by Nikita Thorn
The Fear Manifest had unfortunately taken the chance to finish its Hinder, and Seiki felt the air thickening around him, making his movement sluggish. As he pushed energy down for a Slide to counter the slowing effect, Seiki wondered if the game also knew that a high-level houshi was something he never ever wanted to fight and had adjusted to it.
Seiki scrunched his nose as he prepared his next Focused Strike. His blade was painfully heavy in the air and his energy regeneration was slowed to a frustrating crawl from the Hinder effect.
The masked figure proceeded to casting Ward on itself. The Hinder effect ended then, and the world thankfully snapped back to normal speed. Seiki pushed more energy down through his feet for extra Slide damage at the last second before slamming Focused Strike into the demon’s belly.
Fear Manifest [Rank 5 Demon]. HP 3007/5011.
The combination was far from being perfectly formed, but the damage was not terrible, considering it had gone through a Ward. In extremely close range, he drew his sword back to follow-up with a Vertical Spike stun, which would perhaps buy him some more time to finish the thing off.
A piercing cold from an invisible attack suddenly shot through his abdomen.
Seiki gasped as his health dropped by half. Even with no idea what had hit him, he forced himself to continue with a Vertical Spike on the ground. The stun took effect, freezing the demon in place right when it was about to cast another Hinder, and Seiki took the chance to strike out with Sweeping Blade on its arm to interrupt its cast.
The Fear Manifest staggered backward. A moment later, another streak of numbing cold slashed across Seiki’s forearm, taking nearly a third of his health and almost causing him to drop his sword.
Seiki finally realized what was happening.
“Mirror Ward?” he cried in horror.
The masked demon gave him no respite. As soon as the stun expired, it lifted its arm, palm facing forward. Luckily, Seiki now recognized the pose. He threw himself out of the way as an invisible wall of air blast at where he had been a second earlier, giving off a heavy muffled thud.
Seiki had to throw every early assumption he had had about the encounter out the window now. This was a copy of a player who still possessed Beta abilities, which explained why it had several moves he had never heard of on a houshi. He gritted his teeth as he suspected this was not the intended design. The system had not taken the outdated abilities into account, resulting in the scaling being terribly off. The demon’s Mirror Ward was reflecting nearly three times the damage back onto him, and this fact alone made the encounter impossible.
His mind racing, he checked the demon’s status again.
Fear Manifest [Rank 5 Demon]. HP 2538/5011.
It was at half health, while he was down to nearly a fifth and without access to potions. Seiki had no idea how long the Ward lasted around the demon, but he was running out of options. At any moment, the dreadful Reprimand would become available once again, and his experience so far told him to avoid the second charge at all cost.
Not too late to run, Unit Chief. You know this is futile. The mental voice laughed. The masked demon was once again slowly raising its hands to cast. It was another Hinder.
Seiki swallowed a curse. He could not afford to take more damage at this point, and therefore had no way to interrupt it. Turning around, he dashed away to put some distance between him and the demon to buy time.
The voice cackled. Run, yes, run!
As Hinder was about to hit, Seiki spun back to face the demon to allow himself to observe what it was going to do next.
The slowing spell wrapped the air tight around him, and Seiki split half his attention to count down its length of four seconds, forcing air down his lungs and his brain to concentrate. The Crimsonfire Tekko shield was still on lockout, and he could not afford to wait two more minutes for it to come back. Considering the condition this encounter had set for him, there was not much that he could do at all.
His breathing slowed. Perhaps there was still a way, if he timed it perfectly.
The demon spent the duration of the Hinder casting another Mirror Ward on itself. As soon as the slowing effect dropped off, Seiki sheathed his Hikari and started walking back toward the demon. As expected, its Reprimand came off lockout, and the demon started waving its arm to activate it.
The first charge hit, sending a crushing wave of negative emotions through him: fear, anxiety, doubt. Seiki did not fight and did not flee, instead letting it flow past him, his eyes set on his target as he slowly drew his Kohagane dagger and continued to walk.
