Isaiah
“What exactly was your plan, Aalam?” Mila asked after a couple minutes, taking a closer look at the formations in the cave. “For example, when are you planning on activating the gathering of souls.”
“I was going to wait at least another twelve hours.” Aalam spoke as he made modifications to the curse the Altar of Sacrifice would release. “Souls generally last about three days before they start to fall apart, so there isn’t a huge rush. And three of the plagues activate when a human or jinn falls asleep, making them never wake up, so it’s safer to wait until they kick in for most of the population.
“Then we wait until everyone on the planet is dead, walk right into the Violet Mountain Sect, and take the artifact they use for creating those mountain marks. With the artifact, we can then activate the curse on those not on the planet, and, after about forty-eight hours, we change the parameters of the curse to target the Violet Mountain Lord himself and wait for him to come here to stop the curse.
“Him reaching here will take at least a month, giving the device I will have attached to the planet’s power supply enough time to form the required amount of antimatter, and for us to be safely gone with the Violet Mountain Blessed Land. Then, due to separate activation conditions in the curse formation, the full force of the curse will hit him when he arrives, weakening him enough to allow the plagues to take effect. Finally, the bomb will destroy the planet, hopefully damaging him in the process and allowing the plagues and curse energy to take him out.”
“Okay.” Mila nodded. “That’s actually a pretty well thought out plan.”
Her anger spiked as she continued to talk, far more controlled than before, but Isaiah couldn’t understand why. “It will, however, no longer work so we’ll have to modify it a bit.
“Before that, though, I have one last question.”
Aalam looked away from the formations he was modifying, turning toward her.
“Who were you going to get to kill you for the rewards for your effective suicide?”
Isaiah only belatedly realized something rather obvious. Aalam had planned on taking over the Violet Mountain Blessed Land, an extremely powerful god level artifact, and then use it to get the three of them off the planet. This meant he wasn’t planning on dying with the Violet Mountain Sect, but first taking them back to Earth. And the implications of that were not pleasant, especially when Aalam looked over at him in response to the question.
“Damn it, Aalam.” Mila started glaring at Aalam again. “That’s even worse than the mass murder thing.”
Aalam frowned and looked like he was about to say something, but Mila waved her hand, indicating for him to not even start. “Let’s just focus on what we need to do first. I don’t want to have this conversation with you until you’re no longer in the Id state.”
“Alright.” Aalam nodded and then looked back at the formations he was still modifying. “Why will the plan no longer work?”
“Your plan takes as an assumption that the Violet Mountain Sect doesn’t realize until too late how they are being attacked and that the Violet Mountain Lord would try to stop a curse affecting him instead of running away. But neither of those things will happen.
“I had to declare war against the sect while within the Violet Mountain Blessed Land without them killing me, so I tricked them into thinking I was the apprentice of an actually living A rank and that the Heavenly Spark Soul King was the follower of the A rank force’s prince.
“It was very clever.
“That said, however, the Violet Mountain Lord now thinks he’s the target of an A rank force and the sect elders are all either on this planet or in the Violet Mountain Blessed Land, all on guard against an A rank force appearing and killing them all.”
“Well, that complicates things.” Aalam didn’t look up from the formations, but Isaiah could tell from experience that he was paying more attention to the conversation than usual, probably more than one of his minds focused on Mila.
“On the bright side, though,” Mila continued, smirking ever so slightly, “I wasn’t doing nothing over the last twenty-four hours.
“First, the Violet Mountain Blessed Land has a system in place to scan for diseases, separate from the System for the planet which was destroyed when you took out the teleportation platform, and I managed to secretly turn it off. Second, I stole the Bond Holding Orb, the artifact which created the mountain marks, though we do have to be careful as it is still bonded to one of the sect’s elders. Third, I sabotaged several key nodes of the planet’s local teleportation network, which will make searching for us far more difficult. And, finally, fourth,”—Mila summoned a large block of some kind of purplish metal, enough to craft a full set of plate armor—“I snuck into the Violet Mountain Lord’s residence and took the violet titanium quintessence he’d stored away for himself.”
Isaiah, who’d studied the Violet Mountain Sect along with the others over the years, found himself growing excited.
The Violet Mountain Blessed Land produced several natural treasures on a regular basis. Crystal water was a C rank material used in a lot of middle rank alchemical pills and the Violet Mountain Blessed Land produced about 500 liters a day. Crystal stone was a C rank building material which the blessed land produced 125 kilograms of a day. And violet mountain titanium was a C rank metal useful for middle grade D rank artifacts, the blessed land producing about 3 kilograms per day.
