The Lone Wanderer

Chapter 648 – Purification runes

Percy hadn’t used his purification runes yet. He had mastered them about a decade ago, though he had never found an opportunity to test them, so he’d decided to spend some time figuring out how to work them into his new enchantments as efficiently as possible.

He’d also wanted to let Micky and Kassorith hunt a few beasts without the runes, so that he would have a point of comparison. Still, it was time to get serious, otherwise the distance to their rivals would only widen.

Pulling up the list again, Percy quickly checked everyone’s scores.

‘Falanor: 456 points,

Zurvanai: 311 points,

Remlat: 209 points,

Azalotheen: 198 points,

…

Kassorith: 131 points,

…’

Kassorith was already down to the fourteenth place, which was slightly worrying. However, Percy understood that this was simply due to his host’s recent break. They’d honestly been a little too cautious to pause this early, as he doubted that anyone would genuinely need to take a break before reaching five hundred points or so.

The current rankings were clearly skewed in favour of those capable of slaughtering the infected beasts the fastest. Once everyone approached their limits, they would need to take frequent breaks to cleanse the corruption. At that time, those with an advantage in resisting or purging negative thoughts – like Percy and his host – would begin to climb.

‘Hmmm… Zurvanai, Remlat, and Azalotheen are the favourites in our group. I’m not too surprised that they’ve hogged most of the top spots already,’ Kassorith noted. ‘How the hell did Falanor pass everyone though?’

It was indeed strange. Falanor was a male Ollorian with a light affinity that Kassorith had defeated during his sixth match. The deformed man wasn’t weak by any stretch of the imagination, but he definitely wasn’t strong or fast enough to dominate the whole event.

‘Huh, I told you that the strange colour of his mana had to be from a blessing,’ Percy said. ‘It must be one of those that Metatron mentioned – the concepts that are effective against demonic infestations.’

Falanor’s mana sported a different hue from that of other light affinity users that Percy had met in the past. However, his spells weren’t any faster, stronger, brighter, or hotter than they were supposed to be, so Percy and his companions had debated whether the strange colour had been caused by a Decree or something else.

Evidently not.

The fact that the Ollorian had comfortably jumped to the top spot could only mean that he had discovered a more effective method of earning points. That likely pointed towards a way of cleansing the creatures without killing them.

‘Alright, let’s give the enchantments a shot. Maybe we can achieve something similar,’ Kassorith suggested, clearly being on the same page as Percy.

They started by forging a thin set of armour and including lots of thrice-amplified purification runes in every unit cell. This wouldn’t help them cleanse the beasts or accumulate points faster, but Percy hoped that the enchantments would offer them some resistance against negative thoughts, allowing them to keep hunting for longer.

While Micky and Kassorith scoured the golden dunes in search of new prey, Percy spent some time forging one of the metallic disks that they used to fire their signature attack, making sure to incorporate the purification runes in the formation.

Once the tool was ready, he asked his companions to take turns firing the crimson beam at the local fauna while he carefully studied the outcome with his Sage’s Pond.

At full power, the scorching spell was nearly strong enough to threaten Seventh Circle mages, so the Fourth Circle creatures never stood a chance. Percy and the others inadvertently torched way too many unlucky beasts before figuring out the correct input to avoid instantly burning the poor things to a crisp.

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Unfortunately, their efforts didn’t yield the results they were hoping for.

The creatures squirmed in agony under the light of the formation, the blistering heat ripping open their skin and melting their flesh. The strange black smoke that Percy had mentally associated with the infestation gushed out of the animals’ bodies in greater volumes, indicating that the purification runes were doing something, yet Kassorith’s score never increased more than it was supposed to.

While the beasts remained alive, the Void Hand’s system refused to reward the Thess’kalan with any points. The moment the creatures succumbed to their grievous wounds, Kassorith was only granted a single point for the kill like before.

The corruption appeared to cling to the beast’s bodies far more deeply than expected. While the enchantment definitely seemed to purge the negative influence, the creatures never managed to endure the damage long enough to be fully cleansed.

