The Lone Wanderer

Chapter 654 – Researching the alliance

Kassorith’s fourteenth match was against Zurvanai.

Percy advised his host to surrender before the fight even started. He typically wasn’t one to give up without trying, but he was pragmatic enough to understand that they didn’t stand a chance.

In theory, there were ways to attack the female Denyte from outside her range without using mana, yet it was obvious that the Thess’kalan would be unable to keep his distance from the woman for long enough to prepare the necessary equipment.

Once she reached them, Kassorith’s core would be sucked dry in an instant.

Fighting without mana wasn’t completely impossible for Percy’s team. He and his host had done it once before during the regional tournament, defeating the female Thess’kalan from the Ancestral Lineage Sect in close combat. However, they had been on roughly equal footing to their opponent at the time, as her mana suppression bloodline had affected her as much as her enemies.

This time, Kassorith wouldn’t be able to forge even a tiny dagger out of metal mana, let alone a scythe. Sure, Percy’s domain and his host’s mutations were quite powerful, but Zurvanai would still have full access to her magic, so it was a hopeless situation.

Percy would also rather not test what would happen to his wisp when Kassorith’s spectral stitches fell under the influence of the Denyte’s bloodline. While they had technically been woven out of the Thess’kalan’s soul and should survive the absence of mana, there was no reason to gamble with Percy’s very ability to participate in the tournament over nothing. If something went terribly wrong, he might find himself ejected from the Thess’kalan’s body and back on Remior empty-handed.

‘It’s fine. We’ve taken this loss into consideration from the beginning. We’re still ahead of Remlat,’ Micky consoled the others.

Later that week, the pair of two-cored participants happened to be pitted against each other. Azalotheen wasn’t as much of a threat to the front-runners after performing poorly in the special event, so Percy rooted for him, hoping that he would defeat the Inimit despite his second core being merely at Green. Should that happen, they might not have to worry as much about their future matches.

Unfortunately, the winged man defeated the silver-skinned Maradorian without much difficulty, putting more pressure on Percy and Kassorith not to lose to Nawko’s kinsman later.

The good news was that Azalotheen wasn’t nearly as strong as Zurvanai or Remlat, so beating him wasn’t impossible. However, he was still a step above the other participants that Percy and his companions had defeated.

Either way, Percy had already come up with detailed strategies to overcome most of Kassorith’s remaining opponents, meaning that he could ignore more matches than before. He split his free time evenly between planning specifically for his fight against the Maradorian and trying to learn more about the Void Hand.

The information the participants had access to was sadly restricted to the tournament and its rewards, thus greatly limiting what Percy could find out about the alliance in general. However, that didn’t mean that he had come up empty-handed.

Cross-referencing what few clues he could learn from the terminals with what Nawko was willing to share, he identified two important locations that he would love to visit in the future.

The first was Denytos IV – one of the Denytes’ main worlds. Specifically, Percy was interested in a grand temple erected in one of the planet’s largest cities, where as many as seven Rings of Sacrilege were kept.

Apparently, the artifacts belonged to the whole alliance, not just Zurvanai’s people. The member-factions of the Void Hand had initially resisted sharing the cosmic treasures, but the Denytes had eventually pressured their peers into pooling them together in a single location that could be defended more easily.

The alliance had even implemented a powerful temporal Decree like the Thirsty Valley – probably an even better one, in fact – allowing those who used the rings to absorb the blessings dozens of times faster, thus massively shortening the wait time to acquire one.

The other founding factions had obviously wanted to keep the treasury on their own worlds, though the Denytes had argued that the Maradorians were already entrusted with the alliance’s most talented mortals every year through the void tournament, and that the others controlled their own strategic resources, eventually getting everyone to concede to their demands.

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The only reason Percy had been able to learn about this was because the opportunity to use a Ring of Sacrilege was available as a reward to the top four of the competition, as was the chance to claim a rare affinity-changing treasure.