Then, every several thousand years or so, the blessed land would produce higher B rank versions of these materials, crystal water essence, crystal stone essence, and violet titanium essence. And, every few million years, it would produce even higher A rank versions, crystal water quintessence, crystal stone quintessence, and violet titanium quintessence.
The violet titanium quintessence was the most expensive material the Violet Mountain Blessed Land produced, and the production volume was measured in grams, so to get the amount Mila had just summoned out of what looked like a specialized spatial storage ring, the Violet Mountain Lord would have had to steal the entire production of over a billion years—or, Isaiah realized, underreported the blessed land’s production rate by half.
Still, the amount Mila had was worth a ridiculous amount, and, more important, it could be used by an A rank smith to make an A rank artifact. Just the fact there was even a spatial storage ring which would allow an E rank to take such a material out was amazing.
“There’s going to be an extremely large amount of primal energy floating around this room in the very near future.” Mila smiled slightly as she looked at Aalam’s very excited face, the latter having turned almost his full attention onto her and the metal. “I was thinking you could use that energy to forge something interesting, maybe a large sword in honor of Epecteos.”
Aalam finished what he was doing with the formations and walked over to Mila, taking the large block of metal from her, treating the multiple kilograms as if it weighed almost nothing due to his strength. Then he started pouring his qi, mana, and psyforce into it and the metal began to change slightly, the process extremely slow due to the material’s high rank and grade.
“Alright.” Mila shook her head slightly as Aalam showed yet again how he was far more interested in crafting artifacts then in talking with anyone. “The modifications to the plan are relatively simple then. You turn on the soul collection when you were already planning, but you also modify the curse to take in the Bond Holding Orb and attack anyone with a mountain mark who enters the Kimali Mountains. Next, when we have enough souls, you change the parameters of the curse to target anyone with a mountain mark on the planet. Then, after about a day, you target everyone with a mountain mark still alive within range of the curse.
“Isaiah and I then start looting the planet while you prepare what you need to target the Violet Mountain Lord if he’s stupid enough to return here. Then, finally, you go to the inheritance room in the Violet Mountain Blessed Land and try to claim the ancient artifact as your own.
“If that succeeds, we run back home and leave the Violet Mountain Lord’s fate in his own hands. If not, all three of us die as soon as someone powerful arrives.”
Aalam, in his plan, had assumed he’d be able to take over the Violet Mountain Blessed Land, as it was obviously a crafting inheritance for monsters, but Isaiah now realized that assumption could be wrong. Yes, Aalam was a monster. And, yes, Aalam was about as powerful of a crafter as an E rank could be. But they didn’t actually know the criteria required to receive the crafting inheritance and full control over the Violet Mountain Blessed Land.
From Mila’s investigations, they only knew the crafting inheritance was still fully intact and that receiving it would result in control over the blessed land.
For all they knew, an E rank might not even be eligible, or maybe the god who created the blessed land hated incubi and wouldn’t allow his inheritance to pass down to one. There were any number of ways things could go wrong.
For that matter, Isaiah realized, they were taking for granted that everyone on the planet and in the blessed land would die from the plagues and the curse which followed, assuming they would stay hidden until the curse was powerful enough to protect them. But that wasn’t a given either.
If they could create plagues, others could eliminate them or make vaccines. And if they could make a powerful curse, some of the Violet Mountain Sect’s C ranks might be far more resistant to curses than they expected, or maybe not even have a mountain mark.
There were a lot of variables still up in the air, and Isaiah was pretty much powerless to alter any of them in their favor. He couldn’t alter the plagues and curse like Aalam, and he didn’t have the skills to be sneaky like Mila.
Isaiah’s role was to be the fighter of the group, the protector, but Aalam’s stats were far higher than his at the moment and anyone who could be a threat to him was a D rank or higher, not someone Isaiah could go up against.
Resigned, he did what he always did whenever he had free time. He summoned out the spear and shield set Aalam had made him several years before, and he started to practice with them.
To his surprise, though, while using some of his minds to continue crafting and making modifications to the formations around the Altar of Souls, Aalam summoned out his own blade and started practicing as well. And, as Aalam seemed to actually be interested in his practice, Isaiah spent the next half a day pointing out flaws in Aalam’s stances.
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And a special thank you to Shadow of the Soul King's patrons, who get to read over thirty chapters ahead as well as the work I'm preparing for traditional publishing.
