Chapter 256: Death Incarnate

Chapter 256: Death Incarnate

“Are you sure this is a good idea?” Patrick asked.

“Define ‘good idea’,” Isaac responded.

“You know what I mean. I know you’ve put some thought into this, but it just feels ... it goes against every rule of scientific conduct and good sense ever written,” Patrick replied after a long pause, “Just ... I know better than to think you’re being stupid, but that little voice won’t shut up about how this is going to go horribly wrong.”

“Let’s get one thing clear: I’m not infallible,” Isaac declared, “If I were, I’d be going at this alone. All of this,” he said, gesturing around himself, “Fighting the [System], the cult, everything. If you want to know something, if you feel like I’m being an idiot, just ask.

“As for that this, I’m certain. The Ankou is a very dangerous Tier 10 monster, but it’s one I can definitely beat, especially with my new [Skill]. And I really need its Aspect.”

The [Skill] in question was [Titanic Presence], an [Aura]-based ability that let him use two at the same time.

Titanic Presence (legendary)

There are certain people who have a certain, well, presence around them. Raw charisma, sexual magnetism, a repulsive stench, it depends on the person, really. Draw the eyes, or make people hurriedly avert their gazes, both are a kind of impact.

When a person holding the power of a Titan enters a room, everyone knows it, as they are capable of wielding not just a single Aura, but two at the same time.

There are obviously significant difficulties attached to using not one, but two incredibly complicated abilities at the same time, which is why the second Aura can be slaved to the first, mimicking its movements. However, that will vastly reduce the power gained by this Skill.

Cost for second Aura is equal to that Aura’s basic cost.

Isaac couldn’t use the [Skill] to its fullest effect, using two [Auras] completely independently was damn difficult, but it was still an extremely powerful trick.

“Let’s clear out the rubble, and then, I’d like you to summon the Ankou,” Isaac said.

They were currently in the university’s Void Island, which they were officially using to fight some Seismic Golems. They tended to wreak holy havoc upon the foundation of any building they were summoned in, so they were usually fought there. Isaac had killed a couple to support the cover story, but now, it was time to summon the monster.

The reason Isaac didn’t summon the monster himself was simple. He didn’t have a big enough mana pool.

They tossed the monster corpses into their storage spaces, and then Isaac drew out the most complicated summoning circle in existence in chalk. A scythe made from solid steel, a large black sheet, and a few human fingerbones from a body that had been donated to science.

Patrick paused for a second before he turned to Isaac, “What happens if you lose? I know that’s probably not going to happen, but what if does?”

“That’s what the deadman switch is for,” Isaac said, “Enough alchemical explosives to level the campus if we weren’t in a separate space, infused with reagents specifically chosen to damage a creature like an Ankou.”

“How does it work,” Patrick asked curiously.

“A spatial ring liked to the life of the wearer. When the wearer dies, the storage collapses and atomizes everything inside as it is expelled into the real world. There are substances in there that are perfectly fine when separated and in solid form, but when mixed together ... boom.”

Patrick winced as he charged the summoning circle, “Can I leave before you fight the monster?”

“It’ll get summoned the instant you cross the threshold,” Isaac warned, “Let me get ready, then get out.”

While his colleague headed towards the exit, Isaac suited up. His armor covered his body in white dragon scales and Mimung manifested in his right hand. It was sharper than Balmung and when fighting an enemy that was basically a ghost, a weapon’s sharpness was more important than its heft.

And then he dismissed his [Aura of the Desperate Seeker]. The monster he was about to fight was fairly simple and not going to manifest behind him without warning. As long as he had eyes on it, he didn’t need his localized omniscience.

It was still weird as all get out to suddenly be all but blind now.

His [Aura of the Eternal Warrior] flowed across his skin, dyeing it a mixture of rusty reds and steely greys, like ancient armor that should have been retired long ago, yet it had been dragged into combat time and time again, endlessly. Despite the fact that it was one continuous piece, the energy field appeared pitted, broken, as if it had been pushed well past the breaking point. And yet there was still some strength remaining, an unshakeable, unstoppable core beneath the scars and the rust.

