– Era of the Wastes, Cycle 220, Season of the Rising Sun, Day 73 –

  In a private chamber, Terry examined himself in a mirror. He puffed his cheeks.

  He absolutely loved his flowing blades.

  Flowing armor, too.

  Flowing everything.

  But even the love for their usefulness couldn’t make him overlook this extreme… shininess.

  He was basically a walking silver statue. The only specks of non-silver appearance remaining were the black velvety fabric from his shadow brooch and, if activated, the barrier visor from his helmet that shimmered violet from the emphasis of its arcane aspect to cover the purple glimmer from his activated soulsight.

  The unmodified armor that Brynn had crafted for him during the war against the Lich Kingdoms was mostly a muted dark grey. Something easy to miss in most urban environments. Something to blend into the shadows, even without the assistance of his shadow fabric or concealment cloak.

  The mithril-coated armor, by contrast, was very hard to miss in anything but the darkest shadows.

  So much for blending in…

  “Not as if hiding would do me any good in the Court,” mumbled Terry.

  There’s a vast gulf between ‘hiding’ and ‘drawing every single pair of godly eyes passing by’.

  “With the Blasphemer cursing out every single god anyway, not much has changed,” said Terry with a snort.

  Terry shrugged inwardly and sat down. He really didn’t feel like complaining. He considered mixing other metals for a muted appearance, but stopped himself.

  Since when do I care how it looks?

  Terry had worn way worse outfits in the past. His friends had compared his old volcanic mushroom armor to a glossy turd and that was before it was matched with velvety shadow fabric, a bright orange pole, and a metallic-green spearhead.

  Terry used the flowing control spheres placed on his equipment to shape liquid to cover his weapons, now that he was done with his armor.

  He didn’t cover the unbreakable pole of his king spear, but generously coated the spearhead.

  Terry marveled at the precision with which he could shape the magic metal with the help of the controlling spheres. The liquid mithril felt barely different from the naturalized mana under his control.

  Terry slipped in mithril even between the spearhead opening and the pole inside, filling gaps that his previous attachment improvisation had left.

  Once Terry was satisfied and convinced he couldn’t achieve a tighter fit with just his mana control, he transfixed the spearhead and carefully guided a few disruption fields to physically force just slightly more pressure to ensure the spearhead was as fixed as it could be on the unbreakable staff.

  Terry examined his work and particularly the blade itself. The combination of the reactive mithril and his own exquisite mana control created a sharpness unlike any blade he had ever wielded.

  Except for the mana blades through the keen inscription perhaps.

  Terry used another batch of mithril to modify his keen daggers as well. He couldn’t help but be impressed with the magic metal’s ability to channel mana. The added mithril caused no impairment to the summoned mana blade.

  In fact, the metal created absolutely no mana impairment or interference whatsoever.

  An inscription in mithril must feel like using an inscription floating in the air.

  Terry knew he definitely had to get enough of the magic metal to bring home to Brynn and the Crafting Tower.

  First, enough to always have a mithril duplicate of the short version of the king spear.

  Terry smiled. With the ability to securely attach mithril, he could finally get the proportions of his king spear right for his dual-wielding short spear training.

  ***

  “I know I told you to walk around alone for a while, but I didn’t mean go back to the scam artist all the time,” said Swen.

  Terry crossed his arms. “Your exact words were ‘piss off and get some real-life presence training.’” He shrugged. “Probably a few more shits and fucks in there, but that was the gist of it.” He looked defiantly at the ancient hero of his realm. “I’m getting some presence training in alright.”

  “Yeah, no shit, you look like my grandma’s polished silverware,” quipped Swen. “But you don’t have to waltz back to what’s-his-face every day.”

  “Suho,” said Terry. “His name is Suho, and I’m getting a good deal.”

  The elven crafting god had practically jumped at the chance to trade for mithril. He couldn’t believe Terry truly meant it, much less that Terry actually planned some commissions from him.

