Ebony's Fable

"Quite a small mansion for a personage of such raw essence. An ascetic researching magic and growing their mana capacity in the middle of nowhere?" Wearing his modular armour, he tapped his spear on his shoulder as he stepped towards the small housing that he had to investigate.

He'd honestly rather assert dominance and take a City for himself. Collecting souls was currently the easiest way to rake in achievement and reward points.

The so-called Elcrians feared this tiny little place as a 'forbidden' land.

How pathetic.

Or so he thought before he sensed the mana densities deeper in the Glades.

'Right, they mentioned Frost Elves making this place home.' He was informed, but honestly, he didn't care who his target was.

He'll finish the investigation quickly and go back to barrier-breaking.

The insane Barrier King was not famed through the Sector for no reason; his barriers were ridiculous. Not just strong, but who dared to attack something that could cause their evolutionary ranks to drop?

So far, they haven't gotten around the Curse magic other than a few of them whose essence overwhelms the curse magic or bypasses the barrier.

Molstein saw a devastatingly gorgeous lady sitting on the ground, resting against an ice tree. Not asleep, but deep in focus.

'A pity.' He readied his spear and revved his boots and armour. Bursting through the surprisingly tough metal gates, he shot his spear through her chest and into the tree.

'Huh…they weren't exaggerating with the forbidden lands stuff.' He felt like his target had almost evaded his ambush. Shocking from the fact he only identified her as a Grandmaster.

The spurt of flames on his spear also got him to think.

'Turning into flames? A semi-elemental?' Regardless, elementals were a common enemy to face on every Worldcore. He obviously had a weapon to counter a bundle of elements.

A little surprised she was awake and could struggle, he reflexively palm struck and smashed her head into the tree trunk. The durable tree trunk helped him crush her skull and blood splatter across his gauntlets.

It seeped into his armour, his armour absorbed the blood and started converting its energy for his use.

She wasn't dead, so he swept her up, keeping her body stuck on his spear that would slowly kill her and kicked the small house's door down.

"Damn, what kind of door is this?" He felt his armour's ankle creak when he kicked it.

His armour led him to the source of the essence leak.

"Beep - Mana levels rising rapidly. Saturation rate exceeding release capacity. Accumulation detected, approaching saturation in 32 seconds — stabilisation or evacuation recommended to prevent overload."

"What the..."

The place smelled rich with food that his armour didn't detect any poison in, letting him enjoy the scent.

Climbing up the stairs, he stood before the door that gave off the highest reading.

"Beep - Fluctuation of essence, properties of King and Emperor evolutionary ranks mixing detected."

He was about to break the door down, but was alerted by his armour that his life force was dropping. Having removed his pain receptors for Potential, it was a vital function he required to know his own state.

After he detected it was a spell the woman in his spear somehow cast on him when her blood ran down his spear, he swept her aside to tumble down the hall. Appearing behind her, he was ready to slice her in half to hopefully remove the caster of this spell. She split into half and dispersed into flames to regather down the flight of stairs.

'What a fast Grandmaster. Who is this?' He was aware that a group of people called the Xengs were here, and the one they were made to be wary of after the last showing, where a fisherman caught one of their most vital people, their summoner. The Summoners didn't follow the same hierarchy as he did ,so he didn't know their situation.

Doing their homework and putting a bit more trust into the intelligence of their members who were from this Worldcore, they had orders who not to touch.

He didn't see the famed masks anywhere on her and decided he could kill regardless.

Running a bit more metal elemental mana through his armour, he was about to blitz this poor girl who didn't realise how backwater skills and techniques just didn't stand a chance against a developed World's residents when his armour and the girl suddenly jerked and found the closest exit at the same time.

"What's happening, Oz?"

"Armour mana saturation maxed." He questioned his Armour Spirit and not the passive notifications.

"What? Why didn't you warn me when it hit 70%?"

"It went from 42.5% to 100% in under 2 milliseconds. Couldn't notify in time. Mana expulsion at full power."

