Andrew Robinson Leinbach
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Chapter 255: My Sword is Yours
🕑 Added 2023-10-08 19:12:41 +0000 UTCVanar
“Okay. I think that’s enough.”
With Vanar’s main weapon, and the three Heroic grade flying swords he’d revealed mid-fight, all stabbed into the dragon’s body, the dragon’s overly abundant lifeforce finally appeared to approach exhaustion, and Vanar lowered his guard ever so slightly. But then, in that split second, the power of the universe descended with strength several orders of magnitude greater than from the dragon’s knight line skill and completely locked him in place, a hand landing on his shoulder.
Turning his head, Vanar saw the origin of the hand and voice, an abnormally handsome man with dark blue hair and mystical orange eyes which felt like they could see right through him, and, more so than when he’d been tricked into signing his life away earlier, he felt helpless.
His energy was all sealed, his Laws were unable to attune to the universe, and he couldn’t move any part of his body below his neck.
This man, this absolute powerhouse, was different than any A rank Vanar had ever met, than any god in the Prime Material. This was an otherverse lord, someone whose Territory covered an entire universe, and, in this universe he ruled, his word was law.
“Iz, are you okay?”
“Yeah.”
Turning his head back, Vanar saw the dragon take out all four swords from his body, his flesh and his artifact clothing both quickly regenerating.
“You lost rather miserably.”
“You try fighting with your blood literally burning.”
“It wouldn’t be much of an issue.” The otherverse lord vanished from behind Vanar and appeared next to the dragon, the dragon’s armor moving to allow him to place a hand on his subordinate’s chest. “I don’t need to fight at close range.”
“Well, most of us are not as multi-talented as you.”
“True.”
As the otherverse lord nodded, the dragon stuck his tongue out, showing no respect whatsoever. “Your wife said you were starting to get arrogant. But I didn’t believe her.”
“You shouldn’t believe most things she says. She lies a lot.”
“I’m going to tell her you said that.”
“Uh, I—” The otherverse lord, still holding Vanar in place with the power of an entire universe, looked flustered. “Please don’t?”
“And what will you give me in turn?”
“Iz, this is blackmail. I could write you up for going against the law.”
“And who has access to all such filings?”
The otherverse lord looked thoughtful for a second. “I could hide it from her.”
“But wouldn’t that just give me more ammunition?”
“True.” The otherverse lord sighed. “I could stop helping you with healing, though.”
Both the dragon’s spear and shield disappeared, likely retracted into his spatial storage ring, and the dragon raised both hands above his head. “I surrender.”
“It’s good you understand the true power dynamic in this relationship.”
“Yes.” The dragon nodded sagely. “Mila has all the power.”
The otherverse lord made a ‘bah’ sound with his mana and then pushed the dragon away, the healing apparently done.
“So, three questions.” The otherverse lord teleported right in front of Vanar as the universe finally stopped its restriction. “What is it you want to know?”
And there it was. The seemingly friendly banter between the two was a plan of some kind, a way to put Vanar off balance and get him to waste one or more of his questions.
No. That wasn’t right. Why would the otherverse lord need him to waste a question when there was nothing forcing them to be honest in the first place?
Feeling slightly off balance, Vanar asked what he’d wanted to know in the first place. “What are the goals of this force, both immediate and long term?”
“Hmm. Two questions in one.” The otherverse lord nodded and Vanar started to feel a bit nervous. “I’ll let that slide.
“Isaiah wasn’t wrong when he answered your previous question about the purpose of this force. It’s all about numbers. And our first immediate goal has to do with the next C rank Universal Tournament starting in 1,711 years. Are you aware of what happens when one force earns over half the tournament’s rewards?”
“No.” Vanar was somewhat shocked by the implications. From what he knew, several forces had managed such a feat in the past, but not in a long, long time, and this was mostly because it was incredibly difficult.
