CHAPTER 42: OBSERVER

The rock exoskeleton once again molded itself around Haldon’s leg.

Haldon twisted, summoning the rank two sword, and with one swing shattered the rock exoskeleton around his ankle.

Landing on his feet, he brought the sword down once more on truston’s neck, slicing off the head.

This all happened in a few seconds.

In the next moment, his hand muscles strained and veins popped up. Gritting his teeth, Haldon tried "carrying" the sword away.

He failed.

Like writing and rubbing on the same spot on a piece of paper, the ability had been overused. Of course, it was due to his low running essence. It would have to replenish before he could use it again.

He had a choice, to use his remaining essence to escape, or "carry" the sword. Even if he didn’t use the "carry" ability, the rank two mystical artifact’s effect needed essence just to wield it, or carry it naturally.

Cursing, Haldon dropped the sword. Escaping, he realized his attackers’ chase had slowed down. Feeling too weak to take any kind of advantage over this, he didn’t look back.

Hadrian had of course turned Truston to his vessel right before Truston had died. Like the Alia vessel, after Truston willingly let go of his essence, Hadrian managed to accomplish the task.

Without truston’s co-operation, Hadrian would not have succeeded.

After the fight with Haldon, however, Truston had used up a lot of his essence’s potency. This meant that Hadrian, who obtained vessels at the state they were in, didn’t have rank two essences to use for attacking Haldon.

Luckily, the Alia vessel was also of the elemental path. This meant Hadrian could channel Alia’s essence to manifest rank two abilities.

However, the rank two abilities consumed a lot of rank one essence just to use. It’s why the Alia vessel had been limited.

Another thing that had happened was Truston’s two rank two cores coexisted with Alia’s rank one core inside of her. Inside of one vessel unlike how the space path and elemental core repelled each other.

This, however, did not make Alia a rank three mage. For a rise in rank, as Hadrian had just learnt, it wasn’t just about obtaining a new core. The previous rank core is reformed to a more potent core that matches the new core.

Currently, inside of Alia’s centre, it was like two big wheels supported by a third smaller one.

In any case, I’ve achieved my goal.

Hadrian thought as the bearded man and groper mage vessels walked up to the sword.

Truston died knowing why he died. Though Haldon had deprived Hadrian from having the Truston vessel by slicing off his head, the two rank two cores were a fine enough prize.

The sword too.

Bearded man bent down to grab its handle and Hadrian was surprised not being able to lift it.

Augmenting bearded man, he finally managed to wield it. It was, however, tremendously heavy.

Bearded man, who had the force path core, would have to constantly channel essence augmenting himself just to carry the mystical artifact.

Peering into the mystical artifact, he could see the two cores that made it. Smiling, he tried calling at the essence.

After a few seconds, the smile disappeared and his lips pressed tightly. Though the essence did respond to him, it wasn’t like the essence in a living being.

What did I expect? A sword has no mind, soul or body. At least not in the way my authority interprets these attributes.

If I shatter it, I should be able to obtain the two cores, Just like when the spawn died. What if I make a mistake and shatter the cores as well? Are the cores even destructible?

Of course, he planned to find ways to do this later. Right now, he needed to make his way out of the compound and area.

Twisting the heavy mystical artifact in his hand, Hadrian pondered.

This will be difficult to use in a fight.

Of course, he imagined Alia or any other vessel that will have the two rank two cores or even channeling the rank two essence, would be able to use it. After all, Haldon was a space path mage and seemed to use it effortlessly.

I wonder what the effect of other paths’ mystical artifacts are.

Bearded man walked with the sword to the main Hadrian vessel. With a snap of his fingers, the sword disappeared from bearded man’s hands.

The main Hadrian vessel wielded the space path core and as such had the "carry" ability.

At rank one, as Hadrian had discovered, the maximum amount of time he could "carry" objects in that space was twelve hours.

Approaching this time, it did feel like a strain on him. The more objects he carried the shorter the time, and those were regular objects and items.

Now, having "carried" the rank two mystical artifact, he felt his time had been reduced greatly.

The "rest" time to be able to carry objects again was two hours.

Regardless, he was glad he could for now. He had not used up the essence of his space path core in the fight.

Taking one last glance at the decapitated Truston corpse, the Hadrian vessels made their escape from the metal workshop compound.

...

Bagdona, standing at the vantage point of a building a hundred metres away, observed all of this.

As a rank three of the force path, he could augment his senses so that he saw and heard everything with great detail from that distance.

After Haldon had brought him the useless corpse, he’d gone back to his office at the brothel.

A rank one mage had come busting through his door with a terrified look on his face and recounted what had happened at the metal workshop with Haldon going crazy and slaughtering his own men.

He made his way to the metal workshop and saw the fight between Haldon and Truston. That’s not all he saw. There were four figures ominously observing the fight as well.

One of them was the mage he’d commanded to bring the boy and girl to Haldon to turn the girl’s core into a mystical artifact.

Seeing this, Bagdona made the decision to observe. After all, when Haldon had brought him the useless corpse, he’d described that they had captured and even conversed with it.

This meant they could "die" at command. Bagdona could have suppressed them, Haldon and Truston included, especially with their state in the fight. However, he thought if he tried capturing them or attacking them, it would just lead to the same outcome.

Knowledge, to him, was the most important thing in a battle. What they needed was to understand what they were fighting against.