Chương 63: 63-[King's Claim]

Vraxious- The Forsaken Lands Vrax leaned over the edge of the crumbling three-story building, looking down over the town square that held his new home. The market was barely visible past the dirty opaque glass of the garden dome; figures could be seen darting all about within the dome as flashes of green and white.

One particularly enterprising daisy was scaling up the metal framework of the dome, edging its way nearly forty strides into the air to reach a bird's nest that was precariously wedged into silvery metal where one of the massive glass panes had fallen from long ago. A single tree was sitting ominously in the scorched, cratered section of the cobblestone outside the dome, with no other plant or animal near it.

From a distance it just looked like a normal tree, albeit a violently glowing one, every crack in its bark practically burning with light that matched Vrax's armor. It had crooked, short branches, black-grey bark, and stunningly beautiful crimson flowers Vrax had modeled after cherry blossoms. If you squinted, though, you could see the pile of corpses mangled beyond recognition nestled below it, protectively covered by its roots. Alright, home sweet home. It looks like my critters are making themselves comfy.

Let's look at that trial. [Fledgling Apex Predator](Unique) Establish yourself as a creature of note within the Forsaken Lands. Long have you strode among these trees, hiding from the horrors in the dark. It is time for you to prove that you are now a power capable of proudly prowling the shadows alongside them. [Establish a dominion one-half league in size.](0. 8/1) [No creatures unbound from the cycle may exist within your domain.](1/0) Oh damn… Good job, you little psychos.

Vrax was pleasantly surprised his creatures had quadrupled his hold on this area in a week left alone to do their own thing. As if to punctuate his pride, he saw a beleaguered moss bear trundle out of a nearby alley. Swiping madly at a pair of Daisys dangling from its head and shoulders. Blood trickled from it, and even from here Vrax could see glimmering dots of green light cycling through its body.

The mossy growths across its body rose up, ripping a daisy free and throwing it through a nearby stone building in a shuddering crash. Vrax watched the fight unfold with interest; the bear was slowly worn down by the remaining daisy until suddenly the dandelions reached a critical mass, imploding the bear into a desiccated husk of its former glory in an explosive cloud of seeds that lazily drifted down the alleyways like a fog. Well, I can certainly see how that would get the job done while I've been gone.

I don't think there is anything truly scary left in the city center with us to contest my adapted creatures. I'm honestly pretty lucky that this area has been looted for hundreds of years; adventurers have been coming here and clearing this place out endlessly since before I was even born. Vrax leapt from the rooftop, letting out a mirthful chuckle as he drifted downward slowly, hanging from his bushel of devourers. He slowly walked past the tree.

A single black eye snapped open with such force its eyelid made a thunk sound.

"Nope... nice tree. Your papa and adapted new friends here just stay nice and calm on your nest of corpses, please." Vrax said placatingly as he continued on into the garden dome. A smile crept across his face as he walked through his domain; the yellow flowering vines had explosively spread, trailing off the market boulder and winding through the stands of trees and ancient planter boxes. The small green eyes within their flowers blinked in recognition as he ran a hand along a line of them.

Vrax wound through the stone buildings and alleyways to the center of the market, still dominated by the central auction stage and half-ruined building looming above the rest. The battle damage had been obscured some. The piles of rot and corpses turned into cascading statues and mounds of moss with small white flowers peeking through the edges.

"Time to found a kingdom, but first." He summoned Dutchess and let the sugar gliders sail off towards a squat building nearby that they had been turning into a nest. Finally he released his flock of Devourers; they eagerly began spreading out across the market, inspecting their new home. Vrax turned to Duchess; she was holding a Devourer, curiously poking at it as it cooed indignantly at her.

"So we need to go find whatever the fuck is in this place that counts as unbound from the cycle. I have a pretty damn good idea where it is actually." Duchess ignored him, shaking the Devourer slightly. My armor is giving me that same itching, burning sensation I got from the idol. Whenever we get near a greenhouse on the edge of the dome, there is something still in there. Vrax had given it a once-over already but not noticed anything out of the ordinary; now he was turning his full attention to the task.

