The plan was simple on paper. In real life, it was one great way of getting vaporized.
I crouched on the ridge, feeling the heat from the battle below. Too small for this fight; I would be a pebble flung against a mountain. Fighting fair was out. Good to know.
But as I watched the endless clash, something felt wrong. Once more I looked at the floating figure.
[Entity: The Shepherd]
[Magnitude: Unstable]
The tag flashed, too large to measure, a warning buzzing in my head. It was an ancient thing, a sort of local god.
Why hadn't it won already?
This monster below had healed in too short time. It drank from the pool; it sucked on the reserves of the forest. The Shepherd kept to hitting it, tearing off chunks, but it was like pouring water into a hole. The monster just grew back - spikier than before.
II watched as the light and the dark slammed together. My Kensho, my seeing sense caught on something. The Shepherd attacked hard; he attacked wild. Desperate.
A bad feeling coiled in my gut. The connection between them wasn't clean. Messy. Tangled. I squinted into the glowing fight and the two shapes, the Shepherd and the monster, seemed less like two separate things, more like one sick, lashing body.
Then it hit me. A cold, sharp understanding. The Shepherd could not fight the Parasite at his full power, it was tied to it. They were both a part of this forest. The sickness from the monster, it was flowing into the Shepherd, like a fever.
The Shepherd was too lost to its own pain. It couldn't see the twisted connection binding them. Hitting the monster was like hitting its own sick arm. It kept trying to tear out the bad part, but its mind was clouded with the pain.
It needed a different kind of help. A surgeon. Or, failing that, a guy with a rock and no feelings to get in the way.
"Need to poke around," I muttered, my eyes darting across the scene. "Always check the system."
I picked up a fallen branch that was thick and heavy with moss. It was organic, part of Aethelgard's system. I waited for a lull in the shockwaves and threw it down towards the edge of the Veridian Reservoir.
It hit the glowing liquid. Instantly, the branch, it bloomed. The raw life-force of the pool shot into it, and it began to grow rapidly with leaves sprouting everywhere, and then dissolve into a slurry of pure energy which the Parasite happily sucked up.
"Okay," I said, wiping sweat from my forehead. The signal is conducted by organic matter. Bad idea."
I looked for something else. A loose stone, similar to the one in my Locus but smaller. A jagged piece of slate.
"Inorganic. Dead matter. Let's see how you deal with a null value."
I aimed carefully, targeting a small, exposed capillary of black corruption spreading from the Parasite's base. I used a bit of Kinetic Grasp; just enough to give it speed.
Thwip.
The slate hit the black vein.
It didn't bloom. It didn't dissolve. It punched in, stuck for a second, and then was spat out as the vein convulsed.
For a microsecond.... a blink-and-you'll-miss-it fraction that only my Kensho sensed; the flow in that particular vein faltered. The corruption swirled around the stone, unable to comprehend it, sending a small eddy of turbulence before the pressure pushed the trespasser out.
"It chokes on it," I whispered, as a savage grin spread across my face. "It can't figure out how to process a rock."
The theory was true. From what I could guess from astrolabe's Insights, The Veridian Flow was a system developed with life in mind. The lifeless, inanimate matter was a bug it couldn’t solve quickly enough.
But a pebble wasn’t enough. What I really needed was a blockage. A heart attack. I needed a heart attack.
I checked out the main feeding trunk: the huge, clear artery that led from the Parasite to the pool. The pressure in that monster was huge. If I threw any kind of projectile at it, it would just eject that slate back out.
I needed to lodge it deep. I needed velocity.
Again, I saw the rhythm of the fight.
Tick: The Shepherd raised the flute. The wind screamed.
Tock: The Parasite shrieked, took damage.
Tick: The Shepherd for breath and to regain his strength.
Tock: The Parasite pulsed. The suction increased to maximum.
That was the window. When the suction was at maximum, the flow was strongest. If I hit it then it would suck it in.
"Timing," I whispered, my muscles as tense as springs.
It's just a platformer. A really high-stakes, high-fidelity platformer where the floor is lava and the boss is invincible.
The Shepherd raised his flute.
GO.
I launched myself off the ridge towards the parasite.