  Terry had wondered if the design of the flowing blades could be replicated for cores of other aspects. He had hired the god to research that idea and supplied a batch of candidate cores.

  Besides…

  “I like discussing crafting with him,” added Terry. In some ways, Suho reminded him of Elvis, the tinkerer from the Chara Settlement, who had accompanied Terry’s early days of fiddling with his armor by incorporating coil springs and rotating pearls.

  Kindred spirit.

  Different personalities, though. Just as enthusiastic, but more… dignified?

  “Just don’t lower your guard,” warned Swen. “A parasite is still a parasite. That’s on top of your mithril trades starting to draw attention. Like I told you, Suho the Scammer is an upstart crafting god and doesn’t have the kind of backing to shield you from greedy creeps.”

  “I thought the Judge’s Order is absolute?” questioned Terry. Aside from his arrival, he hadn’t had any trouble in the Court. Even then, the three pesky gods had only intimidated him with presence, which wasn’t even a nuisance now that Terry knew how to deal with it.

  “Fuck me, you’re green,” exclaimed Swen. “Unless you permanently want to move in, you should start caring about whose gazes might be on you when you leave the Court. And there are plenty of ways for the parasites to pressure you, even if it’s not daylight robbery.”

  Terry involuntarily recalled his days in the Freedom Cooperative. When he had gotten into the bad graces of the cooperatives and became economically trapped without legal recourse and with no non-violent way to get out. If it hadn’t been for the Lich Kingdom invasion, Terry would have left the area to seek his luck on a different road home.

  Terry knew the Blasphemer was right. He couldn’t pack up and leave. A Faithless Saint had asked him for help, and Terry was determined to do whatever he could for the sake of his home and for every faithless folk living in the Twin-Death Realms.

  Don’t think there’s going to be an invasion to change the minds of the gods when they don’t like me, either…

  “How do you manage, then?” asked Terry. He understood what the man was implying. He had experienced his share of obstruction and opposition beyond violence. Even the Judge’s inviolable order would not protect him from such means. But something was missing. “Everyone here seems to hate your guts.”

  “No, some just find me fucking distasteful,” said Swen. “But that’s the basic trap of the Court. This is the cesspit where the dreams of gods come to die. As long as you want something, there’s always someone with bloody leverage. No peace for those with ambitions, no matter the kind. The Court offers something for everyone, but everything comes with a price or a risk attached.”

  Swen clicked his tongue. “For example, the key to the portal to the Twin-Death Realms. That’s what I have. Other things, too, but that’s the thing that keeps giving. As long as there are gods coveting the realms, there will always be someone willing to take the risk and face me in the arena.”

  “I haven’t seen anyone take you up on that,” said Terry. “Despite you constantly challenging gods.”

  “Because only a newbie would react to my provocation,” said Swen. “The others learn to temper their arrogance quickly after losing a few precious bargaining chips in the Court’s arena or being beaten down by the Leviathan’s presence or his omnipresent Order.”

  Swen shrugged. “Being undefeated also means there are those that ask me for protection. Funny that. They look down on me for being faith-free but crawl to me to challenge those challenging them. Bloody fuckers.”

  Swen caught Terry’s gaze. “Bottom line, if you want to become the first ever mithril merchant, then you should consider carefully which factions you work with, because that shit is going to upset the existing balance heavily. A balance that has existed since forever, and some of the parasitic pricks are very prickly about their standing in the hierarchy.”

  Terry nodded but put the thought to the back of his mind. For now, he just wanted to get to Suho to pick up the improved version of the control spheres. Suho had offered custom-tailored prototypes that might make even better use out of Terry’s precise mana control.

  ***

  Terry frowned while concentrating on his mana perception.

  “It’s not working well, I take it,” said Suho with a hint of disappointment.

  “Give me a second,” muttered Terry.

  Feels like pulling rubber through a needlehole, but perhaps if I do it like that…

  Terry always had exquisite mana control and ever since his early Academy failures, he had never slacked in pushing his talent further everyday.

