Nightmare Realm Summoner: A LitRPG Adventure, page 73
“Soul Manifestation. Silver rain.”
Alex stiffened.
Nothing happened.
“The Disruptor isn’t that strong yet,” Orchid’s voice rang out, cold amusement dripping from her voice like poisoned honey. Her earlier warning about Derek being an Incarnation—whatever that meant—seemed to have evaporated from even her own mind.
Derek slammed Shale’s face into the ground once more, hammering it into the sand with several punches to the back of his head. Then he grabbed him by the hair and hoisted him back up. Bloodsoaked sand peeled away from Shale’s face in sheets.
Derek brought his mouth close to the other man’s ear.
“What do you say?” Derek whispered.
“Sorry,” Shale half-sobbed, half-choked. His features were barely even recognizable anymore. His nose was twisted at an angle, and blood marred his heavily bruised, sand-covered face. There wasn’t a scrap of the former pride that had gripped him.
The anger evaporated from Derek’s features in a split instant. A huge grin split his lips.
“Oh well, why didn’t you say so? Your apology is accepted. I did get here first, but I know it can be exciting to have a fun fight, so I don’t mind letting you go first.”
Derek plucked Shale up from the ground in a princess carry. He strode right up to Alex and Claire, then dumped the man unceremoniously on the sand in front of them before brushing his hand off.
“Please, continue. I wouldn’t want to get in your way.”
“Incarnations,” Orchid muttered under her breath, and Alex had absolutely no idea if she was disgusted, awed, horrified, or some combination of the three.
Shale’s lips worked, and he gasped, spitting up sand and trying to gather enough air to say something.
Alex pointed his palm at the man’s skull. A glass spike pierced out and thunked straight into Shale’s eye. The man jerked, then slumped back, dead. Power trickled into Alex from the kill—a fair amount considering how strong the Outworlder had been and how little he’d participated in the fight against him.
There was a long moment of silence.
“Huh,” Derek said. “If he was so weak, he really should have waited his turn. It’s a bit embarrassing to get killed that easily after being such a brat about going first.”
Derek knelt and wiped the blood covering his knuckles off on the sand beside Shale. The blades protruding from his back slid back beneath his skin with a wet squelch, and he shook himself off before walking back over to Orchid and crouching beside her. With a grunt, he scooped her bound form off the ground and slung her over a shoulder.
“What are you doing?” Orchid demanded, squirming fruitlessly.
“I put you on the ground,” Derek said. “That was rude. I don’t want to get your clothes dirty.”
“My clothes are the least screwed-up thing about me right now. They could use a little dirtying,” Orchid snapped. She hesitated for a moment. “Thank you for carrying me, though. I appreciate it. I owe you a debt.”
“It’s no problem,” Derek said with an easygoing shrug that bounced Orchid on his shoulder like a sack of potatoes. “My good friend asked me to help you out, so how could I say no?”
Alex blinked.
Not that I’m complaining, but when did we become good friends?
“I don’t mean to be rude, but I think I might be a bit drained of energy at the moment,” Alex said. He couldn’t deny that there was a rather uncomfortably large portion of himself—a rather insane one—that really wanted to see what he was capable of against Derek when they were both going all out. Unfortunately, now was definitely not the time for that. He was completely drained of energy. “If we fight now, every single one of us is going to be stuck here.”
“Oh, it’s fine,” Derek said with a smile. His eyes lowered to Shale’s corpse, and his features darkened. “You know, I was thinking about it a bit. Especially after this asshole. Everyone I’ve met since the world ended has been a giant dick. You know, you’re the first one to actually fight me like a gentleman. Can you believe that?”
Yes.
“Seriously?” Alex asked, injecting disbelief into his tone and trying to keep himself from laughing. He couldn’t tell if Derek was insane or not, but he supposed anyone who was going to survive the apocalypse had to be at least a little bit off their rocker.
