Hisako charges towards me while screaming, I can see faint flames around the edges of her weapon and the air is distorting around her blade.
*Shit, this kind of look menacing!*
The blade reaches my torso before I can react, and… Nothing happens.
Her strike just bounced off my shield!
I laugh as she strikes me again, this time a casing flies off my Glove. I raise an eyebrow when she jumps back and press a button on the handle of the sword. The now inert Power Stone is ejected and she quickly replaces it with a new yellow one. This time electricity runs around the weapon's edge.
*A sword with freely interchangeable elements… I want it!*
Of course, I only want it because it could be useful if I could reverse-engineer it. Not because it's fucking cool… not at all.
Change of plan; I'm also going to steal Hisako's sword.
But I can't just shoot her, since she might try to parry with her blade, and it could damage it. I also can't teleport her away. So I have to knock her out…
The encounter with the ghost flashes in front of my eyes; this is the perfect opportunity to test the might of my fists!
Another attack bounces off my shield, and I try to strike her. She easily avoids my slow punches and stabs me again, but the blade fails to pierce my shield.
She jumps back and ejects the spent Power Stone as the same time that a casing is ejected from my Shield Glove.
I cup my chin; it looks like this blade can regulate how much it drains from the Stone… But it's reassuring to know that she can't do shit even at full power.
Another stab fails to damage me, and I graze her cheek with my fist. I'm getting better, and I think I could hit her if we continue to-
A blast of electricity deviate my strike and I miss Hisako's head. I glare at Riko who's kneeling next to a large sheet of paper while waving a long rod around.
This girl is annoying; I need to get rid of her.
I walk towards her, completely unfazed by Hisako's increasingly desperate strikes, and finally arrive in front of the rabbit-eared girl who's fumbling with a bag filled with Power Stones. I kick the bag away and she gasps. Then Riko focuses on me and tears start to form at the corner of her eyes.
"Get out." I say before teleporting her in front of Hisako's house.
Riko's sudden disappearance causes Hisako to go completely berserk, and she strikes me like a fucking savage, not even bothering with her Power Stones anymore.
Her movements are a lot easier to read now, so I shift my body weight to the side and… lightly tap her head.
Uhh… it looks like my punches are a bit shit.
So how on Earth did I kill that ghost?!
But I focus my thoughts on the current fight. I'll have plenty of time later to analyze what happened back then.
I take another stance, and this time put my full weight behind my punch. It shouldn't do much since Hisako's body is way harder than mine, but-
My shield groans and she's catapulted straight through the door. I look at my hand in disbelief and barely register the casing ejecting out of my Glove.
It looks like my punch was too weak, so I would have actually hurt myself by punching her. This caused my shield to materialize in that tiny amount of space to protect my hand, and the expanding barrier sent Hisako flying.
*I…All right, fuck it. Shield punching is a thing now.*
I go check on Hisako, and to my utmost relief her sword isn't damaged. I carefully handle the precious weapon while kicking her unconscious body away and teleport the weapon to the clearing.
My attention is focused on Riko's scroll and her sack of Stones. I teleport the bag and take a few pictures of the paper, I can't bring it back since it probably wouldn't survive the pressure washing. I then enter the back of the throne room and arrive in a large and lavishly decorated room.
*Yeah, there's no mistaking it. This is Snaga's room.*
I find the artifacts I was looking for lying on a desk, so I promptly teleport them. I also check every drawers and closets, but I don't find anything other than a few large bags filled with coins that I teleport to the clearing.
*Well, it looks like I looted everything I could, so let's head back to the clearing before that old bastard comes back.*
A portal appears under my feet and I arrive in the clearing filled with everything I plundered from the village. My first course of action is to locate the blacksmith's handbook and taking a picture of each page since washing the small bound volume would destroy it.
I then pour almost all the disinfectant in the pressure washer and turn the machine on. The rumble of the engine is the only thing I can hear as I generously spray every single inch of my loot to make sure that no alien germs are transferred to Earth. Of course, I pay close attention to my lifeforce detector since the engine makes me unable to hear any potential hidden creatures that may be approaching.
The first device to be transferred into its new room in my mansion is the Infusion Altar, it's closely followed by the Distillery and the jars are the last thing to go through. Miscellaneous items like Power Stones and coins are quickly taken care of and join the ranks of the rest of the plunder.
