Chapter 38
Istood up, my brain still groggy from the fight with the fragment of the Demon Lord.
Yet, I couldn't help but smirk, wondering if Syssy or anyone else knew that the Soul Absorption Arts were his Achilles’ heel.
The Demon Lord had done all he could to scrub it from the world; it made sense that he'd only do that for something he truly feared.
And it also made too much sense as his weakness.
If he derived so much of his strength from splitting his soul, he'd be making himself weak to soul-type attacks.
Then the Soul Absorption Art risked making his splitting and growing of his soul counterproductive.
Because now it would be me who benefited, rather than him.
Of course, he'd know his soul fragment had died.
But he'd know nothing about what had happened here.
I wondered if he'd worry, if he'd close this particular weakness, or if his overconfidence would allow me to use it again regardless.
The sun filtered in through the trees, and I grinned.
I found myself more optimistic than ever before. To go up against the Demon Lord and his armies, I felt absolutely electric, until I realized that electric feeling wasn't just in my head.
There was a static tingle coming from my hip.
I reached into my pocket to find the leech's key, absolutely buzzing with intensity as I held it in my hands.
Small arcs of electricity rippled off of it like they were reaching for the surface below me.
I glanced down at the platform I stood upon.
An ancient altar to some unknown god, promising immortality as long as you prayed to them.
It was such an odd structure. Not to mention, if I looked at it from the side, it almost appeared as if the temple was partially buried.
Like there might be far more beneath this platform.
The leech would absolutely be vain enough to create something like this.
I held the key in my hand and crouched down at the top of the temple. The whole thing seemed to vibrate as electricity curled off the key to the altar itself as soon as the connection was made. The curls of electricity were searching, and then they found something, all focusing on a square area.
The altar shifted and shuddered under my feet as a palm-sized panel in the center slid open, with a grinding noise that could only come from an ancient level of disuse.
“Stupid leech, why did you put this here?” I murmured, about to press the key into the hole that had been revealed. But then I paused, took a breath, and pulled out the rockie-talkie. I was eager to see what came next, but I’d left the others fighting Eve.
I held the rockie-talkie as it crackled to life. "Are all of you okay?" I asked.
Only for Gloria to be the one to answer. "Everything's fine. Simone kicked her ass up and down. There's no need to worry."
"Really?" I asked, letting in perhaps a little too much surprise.
"By the way"—the response came far too quickly—"do you think we're useless without you?" She said it in a way that implied there was an obviously correct answer.
"No," I said. However, it came out to be a little more of a question than I had intended. "I'm sure you guys did just fine. Eve can be tricky, and I was unsure how strong she was after our recent ordeal."
"Oh, thank you, Bran." Simone's voice came over, sounding incredibly happy with herself. "But it's fine. I headbutted her and turned her into system food."
I had no idea what that meant and was afraid to ask. Were her horns that sharp?
"Well, good," I said quickly, regaining my wits. "I didn't think she'd give you guys too much trouble, but I'm relieved to hear that you're all safe. Now, I have an interesting opportunity here, if Merlin could bring all of you," I hinted.
"Ooh, a surprise," Simone said. "Merlin, we have to go!" She shouted loud enough that it was picked up by the rockie-talkie, even though I was fairly certain she'd pulled it away from her face to shout. "Bran says he has a surprise. I do hope it's an orgy," Simone said.
They all bled out of the shadows a split second later, fast enough for me to raise an eyebrow given what was last said.
"You sure came quick, Merlin," I said, and she blushed ever so slightly.
Circe chuckled. "I wonder if she wants us all to watch."
"Please don't include me in your sexual fetishes." Venthra scowled at all of us.
Merlin's blush turned into a straight-faced glare. "I didn't make it sound dirty."
"It just was," Venthra snapped back.
"I hear you're much less cranky with other people." I turned to Venthra and smiled.
"Don't flatter yourself." Venthra’s tongue was a little quick today. "Now, what did you call us here for?"
Rather than answer with words, I bent down with the key in hand and put it in the slot.
With a swift turn of my wrist, it clunked, and more grinding happened beneath our feet before the palm-sized panel collapsed down into the structure, twisting and turning as it went, until a stairway led down into the temple we stood atop.
“Exciting, but less so than an orgy.” Simone leaned over the stairs and peered down into them. "I wonder if the Demon Lord knew about this?"
"He could have opened it at some point in his past life," Venthra offered, and we all turned to her.
"I do pay attention to what you've all been saying.
In a past life, the Demon Lord would have knowledge of many things because of it.
" She waved a hand. "Now let's go down there and see what we can find. "
"So, if the Demon Lord made a point to have a presence in this region, and he seems to be the kind to multitask…" Almeria trailed off and gestured at the open passage.
I chuckled, unsure if she knew just how real that comment was.
After all, he'd stuffed his soul into multiple bodies to manage different parts of the world, and then, even here, he had thrown his soul into thousands of fragments, sitting them inside large chunks of humanity like a parasite leeching off all of their experience—and likely some level of stat gain.
That was top-tier multitasking.
"It’s very possible," I said quickly, "given all the resources at his disposal, and the fact that he conquered the Wukong in his past life, that he might have ended up with the key and then used it here.”
Still, it was unbelievably lucky of me to have gotten this. Yet, at the same time, I had the Demon Lord to thank for it. It seemed hunting his fragments had been the right decision after all.
