System Change

“Very well,” Darvin replied. After that, he raised his arms in front of him, and a small glowing ball started to form between his palms. “Amelia, Kelvin, Briya, Cuthos, Xephos… do you freely give a portion of your stored power as council members to smite this foe of the system?”

“Do it!” Briya yelled. “Just kill him!”

“You have my power, sir,” Cuthos said.

“Yessss…” Xephos clicked.

“I… go ahead,” Kelvin replied.

Derek could see hesitation in Amelia’s eyes. He frowned as he thought about what was going on. “Wait!” he shouted, then looked at Amelia. “This giving… is it permanent? Are you all really going to give up a portion of your powers… permanently? Is this some stupid system bullshit? Do you gain extra power by becoming a member of this System Council? And are you only losing it? Because if you’re losing your actual—not given—power on the off chance that you can beat me… well… that’s dumb.”

“It’s not a permanent loss…” Amelia said. “Well… it is… it’s just a loss of time… not power.”

“Oh… in that case… go ahead. As long as you’re not permanently losing your powers, why not give it a shot? I mean… it’s not going to work, but you can say you tried your best… if that lets you sleep better at night.”

“You may take my stored power as a council member,” Amelia finally said with a sigh. “I had hoped to gain it back and break through the second requirement one day. But that day will be much farther in the future now…”

“Great!” Darvin let out a triumphant shout. “You can only blame Jakis, Holcom, and Awery for not being here to support.”

“What about Trischa?” Derek nodded at the blue woman. “You’re not taking any of hers?”

“I… I do not believe she would be able to keep control while giving,” Darvin said. “But enough of this! Prepare yourself!”

Soon, Derek saw streams of mana flowing from all the remaining Champions other than Trischa. Each stream had its own particular tint. Briya’s was silvery-green, Amelia’s was a dark color… maybe purple, Kelvin’s was a burning blue, and the bug-like Xephos had a mana stream that was a sickly dark gray. Each stream of mana merged to form a single light between Darvin’s palms.

“With your powers combined…” Derek muttered as he watched the phenomenon in front of him. “Captain Idiot…”

***

“Is he really doing this?” Jakis stared at the screen in shock. “All those years of hard work, wasted for Amelia.” He shook his head.

“What’s going on now?” Edgar asked while sipping on a beverage.

“It’s a dumb ritual for all the councilors,” Jakis said.

“It’s not dumb…” Awery replied. “It’s needed. See?”

“It’s dumb,” Jakis said. “You give power for the chance of receiving a greater amount enforced by the system later in return. But that’s only if nothing happens that requires the System Watcher to activate it.”

“Huh…” Edgar muttered. “So it is a permanent loss? Just not a loss from which you lose any current stats or abilities.”

“It’s time,” Jakis said. “You lose time putting power into the ritual while you could be out doing something else to gain power.”

“That doesn’t sound too bad,” Edgar said. “At least. It doesn’t sound bad if you’ve already given up on other ways to improve.”

“That is the only time it’s worth it because of how little power is given after such an immense amount of time,” Jakis said. “For someone like Darvin or Xephos or even Kelvin, it could be a good idea. But Amelia isn’t stuck. She hasn’t plateaued. So this is just wasted time spent.”

“Especially since it’s not going to work,” Edgar said.

“It… should work,” Jakis said.

“Nope,” Edgar replied. “It’s not gonna work. That armor is mythical. I don’t know what that really means, but… I’ve seen the legendary skill that his legendary glaive has. I haven’t seen him use an armor skill yet, and you know that armor must have one. It doesn’t take an idiot to realize that.”

“That…”

“Yeah… you didn’t think about that, did you?” Edgar replied. “Look at him. Does he look even the least bit scared?”

“That is true…” Jakis said. “Oh well. Doesn’t matter much to me, anyway.”

“You know that Darvin’s going to try to blame us if it doesn’t work, right?” Holcom was sitting in a corner alone, and it was the first time he’d spoken in the short time that he’d been in the room with them.

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“Let him,” Jakis said. “If it doesn’t work, that’s on him.”

“Shhh…” the Queen finally said. “It’s starting.”

***

Soon, the pool of energies formed into an eerie mass between Darvin’s hands. Derek saw Amelia close her eyes and sigh. He felt for the strong woman. She’d obviously been working at breaking through that second requirement for some time. He wondered what her two requirements were, and not for the first time, he wondered if people could have different requirements or if there were more than just the two that it took.

Finally, after what seemed like five minutes, the strings of mana disappeared, and the mass stabilized. “Alright, Captain Idiot. Throw that shit at me. We’ll see what happens. I’m intrigued.”

“You won’t be talking soon,” Darvin sneered. “Take this!” He pushed out, then, instead of a giant ball flying at Derek like he thought it would, it turned into a beam of an eerie conglomerate of mana and shot at him.

“It’s… a laser?” Derek muttered before it got to him. “Quick, Briya! Don’t look!” he shouted at the cat-like woman just before it reached his head and chest.

