Sylver Seeker

The smoke made things easier.

Especially since it provided enough darkness for Sylver’s shades to materialize. During his brief free fall, Sylver wrapped Chrys’ body up as tightly as he could manage without crushing something and took extra care to make sure her head didn’t move and snap her neck.

After he landed, Sylver threw the unconscious cocoon towards his destination, and hide inside it in the form of fog, while a pair of shades materialized, caught the Chrys and Sylver combination, and threw her again, to be caught by another pair of shades.

If it weren’t for Sylver fearing that removing Chrys’ limbs might trigger something, or worse, he might remove something that was actually her, he would have done it. But even at a healthy weight of 300 ish kilograms, the shades were making short work of moving the body towards Sylver’s house.

On top of the smoke, it also helped that the guards seemed to be preoccupied with the giant Texas lizard, and most likely somewhat dazed from Sylver’s bombs. Apart from the occasional light post nearly cutting Chrys into two, Sylver managed to arrive at his temporary dwelling in record time.

Sylver just stood in place, while the shades appeared all over the place, and tossed the various packaged foods and other miscellaneous items at Sylver, which were almost instantly absorbed into one of his bones via [Bound Bones] storage.

While he waited, Sylver gave himself a moment to gather his thoughts and formulate an escape plan. His original idea of simply jumping off the roof of the Garden, landing on the ice surrounding it, and then simply waiting for one of the underwater boats to find him, had a major flaw.

There were countless monsters surrounding the Garden.

Which normally wouldn’t be all that big of an issue, considering Sylver had [Fog Form] and could just fly over all of them, but not while he had Chrys in tow. Fighting them all and then using [Advanced Water Manipulation] to move fast enough that they couldn’t catch him, was an option.

But aside from the fact that Sylver didn’t believe he would be able to use that much mana for more than 3 minutes, he was also worried that the monsters might be slightly better swimmers than him. On account of spending their entire lives in water.

The biggest issue with his current plan was that it all depended on Sylver escaping before the power came back on, and the smoke was cleared away.

With the implant in Chrys’ head keeping her alive, at the very least Sylver had one less thing to worry about, even if it did tempt him to do something he knew Ria would strongly disagree with, and for good reason.

When a limb is severed on a normal body, there is a time limit to how long the person can go without getting it healed or reattached, before the loss is permanent. The time limit varies from person to person, but the reason for it is that a person’s perception of themselves affects their soul, and their primal energy field.

Adema had had great success in forcing limbs that had been lost years ago to grow back, but in the majority of cases, there were side effects. Some were small, pain that wasn’t real and existed only in the head, a slight clumsiness, a delay, lack of feeling, that kind of thing.

And sometimes the person would become psychotic, tear off their recently healed arm, and then in their madness, would proceed to attempt to rip off the rest of their limbs. Sadly, killing yourself while in the presence of the Ibis’ greatest healer wasn’t possible, but even Adema had to eventually give up and call the attempt a failure.

Or more honestly, Nyx would barge in on her using so much healing magic that it was killing her, and would proceed to put the crazed one-armed man out of his misery. When Nyx was gone, that responsibility fell onto Sylver, given that Edmund couldn’t ignore Adema’s cries not to do it.

If Sylver decapitated Chrys, it would be a lot easier to escape. But if she woke up, if she subconsciously felt the loss of her body, or if she somehow later guessed what Sylver had done, the possibility of permanent psychosis was slim, but it wasn’t 0.

On top of that, unlike with grown men and women, Chrys’ soul wouldn’t be able to handle having her primal energy field altered by Sylver. If she lost her body, and for even a split second knew that she’d lost her body, there was a very good chance even Sylver wouldn’t be able to fix her.

She would be fine for a week, a month, possibly a year, but then her fingers would stop getting the necessary quantity of blood, and would start rotting away, as would her toes, and eventually her internal organs.

Frankly speaking, even operating on someone with such a weak soul was a gamble, but at least Sylver knew what to do in the event he fucked it up.

As the final crate was tipped over and disappeared as Sylver’s shadow moved it towards him to be stored away in his [Bound Bones] storage, Spring and the others were done changing and equipping themselves.