  Even though he never had to face the sluggishness of an external mana impairment, he had his share of related experience for the current task.

  From adjusting mana through the different compositions in his body to all the crafting materials he had worked with.

  From wielding mana purely through the touch of his oscillating mana to feeling mana aspects and density with his mana touch.

  From shaping mana refractors of all kinds to using mana while being under the influence of reactivity-reducing shots against mana curses.

  Terry twisted the unyielding mana into spirals and pulled until it finally listened ever so slightly. He gritted his teeth while the thin layer of shadow mana squeezed out of the control sphere.

  No, Oz, you can’t eat that.

  Terry reprimanded the gluttonous slime that was practically salivating from its home inside the shadows of his summoned cloak.

  “Working…” Terry forced his words through gritted teeth. “…but far from workable.”

  “A start,” said Suho. He put his long white hair behind his ears. “I promise I’ll have it improved by tomorrow.” He hesitated but decided to speak openly. “I enjoy our experiments, but even though I appreciate the investment, I don’t understand why you wanted to start with the shadow aspect.”

  Because I hate being this shiny.

  This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.

  Terry didn’t know what to say. He literally twinkled in the outside lights. Somehow, the magic metal was completely immune to being tainted by dust and anything that might cover its sparkliness.

  It was ridiculous.

  Sometimes, he was blinded by the light reflecting from his own armor.

  Terry ignored the intrusive thoughts at the forefront of his mind. He actually had thought this through.

  “You are right that something elemental would be more obvious,” admitted Terry.

  And if you succeed with the lightning-aspected spheres, I’ll definitely add some to my king spear to make the lightning more controllable.

  Terry still vividly remembered getting grilled by his own heaven’s fury combination when defending the Freedom Cooperative from the Lich Kingdoms’ count. His skin had never fully lost all of the faint fern-like scars and served as a good reminder to never let him forget his mistakes.

  The other elements, though?

  Terry doubted a new line of Suho’s prototypes would be able to compete with the material manipulation inscriptions he already had. Not any time soon, at least. Before his departure for the Realm of Wrath, the Crafting Tower had ensured Terry had received a full set of the manipulation inscriptions he tended to need: water, earth, and metal.

  Terry liked Suho, but he heeded the warnings of the Blasphemer and the reservations of the paranoid part of his own mind. He didn’t feel like sharing his full equipment list with a faith user.

  No matter how amicable the god might seem, Terry didn’t dare to forget the eras when the False Gods had ruled his realm. He only had one true ally in the Court.

  A very foulmouthed ally.

  Perhaps I should introduce Swen to Apex. They might hit it off. Or hit each other, I guess…

  Terry opened his eyes and looked at Suho. “Your spheres can just control. They can’t create the material.”

  Just like material manipulation inscriptions.

  “With shadow, that’s not a problem for me,” said Terry while gesturing over the shadow fabric summoned by his magic brooch. He was walking around openly with the shadow cloak, so he didn’t need to dance around this part of his reasoning.

  A part Terry didn’t share was his hope for the spheres to be usable by Oz as well.

  The Blasphemer had recently told Terry something interesting about his changed shadow cloak. It appeared the cloak acted as a permanently active shadow shield.

  Definitely new.

  The shadow fabric had always been slightly magic-resistant, but never to this degree. This kind of shield was the equivalent of a mana ability, which finally proved the change had something to do with Oz turning the cloak into its mobile home.

  The truly interesting part was that the ability remained active even without Oz sticking around. The shadow slime had somehow instinctively altered the workings of the shadow fabric like a magic beast might change a corner chosen as its nest.

  If the slime could interact with shadow fabric, then the idea of it being able to wield the controlling spheres wasn’t that far-fetched.

  If it worked like Terry hoped, then he could have spheres linked to Oz on his armor to allow Oz a way to interact with his armor or to signal the shadow slime with the spheres and let it take over the shadow-usage from there.

