Chương 127: Chapter 111 (B2-ch5) – A Truth Revealed

Kharvaxis lay prone beneath Cade's feet, its immense body twitching. Its shell was gone. Obliterated by his [Prismatic Conduit]. Beneath it, thickly armored carapace stretched across the Lord's back in overlapping segments, slick with clear fluid and streaked with cracks where the explosion had blown through the shell and into its natural defenses. Cade stood between two ridges on its back. In his right hand, he held the axe he had grown from the rhizome after his metal one had been destroyed in the clash.

The Obsidian Flake sat at the end, a crude and absurdly small axe head compared to the monster beneath him. Cade looked down at it and exhaled. The joy he had felt during the fight had left him now that the Lord was all but dead. A memory surfaced in his mind. He was fifteen. His dad had taken him and his sisters spear fishing during one of their summer camping trips. They had spent most of the day trying, and failing, to catch any fish. Even his dad failed to spear anything.

He had, however, caught two spiny lobsters barehanded. Cade distinctly remembered his face as he surfaced. His dad was grinning like a lunatic at his haul. Later, when it came time to cook them, Cade remembered asking if he should just throw them in the pot. His dad's smile had faded.

"No," he'd said, taking the lobster from Cade's hand and setting it on a rough piece of wood they used as a cutting board.

"Only a cruel person would cook another creature while it's still alive." Cade remembered the heavy knife in his father's hand. Remembered how serious his voice had become.

"If you're going to eat something, you respect that it gives up its life for you. Doesn't matter if it's a cow, a fish, or a lobster. It dies so you can live. You don't have to make it suffer on top of that." Then he placed the knife point right behind the lobster's eyes and drove it down in one clean motion, splitting the head and killing it instantly. Back then, Cade had felt uncomfortable watching it. But now, standing on the back of a twitching Lord of the Swamp, he remembered that lesson.

"Alright," Cade muttered.

"Let's not drag this out." He drove the Obsidian Flake down behind Kharvaxis' eyes. The black edge slid through its carapace with ease, opening a long, clean slit through armor that probably would have turned aside most steel. Cade pulled the axe free, and the moment he saw how deep the tissue went, he grimaced. The flake was sharp as hell, but it was still just a shard compared to the mountain of flesh. Kharvaxis' brain would be far too deep for the axe to reach cleanly.

Sure, he could hack at it, but that would turn this into butchery instead of a clean dispatch. The rhizome answered his intent as dark wood grew from his left palm, twisting outward into a long spear. He set the tip into the slit he had made, adjusted the angle, and drove it down. The spear punched through flesh and Kharvaxis convulsed beneath him one last time. Cade pushed the spear deeper until the crustacean Lord finally went still and he received the notification. Ding!

You have defeated [Kharvaxis, Shellbound Shocklord of the Shore — Level 31]. You have gained additional experience for killing a creature above your level. Race: [Human – (F)] has reached Level 21. +2 to all stats. Race: [Human – (F)] has reached Level 22. +2 to all stats. Tutorial Quest: Lords of the Swamp Progress: Lords Defeated: 3 of 8 Cores Obtained: 0 of 8 Cade let out a slow breath.

"Honestly, I thought the Shocklord part of your title was because of the cannon claws," he said.

"Who would have expected a giant hermit crab to have lightning magic hidden within its shell? Too bad for you my body was reforged by lightning far stronger than your own." He released [Essence Overload]. The primordial lightning crawling across his skin faded immediately. For a heartbeat, weakness rolled through him as he adjusted to his unboosted stats but the sensation quickly faded. Then he remembered the notification he had pushed aside after Kharvaxis tried to turn him into a lightning rod. Damn.

A new skill, a couple of levels, and an upgraded skill from one fight? Maybe I should track down the rest of the Lords if the gains were this good. Ding! Congratulations! Your [Essence Sight (uncommon)] has upgraded to [Essence Sight (rare)] [Essence Sight (uncommon)] – Your vision has now been attuned to see pure and life-attuned essence. [Essence Sight (rare)] – Your visual channels have been rewritten to perceive pure, life, lightning, Stamina-attuned, and Mana-attuned essence.

Further essence types may be visualized through study and comprehension. Grants limited perception of souls. Well that's interesting. Sildraxa's attack had burned through his eyes, channels and all. At the time, it had felt like someone had poured molten metal straight into his skull. The rhizome must have finally finished repairing the damage, and Kharvaxis' lightning had probably given it the last push it needed. That also explained why he could see Stamina and Mana now. The ability had been forming already.

It just hadn't registered as a proper upgrade until the Record decided he had accomplished something worthy enough for a skill update. Would the skill have updated sooner if I had access to the advanced System? Probably, but fuck that. I'll take the Record noting my Path over the System forcing me down one any day. Even if that meant some delayed notifications and having to figure shit out myself. The last line was of particular interest to him. Limited perception of souls.

