Stepping out of the fog, Victor found himself in a large imperial court that was built out of marble in the same gothic elvish style of the palace below with huge lanterns floating in midair shooting strange lightning streaks into the sky, it gave the entire hall a bluish tint.
And yes, the hall didn’t have any walls or ceilings despite the large gothic arcs extending across the sky above being supported by long decorated columns that were scattered in a seemingly random pattern around the hall.
It was as if this entire court was suspended in midair in the middle of a huge storm, yet for some strange reason he couldn’t feel a breeze as if he was inside.
In the center of the court, a stairway extended up for about steps, and on top of it was a throne where a woman that was veiled by blue mist sat. The storm lord.
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NAME: Nimera
LEVEL: 310,430
CLASS: STORM LORD, U
SUBCLASS: Magician, AA
AFFINITY: STORM
AFFINITY RANK: TRIANGLE (100%) + 2
ABNORMAL STATUS :
THE ELDAR DEATH CURSE, SSS (YOUR LIFE WILL SLOWLY DWINDLE UNTIL YOU DIE) THE LAST THREAD EFFECT (DEATH RESILIENT), X (YOU CAN NEVER DIE DUE TO THE EFFECT OF ONLY ONE TYPE OF ATTACK OR CURSE)
STATUS :
AUTHORITY: 32277
STRENGTH: 826884
AGILITY: 828173
INTELLIGENCE: 828413
LUCK: 49
CHARM: 69
ORDER POINTS: 5084112
SKILLS :
ERROR RETRIEVING DATA: LORD >> DATABASE FIELD CONNECTION IS SEVERED
FATE
ERROR RETRIEVING DATA: LORD >> FIELD UNAVAILABLE
BLOODLINE
ICE LEVIATHAN, SS (AWAKENED)
EQUIPMENT:
LAST THREAD, X
STORM ARMOR, SSS
EYE OF THE STORM, SSS
BLURWOOD STAFF, SSS
REFLECTION TIARA, SSS
HYPER DEFENSE TALISMAN, SSS
APPRAISER EYEGLASS, A
HEALING EARRINGS, A
Oh, this woman was twice as strong as that Sun lord... And he was right about the curse... And that thread, it must have been why she is still alive, literally hanging by a thread!... It was like those artifacts in video games that left you with 1 health point after a deadly attack! HE WANTED IT... Too bad he had no way of taking it from the storm lord. �
He didn’t dare to look any longer so he slowly moved his eyes down to observe the 9 people standing respectfully below the throne.
The first three were people he knew. The first was Aerith who shot him an apologetic look for embroidering him into this, the second was Rosette who was threatening him with her eyes to act properly. The third was the old librarian, Germina.
Next were the four young men who were with Lizor that day acting as his lackeys, they were shaking out of fear as they stood to the side.
The last two whom he didn’t know were a strange man who seemed to be Lizor’s father and a strange woman who stood to the side silently with a smirk on her face as if she found the entire situation amusing.
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NAME: Lazarus Stormbringer
LEVEL: 640
CLASS: STORM ARCHWIZARD, SSS
SUBCLASS: CHEF, D
ABNORMAL STATUS:
STORM LORD’S DISCIPLE (2nd)
AUTHORITY: 80+20
Bloodline :
Moon Elf, AA
FATE:
FATE’S POWER: S (SCION)
DEFINED FATE: ERROR - SCIONS HAS NO DEFINED FATES <WORLD RULE>
DESTINY LIST: < 10 ORDER POINTS TO UNVEIL>
Next...
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NAME: Atma StormBorn
LEVEL: 1471
CLASS: STORM AVATAR, SSS
STORM LORD’S DISCIPLE (1st)
“Who said I don’t!” he spat,, taking out a strange little crystal hammer from his storage ring.
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DHARMATIC CRYSTAL HAMMER, A (X, SYSTEM LOCKED)
EVERY ACTION HAS AN EQUAL AND AN OPPOSITE REACTION
EFFECT: FORCE KARMIC RETRIBUTION
CONDITIONS :
YOU NEED TO HAVE 10 TIMES THE AUTHORITY OF THE TARGET THE PAYBACK PERCENTAGE DEPENDS ON THE ENERGY EXPENDED WHEN ACTIVATING THE HAMMER
LOCKED STATE :
ALL PAYMENTS ARE IMAGINARY.