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My Egress: 12 points of supernatural agility, took control. I sprinted and I flowed. I reached the slope of the crater and rode the trail of fossilized roots, my boots planting and catching on terrain that shouldn't have been possible to get a grip on.
The air inside the crater presssed upon me as if it were a weight. It reeked of rotting meat. The dual forces, the weight of the Shepherd’s oppressive command, and the Parasite’s chaotic hunger; tore at my Veil.
Don't look at me, I projected, pouring Lumen into my veil. I am just a leaf. I'm just dust. Not what you are looking for.
The Shepherd fired. BOOM.
The shockwave nearly knocked me to the ground, but I rolled with it, using the momentum to slide under a massive, thrumming tendril of the Parasite. I was close now. The heat from the Veridian Reservoir was intense, like standing next to an open furnace door.
I saw where the connection was. It was deafening up close. The sound of millions of gallons of liquid light pouring upward.
I skidded to a stop ten feet away, hiding behind a rocky spur of crystal.
I could hear the Parasite screaming above me. The Shepherd's blast had tore a gap in its side big enough to park a van in.
Wait for it...
The Parasite began to pulse. The black veins lit up. The suction in the trunk roared into life. It was inhaling the world to fix itself.
I stepped out from cover. I reached into my Locus.
Manifest.
The grey, jagged lump of limestone appeared in my hand. [Grade 1: Inert].
I didn't throw it. I wasn't a pitcher; I was a kineticist.
I tossed the rock gently into the air in front of me. As it hung there, spinning, I raised my hand. I focused every scrap of my Kensho on the trajectory, visualizing the center of that translucent trunk. I poured every remaining drop of my Lumen into the Kinetic Grasp.
I pushed and I punched it with my mind.
"Choke on this," I snarled.
The rock vanished. It moved so fast it turned into a blur of grey motion.
It hit the membrane of the feeding tube right as the suction peaked.
The rock punched through the outer skin. It didn't exit the other side. The massive intake pressure grabbed it and yanked it upward, but the rock was heavy. Ontologically. It was Inert. It refused to flow.
It lodged in the narrowest part of the valve, right at the base of the Parasite's throat.
The effect was catastrophic.
The pure, liquid light of the Veridian Flow rushed up the tube, and slammed into the blockage. Turbulence exploded. The tube bulged, turning a violent, angry purple as the energy backed up.
The Parasite let out a gurgle that sounded like a scream. The healing light stopped reaching the wound.
The creature looked down, its sensory bristles quivering. It sensed the blockage. It sensed the foreign object.
And then, it sensed me.
My Veil shattered. The sheer magnitude of the creature's attention burned through the pollen disguise like paper in a fire.
A dozen red eyes opened on the stalk of the Parasite, all focused on the little man in the leather coat standing by the pool.
[Magnitude Disparity: Fatal]
A tentacle, thick as a tree trunk and tipped with a bone scythe, whipped toward me. It moved faster than thought.
I didn't have time to dodge. I realized, with a detached sort of calm, that my experiment was a success, but the safety protocols were lacking.
Well, I thought, at least I was right.
Then the world went white.
The Shepherd hadn't been idle. Now, with the fever dream of the link cut by my rock, the ancient guardian had his clarity back. It had seen the stutter. It had seen the healing loop falter. It did not know what I was, but it knew an opportunity.
The Shepherd didn't play a note. It dropped the flute. He raised both hands, palms facing the Parasite.
The air. It vanished.
A cylinder of absolute silence dropped down around the Parasite. The tentacle which was moments from my face ceased movement, locked in a region of zero atmosphere and zero potential.
I was knocked backward, falling across the mossy ground, my ears literally popping.
Inside the cylinder, the Parasite was thrashing. Without the connection to the Reservoir, it had no fuel to resist the Shepherd’s authority.
The Shepherd closed its hands into fists.
The cylinder imploded.
There was sound. Then a sudden, violent twist of light, as if the universe was wringing out a wet towel. The Parasite was unmade. Its flesh, and everything near It, was crushed into a single, dense point of matter, then erased.
