Chapter 283: World of Aspects, The Rest

Chapter 283: World of Aspects, The Rest

It had taken most of the week to get the required Hydra Aspects, mostly due to how they’d had to wait for cooldown [Skills] to become available again, but they’d done it and now, Isaac wanted to go for the very first Aspect he’d ever gotten.

There were a few very nasty Tier 10 ephemeral monsters available, but in the end, simplicity was where it was at.

Raw power, a flexible form, a complete and utter disregard for physical objects, all of this made the Archspecter a terrifying threat, but there was very little risk of it getting out if he fought it in a pocket dimension.

Nonetheless, there was a reason this thing had come second. With each new Aspect, he got a flat power boost from the Stats, which meant that they’d be rather helpful collectively, but also new [Skills]. And Isaac had set the order in which they’d be acquired so he could take full advantage of his new capabilities. It wouldn’t quite be as easy as knocking down a row of dominoes, obviously, but it would still be quite a bit easier.

In the case of the Archspecter appearing in front of him, his new advantage was how his freshly improved regeneration would allow him to recover his blood.

A simple slash across both wrists sent blood fountaining into the air, where his [Aura of the Crimson Dawn] caught it and gently tossed it back on him, covering his armor, dagger, and sword in intricate patterns of blood runes.

It wasn’t an expenditure he could keep up for long unless he continuously activated his regeneration to stave off blood loss, but it had just been upgraded, innit? Throw in the fact that [Adaptive Regeneration] constantly reduced the impact blood loss had upon his body and he could keep this up for a damn long time, longer than his foe’s remaining lifespan.

The Archspecter towered above him, seven arms of seemingly infinite lengths flashing towards him, continuously reaching for the fragile mortal who was encroaching upon its territory. And then they began to burn. Not with flame, but the spiritual power that emanated from the sigils covering him. They’d push through in time if he was stupid enough to sit still, yet of all the things Isaac could be accused of being, stupid wasn’t one of them.

Crimson-glowing blades carved through the limbs, ducking and weaving. With a lesser foe, even an ephemeral being, being literally dis-armed would end the fight. But this thing ... it could keep regrowing limbs from its central, ectoplasmic, body until it was dead, all he was doing was slightly disrupting its internal energy.

The Archspecter eventually managed to get its crap together, trapping him with its arms, but he threw both Balmung and his kabar skywards, taking huge chunks out of the arms above him, and then leaped, the runes on his armor flaring and subsequently dimming as they fried the only thing blocking his upwards movement.

One activation of [Speed of Hati] to let him kick off the air to gain more height, during which he called his blades back into his hands, and then a second activation let him kick off without solid ground underfoot.

But this time, he’d been upside down and he was flung downwards like a meteor, armor runes flaring back to life a split second before impact. He threw both blades into different parts of the ephemeral mess he was falling towards and then he was in, armor crackling as the runes discharged, recharged, and discharged once more.

His body burned with cold, the monster’s draining touch freezing through his armor. But the Archspecter’s insides were far less dangerous than its hands, and the runes that had been so capable of repelling grasping limbs were doing one hell of a number on the monster’s most vulnerable area.

The monster tried to move, tried to get him out of there, but he matched its movements until, twenty seconds later, it burst apart with a sound like the tearing of cloth.

That had been easy ... at the low, low cost of a third of his blood volume every other second.

Phew, he’d barely used any offensive abilities and yet burned almost a thousand points of mana just to keep himself together.

He went on to kill nine more of the things, and then Patrick took out ten to hit the XP threshold as well, but between the two of them, they didn’t manage to get enough Aspects for everyone, so Amy got in on the action.

Aspect of the Archspecter:

This is the distilled essence of what makes an Archspecter an Archspecter. Free yourself from the shackles of mortality in oh so many ways, bring death with a mere touch, hunt down your living prey with impunity no matter how far they might run and where they might hide.

