Weapons of Mass Destruction

Chapter 539: Minion communication token

Hed, the huge velnar, turns out to still be alive, along with only about six more mercenaries. Of the technicians, only a thylarin and himself remain; the rest are combat-oriented mercenaries who didn’t seem to mind following Tess. One of the reasons might be that Group 4, with their combined powers, could easily beat them all up, even if these mercenaries are higher level.

If they’re mimics, I have no idea why they’ve stuck around, knowing where we’re heading. Maybe mimics are just dumb.

I keep expecting an Elder Mimic to come crawling out of the woodwork as we make our way out of the front, heading for the defensive wall, but nothing of that sort happens. The rest of our trip, following a few less than heated fights in the snowy area, settles into an uneventful hike. Only when we reach about halfway to the wall does a segment of the web covering the area activate. A phenomenon I can only call a “highway” leading somewhere deep into lumoran territory.

That “highway” is high in the sky, part of the web, and through it a figure is pulled at incredible speed.

Right away, I grab Sophie’s shoulder and give her a shake to draw her attention away from her sister, then point her towards it.

“Observe this with me. I want to know what it does,” I tell her.

At first, it seems like she wants to complain, but when she notices the Absolute’s web activating in preparation, her curiosity takes over.

If I’m right, that ”highway” lets even those who canʼt fly move through the sky at incredible speed. Only one person emerges, crashing into the ground a few miles ahead in an explosion of earth, grass, and shattered trees.

Right away, that presence begins moving in our direction, and within seconds the lumoran stops near us. Black skin, white crystalline features collaring his neck and dotting his forehead, forearms, and legs. While from his back, hangs a single slim sword that I can sense pulsing—like the rhythm of a beating heart.

[Bound Blade – lvl ???]

I estimate him to be over level 400 for sure. Similar in level to Serabeth if not stronger.

Tess steps in front of us. “We—”

She pauses when the lumoran warrior lifts his hand.

“There is no need to talk until we confirm whether you are mimics or not. I’m here because my master sent me, and I’m only looking for one person. A human male with one gray and one brown eye.”

“Did you meet Leth? That human is probably me.” I step ahead.

”I don’t have the specifics. I simply follow my masterʼs orders. It was Champion Owain who sent me here,” he says, stepping closer and looking me up and down. “Eye color fits. And there’s the punchable face my master mentioned, so it should be you.”

Motherfucker.

Was it Leth, who told his master that?

“We will be leaving right away. If any of you raise your mana any higher than it is now, I will kill you. If you try to run away, I will kill you. If you don’t cooperate, I will kill you. If you give me any reason to think you are a mimic, I will kill you. Understood?”

His presence is overbearing, and that slim, long blade on his back seems to pulse in time with his emotions.

So while everyone affirms their understanding, I, as I want to do, try to work out if I could fight him if it were necessary. The way he moves his body, the strength I feel from each movement confirmed by kinetic senses, the weight of his steps, that weapon as well.

The answer is probably no. For now.

Then, since he plans to lead us where we wanted to go anyway, we follow him without giving him trouble.

One week. That’s how long we spend in quarantine after passing through the wall and then being teleported somewhere else, deep into lumoran territory, though we don’t have much opportunity to see any of it. We’re the only group is here so we have no idea what happened to the other mercenaries.

They don’t even give us the usual tests; instead, we simply spend a week sitting in a huge cube that’s lined all around the interior in a white metallic plating. There are no visible inscriptions, but a constant stream of frequencies is being sent through the air. From what we’ve gathered, these frequencies hurt mimics or force them to reveal themselves, and the cube is something they’ve designed to reveal even an Elder Mimic.

All of this is being done under Champion Owain’s authority, mostly delegated to his disciple Jareth—the lumoran who brought us all here with that fancy sword on his back.

There must be a reason they believe this method of mimic detection still works, even after whatever information Leth gave them. Well, itʼs mostly a Lumoran problem, but if they struggle to identify mimics, it’ll make this floor more challenging for us. Though now that I think of it, shouldn’t that make the rewards better?

“Nat,” Min-Jae shouts, calling out to me, and so I exit my cubical, one of many placed inside the cube to give us some privacy.

“What?” I ask.

Using Sophie’s and the twins’ communication link seems to be impossible here, so we talk like... like Easy difficulty scrubs.

“Did you get the notification about the third wave?” he asks.

“Yup,” I say, walking by his side and stretching.

“It would be nice if we could sit here as long as possible for the highest reward.”

