The Greatest Sin is Weakness
After we cleared out all of the challenger monsters, I checked the spoils of my effort. When I entered my soul sea, I discovered that I had obtained six common names, and twenty-two outer soul fragments. I had killed around half of the hundred monsters so, overall my luck wasn't too bad in obtaining outer soul fragments and common names. Most of the names were completely useless, but two of them were somewhat useful. Those two were:
**Common-tiered Name**
**Fire stone**
Description:
Pair of two stones that when smashed together create a powerful flame. Flame burns for six hours before going out.
Cooldown is ten hours.
**Common tiered-Name**
**Bottomless Water bottle**
Description:
Not a bottomless bottle of water. Contains a large amount of clean drinking water. After the bottle empties, it takes four hours to refill completely. Water slightly restores mental and physical exhaustion.
Although both Names were utility based, a near endless source of drinking water and ease of access to fire was always a welcome bonus. I then chose to 'forget' the other four useless common-tiered names for a grand total of… eight outer soul fragments.
It should be noted that names could be 'forgotten' by the prestige for outer and core soul fragments up to legendary tier. Common-tiered names would only net two outer soul fragments while legendary-tiered names would net 1000 outer soul fragments and ten core soul fragments. Uncommon and rare tiered names both gave out for ten outer soul fragments, though rare-tiered names gave one core soul fragment. Epic-tiered names would go out for one hundred outer soul fragments and ten core soul fragments.
Most people chose not to forget their names though as they were in limited quantity, and were incredibly hard to get. Most people on Roathia only had one or two virtues because of the dangerous nature of the trials and if one died while challenging a trial, they would die within real life. What this meant for average people was that trials were forbidden.
I then returned to the list of names and clicked on Nola. I was going to upgrade her.
'Finally upgrading me huh? Let me pick the upgrades!'
Not much to upgrade here Nephim. I'm pretty much stuck upgrading two or three things. Though if you want to choose what I upgrade, so be it.
'Okay! First of all, Tier her up! Then spend twenty soul fragments to upgrade metamorphosis and weapon perception! Hurry up Please?'
Jeez! fine. I'll hurry up. Even though I was going to do these upgrades anyway, thanks Nephim.
Before tiering Nola up, I summoned her into my hands, wanting to see if there was going to be a physical change in her. I then tiered Nola up, and upgraded weapon perception and weapon metamorphosis, spending all of my outer soul fragments. The second after I tiered Nola up, a dragon's roar could be heard as well as the screams of thousands of people, extremely loudly. After only a few seconds, a dark pillar shot up in my soul sea, blotting out the dark sun with its massive size. Then after a few minutes, the screams and dragon's roar abruptly stopped, as black-rune engravings appeared on the sword.
Nola now looked like this in the prestige menu;
**non-tiered weapon, Forgotten weapon.(Currently Uncommon-Tier[Upgradable; requirement : 100 outer soul fragments])**
Broken Coreless Chaos Sword of the Forgotten Shadow God
Description:
One of three fragments of the forgotten shadow god's most favored Sword, Nola. Sword greatly boosts mental capacity and physical limitations. Sword additionally greatly diminishes the status one can unleash.
Sword is Unbreakable.
Sword is bonded to the user till death. The user may not use any other weapons while bonded to Nola. The sword will be sealed upon the user's death.
The Juvenile Fairy Queen, Nephim, is currently residing within the sword. And may be called upon during sword use.
[Ignores maximum invocable name.]
This weapon is considered a Legacy weapon. The weapon currently has [4] evolvable attributes.
Evolvable Attributes:
Weapon Perception 2 ---> 3 [Requires 100 outer soul fragments] [Description available]
Weapon Metamorphosis 2 ----> 3 [Requires 100 outer soul fragments] [Description available]
Shadow Likeness 1 ----> 2 [Requires 100 outer soul fragments] [Description unavailable]
Spirit Manifestation 1----> 2 [Requires 1 core soul fragment] [Description unavailable]
After upgrading Nola within my soul sea, I summoned her into my hands, feeling a bit more power radiating from Nola. I then returned to my soul sea, and clicked the description popup on the ancient obelisk listing nola's description.
Another floating black stone tablet rose out of the water some distance away, and slowly floated towards the obelisk housing the information on Nola. It then abruptly stopped, and dimly lit up, words visible on it.
**Weapon metamorphosis**
Description: Allows Weapon to change forms in accordance with the Shadow God's blessing.
Forms Possesed:
Shape-Shifting Sword: Allows the weapon to take the shape of the most desired sword by the user. Users may additionally opt to split Nola into up to three separate swords.
Eternal Bow: Transforms into a bow-shaped tangible shadow, containing powerful auto-tracking energy arrows. Automatically converts surrounding Aura into fuel.
[Locked]
[Locked]
[Locked]
**Weapon perception**
Description:
Lowers weapon perception by enemies; Enemies will struggle to perceive Nola.
Weapon perception level is currently at:
Observable, Hard to perceive, Invisible, Air, Non-existant.