The pressure wave caught me a second later. It slammed me against the ground, sending me flying into the root system that I had descended before. The wood was brutal beneath my impact, and all of the air left my lungs as stars swam before my eyes.
I lay there for a long moment, staring up at the canopy. The sickly yellow light was already fading, replaced by the cool, soothing turquoise of the healthy forest. The screaming had stopped.
I groaned and rolled onto my side. Every inch of me hurt. My Lumen was empty. My Veil was gone.
I looked toward the pool.
The rock was missing, either melted by the explosion or swept away by the torrent. The Veridian Reservoir was peaceful.
However, looming over the pool, gazing down at me, was the Shepherd.
It drifted closer, landing softly on the moss. Up close, the "Unstable" magnitude felt like a headache waiting to happen. The entity was silent, its mask reflecting nothing.
I forced myself to sit up, gritting my teeth at the pain that lanced through my ribs. I leaned back against the root, trying to appear nonchalant despite the fact that I was shaking uncontrollably.
"You're welcome," I wheezed.
The Shepherd tilted its head. It didn't speak. It didn't bow.
It reached into the folds of its robe and produced a small, simple object. It was a single leaf, plucked from the newly healed section of the Great Tree. A stark, blinding white, veined with silver.
The Shepherd tossed it.
The leaf fluttered through the air, defying the wind, and landed gently on my knee.
I picked it up. It felt cool to the touch, heavy for its size, and unbelievably solid. It felt like a piece of carved marble that refused to acknowledge time.
[Item Acquired: The White Leaf of Silence]
[Grade 3: Anchored (Regnant)]
[Effect: Generates a stable, internal frequency of 'Native' environment. It passively refuses to let your foreign nature leak out. Ecosystem hostility reduced considerably. Will not degrade, wither, or fail.]
"Anchored," I whispered, clutching the leaf. "And Regnant quality. It rules over its own stability."
It was a reliable, sturdy promise that the forest would leave me alone. A Grade 3 Regnant item, It must really be powerful enough to sound that important.
"A free pass," I said, slipping the leaf into my pocket where it sat with a comforting weight. "Better than a thank you card."
The Shepherd turned its back on me. It raised its hands, and the blackened, necrotic half of the great tree in the center began to flake away, revealing fresh, green bark underneath. The healing had begun.
I let out a breath I didn't know I was holding.
"Okay," I whispered to myself. "Admin access restored. System patching."
I looked to the north. The sky was clearing. The distortion that had twisted the Wayline was smoothing out, the turquoise river of light straightening into a navigable path.
The exit was open. And now, thanks to the leaf, the walk there would be a stroll.
I struggled to my feet, my legs wobbling. I didn't wait for a conversation. In my experience, when you finish a job for a cosmic entity, you leave before they remember you're an unauthorized user.
I turned and started walking I walked north, following the Wayline into whatever world waited next.
I was battered, and exhausted.
But as I walked, I felt a shift in the Schema. A new notification pulsed, distinct from the item I'd just received. This one came from the Astrolabe itself, a reward for the experience, for the sheer audacity of the solution.
[Hidden Objective Complete: Sever the Cycle]
[Remembrance Gained: High]
[Remembrance Title: The Wrench]
I laughed, a dry, rasping sound that hurt my chest. "The Wrench. Yeah. That fits."
I walked into the treeline, leaving the Grove behind. I was just a guy with a rock and a bad idea. But today, that was enough.
After dying in a freak accident on his university campus, a college student awakens in a new world—the sprawling, magic-laden continent of Lascara on the planet Silara. Reborn as the heir to a powerful northern barony, Lance Loren must navigate noble politics, elemental powers, and the mysterious “System” that governs life and magic. When his forbidden ability to wield Mana before his coming-of-age ceremony exposes him as a Prime! a being marked by destiny and danger, he’s thrust into the tutelage of two ancient Guardians of Lightning and Frost. As he learns to forge his own Core and defy the rules of gods and systems alike, Lance begins a journey that could alter the fate of the entire world.
What to Expect:
- Male Lead
- System
- High Fantasy Dungeon Crawling
- Different Races with Magic and typical DND flavor
- LitRPG elements with World Building
- No Romance or Harem