The demon began casting its second charge, and Seiki cast Protection of the Sea on himself.
The second Reprimand slammed into his shield. The damage was even more severe than he had expected. An amount nearly half his total health gathered on the horizon of his consciousness. The shield only delayed the damage but not other effects, and Seiki let his body voluntarily throw his dagger aside.
He kept walking, his hand now drawing his Hikari. He counted down the remaining seconds on the shield. Every recovered point of health helped, and he would wait till the very last moment.
At three seconds left, Seiki finally burst into a run at the demon, lifting his sword to prepare for Sweeping Blade. The demon’s hands shot out, palms flat, ready to trap the blade. But it was a feint. Seiki instead pushed down the Hikari into a Vertical Spike, Sliding around the demon to close in. The demon’s hands clapped over empty air as Seiki’s stun pierced through the demon’s leg.
Reflected damage spiked on his shield a second later, and Seiki’s left leg suddenly lost all feeling, mirroring the damage on the demon’s body. But the stun worked to freeze the demon in place. Seiki pulled back the Hikari to prepare a Focused Strike while his free left hand reached for what he had been aiming for this whole time.
His hand wrapped around the edge of the white wooden mask. His fingertips tingled as they grazed the ice-cold dark gray skin behind it.
The shield expired then, sending a flood of damage crashing over him. He grabbed at the energy for Focused Strike, activating one Earth-link Enchantment on his Tekko to bypass the contact point on the ground as he directed the raging course of damage back out through his sword arm, adding a Slide to drive the blade through the demon’s belly. The sword pierced flesh, spilling dark blood over the red kimono. Seiki activated another Earth-link to bypass his left hand contact point as he followed through with Upslash to finish his combination.
The glowing Hikari sliced through the demon’s body. Black blood sprayed from the deep gash as the blade broke free, throwing Seiki off his balance. In his left hand, the wooden mask snapped, slipping off its wearer as the demon fell backward. Seiki caught a glimpse of the face behind it, someone he recognized, even with the red-glowing eyes and dark gray skin, but which he could not yet place.
The demon’s health bar dropped from under two thousand to under a thousand, then to nothing.
HP 0/5011.
Seiki landed on the stone tiles just as the lifeless body of the demon collapsed onto the ground, and he watched with relief and incredible satisfaction as it immediately started to evaporate into black smoke. His body was numb, his mind dazed, his health low enough to trigger an automatic Strength of Will, but he was somehow still alive.
The anticipated damage never came. After a few more seconds, Seiki realized his gamble had paid off. There was a tiny delay between when he struck the demonic houshi and when its Mirror Ward triggered. Once he killed it, the portion that had not yet been applied never got reflected back.
In fact, with no confidence that his remaining health would be enough to handle the delayed damage from the Protection Shield, Seiki had planned on trading death for death. As he lay panting, waiting for his heart to calm, he was suddenly overwhelmed by gratitude for his recent Inner Slots from the Banquet Tower reward boxes, which must have helped tremendously with health regeneration.
Fear Manifest slain! 50971 XP gaine
d.
Seiki would have cried out if his parched throat had allowed it. The Banquet Guide had claimed the event was generous, but he had never expected this much, and the amount filled a significant portion of his progress bar.
Next to him, the Fear Manifest finished dispersing into black smoke, leaving behind a tiny item in its place: a familiar-looking red jewel. Seiki lay on the ground for a while until he had recovered enough willpower to reach for both his potions, which had now been restored to normal quality, and which he immediately gulped down. He grimaced at the tiny amount of liquid and reminded himself once again that the first thing he would do after the Festival was to reserve a permanent slot in his inventory for a flask of fresh water.
After a few more moments, he pushed himself up to a sitting position and reached for the glowing jewel.
