Chapter 281 – Not without trace…

Chapter 281 – Not without trace...

John yawned as he watched over the edge of his fortress. Settings restored to the default, he was currently doing his usual grind. Everything was the same as ever, except that he had to do even less now. With Undine guarding the walls with her iron-hard water bubbles, John could sit back and grind by letting his familiars do all the work.

“Is this truly all you are required to do to level up nowadays?” Lydia asked, hurling a dispensable piece of metal at a Bugpanther below. It pierced through the being’s eye, causing it to roar in pain. Aclysia whirled around Vol’Jin’Zul, the giant blade crashing into the feral insectoid’s blind side. It didn’t even get a chance to fall into the lava pit, as it died in the middle of the air from the grievous wound that attack had caused.

Lydia was the only one of John’s non-familiars that was around here. Everyone else was either training, fucking or busy chasing cats through alleyways. At least that’s what John presumed Nia was doing in her free time, aside from appearing randomly in rooms and staring at the ceiling.

“I mean, I am doing A LOT!” John defended himself, using his non-gauntleted hand to navigate Youtube. ‘Just how many Binding of Isaac videos can the guy make?’ John asked himself as he was watching a certain egg-head do yet another boss rush.

“Badabu-badaba,” Sylph giggled as he sent mana her way, a blade of wind isolating a single enemy from a group of four Bugpanthers. Salamander then blinded the enemy with a quick burst of fire. Another one of the remaining three, the only one in the back row of the now triangular shaped formation, was suddenly assaulted by purple blades ramming into its stomach from below.Findd new stories on nov/e(l)bin(.)com

While it wasn’t killed instantly, Siena assured that this state would be swiftly rectified. With no choice but to make her opponent’s suffering as brief as possible, due to the rule John had put in place, she severed the head of the creature from its neck. A moment later, it became naught but dust.

Siena sent a displeased glance his way just as a random Bugpanther jumped out of the burning treetops and at John, a direct collision course. It was honestly kind of impressive that these things hated him enough to go against survival instincts to such a degree. Climbing through burning branches and aflame leaves, surrounded by the rising ash of one’s natural habitat, couldn’t be pleasant.

John didn’t even move, the Bugpanther just smashed into a liquid wall that quickly erected itself between the flying insectoid and John. The monster crashed against the hardened water like a fly against a windshield at moderate speeds.

Desperately, it clawed at the unforgiving barrier between it and its target, barely managing to stay in place. “Doesn’t that hurt?” John asked Undine. This wasn’t just a water wall, as he noted, the red marking over its curve indicated it as the ocean elementals’ actual body.

“Only the slightest bit.” Undine’s true form rose out of the side of the wall. A jolt of information filled John’s head; Undine used this moment to heal herself, as she was about ready to use her new offensive capabilities. Just the slightest bit more healing and... she was ready.

“Well then, I am interested in seeing how this goes,” John smirked and gestured for her to Unleash. He hadn’t seen it before, surely it would be a spectacle.

“As you say, John,” Undine nodded, tried her best at returning a smile but only managed to produce an awkwardly slanted lip movement that could somehow be interpreted as a smile.

Her healing and defensive properties shifted in the blink of an eye as, the condition fulfilled, her powers flipped their focus. Her mouth twisted into a deeply disturbing, wide grin, pulling her full lips into a thin line. A malevolent red replaced the calm gold of her eyes, and John immediately knew that this was indeed going to be a spectacle, but not of the kind he had wanted. Anger and undesired hatred bore their way through common sense, creating a deeply psychopathic mixture of dark thoughts.

The howl of a siren on the prowl accompanied Undine as she turned into a torrent that jumped off the fortress wall. The Bugpanther tumbled helplessly inside her. It paddled in the slimy water, swiped at it, but there was nothing it could hurt. Then it hit the ground, and John was witness to the more than a little more disgusting display of Undine invading the being’s insides, like it was little more than a sponge, and then rapidly increasing in volume.

Words loudly sung in the olden elemental language filled the forest. John kept close watch on her spirit. To him, it all seemed normal. Out of her character? Without a doubt. But there was nothing there suggesting any sort of further corruption.

“...Are you not going to tell me that this is pretty much proof that she is still infested?” John wondered towards Lydia as Undine’s arms transformed into thin whips that cut through the air, more than a couple of trees and finally a Bugpanther with ease.

Siena was annoyed with herself, because no one had wanted this outcome. “I will try to help her get that under control,” Siena said. “That is what you wanted of me anyway, isn’t it?”

After a few moments of them just staring at each other, John nodded, “Yes.”

He pulled back his hand, and Siena vanished into the ground, making her way over to Undine who was quivering, ripples like a pond that had been disrupted by a stone spreading over her surface. ‘Master, you think it is wise to trust Siena with this?’ Aclysia asked him via their mental connection.

‘Hell to the no, I am keeping a close eye on those two,’ John sighed. ‘I am going to try and get them to form some sort of alcoholics anonymous of impulse management. Not sure how curable those rage attacks even are, but we got to try, right? Probably should get Thana involved and have Momo look over their efforts...’

‘That sounds like a splendid idea, Master. I would be happy to help them as well,’ Aclysia said.

‘You just want to reprimand Siena until she stops disrespecting me,’ John noted.

‘Most certainly, and under the cover of helping her to stop being a thorn in your side, I will have more than enough excuses,’ the artificial guardian told him.

‘Well, then you are welcome to try and teach them,’ John allowed her.

“Do people usually recover from these incidents?” John asked the princess at his side.

“They get better, but they don’t recover,” Lydia said with a sorry expression. “She’ll be able to assert control over it eventually, presumably. Torrential outbursts are common among water spirits and this seems to have worsened that fact. A pre-existing character trait may be easier to get control off, but there are few success stories.”

“Then I will start there and then continue to try to one-up the world,” he sat back down. “No matter what the cause is, if we try hard enough, we should be able to overcome it eventually.”

“I will be perfectly frank with you, John: whenever you next deal with anything Lorylim related, have her stay in her own plane of existence, break your contract if you must,” Lydia told him. “The Lorylim are largely unknown to us aside from the fact that they are dangerous. I haven’t heard from someone who was cleansed and remained unscathed, and I am certain that no mind will survive a second touch of their tainted ways.”

He looked as both Siena and Undine changed into their incorporeal forms to get away from their distanced position, making their way back to the fort in safety.

“They are my loves,” John said. “And they are my weapons. They will become strong enough that nothing like this will ever prove a threat to us again.”

“You are fundamentally underestimating the first foe,” countered the princess. Sighing, she added, “Maybe I am underestimating you as well. I know too little about you and them. Just be aware that I do not expect to be proven wrong on this.”

“I don’t expect to need to prove you wrong on this; whatever Lorylim related thing I will encounter in the future, I will destroy without mercy before it gets a chance to fuck me over,” John looked at Purgatory, completely aware of the insane amount of mana inside. “They dared to threaten one of my own, I will nuke them with whatever means I have at my disposal.”