“Really? That would be boring. Plus, at some point, our inactivity will balance out our high wave count and reduce our rewards to shit.”

“That’s true.” He stops at our usual spot, and we wait for Maya while stretching.

This place also actively disrupts all external mana, so after a week of only being able to do some training inside my body, I’m getting very frustrated. Sure, I can form an “evil pyramid” inside my stomach and do some training while working on other stuff, but there are too many other things I wanted to do. Yes, I leveled up a bit, but this “quarantine” really, really pisses me off.

They also made me get rid of my crown. For a moment it was nice to watch them panic as I simply removed it and let it destabilize before a few lumoran guards combined forces to disperse the mana safely. I think that more than anything made them suspect Iʼm a mimic more than the others are suspected. They also took Fracture, and damn, I hope that thing eats them alive.

“Sorry I’m late, I was busy,” Maya comes running.

“Bullshit, there’s nothing to do,” I note.

Instead of responding, she turns to Min-Jae and asks. “Has he said anything about hoping Fracture would eat the lumorans?”

“Not yet,” Min-Jae replies, shaking his head.

“Yes, yes,” I wave it off.

Maya smirks gleefully before taking a stance. Min-Jae and I follow suit, dropping into the same stance and then slowly copying her movements. It’s something she learned from a lynthari swordmaster on the 4th floor, and modified with techniques she learned from the people of the 6th floor during our six months of separation. She just seems to love picking up all manner of techniques.

I would say her fighting style is a mess, a Frankenstein’s monster of styles she actively works to etch into her muscle memory while relying on her instincts to choose the “correct” moves in a fight.

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It seems to be something Maya really enjoys. Out of everyone in Group 4, she’s the most technical, while most of us act like wild animals relying on our instincts, stats, and skills to pick up the slack.

Her way of moving isn’t something I truly want to mimic, as I prefer to “freestyle,” though I’ve learned a lot from Whitey too, but Whitey never had any formal teachings; most of his “style” is just pure aggression and instinct.

Still, I’m way too bored to do anything but follow her lead, slowly moving my body in time with her demonstration. Working on our footwork, taking smooth movements, and making feints. We even pick up the wooden sticks the lumorans gave us and swing them in sync with Maya’s instructions, as if they were big swords like her claymore.

Min-Jae seems to enjoy it and he’s clearly better at it than me, showing that he and Maya must have made quite the routine of this.

As I maintain the ”evil pyramid” inside my body and mimic Maya’s movements, I find my mind clearing.

Biscuit is probably the happiest member of Group 4 at the moment, even after the days we’ve spent here. We’re getting plenty of food and water, and everyone’s here. No one is leaving him, so he can pick any human he likes to play with at any time.

He runs all over the place, he sleeps, he nips at our ankles, and—unable to talk—he woofs and barks more often than he ever has before.

I watch as he pulls on Lily’s hair while she laughs, lying on the ground and giggling, covering her face from his furious attacks.

After a while, I look at Izzy sitting next to me. “Fragment of Eternal Fire,” I say.

“I still don’t know.”

“Izzy, it’s been at least ten days since you got it; you must know something.”

“I don’t know! I didnʼt have time to test it!” she says almost happily.

With a groan, I point at Noodle. “You, come here.”

As instructed, the white snake, about the size of an anaconda and currently unable to change its size, slithers closer and looks at me with its green eyes.

“What does that thing do?” I ask him as well.

He looks at me, otherwise unmoving.

I also lay back on the ground. What did I even expect?

As if sensing a moment of weakness, Biscuit comes rushing over and starts biting at my hair, pulling on it while growling in a terrifying display. Especially given how close to my face he is, I watch him do so and promptly notice the drool he’s leaving in my hair.

I don’t even have the energy to fight back so I just let it happen.

Feeling his tugging on my hair, I close my eyes and continue my new training, attempting to expand my [Mana Domain] beyond the borders of my body, even though the effects of this weird cube we’re in seems to disrupt it.

“Use minion communication token.”

Nothing happens.

I sigh. “Okay, okay, use “ten minute Disciple Communication token.”

The token disappears from my status after I use it. I only have to wait a few minutes for Vega to accept. I expect to hear her voice, but instead, I find myself somewhere else, something like the mental space I share with Whitey. It seems like the dumbass cube can’t quite block out the system. Well, obviously. Should I use a Beyond Stay Token to escape it, the consequences and anger of the system be damned?

The place I find myself in is entirely white; there isn’t a single shape or other color, and even tapping my feet on the ground feels weird, as if I should be falling.

