheat! Bastard pipsqueaks. It’s the only explanation!”

Jun continued to stomp his way through the enchanted fairy forest, acting one hundred percent like the mature adult he was, and not at all like a tantrum throwing child. 

Well, stomping through what parts of the forest had already been compromised anyway—its potent glamor shorn apart by raw applications of law. The enchanted forest had definitely seen better days. A fact for which he tried not to take too much joy in. The ragged tears in the infamously tricky fae magic, like holes in reality, allowing for easy, if roundabout, traversal.

Slipping through the last in a long string of ‘glamor holes’ they entered onto a scene of utter carnage. Multi-colored bodies carpeted the forest floor. Each macabre decoration splayed out in a suitably dramatic pose. He even thought he saw a few fakers mixed in with the crowd, expertly hamming it up for a nonexistent audience. Smearing their faces in the rainbow blood of their fellows to better sell the performance.

“Say what you will about these little cretins, they definitely take their theatrics seriously.”

The colorful bloodbath stretched on for many hundreds of paces. Leading all the way up to the majestic throned dais, situated at the very heart of the fae-queens domain. Looking like it had been formed naturally out of the massive heart tree’s root system, it was a throne truly befitting that of a fairy queen.

Wreathed in perpetual god-rays—a steady golden glow dotted quite liberally with floating dust motes—and blanketed by the dappled shade of a swaying canopy, it gave off an aura of subtle authority. A feeling of suppression which was only aided by the ancient feel of the great tree itself—nearly three hundred stories tall, all told, with a presence that spoke of time immemorial. A lone sentinel holding vigil throughout the millennia. 

And right there at its root system was the twice damned ascendant, holding its toddler sized fae queen hostage. Jun noted a roundabout path, mostly clear of bodies, that led up to the grand dais in question. Seeing as Jun literally didn’t have time to waste, he decided to take the direct route instead. Stepping roughshod over the spongy carpet of bodies, he definitely thought he heard a few, Oomph!’s and a couple Big oaf!’s testily directed his way.

As he approached within fifty paces of her, Nialla spared him a fleeting glance. He tensed—having yet to exit the sea of constellations since entering this accursed forest for this very reason—but, to his surprise, no premonition of death followed. His danger sense remained silent.

She turned back to studying the struggling queen.

“If you don’t put me down you will be cursed! Cursed I say!”

“That right?”

“Yes! So you’d better listen to what I say! Or else!”

“I don’t think I will,” the ascendant intoned.

“Then you leave me no other choice! By the whispering winds and the ancient trees, may you forever wander lost under fetid leaves! Bound by the roots of the earth’s embrace, you shall find no succor, nor familiar place! Only the calls of the lost ones shall guide your path, until your heart yearns for sweet sweet death at last!”

“Is that all?”

“I-! Yes! Are you not afraid?!”

“Not particularly.”

“W-well why not?!”

“The way I see it, I’m already cursed. So really, the question you should be asking is, what’s one more?”

Then, with a motion too quick to catch, she tore the heart out of the creature’s chest—holding it casually thereafter while it beat its last. The queen of the fae slumped over, dead. Nialla tossed the body aside.

Finally, heart still in hand, she turned to face him fully. Ready for just about anything, again, Jun was surprised when nothing happened.

And for the first time, he really took a good long look at her, this ascendant being who’d sought to hijack his body. He was utterly shocked by what he saw. There was a definite slump to her shoulders that hadn’t been there before. A hollow quality to her gaze he had not noticed prior.

“Here to gloat?”

The obvious defeat in her tone took him aback.

“Uhh… I won’t lie and say it hadn’t crossed my mind.”

There was a brief pause.

“Well? You’ve come all this way, have you not? Clearly you wish to say something. Out with it.”

“Uhh, yeah sure. I just wasn’t expecting…”

He once more studied her from afar. Her dead expression never changed.

“You know what? Never mind.”

Almost compulsively he glanced at the ongoing timer.

|World Walker|

Time remaining: 1 minute 36 seconds.

“Right! So, I propose a truce!”

If he’d expected her to be taken off guard by his pronouncement, he would have been sorely disappointed.

“A… truce?”

“Yeah, you know. The good old white flag. A potential peace treaty. Put down the knives and pitchforks and settle this with words like civilized people!”

“…. pitchforks…?”

“Yeah! So like, we’ve established you can’t kill me, and I certainly can’t hurt you, not in any meaningful way anyhow. I mean, just look at yourself! All that effort and not a scratch on you. Phenomenal skin care by the way. What’s your secret?”

“What… do you suggest?”

“A friendly wager.”

“Oh?”

“A bet, you could say. I bet you can’t do something difficult, and you try to prove me wrong. If you succeed, doesn’t matter how long it takes, you win.”

“And what exactly do I win?”

“What you’ve been after from the beginning. Naturally.”

