Chương 639: Limitless Path Chapter Six Hundred Fifty-Eight

Right after Beth made use of her looting skill, Veren appeared beside her, slicing space apart to teleport right next to her. Being an expert of spatial mana, she could tell that's exactly what was happening, pointing to yet another of the many reasons why someone at Sage was so scary. Whether Veren had a teleport of his own or not, he didn't need one to teleport, he just needed his sword, or, hell, not even that.

Veren was at the level where he could use a stick or a blade of grass as his sword, so he might even be able to teleport by waving a finger and acting as if it were a blade. He had once talked about the level of a Grandmaster being one where a person reached mortal limits, or the limit of normal comprehension, and the realm of Sages was where a person began to perform feats at a level that was beyond the understanding of what was 'normal.'

Being able to swing a sword, or even a finger, and cut apart space to teleport was certainly outside of 'normal' comprehension, in several senses, and was pretty scary. He couldn't perform the kind of teleports that someone like Beth could, even not counting her Ideal, but he could do a fair mimic of a standard teleport skill with just his Swords skill. It also spoke to how crazy someone even stronger would be, someone like Tazeen, who was beyond even Sage.

Tazeen was still an Enlightened—Beth had checked with Baelvyr once and verified that it wasn't a disguise—and he was powerful enough that Ascended couldn't stand against him. He was powerful enough that even Exalted had to be very wary of him, and it was almost impossible for an Exalted to kill him. Beth wasn't sure how he would do against someone like Zane or Fallon, but he was so strong, just based on his weapon skill, that Beth believed he could at least escape.

Considering the kind of power difference that normally existed between Enlightened and Manumitted, saying even that it would be extremely difficult for a Manumitted to kill an Enlightened was already a crazy statement, let alone that the Enlightened could, to an extent, hold their own in that fight. Beth put that aside as Veren spoke, looking worried as he said, "You defeated the lich fully? Did you secure the phylactery?"

"I don't even know if he had one," Beth said, shrugging.

"I don't know how I would tell. Unless being a Sage let's you sense souls or some other crazy bullshit?"

"No," Veren replied in a slightly peeved tone.

"Then we need to search ourselves or call in an expert," Beth said with a shrug.

"We should search first before bringing anyone else in," Veren replied shortly before slashing away, teleporting across the valley, now a crater, to start hunting. Beth was only hoping it would be that easy, but she didn't have her fingers crossed that it would all work out, and she was pretty quickly proven right. It wasn't a hole that she had really thought about in their capabilities, but her group had no way to track or engage with anything having to do with the soul.

Not that such magics or people specialized in those things were common; being someone specialized in spatial mana, Beth was already amongst a very rare breed, and soul specialists were even rarer than that. It was very fortunate, then, that Beth had a lot of connections, a lot whom had strange abilities of their own or their own connections to rely on. There was no rule her team had to do these missions without any outside help.

In point of fact, the rule was that Platinum missions were a priority and needed to be completed ASAP with the who, what, how, and why largely left to the person or team. All of that was to say Beth could make a few calls and get help without anybody caring, other than maybe the team's pride being hurt, but they weren't that juvenile.

Okay, maybe they were still a little juvenile about it, but she still made the call and got the help, regardless of the feeling of not being able to complete the mission without assistance. Veren didn't count, either, since he was basically a member of the team, if a bit stand-offish, and they hadn't needed his help to take care of the monsters.

Calling in someone else from off-world that wasn't a nominal member of the team did count, in Beth's book, but she didn't care all that much; she rang the one person she thought might be able to handle it. Well, that was discounting Zane and Fallon, but she wasn't going to call either of them for 'small' things like this without a very damn good reason. She didn't have to wait all that long, either.

When you were someone with this kind of power and influence, the kind the person she called had, you didn't wait in line at teleporters or brook any kind of delay in getting somewhere in a hurry. Beth was just glad that they had been free at all, considering it had been a little bit since they had seen each other and the others were very busy with their own matters since then.