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:

Ephemeral PhaseThe original appearance of this chapter can be found at Ñøv€lß1n.

Ghostly Freedom

Endless Haunting

Spectral Touch

Spectral Armament

Once again, he got upgrades for his three previous Aspect [Skills], and grabbed [Spectral Touch] to round out the build. [Spectral Arnament] was also useful in theory, but it had nothing on his soulbound weapon, making it utterly superfluous for him.

Spectral Touch (legendary)

In many cultures, touching the dead is either forbidden or only allowed for certain individuals.

While there are many reasons one might want to avoid handling dead bodies, this Skill certainly ranks among the best.

When touching a target, the wielder of this Skill will cause the cold of the grave to seep into their very bones, reducing their stamina, capability to resist poisons and diseases, debilitating them after 5-60 seconds, depending on their power relative to the user.

At the same time, drained stamina and recovery ability are fed to the user of this Skill.

Cost: 100 mana per second

(Einherjar Bonus: draining can be projected through weapons)

As a fantastic way to stave off exhaustion, it would combine wonderfully with his newly upgraded [Form of Horror], extending the amount of time he could use his Speed Demon form. And it was an incredibly useful yet nasty way to take prisoners.

Ephemeral Phase (legendary)

Once you are dead, nothing can hold you down, no weight, no mortal shackle, no nothing.

There is nothing that can stand in the way of this Skill’s users, who are capable of walking through walls, floors, ceilings, warded buildings, and more besides.

Only direct, heavily mana-empowered attacks can hurt them, and even then, it needs to be a very powerful attack, and the user is able to spend mana to reinforce their form.

Furthermore, fighting while fully phased will be perfectly feasible, weapons and other implements of combat automatically becoming tangible when in a position to hurt a foe that the user wants to attack (in that moment, general animosity will not cause trouble).

Cost: 15 mana for activation, 10 mana per second of upkeep, upkeep can be increased up to 250 mana per second to resist foreign mana

(Einherjar Bonus: massively increased disruption resistance)

[Ephemeral Phase], meanwhile, was simple and powerful. He could still phase, but he’d be even harder to hit and be far more capable of inflicting injuries in turn, and he wouldn’t have to dodge anything short of a cooldown [Skill] or legendary weapon anymore. He still would, even small injuries should be avoided if possible, but it was nice to have yet another option.

Ghostly Freedom (legendary)

Once you are dead, nothing can hold you down, no weight, no mortal shackle, no nothing.

Even gravity will become nothing but a suggestion.

By activating Ghostly Freedom, the user will gain the freedom of an ephemeral being, capable of either reducing their mass, or just removing gravity’s effect upon them, as well as the ability to reduce the drag created by the medium they are moving through.

Furthermore, the user may telekinetically accelerate themselves, at a constant rate of 5 m/s^2 for a maximum speed of 500 m/s.

Cost: 1 mana per second per active effect (environmental resistance nullification, gravity nullification, or telekinetic self-acceleration)

(Einherjar Bonus: Increased control, maximum speed increased to 1,000 m/s)

Yet another [Skill] that had grown subtly yet powerfully. The ability to utterly ignore gravity without becoming a leaf on the wind would come in oh-so handy if he set things up right.

Endless Haunting (legendary)

Once one is cursed, one is already dead. No barrier will provide relief, no bunker provide succor.

The holder of this Skill will become an unstoppable pursuer of their foe, unshakeable, ever-present.

This Skill makes its user aware of all living beings around themselves in a radius of a hundred meters for 5 mana per minute and can give more precise locations the more mana is invested, up to a maximum of 100 per minute.

Once the user has chosen a target, they can spend another 50 points of mana to mark them (while perceived by the user), gaining the ability to track them precisely so long as they remain within 250 km, as well as knowing the most direct route to reaching them.