“Is this…” a look of wonder crossed her features briefly. “Was this all… planned?”

“In a manner of speaking.”

“But then-!” she gesticulated wildly. “If this was your intention from the very beginning, why… all of this!”

“Hmm… well…? To tell you the truth? Leverage. I’m a firm believer in never coming to the negotiation table without a killer opening hand. You needed to see what I was capable of. That no matter what you came at me with, in this place at least, any fight between us would always end in a draw.”

This was, of course, a bold faced lie, but she didn’t need to know that.

“What are your terms?”

“Death match. Last to drop dead is the winner.”

“But you just said-?”

“Oh! No, you won’t be fighting me, silly. No I’ve got someone far more… experienced in mind for this wager.”

“How strong are they?”

“She’s at the apex of her world. Much like the fae queen you just dispatched, or the magic boys club of wrinkly old codgers before that.”

Nialla narrowed her eyes, no doubt suspecting a catch. And who could blame her, really? After all, he was double speaking through his teeth like the lying sack of shit he was. And with this next part he would, hopefully, sell it.

“I can give a system enforced soul oath that everything I’ve said is nothing but the honest to gods truth.”

When she didn’t say anything, he quickly went through with the soul oath, and after confirming that his soul didn’t implode, she continued.

“You will allow me to regenerate my spirit reserves to full before taking this challenge.”

Jun affected distress. Widening his eyes by the slightest fraction and plastering on his best placating smile.

“H-hey now. Let’s not be hasty! I don’t mean to sound crass, but I drained you dry fair and square and-!“

“You will allow me this concession or this deal is not happening.”

Jun tried to protest, hemming and hawing about the unfairness of it all. When she refused to relent, however, he “reluctantly,” agreed.

“Fine! Fine! Have it your way!” Jun tapped his spacial ring. “Take it,” he snarled, tossing her a bottle of peak Heavenly Sky; Celestial Dragon, Spirit Restoration Pills.

She eyed the assortment of shiny pearlescent marbles speculatively for but a second, before popping the cap and swallowing one without comment.

“In return, you will agree to sign a soul contract with me that plainly states the terms and conditions of our agreement.”

It was immediately clear she didn’t like that idea one bit, her gaze sharpening to the point that he was honestly afraid she’d lash out at him.

“The terms are all laid out right here. No underhanded business whatsoever. Just a simple contract.”

With another flick of his ring, he produced a rolled up scroll. He tossed it underhand at the skeptical ascendant. Unrolling the paper, she skimmed over its contents  in less than a second.

“It says here I will be unable to touch you until the contest ends.”

“It says that all prior hostilities will be set aside until the winner of said aforementioned contest has been decided. Note how it says “hostilities,” plural? You can’t attack me, but I can’t attack you either. A truce, see?”

Nialla grumbled a bit at this, clearly still unsure.

“Look, it’s either that or we keep sniping at each other for the rest of eternity. I don’t know about you, but I have things I’d rather get on with in my life.”

More grumbling.

“Okay, I see you’re still on the fense, but just ask yourself. Do you really want to spend the rest of eternity with this guy?” he pointed at himself with two thumbs.

That seemed to do the trick. Within seconds both she and he had signed the soul contract, at which point it dispersed into golden motes of energy which hovered to settle into both of their chests. And not a second too soon.

Time remaining: 0 minutes 31 seconds.

“What now?” Nialla asked.

“Now, you take my hand,” he said, offering her a handshake.

Nialla hesitated. Jun waggled it about, trying not to give away his growing impatience.

Time remaining: 0 minutes 29 seconds.

“Come on now. It’s not as if we have all day. Sooner started, sooner finished and all that.”

Time remaining: 0 minutes 27 seconds.

After two interminable seconds, Nialla reluctantly took his hand. Jun let out the faintest sigh of relief. In the next moment, they disappeared from this world.

***

An excerpt from: “A Mad Man’s Repository: A Conceptual Compendium on the Unreasonableness of the Universe.”

Star rankings: what are they, and how do they work?

To put it simply, what separates a one star trial from, let’s say, a four star one, is what I like to call the ceiling potential. Or… potential ceiling.? Honestly, I’m still not one-hundred percent on the name. Regardless! It basically refers to the furthest heights a born resident of said world can aspire to. The highest value they can attain in their attributes, talents, bloodline, etc. regardless of how dedicated or hard working they are.

Born to a lower star world? Better luck next time pal! Because the furthest attainable peak has already been reached, capped, you name it! Effectively set in stone.

Now, does this mean that every five star resident is effectively a god like entity? Not exactly. A randomly selected resident from a five star trial world could  in fact be much weaker than one hand picked from a one star trial, and visa versa.

All it really means is that a true monster being born a natural five star deity all across the board is suddenly a very real possibility, even if the chances of such an unlikely thing happening remain extremely low.