Chương 129: Im A Paladin I Swear

Vraxious—The Forsaken Lands Vrax settled on going back to the old fort he was so familiar with, and it had been a while anyway. All along his short trek there, he kept seeding the forsaken lands with adapted life. A handful of squirrels here and there got massively increased intelligence and musculature. As well as an extra soft green-hued downy coat. And just for fun, extra fluffy tails.

He gave shrubs all along his path hue changes and slight improvements, extra sturdy stems, roots that delved a little deeper into the soft loam, and mild fireproofing. One giant field of flicker grass he passed through he spent probably a bit too much time in. By the time he left, it subtly shifted from black to green with its every gentle undulation and would cut a man clean in half if they tried to force themselves through a field of it without a mark of Vurune.

He paid extra special attention to a carnivorous plant he had never seen before set a few hundred strides from the fort. It had grown straight out of a fallen log like some kind of horrific parasite. It was weird even by his standards. A trunk-like stem in the rough shape of a humanoid torso was made from light grey plant fibers that shifted over each other.

In the center of its chest was a vile, fleshy-looking opening that served as its mouth and dribbled a clear liquid that Vrax assumed was paralytic based on all the utterly still bugs stuck to its trail of drool. The thing also had arms, actual arms, three of them that were creepily long, having two separate elbow joints letting them fold and unfold to nearly ten strides. Instead of hands, there were misshapen skull-like protrusions on the end with gnashing flat teeth. What in the seven hells?

Honestly, I would assume he was some undead if it weren't for the fact that my armor isn't burning with a self-righteous fire like it does whenever I'm around anything Vurune really doesn't like. Hmmm... I've been seeding the lands with my creations the best I can to keep expanding my borders and pushing back the one trapping Hope's End. I've still got quite a ways to go—well, unless, of course, my plan actually works, but it's still too early for that. need the town solidly teeming in hungry greenery first.

Alright, creepy murder plant, what should I do to you, more arms? A pair of eyes so you can see what you are eating? Nah… let get you walking around. Vrax lightly slipped right next to the beast, his new Forest Specter Talent making him terrifyingly silent, the eyeless creature didn't even notice him until he laid a single finger upon its arm, and by then it was too late. He channeled Adapt life into the plant.

It fell heavily from the log it jutted out of, as the roots that were moving it changed into a pair of long, thin legs. Vrax kept Adapting by adding a crown of green glimmering eyes across the top of his malformed, featureless head. He made sure to add fibers that could contract like muscles and give the creature just a touch more intelligence. [Mana 160/306] It was fairly mana intensive; whatever this thing was, the system didn't consider it to be a particularly weak lifeform.

Vrax stepped back as the thing rose to its full height on new stick-like legs. It was nearly twice as tall as him, its head tilting side to side curiously before reaching into a tree above it with one of its biting hands and pulling a struggling lizard down, placing it calmly within its mouth. The creature then leaned forward, balancing its three arms on the ground, and crawl-walking forward in a freaky manner, looking for more food. It angled itself roughly towards Hope's End.

Vrax frowned a little but shrugged and headed towards the nearby fort. That one was freaky; I hope it scares the shit out of someone in town, preferably Feldwin. I haven't pulled a good prank on him in too long, and I don't know when I'll have a good chance for another, honestly. I'll probably need to evict our dickish landlords first. Vrax stopped briefly at the moat of smelter moss that ringed the fort.

Originally it had a few thin paths he kept clear so he could sneak in and out without cooking himself, but with everything going on lately he hadn't done his usual maintenance on it. Maintenance being detonating thin strips to make a path.

"I wonder just how good that forest specter talent really is…" Vrax mused quietly. This smelter moss wasn't adapted, so it should blow up if he stepped on it, but he wanted to see just how powerful his new talent was in making the surroundings aid him.

"This is real dumb, but here goes nothing." Vrax found a small patch of smelter moss that had grown slightly separate from the moat and lightly stepped onto it. Worst case, he figured he would lose some toes, but he wouldn't die; the cistern could patch him up. Instead of igniting into white-hot fire, the moss noticeably dulled, nearly draining of color directly beneath his feet. Oh… hells yes… He more confidently placed his other foot on the patch and then slowly walked around on it.

It dulled with each step, springing back to bright the instant his foot left contact, although it always managed to not cast its light too brightly in his direction. With a beaming smile Vrax jogged lightly from the patch of smelter moss straight across his moat, cackling as it yielded to his presence and didn't detonate into a fireball that could be seen from town.

He sprang up towards the wall, and a vine literally reached out towards him before pulling back upwards once he caught hold, letting him practically run up the side of the wall. He kept pushing his new talent; he slid off the other side of the wall and descended down the side, creeping lichen acting like damned stairs for him as he lightly ran back to ground level and looked around the familiar area with a broad smile.