It wasn't a surprise when she showed up in style, however, though it had been a bit of a surprise that she was confident that she could help with their problem after Beth had quickly explained it. It had been a guess on Beth's part, but she was glad she had been right about the other's skill set.

"So, you need help finding a soul?" Selene asked, having just suddenly appeared beside Beth in a shower of darkness. Beth had sensed the mana moving before Selene appeared, making her roll her eyes just a bit at her lover's flair for the dramatic, but she embraced the taller woman even as the darkness settled.

"Of course. I couldn't think of anyone better for hunting down random, corrupt souls than a greater demoness," Beth replied with a bit of a faux coy lilt to her voice.

"Oh, stop, you'll make me blush," Selene said warmly, sneaking a kiss on Beth's cheek right as they broke apart their hug.

"Don't worry about a thing, my dear. I'll have this settled in just a few blinks." Selene wasn't quite as good as her word, which had Beth laughing behind her back, much to the Exalted's chagrin, but she did have some skill with souls and soul magic, which was miles better than anyone else in Beth's group, or even the rest of her contact list. Again, setting aside Zane and Fallon, as she was sure those two had some skill with just about everything.

But calling either of them wouldn't also give her and Sera a convenient excuse to spend time with one or both of their other loves, though Selene had come alone. The greater demoness had a little difficulty right from the start because Beth had looted the lich, which made her give a little pout, as that made her job all the harder, but she was able to pick up a faint trail. This narrative has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. If you see it on Amazon, please report it.

The real break came in what Beth had been quietly hoping for, in that the lich had been near its home. Again, while most monsters were smarter, they weren't exactly smart; a lich that had gained full sapience, as rare as that was, would be damn sure to hid their phylactery somewhere that not even they could find it. This lich was… slightly less competent, having hidden their phylactery in a fairly basic manner in a nearby location.

Even that was already a bit of a long play, but liches also consistently ranked as some of the smartest out of all types of monsters, which was amusing considering almost all other undead were about the stupidest. Still, the problem did amount to a needle in a haystack sort of thing, as the phylactery could be as small as a regular-sized person's closed fist, and finding an object like that, likely with illusion and concealing magic on and around it, wasn't going to be easy.

A classic play was to make it look like a rock, put it in a big pile of rocks, and then bury those rocks somewhere deep and forget, as in forcibly wipe the memory from oneself, where the rock pile was buried. Of course, another classic play was for a wurm or some other burrower to eat that particular, nondescript rock and for hijinks to then ensue, but they weren't so lucky. Or unlucky. Beth didn't fancy chasing anymore wurms around right now.

The wurm chasing would have to be rescheduled, as the lich wasn't all that bright. Again, not yet sapient, just smart enough to be annoying and a hassle to deal with, but the first time around and what technically counted for the second, even though they didn't give it enough time to reform. The phylactery was hidden in a small cave that was more a crevice in a rock face than anything, disguised to look like a clump of moss stuck to part of the wall.

It wasn't the best disguise Beth had ever seen, but then again, she hadn't seen any phylacteries, outside of video games, before this one, so who was she to judge? The crack was small enough Selene thought the bastard had had some small undead creature crawl inside to deposit the treasure, and Veren was not there to hang around and play games and promptly proceeded to slice apart the entire mountainside with a few flicks of his blade.

He made sure to cut the phylactery while he was at it, a faint wailing and an outpouring of death and soul mana marking his aim as true.

"Well, that was exciting," he said in a deadpan manner.

"I don't recall you being so powerful," Selene said, clearly thinking of the last time she had seen Veren, some few years ago now.

"I understand the sword," the Sage replied with a shrug, as if that explained everything he had done and been through.

"Not the talkative type," Selene said with slightly narrowed eyes.

"Oh, he is. Watch this," Beth said.

"Hey, Veren, how's that journey of self-discovery going? Get lost at the start, ya ass?"