Cost: 10-200 mana per minute for a passive scan, 100 points per mark per hour

(Einherjar Bonus: max range increased to 2 kilometers, max tracking range increased to 500 kilometers)

[Endless Haunting] had mostly just gotten a massive range boost, but it wasn’t why he’d gotten this Aspect, in fact, he couldn’t recall a single time he’d used its previous form. But that was the thing about Aspects, you’d get one or two [Skills] you really wanted, and then wind up grabbing the ones that looked like they might be useful in certain circumstances because you had choices available.

However, this one would come in real handy for the next monster.

The Reality Filter was a peak Illusion monster that, as its name implied, layered a series of filters over your view of reality but lacked real power once you saw through them.

Yet it was strong enough that he wouldn’t be able to see through it with his [Aura] for a few more Levels if he dispersed it as he usually did ... except that if he tagged it with [Endless Haunting] in the brief instant it would be visible during summoning, he could collapse his [Aura] into the area he knew it to be in and that would be that.

So that was what he did.

The reality filter looked like the glitchy output of a broken monitor in a humanoid shape, but he only saw it for a brief instant, not enough time to lash out at it despite the fact that he was literally one meter away from it, but more than enough to smack it with a metaphysical tracker.

A split second after his world dissolved into a mess of colors, sounds, and smells, his sword whiffed through the space where the monster had been.

Ah well, he’d had to try. No matter that he’d lost it and that his surroundings had disappeared so thoroughly that he couldn’t tell up from down. He had his tracker.

This close to it, he was only able to narrow its location down to a six-meter radius sphere, but even fully compressed, his sensory [Aura’s] radius was twenty-five meters.

The overall battle lasted barely five seconds and didn’t reward him with any Aspects, but by the gods, it was fun to hack apart the monster that had transformed his surroundings into a psychedelic fever dream with a single cut.

... Less satisfying was repeating the process two dozen more times. The others couldn’t really take over here, this thing was Level 180 the only reason things were this easy was the fact that his current [Skill]set countered it perfectly.

Aspect of the Reality Filter:

This is the distilled essence of what makes a Reality Filter a Reality Filter. Create grand illusions both static and infinitely versatile, act unseen and unheard, or shift another’s sense of reality so thoroughly that they may never recover.

Requirements for Activation:

10,000 XP

Open Aspect Slot

Grants:

+20 Perception

One of the following Skills:

Perception End

Reality Shift

Set Illusions

Free Illusions

Alter Reality

Once again, this was about a couple of [Skills], everything else was just a bonus.

Perception End (legendary)

A world of superhumans is a world of eavesdroppers and voyeurists. This Skill exists to make sure its user can live in this world while retaining their sanity.

It allows the user to create a twenty-five-meter diameter sphere in which enhanced senses function considerably more poorly, reducing their effective power by the equivalent of 5 points of Perception per 25 mana invested.

In addition, the user may infuse a room with this energy, creating a stationary effect that will last so long as the user does not dismiss it, continues to pay the upkeep cost, and remains within 500 kilometers of the room. The cost is identical to the first effect but increases if the room’s size exceeds 125 π m3.

Cost: activation cost variable, upkeep cost 1/5 of activation cost per minute

[Perception End] was as simple a [Skill] as its name implied. Where it was applied, your foe’s ability to see you just plain ended. Perfect, nay, vital, for conversations he didn’t want public, which was why he’d gone for the Aspect in the first place.

Set Illusions (legendary)

There are few ideas more terrifying than the notion that what you see might not be things as they are.

This Skill might not be capable of causing such an effect on its own, but it is perfectly able to cause serious disorientation.

Its user may choose up to three objects or beings and subsequently be able to freely summon illusionary copies of them. These illusions can be altered with such things as equipment, makeup, or paint, but this requires significant focus.

Cost (preset illusion): 25 mana per activation, 2 mana per second of upkeep

The first of the “nice to have” choices. The ability to freely summon illusionary copies of himself, his standard [Form of Horror], and Arthur to scare the shit out of his foes was useful, but he doubted he’d use this [Skill] any more than he had its predecessor.