That had to be what he saw when he flooded Richard's Core and ripped something free. Good to have confirmation at least. His gaze drifted back to the kill notification. Only two levels for killing a Lord of the Swamp eleven levels above him. A little disappointing, but not all that surprising. He hadn't absorbed all of Kharvaxis' essence the way he had with Richard. The Lord's massive corpse still pulsed with fading life essence beneath him.

He was about to will his [Mantle of Dissolution] to dissolve the corpse when he felt a strange sensation coming from inside his Core. He closed his eyes and focused. For a moment, the clearing faded. The stink of churned mud and blood dulled. In the darkness, an image formed: a sphere of bright blue and white energy, crackling with tiny arcs of lightning and buried deep in fading green life essence. Cade frowned. What the hell is that? A faint grunt answered him in his mind and he immediately knew it was Aquelion.

The impression flickered. The blue-white sphere dimmed before the grunt came again, softer this time before both the image and the sound faded completely. Cade opened his eyes and stared down at Kharvaxis.

"Well," he muttered.

"That's new." This content has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere. He looked over the corpse more deliberately this time, letting his vision shift. Even though the life essence was fading, it was still thick and heavy through Kharvaxis' massive body. It pooled in dense lines around the limbs and deeper organs. But as Cade studied the dead Lord, he caught a glimmer beneath the layers.

Deep inside Kharvaxis' torso, buried under armor, meat, and a blanket of life essence, sat a small blue-white sphere. It crackled with the same energy he had seen in his mind. He doubted he would have noticed it at all if the gator hadn't somehow contacted him. The sphere had to be Kharvaxis' Core and of course it was buried in the most inconvenient place possible. Cade glanced at the Obsidian Flake still fixed to the wooden handle in his right hand.

The shard was sharp enough to carve through Kharvaxis' carapace like wet cardboard, but it was way too small compared to the oversized crustacean sprawled beneath him. Cutting his way to the Core would take more time than he was willing to commit right now. His cloak twitched but Cade hesitated. If Aquelion wanted the Core, dissolving the corpse was probably a bad idea. Same with burning his way through it with his [Flames of Desolation].

He had no clue how durable Cores actually were and Richard's had dissolved so easily. What would happen if his ash or white flames damaged it?

"Fine," Cade said.

"We'll do this a different way." He knelt and pressed his palm flat against the exposed flesh beneath him. The rhizome responded to his will at once, pushing from his channels and into Kharvaxis' corpse. Cade guided it by intent, sending it toward the blue-white sphere. The sensation was still unpleasant. Growing the rhizome out of his body had become familiar by now, which was a sentence he hated thinking. But pushing it through dead tissue was something else.

He could feel a dense resistance as the rhizome spread, winding between organs and flesh until it touched the sphere. The moment it made contact, the Core pulsed and the rhizome immediately pulled back. Cade stiffened. The root retracted far faster than it had grown, dragging the Core with it into his palm. He didn't even have a chance to use his [Greater Identify]. The Core sank into his hand and Cade's breath caught as the sphere passed through his channels.

It moved along pathways that should not have been able to hold a physical object until it was pulled into his own Core. As soon as it disappeared, a faint grunt brushed against his mind. He instinctively knew that the gator was sending his thanks. Cade looked down at his empty palm.

"Well," he said slowly.

"That's definitely something I need to look into."

"Cade!" Earl's voice boomed from the edge of the clearing.

"Holy fucking shit, man!" He turned as Earl burst from the tree line, grinning like an idiot. Mud covered his boots and one side of his pants, but he looked intact. Good. None of the stray stones Kharvaxis shot hit him, Cade thought. He would have felt bad if Earl got obliterated in the background while he was fighting.

"That," Earl said, pointing at Kharvaxis' corpse, "was the most badass fight I have ever seen!" Cade climbed down from the Lord's back.

"Glad it was entertaining."

"Entertaining? Man, I thought you were gonna get smooshed for sure. That thing was firing rocks like a damn artillery battery. I don't even know how you made ground on it. Then it blasted you with lightning, and you just stood there like some kind of swamp wizard on bath salts."

"That's a very specific image."

"And accurate!" Earl jabbed a thumb at the corpse.

"You shrugged off a Lord of the Swamp's lightning. How did you do that?" Cade only half listened as Earl kept going, replaying the fight with more and more enthusiasm. His gaze moved past Kharvaxis and across the ruined clearing. The other two Lords he had killed had treasures in their dens. Kharvaxis probably had something too but its title had been Shellbound Shocklord of the Shore. Clearly, the broken trees, muddy ground, and corpse-filled camp didn't count as a shore. So where was this Lord's treasure?

The swamp had gone unnaturally quiet in the wake of the fight. The massive crustacean Lord's body was sprawled in the center of the ruined camp. Its shell lay in thousands of splintered fragments across the clearing. Its twitching spasms faded beneath the man standing on its back. Cade. Nadean could barely connect the name to what she had just watched. The Cade she remembered had been listless and withdrawn. He was late to the lab more often than not.