You have received: Demonic Blood Gem. Charm Slot. Created from the blood of high-ranking demons, the gem is permanently linked to their kind. Passing a small amount of energy through this precious gem allows the user to sense Ranked Demons within a 60-foot radius. Maximum 8 charges. More than one charge can be spent at once to multiply the range of effect. Soaking the gem in the blood of Ranked Demons restores its charges.
Seiki guessed the item would become handy in a quest line to avenge Captain Tsukuda somewhere down the road. It was a hopeful thought, but he had more pressing matters at hand. Tucking the gem into his sleeve, he closed his eyes and tried to remember whose face it had been behind the white wooden mask.
The image was still vivid in his memory. The lifeless demon fell backwards, its unseeing eyes no longer glowing red, and while its skin was discolored, it bore a strangely human expression: serene, almost peaceful. He had seen the face before.
It was Hanna of the Rogami Clan.
Seiki’s eyes snapped open as he nearly choked. “You’re kidding me. No way it could have been-”
He suddenly realized that he had been mistaken all along. The Fear Manifest had not been a copy of Okugata. The last thing that had come into contact with him in the Himawari Room was not the masked figure trying to slit his throat, but the cooling touch of a houshi Soothe as someone else tried to help him escape. Considering his indiscriminate panic at the time, the system must have recorded that as the last entity he had interacted with.
From what he remembered from inspecting Hanna’s character, there was nothing outlandish about her houshi abilities, and he was sure there was nothing about grabbing blades with bare hands or blasting people with invisible attacks. Most of all, he was very certain she did not have Mirror Ward.
“You’re not the enemy, are you?” he said to the absent houshi girl. “So your Beta character is the one with Mirror Ward, and you actually tried to help.”
It made sense now that the incident at the East Gate where he had first encountered the Mirror Ward ability had also involved the Rogami Clan. Perhaps Hanna was keeping an eye on her clan mates. Perhaps she had meant to secretly help them out on whatever they had gathered to do, using her Beta character, but had disapproved of them harassing a low-level player.
Seiki let out a soft curse. He wondered what this now meant for the mysterious unique whip that had turned up at the Rogami Clan Hall. Zengoro did name a few of the so-called worldbreakers in their very brief encounter right before he started the White Dragon instance and Seiki wondered how much the man knew.
Not sure if he was making progress or falling deeper into a rabbit hole, the most likely conclusion he could now draw was that the worldbreakers led dual lives. While their Beta character schemed in a secret game of influence, additional characters hid in plain sight among the normal player base.
This still did not answer what their goal was, or why Zengoro now had a unique whip in his possession, or how the rest of the worldbreakers’ covert game would play out for Seiki and his friends.
His thoughts were interrupted by a notification:
By having defeated a Ranked Demon on your own, you have unlocked the [Demonsbane] Path Element.
Seiki blinked at his second such reward. It was not listed on his Achievements tab, and as he looked for the entry in his mental menu, he let out a gasp.
There was now an entirely new tab, complete with a notification:
Congratulations! By aiding the White Dragon in the fight against the Demonic Clan during the Pacchi Festival, you have unlocked the Paths of Worth feature!
Floating in his consciousness was now a new menu:
Path of Worth: Neutral
You may now choose a Path of Worth to follow by adding Path Elements to your Primary Avenue Slot and Secondary Avenue Slot. Your Path combination affects loot types and drop chance from all activities. Many Paths also give you special locations and questlines, which can be completed to rank up that particular Path. Higher-tier Paths give greater benefits and perks. Switching Path combinations does not reset your progress for other Paths, and may be done freely any time you are at full resources and out of combat.
Primary Avenue
[empty]
Unlocked at Level 6
Add a Path Element to this slot!
Secondary Avenue
[empty]
Unlocked at Level 12
Add a Path Element to this slot!
