A red blade flashed with a gleam as it stabbed into the open wound at one of Pinkie’s giant fingers. The one that had the Witch Tyrant in the face. The blade touched the exposed flesh then–shattered completely.

  Ryan blinked at the broken fragments of his aura and the empty hilt of his blade. and he had a feeling it had something to do with what happened earlier, when Pinkie had completely shattered his aura.

  His aura and his class were completely countered.

  Still, Ryan wasn’t one to give up, he took out one of his enchanted knives of returning. Cerul just looked at him as if he was out of his mind. It quailed and kept quiet while in Pinkie’s fist, hoping to ride out this great storm. Ryan stabbed right in. It didn’t actually do anything to the open wound, though it did make Pinkie growl in annoyance.

  “You made a promise. You think I’m going to be–”

  The fist holding Ryan and Cerul tightened, eliciting a squawk from Cerul, and making it drop the speakers in its claws. The crow tried nipping at Ryan and he smacked Cerul’s beak with a hand.

  “Brrr!”

  Cerul’s beak and eyes pointed upwards, Ryan followed its gaze.

  And froze.

  The sky was lit up with an onslaught of countless lights. All were zigzagging and curving around. Creating enormous geometric patterns in the sky. Pinkie’s eyes were blurring in her head, trying to keep track of every single one of them.

  Then they all started converging on her.

  Pinkie dove as they tracked her then spun around, so that she was belly up to the sky. Pinkie separated Cerul from Ryan and threw the crow away. The dragon put Ryan’s head between two fingers and used a thumb to hold his torso in place. Then started using him as a warding charm. His sight blurred as her hand moved, each and every beam having to divert to miss his body or face by mere inches.

  At the speeds she was flinging him around, Ryan could barely shout out his curses.

  “Pinkie you piece of shit!”

  “Be a good hostage and keep still! Don’t worry she won’t kill you.”

  “She said she’ll take a pound of flesh, not kill you either.”

  “I’d rather you die than lose a pound of flesh. Even I can’t shift from the wounds she gives.”

  Was this karma for taking one too many hostages? Were Ryan’s actions truly so terrible that he deserved to be used as a human shield like this? Pinkie continued to hold his body and head in place, making sure his neck didn’t snap from the speeds she was subjecting him to. She stopped in midair, then spun around and used the Ryan shield with her outstretched arm.

  Pinkie roared in pain as a beam managed to catch her unawares. The force cracked her scales and the magical light burned her hide.

  Ryan couldn’t see all of this happen of course. The world was a constant blur of landscapes and flashing lights. He tried an [Instant Dodge] and it did nothing in her grip. Building his aura was useless. Seemingly because of whatever conceptual difference between dragons and rulers were. There was nothing he could do to change the outcome here.

  It was a reminder of just how far the top really was.

  Pinkie’s eyes electrified. Furious that she had gotten hit unawares. Her eyes darted and–then she resummoned her trident and cut at the air. A flash of light came out of invisibility as the beam split in half. Ryan realized what had happened.

  Though it did seem to take more effort. The dragon had slowed down so she could take the time to watch the lasers.

  “Why not do a lightning cloud? You can detect when something touches the cloud can’t you?”

  “Fool. Then I cannot react in time. Stay silent if you do not know what is going on.”

  Pinkie could detect things that touched her lightning cloud. The Witch Tyrant could see right through it, and even Pinkie needed time to react to the beams of light.

  Ryan looked around during the lull in the high speed chase. Gone was the city of Defiance. They were already approaching the border to Sector Five. The Witch Tyrant was nowhere to be seen while the lightbeams kept squirming around them. Pinkie was laser focused on something in the distance. Ryan had to squint to see it. It was dot of white, slowly getting larger over time. Another thing to note.

  Pinkie could actually outpace the Witch Tyrant over long distances.

  All of a sudden–Pinkie roared and backwards. A hole appeared at the ground beneath them.

  Another invisible beam of light.

  Pinkie seemed to have had enough.

  “Let me go, Witch Tyrant, or I will eat your little project right here, right now.”

  “The fuck you will!”

  The Witch Tyrant spoke to both of them telepathically.

  Ryan shouted, his body still stuck to Pinkie’s hand. “My death is worth only an extension of punishment to you both?!”

  They both ignored him. Pinkie did what all hostage takers did, she began to negotiate.

  “A foot! For a year!”

  “And cut off my only path for escape? An arm. Three years.”

  “You test my patience, Witch! Do you think I am bluffing? After my enlightenment?”

  Pinkie raised her hand with Ryan in it over her mouth.

