Adamant Blood

As Mark burst onto the scene between two different groups of humans jumbled together and versus a very aggressive and expansive monstrous vine plant, Mark hit the two groups with one side of Adamant and the other side of Ethereal. The plant practically evaporated under the renewed onslaught of a Stone Shaper, a guy with a bunch of guns floating around him, and a miasma controller of some sort with an air of blackness around them. That blackness invaded vines like decaying poison, turning green to brown and then black mush, very rapidly. The two human teams also meshed better with each other, whatever confusion in the ranks evaporating under Mark's Union.

There were no real injuries in the group. Just a bunch of weakened people, forced to fight too hard, but they had been very, very close to dying.

Mark flew on.

The next incident involved some injured people, two of which were in critical condition and fighting a fleeing battle against some fire elementals. This was a great time to test a Union of Glory and Fear again, but Mark kept it contained this time.

He flew like a black and white beacon of power over a dismantled team that rapidly found the power to fight back, and a field of fire elementals that were suddenly terrified of everything they had been fighting. Mark pulsed with power, and that pulse shattered the elemental ranks, each flame burning away, breaking into smoke and memory, tearing at themselves and at their neighbors as they tried to flee, to escape. They killed themselves in a rush to flee, just like the lake elemental had.

Mark gave the team a good dose of Good and Bad, healing the worst of their injuries and giving them what they needed to survive. Their coms were gone, though; taken by the flames.

Mark pointed in the direction they had to go to escape, yelling, "Hovervan 2 kilometers that way. You're done! LEAVE!"

They wanted to argue. They did not. They escaped.

Mark flew on, thinking about fear as he rescued people from his own unrestrained Glory and Fear.

Fear Powers were useful, but using fear weakened the user, and not in any 'real' way. Not like using a poisoned dagger and poisoning oneself to death over years, or shit like that. Using fear weakened a person in a much more fundamental sort of way.

'Fear Powers are worse than useless on their own; they're a tool that will break when you most need it to work.'

That's what a lot of people said, and Mark tended to agree. People who used fear to fight monsters often found themselves dead when they encountered a monster that was immune to fear. Mark hadn't personally seen that happen, but he'd believe it. It was better to have Fear-inducing powers as side effects, rather than main powers. If all you had was a Fear Power then you weren't even allowed outside the city walls of any normal city, and you were heavily regulated for having a mental power, but that was kinda beside the thought Mark was having right now.

Even if a warrior with a minor fear-Power never encountered fear-immune monsters, the warrior would still weaken over time because, by using fear, they would fail to keep up their warrior's strength. Every monster they would fight wouldn't be fighting in their top condition, and if a warrior didn't constantly strive to reach higher, then they'd falter through simple loss of conditioning.

Even Minders couldn't simply pump fear into monsters and expect to win every time, so they diversified. They stayed away from fear effects, too, if they could.

Mark had never tried using fear effects because they seemed weak, and they weakened the user, and Mark was already seeing that weakening right now.

Like… What would Mark do now, if he ever came across an elemental?

He'd just Glory/Fear it away, of course.

And if that didn't work, if he couldn't escape, then he would be screwed.

Kaiju were pretty infamously strong against fear effects. They certainly used fear effects against others, too. Fighting against a kaiju's fear was one of the main ways in which a warrior could eventually become a kaiju killer.

Eliot, Sally, and Isoko had already told Mark that they never wanted to face a kaiju's fear straight on, ever again, and they had said that back when Mark had taken down that Shroomer, mini-kaiju, born of the kaiju mycelium down south. Eliot spoke of the kaiju-like fear that Walaria emitted, too. Kaiju were scary not just because of their size and capability, but also because of their actual kaiju call, which was full of fearful effects.

Mark had a weird fear-reaction; he knew. The normal reactions were flight, freeze, or fight, and Mark's fear reaction had been 'fight' for as long as he had known how he reacted toward fear. His Tutorial teacher back in High School, Instructor Gravel, had been the first one to point out Mark's strange fear response. Opting to fight was great for warriors, but it also made them susceptible to fear in weird ways…

Soon, Mark went on overwatch, bolstering forces here, helping to eliminate enemies over there, and he thought about the Unions he had done, and what they meant to him.