  Terry even harbored hopes that Oz himself might benefit from incorporating the spheres into its own body.

  A magical conductor for my slime. Oz can’t hold old-style magic staves, but this might do the trick to amplify its control over shadows.

  However, the hopes were slight.

  Extremely slight.

  Because that would require the gluttonous blob to refrain from guzzling them down first.

  Terry glowered at nothing in particular while remembering the fate of the first two shadow-aspected controlling sphere prototypes.

  ***

  “Oh, wow,” exclaimed Swen after stepping into Terry’s chamber. “I see you’ve changed your style from Mr. Pompous Paladin to Edgy McEdgeLord. Nice. Very befitting of your age. I remember going through that phase when I was a teenager, too. Paired well with being a vampire, but felt too restrictive in the long run, to be honest.”

  Terry exhaled annoyedly. “I’m not a teenager, as you bloody know.”

  “The difference is a rounding error in my eyes,” quipped Swen and sat down. “Should I ask about the black armor?”

  “You already have,” said Terry and rolled his eyes.

  “I know,” said Swen. “That was just a polite prompt for you to elaborate. After losing our bet, I promised to watch my potty mouth a bit, didn’t I? See, I’m the fucking incarnation of dignified politeness.”

  “Have you always been like this?” Terry couldn’t help but ask.

  “You’d have to find someone my age that knew me and ask them,” said Swen with a shrug. “Good luck with that. Anyway, what’s with the graveyard outfit?”

  “Oz is practicing,” said Terry tiredly.

  “That explains literally nothing,” said Swen with raised brows. “Wait, that was the name of your slime.” He burst out laughing. “You let a slime dress you?”

  “No, I—” Terry bit his tongue. “Forget it. We’re practicing to thin out the shadow, so that it doesn’t normally look as…”

  “Edgy?” suggested Swen.

  “Whatever,” dismissed Terry. “I’m curious if Oz can create a reaction with mithril like he did with the shadow fabric. In any case, it would allow Oz to quickly cover me in shadows if I ever need to hide.”

  “Hide from eyesight you mean.” Swen pointed out. “Which is pointless unless you’re dealing with common bandits.”

  Terry frowned. He knew the Blasphemer had a point. He also had his mana cloaking necklace and his own control to ensure his mana wouldn’t reveal his location. He knew that left plenty of gaps for a true concealment.

  From things as banal as scent all the way to his freakish soul.

  Terry held his tongue and hoped Swen would drop the topic.

  “Are you sure this isn’t because a faith parasite offered to recruit your shiny self to his overzealous paladins?” asked Swen with the grin of an adult teasing a little kid.

  “Don’t you usually pretend to be so busy?” retorted Terry. “If you have time to spout nonsense here, you should have time to be in the pits.”

  “Just checking in with my student,” said Swen. “What’s all this then?” He gestured over the collection of books and notebooks spread over the floor.

  “Research,” replied Terry. He didn’t feel like elaborating, because most of the books were related to his search for a way to liquify mana in his channels.

  Which isn’t going well.

  Terry had begun skimming all the books in his storage for any new ideas, including the magic theory and applications from the elves in the Realm of Wrath.

  “Taciturn and grumpy,” noted Swen. “Pairs well with the outfit. I see you’re really leaning into that phase. Well done, bucko.”

  Terry groaned.

  “I see the concept ritual references,” said Swen. “Did you make a choice?”

  “No,” admitted Terry. For once in his life, he was paralyzed by the amount of choices. The concept rituals promised not to interfere with his other mana uses. Many of them also worked directly with ambient mana, which could bypass his aspect-impairment and therefore opened up a world of effects as wide as magic items with all the power that a concept could impart.

  The trouble was that there were so many to choose from, but only a single concept for his entire life.

  A concept ritual was a way for non-concept users to gain access to one. Normally, a mana user would have to fully grasp and understand a concept to wield it. The ritualists among the crafting gods could impart a fragment to link up to a concept directly. A comparably weak imitation of the real thing, but with a much wider pool of potential users and without the risk of being consumed by the concept itself.