  “No, no, no.”

  Pinkie opened her jaws, revealing a toothless mouth with an enormous tongue curled up, as if eager to have a taste of Ryan’s flesh. There were no rows of sharp teeth, perhaps so she could continue to use him as a bargaining chip while he was in her mouth.

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  Then a whisper came to Ryan, one only he could hear.

  Ryan immediately activated the emergency teleport on his back. Pinkie’s eyes bulged as she sent electricity through her palms, both to shock him and to disrupt the spell. Pain shot through his entire nervous system as he held onto consciousness.

  A beam of light hit Pinkie behind the head, making her head snap forward, dangerously close to closing her jaws on him. The beam seemed to have done the trick in distracting Pinkie as the break in focus was all the time that was needed for the spell matrix to work.

  The emergency robes that the Witch Tyrant had personally crafted for Larix, finally working as intended as Ryan was shoved through space, the world blurring around him. Until a great spectral hand reached the liminal space and grabbed him by the robes.

  Ryan went straight from a dragon’s jaws… and right into the Witch Tyrant’s hands.

  He just went with it, Ryan tried to hug his savior. The Witch Tyrant’s personal barrier rebuffing his attempt. He hugged the barrier instead.

  “. Might I say that you look very fetching in these gray lands.”

  The Witch Tyrant smiled at him, actually smiled at him. It seemed almost genuine.

  “I must admit, destroying that curse has ruined quite a few of my plans. Even I did not expect that.”

  He gave her an exaggerated grin.

  “Always happy to outperform. So… any chance that you might uh, let me go?”

  The Tyrant pretended to consider the question, then nodded.

  “Certainly. I do not have a backup soul binding ritual, nor would it be appropriate for me to injure you with only the intention of artificially increasing your challenges.” She paused as he blinked at her amiability. “You have identified the problems with your class and the path of aura, correct?”

  “”

  Namely that his class concepts were hard countered by dragons. It was kinda like how people who were prepared for death did not care for his fear epic. His class concepts tainted his aura and made it so that Pinkie could just shrug him off like it was nothing.

  “Good. You might have found a solution if you overcame the soul binding hex but it seems you’ve found your own path. Ascending through [Resource Overdrive]. Hm, was Rick’s ascension in the skill room? Is that who you’ve been trying to emulate?”

  Before their assault on the city of Defiance, Pinkie had noticed something wrong with his body’s magical circulation but the Witch Tyrant had gone several steps further. She’d somehow identified from the broken vestiges of failed mana core formations in his body, that he’d been trying to copy Rick’s mana core before he had ascended.

  “Can’t hide anything from you, can I?”

  “You are doing better than most. I have to applaud the attempt.”

  …The casual conversational demeanor was really throwing him off his game. Whether it was on purpose or because she was more… herself, he had no idea.

  The Witch Tyrant nodded.

  “One-Eyed Rick’s arcane core would indeed be a powerful mana core, though it is specialized in delving through the complexity of the arcane. It is not something I’d recommend for someone that has little love for true magic.”

  “Hey I–”

  “. I will get offended.”

  Ryan cleared his throat and nodded. “Understood.”

  The Witch Tyrant stood there in the air with him. Pinkie howls were reaching them from the distance as the dragon struggled to fend off the bombardment without her meatshield. Ryan could see the focus going through the Witch Tyrant’s eyes as she–her eyes flickered back to him–as if reading his mind.

  “You are quite the annoying little knife in the light, aren’t you?”

  “Uh, thanks?”

  The Witch Tyrant’s eyes split. One set paying attention to Pinkie with the other set looking at him.

  Needless to say, it was creepy as shit.

  They started flying towards Pinkie at speed. Ryan’s own body being protected by a small spherical barrier.

  “So, uhm you don’t care about the public finding out about your actual capabilities?”

  As far as Ryan could tell, the Witch Tyrant showed far more power here today than she ever had before. All the dragonslayers had been horrified when her full mental capacity came to bear on them. There was no way they didn’t realize that her being ‘injured’ in the ambush was all a farce. He was also pretty sure they all saw the mass of lightbeams zigzagging and curving around too.

  None of that had been shown in the one versus thirty fight.

  They were getting closer to the apocalyptic lightshow. Pinkie desperately trying to gain speed while dodging the light beams.

  The Witch Tyrant looked wistfully onwards. “At this point, it does not matter. My mind had been stuck on optimizing every little thing when there was no need. All the pieces are on the board, and I no longer care for the opinions of . I guess I have you to thank for that.”

  Ryan was silent for a moment.