“Master?”

I turn around to face the voice.

A now likely seven-year-old half-demon girl stands there, her light brown hair still reaching her shoulders, with those short, pointy black horns peeking out from beneath it. Her blood-red eyes match Whitey’s. She’s wearing new entirely black clothes and they fit her well. So I wonder, where she stole them?

She looks a bit thin, so I ask, “Are you eating well, minion?”

The most powerful shin-kicker I know stands there for a moment, almost awkwardly, but slowly a smile blooms on her face as I open my arms. Laughing happily, she runs closer and stops in front of me, lifting her arms so I can lift her by the waist. She nestles in closer, pressing her head against my chest where my heart is. The familiar feeling of her pointy horns poking the bottom of my chin is there, too.

”Your heart grew stronger!” she says happily. ”But itʼs still my Masterʼs heart, calm and powerful, with a beautiful rhythm.”

“I improved it a bit, minion, but this is nothing. By the time we meet again, it’ll be even stronger, and there might be two of them.”

“Two!?” she asks, shocked. “Is Master a genius!?”

Her voice sounds so excited, I can’t help but smile. After all the logic is simple: what could be better than a single powerful heart?

Two powerful hearts, obviously.

I bet she’s even cursing herself for not realizing it sooner. My minion is just that silly.

“I might be, minion. People don’t always appreciate me as they should.”

“That’s cause they’re dumb, weak, humans!”

“Agreed.”

She presses her head against my chest more firmly, happily swinging her legs.

After listening for a minute, she looks up at me. “Are you really going to summon me for the second tournament?”

“I said I would, didn’t I? But, minion, the System might not give me the option, so don’t consider it a done deal. Okay?”

“Sure! When are we going to be killing the envious guy?”

“We?”

“We!” She shakes her head. “You are powerful but sometimes very silly! I chose you as my master and follow you because you are strong! And that means your enemies are mine.”

“I see. Well, probably not anytime soon. Who told you about Envy?” Carefully, I put her on the ground and sit down, a gesture she returns.

“Thatʼs his name? That’s so lame. I heard about him from that creepy human woman. She said she’s protecting me from him.”

“Greed?”

“I’m not sure what you mean! But she did say she was the greediest person ever.”

“How did she look?”

“Red hair and weird yellow eyes. And she didn’t have a heartbeat, either. I think it’s the same sickness most of you humans seem to have.”

“I told you, minion. Humans aren’t generally born with Demonic Hearts.”

“Yes, because they are sick! Do you know that woman?”

“Yup.”

“You aren’t surprised.”

“Minion, your master is smart. He’s suspected a lot of things for a while now.”

“Oooh…” She opens her mouth wide, then quickly closes it once she realizes it, nodding energetically.

”Howʼs your training going, minion?” I ask, changing the subject.

”Very well! I’ve also been working hard on unlocking the secrets of the stone you sent me!”

”Good. Very good. And how have you been fighting lately?”

She tugs at her hair, thinking for a moment. ”I use kinetic energy to defend myself and move, and mana to create daggers and make them sharper. Sometimes, I try to disrupt my opponent’s mana and create mana barriers.”

”Projectiles?”

”That’s too boring! Fighting up close is more fun. I liked the way that scrawny, quiet human fought.”

”Tacita,” I remind her with a nod. ”Not a bad way to go about things. And what about your kinetic techniques?”

”Wraith Dance is fun, and there are a lot of monsters running away from me right now, so I use it the most to catch them.”

”What a menace.”

”Hehe,” she grins and moves closer, her big red eyes gleaming as she looks at me.

I know she’s trying to manipulate me, but I let it happen. She immediately moves even closer, nestling against my chest. She pouts when I tap the tips of her pointy horns with a finger but doesn’t pull away. If she were a lynthari, I bet she’d be flicking her tail.

Checking the timer, we pass the rest of the time in quiet conversation, asking each other questions, most of them are silly, but neither of us seems to mind.

Before our time runs out, I take a moment to tell her once more, ”Minion, if I’m able to summon you during the tournament, there’s a high chance the other attendees will be able to summon their disciples as well. Wouldn’t it be fun to spar with them?”

”Iʼll fuck them up!” she declares, her kind smile turning slightly demonic, still happy, but with that underlying aggression all demons seem to possess.

”That’s my girl.”

As the duration of the token ends, I reappear inside the damned cube.

Though my mood has improved after the moment distraction with my cute disciple, so I simply get back to training.