I went to step down the stairs as Simone followed right behind me, hands clasped in prayer before her as she cast several spells on me. I recognized Athena's Wisdom, as well as a small pearlescent barrier floating just above my skin.
"I will take no chances with your life," she said. "Besides"—she grinned and cracked an eye open at me—"it's made me even stronger."
"Your spirit," I said quickly, understanding what she meant.
Simone nodded vigorously, a smile blossoming across her face. "You have no idea how absolutely powerful I was against Eve."
I chuckled. "I can imagine. Your own abilities utilize spirit far more than mine."
"Much, much more," she said excitedly. "Though I am disappointed that we're not going to have enough time for the other part of my monarch buffs to work. This conflict with the Demon Lord is accelerating."
I chuckled and gave her a long look. "Don't be too greedy."
At my words, Simone pouted. "Syssy said it was fine, and she likes you. She won't have any issue with my attempts to make you more powerful."
I shrugged, our conversation carrying us down the stairs. Though they were poorly lit, the prismatic barriers that Simone had put on me actually did a decent job of lighting the way, making me glow like a coastal beacon trying to warn ships for miles in every direction.
"It's spooky down here," Nyx said from behind me.
"Don't worry, Bran's leading the way," Gloria said, as if I made a perfectly satisfactory shield between them and any dangers. Then again, I suppose I had every intention of being that shield, if need be.
The stairs finally came to an end, and the place leveled out until I found our group in a long, wide room with pillars lining each side.
It was the kind of room I expected of Zeus, not the leech, especially the way the columns looked positively Greek in origin, before realizing it was very likely that the Greek design aesthetic had followed the Heros Clan, who then followed the leech.
That made too much sense the more I thought about it.
At the very end of the hall was a massive vault door that I paused before. "Well, I suppose this is it," I said, and I held a hand up and traced my fingers along the door, unsure exactly how it opened.
"The key came out behind us," Nyx said, lifting it for me to see.
“Give it a shot," I said and stepped back to gesture for her. She had Heros Clan blood in her, too, so it should work.
She stepped up to the door, and the smallest keyhole appeared in the very center. Nyx shoved it in and turned, and only then did the circular door begin rolling to the right, melting into the wall as it went and revealing the hoard behind it.
There were stacks upon stacks of dark red metal coins, the likes of which I had never seen before. But that didn't stop me from stepping in and scooping up a handful to get a better look.
Simone came in behind me, kicking at the piles and knocking them over. Within the piles, there were plenty more things to explore. I picked out several powerful enchanted items before we continued to wade through what had to be the leech's long-built treasure vault.
A number of the objects that Simone pulled free were interesting; however, as was so often the case when it came to how people laid out their treasure rooms, it was the items in the center that were the best. I waded through the currency, pushing it aside, to a large stone platform on which sat a sword that couldn't be here.
For a second, I had thought it was Alabaster, my sword from my past life, but as I drew closer, it had a more yellow hue to the bone, rather than the brilliant white of my sword in my past life.
It seemed to be another sword made out of ancient beast bone.
Bloodsucker SSS - The famed leech of the heavens could find no better weapon than one made from his own body…
And you knew shit was good when the system immortalized something about it in flavor text. But I guessed that was only fair if this was really from the leech.
I frowned, wondering exactly how big he had been in his physical form. The teeth, if you could call them that of a leech, were incredibly small, but this was a full-length great sword.
I held it up. "At least you gave me something, you greedy, greedy leech."
Bloodsucker SSS - Grants the wielder Lifesteal SS
I shook my head. It wasn’t quite the impossible-to-destroy blade I had loved, but with SSS grade, and given what it was made of, it would be hard to break this blade unless I was actively trying to ruin it.
Which, of course, would be the height of folly.
One shouldn't throw away something so valuable, no matter what.
I put the blade into my spatial ring and looked up at the others, who were oohing and aahing, finding their own items amongst the hoard.
"Enjoying yourselves?" I asked.
"Immensely." Simone grinned, wearing a ridiculously ornate crown that had strings of pearls hanging off of it and glancing up from a small pile she'd made, as if she was already picking out what was going to be hers and preparing to negotiate.
"This is some good stuff," Winnie said, sounding impressed, which only told me just how nice of a haul we might have truly found.
"Take what you want," I told all of them, "and what you don't take, we'll share out with the rest of the Mul Branova." I made the decision for us before we could think through any other use for them.
"Bran," Gloria deadpanned, "this is not how you keep them off you."
"What?" I understood what she was saying, but I had no intention of keeping these rewards just to my inner group.
"Well, that's what he said," Simone said happily and began to pick more items out. "By the way, what are these coins?"
Nyx held a few up, pinched between her fingers, and began rotating them back and forth before the coins vanished, and her eyes went wide. "They interact with the system," she said with a gasp and began scooping up as many as she could.
Some long-dormant memory of mine tickled in the back of my mind.
I had heard before that system gold was different on other worlds.
"It's gold here because it's mimicking precious metals," I said, glancing down at the reddish gold at her feet.
"I suppose that means wherever the leech is from, this metal was more precious. "
All of them began happily scooping it up and incorporating it into their systems. I let them, without saying a word. Instead, I calmly watched with a faint smile on my face. "Gather up everything you can hold. We'll take all of it."
None of them seemed shy about snatching up as much as they could carry. I had the sword, and that was plenty enough for me. I happily let the rest of my people amass their own power.