ONLY WORKS FOR BODILY INJURIES.
CAN ONLY BE USED THREE TIMES EVERY YEAR.
What the... Inspecting the hammer Victor had a bad premonition. SHIT SHIT SHIT.... It didn’t take him a lot to realize what this was about! He immediately started thinking of a way to escape...
“Your lordship, might I get permission to use this artifact here?” he turned to the storm lord and asked.
“Granted...” the lord who clearly knew what this was said.
“This is?” Rosette asked.
“It is an old artifact... Simply put, it has the ability to force the settlement of a debt!” Lazarus said. “For example, if someone punched you, you could hit yourself with it, and that person would get his punch back!” he said, and before his words settled in, he swiftly took the hammer and hit his son’s chest before anyone could realize what he meant.
“AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH.......................” Aerith screamed in pain as she fell to her knees, touching her body as if she was about to die. On her, five ethereal blue sword marks appeared mirroring those on Lizor’s corpse.
“AERITH!” Rosette screamed as she wanted to grab her weapon.
“Relax, the effect is imaginary...” the Storm Lord said.
“Ah. What..." Rosette gasped as she inspected Aerith’s body. As the ethereal marks disappeared, there were no signs of injury, but the girl was hurting, grasping her chest and abdomen in pain as if they were real!
“Yes. It is all imaginary, but the pain is real.... This was Aertih’s debt to my son...” Lazarus said with a smug voice. “Now... I wonder who would be next...” he said as he grabbed the hammer again and hit Lizor’s body again.
“NO...” Aerith yelled for some reason, but no one cared as they looked at Victor...
BAM
The hummer connected.
PAM!
The ethereal mark didn’t appear on Victor, but on Lazarus's face, it was as if he was slapped by an invisible hand.
“What the...”
“NO!” Ignoring the pain on his face, Lazarus screamed again and hit his son’s corpse.
PAM!
This time a kick on Lazarus’s ass, sending him rolling to the ground.
Eh....
“Little Laz... You really like to beat your son’s face don’t you?” Atma was the one who said it as she smirked. Some of Lizor's lackeys who stood to the other side were about to laugh, but they didn't dare to.
“Ah.... I...” Lazarus who quickly stood up angrily was left speechless... What did this mean? IT meant that from the time he beat up his son to the time Aerith killed him, he was not attacked at all!
HOW COULD THAT BE?
That was the question everyone had, and the only answer was... It was really all just a coincidence!
...
Well, it was not that simple, moments earlier when Victor saw the hammer, he activated all his senses earlier to find a loophole, he saw what happened with Aerith.
The moment the hammer struck, a red thread appeared between Aerith and Lizor’s corpse, then the thread burned up rapidly, and as if it was a rubber band that was let loose, it left Lizor and struck back at Aerith making 5 imaginary sword marks appear on her body before she screamed in pain.
He knew that thread... It was a fate thread! The hammer... Maybe it was the fate artifact he was after!
But other than worrying about it for now, he had to worry about himself...
He quickly used his disguise to hide what he was doing as he squinted his eyes and activated his ‘Eyes of Destiny’ skill, looking at Lizor, and making sure not to glance at the Storm Lord just in case.
He could see it, between the myriad of fading threads the corpse had, a red thread connecting both of them.
He instinctively knew that the moment Lazarus hit his son’s corpse again, this thread would snap and hit him in the balls... Although he might be able to disguise it, if nothing happened it would raise many questions. And he was not 100% sure he would be able to fool the lord.
Watching Lazrous prepare to strike the hammer again he knew he had to act fast. He needed to sever that thread!
The question was how... he had no such skill... Unless
Without thinking about it, he used his Devour skill to target the thread...
The thread flashed once and then turned into dust that was sucked by Victor.
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DEVOUR ACTIVATED
TARGET FATE THREAD: 897984654543245AOPHH488YYEEX12588565-1288
---
DEVOURED
2 EXPERIENCE POINTS GAINED
At the same time the notification appeared, Victor could feel his connection to Lizor grow weaker as if they were complete strangers... No wait, they were strangers to begin with.
It was as if the memory of what happened earlier was something Victor watched on TV and not something he did...
BOOM...
The hummer struck a moment later, and without Victor’s thread, the one that activated was the next one, chronologically... The one of Lazarus slapping his son that morning!