Hearing Lifre’s words, and seeing how she had immediately directed her gaze at him, Rowan felt as if he had been locked onto by some strange power. Naturally, he was aware of the identities of those who served the Keeper. Even more so than a regular adventurer, those who sought to do things in the dark must be aware of their biggest threats.
He clicked his tongue, tapping his staff on the ground. Immediately, those who had been infected with his power froze, including Lifre and the majority of the Maxers guarding the workers. There were only a few of the workers themselves that had been touched by his power, but this was already enough for him to make a good show.
Rowan glared at Lifre, who was simply blinking at him with her head still titled, unable to move anything other than her eyes. “I had been hoping to make the entire team vanish quietly. However, since you have appeared, there’s no harm in settling this now. If I manage to take down one of the Keeper’s servants, I’d say this would be a worthwhile endeavor.”
Suddenly, an additional head sprouted up from Lifre’s shoulder, quickly detaching itself and floating above her like a bubble. Rowan could tell that the blood wasn’t infecting this extra head, but it also didn’t have any significant power. His blood curse targeted the core of an infected individual, meaning that they would be incapable of splitting much of their energy into an avatar after being infected.
“Uh, mister evil blood guy, I think there’s been a misunderstanding?” Lifre’s new head spoke up, blinking innocently towards Rowan.
Rowan simply snorted, tapping his staff onto the ground again. Immediately, Lifre’s right arm exploded in a shower of blood, her health bar appearing over her head and dipping dangerously low. “What, you want to claim that you’re not the Lifre of the Sky Citadel now?”
The extra head floated to look at the arm constantly bleeding out, and the health bar that kept getting lower. “Well, first of all, it’s Olympus now, not the Sky Citadel. But nope, I’m Lifre! I’m just not the Keeper’s servant. Only one of us calls herself that, and she gets pretty upset when the rest of us use that title.”
After saying that, the head turned to face Rowan again. “This is a really dangerous power, you know? It could really threaten anyone that wasn’t prepared! Thankfully, I’m a slime, so I’m always watching my own body. It was my first time having blood vessels, so I was pretty curious about it.”
Rowan snorted slightly, shaking his head as he saw the wound on her arm close up. “If you are trying to stall for time while you remove the blood from your body, it is useless. It is already attached to your core. The only way to remove it is through death.”
“Huh? Oh, no, I wasn’t trying to remove it or anything. I was just using this time to make sure that all of your attention was on me while my main body rushed over.” Lifre admitted with that same innocent smile, causing Rowan’s body to go cold.
My power can infect avatars split off after the initial infection… but if what I infect is just an avatar to begin with, it won’t trace back to the main body. Immediately, he tapped his staff on the ground again, Lifre’s entire body erupting into a geyser of blood. If she were bluffing, this would immediately kill her, causing that floating head to vanish.
Sure enough, his eyes went cold when the rain of blood ended, that floating head still present where it had been. “If you don’t want the rest of these adventurers to be killed, you will keep your main body back.”
Seeing as he couldn’t directly kill Lifre, there was every chance that a powerful foe was on their way. Staying and fighting to the bitter end was a foolish tactic. Regardless of anything else, he had the lives of several gods in his hands. With just a thought, he could cause all of them to die at any moment, their lives no different from a mortal to him. This gave him at least enough confidence to escape with his life.
As long as I can get out, I can go into hiding for a few months and find a new place to act. Even if they use the Keeper’s resources, there are places to evade detection. It was common belief that certain locations in the world were invisible even to the eyes of the Greater Pantheon. These locations had often been used by those who wanted to quickly change their identities to evade the public eye. Personally, Rowan had always been suspicious of this information, but it seemed that he was going to have to use one such location himself.
“Hmm? Oh, that’s okay! I’m already done setting up!” Lifre responded in a happy tone. “Are you a fan of horror books, mister evil blood guy? Personally, I don’t really like writing them… I’ve never been that good at making the monster weak enough for the protagonist to kill without removing the sense of urgency from the story. You can help me out with this one! If you survive, feel free to give me any feedback on how I can improve, it would be much appreciated!”