He wore wrinkled hoodies, forgot to charge his phone, and only gave the bare minimum. He was intelligent, sure, but he had constantly reminded her of someone who had let life beat them down. The man in the clearing however, was something else entirely. He had done the impossible. He had laughed in the face of danger and single-handedly dismantled a Lord of the Swamp. Kharvaxis had been terrifying before.

Back when her group attempted to take it on, the monster had been less than half its level, and even then they had to run for their lives after Kyle's leg was blown clean off. And Cade, the man the System didn't even bother giving a Core, had just beaten it into the mud. Sasesh swallowed hard beside her.

"Professor Sanders," he said, voice tight.

"Are you absolutely certain that man is Cade?" Professor Sanders did not answer right away. His eyes stayed fixed on the clearing, wide behind his glasses. He looked older than he had a few minutes ago, as if the fight had shaken loose whatever certainty he had been holding onto since the Tutorial began. Finally, he spoke.

"My skill has never given me false information before." Sasesh's jaw worked.

"Maybe it's wrong. There is no way that's Cade." Nadean glanced at him. Sasesh stared at Cade like he was looking at a monster. His normally composed expression had cracked. Sweat dotted his forehead and his fingers curled into fists so tight his knuckles went white.

"I'm serious," Sasesh said.

"Maybe that isn't him. Maybe your skill is wrong, or maybe something is interfering with it. [Identify] doesn't work on him. That alone proves there's something wrong with that man."

"That man," Nadean said quietly, "is standing on top of a dead Lord of the Swamp." Sasesh flinched, but before he could answer, movement burst from the trees on the far side of the clearing. A large bald man came charging out of the forest, laughing so loudly the sound carried all the way to the open vent.

"Cade! Holy fucking shit, man!" Nadean watched him run straight toward the white-cloaked figure without a hint of fear or hesitation. Sasesh's face went pale. His tan skin drained until he looked almost gray, and for one strange moment Nadean thought he might actually be sick. She looked at him and let out a quiet breath.

"Looks like your little lie has finally caught up to you." Professor Sanders turned sharply.

"What lie?" Sasesh froze but Nadean kept her eyes fixed on him. She had wondered when this would come out. Part of her had expected it would remain buried. The odds were that Cade had died in the swamp. A snowball had a better chance in hell than he had in this Tutorial. At least, that's what she had thought. Except apparently Cade had gone out and not only survived, but thrived without their help.

"Sasesh," Professor Sanders said, his voice hardening.

"What lie?" Sasesh opened his mouth but no words came out. Professor Sanders' expression tightened.

"Spit it out, man." Sasesh dragged in a thin breath. His eyes flicked toward Nadean, then toward Cade in the distance, then back to the professor.

"I lied," he said.

"Cade wasn't killed by those two men that night."

"What?" Professor Sanders asked.

"While we were on watch. He and I got into an argument," Sasesh said, each word clipped like it had to be forced out.

"Afterwards he decided to leave the group. Said he would rather go out on his own terms instead of dragging the group down." Professor Sanders stared at him.

"You told us he was murdered."

"I know."

"You told us there was nothing we could have done."

"I know."

"Then why in the System would you lie about that?" Sasesh's voice tightened.

"Because there was no point going after him. He made his choice. He didn't have a Core. He had no Class, no useful skills, no way to defend himself. I expected some swamp creatures to find him before sunrise. He was as good as dead." His gaze snapped toward Kharvaxis' corpse, and something bitter twisted across his expression.

"I didn't expect him to survive. I definitely did not expect him to turn into a monster. No human could have done that to a Lord of the Swamp." Nadean scoffed before she could stop herself.

"That isn't the full truth, is it?"

"Professor Sanders doesn't need to know the rest." Sasesh snapped, and color crept back into his cheeks. Professor Sanders took off his glasses with an unsteady hand. He cleaned them on the hem of his shirt then placed them back on his face. For a moment, he said nothing. His gaze drifted from Sasesh to Nadean, then out toward the clearing where Cade stood with the large bald man and the dead Lord. At last, he exhaled.

"I suppose the reason no longer matters," he said, though his tone suggested otherwise.

"What's done is done. I am going down to tell everyone the good news. That Cade is alive and, apparently, doing very well for himself." Professor Sanders' eyes lingered on Kharvaxis' corpse.

"If he can handle a Lord of the Swamp by himself, then he may be strong enough to handle Richard if that man comes back." Nadean's stomach tightened at Richard's name. The horrors that man had inflicted upon Camp Persistence were still fresh in her mind.

"While I do that, you two will go out there and speak with Cade." Sasesh stiffened.

"Professor—""No." Professor Sanders cut him off.

"You will try to convince him to rejoin our group. Both of you. I don't care what you have to do. Beg him if you have to." His voice lowered.

"We need someone like him if we're going to make it out of this Tutorial alive."