Not a single iota of power was projected outwards, every single bit of it was kept close to the skin as a protective layer.

Then, his [Aura of the Crimson Dawn] exploded from his heart in a pulse of red light, bursting from his skin in a wave of light the color of freshly spilled blood until it stopped at a distance of two meters from him. To anyone looking at it with spiritual senses, it would show a deep contradiction, of light and rebirth interwoven with blood and death on a fundamental level.

And finally, a kabar dropped into his left hand, held in an icepick grip.

“Ready,” Isaac announced and Patrick left the void space.

In an instant, the atmosphere in this little pocket of reality shifted, growing cold not in the sense of a physical drop in temperature but on a metaphysical level, making Isaac shiver despite the fact that he could walk around in Antarctica in his underwear.

His shadow grew longer behind him, a black silhouette outlined in the ghostly light that emanated from the summoning circle.

An invisible, intangible wind began to softly whisper, the sound rising into a crescendo of howling gales, yet they were still only audible, imperceptible to all his other senses.

And then, the Ankou manifested. A pale, ethereal body barely visible under a hat and full body wraps of black cloth, a scythe clutched in the being’s right hand, staff parallel to the ground while the blade hung down.

All in all, a scythe was a truly terrible weapon in most circumstances. Only the side pointed towards the wielder’s body was sharp, cutting someone required a strange sweeping motion during which the edge was dragged through the grass to the side. Good for moving down plants, and maybe clearing out enemies who were significantly smaller than yourself, but not when fighting against an enemy of similar stature.

But unfortunately, this scythe belonged to a supernatural entity that ended lives and reaped souls. The tip of the weapon was the most dangerous part of the implement, and if that thing left even the slightest scratch, that wound would remain forever, bleeding. Or at the very least, keep bleeding until the Ankou was slain. In addition, without sufficient protection, the cold would seep into the wound to further damage the victim.

Furthermore, it did the same kind of damage that Isaac’s blades did while in their astral form, where they damaged the very thing that housed the [Skills] and most of your mana pool, your astral body. But the kind of devastation that scythe could inflict was so much worse.

It was still a crappy choice of weapon, no two ways about it, but it was a billion times more dangerous than any standard scythe, even one forged by the likes of Stagmer, could be.

Throw in the danger posed by the cold that seeped into the very core of his being and the Ankou was definitely one of the Apex predators of the post-[System] world.

But the [Aura of the Eternal Warrior] shielded Isaac from the worst of the cold, the [Aura of the Crimson Dawn’s] regenerative effect would counteract the rest.

The Ankou blurred forwards, the arm holding the scythe sweeping around lazily.

[The Meaning of the Name] activated and Isaac charged. The precognitive effect’s cost of 20 mana per second was too high to use constantly, but Isaac’s strategy was simple. Use his regular combat experience to predict when mundane predictions would fail and then fall back on magic in those specific circumstances.

If he’d stayed where he was or even retreated, the Ankou’s trick would have caught him. It had relaxed the grip on its weapon, causing centrifugal force to pull it outwards until it was holding onto the very end of its weapon, and in the process, it had almost tripled the range of its attack.

But Isaac had sidled right up to the monster, plunging the kabar into its chest as he bodychecked it, then spun and slashed a massive gap across its back as he passed with Mimung.

The Ankou fell to the ground for a bare microsecond before it all but teleported back to its feet, looking absolutely furious. Dagger stuck in its chest, pale blue fog rising around the injury, the shoulder Isaac had hit crushed by his [Aura], and more fog streamed up from the massive gash he’d carved into its back. Not to mention the dozens of places where Isaac had torn small cuts into it with the bloody light that surrounded him.