Isaiah
“What exactly was your plan, Aalam?” Mila asked after a couple minutes, taking a closer look at the formations in the cave. “For example, when are you planning on activating the gathering of souls.”
“I was going to wait at least another twelve hours.” Aalam spoke as he made modifications to the curse the Altar of Sacrifice would release. “Souls generally last about three days before they start to fall apart, so there isn’t a huge rush. And three of the plagues activate when a human or jinn falls asleep, making them never wake up, so it’s safer to wait until they kick in for most of the population.
“Then we wait until everyone on the planet is dead, walk right into the Violet Mountain Sect, and take the artifact they use for creating those mountain marks. With the artifact, we can then activate the curse on those not on the planet, and, after about forty-eight hours, we change the parameters of the curse to target the Violet Mountain Lord himself and wait for him to come here to stop the curse.
“Him reaching here will take at least a month, giving the device I will have attached to the planet’s power supply enough time to form the required amount of antimatter, and for us to be safely gone with the Violet Mountain Blessed Land. Then, due to separate activation conditions in the curse formation, the full force of the curse will hit him when he arrives, weakening him enough to allow the plagues to take effect. Finally, the bomb will destroy the planet, hopefully damaging him in the process and allowing the plagues and curse energy to take him out.”
“Okay.” Mila nodded. “That’s actually a pretty well thought out plan.”
Her anger spiked as she continued to talk, far more controlled than before, but Isaiah couldn’t understand why. “It will, however, no longer work so we’ll have to modify it a bit.
“Before that, though, I have one last question.”
Aalam looked away from the formations he was modifying, turning toward her.
“Who were you going to get to kill you for the rewards for your effective suicide?”
Isaiah only belatedly realized something rather obvious. Aalam had planned on taking over the Violet Mountain Blessed Land, an extremely powerful god level artifact, and then use it to get the three of them off the planet. This meant he wasn’t planning on dying with the Violet Mountain Sect, but first taking them back to Earth. And the implications of that were not pleasant, especially when Aalam looked over at him in response to the question.
“Damn it, Aalam.” Mila started glaring at Aalam again. “That’s even worse than the mass murder thing.”
Aalam frowned and looked like he was about to say something, but Mila waved her hand, indicating for him to not even start. “Let’s just focus on what we need to do first. I don’t want to have this conversation with you until you’re no longer in the Id state.”
“Alright.” Aalam nodded and then looked back at the formations he was still modifying. “Why will the plan no longer work?”
“Your plan takes as an assumption that the Violet Mountain Sect doesn’t realize until too late how they are being attacked and that the Violet Mountain Lord would try to stop a curse affecting him instead of running away. But neither of those things will happen.
“I had to declare war against the sect while within the Violet Mountain Blessed Land without them killing me, so I tricked them into thinking I was the apprentice of an actually living A rank and that the Heavenly Spark Soul King was the follower of the A rank force’s prince.
“It was very clever.
“That said, however, the Violet Mountain Lord now thinks he’s the target of an A rank force and the sect elders are all either on this planet or in the Violet Mountain Blessed Land, all on guard against an A rank force appearing and killing them all.”
“Well, that complicates things.” Aalam didn’t look up from the formations, but Isaiah could tell from experience that he was paying more attention to the conversation than usual, probably more than one of his minds focused on Mila.
“On the bright side, though,” Mila continued, smirking ever so slightly, “I wasn’t doing nothing over the last twenty-four hours.
“First, the Violet Mountain Blessed Land has a system in place to scan for diseases, separate from the System for the planet which was destroyed when you took out the teleportation platform, and I managed to secretly turn it off. Second, I stole the Bond Holding Orb, the artifact which created the mountain marks, though we do have to be careful as it is still bonded to one of the sect’s elders. Third, I sabotaged several key nodes of the planet’s local teleportation network, which will make searching for us far more difficult. And, finally, fourth,”—Mila summoned a large block of some kind of purplish metal, enough to craft a full set of plate armor—“I snuck into the Violet Mountain Lord’s residence and took the violet titanium quintessence he’d stored away for himself.”
Isaiah, who’d studied the Violet Mountain Sect along with the others over the years, found himself growing excited.
The Violet Mountain Blessed Land produced several natural treasures on a regular basis. Crystal water was a C rank material used in a lot of middle rank alchemical pills and the Violet Mountain Blessed Land produced about 500 liters a day. Crystal stone was a C rank building material which the blessed land produced 125 kilograms of a day. And violet mountain titanium was a C rank metal useful for middle grade D rank artifacts, the blessed land producing about 3 kilograms per day.
