Bloodbound Codex: I Grow Stronger in Secret

Atlas sat still for a long moment after Dravenson asked, Dravenson leaning back slightly as he waited for the answer, then Atlas spoke, ”Sorry, I won’t be able to do that job, I have personal reasons, so I won’t be doing it.”

He said it plainly and meant every word of it, he had already wanted to cut off this Noble connection from the moment things had escalated in this room, the only reason he had formed it in the first place was the weapon offer which he had needed at that specific time.

But now he had fulfilled his end of the deal, brought them a Mythic Class Relic from an Abyss-rank Ruin, and the exchange had been fair, so there was no reason to extend anything further, and delivering something to Royals was something he would never do regardless of the compensation offered, he didn’t care whether it was a King or a Queen on the receiving end, Royals were Royals and he hated every one of them to the same degree, the idea of walking into their presence voluntarily and handing them something was simply not something he was willing to do.

Dravenson nodded slowly after seeing the seriousness in Atlas’s eyes and spoke, ”Well, I will have to go myself then, though my own work is already at capacity, it is a matter directly related to the Queen so it cannot wait.”

He paused and then added, ”You can take your leave now, and also, you are welcome here whenever my daughter calls you or you yourself come.”

He said it with something in his expression that he couldn’t quite name himself, a strange feeling that sat in his chest without a clear shape to it, but he said it regardless.

Atlas stood and nodded, then turned to Seraphiel, ”I will take my leave then Lady Seraphiel, about that important thing you wanted to speak about, i think it will have to wait until you are in the Central City.”

While internally he thought ’I am not coming back here ever again...Damned Nobles.’

Seraphiel nodded with a small smile forming at the edge of her lips.

Atlas picked up the box, turned and walked out of the room quietly.

The moment he was gone Seraphiel stood and turned to her parents, her composure slipping slightly in a way that neither of them had seen from her in a long time, asking what they had sensed, why they had reacted the way they did, what was it about him that had made her father attack a contracted guest and her mother sit in silent horror for the rest of the meeting, her voice carried more agitation in it than she usually allowed herself to show.

Her parents sat and watched her, and neither of them said anything immediately, both of them still processing what they had seen inside that young man who had just walked out of their household carrying a box of five Abyss-rank Ruin Cores.

On the other side of the household walls, Atlas walked the route back through the Noble district with the box in his hand, Angels passing by glanced at him once and then very deliberately didn’t look again, their eyes catching the golden wing insignia on the front of the box and that being enough to make them find other things to look at, the Rosaria Household name carrying exactly that kind of weight in Lumivale.

Atlas noticed it and smiled slightly behind his mask, then thought, ’Their household is genuinely powerful, but how does anyone even sense another person’s emotions?...I still can’t understand what those two did.’

Then another thought came to him and he slowed his pace slightly as it settled, ’If a single Noble House carries two SS-ranks and likely several S-ranks beneath them, then what does the Human Continent look like?...What does the Royal structure there look like in comparison?...S-rank isn’t going to be enough, not even close.’

He started walking at his usual pace again and turned toward the forest route out of the city, he had already informed Harleks before leaving the Guild earlier that after clearing the next Abyss-rank Ruin he marked he wouldn’t be returning to Lumivale and would instead be traveling onward, Harleks had agreed without pushing for more information and told him other Explorers would be sent to collect the materials, and that Atlas could keep the relic and sell it at another Guild branch wherever he ended up.

The forest route he entered was the same one that connected Lumivale to Solara and several other cities along the way, a well-traveled path used by traders, travelers and Guild workers regularly, and the Abyss-rank Ruin he had marked was situated along this same route within Guild mission range of Lumivale.

As he walked he thought, ’First I should reach S-rank as soon as I enter that Ruin, before alerting any of the monsters inside, or maybe after clearing the chambers first?...After clearing is safer, who knows what might happen to my body during that concentration period, I can’t afford to be vulnerable inside an active Ruin.’

’After that the Central City, Solara, there should be far more Cataclysm-rank Ruins accessible from there than here where there are only one or two, though I still don’t understand why the rank system starts from Hollow when Hollow and Abyss are the only ones actually available in this area.’

He had already covered a significant distance into the forest route at his walking pace when he picked up two presences ahead of him, and one of them immediately felt unusual, wrong in a way he couldn’t quite categorize.

He activated Spirit Instinct and Sense Nullification without slowing his pace and continued forward.

As he got closer he heard sounds, a wet rhythmic sound that didn’t fit the forest at all, something chewing, flesh from the texture of it, Atlas frowned and thought, ’Who would eat in the middle of this route?...and that sound seems someone’s chewing meat.’

He passed through a cluster of smaller trees that had been blocking his direct line of perception and the moment he did...he saw it.

A monster standing at over eight feet tall with deep red skin and a build that made the trees around it look proportionally small, holding something in its grasp and chewing through it, and what was in its grasp was the upper half of an Angel body, the head already gone, blood still running from the torn edge of what remained.

Atlas’s concealed figure flinched involuntarily, which almost never happened to him, and his eyes narrowed as he focused on the Spirit density coming off the monster, it was heavy and concentrated with something else mixed in it, ’That’s an S-rank Monster, but how is it outside a Ruin?...Did an outbreak happen? But that’s usual too, here shouldn’t be any ruins near here according to the Guild Ruin lists, thatway ahead from here...’

Then as he looked more carefully at the specific quality of that Spirit density, something underneath it caught his attention, an additional pressure layered into the Spirit, something he recognized instantly.

His eyes went wide behind the hood.

’Huh?...How does it have Null?’