Another charge, followed by an overhead chop, nearly ended Isaac, but he managed to delay the shaft of the scythe with his kabar while he slid to the side, once again slashing into the monster’s side.

As the tip of the scythe struck the ground, the Ankou kicked the shaft of the weapon, causing it to shin around the spot where the point had stuck into the dirt.

The metal shaft smacked into Isaac’s shins with enough force to cause him to fly over it, feet knocked out from underneath him.

Isaac managed to turn an undignified bellyflop into a roll, then [Phantom Stepped] out of the way as the scythe teleported back into its owner’s hands, then flashed towards his neck.

Another [Phantom Step] took him behind the monster, but the false image of himself that the [Skill] generated appeared in front of it ... and promptly got slashed in half.

Isaac drove Mimung through the Ankou’s back, spearing the spot where a human’s heart would have been, and was rewarded with a huge burst of fog.

But of course, that wasn’t enough to stop the fucker.

It began to spin to face him, but then the kabar he’d planted in its chest detonated, throwing off its balance while Isaac carved into it with several more slashes.

Of course, he’d activated both [Razor Trails], [Crippling Blow], and [Compounded Impact] on his sword, ensuring it would be vastly less capable of moving, every strike would inflict exponentially more damage, and the blade left behind cutting trails in the air. It burned through mana like nothing else, but it also left the monster’s cloak in ribbons and its true body streaming mist to the point where it looked like a fog machine.

Hopefully, he’d be able to do a little more damage before ... that happened.

With a howl that tore at his very soul, the rags were blasted off the monster, revealing its true form. A pale blue figure with a farmer’s hat, an indistinct face that seemed to change every other millisecond, a deathly cold scythe, and blue fog streaming from every surface of its body. It wasn’t as much as it was leaking from its injuries, but still enough to weaken or even kill it, given enough time.

Isaac estimated he’d cost it around a fifth of its essence, and it was losing enough every second that it would die in, oh, five-ish minutes?

The Ankou flashed past him, a single shallow leap at almost hypersonic speeds with the scythe’s edge protruding to the side, parallel to the ground.

[Phantom Step] to dodge, a second [Phantom Step] to teleport behind its back and distract it with the illusion, then use his oft-neglected illusion Aspect to create another duplicate, carving through its body several more times and planting two crystalline kabars in its body.

A giant sword manifested in the path of the scythe, slowing and redirecting it barely long enough for him to stab the monster once more.

The but of the scythe came back around in an attempt to crush Isaac’s chest but he dropped his weight to almost nothing, letting the weapon push him away.

[Champion of Mankind: The Thinker] activated, a dozen trains of thought eating through the allocated mana at an insane speed, but he could channel the rest of the mana into his spells, each controlled separately and with the full force of his well behind them.

Flames, sticky as tar and hot as the heart of a star, splattered across the monster’s boots, partially gluing it in place. A different tongue of flame covered its eyes, others still flowed into the wounds, wrapped the scythe, and all in all inflicted enough damage to obliterate some [Raid Bosses]. The Ankou just glared at him, flames that had gotten into its body making it look like a lava lamp.

Using the final dregs of mana from [Champion], Isaac directed more fire behind himself to reverse his trajectory as he shot towards the monster, triggered [Form of Horror] the second the first cooldown [Skill] ran out, pushed [The Meaning of the Name] to its absolute limits and finally, activated [I Am The Sword].

Both of the kabars he’d implanted in the monster detonated a second before impact, throwing off its counterattack while being a perfect part of Isaac’s calculations. An outstretched hand, all claws touching to form a spearpoint, went right into the newly-opened hole in its chest and the rest of his transformed body followed.

Isaac slammed into the far side of the Void Island and came out right where he’d started the charge, watching the two halves of the Ankou fly in two different directions.

He ducked under a thrown scythe, but the weapon teleported right back into its owner’s hands, and then the Ankou’s whole bloody torso teleported.