The System’s rules around the tournament were strict, with almost no loopholes. Attacking a contestant, for example, was grounds for all System rights of an entire force to be immediately removed.
Everything in the tournament revolved around strength.
More important, there were always a lot of contestants, so, for one force to qualify for half the tournament’s rewards, they would need the equivalent of having their force take up all the tournament’s top 32 spots.
“Well, the boons granted to all the members of that force are increased by three grades, those from 17th to 64th place gaining the equivalent grade of boon to what the winner would normally receive. And, one such boon that becomes possible is a chance at reincarnation, though your soul would first have to be stripped back down to G rank, something I’m capable of doing.”
The otherverse lord smiled at him and Vanar suddenly felt he had a better idea of what was going on. The man’s goal was something only achievable with a very high grade System boon, so he needed to achieve something ridiculous in the highest rank universal competition, but that ridiculous feat would also give Vanar exactly what he needed to keep living, with no competition between their desires, so the man was willing to be open and honest about his intentions.
Or at least that was what he wanted Vanar to think.
“After that, I honestly haven’t thought about it too much. I’ll probably release everyone who I don’t think will just go out slaughtering people from their contracts and let them decide what to do.”
Vanar didn’t really believe that answer, but it wasn’t impossible it was true. Just from what he’d seen already, the man probably didn’t have any other uses for a bunch of talented C ranks, even if all of them advanced to B rank.
“How did you find me?”
Vanar had hidden himself well after he’d escaped from the Territory of the human empires, and he hadn’t been bothered for over 10,368 years, making it likely none of his enemies had found him yet. So, he wanted to know what he’d done wrong.
“We used a blanket search method, me and my wife teleporting from planet to planet, but the main goal wasn’t to search for people like you. Mainly we were after hidden caches of resources we could steal, the origin of most of what is available in the camp down below.” The otherverse lord’s smile widened. “But, having a sensory domain which can cover an entire planet and give detailed analysis of the strength of everyone living there is kind of a cheat. So, you were not the only talent we found along the way.”
The man’s smile returned to normal. “What is your third question?”
“Who are you?” It was an obvious question, but it was also the most important.
“Me?” The man’s smile faded, and it took several seconds before he started speaking. “Like you, I was born a member of the Primordial Humans faction. And, like you, one of the higher ups in the faction was afraid of my potential and attempted to kill me, the person I loved most in the universe dying in my stead.
“As a baby, I was left on a planet about to undergo an apocalypse style integration. And, as a young man, I killed myself, saving a billion lives in one of the stupidest ways possible.
“I was reborn as a monster on an F rank world after receiving the highest score of all time in a monster tutorial, and then I made my way back to my home planet, where I became its de facto ruler. When I was an E rank, I destroyed a B rank force whose leader had killed a teacher I’d recruited, not letting a single man, woman, or child survive my wrath. And then I tricked the System into transforming my home world into an A rank planet, giving me access to this universe, which I quickly took over.
“I am a descendant of the Primordial Sovereign and the Yin Yang Sage, the inheriting disciple of Steel Swamp Sorin, and I am the reincarnated truesoul of Runemaster Alashan, Camoran the Spirit Smith, and several other famous crafters.
“My name is Aalam Alvaro. The System calls me the Heavenly Spark Soul King, and, just like the Primordial Humans faction of gods fears, I am going to see to the deaths of every last one of them.”
A whole bunch of thoughts began rushing through Vanar’s head, the realization that this man who could so easily take his life was only a C rank, just like him, the related realization that the woman who had conned him and tricked him with an illusion was also only a C rank, almost certainly the woman the bounties called Li Mila, the Mistress of Oaths and Deception, but the most important thing was that this future most powerful man in the universe’s goals were almost exactly aligned with his own, making his revenge no longer unreachable.
Without any more misgivings, Vanar knelt down on one knee in the complete lack of gravity of outer space. “My liege, forgive me for my stubbornness. My sword is yours.”
