Diana
“So, where are Crafter and Knight?” Krysta asked as Diana, Nitya, and Irena met her, Henrietta, and the fourteen other elves in the 27th round of the War of the Chosen.
The true answer was that Mila, Aalam, and Isaiah were all traveling back to Earth inside the blessed land, which was closed off to System access while moving, so they couldn’t connect, but that wasn’t something Diana wanted to reveal. Brom also technically wasn’t dead in the War of the Chosen, but that didn’t require any explanation as he would never log back in, just continuing to accumulate points as one of the army’s commanders until Diana was forced to replace him.
“Crafter had an epiphany a couple of weeks ago on a new weapon for Knight, and the two of them started working on it immediately. But they’re not yet done and they can’t stop in the middle.” This was the lie Mila had come up with before she started on her journey back, and, judging by Krysta’s understanding expression, it was a good one.
Henrietta, however, was about to ask more questions, so Diana immediately started deflecting as Mila had advised her. “Do you guys know why Sarra isn’t here?”
Both young woman almost immediately started to tear up and Diana didn’t quite know how to feel about how effective her friend’s long term manipulation skills were.
“The Violet Mountain Sect was destroyed.” Krysta’s voice started to break slightly at the end of her sentence, and she seemed to find it hard to say more.
“There were no survivors,” Henrietta continued, her political training seemingly giving her better control over her voice, though she was producing even more tears than Krysta. “It looks like it was some kind of giant curse.
“Her sect’s blessed land was stolen, greatly angering my father, and they even blew up the planet it had been attached to, so no one knows what happened. All anyone knows is that the sect’s Territory is now owned by some D or C rank monster called the Heavenly Spark Soul King.”
Aalam had left another antimatter bomb on the Violet Mountain Sect’s capital planet and hooked it up to take in all the energy generated by the planet’s main power plant over an entire month before exploding, so it wasn’t a surprise it managed to blow up the planet after it had fallen down to E rank. As for no one knowing more, that was obviously bad information on Henrietta’s part as quite a few people had seen Aalam sabotage the teleportation platform on Epecteos’s main planet and knew he’d taken over Epecteos’s Territory long before that of the Violet Mountain Sect.
But it was a good sign this wasn’t common knowledge yet.
“That’s too bad.” Diana didn’t have to act sad as Mila’d deliberately not interacted much with any of the party from Earth, so it wasn’t out of character for her to not have a very strong reaction. “She seemed talented.”
“She was.” Henrietta nodded, wiping the tears from her eyes with her hands, and Krysta was trying to pull herself together as well.
“Should we deal with the matter at hand then?” Irena stepped forward to take charge of the awkwardness. “Given our numbers, it will be nearly impossible to win this round, but we need to figure out who we are up against so we can potentially come to some type of deal.”
They were in a seemingly endless plains and the winner of the round would be whichever force could kill more of an extremely common type of monster, a task which would have been pretty easily solved if Aalam had been with them. But, if the enemy actually had a full army, they wouldn’t stand a chance.
Using Krysta’s portals to travel around, the members of their party who could fly, i.e. everyone but the elves, found the enemy army, and Diana realized they wouldn’t be moving on to the next round.
Most of the truly powerful forces treated the War of the Chosen as a way of training their young, not pouring extra resources into the war than what they would normally spend on the army’s members. But there were some forces which treated the War of the Chosen far more seriously, sometimes to go after the rare rewards which could be earned from placing high and sometimes just for pride.
They would cultivate a group of soldiers all following the same cultivation technique, have them follow the path of a high grade dao guide so they would all have exactly the same Laws and extremely high grade classes, and then stuff them with resources to the point the impurities in their bodies would never allow them to advance to D rank.
These soldiers would be powerful, and they would be able to combine their powers in multiple ways even without Law armor. Then, when they did manage to get Law armors, usually from some of them having specialized crafting skills designed to make such artifacts, they would be far, far more powerful than a normal army even made up of geniuses.
And they could do things like combining all their power into a huge undodgeable ranged attack like the death wind which was launched at them in the air, killing Nitya and Irena almost instantly and her and Krysta pretty much immediately after.
“Well, that was a bit disappointing.” Nana Xara sounded cheerful as Diana woke up in her room back on Earth. “Still, judging from all the sickly green eyes and the decaying tree symbol on their armors, I’m guessing you were up against the strongest army from the Forest Felling Horde of the Death Fae. And, if memory serves, they usually get within the top 256 armies in the War of the Chosen. So, not too bad.”
“There were over two million armies that did better than us.” Diana sat up on her bed and looked down at the ground for a few seconds, feeling like a failure. Aalam, Isaiah, and Mila had taken down an entire B rank force, including an actual B rank, and she couldn’t even handle less than 2,000 E ranks.
“Out of over three hundred trillion armies.” Nana Xara sounded mildly annoyed. “And almost everyone in your force was under 36.”