Reality Shift (legendary)

There are few things more disorienting than having your world suddenly shift around you, be it via teleportation, rapid movement, and the like.

By emitting a blast of energy that impacts nearby enemies and disorients them by messing with their senses, the user of this Skill can create this effect with ease.

It can even inflict synesthesia or swap the sensory inputs between identical sensory organs. The power of this Skill increases against weaker enemies, as well as those whose Aura has been suppressed.

Cost: 250 mana

The same applied to this one. Useful, but it didn’t quite fit his fighting style. It was a hell of a lot harder to predict his enemies when they suddenly reacted to things he could neither see nor control.

Free Illusions (legendary)

There are few ideas more terrifying than the notion that what you see might not be things as they are.

And this Skill allows its user to make that fear a reality, freely creating illusions of anything they can imagine (illusion quality increases with the user’s ability to picture what they want to display).

However, creating illusions both large and intricate will require a significant degree of focus.

Anyone thoroughly overwhelmed by this Skill may forever question their reality for so long as they live, if this attack is properly executed.

Cost (direct manipulation): 75 mana per minute per cubic meter

This bugger, on the other hand, was pretty damn nice. Sure, he’d mostly use it as a visual aid when giving presentations, but it was perfect for that.

And now, on to the next foe, the Living Sword.

In many ways, the monster was supremely similar to him and his soulbound sword, but where he summoned his weapon, the Living Sword summoned its wielder.

The weapon itself was a functionally indestructible bastard sword, plain and unadorned save for the gemstone cylinder that sat at the point where the blade and crossguard met, “accessible” from both sides. That gem was the only point on his foe that actually mattered, only by utterly shattering it would he be able to win this.

But it would be a pain in the ass to strike, considering that their blades would meet edge-on, trying to stab at a specific point on the side of your opponent’s sword was going to be a pain in the ass.

Isaac blocked an overhead slash from the indistinct phantom, trying to hold against it with Balmung while he went straight for the gem with the kabar he held in his off-hand.

And then the phantom vanished, reappearing right in his face, grasping the Living Sword by the blade and swinging the pommel at Isaac’s head in a perfectly executed Mordhau.

Biting back a curse, he hopped backwards, only for the monster to once again relocate the phantom so that it was grasping its sword’s hilt, back to Isaac, and spinning around in an incredibly powerful slash.

Isaac dodged again, mentally marking the areas where the blade had passed, leaving behind gashes in space that wouldn’t be visible until he blundered into them.

The next reversed attack tried to drive the sharpened end of the crossguard into his temple. In ye olden days, taking advantage of the small surface area of the crossguard’s end and the weight near the hilt to use a reverse-grip sword as an impromptu warhammer was a useful trick against a plate-wearing foe. With this bugger, it was just another move it could pull out when stringing together a nigh-endless combo of attacks.

Really, this monster would have been better served with a weapon like a quarterstaff, or maybe a glaive with a spike on the bottom, something with more range and two equally dangerous ends, but thankfully, the [System] had decided that thing had to have just a sword. After all, just the sword was bad enough, constantly driving him backwards. And he couldn’t even fully draw on his past experience as each Living Sword had a sufficiently different fighting style to mess with his ability to read this thing ... until he’d gathered enough information.

[The Meaning of the Name] activated, flaring to life and outlining the Living Sword’s future movements and even its reactions to his next moves.

[Speed of Hati] to slip sideways to avoid a slash, a little [Free Illusion] dodging the other way in a more aggressive move, make both his real body and the fake attack simultaneously. The Living Sword blocked where the real him would attack, manifesting its wielder in the path of the illusion ... and then his kabar punched through the crystal.

Blocking two simultaneous attacks was perfectly within the power of the monster.

Doing so while realizing that he’d cloaked one of his arms in an illusion that showed nothing and replaced it with a fake was a little beyond it.

