Urushiâs attack functioned as the finishing blow; Rynford was deprived of his life force and left only the ability to voice one final hateful cry before passing away. His body promptly reacted to his passing. His flesh began peeling off his muscles and his corpse rapidly decomposed into a fine ash.
His end was abrupt, so abrupt, in fact, that it almost seemed underwhelming.
ăWhimperâŚă
Urushi popped out from the shadows as Rynfordâs remains continued to degrade. The combination of his pain filled whimper and the blood dripping from his mouth indicated that something wasnât quite right.
ăWhat happened boy? You alright?ă
ăRynfordâs fault?ă
ăWhipmerâŚă
We quickly peeked into his maw and found the source of his pain. The large wolfâs fangs were in a sorry state. Ever last bit of his jaw seemed to have been suspect to some sort of damage. Worst of all were his canines, which had been torn out altogether. Their now empty sockets had even started to hemorrhage.
Despite all the damages incurred, I couldnât really say I was even the slightest bit surprised. The attack Fran and I had used was one that came with enough drawbacks to completely wreck my blade. Urushi had copied us, so it only made sense for something similar to happen to his fangs.
ăDonât be pushing yourself too hard now, alright?ă
ăWoof.ă
ăBut, actions performed were cool.ă
ăBark!ă
I quickly patched him up by throwing a few heals at him.
ăFran has leveled up.ă
ăFran has leveledâŚă
The battle had ended, so the System Announcer chimed in with a few notifications.
Rynford had been worth a tonne of experience. Fran managed to gain three levels; she hit level forty despite the fact that the exp had ended up getting split nine ways.
The Evil Resistance skill looked like it was something thatâd resulting from all the damage sheâd just taken. Her new title was pretty interesting as well. Appraising it ended up giving me the following results.
Looked like Urushi had managed to get himself a pair of new skills too. Wait, Evil Resistance? I donât recall him taking nearly as much damage as Fran⌠Hmm⌠I guess it was probably because of Prey Absorption. The skill would let him absorb a portion of the abilities of anything he ate, and I guess he did technically ingest Rynfordâs flesh and blood when he finished him off, so thatâs probably where he got that.
There doesnât seem to be anything wrong with him, but would it perhaps be better to have him not eat Evil Beings from now on?
ăAlright, thatâs done and over with, so we should probably be going after Zeraise now.ă
ďźNn.ďź
The only issue was that we had absolutely no idea where he was. I really wish weâd managed to get Rynford to tell us or somet- Oh wait. We could probably just get it out of that Zerrosreed guy instead.
ăOr⌠not? Whereâd he go?ă
ăNn? Vanished.ă
ăHuh? Oh! Darn it! The Berserker got away!ă
Amanda had overheard Franâs muttering, so she ended up giving the surroundings a quick once over that ultimately culminated in a frustrated shout.
When the hell? Didnât he literally just try finishing Rynford off?
ăIt looks like he might have the Anti-Perception skillâŚă
ăOh, I see him! Heâs right over there!ă
The spot Amanda was pointing to was about fifty meters from where we were. Holy crap, when the hell did he leave�
ăThe last hit shouldâve been mine! I couldâve gotten my hands on a good chunk of that shitty old geezerâs power! Everything wouldâve gone perfectly if not for that god damned meddling dog! Fuck this, Iâm out!ă
ăYou wonât be getting away!ă
Colbert immediately dashed after Zerrosreed, but the berserker had been one step ahead of him.
ăHahaha! Zeraiseâs up in the Alchemistâs Guild if you need him, by the way, so goodbye to you!ă
ăHuh? He teleported?ă
As evidenced by Amandaâs surprised response, Zerrosreed had teleported himself away. Appearance wise, it looked pretty much identical to the stuff I could use. Rynford did something similar just a bit earlier as well, so my guess was that it was the effect of some sort of skill derived from the Evil Arts. Neither Zerrosreed nor Rynford seemed to have been able to use the skill on more than one occasion though, so it probably had a few constraints on it or something.
