Chapter 570: Ra'azel

Chapter 570: Ra'azel

Offer

The metal contraption flew in between the buildings that reached for the sky, deftly maneuvering through thick cables that connected to tall poles and branched off from there to other buildings. The power flowing through them was staggering, but Ra’azel kept his attention on the contraption—a drone, as the people living here called it. The light shining from the glass lens at its front swept over the small backstreet that he’d just passed through.

Ra’azel hid behind the corner of a large container, a small orb floated around him, the carvings on its surface glowing faintly to his eyes. He knew that from the outside looking in, both he and his orb would be invisible. His construct both obscured him from sight by erasing his presence completely, and also prevented most forms of detection.

He had been forced to add some in the recent months since he had arrived to the city. The Exalted Empire had some interesting ways of scrying. Some that had even strained his knowledge.

But adapting was necessary, especially since he was still carrying the injuries from the battle that had nearly taken his life.

The drone left, not finding any sign of him. It was a powerful tool, but it was simple, it followed patterns that Ra’azel had studied.

He hobbled out of his hiding place, putting his orb of obfuscation away. Every step sent a stab of pain through his hips which made his tail twitch. Learning how to properly move with it had been another pain. During the battle, he had been too focused on other things, the muscle memory in his new body had taken care of most things. After though, he had been forced to learn everything, on top of having to run away and hide.

His injuries had been severe enough that death wasn’t too far away. His Soul had been spent and ravaged by his foes. It was a battle unlike anything he had faced before, a great lesson in why he avoided fighting when he was uncertain about the outcome.

Healing had taken a while, and it was still ongoing. If he had suffered these injuries before he had been imprisoned, it would’ve taken him decades, perhaps even centuries to heal fully. But his imprisonment had made his Soul stronger, and now he had more ways of helping the process along. After he had ensured that his presence was hidden properly, he had focused on healing. It had required assaulting a village to take resources, but even in his state it was of little concern. He had crafted items that encouraged the healing of the Soul and stabilized himself firstly. Then he had delved into the Framework, the access that he now possessed.

It seemed that fighting against such monsters and surviving so much Soul damage counted for something. None of his choices of Class had been related to his Runesmithing, which was expected, he had found no evidence of it being used here. He had spent some time recovering by studying, utilizing the Framework’s auction service to buy items and books of knowledge that could help him. He had learned about Focus Madness, about requirements for advancement and many different things.

The Framework had already granted him great boons, like achievements. And he had decided to put all of his attention in a single focus so far. He didn’t want to risk madness, despite it being an old friend. Cultivation was the hardest focus for him to find reliable information on, and skills seemed incredibly difficult as well as having more conflicting information about out there.

Class seemed the most useful to him, and the easiest to advance. He also had the innate power of his body still. He had discerned that the previous owner of the body utilized skills, and some of that power still echoed in the body. It wasn’t as if he had access to those skills, it was more like that power was part of the body. Not all of it if what he had learned was true. He had no access to any perks that he could activate at will, but the body seemed to hold a diminished piece of that power within itself.

Things seemed to happen just because he willed them to. Like how he could walk and somehow cross incredible distances without realizing it. It had made him consider attempting to use Skills, but he ultimately decided on a Class.

He had been offered two choices related to array building, both of which he had nearly taken. In the end, he had been forced to pick the third option, the one related to healing of the Soul. It was necessary, and it had been a boon. The perks of his beginning class—Stalwart Soul Master—had helped stabilize him after the battle, and the following evolutions had improved on that. He had picked choices that increased the regeneration of his Soul, and that bolstered his defenses.

And he had seen the benefits already. Even though his Soul was not yet fully healed, he could already tell that powering his runes with his Soul would be far easier. With every Class evolution, he had felt getting stronger. And what should’ve been a century of recovery, had been reduced to a year. He was close to being fully recovered, though he wasn’t quite yet there.

He hobbled out of the alleyway and headed down the street, following the direction feed to his head by his tracker construct. Healing came with a cost after all, not to him, but to others.V/\IssịT n0(v)eL/b(i)(n).co/m for the b/est novel reading experi/en/ce

Finding people with strong Souls turned out to be far harder than he had expected. They tended to be more powerful, and Ra’azel wasn’t comfortable challenging anyone at the moment.

And, it appeared that the Exalted Empire had less of people who focused on things like mastery of Soul. He had considered going someplace else, but he was certain that he would be hunted, that their people would be keeping an eye out for him. Which left him with little choice but to hide amongst those who were not on friendly terms with his enemies.