He held that pose for a split second, letting out a long sigh of relief before straightening.

Around the blade of his Kabar, the remains of the Living Sword crumbled away into nothingness while its “wielder” vanished like a lightbulb that had been switched out, leaving behind only a single orb that looked like it would cut his palm to shreds if he picked it up. He still did, fully aware of the fact that an invisible sphere surrounded it, protecting those who touched it from the mess of blade fragments within.

Finally, another Aspect on his first kill. And no one else wanted one of these either, so he was completely done with this thing already.

Health Status: Healthy

Mana: 2,398/4,150

Stats

Fortitude

280 (+20)

Perception

650

Strength

390 (+15)

Agility

900

Magic Power

405 (+10)

Magic Regeneration

900

Free Points: 0 Stat, 0 Skill

Aura

Aura of the Crimson Dawn (short range, combat, blood, regeneration)

Aura of the Desperate Seeker (long range, sensory, mental, projection)

Aura of the Eternal Warrior (mid-range, combat/mental/sensory, armament)

Central Skills

Form of Horror XXX

The Chosen Weapon XXX

I Am The Sword XXV

Grave of Swords XXX

Armory of Ancient Times XXVI

Legacy of a True Warrior XXX

Divine Fire XIV

Champion of Mankind IX

Final Defiance I

Aspects of the End (Speed of Hati) I

Skills

Hundred Faces XXVIII

Stealth XXIX

Power Strike XXX

Piercing Strike XXX

Sundering Strike XXX

Blades XXX

Sneak XXX

Sweeping Strike XVIII

Far Strike XXX

Manifold Strike XXX

Hunter’s Gaze XXX

Phantom Step XXIV

Unknown Fear XXX

Bestial Regeneration XXX

Undying Focus XXX

Tools of Terror XXI

Fleeting Presence XVIII

Crippling Blow XVIII

Absolute Blade Mastery XXV

Compounded Impact XVIII

True Cut XVII

Legendary Blow XXV

Fully Geared XXVI

Knightly Leader XXX

Analyze Person XVIII

Continent Strider XVIII

Burden of Power VIII

Expert’s Insight VIII

Blessing of Innovation XVIII

Lessons of History VIII

The Meaning of the Name XVIII

Titanic Presence IX

Fire Soul VII

General Skills

Gralloch XVIII

Alchemy XVI

Death’s Embrace VIII

Bloodline of the Hellborne Survivor (Empower Relatives)

Advanced Bureaucracy VIII

Police Procedure VIII

Healing VII

Quest Giver III

Omniglot (213 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 VIII

Unrestricted Speech VI

Aspects

Aspect Skills

Archspecter (full stack)

Ephemeral Phase

Ghostly Freedom

Endless Hunting

Spectral Touch

Lernean Hydra (full stack)

Hydra’s Restoration

Adaptive Regeneration

Disposable Organs

Dismiss Injuries

Megalodon (2 stack)

Shark’s Body

Wave Charge

Reality Filter (full stack)

Reality Shift

Perception End

Set Illusions

Free Illusions

Living Sword (full stack)

All Blade Style

Involable Blades

Annihilating Trails

Unhindered Bladework

Dragon (3 stack)

Draconic Heart

Moment of Immortality

Dragonscale Mantle

Demon Lord (3 stack)

Moment of Immortality

Supreme Hellflame

Hell-Bone Armor

Space Elemental (2 stack)

Fixed Point

Space Affinity

Ankou (full stack)

Freedom from Mortal Limits

Eternal Restoration

Implements of True Death

Reaper’s Cloak

Royal Draugr (full stack)

Endurance of the Eternal Warrior

Always Armored

Spectral Plate

Loyalty Past Death

His Status was looking good, Isaac admitted as he looked it over, grinning.

Then he walked out of the pocket dimension and was promptly ambushed by Amy with a fire hose. Yes, he’d gotten filthy, but ... seriously?