Stability/Instability might be useful in some situations, but it felt way too close to Anarchy/Civilization, or maybe Stability/Instability was just the generalized version of Anarchy/Civilization… Yeah. That seemed right. Anarchy/Civilization was great for fighting people. Stability/Instability would probably be useful against Hive Mind monsters, though, and those kinds of Mind monsters were the most common Mind monsters out there.

Mark asked, "Hey Quentin. Got a Hive Mind Monster somewhere in here?"

Quentin said, "Sure! Think I saw one over… Ahha! Here we go. Quark has it. You gonna get it, Mark?"

"Yes, sir!"

Quark overlaid a map.

Mark got to flying.

The Hive Mind monster was a collection of ash-undead; bones and souls and ash that had somehow got infected with Death, and which had been putting itself together through a good 250-ish goblins, chimeras, malformations, and even some turtle shells. The monsters roamed as one cohesive unit across the ash wastes near the Alpha village, and Mark knew it was a good target to see the differences between Stability/Instability and Anarchy/Civilization.

He started off with Anarchy/Civilization.

Mark blasted the whole collection of eerie, ashy skeletons with Anarchy/Civilization, and though the Hive Mind monster was a little perturbed at that, and it tried to throw rocks at Mark, hovering overhead, that Union did nothing. He flew in sync with the moving horde, solidifying his Union, and he tried variations on Anarchy/Civilization.

Nothing.

He switched to Stability/Instability and the effect was immediate and devastating.

Ash flopped out of rib cages, spines cracked and broke, femurs and feet twisted and slipped out of control, and the mind that had been spread throughout the whole monster started to fray. To break. Its unified vector suddenly snapped down to 4 of the largest, closest-together bodies, and from there it stabilized. Sort of. Mark kept it up, taking the Stability and infusing with Instability as much as he could, and eventually 4 Hive Mind monster skeletons became 2, and then 2 became 1.

Mark felt he could have killed the remaining ash monster with Instability, for it was fraying even as it was coming together, but Mark felt the Hive Minder was down to as low as it could naturally go. Mark finished the undead thing off with some swipes of adamantium, scattering bones and ash to the burned ground. The animating spirit, now spread across the land, gave up the ghost and died.

Mark flew back toward overwatch.

So yeah. Stability/Instability for Mind Monsters, Anarchy/Civilization for people, like goblins.

Mercurial/Predictable was not happening ever again. Mark was too random while he was drawing in Mercurial. Though he had figured out how to force his Adamantium-sense, which was some as-yet-untouched part of his Adamantiumkinesis to come to the forefront. So that was useful. That effect was gone now, though. Mark could figure it out later, in a more controlled setting.

Flow/Predictable was going to be the go-to Union for getting into the battlezone. Probably wouldn't see much use, but there it was, and it would keep Mark alive when durability or healing would just leave him dead.

Fear/Glory was going to be… big.

From his set of experiments so far, and from how he thought of Fear and Glory, 'Fear' was a weakener, a disruptor, and a minimizer. Fear made prey easy to prey upon. Mark was a hunter so he saw the uses of Fear, but he also saw the drawbacks. He could minimize those drawbacks, though, because sometimes Fear simply killed things if they were small enough…

Hmm.

Mark looked around for a target.

A small monster plant grew out of some deep, deep roots over there, and Mark Unioned with Fear and Glory, becoming a beacon of power and shattering the plant with pure, refined Fear. Mark subjected the plant to Fearful death, destruction, minimization, loss of control, while showing himself as Glorious greatness, fearlessness, unstoppable, and dominant. The plant might as well give up now.

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.

And so, the plant, which had been green and growing in the ash and the dust, became twisted, smaller, crunching in on itself, and then it simply died. Stomped out by a bigger power.

"I don't know what to make of that one, yet," Mark confided to Quark, and to Quentin, too, he supposed.

