Malcolm Tent
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Wish upon the Stars chapter 698
🕑 Added 2024-08-23 23:33:59 +0000 UTCThings got surprisingly quiet after the big rescue. Or rather, we entered the calm before the storm. Our raid was echoing through the entire planet like thunder, and all of Callie’s reports mentioned the aftereffects. Millions of tiny skirmishes, F-rankers and some of the few E-rankers we’d left in place taking any shots they could at their oppressors, more than a few managing to actually kill some of the vanished gods followers.
Of course, there was a lot more unhappy endings than happy ones. For every F-ranker who managed to take out a Wendigo, there were a dozen who got torn apart in front of their friends and allies.
Weirdly, that didn’t seem to dissuade as much as enflame them. More incidents took place every day, and the number of enemies had dropped from about a thousand to something like six hundred and fifty. A colossal number of Wendigos and quite a few of their main force had been whittled away, and I’d gotten a LOT of the credit. I was more than happy to take the huge infusion of renown that might be one of the last boosts I got during this debacle.
At least…in the abstract. I was having a bit of trouble with exactly how this huge swing in popularity had come about. Namely, the absolute massacre I’d affected in G-district.
“You shouldn’t let it get to you like this.” Sighed Callie’s voice in my head. “You know you did what you needed to do. You didn’t pick this fight, they did, and they’re even now hurting our people You did the right thing.”
I laughed hollowly. “I know. I trust your moral compass more than my own. But it’s harder to shrug off mass murder than having to put down somebody trying to actively kill me. Especially after that nightmare at the Unity building. Being in that headspace, feeling that satisfaction as I essentially tortured someone to death, that makes me sick. The justification for the massacre rings a bit hollow given how horrible that incident was.”
“If anything, it should be the opposite.” She sent firmly. “Those people WERE actively trying to kill you. Or at least capture you to BE killed. Every one of them followed you down there with that express intention. Killing all of them at once must feel awful, but their deaths were quick and probably mostly painless. No time to suffer. It’s a stark contrast to what that…technique did to you.”
“What it made me, you mean.” I swallowed hard at the thought of it. “I was… I was a monster. And it felt GOOD. It’s not even the fact that I did it that bothers me the most, bad as that sounds. I know he was an enemy and was straight up trying to kill me. It’s that you felt that. I turned into the version of me that I fear becoming more than anything, and you had to watch that.”
To my surprise, there wasn’t even a flicker of doubt or disgust through the bond. “Recursion is a fickle bitch.” She stated unequivocally. “I don’t think worse of you for getting sucked into some supercharged version of it that made you get a little too vicious in a fight. That’s what you did. Not who you are. I know who you are, Shane. Even if no one else does, I know better than anyone. You’re the man who inspired hundreds of thousands of residents of this planet to stand up and take the fight to the enemy. To make a REAL difference in their own situation. You’re a hero Shane. You’re MY hero.”
And she meant that. I knew it. Could feel it like I could feel the stone under my feet and the armor against my skin. It wasn’t a cure all. I’d brushed aside what I’d done in the moment, but that was far more difficult inside the privacy of my own head. But it was enough. Another voice to counteract the one telling me I was an abomination. The only voice that really mattered.
I felt my body relax as I leaned back on the bed. I was still resting, the damage had taken about a week to fade, with nothing on my docket but wishes and resting. It had been extremely frustrating, but at least Callie had been keeping me company. We’d been similarly infuriated by our positions, and not being alone always helped.
This particular crisis of conscience had been brought on by my upcoming power boost. I had no clue exactly how much renown I’d gained after that mess, but all those points came soaked in the blood of…I forced myself to change my mental tone.
No reason to go back down the rabbit hole my wife had just pulled me out of. “Alright.” I finally said. “I’m not going to take up all your time. I have some stats to process, and given the small percentage relative to my total, I’m not going to need help resisting the pressure. I’m sure you have your own boost to get to. Once you get back maybe we can download about our growth.” I forced a tinge of competetiveness into my thoughts. “Maybe I was even able to keep up with the mighty godslayer.”
She could feel my intention there, and of course, she played along. “Don’t worry your pretty little head about it.” She said condescendingly. “Even if you didn’t catch up. I promise I won’t let the big bad cultists hurt you.” One of the upsides of the bond was that we always felt each other’s intent. Even when she purposely gave the impression of taunting me, I got the aftertaste of joking affection. It was a subtext that never came with any verbal jabs, and one I appreciated.
Where that might normally have been borderline offensive to me, deep down, the teasing was comforting now. Progress wasn’t worrying me anymore. Not after entering Limbo. Now I was more worried about consequences. She knew me well enough to know what was really bothering me, and I could feel the support through the bond. I wasn’t going to lose it like that ever again. She wasn’t going to let me.
I felt when she retreated from my head, taking a more remote view though not actually abandoning me. She was always with me when I needed her. Sighing, I got up from the bed and tried to…get ready.
It was stupid really. This influx of points wasn’t somehow different or special because I got it from killing a bunch of people. Stats were stats. But it FELT different. Even without the baggage, it felt more portentous. Like it would change me, even though I knew that all stats changed me and this wouldn’t be any different for that fact.
There was no downside to getting ‘ready’ though. I stretched, did some pushups, then realized my procrastination had become somewhat ridiculous and sat down with my legs crossed as I finally let the renown crash over me.
