Bloodstained Blade-Chapter 159 - One After Another
The weeks that followed yielded less and less new information, but the Ebon Blade could do nothing to speed up the waiting, not in the face of demonic souls it was finally harvesting one at a time. Each was different, and how they fought, and each had different powers to offer, but after tasting the first couple, the blade knew it would not stop until it had collected all of them; the rewards were simply too great to pass up.
Still, with every new power, it worried that the corruption of the demon princes might be building up to a dangerous degree. How would I know if they changed me? The sword wondered. What would be different?
It didn’t feel any more wrathful than before. If anything, it was less angry than it had been in some time, certainly since entering the city. Something about seeing nobles being tormented by demons and beggars amused it, and as it ran out of scrolls that had no tidbits about the road ahead, it spent more and more time simply looking out the window and watching the ebb and flow of the last city.
Those distractions always gave way to new encounters with the Demon Souls tucked away in its gemstone as it slowly emptied the thing out, one powerful Prince or Princess at a time. After Prince Rizzeldah came the Bug Queen. She was technically the strongest of all the demonic rulers it had slain so far, but she was also the one it had the least apprehension about. She was a fierce fighter, but the sea prince and Prince Voltrim. They were far riskier.
Still, the powers she offered were nothing like what it had expected.
The Swarm: Make a copy of yourself and your wielder for ten seconds at the cost of 100 Life Force. You can use this to make as many copies as you like, but all powers used by all copies are drawn from the same pool of Life Force.
Web of Fate: This extends the reach of your Path of Vengeance, allowing you to not just call a grudge, but allow you to study their destiny or even switch places with them, exchanging locations.
Severed Thread: Enhances your power to Disrupt an opponent’s power. Not only can it affect a wider range and concepts, but when it ends one, it prevents them from using it again until they have rested and significantly recovered. This power can only affect one power of each opponent’s at a time.
Each of these was ridiculously powerful, both at first blush, and stayed that way even after it gave them due consideration. The sword eventually dismissed The Swarm, but only because it was so expensive. Even with its vast reserves, though, it could see itself running out of power too quickly if it got comfortable with that power.
Likewise, it eventually dismissed the Web of Fate, though not because it was weak or a disadvantage in any way. It just wasn’t the part of the Bug Queen that it had feared. The way that she could cut the threads that made up its very existence was simply too terrifying a power not to have, and the ability to inflict that on an opponent, disrupting an annoying power for the length of the fight, or even longer, was too desirable to pass on.
Almost immediately after the Ebon Blade made its selection, the Bug Queen’s soul dissolved into a thousand swarming wasps that swirled and stung at the blade’s soul. It crushed them in small groups, swatting them until none remained. This was a painful experience, but each of those tiny wounds festered, and the eggs that her revenge created hatched and started the process anew.
The Bug Queen had no voice, but her buzzing was incessant and maddening. It could almost hear messages at the edge of its senses, but they dissolved into auditory static well before it achieved any understanding.
For the Ebon Blade, things got progressively worse over several cycles of this. Finally, it was forced to use Hellfire, immolating itself on the library roof several times before the virulent torment came under control once more. If dueling Prince Angarazon had been the easiest soul to overcome, then she had without a doubt been the hardest.
-679 Life Force.
It took days for the blade to overcome her completely, and even after it did, its metal was warped and mottled for weeks because of the damage she’d done. It was like a pox, and it was bad enough that it wasn’t sure it should continue down this road.
If you keep pressing your luck, you will eventually face someone you can’t overpower, it told itself.
In the beginning, that would have been good advice, and if it had faced her first, it probably would have been enough to scare it off of coming down this road in the first place, but now it was committed. The weapon had gained too much to give up so easily when it still had two more powers in its grasp.
The next one it tried was likely the more dangerous of the two, at least for the blade, but it was the one that it feared the least. Prince Voltrim might still have some hold over the Warbringer, but it hadn’t pinned it helplessly in place for an endless span of suffering the way the prince of the 5th circle had, and the blade was more willing to take its chances with one danger than the other.
Hopefully, his soul contains something which will help me face despair, the weapon thought as it gripped the skinny industrial demon’s soul and examined it.
Reforged: As you are indestructible to force and fire, so to is your wielder, to a lesser degree. They gain 50% of your resistance to any force or damage, making them durable enough to hold you, even in extreme battles.
Overdrive: For 65 Life Force you can double the speed and strength of your wielder for the duration of a single combat. This will reduce their life by at least one year.
Hammering Blows: Your strikes are more impactful, dealing double damage, and shattering any material softer than forged steel; the cost of activating your vorpal strike is reduced by 50% against targets that are hard enough not to be affected by this power.
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While none of the abilities would offer it an edge over crushing, ocean-heavy despair, all of them were interesting. This time at least, it was able to remove Hammering Blows from contention almost immediately, but only because it didn’t do anything the blade couldn’t do already.
Overdrive was interesting, but only in that doubling some of the powers that already doubled its wielder’s strength could quickly get out of hand. However, it was Reforged that was the real winner. It was better than increased regeneration, and anything that made its wielder harder to kill was a boon to the blade.