The glowing radiant elm still rose proudly from the center of the fort grounds, grown into the remains of a fountain that never got the chance to feel the caress of water. It had a small shrine next to it that looked like Feldwin was still regularly visiting. Small fresh offerings were placed on a simple artificial stone for his favored god of the hunt. Vrax had an evil, evil thought that might even be going a bit far for him. But he did need to experiment and make sure he could have multiple Kings claims placed.

If he turned the favored holy tree of another god into a shrine to Vurune, it might work extra well. Or it might just offend the utter shit out of another god. Either way, Feldwin would have an utter stroke if his favorite praying tree got dedicated to another god. Okay, a compromise then… After I level, I'll make another shrine here. He looked at the glowing pink flowers growing up the side of the watchtower. Those will do nicely. Then… I can at least make this place a guardian.

He looked back meaningfully towards the radiant elm and its shimmering leaves. Vrax almost effortlessly scaled his way up the side of the watchtower. Slipping in the window as he had done hundreds of times before. He allowed himself a small smile as he dismissed his armor and settled onto the comfortable downy bed stuffed in the most sheltered corner of the not quite finished tower.

"Let's see what I got this time. I bet I'm going to come out of this damn near level sixty, ehh, assuming the levels haven't gotten too much harder to get." Vrax closed his eyes and leaned against the wall, his spear in hand, settling into his sanctuary. The familiar, welcoming, endless hunting grounds materialized around him. The waterfall crashed powerfully down into a lake filled to the brim and spilling essence into the nearby flicker grass, creating marshy edges.

His creations darted all about, almost innumerable at this point. Everything from adapted Loggarts to shuffling bushes prowled around him. His main creatures stood out as bastions of savagery. The devourers bobbed in great flocks overhead. Sunshine flung itself across a clearing after a poor mistrunner deer. Duchess prowled nearby before slipping out of the boundary in his soul to hunt eldritch horrors that threatened his very chance at an afterlife. Everything is as it should be.

Pretty soon here, I think I'm going to join Dutchess on forays out into the void to go hunting. The tranquil lurking out there are going to figure out real quick that I'm not an easy meal. Vrax willed his system notification into view. [Skill Selection Available] Alright, let's do this first in case what I get changes my leveling plans. I wonder what the hell the system will offer me after all the shit I've pulled lately. His view flew above the glade, looking down upon the cloaked man.

It was stark how more and more details became visible with each skill selection, the general haze over the visions slowly thinning out. This time the man's everthirst cloak was clear, as was the charred armor; only the helm was still hidden beneath the haze and hood. The man crept through a war-torn battlefield strewn with golden armored corpses that had been savaged by teeth and claw. Weapons and limbs alike covered the ground, and everything was misted in a thick layer of blood.

A number of adapted beasts could be seen—wolves with split maws and claws rising from their backs. Also dead upon the ground had been cleaved in twain with blades or bodies charred to near unrecognizable husks. The man walked among the bodies, looking around thoughtfully at the most intact bodies. He stood next to a slain Adapted wolf and paladin in their final rest, a savage scene: the paladin's head crushed in the beast's jaws and the wolf's belly split open, sword still wedged through its ribs.

The man put one hand over each corpse, palms facing down, and mana gathered around him. Thin white vines with flowering lilies snaked from within the soil, winding up and into the corpses, writhing in and out of each of the bodies over and over again until suddenly blooming from the jaw of both the paladin and the wolf. Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon. The corpses shuddered before haltingly pulling themselves to their feet, held together by the vines animating them.

Each turned their cold dead frames towards the man awaiting a command. He gestured farther forward, and they shambled onward in halting steps. The vine consumed them bit by bit as they progressed. It was obvious they wouldn't last forever, but for now the corpses of the fallen would serve as fuel for the vines, forcing them onwards. Uhhmmm, holy shit, Vurune… That's one hell of a way to skirt around the undeath thing. I get that the bodies are just fuel for whatever horrific vine this skill summons, but good gods.

If I use that, everyone's going to think it's the second coming of the necromancer. I'm not discounting it though… being able to use any dead body as a meat shield would be incredibly powerful no matter how uncomfortable it would make people. And it's not like I've exactly been respectful of corpses during my adventuring career; dead guys don't need boots or gold. Alright, I'm quickly realizing why the system offered me this one.

The Glade reset again; the cloaked man was embroiled in battle against a pair of warriors, each accompanied by a tamed monster similar to a cougar if cougars had wings and six claws. The glade was dotted with scraggly trees and stone outcroppings that the cloaked figure darted between to avoid being surrounded. He rounded on one of his foes once he had it isolated. Spear at the ready, he stabbed in with a quick smite and dashed past the creature.