In the last week, I’d gotten four hundred and ninety points from wishes (mostly in Fantasy) so I had a decent scale to judge the changes I would be going through. Specifically, I’d accrued a staggering nine thousand, two hundred points receiving the adulation and revulsion of an entire planet of an entire captive planet and its captors.
Wishmaster candidate status. E-rank. Ability: Expert Wish- Seven times a day grant an Expert wish in return for proper compensation. Wish must be feasibly achievable by the candidate's own efforts within a three day period with current statistics.
Expert Path of the Doom Sovereign- A Solid Path toward a great destiny.
Might-16,200
Impact-65
Fantasy-12,020
Vitality-12,242
Focus-11,920
Perception-13,004
Creation-10,054
Progress to next rank:75,505/100,000
Soul strength- Sapphire Soul Body
Stored:7 shadow attacks, 10 shadow jump (seven in reserve), 10 Stealth charges, 0 fire attacks, 10 triple strenth tranq blows (ten in reserve), 0 triple strength density shifted attacks. 10 spider leg attacks (ten in reserve), 0 heal bursts (0 reserve), 3 gravity attacks, 1 shadow clone, 18 scan heals (I-rank ability so Shane can hold more)
Pet- Wolf named Jin
Financial resources: 50 E-ranked chits 41 D-ranked(worth 100 E-ranked, past master rank is a watershed)
Skills: Expert Path of the Doom Sovereign, Lesser Valtek Mastery, Intermediate Cooking Mastery, Lesser Inventing Mastery, Beginner Balam Mastery, Minor Fire Manipulation Mastery, Minor Piano Mastery, Minor Guitar Mastery, Minor First Aid Mastery, Expert Paired Dueling, Expert Dust Construction Mastery
DS Subskills. Monk: Stone Limb, Moonlit Night, Consecration of Flame, Ripple Running, State of Grace, Steam Arrow, Afterburner, Pit of Despair, Mountain Stance.
Rogue: Mercy Kill, Double Trouble, Touch of Tears, Flurry of Blows, Heavy hands, Marked for Death, False Fatality
Diviner: Overlay, Song of the Soil, Rhythm of the Wild, Eye of Revelation, Danger Sense, Piece of Mind
Goetia Staff Art:
First form- Belial. Touch of Tears, Stone Limb, Consecration of Flames
Second Form- Mephistopheles. Consecration of Flame, Afterburner, Mercy Kill, Marked for Death.
Techniques: Cosmic Collapse: comdensed sphere of black flame that explodes out one side amplifying force. Mephisto's Waltz: Movement technique, Damnatio Memoriae: causes the ground iself to dissolve best used on mountains to cause avalanches
Circle of Damnation: defensive technique through destruction
Third form- Mornax. Stone Limb, Triple Strength Density Shifting (x10 F-rank stored attacks), Mountain Stance
Fourth form - Zagan. Heal Burst, Purifying Flame, Consecration of Flame, Afterburner
Techniques: Life Nova, purifying and healing version of Cosmic Collapse.Genesis Burst: enhanced version of Life Nova designed to repair soul damage.
Fifth form- Bael. Moonlit Night, Eye of Revelation (inverted), Afterburner (full effectiveness is seven times base Perception due to stacking, can only currently stack a single stat, unlike wish power which stacks them all)
Sixth form- Beelzebub. Piece of Mind, Stone Limb, Dust Construction, Shadow Clone. Create twelve copies (thirteen versions total) of Shane, each copy able to use a single form without straining Shane's soul past the strain of the original technique, which is only slightly more of a strain than a normal form and still allows one additional form to be used without overstraining. Can't remote control the forms, but can communicate with them remotely via telepathy principles from Paired Dueling. Might and Perception stacking, most versatile and well designed form yet.
First Circle of Hell- Limbo. Belial, Mephistopheles, Moonlit Night, Eye of Revelation. A psuedo Domain of confusion and mental manipulation, distorting the senses and controlling the body.
There was so much to unpack there. Over four thousand Might, the payment for crushing hundreds of people, thousands of Focus, for pulling off a rebellion against an occupation in such a way that the average person probably thought I was a genius. And that last bit. The codification of my mistake, proof of my stupidity and short sightedness, and a lure of power I knew I couldn’t follow.
I exhaled slowly. Three quarters of the way through. So close and yet so far away. I wondered how long it would be before I hit my limits. I couldn’t break through here, not yet. When the formation pushed Callus over the edge though…would I be close enough to ride that wave to D-rank? And what would my life be like when I did? Without Zeke to protect and watch over me, how different would things be?”
But then…Zeke wasn’t here now, was he? Hadn’t been for more than a month. I’d been doing it on my own all this time, and I was still here. That thought helped center me, affirm my confidence, and steel my nerves.
Which, of course, was when the explosion rocked the fortress. I was on my feet and out the door faster than I could think, taking the nearest hallway to the parapet to figure out what was happening. When I reached the battlements, I met several of the others out there, likewise checking on the commotion.
As we looked out over the fields of several hundred Ascendants, I felt my hands curl into angry fists. “Get the civilians to the evacuation points.” I ordered the nearest E-rankers. “And get me Abel and Bethy. You all know the drill.” Of course, having been here for so long and reinforced so thoroughly, we naturally had plans in place for this. No rest for the wicked after all. We had a job to do.
Comments
JJB4345_80_815
Thank you for the chappy! Friendly possible edit: Techniques: Cosmic Collapse: comdensed sphere of black flame that explodes out one side amplifying force. comdensed ==> condensed