Of course, the attack caused the monster to leak even more fog, but Isaac only evaded it by the skin of his teeth. And then, barely a second later, it repeated the process.

The monster was tearing itself to pieces, spending its own life force like water just for a chance to get at Isaac.

In the end, it got its piece of flesh. Twice. The cuts burned with pain as though someone were actively washing them out with liquid nitrogen while whipping at them with a cat o’ nine tails, but neither of them was even a single millimeter deep.

And then, on one of its teleports, it simply arrived as a puff of rapidly dissipating mist. Gone, just like that.

Ankou (Lv. 175) has been slain. 20,000 XP gained (16,000 base * 1.25 due to level disparity)

A shallow cut on his forearm stubbornly refused to close despite the fact that ninety-percent of its depth was literally just dead skin, but it stayed that way and throbbed in pain. The feeling of torturous cold had lessened when the monster’s [Aura] had gone away, but “not actively being tortured” was not the same as “feeling good”.

The second cut had somehow found its way onto the bottom of his right foot, and that part was bleeding slightly, so Isaac ended up hopping around on one leg while checking if he’d earned an Aspect.

Unfortunately, the monster’s scythe could not be looted, even though it would have made for a fantastic weapon, given that it had gone through his armor as though it weren’t even there.

And now that Isaac was coming down from his adrenaline high, his shins were really starting to hurt. They might not have been cut by the scythe, but getting smacked by its shaft still did some serious damage.

He’d be able to heal it in a few seconds but even those few seconds sucked beyond measure.

At least he found an Aspect, after half a minute. It really wasn’t all that surprising, though. Tier 10 monsters had the highest Aspect drop rate of all non-boss monsters and he’d been fighting one thirty-four Levels above his own, which had massively boosted its drop chance.

Aspect of Ankou:

This is the distilled essence of what makes an Ankou an Ankou. A being capable of both dealing death and resisting it when it comes for it. Shut down all hostile efforts at recovery, become free from the limitations of a mortal shell, and vanish into nothingness after bringing death to those who deserve it.

Requirements for Activation:

10,000 XP

Open Aspect Slot

Grants:

+25 (20 base +5 bonus from Einherjar race) Magic Regeneration

One of the following Skills:

Eternal Restoration

Freedom from Mortal Limits

Implements of True Death

Reaper’s Cloak

Endure Eternity

All of these were incredibly useful [Skills] and Isaac wanted all of them. But he had to choose and in the end, it was very easy to kick. [Endure Eternity] was designed to help its bearer cope with the consequences of a very long life, keep their memories organized, and so on. Useful, and he’d have to pick up something like that at some point if he lived through the current crisis, but “if” was the operative word here.

Save humanity, then worry about what comes next.

Eternal Restoration (legendary)

Death and taxes, the only certainties in life. And one of those is a human construct.

Undying Focus XXX

Tools of Terror XXI

Fleeting Presence XVIII

Crippling Blow XVIII

Absolute Blade Mastery XXV

Compounded Impact XVIII

True Cut IX

Legendary Blow XVII

Fully Geared XVIII

Knightly Leader XXI

Analyze Person XVII

Continent Strider XVIII

Burden of Power VIII

Expert’s Insight VIII

Blessing of Innovation XVIII

Lessons of History VIII

The Meaning of the Name X

Titanic Presence VII

General Skills

Gralloch XVIII

Alchemy XV

Death’s Embrace VIII

Bloodline of the Hellborne Survivor (Empower Relatives)

Advanced Bureaucracy VIII

Police Procedure VIII

Healing VI

Quest Giver III

Omniglot (109 languages known)

Member of the Round Table (Shade: Seon Yoo-jin)

Accumulation of Knowledge (unranked)

Well of Wisdom’s Blessing (unranked)

Enhanced Dragon-Scale Web (unranked)

Crimson Runic Script VII

Unrestricted Speech II

Aspects

Aspect Skills

Arcane Poltergeist (3 stack)

