Chapter 113

Lykan

The Betrayal of Monsters

Lykan felt the tension rise, a faint breeze that spoke of mounting violence. This was a sense he had experienced multiple times over the years. Normally he chalked the warning up to his Ambuscade Mastery, but in this case the would-be attacker was not hidden. In fact it was clear that the two who he had just fought. The two that he had just healed even were now preparing for round two.

Sighing inwardly that he had perhaps been too effective with his poultice that he had both created and applied he couldn’t help but feel regret. For the first time in so many years he had once again tried to reach out to people. He had tried to extend an olive branch to the past. He had dared to hope that this situation would be different, despite trying the same exact thing. There was a famous quote about the height of idiocy being to do the same thing over and over and expect a different result.

Worse, Lykan was still not quite finished with his design. At best the ambient qi in the area would be pulled into a core but be unable to disperse itself to enhance the environment as the others he had crafted would. Sighing inwardly, he arose to his full height and turned to face the two adversaries who were sending him death glares.

Seeing Lykan rise and the look of resignation in his face caused Nayali to pause for a moment. She had up until the point been trying to pull forth energies of the great forest spirit, but had simultaneously been denied such powers, while somehow alerting Lykan to her intentions.

“What has changed?” Lykan asked, while most would feel anger at the sudden betrayal of kindness Lykan’s words were more contemplative.

“You made pacts with demons.” Nayali demanded, her sword in her hand as she pointed the tip towards Lykan.

“Hahaha.” Lykan laughed at the absurdity of the situation. Here Nayali was with a fully formed pact of shepherding with a dragon, a species brought here to help terraform the planet. Yet she had the nerve to say he made pacts with demons. Lykan couldn’t help but laugh. Worse he couldn’t explain, at least he didn’t think he could. How could one really claim that sentient creatures that had been around living on the planet for thousands of years were in fact monsters from distant planets in the stars. No one would, believe such a claim. He would come across as a lunatic at best. There were a few arguments he could make, why did the gods only reward those who killed dragons with increased Attributes? Why didn’t they do this for other creatures? The answer was simple, the other creatures were supposed to be here, while dragons were not. Still how does one convey this thought, let alone to one who has bonded with a dragon for over seven years at this point? He couldn’t. Which was also why he laughed.

As he expected Nayali looked on at Lykan with fear and apprehension. A worried look of fear creeping onto her face and her body.

“You think I have made pacts with demons?” Lykan asked, the words filled with derision.

“Yes, how else would you explain your suddenly healed body, your ridiculous strength, and the fact that you glow red with a vibrant form of energy I have never seen. A form of energy that makes Florijma tremble with fear and apprehension.”

So that’s what it is going on. Lykan mused to to himself as he realized they were sharing senses. The dragon was likely sensing his qi. From that observation he made a few assumptions. As a being that could use qi, it would naturally have some inclination to see and perceive others who wielded the energy. While the knowledge of what qi is exactly might be lost on it, the instinctual fear of one who had drastically more qi would likely be a problem. Though if they can see the qi in me…then they must also be able to…

With his lightning fast mind Lykan came to a conclusion and acted upon it rather quickly.

“This demon energy what does it look like to your shared senses?” Lykan asked.

Nayali gasped, apparently, she was not suspecting that Lykan would be able to make such a correlation so quickly. But she quickly recovered and answered.

“You look glowing red, as if filled with demonic energy.” Nayali answered, her resolve coming back to her as she readied her sword stance. Lykan for his part just stood there calm as ever, his bo-staff in hand, though making no overtly threatening gestures.

“Tell me, do you see a dark red portion right here?” Lykan asked while pointing to a part of his chest where Nayali’s strike from earlier landed.

Looking at the spot, Nayali’s eyes widened in recognition.

“Now look at yourself, at your core. Use your familiar’s eyes if you must.” Lykan said, gesturing to the dragon.

“No, you would use this time to flee.”

Hearing that Lykan just shook his head. If he so wanted he could have easily knocked out both of these individuals, finished his task, and left before anyone even recovered. Still he calmed himself as he prepared.

“Then just ask if you too have the same red glow.” Lykan replied with a bit of annoyance in his voice. If this red energy was in fact qi, then he knew for a fact she did carry the substance in her. Even from here he could see the woven threads of qi within her. If he was so inclined he could unweave the construct within her right now and let her meridians explode, much like his own had done when they last fought. Still that would be a terrible fate for anyone to have to suffer through. His own mind went back to that dark time, but he shook those thoughts free. He had moved on past that dark point in his life. He wanted to be better, to live better than he had back then.

The two had a pulse of energy share between their bond, before Nayali trembled slightly. Her sword tip that had been pointing right at Lykan’s head slowly lowered itself till it was just aiming center mass. She opened her mouth, but shock took her. Lykan nodded.

“Now with this new sense, look at the ground. The ground, this land that you have spent the last few years cultivating, does it not also glow with the same demonic hue?” Lykan asked. By this point Lykan was certain that the sense was a primitive way to detect qi in the surrounding area.

Nayali looked around, and then a look of defeat filled her, as she dropped her sword entirely to the ground. Seeing that the tension of the moment was gone, Lykan nodded then turned back to work on finishing his runes.