ăTsk. I shouldâve expected as much from someone with such a big bounty on his head, but he sure is good at running away. Iâll definitely get him next time!ă
It looked like he managed to escape, but I figured we could still get him if we had everyone give us a hand. That said though, I decided to put the idea aside for the time being as capturing Zeraise was much more important. We had no idea as to whether or not Zerrosreed was telling the truth, but he did already have a pretty good track record as far as betrayal went, so chances were that he was. Having some of us split off to go after Zeraise served in his favour, so there was all the more reason for him not to lie.
ăThe air still gives off a sense of evilâŚă
Forrundâs words momentarily cleared my mind of all my thoughts regarding Zeraise and Zerrosreed, and reminded me of the Evil Crystals Rynford had been using. I didnât really know if theyâd cause anything bad to happen without any outside fluence, but it probably wasnât a good idea to just leave them be anyways.
ăMight still be here. Evil Crystals.ă
ăWhat Evil Crystals?ă
Fran quickly answered the Guildmaster and began talking about the crystals Rynford had been using. Her explanation immediately led everyone around her to turn pale and immediately start digging through the templeâs debris.
Charlotte played a pretty key role. Apparently, she was fairly sharp as far as evil energies were concerned, so she managed to find both crystals almost immediately. They were buried under a bunch of other stuff, but Gamud was pretty good at earth magic, so he managed to get them out in a jiffy.
ăSo these are the Evil Crystals you were talking aboutâŚă
ăEvil energies thinner?ă
Fran had been on point. The Evil Crystals were giving off much less energy that theyâd been prior to Rynfordâs transformation.
ăYou said that these were placed within the templeâs grounds?ă
ăNn. Rynford performed ritual.ă
ăI seeâŚă
ăHave you figured anything out, Charlotte?ă
ăIâm not too confident in my theoryâs correctness, butâŚă
According to Charlotte, temples effectively functioned to allow communication with the Divine Realm in which the Gods resided. Oracles and other similar individuals could use the connection in order to create a path, which in turn was used for job changes and the like. A job change in particular involved making use of the Divine Realmâs axioms in order to overwrite the data that pertained to oneâs job.
The paths were governed over by the Gods themselves, so it was impossible for normal human beings to use them as they pleased.
Charlotte had deduced that the Evil Crystals had the ability to warp said path, and instead direct it towards the sealed off Evil God.
A few of the people thatâd fought with us, Colbert included, immediately voiced their objections, but they were quickly overruled by Amanda and Gamud, who stated that it could be possible. Very little was known about the Evil Godâs powers, and thus, warping the path could potentially fall within the realm of the Evil Godâs capabilities.
Apparently, the Evil God had been split into a great number of smaller pieces upon its defeat. The core in particular had been taken into the Divine Realm, where it was placed under surveillance. We had no real way of confirming whether or not that was actually truth, but we assumed it was as that was what the legends said.
Either way, we decided to destroy the Evil Crystals. They probably wouldnât see any decent use even if we did just leave them here, and not a single one of the individuals presented objected to the idea, so we had everyone join in and quickly smashed the crystals to bits.
Alright, thatâs another task done. All thatâs left for us to do now is hunt down Zeraise.
ăAmanda. Need help with something.ă
ăSure, what is it?ă
ăCan request anything? No objections?ă
ăThereâs no way Iâd turn you of all people down, Fran. So, out with it. What did you need me to do?ă
Luckily, Amanda was more than willing to cooperate, so we quickly told her and everyone else about Zeraise. Specifically, we explained that he was the mastermind behind all this, that he was still at large, and that he still seemed to be up to something.
ăI am surprised to hear that Zeraise has yet to leave the city⌠I shall make good use of this opportunity and pay him back in full force for involving my brothers in his schemes.ă
ăI hadnât heard his name in quite some time. Iâd assumed that heâd already dropped dead.ă
ăWe may be able to encounter the Berserker should we track him down.ă
ăIâm going to have to give those baddies a bit of punishment for the childrenâs sake.ă
ăIndeed.ă
It seemed that everyone was willing and ready give solving this whole case a go, so we had Colbert, the person most familiar with the cityâs layout, lead us over the Alchemistâs guild. The party we moved with was one of extraordinary strength. With them around, taking Zeraise in would be easy as pie.