  A concept ritual couldn’t be undone or upgraded, either, so the choice was permanent.

  Terry’s initial instinctive wish had been the same as when he had departed for his first cloud badger hunt as a Guardian. Just like Olgorn, the deceased dwarven uncle he had never met, a part of Terry had always lamented his inability to heal others due to his aspect impairment. While Terry had items to cover that, it was always a wish at the forefront of his mind.

  However, that wish didn’t seem compatible with what Terry needed. He had to carefully consider his options.

  “I just don’t know what to pick,” admitted Terry. “I don’t know what could possibly help me defeat literal gods.”

  “False gods,” hissed Swen. “I don’t care what they call themselves. They use the term ‘god’ as if it implied a right to rule those at the other end or outside their faith. False! Fuck that. They’re pathetic parasites.” He took a deep breath. “And I think you’ve got it wrong, kid.”

  Swen leaned closer. “Defeat gods?” He shook his head. “Most of these creatures have existed since eternity. No matter how good you are – no matter how talented, no matter how diligent – nothing makes up for the difference in time. You could be a once in a millenia genius and it wouldn’t mean shit.”

  Swen pinched the bridge of his nose. “Not to the gods a thousand times older than you. Even if you’re progressing at a rate a hundred times faster than them, a hundred times zero is still zero. Forget catching up. Even becoming the slightest of threats takes forever, especially since they’re not just standing still, either. They’ll have plenty of time to squash you.”

  Terry furrowed his brow. This was a side he had never seen from the Blasphemer. A side that stood in stark contrast to the vampire’s defiant life and his usual demeanor around gods.

  Swen laid down and folded his arms behind his head. “The reason Day pulled off the impossible is that the Twins never saw him as a threat until it was too late, and that was because no one knew how to put seemingly mismatching pieces together like Day. I’ve never seen anyone else with a comparable ability to turn a mess around and wrestle fate to the ground. None that could fucking walk into a wall and somehow miraculously push through.”

  Swen chuckled to himself. “‘Everything has a weakness.’ Damn, the guy had guts to digest a dragon, but still…”

  Swen glanced at Terry. “You know the real story behind the Twins’ deaths. You know how it started. He wrestled fate. He saw an opportunity. He took it. It paid off. Even Day wasn’t a true threat before that.”

  Terry watched the gaze in Swen’s eyes become distant, and knew the Blasphemer was dwelling in memories of an era long past. He also knew what he was getting at.

  The first god the Veilbinder had ever killed was a god already defeated.

  The truth behind the deathblood plague had only been spread across the realms after the Twin-Gods of Death had been slain, but the Veilbinder was the first to know it.

  At some point in his travels, the Veilbinder had been cursed by a god that wanted to break him while also taking revenge on two loathsome enemies in hiding.

  It was a mana curse infused with a concept of hunger. Hunger for mana, life, and souls. A curse tailored specifically to the Veilbinder. His soul. His mana. Every drop of mana he generated or harvested took on the curse.

  The curse was meant to break the Veilbinder’s spirit and the image he projected for the mortals that knew him. A curse intended to turn the mage into a monster.

  Contrary to the god’s expectations, the mage had created an opportunity from the curse and turned it on its head under torment and agony.

  The Veilbinder had resisted the irresistible urge to turn his insatiable hunger onto innocents.

  The mage had clung to his pride no matter the monstrous urges dwelling inside of him. He had seen the curse for what it was: a tool to be aimed and tamed.

  The hunger concept allowed the Veilbinder to drain others for all they were worth. A horrifying ability which he resisted with all he had, because even when turned against those deserving of such a death, the ability would not let him rest.

  Each use relinquished more power to it. The more often the Veilbinder used it, the more the hunger grew. Even the prideful mage knew he wouldn’t be able to resist forever.