Then, every several thousand years or so, the blessed land would produce higher B rank versions of these materials, crystal water essence, crystal stone essence, and violet titanium essence. And, every few million years, it would produce even higher A rank versions, crystal water quintessence, crystal stone quintessence, and violet titanium quintessence.
The violet titanium quintessence was the most expensive material the Violet Mountain Blessed Land produced, and the production volume was measured in grams, so to get the amount Mila had just summoned out of what looked like a specialized spatial storage ring, the Violet Mountain Lord would have had to steal the entire production of over a billion years—or, Isaiah realized, underreported the blessed land’s production rate by half.
Still, the amount Mila had was worth a ridiculous amount, and, more important, it could be used by an A rank smith to make an A rank artifact. Just the fact there was even a spatial storage ring which would allow an E rank to take such a material out was amazing.
“There’s going to be an extremely large amount of primal energy floating around this room in the very near future.” Mila smiled slightly as she looked at Aalam’s very excited face, the latter having turned almost his full attention onto her and the metal. “I was thinking you could use that energy to forge something interesting, maybe a large sword in honor of Epecteos.”
Aalam finished what he was doing with the formations and walked over to Mila, taking the large block of metal from her, treating the multiple kilograms as if it weighed almost nothing due to his strength. Then he started pouring his qi, mana, and psyforce into it and the metal began to change slightly, the process extremely slow due to the material’s high rank and grade.
“Alright.” Mila shook her head slightly as Aalam showed yet again how he was far more interested in crafting artifacts then in talking with anyone. “The modifications to the plan are relatively simple then. You turn on the soul collection when you were already planning, but you also modify the curse to take in the Bond Holding Orb and attack anyone with a mountain mark who enters the Kimali Mountains. Next, when we have enough souls, you change the parameters of the curse to target anyone with a mountain mark on the planet. Then, after about a day, you target everyone with a mountain mark still alive within range of the curse.
“Isaiah and I then start looting the planet while you prepare what you need to target the Violet Mountain Lord if he’s stupid enough to return here. Then, finally, you go to the inheritance room in the Violet Mountain Blessed Land and try to claim the ancient artifact as your own.
“If that succeeds, we run back home and leave the Violet Mountain Lord’s fate in his own hands. If not, all three of us die as soon as someone powerful arrives.”
Aalam, in his plan, had assumed he’d be able to take over the Violet Mountain Blessed Land, as it was obviously a crafting inheritance for monsters, but Isaiah now realized that assumption could be wrong. Yes, Aalam was a monster. And, yes, Aalam was about as powerful of a crafter as an E rank could be. But they didn’t actually know the criteria required to receive the crafting inheritance and full control over the Violet Mountain Blessed Land.
From Mila’s investigations, they only knew the crafting inheritance was still fully intact and that receiving it would result in control over the blessed land.
For all they knew, an E rank might not even be eligible, or maybe the god who created the blessed land hated incubi and wouldn’t allow his inheritance to pass down to one. There were any number of ways things could go wrong.
For that matter, Isaiah realized, they were taking for granted that everyone on the planet and in the blessed land would die from the plagues and the curse which followed, assuming they would stay hidden until the curse was powerful enough to protect them. But that wasn’t a given either.
If they could create plagues, others could eliminate them or make vaccines. And if they could make a powerful curse, some of the Violet Mountain Sect’s C ranks might be far more resistant to curses than they expected, or maybe not even have a mountain mark.
There were a lot of variables still up in the air, and Isaiah was pretty much powerless to alter any of them in their favor. He couldn’t alter the plagues and curse like Aalam, and he didn’t have the skills to be sneaky like Mila.
Isaiah’s role was to be the fighter of the group, the protector, but Aalam’s stats were far higher than his at the moment and anyone who could be a threat to him was a D rank or higher, not someone Isaiah could go up against.
Resigned, he did what he always did whenever he had free time. He summoned out the spear and shield set Aalam had made him several years before, and he started to practice with them.
To his surprise, though, while using some of his minds to continue crafting and making modifications to the formations around the Altar of Souls, Aalam summoned out his own blade and started practicing as well. And, as Aalam seemed to actually be interested in his practice, Isaiah spent the next half a day pointing out flaws in Aalam’s stances.
Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/thirteenlifelegion
Vote for SotSK on TopWebFiction! http://topwebfiction.com/listings/shadow-of-the-soul-king/
And a special thank you to Shadow of the Soul King's patrons, who get to read over thirty chapters ahead as well as the work I'm preparing for traditional publishing.