***
These evolvable attributes sure are broken. I wonder how strong Nola will get after I upgrade the shadow likeness and spirit manifestation attributes, though both of those upgrades are still far out of reach for me. While core soul fragments could drop from challenger and quasi-master/master ranked monsters, the chance was practically non-existent. One needed to kill at least a king-ranked monster for a guaranteed chance to gain a core soul fragment. And while 1000 outer soul fragments could be merged to form a core soul fragment, it simply wasn't a worthwhile trade. One core soul fragment was easily worth far less than 100 outer soul fragments, purely in terms of upgrades and viability.
One could also integrate soul fragments into their soul, up to a maximum of one thousand per rank. Each outer soul fragment would increase the counter by 2, and core soul fragments would increase the counter by 10. Each soul fragment would increase the user's strength, mental capacity, and control over names slightly.
Seph had told Starless that most ordinary people would also opt to integrate all of their soul fragments into their souls before challenging the next trial, if they would at all. This was because integrating 100 soul fragments would grant up to a 10% boost to their power, which would consequently decrease the difficulty of challenging a trial.
Most people only challenged one trial though. The risk of death was simply too much for people to bear after all. Only publicly acknowledged experts or those coming from wealthy families would challenge a second trial. Only extremely talented individuals, those coming from extremely wealthy families or the six clans would even consider challenging further trials, as the risk far outweighed the reward. Only a few dozen people had cleared the third trial, while only seven people had publicly conquered the fourth trial, some years ago.
Exiting my soul sea, I walked up to Seph, who was sitting under one of the petrified trees in deep thought. She didn't notice my approach , so I took the initiative to call out to her.
"Seph. It's time. If we don't hurry and kill those horrible things, we won't have sufficient time to climb the world summit." I said.
"I know." Seph replied. "Are you ready though?"Her face darkening slightly before returning to normal.
"Yeah. Let's begin." Starless said, his hands twitching slightly.
Starless and Seph both slowly walked closer to the five large quasi-master ranked monsters standing near an opening in the grey treeline, on a direct path to the world summit.
While lower-ranked monsters did possess less intelligence than that of higher-ranked monsters, the difference between challenger and master ranked was still substantial. The difference between the two was like the difference between a newborn child and a five year old.
Needless to say, they wouldn't be able to lure the five abominations one by one.
If they were lucky, only two or three would come at them, but even so they would have to fight with their lives on the line, but if all five came at once, they would truly have to fight walking a tightrope. The option of running away and trying to gain some of their attention again was impossible , as monsters in trials rarely gave up on chasing those challenging the trials unless the situation was too unfavorable for them.
Starless and Seph circled the pathway the monsters treaded, waiting for the moment they would split apart and they could lure two or three.
Eventually the monsters split into two groups of two and one group of one. Starless and Seph naturally didn't miss this opportunity to attack one of the groups of two, luring them away from the rest, the other monsters were none the wiser that their monster friends were being lured away to be slaughtered.
After they lured the monsters sufficiently far enough away so as to not attract the attention of the rest of the monsters, they started attacking in earnest.
Starless and Seph both individually attacked one abomination, further splitting up the group of two into two one on ones.
***
After me and Seph split up, the abomination slowly started picking up on our strategy, gazing towards seph's fight. I briefly glanced over, seeing Seph barely struggling, but managing to defend against the monster and launch counter-attacks.
I quickly leaped forward to attack the monster to regain its attention.
I wasn't going to let it go and attack Seph after all. She was already struggling with one of these damned creatures, and two would certainly spell doom for her.
I swung the sword in a horizontal arc, aiming for the abomination's right shoulder. Seeing this, the abomination quickly sidestepped my attack and launched a counterattack at my left thigh.
Quickly realizing that my attack had missed, I tried to pull back, but it was too late. The monsters' strong claws slashed my thigh, leaving a somewhat deep gash across my thigh. While the slash hurt, it wasn't nearly enough to overpower the adrenaline gained from the thrill of the hunt.
I quickly realized that I had to make a decisive move to end this fight quickly. I was already worn out from fighting earlier, and with little rest, my stamina wouldn't hold.
I fell to one knee, quickly getting back up, although stumbling quite a bit. The monster, not missing the opportunity, quickly jabbed both of its claws at my left shoulder.
I quickly leaned leftwards, using my sword to deflect the claws away, striking back at the abominations neck, using void chop.
The abomination quickly realizing that I feinted weakness attempted to lean back as to avoid the slash at its neck, but failed to do so in time.
As my sword cut downwards, I knew that the power I currently wielded wasn't going to be enough to cut the monster's neck.
Nephim? A little help please?
"Fine. But only because I hate how ugly that thing is."
I felt an odd euphoric feeling sweep through my body, starting from Nola. This was nothing like the last time Nephim had helped me. Though I wasn't complaining. This was certainly going to be enough to kill this damnable thing.
As my sword reached the monster's neck it cleanly sliced through it, a spray of dark-orange blood dirtying my cloak. The now-beheaded monster staggered backwards before falling forwards.