Percy tried to lower the intensity of the beams further, but that only caused the rate by which the black smoke was being expelled to drop steeply. Evidently, the effectiveness of the purification runes was directly tied to the strength of the attack, so untangling the two effects wouldn’t be easy.

‘Now what?’ Micky asked. ‘Maybe we can get rid of the negative influence if we cook each beast slowly under a weaker beam, but I’m not sure it’ll be worth the time. We might be better off just killing as many as we can.’

Before making his mind up, Percy pulled up the list once again to gauge his host’s position in the rankings. Eight hours had already passed since the start of the competition, so the list had undergone massive changes.

‘Falanor: 3444 points,

Zurvanai: 1890 points,

Remlat: 1503 points,

Tereth: 1343 points,

Semleni: 1321 points,

Kassorith: 1151 points,

Ganni: 1130 points,

Azalotheen: 1099 points,

…’

There was a lot to unpack there. Azalotheen – the two-cored Maradorian that Percy was wary of – had thankfully fallen off, as had most other participants who lacked the means to resist the corruption. In fact, the frog-person had even fallen behind Ganni – his fellow Maradorian with a metal affinity that Kassorith had defeated during his second fight in the group phase.

‘I guess that Ganni must also be engraving his constructs with purification runes,’ Percy thought.

Nobody else had attempted to use runecrafting in their fights, since enchanting one’s mana in real time was extremely impractical without the Scribing trait. However, that didn’t mean that Percy and his companions were the only ones in the tournament who were skilled in the art.

It was a lot easier to use runes during the event, as everyone had more time to prepare their constructs. The good news was that Ganni’s runecrafting language was probably inferior to the Vault’s magiscript, so Percy didn’t feel very threatened by him.

The same should be true of the three Inimits that were currently above Kassorith in the rankings: Remlat, Tereth, and Semleni. The winged mages had probably applied an effect similar to Percy’s purification runes on their feathers to resist the corruption, though all three had also shown signs of slowing down.

Passing Tereth and Semleni shouldn’t be too difficult, though Remlat was still up in the air – which was actually a problem because defeating the two-cored mage was Percy’s most important goal.

‘I still don’t get how the two at the top are so far ahead.’ Micky groaned. ‘Sure, Falanor probably has the perfect blessing for this contest, but Zurvanai shouldn’t have anything but sheer killing speed.’

Percy couldn’t help but crease his brow. It was true that nobody understood the full extent of the female Denyte’s abilities, since the prodigious woman had yet to be pushed to her limit. Even so, nothing that he did know about her should have allowed her to resist the corruption.

‘Maybe she accelerates time around her body to get rid of the negative thoughts faster?’ he tentatively offered. ‘She did seem to take a couple of breaks earlier, though they were scarcer and shorter than everyone else’s. Either way, it doesn’t matter right now. Our priority is to beat Remlat, and our current approach clearly isn’t good enough.’

Through the combination of the potent purification runes on their armour and splitting the corruption between multiple minds, Percy and Kassorith were accumulating negative thoughts far more slowly than before.

While they wouldn’t be able to keep slaughtering beasts indefinitely, they should be fine until the end of the competition. Meanwhile, most of their rivals would have to pause at some point – the three Inimits included.

The only ones who wouldn’t be affected were Falanor – who appeared completely immune to corruption – and Zurvanai – who was so far ahead from everyone else that it was unlikely they would catch up.

In any case, it was unclear whether Percy and his host would make it to third place. No… even that might not be enough. They still had no idea how many points the special event would grant them, so passing Remlat by a single rank might not be enough to close the gap in the main competition.

Beating Falanor was probably a lost cause, but Percy ideally wanted his host to pass Zurvanai as well and finish in second place. And he wasn’t going to leave that up to chance.

‘I need to figure out a way to cleanse the beasts without killing them, or we can kiss the Void Decree goodbye.’