“Still, compared to Aalam and Mila I—”
“Don’t do that, Diana.” Nana Xara’s voice became firm. “Don’t compare yourself against them. It’s not going to do you any good.”
“Well, that’s a great pep talk.”
“They’re a complementary pair, Diana. They operate differently than you do.” Nana Xara still sounded serious, but Diana realized her teacher was making a very different point than she’d originally been expecting, so she shut up and listened.
“Without Aalam, Mila wouldn’t have enough talent to gain her current level of power, and, without Mila, Aalam would have gotten himself killed many times over. Your cultivation talent is less than your brother’s and your people manipulation and crisis management skills are less than Mila’s, but you have high levels of both. Unlike them, you could do well on your own.
“But comparing yourself to their combined strengths and not taking into account their weaknesses? That’s just stupid.”
Diana took a deep breath, giving herself a few seconds. “Alright. You have a point.
“It just feels like our relationships from before the integration are still the same. Aalam does something insane. Mila covers for him, getting rid of the worst problems. And I’m left unable to do a perfect job with the aftermath.”
“Is that a bad thing?”
Diana walked over to her balcony and jumped down to the beach of the enlightenment zone. “It does kind of feel like I’m always second fiddle. But I guess I’m probably the happiest of us three, and I definitely have the healthiest relationships.”
“Now if only I could block you out like Mila does.”
“Oh, right, Mila didn’t tell you yet.” Diana could almost imagine Nana Xara with a mischievous smile. “The blessed land has areas which are blocked off entirely from the System, let alone me.”
“Wait, really?” Diana didn’t resist the urge and started to jump up and down on the beach. “That is awesome. I can finally get rid of you and have some peace.”
“Well, that’s hurtful.” Nana Xara still sounded like she was smiling, but Diana was pretty sure she’d made a mistake. She’d gone a bit too far and truly insulted a woman famous for her acts of vengeance. “Mila also didn’t tell you your brother was trying to commit suicide again and she had to talk him down.”
There was silence for five seconds as Diana immediately stopped jumping and just stood there.
“Well, I should get going now.” Nana Xara still sounded quite cheerful and Diana couldn’t tell if it was an act, which kind of scared her. “They should be back in two months and you can hear the entire story from your boyfriend, who almost let Aalam have his way.”
Diana just stood there for a while and, while the emotional side of her brain was panicking, the rational side of her brain realized Mila had almost certainly already handled the situation much better than she could have herself and there was nothing she could do about it anyway.
The rational side of her brain, however, was quickly drowned out and Diana set into panic mode.
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Diana
“So, where are Crafter and Knight?” Krysta asked as Diana, Nitya, and Irena met her, Henrietta, and the fourteen other elves in the 27th round of the War of the Chosen.
The true answer was that Mila, Aalam, and Isaiah were all traveling back to Earth inside the blessed land, which was closed off to System access while moving, so they couldn’t connect, but that wasn’t something Diana wanted to reveal. Brom also technically wasn’t dead in the War of the Chosen, but that didn’t require any explanation as he would never log back in, just continuing to accumulate points as one of the army’s commanders until Diana was forced to replace him.
“Crafter had an epiphany a couple of weeks ago on a new weapon for Knight, and the two of them started working on it immediately. But they’re not yet done and they can’t stop in the middle.” This was the lie Mila had come up with before she started on her journey back, and, judging by Krysta’s understanding expression, it was a good one.
Henrietta, however, was about to ask more questions, so Diana immediately started deflecting as Mila had advised her. “Do you guys know why Sarra isn’t here?”
Both young woman almost immediately started to tear up and Diana didn’t quite know how to feel about how effective her friend’s long term manipulation skills were.
“The Violet Mountain Sect was destroyed.” Krysta’s voice started to break slightly at the end of her sentence, and she seemed to find it hard to say more.
“There were no survivors,” Henrietta continued, her political training seemingly giving her better control over her voice, though she was producing even more tears than Krysta. “It looks like it was some kind of giant curse.
“Her sect’s blessed land was stolen, greatly angering my father, and they even blew up the planet it had been attached to, so no one knows what happened. All anyone knows is that the sect’s Territory is now owned by some D or C rank monster called the Heavenly Spark Soul King.”
Aalam had left another antimatter bomb on the Violet Mountain Sect’s capital planet and hooked it up to take in all the energy generated by the planet’s main power plant over an entire month before exploding, so it wasn’t a surprise it managed to blow up the planet after it had fallen down to E rank. As for no one knowing more, that was obviously bad information on Henrietta’s part as quite a few people had seen Aalam sabotage the teleportation platform on Epecteos’s main planet and knew he’d taken over Epecteos’s Territory long before that of the Violet Mountain Sect.
But it was a good sign this wasn’t common knowledge yet.
“That’s too bad.” Diana didn’t have to act sad as Mila’d deliberately not interacted much with any of the party from Earth, so it wasn’t out of character for her to not have a very strong reaction. “She seemed talented.”