  “Is that what you really think?”

  “Yes, did you think it would be different?”

  “I was kinda hoping you’d come to your senses.”

  “I was always in my right mind. Nothing has changed, other than some more clarity. Every real mother would do the same, if given the opportunity.”

  “Yeah but what would Gamielle want?”

  The Witch Tyrant sighed as his point stabbed her in the side. She simply watched the dragon struggle under her bombardment. Pinkie spun her trident around, deflecting two more light beams while ducking under an invisible one.

  The pupils that were tracking Ryan were piercing.

  “I will give you a choice. As I should have done from the very start. You may continue with the teleport to the original location of your spell matrix. It will take you to the Dwarven Tyrant’s fortress. There, you will likely win him over and gain his favor. Then he can craft equipment that would truly be suitable for you.”

  The Witch Tyrant held a spear made out of golden light. Pinkie’s eyes snapped focus on them. Failing to dodge two light beams and getting burned in the process.

  Two spell circles appeared in front of the spear and the Witch Tyrant . The circles accelerating the spear of light beyond any reasonable speed, that all Ryan saw was a bright afterimage.

  It clipped Pinkie’s wing as she barely dodged in time. She roared at the Tyrant.

  “That would have killed me!”

  Ryan stared at the eyes that refused to keep him out of her sight.

  “And the other option?”

  “I will teleport you to a leveled zone near the cataclysm abyss. In its depths I have laid a trap, fifteen years in the making. I was going to force you down there after the binding curse.”

  “So option one is safety and I get to meet the Dwarven Tyrant. The other option is to dive into a trap? I hope you have more than that.”

  “The trap was not designed for you. It was meant for The Realm as a whole. To cause chaos and destruction. A reminder of sorts. That for a civilization to last, it cannot leave problems to fester.”

  Ryan could feel Ozyell’s words hanging over him. His rebellious side rejected the disgusting label.

  “You think I’m some sort of hero or something? This sounds like a job where you want to clean up the mess made. we don’t do work for free.”

  Instead of rolling her eyes like Gamielle would, or the annoyance that he expected her to show the Witch Tyrant just chuckled.

  “. Indeed, adventurers don’t.”

  The Witch Tyrant paused to think for a moment, which again, was odd,

  “If you do reach the bottom, then you will find something that will help in the development of a mana core that is suitable to you. It is somewhat unnecessary, but my hope is that you will produce another unexpected result.”

  Ryan took that moment to think. Taking his time while he watched Pinkie the dragon get blasted from behind.

  “Is it really my choice when you already know the option I’ll pick?”

  “Even if I do know the option you will choose, my offer is truly sincere. The world will accept nothing less. What matters is that it’s choice with consequences. That if another were in your shoes they could and would have the opportunity for a different choice.”

  Ryan nodded. He felt like he was truly starting to understand how the achievements system worked. He rolled his shoulders.

  “Well, I guess I’ll find out what’s actually down there.”

  “Good.”

  Then the Witch Tyrant summoned a spear in her hand. And held a buckler with her left. She raised the spear and the buckler. A stance of a spartan of old.

  Her eyes gleamed with the sudden excitement of battle that startled him. The Witch blurred forward in a flash of light.

  The ensuing battle was far too fast for him to keep up with. What he mostly saw was a blur of geometric golden patterns in the sky and pink lightning darting inbetween them. Pinkie’s blood flew in the air as she tried again and again to flee from the onslaught of the Witch Tyrant’s light beams.

  Pinkie might have been faster over longer distances, but she could not flee from the Witch Tyrant.

  Suddenly there was a flash of brown light as Ryan saw the space warp around a large form of pink lightning. A roar echoing out in pain as a loud snapping sound broke out.

  And the lightshow was done.

  The Witch Tyrant returned, triumphant with a wing in hand. Despite holding a trophy she looked a little annoyed.

  “It seems the [Secretary] has given Pinkie one of her emergency artifacts. I will have to speak to her.”

  Ryan couldn’t help but stare at the massive dragon wing she was holding in one hand. The Witch Tyrant lifted it casually.

  “Pinkie has never used an emergency artifact before and let her guard down. Word of advice, make sure you understand how others might be able to interrupt your emergency artifacts.”

  He couldn’t help himself. “Yeah, that’s pretty common advice on realmnet.”

  The Witch Tyrant actually displayed some amusement. “Now that my mind is back to full capacity. Your cheek is almost refreshing.”

  “ I’ve been holding back on a bunch of–”

  And the Witch Tyrant teleported him away.

  As always is

  24 chapters ahead!