This Quest is Bullshit - Chapter 175

Chapter 175 - The Man of the Mists

Warm moisture beaded and dripped down Eve’s face and the leather of her armor as she landed on soft grass. No mistlers attacked her. No monsters lurked in the fog. No high-level Unique started monologuing. She was alone.

A notification alerted her to the toxic nature of the mist around her, a characteristic all too reminiscent of the unending brown fog atop the dead fields. Eve wondered if the Man of the Mists planned to turn the lush farmland around Pyrindel into another wasteland. She wouldn’t let it get to that.

Taking a breath, Eve started by surveying her surroundings. There wasn’t much to see. She stood on a shallow hillside, though on which side or how far up the hill she couldn’t even begin to guess. Other than a few feet in front of her, there was only white.

If she ran Mana through her ears, Eve could just make out the sounds of the battle, muffled and distant as if she’d flown a mile away rather than a few hundred feet. The blanket of fog blocked more than light.

Eve took a moment to top up her Mana from the rich ambient supply, finding the fog neither dispersed nor became less toxic as she drained it. For a second she pondered examining it with Read the Threads to try and figure out exactly how the ability worked, but she didn’t have time for puzzles. The mistlings could overwhelm the defenders and get to Alex at any minute. Eve had to move.

Preston had been right about one thing—finding the Man of the Mists would prove difficult. As far as Eve knew, he didn’t even have to be there in order to send his assault at Pyrindel, but that seemed unlikely. He’d shown his hand, doing anything other than committing his full forces to this attack would’ve been a mistake. He was there, somewhere, hidden in the mist.

Luckily, Eve had a plan to find him.

She reached into her pocket, slipping her hand past the two copper coins her mother had given her to buy her loaf of bread to grab the other item she kept with them: a white chess piece. The Man of the Mists had given her the queen just after Alex’s betrayal, a token of his that she could crush into mist should she want to meet. From Mila’s description, it seemed the chess pieces worked as a beacon, showing their creator when and where they were destroyed. Eve had no such intent.

Throughout their relationship, it had always been the Man of the Mists finding her, not the other way around. The chess pieces were, after all, designed to give him her location, but Eve figured that information had to travel somehow, and she had an inkling how it did.

She activated Read the Threads, and the world became a tangled mess. Most of the threads around her shined what Eve first assumed was white before realizing was actually an extremely pale blue. Mist Mana. In a few places, threads of it connected to her where she was close enough to drain some from what seemed to be a single, massive spell all around her. Eve didn’t concern herself with those.

She concerned herself with the two threads attached to the white queen, one leading to her, and one disappearing into the mist. Eve followed it.

Eve took off at a jog, daring move no faster for lack of visibility. She siphoned Mana from the fog as she moved, the limited amount she could claim from any one spot worrying her. If the Man of the Mists drew her into an extended fight, she’d have to keep it moving if she wanted a steady supply of Mana.

She kept Read the Threads active as she moved, its guidance more important than the additional layer of obscurity it added to her vision.

That choice saved her life.

Eve leapt aside as she caught a strange bundle of pale blue threads rocketing towards her. A blade of sharpened fog sliced clean through the space she’d occupied but a second before. Eve gulped. Without Read the Threads, the attack would’ve blended perfectly with the mist around her. She’d hadn’t even felt a gust of wind from its passage.

Her heart pounding harder than ever, Eve continued on her search, this time constantly tossing her gaze this way and that to watch for more attacks. She dodged three before she heard his voice.

“Evelia Greene, I was wondering when you would show up.”

“You tried to kill me.”

“So I did,” the Man of the Mists replied. “It seems baby’s unlocked their first aspect.”

The voice seemed to come from everywhere around her, but Eve tracked the thread from the chess piece as pointing slightly to her left. She stared forward, hoping to disguise her method of finding him. “I take it you’re the only person in the world with more than one.”

“Not quite. There are dragons.”

“But the dragons keep to themselves. They don’t go about trying to end civilizations.”

“I wouldn’t be so sure about that,” the Man of the Mists said. “But I digress. Stand aside, Evelia. This has to happen.”

“You’re right. It does.” Eve Jetted down the direction of the thread, a shockwave of air rippling through the mist as she shot towards her foe. A wall of solid fog materialized in front of her, but burst clean through it at the cost of a few Mana worth of damage and a bit of speed.

Sure enough, the chess queen’s guidance proved accurate as a dark, humanoid shape materialized before her. Eve Charged and activated Mana Rush for a sustainable thousand Mana per second, skyrocketing her Strength to just under two billion. She swung.

The figure crumpled, sliding a dozen feet along the earth as it fell.

Eve gripped her club tighter. It couldn’t be that easy. The dark shape had to be a decoy, an illusion of some sort. She cast her gaze to both sides, searching for any sign of a second figure. She found none.

The first pushed itself to its feet. “That was rude,” the Man of the Mists said, moving as if to wipe dirt from his pants. “I thought we were having a conversation.”

“While your mistlings kill my friends?” Eve asked. “No.”