Aside from the fact that their robes had an odd greyish hue to them, they all looked relatively identical. Save for the glowing yellow eyes that were visible under the hoods, and that each shade had a ridiculous number of guns attached to their backs.

More out of instinct than any magic-related sense, Sylver turned into fog and disappeared into his crowd of Shades, as the front door was blown away, along with just about everything within 10 meters of it.

“I know you’re in here!” a man’s voice boomed in elvish, that Sylver didn’t recognize, but Spring did.

[High-Elf (Warrior+Warrior+Warrior) – 223][HP-52,400][MP-0]

“Prime example of why you should always kill, or at the very least permanently cripple, your enemies,” Sylver whispered quietly in English, as the man’s silhouette was illuminated by the blazing fire behind him.

Sylver’s garden was done for, as was his front door, and the front of his house as a whole.

The man looked around the empty room, and with a single swing of his hand, caused a gust of wind to blow away every single wisp of smoke that had managed to enter the torn-apart home.

He saw exactly who he had been hoping to find, standing all alone in the middle of the room, with a relaxed and unprepared stance.

“I had you figured for an idiot. Most people stay away once I blow their limbs off, or at the very least bring a small army to back them up,” Sylver explained, as he straightened his back, and very carefully took a step to the left.

With the smoke out of the way, Sylver could see the man was armed with some sort of coil-covered instrument that carried the scent of ozone. As he tossed the coil-wrapped baton into his other hand, Sylver almost flinched from the sound it made, as it tore through the ambient mana in the air.

“I’m going to kill you,’ the man said quietly and calmly.

The lack of malice in his voice almost caught Sylver off guard, before he realized that the warrior was treating this with the kind of detached professionalism that meant he was treating Sylver as a threat in a way very few people managed to perceive him.

Sylver opened his arms up as if he was about to offer the warrior a hug, and felt an odd amount of pride at finally getting someone to approach him the way he is meant to be approached. This warrior was afraid, but more importantly, he was cautious enough that he knew getting angry or emotional could be a death sentence.

Sylver maintained eye contact with the man, as he waited for the go-ahead from Spring upstairs. Sylver took another step to the left, away from the stairs, and as one of the shades accidentally knocked his gun barrel against the wall, Sylver was forced to act.

“I can’t die here!” Sylver swore as the warrior’s eyes glanced upwards, and the warrior allowed himself a tiny grin, as he took a tentative step towards Sylver.

“This is the living room!” Sylver shouted, and hoped his voice was loud enough to mask the sound of the safety being removed.

It was brief, but Sylver was fairly certain the warrior got the joke. Not quite a glint in his eye, but a faint shake in the shoulders. He took another step towards Sylver, as he started to speak.

“I-”

[High-Elf (Warrior+Warrior+Warrior) Defeated!][Due to defeating an enemy 90 levels above you, additional experience will be awarded!]

[Swamp Lord] has reached level 21!+5AP

The bullets tore through the man’s head and body.

One moment he was just standing there, armed, dangerous, a threat, ish, and the next he was a small cloud of bright pink mist, that Sylver already had control of using [Dead Dominion] and turned into [Necrotic Mutilation] as it floated over to him.

The 6 [Splinter Shade]s holding the “small caliber” automatic rifles nodded at Sylver, then reloaded the weapons, tossed them to the middle shade, and then merged back into 1 shade, now armed with 1 gun, and with 9 loaded guns hanging off his back.

The rest of the robe-wearing group jumped down through the hole they had made, and Sylver used his shadow to make sure they didn’t fall through the bullet-riddled floor.

Sylver left Chrys in Dai’s hands, while Sho carried all 4 of their miniguns.

With the shades that weren’t busy lugging lead-firing weapons scouting ahead for them, Sylver and company managed to get through the smoke-covered area without meeting anyone that they couldn’t shove out of the way.

The sounds of battle raged on above, as Sylver reached the gate that separated the Flowers from the Branches. Unsurprisingly there were over 10 people standing in the dead middle of it, all covered completely in armor, all armed with identical shiny rifles, that looked like this was their first time being used.