"Shiiiit, Mark," Quentin said, with soft exclaim. "I was keeping it quiet, and I will pretend not to know what you're doing when you do it ever again… but do you have any idea what you look like when you do that?"

Mark knew he probably looked a bit weird, but was it too weird? Hmmm. "Have you sent the videos to Noel yet? Has he said anything?"

"I took some videos and sent them over to Noel, yes. Noel says you could be the cover of a movie poster like that."

Quark flicked some images into Mark's view, like putting a movie screen into the air up ahead.

Mark winced in embarrassment… But, no? That looked pretty neat, actually.

Mark was a floating man in black scale armor, backlit by something that was not the sun, but it could have been, while black blades flowed around him, keeping him in the air. Black and white veins pulsed in the light, and out of his body, and… Okay. Yeah. Kinda cool.

Mark tried not to smile too much and he absolutely kept his fanboy-voice to a minimum, as he said, "I guess that's neat… Er." He realized something. "A lot of people had already seen me do that, yeah. I need to talk to some of them, to see how they felt about Glory being shared with them. Or you can just tell me the breakdown of their responses; yes, let's do it that way."

Quentin said, "Give me a minute to compile some recorded words. They'll be anonymous, of course, but I'll get you the gist."

There were laws around recordings in public, with regard to data collection and use, which Mark already knew, so he had no problem saying, "Sure, Quentin. Thanks… And I suppose I should keep this particular Union quiet?"

Lola had not mentioned anything about 'Inquisitor secrecy' regarding these Unions when they got to talking about things Mark kinda wanted to try, but maybe this one should be kept quiet? Mark wasn't sure. Quentin seemed to think so, though.

"Yes, Mark. I scrubbed that data already." Quentin said, "Be right back, and even faster in case of emergency."

Quark spoke up, "Elaria Valen has sent you a private text that I feel you might want to look at. The entirety of the text is this: 'What was that amazing Union you just did! Don't tell me! Whatever it was felt so very close to an Aethercall, but without any effect on the world. Try to Call while doing that one! I need to see what happens!'. End text."

… Mark had a think.

And then Mark said, "I suppose I can try? When everyone is done, though."

But he needed to know if he could actually Call right now.

It took Mark a few minutes to figure out how to Call, but he was there at the center of Understanding in that Aethercall party yesterday, and so he figured it out on his own, again.

So Mark opened his mouth, twisted his astral body into an echoing gong-like thing that he still didn't understand completely, but which was easy enough to do, and made a small Call,

OOOOOOOOooooommm.

It was a nothing-Call, not meant to do anything at all. It was just a vibration of his body, mind, and soul, into the world, like everyone had been doing yesterday at the Understanding party.

It was still like setting off the shockwave of a large bomb.

The shockwave ripped away about 20% of his astral strength and used that strength to rip across the land, disrupting ash from barely-standing tree trunks and kicking up a billowing wave of grey/black debris in every direction. The shockwave dissipated fast, but the sound itself kept going out into the world.

Mark watched as the shockwave struck tree trunks here and there, and birds on burned branches screeched and flew away, and small monsters on the ground beyond those birds went into hiding. In every direction, things hid. Mark mostly noticed the effect based on the vectors hidden in the debris; every living thing having normal thoughts and actions, and then suddenly all of them turning and looking his way, trying to figure out what made the noise. Most monsters couldn't see him, or at least they didn't think the thing floating in the sky was a problem. Some did notice him, though.

Some ash elementals rose over there, like Mark's shockwave had brushed over invisible things, showing himself for the world to see, and those ash elementals took notice. But then those ash elementals went back down and away, though their vectors were focused on Mark, just a little. Gradually, their vectors turned more normal, turning away from Mark, going about their business.

Mark openly wondered, "Was that a Kaiju Call? I don't think it was that strong—"

"The FUCK…" Quentin was back on the line, expletives in Mark's ear, and then he paused and chuckled. "The fuck? Mark? Yes, reading the chat now— That was a Kaiju Call. A minor one, according to the readouts! Please don't Kaiju Call. They might Kaiju-answer."

"Ah… Whoops!" Mark said, wincing.