Duchess had followed him thankfully, along with her new friend still clasped in a claw. The greenhouse wasn't anything special—square glass walls (one of them shattered) and a sloped opaque glass roof. The floor held two rows of stone planter boxes that were so overgrown and jumbled Vrax couldn't even guess what grew here originally. He pushed past a tall prickly bushel of leaves, peering between bushes laden with melons, looking for anything out of place. There has to be something here.

Door, an undead fucking shrub, something. Duchess stuffed herself into the greenhouse after him, knocking the already iffy door off its hinges and sliding planter boxes askew with an awful scrape.

"Geez, thanks." Vrax groused, ducking under her claws to search another section of the floor. He found an ancient-looking spigot and followed the pipes towards the back of the greenhouse. They led down into a dirty covered patch of the floor.

"Hmm." Vrax scraped the dirt away after struggling through a few handfuls of a strangely stretchy grass, slowly revealing a trapdoor. If this place had been clean, he was sure it would have been obvious; the only thing hiding it had been the whims of nature and time. Vrax pulled his dagger out and used it to clear the seam before angling the blade into it and wrenching it open with a pop. A narrow, short staircase led down to a room barely the height of a man.

Vrax expected to see old rusted tools and fertilizer bags that had long turned to dust. Instead, maddened scrawling that spiraled endlessly glowed a vicious, filthy orange in the dust-soaked room. A man more bone and sunken eyes than anything human looked up at him with a hollow gaze.

"More… yes, more flesh to feed the hunger of the father…" The ghoulish figure madly crooned up at Vrax; bones slid free from his fingers, forming into claws. His eyes swirled from a milky white into a deep blood red. Vrax pulled a new smelter moss jar from his cloak and threw it straight into the nightmarish figure's face, slamming the trapdoor shut before anyone else could react. He stood on the trapdoor as inhuman growls and smoke wafted from the seams. You could be reading stolen content.

Head to the original site for the genuine story. Duchess stared at him in what must have been pure shock, or maybe she was mad she didn't get to fight Vrax couldn't tell. Vrax looked back at her.

"What! I just want to chill for a month and do a remodel; fair fights are for suckers…" He waited for the scrabbling sounds below to stop as the trapdoor itself began smoldering. [Establish a dominion one-half league in size.](0. 9/1) [No creatures unbound from the cycle may exist within your domain.](0/0)"See, there we go! I'm going to go camp for the night. If you could murder your way into my trial being done by morning, that would be pretty great!"

Vrax said, stepping off the smoldering trapdoor as flames started licking at his feet.

"How in the seven hells have you survived this long, boy?" Duchess spilled out in the voice of Vrax's father, William.

"Hey! Fuck you! No impersonating Pappy!" Vrax said in mock anger as he headed back to the market. Pausing mid-step at the slight wash of essence, curious of what he had actually just burned alive in his basement, he looked at the kill notification. He had been ignoring them more and more lately, especially after the hundreds of Soul Render Grubs. [Warian Spelt Tier-1](lvl1) [Thrall Of The Lord Of Souls] Uhhh... what the hell? You know what, I'll just add it to the pile of "not a right now problem."

The next day Vrax woke up feeling surprisingly refreshed; the conductors were tucked around his neck like the world's fluffiest scarves. His trial hadn't changed, but that was okay; he had time. Vrax made a simple breakfast on the second story of the broken tower. He probably didn't need to camp and sleep four strides off the ground in the center of his new home utterly swarming with his vicious creations. But his paranoia had served him well so far.

He resolved to make himself a more comfortable house soon; he was fairly certain he could adapt a tree into one. Similar to the ones he saw in the remains of Vurune's grove. Except his would have eyes so they could always keep watch, and maybe blades to defend him while he slept. Also, it couldn't hurt if they had some defensive talents either… Vrax shook himself from his quickly devolving mid-morning daydream and made his way to the main event of the day.

Vrax started gathering the desiccated corpses of the boggarts and their moss-covered flesh at the base of the broken building that the evil idol once jutted from. He then spent hours with little help from any of his creations hauling piles of dirt he scattered around the corpses until he had a patch nearly three strides wide and half a stride deep mounded among the corpses of his slain enemies.