As soon as Lifre’s floating head said that, Rowan could feel the world around him darkening. He couldn’t sense the blood pool beneath the head, nor the infected Maxers. All that was left was darkness. He blinked his eyes, and suddenly found himself in a quaint home on the edge of a large city.
Feeling a sense of urgency, he rushed over to the nearest window, looking out at the sky. It was night-time, and he could see the vast emptiness above, dotted with countless stars. Not Fyor…
Lifre was known as an excellent combatant, able to bring out a weapon for almost any situation. However, she was even more well known as an author, using her divine power to create different scenarios in which a reader would find themselves. Rowan had heard of her training manuals before, but had never used one himself. That said, she was no longer the only divine author in the world, other people having followed in her footsteps.
If this is a story, I just need to complete it. Typically speaking, there were certain rules one had to follow when creating a divine story. There had to be some path for the person trapped inside to escape. Otherwise, the power would be deemed too great, and the divinity needed would be astronomical.
In the case of a password, the victim had to be told the password in some form before being trapped. Lifre hadn’t mentioned anything about a password, so that was obviously not the case. She said that this was a horror genre. That means that my goal should be to either kill the monster, survive to the end, or escape the affected area.
Unfortunately, he didn’t know what the monster in this book would be. There were many cases in books where a character wasn’t made aware of the monster’s nature until moment’s before their death. Rowan’s gaze swept over the room, rushing towards the terminal positioned on a nearby desk. His power as a Fallen God had been sealed, leaving him no different from an ordinary person. Meaning, he needed to solve this with an ordinary person’s power.
He brought up the local news reports on the terminal, quickly scanning through them for any suspicious entries. “There haven’t been any strange deaths or missing persons lately. I might be at the start of the setting.” If that was the case, he was in luck. The protagonist of the book never died at the very beginning. There would always be time to gather clues. All he had to do was be observant. Look for anything in the local news or rumors over the coming days.
“Writers are predictable.” Rowan muttered with a proud grin. “They’ll always follow the same formula. First, the monster will attack those in the area of the protagonist, gradually taking out those more important to his story. As he realizes the crisis he’s in, he’ll be able to identify weaknesses in the monster.”
After coming to that conclusion, he stood from his desk, starting to pace in the room. “I’ve been thrust into this setting. First, I need to identify who my friends and family are. They’re the most likely targets for whatever monster Lifre has concocted for me. Once I’ve done that, I can watch for their deaths, and review the method of death. If it’s a monster that can’t be killed, like a void entity, I have to identify its pattern and escape. Otherwise, I need to prepare anything that could be related to the monster’s death.”
Rowan looked around, retrieving a communication crystal and looking at his contacts. There were several that could be seen, and some that had been marked as mother, sister, or cousin. Rowan first called his sister’s number, waiting for the call to connect. He pursed his lips, listening as the call eventually went to voicemail. “Has it already started? If it went for my sister first, that is understandable.”
Instead, he looked at his call history, and called the most frequently used number. That should be my best friend in this setting. The ringtone went on and on… and soon went to voicemail.
At this point, Rowan had started to be concerned. “It’s been less than ten minutes, and it’s already gone after both of them? But… there weren’t any suspicious news reports.”
After saying that, Rowan rushed back to his desk, opening the news reports once again. Same as before, nothing unusual had been posted. There didn’t seem to be any new reports from when he had just checked. He couldn’t hear any sirens outside, and there weren’t any panicked cries. Nothing that would indicate a mass outbreak or some kind of rampant monster.
Rowan’s eyes scanned through the reports, looking for anything that could be the slightest bit suspicious. He sorted them by the most recent reports, and the last report was simply about a normal car crash on the highway involving a drunk driver. His brow furrowed, before his eyes went wide. He looked at the timestamp of the report, and compared it to the clock on his terminal.