With deft hands he completed the formula that by this point had become rote memory. There was one slight problem with his normal design, one he noted by how greedy the dragon seemed to be for qi. With knowledge that a dragon was here, he made a few slight alterations to the design to have the effect bleed off the ambient qi into a second usable form earlier. This would result in less yields overall but should cut down on the dragon trying to rip into the faux core of the statue to gain a quick boost to energy.

With his alterations complete, Lykan was rewarded for his efforts and finally got the notification he had been waiting on for years at this point.

Skill Base Rating (4) Mater Crafting Sage + (Unknown) Maximum (5) Master Analyze Novice (5) Master Rune Creation Novice

From his Master Crafting he once again received two new skills. Though he was curious about the reason for the two skills he had just received. Master Analyze was a staple for anyone wishing to know how to size up an opponent. The skill could also cut through different levels of obfuscation if the skill level or rating was higher than the opposing person’s skill. In all it was useful, but not too useful for Lykan. The time when he would have needed such a skill was when he was younger, at least that was his general mind set, though he realized the gods had many plans. His second skill intrigued him greatly. So far as Lykan was aware there were only twenty-six characters that could be implemented to create different rune constructs, but these were limited. The way runes were limited was that they only seemed to focus on mana derived abilities and powers. Part of the problem was up until him there was just no purpose to learn or create runes that would better utilize qi or implement qi based abilities. In fact the structure he had just created drew in qi solely because it was the most abundant energy source in the area. Qi seemed to be denser than mana. Upon use mana tended to rise up in the atmosphere, while qi would fall to the ground. With that in mind Lykan made it so the pillars he created would pull ambient energy from the ground and channel it up, from there it would then be converted into a known mana form that created healing rains. Thus over time the qi would slowly be siphoned away and converted to a form that would benefit the surrounding countryside. From his brief interactions with the pillars he had created, they all tended to work.

All this was to say that with the new skill, Master Rune Creation, Lykan’s mind was glowing with endless possibilities and ways to improve his processes. He also thought about starting his most recent pillar over from the very beginning to see what he could do. He entertained the notion for a fraction of a second, before he realized he was still being watched. He turned to face the two antagonists. Though to their defense, he was an intruder to their lands and had not only beat both in combat, but he then erected a runic pillar to commemorate the victory. At least that was a way this whole scenario could be viewed. Realizing he had likely already overstayed his welcome he turned to Nayali.

Gasp.

Apparently Lykan moved too quickly, causing Nayali to gasp with surprise. He often forgot just how fast he was or could be at times. Sighing to himself he tried to slow down his actions. Then with a more measured pace he spoke, trying to ease the awkward tension that had befallen the area.

“My task here is complete. This pillar should you keep it in place will get rid of this demonic energy as you so put it. The energy will then be converted into healing rain.” Lykan paused for a second before turning his attention away from Nayali and towards the bonded psychic dragon. “You! Do not touch this pillar, do not look at it or its core. If you disturb it in any way I will know and I will come for you. Do you understand?”

Lykan let his full breath of power fill his words. While he had no intention of ever coming back to this long forgotten ruin of his childhood, he still didn’t want to have to come back to create a second pillar due to a hungry dragon. Though his threat did make him wonder if such a connection was possible, maybe a rune that alerted him to when the pillar was either destroyed or no longer had energy to pull from the ground? Those were interesting ideas and ones that he made a mental note to go over later on.

When he recovered his senses he saw the two staring at him with confusion laced in their eyes. It took a moment for Lykan to realize he had zoned out in thought there for a moment. He then turned back to Nayali and almost wanted to say more, to catch up once more, but then thought better of it. There was a reason this relationship didn’t work out in the first place and now it had the extra complication of her willingly bonding herself to the enemy. Well not the true enemy, the enemy of the planet were after all the Titans. But dragons were brought here by Titans, so did that make them Titan’s spawn? Lykan shook his head, the last seven years in isolation had done a number to him and he realized just how frazzled he was becoming.

While he had managed to do a lot over the past seven years, clearing out multiple Titan Terraforming facilities he felt his mind breaking due to the stress. Taking one look at the beautiful Nayali he sighed inwardly. Part of him wanted to be able to start over with her, but then another part, the more rational part realized it wouldn’t work. They were too different, and had somehow moved even further apart over the years.

“I guess this is farewell.” Lykan said, as he bowed.

Then before anyone could make a move he oscillated his cores, while circulating mana through his meridians. In a second he was both invisible and flying away. He knew Nayali likely had a way to track him, while he was in her domain but he moved quickly to avoid.

He heard shouting coming from behind. A half second after he took off Nayali was up in the air, but she was no match for his speed.

“Get back here!” She demanded, but Lykan had no intention of prolonging this encounter. It had been painful enough to see how beautiful she had gotten over the years. He had felt her killing intent, while her power was not enough to cause concern for him anymore, he still respected her as a warrior. If she could be swayed by the lies of her bonded so easily, then there was little he could do to sway her. She had after all assumed he had made pacts with demons to get his power. Demons! That thought alone angered Lykan to his core.

Yet looking at it objectively he could see where one would draw that conclusion. He was powerful, arguably one of the most powerful native creatures on this planet. The only problem, he was nothing compared to the creatures who were coming, to the creatures who were already here. He needed to get stronger, but first he needed a break.

He flew for hours with no particular direction in mind. He flew until he smelt the acrid tang of smoke, followed shortly by the unmistakable feel of war. Before he knew it, Lykan was drawn to the cries of war and gun shots as two forces squared off.