Then Vrax found a small wretched red and green thorn bush that was stubbornly growing out of a crack in a nearby alley, struggling for every drop of dew and mote of nutrition it could scrape from its surroundings. Perfect angry little weed that nature couldn't kill no matter how fucked its environment was. Do you want to become the shrine to a god just as angry as you are? There was a poignant silence as the bush didn't answer Vrax's question. Yeah, I thought so!

Vrax stuck the angry, thorny weed into the center of the mound of dirt surrounded by corpses for fertilizer. Alright, let's review how the shit this is supposed to work. [The Herald Of The Hunt] Shrines to Vurune in places where the cycle reigns supreme allow the Champion of Vurune to stake a Kings 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. Vrax sighed. He had been hoping to magically garner some further insight on what to do specifically, reading it again for what had to be the twentieth time. Guess I'm winging it! Vrax began channeling [Adapt Life], letting it naturally seep into the weed without a defined purpose.

He slowly increased the mana flow while thinking of the cycle of life and death of Vurune, the god who so fervently toiled to see it continue uninterrupted. The thorns began stretching out hungrily, piercing the nearby corpses. There was a pause and then a thrum of power. Vrax gritted his teeth; it felt like he was wrestling with a savage beast.

[Adapt Life] Kept trying to wrench free of his control, tugging at his mind at his will with a purpose of its own, Vrax fought, reeling the thorns back in and forcing the plants' roots to sink deep into the loam and then deep into the stone beneath. The thorns slowly grew and bent upward, forming an unbroken circle above them. [Adapt life] shuddered free of his grasp once again, the surface of the forming shrine roiling and rotting without purpose briefly before Vrax's mind clamped down.

Forcing the thorns to entwine to hold themselves firm. As the last thorns wound into each other in an unbroken circle, something in the world around Vrax changed. A shudder ran out from the simple shrine, birds faltered in the air, and trees groaned under the wave of authority passing over them. Predators turned their heads in fear, feeling the eyes of something unfathomable passing over them.

Vrax felt the world around him prickling at his presence as if stone would yield to his whims and the very sky would bow if he so wished it; then the sensation of unbridled control passed, and in its place a notification hovered. [King's Claim Placed] [Kingdom Name Required] Wow, I did it. There is no turning back now. Let's see now, a good kingdom name... if I name it something dumb, I'll never hear the end of it from any of those ruthless bastards back home.

An homage to the grove of Vurune, where this all started, could work, or a reference to what kind of kingdom it will be… This place will never be safe for the unprepared to visit, so something about hunts and monsters could work. Or just something epic-sounding, like from the myths of old Elysum. Damn, I wish I had thought about this more the last week. Vrax put in a name, unsure how the world would react to it but eager to find out.

[All Hail Vraxious, King Of The Ravenous Grove] [Founding Kingdom Feature Granted] [None Escape The Cycle] All entities within your borders will age, regardless of any effects preventing this. Creatures unbound from the cycle will find themselves unmade; the strength and speed of these effects will increase as the kingdom grows in power. Haha... oh fuck me, that has some implications… it should help with keeping some of the not-great eldritch abominations roaming around off my lawn though.

Vrax immediately tried to slip into his kingdom sanctuary, where sliding into his own was like slipping inward pleasantly; he felt like he was plucked by the hand of a god upward for a moment before he found himself in a small, featureless room. There was a single table with a diorama on it showing a hazy image of the market, the dome, and a city block past that. There wasn't any essence Vrax could see to use. Damn, I don't think I can make any changes yet.

This is amazing, though, for the sheer value it has for scouting and exploring... as hazy as it is, if this expands, I could pick out interesting-looking places to make excursions to or spy nooks that could only be seen with a god's-eye view! Vrax was pretty sure he was more excited about the scouting potential of his kingdom sanctuary than was normal, but hell if he cared. He lurched back to his body, still standing before the gently vibrating shrine of Vurune.

Vrax looked around at the few of his creations cautiously peeking at him and the new shrine.

"Hey, who wants to help me fortify the shit out of this place?"