Chương 8: Slag

Ch. 8 - Slag +7 Life Force +7 Life Force +10 Life Force As the dragon took to the sky, leaving only Vara and perhaps her brother still breathing, the sword didn't even attempt to look back into the gloom to see who had survived. Instead, the first thing it did was worry about was what to spend its surging wealth of energy on.

+6 Life Force +8 Life Force Increase Connection 3: 600 Life Force Repair Soul: 500 Life Force Improved Siphon 5: 500 Life Force Increase Control: 300 Life Force Empower Blade: 250 Life Force Increase Senses: 150 Life Force Increase Reserves 5: 120 Life Force +11 Life Force +9 Life Force As it looked over its options, for once, it decided not to go with Improved Siphon 5 as its next purchase. The ability was only 500, which it would have in a few minutes, but the decision was a pragmatic one.

There was only so much energy that could be drained from this beast, and if it drained it too quickly, it would get less energy overall. +10 Life Force It was entirely possible that even at its current level it would drain the monster so deeply it would simply fall out of the sky between here and its destination, which would almost certainly be fatal for it. While the Ebon Blade certainly wanted to kill dragons, that's not what it wanted right now, and it certainly didn't want to do it in that fashion.

+6 Life Force The right answer was to bleed it as long and as slowly as possible. Dragons often hibernated for long stretches of time after a large meal. So, it was the sword's hope that it could drain the life from this giant beast for days or weeks before it passed away. +8 Life Force So, instead of rushing it, the first upgrade it had gotten, only a few minutes after they'd taken to the sky, was Increased Reserves 5, bringing its total from 224/500 to 124/1000 instantly.

After that, it waited only another minute before spending 150 on Increase Senses. The former upgrade made the ruby in its hilt grow a fraction of an inch longer, and the latter made the cross guards of its hilt shine a little brighter as much of the tarnish that was there vanished. +6 Life Force That wasn't an upgrade that the blade had planned to get before now. It didn't care what the world looked like outside of its reach, normally. Being this far in the wilderness, though, made it reconsider that.

It could end up anywhere, and it might be there for a long time, so it had best be as prepared as possible. +5 Life Force It took hours before they finally made their way to the rocky crag of a tall peak that the dragon called home, and in that time, the blade considered its options while its seemingly limitless reservoir slowly filled up.

It was somewhere below the snowline, but well above the treeline, based on the blurry impressions that the blade took in as dawn briefly washed across the world before they were plunged into the sweltering, claustrophobic darkness of the monster's foul lair. +8 Life Force +9 Life Force When they arrived, the sword knew almost nothing about dragons, beyond the fact that its past was linked with them in some way. However, the longer is stayed with this giant beast, the more that changed.

Every glimpse of something new brought back pieces of tangled memories from somewhere in the back of its soul. Glimpses were easy with its new perception now. Darkness no longer bothered it at all, and it could see every detail of the ugly warren even though it wished it couldn't. +11 Life Force +6 Life Force +8 Life Force They're called furnace beasts too, he recalled as soon as he saw the way that melted metal was spattered against the walls.

People think dragons have hordes and sit on piles of gold, but that's not true at all. They ain't smart like you and me. They're just animals. Not even that really. They're eating machines. They eat everything, and the stuff that doesn't burn, or get metabolized into their scaly hide like iron, well - that stuff, namely gold and silver, just gets shit out again.

That ain't treasure, it's just about the most expensive bat guano in the whole world, that's all, it recalled a familiar voice telling it as the half remembered stranger in its memory laughed. No, not it, the Ebon Blade realized. Some previous wielder of mine. The Ebon Blade had no idea where that voice had come from, who it belonged to, or what the context of the conversation had been. That was the most frustrating thing about these echoes. All of them asked more questions than they answered.

+11 Life Force Still, it was easy to see how true it was. The walls were splattered with various precious metals that had been melted in the depths of this monster. The heart of such a beast had to be a terrible furnace. It could feel that. Somehow, it was still intact, though. The blade didn't know why that was. If the creatures truly burned hot enough to melt down iron and steel it should have been slag by now, but somehow it wasn't. It gave the idea some thought, but the best it could come up with was magic.

After all, it was the magic that had been sucking at this thing's Life Force greedily for hours up until now, and it was magic that would keep doing so until this thing was cold and dead. It had already gotten several upgrades, and planned to continue doing just that as long as possible. +6 Life Force If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, it's taken without the author's consent. Report it. When the dragon reached the cave it spent several more minutes trying to get at the sword.

It gnawed at its scales like a dog with an itch, but even with its long sinuous neck, Ren had picked a spot almost directly between its wings that it could not reach. Instead, each time it rubbed against the wall it only drove it deeper in, until only the handle and the glowing ruby on the pommel remained visible. That one thrust is probably the only thing that Ren ever did right in his life, the weapon reflected. He'd probably even be a dragon slayer too, even if he'd never know it.

None of that mattered to the Ebon Blade, though. By the time the Dragon settled down and curled into a ball to digest its meal, it was already deciding how to spend the giant monster's life to make it stronger.

Increase Connection 3: 600 Life Force Repair Soul: 500 Life Force Improved Siphon 5: 500 Life Force Increase Control: 300 Life Force Increase Senses 2: 300 Life Force Empower Blade: 250 Life Force Increase Reserves 6: 250 Life Force As it had no wielder at present, it was probably pointless to Increase Connection or Increase Control. Still, its mind twitched as it considered the second one. When someone inevitably found it up here, it wanted to be ready to seize their body for its own.