Locking eyes with the woman, he faltered a little when a different pair of eyes stared into where his would be if she could see him.

However, both of them were doing the same thing while locking eyes. Their feet hadn't stopped moving backwards while facing the house he just escaped from.

His armour's mana saturation was still rising despite his speedy escape. It was melting even with its mana expulsion speed ramped up.

"What's happening, aren't you defending the one evolving in that house?" He spoke Gia, unwilling to activate his armour's translation function. It was also to test if she could reply.

"Worry about yourself."

His instincts had him twist his footstep and momentum to attack her.

Yet he was a little too late when the torso and gauntlets of his armour shattered from within into thousands of pieces.

Stolen content alert: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.

"Oz!" If only his armour didn't saturate all of a sudden.

"Absorbed blood overcapacity, sudden burst. Blood magic interference."

That slight distraction was all his opponent needed to stab her sword at his chest.

"Naiv--" Metal mana concentrated towards his chest. Thinking there was no way he would be injured, his body was flung back and a nick decorated his armour.

He bled.

His eyes spun to look for the target. She sped up exponentially.

"Detected foreign blood. Intent detected. Blood magic, spell forming within the body. Scanning…enhancement spell confirmed.'

'Enhancement?' That smelled like nonsense all over. He got Oz to double-check the state of his health.

'Neatherfae!! It's draining my lifeforce to heighten my perception.' He depended on Oz for perception; his own was hardly any better than a Grandmaster since he made this armour as a King.

There were a couple of ice projectiles being formed in the area, but it was so slow, and the heat this woman was generating was enough to melt those spells.

Molstein felt a dizzying sensation when he saw a shadow of his opponent move. His armour read his reflexes and heightened it, reacting before his vision went back to normal. Procognition! He felt it before when he used a special scroll for training up that ability, hoping to naturally unlock that for himself.

Missing a block, he took another hit.

'Stealth armour was the wrong choice. Oh well, I got the stats.'

"I'll be back kiddo." He was confident she wouldn't chase him too far.

Bleeding out his alloy from his Myriad Bracelet to recover parts of his armour, he faded back into invisibility and retreated. Getting her statistics, she was indeed strong with plenty of concurrent augmentations, but nothing he couldn't handle should he have brought a proper combat suit or sufficient backup alloy.

An engineer smith like him just needed to bring the right equipment. Sadly, his homemade alloy of 4 metals was not cheap to obtain, but he'd been in the field for over a hundred years. He had build a stockpile of his brand of alloy for his skillset.

Dashing to Lacuna Expanse and finding his hidden armoury, he snapped his fingers to disengage his stealth suit and snapped once more for his energy-resistant suit. This should handle both mana and heat far better than a weak stealth suit.

He reported on the creature evolving and said it was a King Frost Elf of Noble lineage and was to be avoided at all costs. This was his treasure.

As for the strong Grandmaster, there was no need to report a random enemy that was about to be slain. Not that anyone would care.

In two days, he was back at the outskirts of the Icy Region.

Oz informed him about the mana densities being lower than ever. 'At this stage of the evolution, for a King, it shouldn't be any longer than a few months. I have time.' The decrease in mana densities was the soul of the creature evolving, feeding on essence. This would make one's soul feel 'at home' wherever they evolved.

Every soul had a preferred homeland, and the benefit of evolving at the same place would strengthen this sensation. Further into one's progress, this evolution spot could become a place where one's soul could rest and be nurtured better than any place.

He didn't think an Elcrian would know this, but it wasn't surprising. All creatures had this feeling that they wanted to evolve where they first did. It was instinctual, the calling of their very soul.

When he got closer, he found the woman's presence again. Only this time, she was staring at him. He wasn't camouflaged anymore after all.

'No injuries...what horrifying regeneration.'

Neither of them was close to the small house.

Oz was already warning him about the concentration of mana that wasn't diffusing into the ambient atmosphere. It was infusing into his armour almost faster than Oz could expel it. Crazy, this was already the best armour at expelling foreign mana. He could only vastly improve this rate if he were in his Domain.