“Seriously.” Derek gave him a straight-faced nod. “I know. It’s a shocker. But I was thinking—the System said I have to kill other Anomalies to get stronger. I want to get stronger so I can fight more and beat some manners into this crummy world… but I don’t really want to kill you anymore. It’s way too hard to find someone worth spending time with. It would be a real bummer, you know?”
Orchid looked from Alex to Derek. She squirmed once, trying to free herself from her bindings, then gave up and slumped over the large man’s shoulders with a sigh, resigned to her fate.
“I couldn’t agree more,” Alex said. The vestiges of the adrenaline that had been pumping through him started to wear off, and he gave Derek a grin. “I’d still like to spar with you, though. We had a great last fight.”
That awoke Orchid from her resignation almost instantly. “That’s right! You fought the Incarnation before! How did you—”
“He won,” Derek said. “It was a very good fight.”
Orchid’s gaze shifted back to Alex. She swallowed heavily. “I… I see.”
“Derek, do you think you could set Orchid down?” Claire asked, leaning heavily against Alex for support. “We should really untie her already.”
Derek blinked, then hurried to comply. He grabbed one of Shale’s swords and jabbed it into the chains, trying and failing to cut them free.
“They’re Suppressors,” Orchid said, her face pressed into the sandy ground. “There should be a key on Shale.”
Alex spotted a keyring on the man’s belt after a moment of searching. He pulled it off and tossed it to Derek, who set about freeing Orchid. The chains fell away from her, and she let out a huge sigh of relief, rubbing her wrists as she sat up.
She pushed herself to her feet, then studied Alex for a long moment before lowering herself in a bow.
“Thank you. I did not expect the Starfallen family to go through so much effort to save me, especially when you are attempting to conceal your presence.”
I’m honestly kind of surprised Orchid still thinks we’re with the Starfallen family, but I bet she must think that we’re just pretending to be Nativeworlders to conceal ourselves from the other families. It’s the literal exact opposite of what we’re actually doing, but things are so twisted that we might actually be able to stick to that story.
“We had a little help from Absolution,” Alex said. The more truth there was in a lie, the easier it was to pull the fake bits through as well. “There was an Assembly where we found out that the Broken Sword decided to overstep their bounds. He drew attention to himself while we got you.”
Orchid blinked in surprise. “I was worth that much?”
“I take deals I make seriously,” Alex said. “And I believe there was a Town Token that you agreed to help us get.”
A small smile pulled at Orchid’s lips. She wiped some of the blood from her face and gave him a nod. “I did do that. Still, I did not expect to be saved. I will not forget this. If you can get us back to 274-50, then we can get to work immediately. I’ve made progress on locating it and believe I’ve narrowed down the potential area. Getting the token will be even easier now that we have an Incarnation on our side.”
The hell is an Incarnation? The System hasn’t mentioned anything about that, but she called Derek one during the fight. I’d love to ask, but I don’t think I could pull that one off without revealing how little I know. I’ll have to talk with Claire about it later when she isn’t here.
Derek didn’t seem to know what Orchid was talking about either. He just scratched at the side of his neck, then adjusted the position of a dagger jutting out of his chest.
“I don’t really like picking sides,” Derek said through a frown. “Makes it less fun, and there were some things I had to deal with. Still have other Anomalies to hunt. You know how it is.”
Orchid paused, then mirrored his expression. “Wait. You mean you aren’t working together?”
“He just happened to swing by trying to kill me at a good time,” Alex provided. “That’s it.”
“Smelled you,” Derek said, tapping his nose sagely as if that was meant to answer anything.
“If you weren’t allied with us, then why did you help?”
“Alex asked me to.” Derek answered like the response was the most obvious thing in the world. “You don’t have to throw your life in with someone to be polite.”