“She was.” Henrietta nodded, wiping the tears from her eyes with her hands, and Krysta was trying to pull herself together as well.
“Should we deal with the matter at hand then?” Irena stepped forward to take charge of the awkwardness. “Given our numbers, it will be nearly impossible to win this round, but we need to figure out who we are up against so we can potentially come to some type of deal.”
They were in a seemingly endless plains and the winner of the round would be whichever force could kill more of an extremely common type of monster, a task which would have been pretty easily solved if Aalam had been with them. But, if the enemy actually had a full army, they wouldn’t stand a chance.
Using Krysta’s portals to travel around, the members of their party who could fly, i.e. everyone but the elves, found the enemy army, and Diana realized they wouldn’t be moving on to the next round.
Most of the truly powerful forces treated the War of the Chosen as a way of training their young, not pouring extra resources into the war than what they would normally spend on the army’s members. But there were some forces which treated the War of the Chosen far more seriously, sometimes to go after the rare rewards which could be earned from placing high and sometimes just for pride.
They would cultivate a group of soldiers all following the same cultivation technique, have them follow the path of a high grade dao guide so they would all have exactly the same Laws and extremely high grade classes, and then stuff them with resources to the point the impurities in their bodies would never allow them to advance to D rank.
These soldiers would be powerful, and they would be able to combine their powers in multiple ways even without Law armor. Then, when they did manage to get Law armors, usually from some of them having specialized crafting skills designed to make such artifacts, they would be far, far more powerful than a normal army even made up of geniuses.
And they could do things like combining all their power into a huge undodgeable ranged attack like the death wind which was launched at them in the air, killing Nitya and Irena almost instantly and her and Krysta pretty much immediately after.
“Well, that was a bit disappointing.” Nana Xara sounded cheerful as Diana woke up in her room back on Earth. “Still, judging from all the sickly green eyes and the decaying tree symbol on their armors, I’m guessing you were up against the strongest army from the Forest Felling Horde of the Death Fae. And, if memory serves, they usually get within the top 256 armies in the War of the Chosen. So, not too bad.”
“There were over two million armies that did better than us.” Diana sat up on her bed and looked down at the ground for a few seconds, feeling like a failure. Aalam, Isaiah, and Mila had taken down an entire B rank force, including an actual B rank, and she couldn’t even handle less than 2,000 E ranks.
“Out of over three hundred trillion armies.” Nana Xara sounded mildly annoyed. “And almost everyone in your force was under 36.”
“Still, compared to Aalam and Mila I—”
“Don’t do that, Diana.” Nana Xara’s voice became firm. “Don’t compare yourself against them. It’s not going to do you any good.”
“Well, that’s a great pep talk.”
“They’re a complementary pair, Diana. They operate differently than you do.” Nana Xara still sounded serious, but Diana realized her teacher was making a very different point than she’d originally been expecting, so she shut up and listened.
“Without Aalam, Mila wouldn’t have enough talent to gain her current level of power, and, without Mila, Aalam would have gotten himself killed many times over. Your cultivation talent is less than your brother’s and your people manipulation and crisis management skills are less than Mila’s, but you have high levels of both. Unlike them, you could do well on your own.
“But comparing yourself to their combined strengths and not taking into account their weaknesses? That’s just stupid.”
Diana took a deep breath, giving herself a few seconds. “Alright. You have a point.
“It just feels like our relationships from before the integration are still the same. Aalam does something insane. Mila covers for him, getting rid of the worst problems. And I’m left unable to do a perfect job with the aftermath.”
“Is that a bad thing?”
Diana walked over to her balcony and jumped down to the beach of the enlightenment zone. “It does kind of feel like I’m always second fiddle. But I guess I’m probably the happiest of us three, and I definitely have the healthiest relationships.”
“Now if only I could block you out like Mila does.”
“Oh, right, Mila didn’t tell you yet.” Diana could almost imagine Nana Xara with a mischievous smile. “The blessed land has areas which are blocked off entirely from the System, let alone me.”
“Wait, really?” Diana didn’t resist the urge and started to jump up and down on the beach. “That is awesome. I can finally get rid of you and have some peace.”
“Well, that’s hurtful.” Nana Xara still sounded like she was smiling, but Diana was pretty sure she’d made a mistake. She’d gone a bit too far and truly insulted a woman famous for her acts of vengeance. “Mila also didn’t tell you your brother was trying to commit suicide again and she had to talk him down.”
There was silence for five seconds as Diana immediately stopped jumping and just stood there.
“Well, I should get going now.” Nana Xara still sounded quite cheerful and Diana couldn’t tell if it was an act, which kind of scared her. “They should be back in two months and you can hear the entire story from your boyfriend, who almost let Aalam have his way.”
Diana just stood there for a while and, while the emotional side of her brain was panicking, the rational side of her brain realized Mila had almost certainly already handled the situation much better than she could have herself and there was nothing she could do about it anyway.
The rational side of her brain, however, was quickly drowned out and Diana set into panic mode.
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.