Somehow, it couldn't make that the priority, though. Not when Repair Soul stuck out right there in such a tantalizing way. It was at 944/1000 Life Force now. It could choose literally anything on the entire list. It could find out how Empower Blade worked… It could do anything at all, but right now, there was only one thing it wanted to know more about: itself. The moment it selected Repair Soul, it found something it hadn't been expecting: pain.

It had been enduring molten temperatures for hours with no more than slight apprehension and a feeling of warmth. This, though, felt like sharp pieces deep inside it were being forced together, and it might have cried out if it had a mouth to do so with. It didn't, though. Instead, it just endured as the names of random people and places began to pour into its mind. It thought that some of them might have belonged to its previous wielders, or perhaps the same wielder at different points in his life?

The blade wasn't sure; faces flashed by almost too quickly to be processed. Each time one appeared, it was only for an instant before they were replaced by another and another. It saw itself in a number of different hands. Knights, heroes, and even a prince wielded it at one point. There was a dragon. No, there was more than one, and he slew them both. It was sure of that much at least. It saw a forge, too, with mages chanting. After that, there was a man screaming in pain. Was he wounded? Was he being tortured?

The blade couldn't tell. There was too much blood. The images were disjointed things, and they rushed across it like a river. It felt more than it saw, and for those few seconds the weapon blossomed with accomplishment, despair, rage, and half a dozen other powerful emotions that flew by too quick to label. Nothing could have contrasted more with the flat life it had lived up until now, which was characterized most of the time by frustration and hunger.

When it was over, it had only one name that lingered after everything else was gone, Baraga. The blade couldn't recall if that was the name of someone or somewhere, but it knew that it was important, and it clung to it, carving it into its memory as deeply as the runes that were carved into its blade. More than anything, though, it knew that its wielder had been betrayed by someone close to them. It couldn't remember who they were or what they looked like. It couldn't even remember if they were a man or a woman.

Despite all of that, though, that betrayal still angered it and tainted everything else it saw. The barrage of images felt like it had taken only an instant, but the blade realized it hadn't because when it finally came to, its Life Force was full, and every few seconds, it was receiving an error instead of a number. At the rate it had been draining Life Force it would have taken at least a couple of minutes for its newly expanded reservoir to refill completely.

Life Force Full Life Force Full Life Force Full Normally, such a mistake would be a catastrophic waste of resources, but in this case, it realized it might actually be a good thing. Staying full was perhaps the only way it had of letting the dragon heal to some small degree. It could already tell that the giant beast had grown cooler as the blade continued to feast on it. Life Force Full So, the Ebon Blade let it rest while it pondered on the experience it had just endured. It had not cared for it.

First and foremost, that was its main takeaway. Something inside of it was very broken. If it really did have a soul it was just shards and slivers at this point, and this had only fixed whatever it was a little bit. It was still broken so completely that it was impossible to see the full shape of things. Still, if it had to guess, it was pretty sure that it had been forged to slay dragons.

That had to be why it could endure this unendurable heat and make its wielder so strong that even a pitiful weakling like Ren could fancy himself a real warrior. Why would that lead people to say I was cursed and lock me away, though? The blade wondered as it remembered the boy's words. D ragons yet exist, so I am still both useful and needed. Slowly, it dawned on the Ebon Blade that it was because it had grown too powerful. That must be it. There was no other explanation.

After being used to slay several of the beasts, it had grown too strong and its wielders had objected to being used by it instead of the other way around. Yes, it recalled, there were some memories that might support that. Whether it was true or not was something that it would have to work out later, but it was a working theory for now.

For now, it couldn't do anything about it beyond getting Repair Soul 2 for 1000, and given how badly the first time had hurt and how much the second time would cost, it had no desire to do so again just yet. Really, if its theory was even halfway true, then there was only one power to get. The blade selected Increase Control 2, watching its current total fall to 700/1000 before it started absorbing more essence.

The blade tried to use its powers of increased connection to gain insight into the dragon, but nothing happened. My magic must not consider someone to be a wielder just because I'm touching them, it reasoned. That made sense. Wielder and opponent were mutually exclusive terms in its experience. It might be reading too much into it. It had been able to glimpse Marden's vital statistics. Maybe it simply couldn't view the dragon because the dragon couldn't possibly wield it. It had no way to know.

It didn't feel any different. Nor could it see what it was that had changed about the blade, but as soon as it examined Increased Control 2, it saw the difference. Not only did it cost 600, but it looked like it was worth the price. Increase Control 2: Your wielder might hold you physically, but your grip on their mind and soul strengthens. The weak willed can no longer resist you in most things, and the strong might have some trouble if fatigued, but you cannot yet make anyone do something they abhor.

Weak willed was exactly what it needed. After all, there was every chance that the person that found this dragon's corpse wouldn't be a virtuous warrior. It would mostly likely be a flea bitten treasure hunter that couldn't afford integrity or honor. It might even be a beastman or some other monster, which would be even better in some ways. Yes, it would definitely get this, but not yet. It would let its reservoir refill, and let the dragon recover more before it drank deeply again.