Except, they had been recently cleaned, and all 10 guards had additional clips on their hips. One of which was filled with bright red bullets that made Sylver’s face twist into a grin.

With a flick of his finger, the gun jamming clip exploded, and instantly did as the bullets had been enchanted to do, and flew upward, and forced their way into the guns the armed guards were holding. Sylver hopped onto Sho’s back, and reinforced the shade’s front and his robe, as the shade began to run towards the group of confused guards.

Getting through their armor would take time, and Sylver’s current objective was to get past them, not kill them. With Sylver’s shadow interfering with their footing, Sho’s swing sent 3 guards flying, while another 2 were grabbed from the back, and pulled down.

Sylver covered the ones on the floor in [Necrotic Mutilation] and gave the dark green substance orders to bind their feet and pull down as many guards as it could manage.

Sylver, Chrys, and the armed and robed shades all managed to get through the first gate, without any casualties.

However, unlike the magic-less Flower area, the Branches seemed to have a couple of mages at the ready, considering the powerful wind that was blowing all the smoke away, and removing Sylver’s cover. It was still thankfully “night,” but Sylver could already see several small holes in the glass ceiling that were allowing beams of bright light inside.

To say people, and guards were staring at him, was an understatement. Sylver did the only thing someone could do in a situation such as this.

“HELP! THEY’RE GOING TO KILL US ALL!” Sylver screamed, as he ran ahead, and away, from his army of shades, and Spring even went as far as to make that odd hissing noise the “demons” made when Sylver was initially attacked by them.

Luckily it got the intended reaction, and most of the people started to run away from the robe-wearing, and now smoke-covered shades, but the guards remained where they were as if they were glued to the spot.

Although considering what they had seen Sylver do during the trials, it was just as likely that they were running away from him, lest he catch them, and throw them towards the shadowy monsters to distract them.

Getting the shades to maintain enough smoke to look like the shadow creatures through [Shadow’s Agent] required for Sylver to be within a certain range of them, which meant he had to “trip” over nothing, and then continue crawling away while screaming incoherently.

Sylver counted out the guards, and was in the middle of deciding how to deal with them, and in which order, when one of them turned and started to run, and the others appeared to take this as their queue to run away as well.

Sylver carried on screaming, and begging for help, as he got up from the ground and continued to run towards the next gate.

*

*

*

Quite frankly, the guns were more of a hindrance, than a help.

The Roots were downright deserted, on account of all the “demons” running around, screaming and hissing, and knocking shit over. Even up in the Trunk, no one paid all that much attention to Sylver, as he continuously ran away from a group of extremely aggressive-looking “demons.”

Once the pipe that led down to where he met up with Zelvash was within sight, Sylver just had the shades run away and had them randomly spread the barely fired weapons all over the place.

It helped quite a bit that the Roots were absolutely engulfed in smoke, even if Sylver wasn’t able to see any fire around him, or even where exactly the smoke was coming from.

The slow-moving black fire armor-wearing Serpents stared Sylver down as his shadowy form approached them, and all 4 of them seemed surprised when Ria said something in their language.

They said something back, and Ria spoke through the razor-thin tendril that was sitting inside Sylver’s ear.

“They said they’re waiting for the extraction team to return, and can’t leave without them,” Ria translated, as Sylver nodded along.

Now that I think about it, no one has seen me… Those guards I knocked down, but my face was covered up, the only other people that saw me, saw me running away from the “demons”.

Before Sylver could question whether staying was a viable option, blood splattered on the back of his bald head, and he turned around to see Chrys’ eyes open wide in shock, while her mouth opened and closed like a fish.

Sylver immediately made the [Necrotic Mutilation] cocoon float after him, as he sprinted down the pipe, as one of the Serpents shouted after him in dark elf.

“Everything is fine, the hard part’s over, you’re safe, everything will be fine…” Sylver repeated as Chrys continued to struggle to breathe, and almost luckily had so little control over her limbs and body that apart from her head moving around, she remained perfectly still.

Ria translated the directions into Sylver’s ear, which were mostly “go down.”