Quentin chuckled. "Anyway! Got your whatever-that-was Union comment highlights, if you want to hear them."

"Hit me."

"From the scared people: 'The fucking FUCK is that fucker up to! I just shat myself!' and 'I want to go home.' There are a lot of them in that vein. On the other side, we got some weird stuff going on. I clocked in a generalized healing effect on most people, and according to readouts there was a bolstering effect as well. Power Levels, mostly, but also astral body size and range, which I don't think I've seen yet. A very strong effect, whatever that was. Personal anecdotes include, 'I've never been able to kill something that cleanly before' and 'Holy Drakarok! I'm ready for war.'." Quentin added, "A lot of people displayed stronger effects than we're used to seeing from them. At least 5 people upgraded in the eyes of their various organizations. You were a part of the Slayers, yeah? And Isoko was, too? Looks like I'm reading her as graduating from Low-Green to Full-Green, according to that speedster goblin kill she did the other day. Green 3 might be a good ranking, but I don't know about that. I just submit the after-action reports for you guys.

"But the thing is:

"A lot of people just did the same jump in rank today that Isoko did the other day, though most would still be yellow-grade, according to that Slayer system that goes from Red to Purple. I think you're solidly Blue, now. Just need to find you a kaiju to kill on your own! Ha ha!"

It had been a while since Mark thought about the Slayer rankings, but they had come up a few times since joining the settlement project. Mark was still a Slayer, after all. The capability and prowess he displayed for the settlement project would still get him Slayer rankings and qualifications.

Those qualifications started off at Red, for basic monster kills, went to Orange for dangerous monster kills, then Yellow for monsters that could threaten to cause a monster wave, or were big threats all on their own. Green was for tough 'Yellow monsters'; enemies were threats all on their own, already. Goblins were Green-rank threats. The majority of Slayer work was done in Green Rank, and Green was where the ranks actually broke down to smaller levels; Green 1 was basic goblin kills. Green 10 was a goblin settlement of 1,500 goblins, if Mark recalled correctly.

The goblin situation around this settlement project was all much, much higher than Green 10. Normal Green missions stopped at 10, because at Green 11 you had to involve big organizations and lots of people, and a lot of people were involved in taking down the goblins around here.

Slayer-Blue was the Kaiju Killer rank, and Mark was barely blue at all. Pre-blue, they'd call him. Important support, but still just support. He had never killed a kaiju on his own, at all. Slayer-Purple was the Dragonslayer rank. Slayers didn't usually get to fight kaiju or dragons, though. Slayers were usually backup, because places needed to have their kaiju killers all of their own or else they wouldn't be places-that-existed anymore.

High ranking Slayers usually ended up with a triple rank, if they were really, really good. Some Green rank, a level in Blue, and Purple, if they were a dragonslayer. But not every dragonslayer was a kaiju killer, because the skill sets were different.

Dragons were dragon-shaped, always, and always strong mages.

Kaiju could be anything-shaped.

But anyway... Mark's Glory Union had propped up some people from Yellow to Green? That was neat!

Mark smiled and said, "That's awesome, Quentin," Mark added, "But I'm not Blue yet."

"Pre-Blue and Rank 12 Green, then," Quentin said. "I'm not a Slayer, though. I just keep track of these things for other people."

Mark nodded a little as he looked around, feeling out the world.

Silence.

Mark asked, "What now?"

"Now you're on overwatch until the sweep is done. We're at 75%. Most teams are at their second or third location. Just hang out."

Mark told Quark, "Protect, Quark, and we hang out."

Quark, still invisible, began making the hand signs for Protect, rapidly draining Mark's astral body of power, but Mark kept himself topped off with Union, and he just... hung out, he supposed.

It was a rather nice day, really. Bright blue sky on the horizon, clouds overhead and rolling across the world, rainbow auroras high in the atmosphere, like ribbons of illumination among the closer parts of the blue sky. And all the world was burned, yet growing. Greenery was already poking up from the grey down below, where Mark's Unions with the world were strongest.

Mark kept moving, hovering softly in whatever direction he felt, just to keep moving and to keep the land down below from overgrowing too fast.