"Who are you to measure my journey, brute?" Veren immediately retorted.

"You understand nothing of the complexities of introspection and enlightenment. You wouldn't get enlightened if the Path hit you in the face with a revelation, fool."

"You're right; that was easy," Selene said.

"Says the guy who still doesn't have his Ideal," Beth laughed, fire burning on her as she flexed at Veren.

"Your Ideal counts for little. You still don't understand the beauty of the sword," Veren replied crossly, shaking his head.

"Contact me when you finally manage to stumble your way into Grandmaster. I'm sure it will only take another twenty or thirty years. Plenty of time for me to reach Exalted before you."

"You wanna make a bet," Beth asked, stopping her flexing to cross her arms, though she was grinning.

"With you?" Veren asked, looking her up and down.

"No. I want to go swing my sword." That was apparently goodbye, as he turned on his heel and strode off after saying that, not bothering with any kind of goodbye. Well, that was the way it was with him; Veren showed up out of nowhere, did things they didn't understand, and disappeared in a blink, often without telling anyone. Surly only went some of the way to describing his personality, but, to an extent, he had earned it.

Being a Sage was already a serious accomplishment worthy of praise; becoming a Sage before the age of fifty, objective time, was almost unheard of. Also, based on his performance earlier and how he handled himself, though Beth wasn't an amazing judge, she would still put a lot of money on him being beyond Sage[0] already with his chosen weapon. That kind of progress was also crazy, to the point where she did sometimes envy just how easy he made it seem.

Not that Veren didn't put in work, but Beth's own crazy power had a heavier reliance on pure luck and random coincidence than it did on skill and understanding, something she was still working to correct.

"Mithril for you thoughts," Selene said, standing very close to Beth, as always, with the others nearby.

"My thoughts are that we should move, but that you should stick with us for a minute. I'd like to catch up," Beth said, waving for the team to start moving out. They weren't novices or early adventurers anymore; she wasn't trying to get a big head, but they didn't all need to huddle close and move together. They could move around individually and be just fine most places in the galaxy at this point. A world they had just cleaned up wasn't a danger.

"What did we get from that thing, before we go all lovey-dovey?" Sera asked, walking on Selene's other side, sandwiching her between them.

"Oh, right! My looting power actually worked, but we were a little too worried about the phylactery. I just threw the stuff in my necklace without looking," Beth said, holding up her hand and making an item appear.

"That's a bit disturbing," Sera said, examining the skull Beth was now holding.

"But highly valuable," Selene said, taking the skull to examine it much more closely. Considering Selene's expertise, the others waited for her assessment.

"It's a ritual item used in arrays. It's a little too niche to be a super hot commodity, but a powerhouse enchanter of the right type would pay a mountain for that."

"So, finding a buyer will be hard, but the money will be worth it?" Beth confirmed.

"Exactly," Selene said, handing the skull back.

"There was also this," Beth said, putting the skull away and pulling out an orb.

"Now that will make everyone go insane," Selene said instantly, not having to even take it into her hand to know what it was.

"You recognize it?" Beth asked, glancing at her.

"It's a soul orb," Selene said, tapping it with a fingertip just to confirm.

"A rather powerful one, too. Think about it similar to a beast core, but it's a concentrated mass of soul mana and energy. It's useful for just about anybody for just about anything. If you want to sell it, don't settle for anything less than a neutronium for it, because it really is that valuable. My recommendation, if you want it, is to keep it. That thing can be used by any crafting profession and can create a list of a dozen highly prized works, all of which are more extraordinary than the last.

I know your team isn't that desperate for cash right now, so I would sell the skull and tuck the orb away."

"I take it the orbs are rare?" Beth asked.

"The way you got it is probably the easier way, if that give you any indication. And yes, by that I mean using a looting power on a very strong lich," Selene replied.

"Well, okay, I'm sold. Or, not sold, rather; I'm keeping it," Beth said, making it disappear while glancing around like someone was coming to snatch it.