However, before the mana beam reached him, he readied to activate the skill on Void’s Embrace. He’d already tested it a bit earlier and saw that, even though the armor was created with an infusion of his void and the skill was called Void Absorb, its ability to absorb didn’t seem to be affected by the disruption of void energy. It didn’t even seem slowed down like his boots’ ability was.

He wasn’t sure if it was because it was a mythical skill or just because of how the skill worked. He was interested to see what would happen to the blue woman once he activated it, though—which he did moments before the beam hit him.

The beam landed, and just the pressure of it was enough to force Briya and Kelvin back a bit. However, he didn’t feel any of that pressure because every bit of it was being absorbed before it fully reached him. He turned his head as his armor absorbed the mana and looked at Kelvin. The man was stunned to see that not only was Derek standing in the beam, but he was moving. And when Derek winked at him, he almost lost it.

Derek continued to stand there, completely still, as he watched the dim veins running throughout Void’s Embrace start to glow. As they became brighter and brighter, Derek heard another coughing fit come from Trischa, who was still doing her best to keep blocking everything. In case he ever fought someone with nullification-type powers again, it was good to know that it was harder to work on equipment than it was on skills. The storage items were proof of that.

Derek soon noticed that his two-minute timer on his armor skill was almost up, and the beam being shot at him didn’t look like it would be finished any time soon. The weird bug creature clamped around his legs, and Amelia’s skills were really making it hard for him to do anything.

Luckily, he’d pit his strength, even with Amelia weighing him down, against the Champions who were holding his arms any day. So, as the clock ticked down, Derek dismissed Harbinger and gathered all his strength into his arms. Then, he started pulling. The arm that Briya was holding was the first to move. Having only a single arm to work with, she wasn’t doing as much as Kelvin.

Just as his armor ability ended, Briya had to let go or risk being hit by the beam. With perfect timing, Derek brought his forearm in front of him to block. He wasn’t able to block everything, and the part of the beam that made it through was searing. The part that did make it through burned through his chin and some of his throat. It penetrated the skin, then started chipping away at his muscles and bones.

Eventually, the pain was enough to give Derek a temporary boost, and Kelvin had to let go of his other arm. With it finally free, Derek brought it up and covered the rest of his face.

“Attack him from behind while he can’t act!” Darvin yelled out to Briya and Kelvin.

The two Champions looked at each other and nodded. Derek felt an extreme amount of heat appear behind him, then he felt the tip of a sharp, red-hot object where his neck meets his skull.

“Sorry about this,” Kelvin actually said as he began burning through all his skills and pushing as hard as he could. “You can still give up,” the man said.

“Fuck that!” the cat-woman replied as she tried and failed to insert her dagger into any weak points in his armor. Finally, she settled on the side of his neck by doing the same thing that Kelvin was doing, except from the side instead of the back.

“If I move… if I give up…” Derek said. “Won’t that beam hit and kill you?”

“That…” Kelvin gulped.

“Don’t worry,” Derek said. “I’m not going anywhere. But you better finish me quick… you only have a couple of minutes tops before all hell breaks loose.” He said the last bit in a voice that only Kelvin and Briya could hear.

Briya scoffed and continued what she was doing, but Kelvin redoubled his efforts. Derek smiled, then used Rejuvenation on his wounds. The skill was already level 20, and it was pretty overpowered for a personal healing skill. Combined with his Greater Meditation, Rejuvenation was enough to out heal the damage he’d taken and the damage he was receiving for the thirty seconds it was active.

He then figured that Greater Meditation would be able to get him through the next minute or so while Rejuvenation cooled down.

“He has healing skills too?” the big four-armed, scaled man muttered to himself from the side. “And strong ones.”

“I told you before you started, I am a tank, first and foremost!” Derek shouted at them. “I think it’s just about time for you all to give up.”

“Silence!” Darvin shouted, then the intensity of the beam he was shooting increased.

Not long after, Derek felt the heat and all other aspects of the combined mana beam break through the armor on his forearms. The breakthrough started small, but slowly increased. After thirty or so seconds, Derek’s arm from his forearm down fell to the ground, detached.

A bit later, Derek cast Rejuvenation again, which grew most of that arm back before the skill finished. He placed that arm under the one with armor for a little added protection. He did notice that his regeneration had slowed and saw that something about the beam had slowed his natural regeneration of both health and stamina. Mana wasn’t a problem because he could always feed himself more with his Expel skill on Void’s Embrace.

“Why won’t you die!?” Darvin yelled as Derek felt the hot blade on his neck finally pierce through his skin and some muscle. It wouldn’t be too long before it made it to something important. The heat was doing enough to lessen his natural defenses in that area, which allowed the sword to penetrate a little easier.

Derek checked his time and considered using Powerstride to remove himself from the beam. He wasn’t one hundred percent sure if he would be able to, but after using it against Amelia before, and with his current near-infinite amount of mana from his armor on hand, he was almost certain that he could.

As the beam started biting through the armor on his other arm, he prepared himself to Powerstride to the side. He didn’t like the idea of losing another arm. However, just as he was about to activate the skill and rush toward the four-armed man, Derek heard something and then saw the tip of a blade appear on each of his sides.

“Tick Tock,” he heard an all-too-familiar voice say from behind. Then, “Time’s up!”