“Right,” Orchid said slowly. “You’re interesting, Nativeworlder. Has anyone ever told you that? Are you sure you don’t want to throw in with us? I can guarantee power and—”
“No, thank you. Maybe another time,” Derek said with a small shake of his head. “I don’t mind helping out every once in a while, but I don’t want to get kenneled. I’ll get stronger with or without anyone’s help, so I’m just going to go where my nose takes me. Maybe it’ll be here. Maybe somewhere else. Who knows.”
I love this guy. He doesn’t give a shit about anything other than being polite and ambling about killing people.
“I think the first thing we’re going to be doing is resting for a little while,” Claire said tersely. “I’m not in the best shape to do much of anything else right now.”
“Feel free to sleep. That goes for everyone. I will not allow anything to take any of you while you rest,” Derek promised. “As pretty as this place is, I’d like to get out as soon as possible.”
“Just so you know, I can’t get you back to earth quite yet,” Alex warned. “There are a bunch of people that are going to try to kill us when we return, so we’ve got to prepare a bit before returning."
"That’s fine.” Derek shrugged. “I can be patient. I don’t mind going on vacation for a little while. Do you want to sleep now?”
I’d be willing to bet nobody has ever called a visit to the Mirrorlands a vacation before.
“I think relocating first would be a better idea,” Alex said with a shake of his head. He nudged Shale’s corpse. He didn’t mention that relocating would also buy time for his monsters to respawn. “This body is going to draw monsters. In the Mirrorlands, that could be a big problem, especially as we are now. Let’s get somewhere safer, but resting for a bit is a good idea. With Orchid here, nobody can get the Town Token before we do—and I want to level up before we deal with the poor sods waiting for us back on 274-50. We set the terms of the fight, not them.”
Orchid examined Alex with newfound respect. “You mean you’ve been holding onto your energy instead of using it to ease your restrictions? That’s… bold.”
Alex just smiled in response.
If you think that’s bold, then we’ll see what you think when you realize that I’m not even a Starfallen at all… but right now, with the amount of energy I’ve gotten since the last time I’ve advanced, I think I’ve got quite a few goodies waiting for me to cash in.
103
Fortunately, Alex and Claire were the only ones of the group that had spent any amount of time within the Mirrorlands. Neither Derek nor Orchid had the slightest clue about what locations would be safe, so they could do nothing but crane their necks and stare in awe as the group walked.
That made it pretty easy for Alex to kill just around an hour wandering aimlessly. He carried Claire on his back in a piggyback so she could focus on her magic and keeping her badly damaged body in one piece until her passive healing repaired enough to let her rest. His magic-empowered body barely noted the extra weight.
They left the black sand beaches and headed parallel to Valley Ford, sticking to any cover they could. Even though much of the Mirrorlands in this location was largely flatlands, there were still occasional jutting boulders or stray white-wood trees that littered the landscape amid a few rolling hills and distant mountains.
Alex’s thoughts drifted as they walked. Today hadn’t gone at all how he’d thought it would. He’d been planning to be back in Towntown by now, selling things to Finley. Now, that definitely wasn’t happening. He was going to need to find a different way to get access to a portal, because Valley Ford sure as hell wasn’t going to be letting him and Claire use theirs.
His gaze lingered on the Disruptor in the distance. Even though they were quite far from the Riftwarped version of Valley Ford, the silvery ship was still easily visible perched upon the massive tree in the distance.
Crackles of power twisted around the Great Tide’s machine, portals yawning open and pulling shut lethargically.
Interestingly enough, he’d learned quite a bit today, and all entirely by accident. The fight against the Broken Blade members had been surprisingly enlightening. It hadn’t cleared up every single bit of his confusion, but it had shown starlight in what had been a cloudy night.
The Disruptors had been sent by the Outworlder families to somehow allow them to use more of their power. The closer one was to a Disruptor, the less the System constrained them—which logically meant the Disruptor’s purpose was actually quite straightforward.
Its name gave it away. It disrupted the System in an area, allowing Outworlders to slip free of their bindings. The longer the machine ran, the more the invaders would be able to wrest back of their original strength.