With Oz already having her data and they know their strength easily exceeded hers by a significant factor, he was ready to put her down swiftly.

She initiated combat first but he didn't expect her to last as long as she did. More shockingly, her strength was rising.

'Did we miscalculate a factor or two?'

Yet, he did not need to worry. Oz deduced that it was her Art. A ridiculous one that was pushing her strength up, yet her body could take it.

'Can't be a child of a higher being, right…' Her strength and skills were causing him to rethink his choices. Not to mention, her swords weren't breaking, and her bodysuit was not normal.

Perhaps he had better not kill her.

Sensing the massive concentration of mana sent towards him by a different mana signature, he quickly avoided the…fruit that propelled at his face. He raised his arm and shot a miniature rocket at the fruit, a little shocked when the embedded warp almost failed. With those energy signatures, Oz had determined it to be an explosive spell, and they used one of their expensive warp rockets to move the spell away.

Wrapping the spell that was some kind of explosive up to space, he raised his other arm and shot his target.

It hit right on target, but these couldn't kill an Elemental. Though it looked like it did sufficient damage.

'Fast sword, but that's all.' He didn't care why the Grandmaster thought she had a chance. If she ran away, he wouldn't bother chasing her down for he had no blood feud with her. She was just in the way of his current objective.

Standing above the rest of this Worldcore's inhabitants must have gotten to her head, thinking she could beat someone with a two-evolution lead. Even if he depended on his craft for combat, he was confident of his strength.

He put out all her fiery spells with the anti-flame smokescreen he made, and his combat suit had him overpower her so that he wasn't nicked anymore. That disk of blood couldn't be warped away due to the Intent, something he wasn't able to use, nor had he managed to make his armour capable of using. But Oz found out the weakness of her Art and moved his spear to consistently break her flow.

Blasting her apart with his missiles can drain her resources, transmuting was an energy-heavy process after all. It didn't matter if he closed the distance or knocked her aside, he bathed in his superiority in any range of combat against the life form of a lower order.

She seemed to be pissed, but her moves were calm. She was pulling him away from the house.

"Opponent's resources dipped below 100%," Oz reported

"Finally got her down to the base pool. Time for capture, charge Devil's net." Almost all of his peers had some form of external capacity, it would be more shocking to find a mage who was only working with base pool of 100%.

"Calibrating aim," Oz stated. "Firing Devil's Net. Capture success."

"I suggest you leave her." Molstein flinched when another voice cut in. Oz didn't sense the person till they spoke.

"Frost Elf? Is she under the Frost Elven protection?" He cursed under his breath. He knew the person evolving wasn't a Frost Elf since he falsely reported it. He was hoping this lady had nothing to do with them.

"Not exactly, but she's a friend you see."

"Well, too bad." This was a ticket; her soul was rich in power for a Grandmaster this powerful. Not to mention, he was going to get information about the person evolving from her. He faced the 3 Kings…tested their signature to be a bit weaker than this woman, and decided to go big or go home.

Unable to transmute or break free, with her limbs entangled. The woman was out of the picture for a moment.

"Wait there Scarlet." A cheerful Frost Elf smiled while his staff brimmed with ice mana.

"Let's finish this fast before he calls for reinforcements." The ghostly tall female Frost Elf caressed the back of her neck

"We shouldn't let Lord Winterborne worry about us while he's carrying out a missive." The expressionless Frost Elf felt the weakest, but Oz detected a strong connection to Spiritual energy. This man may be a summoner or have abilities that allow him to connect with the Spirit Realm. He was the most dangerous one, for he was the one with the most unknown powers based off what Oz could detect.

"Seriously…I've had enough of your bumpkins' false confidence." Molstein poured out the alloy he brought to bring out Oz's full capabilities.

So what if there were 3 Kings.

These hillbillies have forgotten the natural order of evolution.

He just had to make sure no one knows who killed them before it turns into a full-scale war should they be high up in their social casts.