Watching the Traveler take off and inter the golden domain, I couldn’t help but blink, glancing over at Aurivy. “So… you were waiting for what exactly in order to show me this?”
Aurivy’s cheeks puffed out, and she glanced away. “Another big space battle… I had this whole scene in mind. You were going to ask about a new ship that you could use as your flagship to lead the fleet against the enemy, and I was going to be right there, ready to jump in. It would have been awesome.”
I let out a small sigh, reaching over and ruffling her hair. “Still, it looks really good. And you even brought in food from my Earth?” When Chel mentioned ‘sloppy joes’, I naturally knew that Aurivy had been up to something in order to surprise me.
The pink-haired halfling averted her eyes again. “Well, yeah… I wanted this to be somewhere you’d like to hang out when you descend. I wasn’t able to get things like movies and TV shows, or even books, but I got the food, drinks, and games from your world. There’s an entire tennis court near the heart of the ship. Just a little slice of your old home for whenever you wanted some nostalgia.”
My smile became warmer as I heard that, but I shook my head. “Thanks, Rivy. But, I think that there’s someone who would like that even more than me.” I glanced down the hall, looking towards the rows of doors.
Aurivy looked up at me curiously, before her eyes widened in realization. I wasn’t the only one pulled from my old world, and Ashley had been through periods of homesickness a few times already. Something like the Traveler might help, at least a small amount. Aurivy nodded her head. “I’ll tell her about it after they’re done with this mission.”
“Thanks.” I smiled, turning my attention to the screen. Now that they had access to something like the Traveler, I wasn’t worried about them not being able to find the relics in time. “By the way, what sort of weapons did you give it?”
Aurivy simply chuckled, shaking her head. “I taught it a few different spells, and had it enchant one to each of its turrets. As long as it doesn’t run out of energy, it can keep firing those spells. Thankfully, its travel mode works through divine energy, leaving its mana exclusively for sensors, shields, and weapons.”
That was reassuring. While I didn’t know how powerful it would be, I knew that Aurivy does not do anything halfway. If she really taught it spells, then those spells were likely high level and with enough versatility for a variety of situations.
With that in mind, I changed the screen to look for something else. Our biggest threat at the moment was still the monsters lurking within the void. In order to get a grasp on when we would be able to deal with those problems without relying on Leowynn, I ran a search. I was looking for the mortals who had the highest attainment with the chaotic energies of the void.
Keenan Criar was a young man, barely fourteen years of age, yet he was in a situation that would terrify his peers. He was face to face with a hideous beast, one with six hooved legs protruding from the bottom of its swollen body. The rest of it was a writhing mass of tentacles, eyes, and gaping mouths.
Keenan had never seen a creature like this before, but that did not matter. He growled at the monster, his hands forming into claws as he crouched down. Having lived in the wild for years, he had learned many tricks that others might not discover for their entire lives in the safety of the cities.
Blood dripped down from his fingers, mixing with a black ki to form sharp talons. When he lunged forward, the tentacles of the unknown monster slapped down at his previous position. His eyes were feral, like those of a wild predator as he jumped along the sides of trees, looking for any blind spot the creature might possess.
Unfortunately, its eyes seemed to cover every inch of its surroundings, some of them even beneath the beast’s stomach. With a snarl, he kicked off from one tree moments before it was destroyed by a lash from a tentacle. His clawed hand grabbed the black flesh of the tentacle while he was in midair, tugging on it to change his trajectory.
Within moments, he was standing on the body of the creature, its tentacles lashing down at him. His eyes went pitch black, a similar color of ki erupting from his back to catch the numerous tentacles. Perhaps through luck or divine providence, the tentacles struck the ki-formed hands instead of the boy himself, who was free to rip into the body of the beast with his own claws.
The monster let out a cry similar to that of a goat as its flesh was torn open, one of its half dozen hearts pierced through. However, the boy kept going. Even when some of the tentacles crashed against his bare flesh and tore open his skin, he didn’t stop.
The health bar above the monster was rapidly depleting, as was the boy’s own. But that was the way the world worked. It was not the strongest who survived, or the fastest, or even the smartest. The survivor was simply the one who lived, and nothing more. They were the one who made it to fight a deadly battle another day.
So far, fortune seemed to smile on the boy, as his health dropped marginally slower than that of the beast he was ripping to shreds beneath him. He had protected his arms and his vital organs with ki, ensuring that he would be able to keep going until his last breath. The monster, however, had no such ability.