His offhand reached outward towards the wound and closed into a fist with a flash of mana. The monstrous cougar's wound split and heaved as blood was wrenched from it in a fountain of blooming orchids that dripped free from the wound, melting away into a misty fog as they touched the air. The beast and the man circled each other, the fog continuing to roil from flowers that spilled from the wound. The paladin moved again; this time the very fog reacted to his presence.

His armor sparked and burned as he crashed through it, each movement becoming faster and faster. The more blows he struck, the more he made the gesture again to cause another unending outpouring of orchids, thickening the fog to an impenetrable smokescreen. The man danced through the fog unhindered, moving with blistering speed from foe to foe until all lay dead around his feet, and Vrax couldn't even see him through the haze below anymore. Alright, that's a cool one; it fits how I fight pretty well too.

It looks like it has a bunch of moderate effects, makes wounds worse. Puts off a vision-obscuring fog and makes me faster if I'm in the fog. I will say, though, it looks like it takes a long time to ramp up. Most of my direct fights don't go nearly that long. The glade reset once again, this time to a classic patch of the forsaken lands dense with trees with eerily shifting shrubbery. Nearly every other tree here was shimmering with green lines between the creases of its bark, denoting it as adapted.

Devourers swarmed overhead, occasionally diving through thick boughs to assault one of the many armored men pouring through the forest. The cloaked man fought a retreating battle, skirmishing with small clusters of soldiers before using his adapted plants to slow them. Trees reached out, snagging men and, in some cases, even yanking them up into the treetops with their branches.

The pursuers managed to surround him, closing their ranks and outnumbering the man twenty to one as he pressed his back against an adapted tree. Devourers swarmed down around him, crashing into foes and at least slowing their assault. The cloaked man reached a clawed hand towards the nearest devourer that was finishing off a wounded warrior, and it suddenly explosively reduced to a black sludge, where the rot splattered new life exploded into existence.

Life that looked nothing like Vrax had ever seen before: trembling, glistening branches of jagged crystalline wood that crawled across every handspan where they touched, reaching for each other, binding tightly, and growing together. As the new life bound itself into a nearly crystal sheen, it thickened, and its branches grew sharp and wicked. Slicing into the men caught in its radius.

With every drop of blood upon it, the all-consuming branches reached farther and farther until nearly twenty strides around the paladin was a treacherous labyrinth still growing, still shifting, and interlocking in on itself. The paladin relaxed his stance and calmly walked through it. Blades shifted and edged away, allowing him an easy path out and a clear escape from his pursuers. Behind him the thicket still grew with every drop of blood and life taken.

Well, that one's pretty freaking cool; it's not like the cistern—it doesn't just grow what's already there. I bet I slowly get to craft some nightmarish trap that I can deploy by sacrificing one of my adapted lifeforms. Man with a few dozen levels in that I might have something that puts even the Vein Divers to shame ready to go at all times. Alright, this is between the "totally not necromancy" make-corpses-fight-for-you skill or whatever the hell that sacrificial trap was.

I don't relish the thought of sacrificing any of my critters… but if it works on plants… Then there's just the ability to make a damned temporary army from scratch along with the caveat that I will one hundred percent end up declared a new dark lord within the next year or two if people see it. Damn, this one's hard, and I want them both. Vrax hesitantly reached out and selected the first skill option. If he could craft it right over his career, having temporary minions could well save his life.

And he was sure he could add some kind of flair to it to make it look a bit less evil. [Skill Acquired] [Loamcaller Vines] Grow a vine that will utilize the corpse of a fallen entity for nutrients, animating its meal and fighting for the Paladin until the host corpse is reduced to nothing but dust. [Mana Cost: Medium] Okay, I got exactly what I thought I would. Oh man, I'm going to make so many "I'm the plant necromancer" jokes now.

It does seem like the skill will only work on relatively fresh corpses, so I guess I won't be raiding any cemeteries. Vrax looked around his sanctuary as his view returned to normal; a new statue sat in the center of his lake on the small island. It showed his hand extended over a body that was slowly being torn from the ground by winding, hauntingly beautiful white vines with blood-red flowers.

Right next to the statue, Lux's Tree had also changed; it was now taller than Vrax and had branches filled with leaves that glimmered with barely restrained flashes of magic. The white bark shifted eerily, rearranging itself at random, with pieces flying off to swirl around for a moment before attaching elsewhere on the tree. Vrax smiled and walked towards his Core; he had a full essence lake, his skills were mostly in a good place, and it was time for him to make himself a bit more of a real threat.

He placed his hand on his core statue, and a river of essence rushed towards him at his call. It began evenly suffusing the statue as he pictured powerful blows and daring leaps. Tearing a man's weapon from his grasp. Then he focused it even further directly into the concept of strength. He let nearly a third of his essence wash in before he abruptly adjusted the intent, still focusing on the entire body. This time the thoughts were of blows bouncing from his flesh and of bones holding up under hammer blows.