He had spent a few months outside of the so-called Settled Territories, in the wild, but that had proven dangerous as well. Powerful monsters were drawn to him, and his injuries had caused a few close encounters. And in the end, he wasn’t content with waiting for his Soul to recover naturally on its own. Hunting and grafting pieces of healthy and powerful Souls accelerated his recovery, and he didn’t have the time to waste.

That’s why he had come here, to the city of Nyutall, in the heart of the Exalted Empire. It was as far away from the territories of his enemies as one could get, and it was a large city where he could get lost among the masses.

True, a drake walking around amongst mostly cthul was an oddity, but there were enough other races that he wasn’t more than that. The reason why he chose it was exactly because of its size and age, it was an old city, with an old population, powerful individuals. And with so many of them there, a few disappearances here or there were far more easily missed.

The cthul technology was strange, true, but Ra’azel had made a point of studying it before. He had gotten enough countermeasures to be sure he could avoid detection.

He triggered his perks as he walked over to stand in front of him. Sunder Resistance, clawed at the cthul’s very being, lowering all of his resistances, and his Soul crashed through and engulfed his target’s.

He pulled out a construct, and set it on the floor, then he used Soul Drain. Usually, he would accomplish all of this with his constructs and runes, but to make a construct able to do this, he would need to sacrifice more of his own Soul to empower the runes. And he was unwilling to do that in his current state. Thankfully, his new connection with the Framework had given him another path.

As the Soul in front of him cried out in agony, Ra’azel focused on using what he gained to encourage his own Soul to heal faster. His latest Class evolution, at the level 360, the Harvester of Souls, had given him great benefits for draining Souls, and he used his construct to ensure he gained the most of it.

Once he was finished, he looked around, the rest of the criminals and the slaves in the cages were unconscious, and their Souls, unremarkable. He thought about it for a moment, then fired beams of light to kill the rest of the criminals, those that kept others imprisoned woke memories that Ra’azel didn’t like. The slaves, he left alive.

It wasn’t some great act of kindness on his side, but it wasn’t like he really needed them dead either. He made his way out of the underground base then froze.

A being stood in front of him, undetectable to his senses or the constructs on his person. It was a cthul, wearing an armored suit that covered it from feet to top of the head, even covering the tendrils over its mouth. The sleek black material had armored plates over vulnerable areas, but the rest looked like fibers woven tightly together in a way that made Ra’azel think of muscles.

Lines of golden glowing light flickered over it seemingly at random.

The person made a gesture with its arms, placing them in front of its chest with palms facing each other.

“Greetings, Ra’azel Equinar,” the figure said through modulated speech coming from its helmet.

Ra’azel’s first thought was to kill him, but some instinct warned him against it. He could feel nothing from the figure, in a way that reminded him of his fight against the monsters that had injured him so. It was almost like an absence of everything. Though to a much lesser degree. This person was strong, Ra’azel had no doubt about it. And the fact that it knew his name was concerning as well. Through agony, he moved his Soul, preparing runes for a fight.

“Who are you and what do you want?” Ra’azel asked.

The dropped its hands and spoke. “I am the Sixth Emissary of the Machine, servant of Atalar. Your name has become known to us, as have your activities in our lands. The Machine God wishes to speak with you.”

Ra’azel blinked. He had overheard cthul talking about their Machine God, he hadn’t spent much time thinking about it, but he knew that they believed and followed the will of something that they considered a god.

“I carry a gift from the Machine God,” the figure said, then slowly reached behind and pulled out something. Ra’azel stiffened as the Emissary pulled out a piece of fabric with a symbol written on it, a symbol he recognized.

“How? Where did you get that?” Ra’azel asked as he took a step forward.

“It, and more is yours, if you consent to speaking with Atalar.”

Ra’azel reached and took the fabric in his hands, it was weathered, but not nearly as much as it should be. In truth, it shouldn’t even be here at all, by now it should be only dust. And yet, here it was, the banner of his house, of his home.

He raised his eyes and met the glowing visor of the cthul. “Why does your god wish to speak with me?”

“That is for Atalar to know.”

Ra’azel debated killing the cthul and going to find this supposed god on his own, to find answers. But he pushed against those thoughts, it was the part of him that was mad. He was injured still, and though he knew he was a match for most that lived in this world, he didn’t wish to engage in conflict until he was fully recovered.

It was a risk, but... he wanted to know.

“Lead the way.”