Percy had initially been surprised to hear that the requirements for those two rewards were even stricter than those for earning the Void Decree, though Nawko had explained that this had more to do with their scarcity than their value. Acquiring a second mana core was definitely more impactful than a blessing or changing one’s existing affinity, so the Void Decree was still considered the ultimate reward of the tournament.

However, rare affinity-changing treasures were consumable items with short expiration dates that weren’t always available. Rings of Sacrilege could only be used by a single person at a time, with even gods hoping to accelerate the acquisition of new concepts through them, leaving the alliance with no choice but to severely limit the number of people that could borrow them each year. The Void Decree, on the other hand, was also rather costly to grant, but not as much as these other rewards.

‘It’s a pity that we’re unlikely to climb that high.’ Percy sighed.

If he were to earn both the Void Decree and a rare treasure, he could potentially end up with a total of three rare affinities. If he happened to be compatible with one of the Void Hand’s rings as well, he might even be able to acquire another blessing.

Metatron had mentioned that one of the peak factions possessed a ring that matched one of Percy’s, Micky’s, or Nephthys’ affinities and would grant a concept that was effective against demonic infestations. With any luck, this might be it.

Unfortunately, even reaching the top eight was starting to look like quite the challenge, let alone any higher. Beating Azalotheen or performing well in the next special event might not be impossible, but winning even a single match in the elimination phase probably was.

Besides, even if the alliance possessed a suitable ring and Percy managed to earn the opportunity to use it, getting it to his main body would be a whole other problem.

‘It might still be worth grabbing an active-type Decree that can only be obtained on Denytos IV so that we can mark the planet though,’ Micky suggested.

Learning about the Void Hand’s Elemental Sources was a lot harder, since the alliance actively tried to keep their locations secret even from their own people. Nobody wanted a Source on their main planet, as it would force their mortals to be born with a single affinity.

While there were ways to isolate a Source’s influence, they weren’t perfect, so factions that owned them preferred to keep them on secondary worlds. Sadly, that also limited their gods’ ability to protect them, since deities couldn’t set foot on foreign planets.

Consequently, even though an opportunity to meditate near the Elemental Source of one’s affinity was extremely valuable to mortals and gods alike, the Void Hand only offered it to trustworthy mortals as a reward for exemplary service – and winning a tournament wasn’t it. Even their gods had to go through many hoops to access them without being physically present.

Once again, Metatron and Lanthaniel probably knew a lot more than Nawko about the topic, but Percy didn’t expect the titan or his subordinate to share anything with him before he accepted the pentapus’ terms.

Fortunately, the female Maradorian wasn’t entirely uninformed about the subject. She reluctantly explained that the Void Hand was confirmed to possess four Elemental Sources. There was a good chance they had even more than that, but those were the only four whose existence had already leaked to hostile greater springs, which was why the founding factions didn’t see any reason to lie about them.

Even Nawko didn’t know where three of those four Elemental Sources were located, but she shared a rumour that the earth Source could be accessed through a teleportation platform on the Inimits’ homeland.

Percy currently lacked that affinity, yet he understood that this could change in the future as he acquired more cores, familiars, and aspects. Even if he became a god without earth mana, he would eventually have to master the concepts of every common affinity to reach the peak of the Elemental Acquisition stage, so having access to the place wouldn’t hurt. It was currently less important than Rings of Sacrilege or free-type Decrees, but he wanted to mark one of the Inimits’ planets anyway.

Percy’s schemes aside, the tournament continued to progress, the group phase itching closer to the end with each passing week. Eventually, it was time for Kassorith’s sixteenth match.

It was arguably one of the most important milestones left in the second round of the competition – along with the second event – as the Thess’kalan would finally be facing Azalotheen.

Before slithering onto the arena for the fated battle, Percy pulled up the scoreboard once again, taking note of the situation at the top of the rankings. Before today, everyone had fought the same number of times, so it was as good an opportunity as any to check his host’s rank.

‘Zurvanai: 46 points,

Kassorith: 44 points,

Remlat: 43 points,

Azalotheen: 38 points,

Semleni: 34 points

Falanor: 33 points,

…’