When it had less than one third of its health, its attacks became more sluggish. The pain was forcing it to continue to fight back, but it had lost its ability to accurately target the boy. Some of its tentacles had even come down to slap at its own body, only furthering the injuries on itself.
When it finally hit the ground, the last of its health depleted, the boy gave panting, ragged breaths. This was how he had spent the last four years of his life, ever since he ran away from home at the tender age of ten. If not for his particular trait, he would have never survived for as long as he did. Yet, due to this very trait – one which had caused his short life innumerable hardships – he was able to survive on his own.
Keenan wasn’t just a normal boy. He was a Demigod, the product of some unknown god laying with a mortal woman. Keenan had never met his father, and knew that he would try to kill the man if ever given the chance. After all, he was not blessed with some spectacular power like the Demigoddess of Shadows, the Demigoddess of Youth, or so on.
No, he was the Demigod of Chaos. His trait drastically increased his Luck stat, but at the same time, it decreased the Luck of those around him by a similar amount. This number seemed to grow with time, constantly becoming a bigger influence on his life.
While a higher Luck might sound good, the penalty that came with it was not worthwhile. His family became ill, struck with natural and economic disaster that left them homeless until one of his mother’s friends took them in. His friends were in fatal accidents after spending only weeks knowing him, some being the victims of random monster attacks. Worst still, his teachers were all killed any time they tried to use a Perfection Chamber with a near guaranteed success rate.
And this was all by the time he was seven. It only got worse from there, disasters escalating while everyone began to realize the common denominator. Bad things only happened to people that were close to Keenan, or those that had recently spent time with him. His friends shunned him, his teachers ignored his existence, even his own mother said she hated him. She wished that he had never been born.
Knowing that things weren’t going to get any better, Keenan prepared. He used the savings he picked up off the sidewalks to buy a storage item, and then raided the pantry of the family they were staying with. Taking what he thought he could use to survive, he ran away, not stopping until the city was far behind him.
At first, he was scared. What child his age wouldn’t be? He was a Demigod, but that didn’t give him any special combat power that he could think of. After a few hours, he wanted to go back home, to apologize and promise to do better. But then, thinking of all the bad things that happened because of him, he simply couldn’t. Especially after what his mother had said.
Maybe… maybe if she came looking for him, he would go back. If someone, anyone came looking for him, just proving that there was someone in this world that didn’t want him gone, then he would return to the city
Days passed, and Keenan waited, using what little food he had brought with him sparingly. He watched the roads from the tops of trees, looking for any traveler that seemed remotely interested in searching for a lost boy.
Nobody… not a single soul left the city in search of him. The guards were nowhere to be seen, the only travelers were common hunters looking for their next prey, or bandits planning to ambush unfortunate explorers.
When he realized that nobody was coming for him, something inside of Keenan broke. The faces of his mother, his friends, everyone that shunned him rose to the surface, and they seemed far more sinister. The boy left his regular perch, moving further and further from the city with every day. He did not care where he went, as long as it was away from people.
He was ten years old when he ran away from home. A young boy with only rudimentary knowledge of magic and ki, and not a single ounce of fighting experience. Yet despite that, he had become the apex predator of this forest, far removed from civilization. The reason was actually very easy to explain… his special trait.
While his trait sapped the luck away from everyone around him, it did the same thing for the beasts that he fought. Creatures were prone to trip in his presence, bite their tongues, or misjudge their attacks. Meanwhile, his own attacks had supernatural accuracy, as if he could tell exactly where to strike to deal the most damage.
Naturally, he did not actually have this knowledge, and simply guessed at first. Only later on did he begin to purposely strike at the weak points of these monsters. But by then, there was nothing left of the boy named Keenan Criar. His clothes had long been torn to ribbons, his storage ring crushed between the jaws of a great beast. Oddly, the eruption from the ring shattering had broken one of his arms, but also rattled the brain of the beast enough for him to deal a fatal blow.
Since then, he had been well and truly on his own. It had been years since he saw another person, and he fully intended to keep it that way. He prepared to tear the tentacled monster beneath him to pieces, and make it his meal for the day.
Unfortunately for Keenan, the beast seemed to dissolve into black particles not long after it was slain, leaving Keenan to frown. This was the third creature he had encountered that did this after it died. They were clearly fleshy creatures, yet they dissolved like energy beings after their deaths. He didn’t know why this happened, but he didn’t care.
Glancing at his status screen, he saw that he was down to less than ten percent health. If he wanted to survive, he would need to make do with plants for today. Maybe he could make another tasty paste that increased his health. It had been a while since he found the berries to make that one, but who knew… maybe he was feeling lucky.