  Despair was clutching at the Veilbinder’s mind right until he realized why he had been chosen for the curse specifically. It wasn’t just a god trying to break him. It was a god picking him for being familiar with the god’s enemies in hiding.

  The target of the curse were two gods the mage knew – and hated – more than any others. Gods he would gladly erase from the realms.

  The Twin-Gods of Death themselves.

  What the curse creator couldn’t have possibly anticipated was that the Veilbinder would find the first of the Twins already defeated and at the edge of death, using all his divinity to cling to the impotent remnants of his miserable life.

  A situation that took even the Veilbinder by surprise. It turned out there was a reason the Twin-Gods of Death had sealed off their realms. A reason deeper than the well-known deathblood plague.

  When the second, and weaker, twin had suddenly grown in power to surpass his brother, the fallen brother couldn’t accept it. The origin of the deathblood plague was the betrayal of the first. A plan to grow in the shadows while also weakening his brother in the open fight.

  A plan that had eventually been discovered by the second brother, who proceeded to resolutely defeat his twin, but couldn’t bring himself to kill him, even after the momentous betrayal.

  The Veilbinder had neither known nor cared when stumbling over the dying god. He had an opportunity, and he took it.

  The curse was never meant to actually kill the targeted gods. The creator intended for the Veilbinder to rampage through the realms and make himself a nuisance and shining example of what would happen to those daring to stride around faithless.

  The fragment of hunger would not have been enough to threaten the god at full strength.

  However, through perseverance and luck, the Veilbinder found himself in a situation where he had the means to kill a god. To kill one of the Twins. To absorb the fallen god’s everything.

  The ridiculous amount of energy bought the mage time against the hunger while also empowering him to deal with other enemies and collect more tools to delay and satisfy the unending hunger dwelling inside of him.

  The infamous artifact and unstable power source had originally been one such tool. That was the original reason the Veilbinder had looked for it. Then the mage decided to use it for an impossible gamble to defeat the Mad Leviathan.

  A gamble that gained mortals a Judge presiding over dealings with gods.

  Another gamble taken to get revenge on Sophis. The death of the god of knowledge and secrets itself was just another opportunity to be exploited.

  No one would have dared to plunder the realm of Sophis, no matter how valuable the knowledge the god hoarded was. Once the god’s concept had turned on itself thanks to the maddening curse, though, the gods’ library had been ripe for the picking by a mage with a backdoor to Sophis’s realm.

  The knowledge in that library had allowed the Veilbinder to defeat the second of the Twins and to finally sate the insatiable hunger dwelling in his mana.

  “This isn’t about defeating unspecified gods,” said Swen. “Everything has a weakness. Yeah, with enough prep time and resources, we can manage. I can bait foolish faith parasites to get killed by my skill set, but that’s all. Specific parasites. With tricks and specialization that, by its very nature, has to be narrow. We can’t compete with those living on a different time-scale. Not forever. Not with all of them. This is about delaying the inevitable.”

  Swen pushed himself up to sit and catch Terry’s gaze at eye-level. “The best we can do is figure out a loophole. Something to put up a fight and get in their face. I’m close to the weakest to step into the arena. I’m also undefeated and don’t have to fear any of these parasites. They really hate that.”

  Swen chuckled darkly. “I can kill the cowards, because in contrast to them, I’m not afraid to die, and I’ve carefully selected my skills to exploit that. I would advise against that strategy for anyone else. However, if you want to pull your weight, you have to find something to exploit to its full extent, because there’s simply no way for any mortal to compete with gods outside such narrow tricks.”

  Swen stood up. “And I suggest you hurry it up, because I think Seth has heard rumors about your appearance. No movement yet, but still. This means I might have to take you with me to the arena sooner than I thought. I can’t afford you to pop your cherry for a fight that sensitive, so I say we look for some arrogant newbie to bait into court before Seth comes around. You’re not there yet, but it’s better to have a target before we need one.”

  ***