As it selected this, the weaselly spirit it had wrung the power from slipped from its grip and moved up the blade’s hilt toward the Warforged that held it. Releasing itself would have been the quickest way to thwart the nasally voiced engineering demon, but the blade couldn’t do that. If the warforged released it, it would never be able to pick itself back up again, and it would rot on this rooftop until someone found it.
I will make you pay for what you’ve done to my creation, it whispered as it skittered across the blade’s surface.
Instead, it tightened its grip, locking its fingers in place and kneeling in a defensive crouch to limit the wicked gremlin’s options. Even as it did that, though, it felt its wielder’s body spasm as something else exerted its grip.
My creation. My body. My Warbringer, the voice babbled as the glitches in its control raced too and fro like a rodent. Mine! Mine, mine, mine, mine! Just like you!
Until that moment, the movements that the Ebon Blade fought against were random and spasmodic, but in that instant, they suddenly focused on the Warbringer’s sword hand, forcing it open. The weapon had anticipated something like this and pitched its wielder forward.
It fell like a randoll, twitching, as two minds wrestled for control of one body. The blade had been expecting something like this, but it didn’t have to hold its hilt. It just had to maintain contact. So long as it could do that, it could rid this out.
This will pass as the ghost of Prince Voltrim loses steam, it told itself. Still, that didn’t seem to be happening.
As the weapon felt like it might be about to lose control, it lashed out with the only new weapon it had against the demon soul that was running amok, targeting the puppet strings that it had tangled the warbringer up in.
-100 Life Force.
Prince Voltrim Control’s has been nullified!
What’s this? The demon screeched as it lost control over the Warbringer. What have you done?
The blade didn’t respond, even to gloat. Instead, it commanded the warbringer to regain a grip on its hilt and then to regain its footing. By the time the blade’s wielder was standing once more, the angry voice in its mind was already fading.
A handy ability to have, the blade decided, wondering if Disrupt would have even worked without the demonic enhancement.
The strange new power shortened the battle, but it did nothing for the oily corrosion that the demon prince left behind. The blade was forced to spend days cycling Life Force through the worst effect strands as its influence tried to flake them away to nothing.
It was weeks before it decided to press its luck with the final demon prince soul that it still had. Even with the idea that it now had an ace it could call upon in a desperate moment, it still worried that the prince of the fifth circle might yet finish what it started and crush it with the weight of despair.
Just think of the powers that such a being must have, it told itself as it finally embraced the thing and took the final step.
Ripples in the Sea: For 20 Life Force your next strike does not strike your intended target. Instead, if it hits, it lashes out striking out every nearby target within 10% of your Aura of Hunger.
Deeper Currents: The power allows you to shift the sensations coursing through your opponents for 5 Life Force. Pain can be transformed into sadness or even guilt, and fear can become despair or madness. The choice is yours so long as they have felt the touch of your blade.
Flow Like Water: For 25 Life Force any part of you or your wielder becomes insubstantial for a moment, allowing you to dodge attacks that are otherwise unblockable. To phase yourself or your wielder entirely, the cost doubles to 50 Life Force. Either way this effect lasts for less than a second, and cannot be made continuous by spending more Life Force.
Out of all of the power sets the blade had reviewed, these were the least interesting to it. While it didn’t want the power to fix someone with its gaze to the bottom of the sea forever, none of these were exactly transformative either.
Still, it was the last demon prince soul it had, so it took the time to review them. This time, Deeper Currents was the choice it threw away first. The reason for that was simple; it didn’t care what its enemy felt. Except in very rare cases, it had no desire to torture them, and it certainly had no desire to spare them the agony of defeat.
Past that, though, both Flow Like Water and Ripples in the Sea were more interesting. The former was more unique, and would make an excellent complement to Bolt, even if it wasn’t quite as good. The latter, though, was uniquely good for it, letting it strike at possibly dozens of opponents at once thanks to its very wide reach
Which is more important, it asked itself. Another trick for real fights, or something that will let me reap the blood of dozens at once?
No matter how well Ripples in the Sea would have gone with Red Haze, when it was put like that, the sword had to choose Flow Like Water. While it didn’t expect to use that power often, it would be an excellent surprise for certain opponents.
If I’d had it when I faced the Bug Queen, it would have changed the fight entirely, the weapon realized. In that moment, it felt foolish for not trying to adapt these powers earlier, but that was an unfair comparison. It hadn’t known there would be an oasis of safety and relative abundance just ahead for it to recuperate with.
Before it could give that much more thought, though, it felt the sadness-filled soul of the demon prince try to overwhelm it with a tide of sadness. The blade lashed out immediately with its Severed Thread ability, stopping it almost as soon as it started, just as it had with the previous demon soul.
Just like before, that wasn’t enough to make the fluid crawling shadow that was the demon prince’s dying curse vanish, but it was enough to rob it of its strength, and all it could do was pollute the blade’s soul with sinister stains before it faded entirely.
When that was done, the blade tried to tell itself it could move on. The second circle waits, it told itself. You just need to leap over the walls and assault the volcano directly. No one will stop you.
That was the logical move, but now greed outshone logic. The Penitant that ruled this city had terrible powers too, and now that the blade had feasted on so many of the other powers that the demons had possessed, it coveted them.