Flight of the Poltergeist

Ephemeral Form

Haunting Pursuit

Greater Hydra (3 stack)

Hydra’s Regeneration

Redundant Organs

Ignore Injury

Megalodon (2 stack)

Shark’s Body

Wave Charge

Twilight Weaver (3 stack)

Lesser Illusion

Perception Interdiction

Warp Wave

Razor Apparition (3 stack)

Remote Wielding

Immortal Blades

Razor Trails

Dragon (3 stack)

Draconic Heart

Moment of Immortality

Dragonscale Mantle

Least Demon Lord (2 stack)

Moment of Immortality

Grand Hellflame

Space Elemental (2 stack)

Fixed Point

Space Affinity

Ankou (full stack)

Freedom from Mortal Limits

Eternal Restoration

Implements of True Death

Reaper’s Cloak

Death Knight (3 stack)

Death Knight’s Endurance

Ghostly Armor

Armored Echo

In fact, [The Meaning of the Name] had hit Level 10, and blocking the Ankou’s [Aura] had boosted [Titanic Presence] all the way up to Level 7 over the course of a single battle.

The Meaning of the Name (legendary, Level X)

Two Titans.

Prometheus, the forethoughtful, and his brother, Epimetheus, whose name means afterthought.

One who is intelligent avoids mistakes and traps before running straight into them. One whose hindsight might let him avoid making the same mistake twice, but by that point, the damage will already have been done. It should be clear which is the better thing to have.

This Skill grants its user the power held by the Titan that his Class is named after.

Preternatural, nigh-absolute foresight, gained by boosting the user’s pattern recognition ability, mental celerity and temporarily granting them the ability to store all that information.

This process can be done subconsciously for short-term predictions, such as in combat, but anything longer term will both be more expensive and require active attention.

The efficacy of this Skill increases with the amount of information the user has access to, and may produce incorrect results if working off incorrect or incomplete data.

While this Skill does check the veracity of the user-provided info by checking it against all other available information, that is of limited use and may slow down the workings of this Skill if prioritized after the foresight itself or be of extremely limited usefulness if the predictions themselves are prioritized.

In addition, this Skill also provides the user with enhanced cognition, predicition, and pattern recognition even when not being powered by mana.

Cost: 20 mana per second for short-term predictions (combat), 50 mana per second for long-term predictions

If you also have Lessons of History, these Skills will work in concert to provide superior results for both and it will run subconsciously beside its sibling Skill.

A simple upgrade, but one that would come in oh-so handy. The ability to use a vastly weakened version of this [Skill] without having to pay the steep mana cost.

Looking over the various Aspects, seeing the water Aspects only stacked two high made him cringe. But the issue was that the main reason he’d gone after them was to be able to function underwater, something that his new Tier 10 Aspect made completely superfluous. He had a few ideas about what to go after, but those plans took more than a little to become fully fleshed out.

Which left him with several more almost complete stacks, just begging to have one more added to them. But Isaac banished that idea from his mind with vehemence.

The Ankou had been a very dangerous monster, but it had been the easiest for him. He specialized in speed, could read its movements, and could counter its [Aura], which had let him outfight it.

There were several other monsters whose Aspects he wanted he could also outfight but they were too tough to beat. For example, he wanted a Lernean Hydra [Field Boss] to complete that stack, but while he could dodge and weave around it for up to ten minutes without taking a single hit, doing enough damage to take it down was well beyond him.

Ah, that would just have to wait until later.

Isaac scooped up the ectoplasmic remains of the Ankou to give to Chandler once he could reasonably have it, and left the Void Island ... only to physically run into Amy the instant he was outside.

“Are you done in there?” Amy asked breathlessly, and when he nodded, she shoved him towards a suddenly conjured portal and via a hastily established party, warned him, “You need to attend that meeting, I think it might be your fault. Something about world leaders being warned about a skipped Tier?”

Well. Fuck. Godsdamnit. What the actual hell?