At one point the pipe narrowed too much for Sylver to keep Chrys in her cocoon, and he released her and carried her in his arms instead. Even with that, the amount of space he had to work with was ridiculous.

Because of the various metal bars he had to cut through, and all the tiny openings that Sylver could have easily gone through if he was on his own, by the time he was close enough that he could feel the souls of the Serpents on the other side of the wall, Chrys was unconscious again.

Except this time, she didn’t have an implant in her head that supplied her with enough oxygen to stop her brain and heart from shutting down. Sylver checked using [Primal Override] that Chrys really was unconscious before he quietly tapped out the words against the Ria-covered book.

“You’re going to have questions, and we will have a conversation about this later, but for now, I just need you to trust me,” Sylver tapped out, as he pulled the corpse he had stuffed full of tiny lungs and tiny hearts, and used [Primal Override] to kick start the hearts, and the lungs.

Sylver laid Chrys on the floor for the moment and spent precious seconds feeling up her neck, until he found big enough blood vessels, and ever so gently pulled them out through a small incision underneath her chin.

[Primal Override] and [Necrotic Mutilation] made connecting the corpse’s oxygen-infused blood loop to Chrys’ oddly pink-colored blood dead simple, Sylver had spent more time looking for a vein than anything else.

Sylver blinked the tears out of his eyes, and as he wiped them away, realized it was blood. His limbs felt sore in a way he hadn’t experienced since taking over Ciege’s body, and he felt an indescribably uncomfortable feeling in the pit of his stomach and the area directly underneath it.

[Kindred Spirit Mitigation] was fixing Chrys up, but since she was connected to the corpse, the fucking perk was trying to revive a dead man. That Sylver had bled dry, hollowed out, and then surgically implanted organs that aren’t supposed to be there.

Sylver sat down next to Chrys, with his back to the wall separating them from the Serpents on the other side, and he placed his hand onto her head. He very nearly ripped her face off as he felt a pulse travel through her body, and immediately turned her around so she was laying on her stomach.

There is a time to be slow and careful, and a time where you simply had to trust your instincts, and go for it.

Sylver’s dagger split Chrys’ skull apart, and with a single tendril of [Necrotic Mutilation] he reached into her head and yanked out a tiny metal device, that was barely visible on account of all the glass-like wires wrapped around it.

The device warped the space around it one final time, as Sylver flicked it away, and watched as it glowed with a faint blue light, and teleported away.

Sylver spent the rest of however long it took for the Serpents to finish whatever it is they came here to do, by very quietly summoning the dead balls of flesh from his [Bound Bones] storage, and using them to patch up Chrys’ head. He sealed up the wounds that refused to clot, forced several crushed shut blood vessels open, and stabilized her as much as he could manage.

By the time the group of slow black flame-covered men arrived, and teleported Sylver and Chrys into the underwater boat, Sylver had figured out just how much there was of the girl in her body.

Since they last spoke, they had apparently further operated on her, if the new scars were anything to go by. And that there wasn’t a single “whole” piece of her anywhere. Even her one real eye had some sort of contact lens embedded inside of it.

Sylver kept Chrys unconscious since there was little she would be able to do while in unimaginable pain.

Without access to a healer, and in this case, an engineer, there wasn’t a whole lot Sylver would be able to do. Simply ripping the tech out of her was an option, but it would be better if someone was able to gently disassemble it, and remove it without destroying what little she had left.

Sylver kept watch over her, but the corpse didn’t need his input, and as painful as [Kindred Spirit Mitigation] was, Sylver simply turned his pain perception off and stopped bothering to wipe the blood leaking out of his eyes. Her blood would need to be filtered eventually, but it would take a few days for the toxins to build up enough to be harmful.

With one hand on Ria and the book, and the other on Chrys’ head, Sylver gradually fell asleep.

Spring would wake him up if something happened, but they were past the biggest hurdles.

All that was left was to go to the dark elf underwater base, open a gate back to Eira, and he was done. Without a connection to a living creature the book was just a book, destroying it would be as simple as dropping it in acid or having one of the dark elves erase it with abyss magic.

In just a few days, Sylver would be back home, and on his way to rescue Edmund.

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