He wanted to increase how damned hard he was to kill. He let the essence flow until there was only about a quarter of his lake left, then with an effort of will, he stymied the flow. It took noticeably more essence this time hinting that he was getting close to reaching his tier -1 limit. Vrax took a deep breath and walked towards the cave holding his stigmata. He had at least learned his lesson and would only make changes here with the last of his essence so Vurune couldn't poison his intentions too badly.

He slapped a hand onto the stigmata armor and wrenched the last of his mana from the lake outside, pouring it into the armor as fast as he could with a single simple goal in mind. Increasing the size of his menagerie. It was quick; only a handful of seconds passed before the changes were accepted. He could feel Vurune's gaze passing over him just as he finished. Seeming like he was almost disappointed he hadn't had the chance to meddle this time. Ohh damn, that was close.

Gods, upgrading the stigmata is going to be a pain in my ass for the rest of my life, isn't it? Alright, let's see where we are at now! Vrax pulled up his full status sheet. [Vraxious Tier-1] (lvl 56) (Unique) [Paladin Of The Cycle] You will safeguard the cycle of life and death. Wield the powers of growth, of change, and of decay to set the world free from those who would hold it stagnant. Stand tall with weapon held high and strike down those who would fetter you.

You will adapt the life of the world around you to serve your will; life leads to change, change leads to death, death leads to rot, rot leads to life, and thus the cycle continues. [Skills] [Loamcaller Vines] Grow a vine that will utilize the corpse of a fallen entity for nutrients, animating its meal and fighting for the paladin until the host corpse is reduced to nothing but dust.

[Mana Cost: Medium] [Decomposing Smite](lvl10) Instantly infuse your blows with entropy, corroding your foes and using their essence to heal your wounds. You may shape the path of the entropic energy with your will and cast it beyond your weapons. The entropic power decreases rapidly with range. [moderately more effective vs. resistances] [Cistern Of Bloom And Decay](lvl6) Manipulate the cycle of decay and regrowth around you.

Life changed to decay in this way is stored within the cistern; stored life leaks away over time. Targeted decay will be reborn as what it once could have been. Improved control over what is reborn. Stored life may be used to heal the wounds of nearby entities. [Mana Cost: Moderate] [Adapt Life] (lvl 16) Change living beings to better suit your needs. Entities changed with this skill will be less hostile towards the paladin and towards those who wear an adapted mark of the cycle upon themselves.

You may view and adapt the [Talents] and [Skills] of adapted entities. Faster changes or changes farther from the base functions of an entity will use exponentially more mana. The more powerful an entity, the more mana required. All adapted entities can be called back to you; the willingness of them to return hinges on distance and if they are occupied. Adapted entities may be grafted together; this process destroys the lesser creature and is subject to all normal mana requirements.

[Mana Cost Massively Variable] [Increased Efficiency] [Duration: Permanent] [Apex Guardian] [2/2 Guardians Chosen] You may designate an adapted creature as your Apex Guardian. This will strengthen the bond you share with it as well as vastly decrease the mana costs required to adapt it. [Stigmata Wrath Of The Cycle] (lvl 23) Woe befall those that would cause harm to those under the sacred canopy of our protection. Life is a struggle. Life is pain. Life is hunger. Life is fear.

Let those who threaten our beloved feel naught but the wrath of the grove until they are returned to the cycle. [Menagerie of Predation, twenty slots available] Entities and seeds in the Menagerie will make copies of themselves. The drain of the menagerie now seeds the sparks of life. Your Stigmata will drain the life from your surroundings to shield itself. The Stigmata will burn in the presence of Enemies of Vurune, granting increased aid in slaying them.

When clad in your stigmata armor, nothing shy of the mightiest of divining magics will reveal anything other than that you are [The Paladin Of The Forsaken Lands](Chosen Of Vurune). [Talents] [Forest Specter] The forest around you will drastically aid your movement based on intent, be that speed or stealth. [Passive] [The Herald Of The Hunt] Shrines to Vurune in places where the cycle reigns supreme allow the Champion of Vurune to stake a king's claim. Maintain supremacy to maintain your claim.

Claw and Fang Sword and Staff will answer those who question the resurgence of the god of life, the god of death, and the ever-changing progress he brings. Craft places of savagery and growth that revel in the challenges of the constant struggle between life and death, my champion. [Passive] [Predator's Gaze] Reveal a living being's name, tier, and level if it is an essence-infused entity. Entities will have a threat rating relative to their level shown.

[Passive Slight Mana Drain] [Hunter's Ear] Your hearing is as sharp as the predators of the deep wood, more easily discerning slight sounds. [Passive] Improved Attributes Mental Defenses: 2. 2 Reflexes: 1. 4 Physical Strength: 2. 2 Mana Capacity: 3. 0 Mana Regeneration: 1. 4 Physical Defense: 2. 6 Total Mana: 306/306