Eight hours. There hadn’t been any news reports for an eight hour period. Whether it was political, weather, or random gossip, the last report was from eight hours ago.
Realizing this, he rushed out of his chair, not even bothering to turn off the terminal this time. His mind was racing, throwing open the curtains of the window again. He was prepared to see an endless horde of undead, a civilization in ruins, or even signs of monsters everywhere. Instead… he saw nothing. No people. No cars in the street. There were a few dogs walking around on their own, a slime rolling down the sidewalk, but not a person in sight.
Normally, this wouldn’t be too unusual. After all, it was the middle of the night. Why would he be expecting to see people right outside his window? The lights inside the house across the street were on, so the occupants should be just inside. Same for the houses adjacent to it.
Rowan grit his teeth, running to the door and rushing across the street. He could hear music being played inside, and looked for a window he could peek in through. Thankfully, the curtains weren’t closed on the living room, allowing him to peer through. The living room was empty, the lights left on.
Across from the couch, it looked like the family had been watching a movie, the image still projected on the opposite wall. However, when Rowan looked at that projection, he felt his blood go cold. There were faces pressed up against the projection, three of them. They seemed to be pounding against the surface of the wall they were placed upon, as if trying to get out.
Worse, their eyes were staring at Rowan, looks of horror on their faces. He couldn’t hear them, the sound blocked from exiting the projection. However, he could make out some of what they were saying by the movement of their lips. “Don’t… watch.” As soon as he came to that point, he turned around, rushing back to his house with a pale face.
This is definitely a void monster. Don’t watch? Did that family get pulled in because they were watching a regular program, or a certain movie? No, this hit everyone locally at once. It has to have been something more common than a particular movie. Don’t watch any program?
Of course, Rowan couldn’t be sure that the family themselves knew the full story. All that they would know was that they had been pulled into the projection while they were watching whatever they had been watching at the time. Everyone would only have a small piece of information. He could go to other houses, try to find similar cases, but… if the trigger for the threat was watching the screen, he would only be dooming himself.
Rowan glanced over to the terminal again, pursing his lips. Potentially, he could check it again to see if this was only a local event, or something worldwide. If it was worldwide, leaving wouldn’t help him. But… staying would help him even less.
He shook his head, turning and preparing to leave again. His hand grabbed the handle of the door, before simply passing through it. In horror, he looked down at his hand, seeing it fade in and out like static. His eyes turned back to the terminal, and he lunged for it, wanting to immediately turn it off. Don’t look at any projection! That was the real threat, any form of projection!
Unfortunately for Rowan, his body never made it to the desk. Not quite. Instead, it floated up into the air, shooting straight into the projected screen. He stood on the news website, looking around in horror. The only hope was to immediately abandon all technology… The moment I left the screen on, or maybe even as soon as I turned it on the second time, it was already over.
Unbeknownst to Rowan, this incident had long been noticed by the public. More than eighty percent of the population had been trapped in some form of screen or communication device. Those who survived fled the cities, escaping into the mountains and other undeveloped areas. For those people, they had the chance to build anew, away from their networks and screens. They had the chance to survive.
Lifre clicked her tongue as she looked down at the book, which had only written up to the first few pages. “I thought he’d last at least a little longer than that. Obviously, if you’re in a horror story, you should evacuate at the first opportunity. Waiting for the monster to attack those close to you? What would that help? You just get out immediately, and any monster in that area would no longer be a threat.” She muttered under her breath, shaking her head. While she was waiting for Rowan to escape from the book she trapped him in, she was also helping to remove the blood infection from the various Maxers present.
This was… a rather simple task, really. Because she was a slime, she was familiar with changing her body into all different types of materials, even subtle genetic differences. And now that she was familiar with blood, she began to give blood transfusions to those present, draining their current blood supply while injecting them with blood of a matching type.
This allowed her to remove the blood that was infected by Rowan, enabling the victims to move again. As for completely removing the influence of the blood, they would need to seek out the church of Leowynn to receive a blessing.