Alex still had no idea just what the extent of the bindings was. It definitely lowered the max level of everyone, binding skills and their Soul Manifestations, but from the other things he’d heard about restrictions, he strongly suspected there was more to it than that.
It was tempting but he couldn’t just go asking Orchid about it. She was too useful on their side. He didn’t need her turning on them—at least, not before they got the Town Token.
But, as his thoughts drifted to the Outworlder woman, he couldn’t help but notice that she looked every bit as awed as Derek as they wandered beneath the molten skies of the Mirrorlands. Her lips were parted and her eyes flicked all around, trying to take in their surroundings all at once.
Has she never been to the Mirrorlands? I thought this would have been something that the Outworlders could pull off, considering they’ve got giant ships here. Maybe that’s something Claire can broach with her. I’m sure she’s already working on finding an angle of approach… at least, if she’s still fully conscious. She took a really bad beating while keeping Shale distracted.
Alex’s lips thinned at that thought. They were getting strong, but it wasn’t enough. They needed to get stronger. In the span of one falling tower of cards, the number and strength of their enemies had exploded exponentially.
Restrictions or not, if we’re going to fight against the Outworlders, I have to keep pushing. They’ve got the advantage of complete knowledge, but their potential is restrained while ours is limitless so long as we have challenge.
We’ve taken the right steps so far, but things have to accelerate.
That might have been an endless quest, but there was one thing in particular that Alex’s mind was set on. He’d seen the power that Berith could bring to bear—and what Zeal had been capable of as well.
Alex needed to evolve his Soul Manifestation to get a domain.
Meiderly had said he’d unlock that at the 3rd stage, but Absolution had used something called a Partial Soul Manifestation. That had to mean there was a way to access it before reaching the Adept stage, and Alex was determined to figure out how.
The hour slipped by, and he felt magic drain out of him, returning to his monsters as they reformed within his Spatial Mirrors.
They were in the shadow of a looming boulder with a perfectly flat face that jutted up into the sky like a tooth in a sea of waving gray hills, all cast under the shadow of a mountain range.
Crackling magic swirled at the mountain peaks where they met the twisting energy that swam across the sky of the Mirrorlands, sending off streamers of distant, howling energy. He could see distant forms moving on the mountains but wasn’t close enough to make out anything concrete.
“What are those?” Derek asked, squinting at the mountain. “Do you think they’re friendly?”
“No,” Alex said. He made his way over to the base of the boulder and glanced around. There weren’t any obvious signs of a monster lying in wait. They weren’t too close to a city, which the Mirrorlanders seemed to prefer gathering at, but he wasn’t going to assume that made them safe. “Nothing in the Mirrorlands is friendly. This seems as good of a spot to rest as any.”
“There aren’t any trees,” Orchid said with a small frown.
“We don’t want to be near those. They try to kill you.” Alex lowered Claire so she sat against the rock, then sat down beside her. He summoned Glint with a thought. The Glasmir shattered a hole through reality and stepped through the falling pieces to stand over him and Claire.
“I should have guessed,” Orchid said, lips pursed. “But I do not have my staff.”
“I don’t think breaking a branch off one of the trees is a great way to get a new one. They probably won’t like that, and we really aren’t in shape to fight anything we don’t have to right now.”
“Could I not steal a branch and run away?”
“A lot of them are pretty slow, but that’ll probably end up summoning a guardian of some sort.”
“You know a lot about the Mirrorlands.”
That was a statement, not a question. Alex tilted his head to the side, but it wasn’t exactly like he could deny Orchid’s observation. He’d literally ripped a portal open to them just a short while ago.
“I know some,” Alex allowed. If Orchid was surprised by that revelation, then traveling through the Mirrorlands definitely wasn’t complete commonplace for Outworlders.
He wished that Claire were awake so she could help him navigate the conversation, but she was still too focused on keeping herself from dying.