A cold mechanical voice echoed in my mind:
Challenger-ranked monster, nicknamed Fallen Joseph, felled. Reward: 2 outer soul fragments, + uncommon-tiered name.
'Yikes. Might be time to switch out that dirty old cloak. It's ugly anyways. Though even good clothing wouldn't fix that ugly face of yours. Do you have no fashion sense? Or do you just purposely wear ugly things?'
'Hey! Don't act like I didn't hear that. I'm not ugly. Seph said I was quite handsome by roathia's standards.'
'Whatever lets you sleep at night.'
'You little! Ugh. I'll let it slide this time because you helped me earlier.'
Looking down at my ancient dark black cloak, I too thought it might be the time to change clothing. Though this matter would have to wait until after we had successfully passed the trial, as clothing-tiered names very rarely dropped from normal monsters within trials. They normally only dropped from special monsters in the otherworld.
Looking up, I glanced at where Seph was previously fighting the other abomination. I didn't see her anywhere though. I frantically looked around the forest, but all I saw was the dull gray color of petrified trees.
"Lookin' for me?" Seph said.
Looking around for the source of the voice, I quickly calmed down realizing Seph was already laying down next to me. Oddly when I had previously looked, I didn't see her, though perhaps I missed her.
"I've been thinking." Seph said quietly, then added,"We don't need to reach the top of the world summit. We could just stay in this beautiful world forever."
"What." "What did you just say?"
'Starry. Something feels very wrong here. Be careful.'
Paying heed to Nephims warning, I listened intently on what Sephs response was.
"I said we don't have to ever clear the trial. We could just stay in this beautiful world forever."
Quickly realizing something was very wrong, I asked her a question.
"Seph, quick question" "Which clan do you come from?"
"I come from a branch clan within the clan of envy of course."
The moment I heard these words come out from her mouth I knew that the person I was talking to was not Seph. Seph was pure royalty, not part of a mere branch clan.
Quickly thinking, I added
"Seph. Think you could turn around real fast? I inherited a rare clothing-tiered name. I was wondering if I could put it on you and see how it looks."
"Okay. Go ahead." The imposter said in a loud but clear tone.
The moment the imposter turned around, I analyzed its current state with my mask, quickly learning that this monster was called the "Devourer of souls" of quasi-transcendent rank.
Once I confirmed that this horrible excuse for Seph really wasn't her, I drew Nola and cleanly pierced its heart directly.
"I never guessed you would find out so soon." The monster said in Sephs voice, distorting her voice disgustingly,"I suppose that your true name doesn't include one of the sins for nothing. You truly have outsmarted me this time. Don't worry though. I'll be back sooner or later."
The imposter looked back at me, a disgusting grin forming on its face before leaving Seph's body in an ethereal ghost-like form. The wound I had previously inflicted on seph quickly healing, with seph's body falling flat on the ground.
"Seph? Are you okay?" I asked, worried she might still be hurt. I was quite sure that what I had attacked was simply an imposter, but it seemed that it had taken control of her body through a form of possession.
"Ughhhh" She groaned.
"My brain feels like someone just smashed it into pieces with a hammer." She said in a pained voice.
"Come lay here." I gestured towards my lap. There wasn't anything else to lay on after all.
"Drag me. There's absolutely no way I'm getting up like this."
I quickly stood up, grabbed her by her arms and dragged her towards me. Resisting the urge to play with her lush red hair, I laid her down, her head resting on my lap.
'Really Starry? This is a new low. Taking advantage of girls after they just got possessed. Disgusting. Maybe I shouldn't have warned you earlier.'
I didn't respond. Although what Nephim had said was hurtful, there wasn't anything to be said back anyways. Although it seemed I was taking advantage of Seph from an outsider's view, I was worried that she could be experiencing some type of severe mental pain, and I wanted her to be as comfortable as possible.
I then remembered I had the bottomless water bottle, which I promptly summoned, quietly invoking the name out loud.
"Seph. Drink up." I said.
"Hmm? What is it? Water?" Seph replied with.
"Yes. It should help you recover." I said in response.
I held the flask, slowly picking her head up, at an angle to drink the water properly.
"Wait! Wait! Wait! I can drink by myself." She loudly said, clearly flustered.
"Okay. If that's what you want." I replied. If she was uncomfortable with me holding up the flask for her, I wouldn't push it.
Seph quickly sat up and propped herself against a tree.
She drank from the flask as if she had never drank water before, greedily drinking for almost a minute straight before realizing her poor manners, slowly stopping drinking before handing back the flask.
"Seph, we need to make a shelter before sundown. Are you feeling well enough to help out?"
"Of course! Also, What happened earlier?"
"That's a story for another time." I replied. For her safety, I felt that she didn't need to know what had transpired earlier. I also didn't know if the monster could repossess her, which could further increase her paranoia and might cause her to distance herself from me.
"Tell me or I won't give you a sleeping bag tonight." She said, unrelenting.
"Fine. After we dig out our little snow home, I'll tell you."
How ruthless! She knew I had sleeping problems!
My feelings aside, I was going to tell her. She deserved to know.
It would be selfish of me to not tell her.