The man sighed. “It’s a shame, really. I thought you understood the many faults of humanity, seeing as you gave yours up years ago.”

Eve blinked. “You first approached me right after I started the Burendian quest line. The one that turned me into a Manaheart. Did you know it was going to?”

“I had my suspicions. That’s part of why I paid you a visit.”

“And did you also suspect that same quest would give me the ability to break your army out of that vault?”

“No, actually. That was a pleasant surprise.”

Eve Charged at him again, but he was ready this time. Four complex jumbles of threads appeared in the fog and short towards her. Eve had to halt her charge and dissociate her entire lower body to avoid them.

“That’s a neat trick,” the man said. “Too bad it won’t save you.”

“I wouldn’t be so sure about that,” Eve turned his words back on him. She Jetted in again.

The blades of fog came for her once more, but she was ready this time. In a well-practiced maneuver, Eve dissipated her entire body into a cloud of Mana, maintaining her momentum towards the Man of the Mists as his attacks passed harmlessly through her. She let herself float forward for a bit, her dissolved state disabling her abilities and thus her only way to see the mist-blades coming.

Before she could reform to make an attack of her own, something grabbed hold of her.

A pair of vines from a strange plant she hadn’t noticed somehow wrapped around the cloud of Mana she’d dissolved into and pulled. If she’d had a heart at the time, it would’ve raced as adrenaline coursed through it. Instead, Eve’s consciousness barely staved off panic.

Immediately she tried to reform her head to regain access to her abilities, but the moment enough Mana coalesced in one spot to begin to form a solid appendage, the vines ripped through her, draining some of it. She tried twice more to no success.

Eve was trapped.

The Man of the Mists casually stepped forward. “You didn’t think I’d come here without a contingency plan to deal with you, did you?” He chuckled. “This is a Strethian Manavore, courtesy of an associate of mine. In case the name didn’t tip you off, it captures stray Mana from the environment and devours it. And you look an awful lot like stray Mana right now.”

Icy fear pierced Eve’s mind as she glanced to her Mana bar.

Mana: 14,439/75,348

Even with the extra thirty percent capacity from the Ar-gold crown, she’d already fallen dangerously low. In a few seconds it had dropped by several thousand. She wracked her mind for ideas, but anything she could come up with required access to her abilities. Even Defy, her absolute last resort, required some part of her to exist physically.

Mana: 12,864/75,348

At least the Mana drain seemed to slow down if she didn’t keep trying to materialize. Eve mentally cursed. She had to stall, give herself enough time to find a way out. Without a mouth, she couldn’t verbally egg the Man of the Mists into monologuing, but ever since she’d finished a certain quest, Eve hadn’t needed a mouth to communicate.

Why are you doing this? she sent the message loud and in every direction just in case her enemy wasn’t where he seemed.

The dark figure tilted its head. “You civilization builders are all the same. Ambitious enough to create great things and short-lived enough to abuse them. It happens every few millennia. Some servant race gets delusions of grandeur and starts building off the discoveries of their ancestors. It never takes longer than a thousand years before one of them starts looking for power in a place they shouldn’t. Eldritch cults, blood magic, dangerous research into forbidden entities… it’s always something.”

That doesn’t mean you have to wipe us out! Eve argued. If people knew they were putting the world at risk, they’d stop.

“They won’t. I’ve tried.” He shook his head. “This is the best way. The only sure way. Stop them before they get big enough to try rather than playing apocalypse whack-a-mole.”

Whack-a-what?

“Nevermind that. You won’t be alive long enough to try it. It’s not that fun anyway.”

The confidence in his words sent a fresh wave a fear through Eve’s mind. She checked her status.

Mana: 4,549/75,348

She cursed herself. Her distraction had worked too well, stalling her own attempt at escape as much as it stalled the Man of the Mists’s final attack. Panic set in.

Mana: 3,715/75,348

The drain accelerated as Eve’s will eroded. The manavore drank its fill of her and everything she was, stealing thousands of Mana as her time ran out.

Mana: 2,153/75,348

Shit shit shit shit shit. She had to do something, but what? She couldn’t Defy it, not without a body, and she couldn’t even try to form a body without speeding up her demise.

Mana: 1,914/75,348

Eve steeled her soul. She didn’t have time to convince the Man of the Mists to let her go, and she already knew such an attempt would fail. A plan began to form. It was suicide, she knew, but other options failed to appear.

Eve readied herself. She’d only get one shot at this. There had to be some limit, she reasoned, to the manavore’s ability to quash her attempts at reforming. If she could try to reform in several places at once, maybe one of them could slip by.

The math didn’t work out. Eve didn’t have enough Mana to survive trying to reform once, let alone a dozen times, but she was out of options. If she did noth—

Two distinct roars echoed through the fog. Eve recognized them both, one of a drake, and one of a human.

Mana: 895/75,348

The Mana drain came to an abrupt halt as a notification popped into view.

Packmaster’s Call makes you immune to Assert Dominance!