Supporting Route
[locked]
Unlocks at Level 18
Supporting Route
[locked]
Unlocks at Level 24
Supporting Route
[locked]
Unlocks at Level 30
“So this is what the patch is about,” Seiki said out loud to temper his disbelief as he tried to wrap his mind around the new information. “It’s to give us a whole new feature.”
What was more exciting was that his level was high enough to have unlocked the two most important Slots.
At the bottom of the Path tab was a separate section, with his two unlocked Path Elements.
Available Path Elements:
[Shinshioka Patriot]
[Demonsbane]
Seiki realized he could drag the Elements around, very much like Troops Formations, but before he could experiment with dropping them into the open Slots, bright light appeared above him, blurring away the mental menu. He looked up and found that the White Dragon had silently reappeared over the shrine.
Once again, the unworldly aura exuding from its body gave off the feeling that no space was ever going to be enough to contain it. Seiki suppressed an involuntary shudder as the familiar projected speech thundered in his mind.
You have done well, young warrior of Shinshioka. By displaying the virtues of wisdom, unity and courage, you have taken the first step in many directions. Several Paths are now available to you, each with their own perils and rewards.
The demon spell that had kept you trapped in this isolated realm has been broken. I can now transport you back to rejoin your companions. Are you ready?
Seiki had a thousand questions to ask, about the workings of the feature and the implication it had on future events, but there appeared to be something in his subconscious blocking him from treating the White Dragon like a Banquet Guide, and the only thing he was able to say was a breathless “Yes, please.”
Incandescent silver light blazed from the scales on the mystical beast. A second later, Seiki was standing in the darkened courtyard of Mani Shrine, in a sparse crowd of a dozen or so raid members, who he now recognized by face if not by name. Checking his own status, he found his resources full and his gear restored to maximum durability.
A flash of white went off to his left, as another Honor Warriors ryoushi faded into existence, looking slightly bewildered.
Scattered in smaller groups around the shrine were everyone else who had already completed Phase Three, who were excitedly discussing the challenge and the new feature. Faint voices carrying across the courtyard ranged from complaints about unfair encounters with Fear Manifests and speculations about what the Paths meant.
&nb
sp; Seiki scanned the area for his friends. Yamura was talking to a few of his clan mates near the row of pine trees by the eastern wall. From the other edge of the group, Ippei waved to signal his location.
Seiki smiled as he saw that the experience from the personal challenge had pushed his friend across the threshold to Level 17, which meant that he had successfully defeated his own Fear Manifest.
“Can you believe it? Level 17 without Mounted Strike. What a disgrace.” Ippei chuckled as Seiki walked over to congratulate him. The samurai, however, did not seem at all bothered, as his eyes sparkled with excitement. “This new feature though… I can’t believe Katsumasa didn’t let slip even a peep about it.”
Ippei had finished his challenge earlier and already had a head start in experimenting. “It seems that each active Element gives you one perk and contributes another perk to your Path of Worth up top,” the samurai observed. “So, [Shinshioka Patriot] gives you extra experience and Honor Points, and [Demonsbane] gives you defense against Ranked Demons.”
Looking into the air, the samurai continued to test it out. “When you add both, the order matters, so [Shinshioka Patriot] followed by [Demonsbane] gives you a new combined ‘City Defense’ Path, but if you swap them round you get ‘Shinshioka Shadowslayer’, with slightly different perks. I guess it depends on what you want to prioritize and the Path gives you a slight advantage in that field.”
Seiki pulled up his own mental menu and stared at it for a moment. “You know what? I’m going to leave this for tomorrow so I’ll have something to do right when I wake up.”
It had been a wild week, and after all that happened, Seiki had a feeling he should let things settle before launching into something completely new, so he would be able to give the feature the fresh attention it deserved.
Ippei laughed. “Yeah, I’m going to bet that these early Elements aren’t going to do much until we level them up. Right now at Tier I, they all seem to give a bit of extra currencies and reps.”
A moment later, Mairin and Kentaro faded in to join them, and they continued to compare notes.