Eve didn’t wait. In under a second she materialized her head and fired as strong of an annihilation Mana Burst as she could manage towards the body of the plant. Her stolen Mana exploded into the air as the message appeared.

You have defeated Level 49 Strethian Manavore: +0 exp!

“Preston!” she shouted as she extended her will to reclaim the loose Mana, pushing her pool back into the thirty thousands. “How did you find me?”

Telepathically, Preston sent, his voice occupied growling at the Man of the Mists to keep Assert Dominance going. You were kind of shouting to the high hells.

Right. I wanted to make sure the misty boy heard me in case that’s a decoy.

That’s him, Preston sent back. And I’m about to—

The message cut at the same time as Preston’s growl came to an abrupt end.

Somewhere to Eve’s left, a terrible thump accompanied by an even worse crack echoed through the fog. In front of her, the Man of the Mists cracked his knuckles.

“It seems you can’t leave them behind even as you run to your death,” he said. “Ah well. I suppose you’ll get to watch them die.”

Two dozen knots of pale blue threads appeared in the fog, each leveled at the spot where Preston and Reginald had fallen. Eve’s eyes widened.

The man snapped his fingers.

No!

The threads unwound as Eve Defied his attack, fizzling the spell before it could go off.

“There it is,” the man said disconcertingly calmly. “It’s a shame you wasted it on someone else.”

Eve cursed as her gaze flash to her status screen, confirming Defy had begun its thirty-hour cooldown. Her greatest weapon was spent.

She Charged forward in a fury, but another set of mist-blades forced her back. Eve snarled.

Mana: 29,014/75,348

Even after recovering most of her Mana from that plant, her supply was limited. She knew her opponent’s was too, but without an idea of how high level he really was, Eve couldn’t begin to guess how long he’d last. The fact his power was split between her and trying to overwhelm Mila, Rel, and Alex worked in her favor.

The trouble was, without Defy, Eve’s greatest abilities depended on her having huge excesses of Mana to spend, and right then, she didn’t.

Until Preston croaked her name.

Eve! he sent, healing his own shattered ribs as he called out to her. Catch.

Eve whirled her head in his direction reaching out a hand just in time for a jeweled golden rod to land in her grasp.

Scepter of Burendia
Rarity: Unique

Mana: 642,006/997,628

It was no leyline, but it would do.

She Jetted forward at incredible speed, millions of Strength coursing through her. She burst through walls of mist, broke nets of fog, and tanked enough mist blades to kill just about anyone else.

To Eve, they barely made a dent in her Mana.

She swung her club for the dark figure before her, but with a wave of his hand a clump of sharpened mist cleaved clean through it. Eve’s club, crafted from the bone of an over level three hundred griffin and tempered in the torrent of a leyline, fell to the ground in two pieces.

But that didn’t matter. She had what she was after.

With her newly free hand, Eve grabbed the Man of the Mist around his forearm, clutching tight with insurmountable Strength. He tried to pull away, but Eve held strong.

Two dozen blades materialized in the fog and rent through Eve’s body, Mana from the scepter replaced it quickly enough. Eve looked the dark figure in the eyes, yanked him in close, reached out to him with her will, and began to pull.

Pale blue Mana surged into her, a torrent of stolen power from the adversary in her grasp. Eve redirected her Mana Rush to spend it instead of her pure Mana, keeping her effective health topped off from the scepter. She looked down at the Man of the Mists. “That plant of yours isn’t the only thing that eats Mana.”

She could feel the point where he started panicking. His pulse quickened beneath her viselike grip. His mind desperately scrambled to grab a hold of his rapidly vanishing Mana.

But it was all for nought. However many thousands of years he’d lived, however many civilizations he’d ended or aspects he’d attained, the Man of the Mists was out of answers. For all his stats, for all his levels, for all his schemes, he’d fallen into the one fight he couldn’t win.

A battle of wills with Evelia Greene.

“You lied to me,” she growled at him. “You used me. Turned my friend against me. Tried to kill me and everyone that I love.”

“I’ve done a fair bit more than that, girl.”

Eve twisted his arm. “Not anymore you’re not. It’s over.”

He laughed. “It’s never over. Even now my partner is en route to your Questing Stones. Even without me, their loss will put an end to humanity eventually. At least the humanity that poses a threat.”

The flow of Mana came to an abrupt end as the man’s pool bottomed out. Eve switched her grasp from his arm to his throat. She couldn’t trust his words anyway. “That’s enough.”

The last gasp of desperate panic took over as he struggled, violently throwing himself about as his body screamed for air. Eve denied it.

It was alone, out of Mana, defenseless, and at the hand of one of the many subjects of his manipulations that the Man of the Mists finally followed the many civilizations he’d ended from this life into the next. Eve waited for the notification to appear before she let his corpse fall to the ground.

You have defeated Level 289 The Man of the Mists: +1.2qa exp!

Eve exhaled. Preston and Reginald stumbled over, hurt, but very much on their feet. The muffled sounds of battle in the distance faded away.

And the fog lifted.