I then empty a couple of bottles of disinfectant on the pressure washer and scrub it with disinfectant soaked brushes before transferring the cleaned machine back to my mansion. A quick survey of the clearing shows that the disinfectant may have had an adverse effect on the blue grass since grass that has been touched by the clear liquid has taken on a sickly yellow hue.
I shrug and turn around, minor damages to the local ecosystem weren't my problem, and how bad could a few dead patches of grass could be?
My attention is instead focused on my next course of action: I don't know where the United Clans' capital is, and the Elder said that the Clan with the reserve of Starmetal was at their southwest. So it makes sense to visit them first; if I'm lucky they may have a map that would make my search for the capital easier.
I glance at my phone and turn towards the southwest; I don't know how far this Clan is so the journey could take a long time.
…Alice's PoV…
"Ma'am, our scryers report that the Scalebound are gearing up for war, it looks like they didn't get the message with the last raid. Some members of our faction also report raids on their facilities, and the attackers are all linked to the Scalebound in one way or another." the lanky Werewolf reports.
I nod before looking through my window, everything that could have gone wrong, has gone wrong. The Scalebound were supposed to deescalate the conflict after our show of force, but it had the adverse effect. The raids on our allies have doubled, and our allies keep calling for war. It won't be long before I have to accept their demand lest our faction shatters and every Family in the Council goes after one another.
Some supposed neutral Families already offered to supply armament and supplies, of course at a hefty price and out of any official records.
*Damn profiteering bastards, I bet they made the same offer to the Scalebound…*
War seems inevitable, but I have to do my best to stop the conflict from becoming active. Those who call for war are blinded by outrage and seem to have forgotten about the destruction that modern warfare can bring.
I saw it with my own eyes when that group of necromancers who took my husband's life rebelled against us. Hundreds of trained mages and warriors died with a single spell, it got so bad that advancing on the enemies' positions was no longer measured on how many spells we had to use but on how many lives it required. It was beyond anything I've ever seen… All of this resulted in an insane death toll that compromised our Family for a long time, we even lost a few weaker and smaller Families in that damn war.
My hands shake when I remember the mass graves filled with corpses of people I considered friends and family… And that was only against a poorly equipped rebellion! I can't even begin to imagine what a conflict between two powerful Enforcer Families with state of the art magic can do.
I know what will happen: When the two sides inevitably get entrenched in their positions and gaining even an inch of ground will mean losing hundreds of warriors, will these arrogant bastards realize that this conflict is pointless and stop this madness?
Of course not.
Instead, they will just throw more men at the problem, and it will be too late when they realize that they barely have any soldiers left and are forced to conscript their population. This will cause revolts and even more destruction, and if they're lucky then they might steal a city block from another Family for all these efforts.
This pointless war will weaken us beyond belief, and gangs will have free reign to do as they please. Not to mention that neighboring Councils might make a move to expand their territories, and it will only result in more bloodshed.
But there might be an alternative solution… It's one I despise, but it's the only way I can think of that may prevent large scale destruction. We need to strike the Scalebound in a massive assault before they finish gathering their troops properly. It will cost a lot of manpower, but it's the best strategy I can think of.
Of course, a sudden mass assault will leave our territory undefended, so we have to get rid of all the potential troublemakers with the maximum penalty to ensure stability.
This will only help cement our reputation as bloodthirsty tyrants, but I have no choice.
I turn towards the kneeling Werewolf and take a deep breath, condemning thousands of people to death isn't an easy decision.
"Listen, tell our allies to prepare for total war and purge our territory. We will assault all the Scalebound facilities as soon as the purge ends." I finally say with a hoarse voice.
The Werewolf opens his eyes in surprise, but his expression turns grave and he nods. "Yes Ma'am, your wish is my command." he says before leaving my office with heavy steps.
I take a deep breath and lean back; I just hope that my children will survive this ordeal.
…??? PoV…
"Sir, Sir!" an excited Devil holding a piece of yellowing paper rushes towards me.
I raise an eyebrow, "What got you so excited?"
He clenches his fists, "Sir, we finally located the Relic!"
I drop my teacup and take a deep breath. "Are you absolutely sure about that?"
The Devil nods, "Yes, this record says without a doubt that the Relic is in possession of the Scalebound Family."
I cup my chin, according to our intelligence the Scalebound are one of the biggest local powers. They will be though to deal with, even if they are on the eve of war because of our covert actions.
"All right," I say before using my Telekinesis to float the pieces of the broken teacup into the trashcan. "Recall all our operatives; we'll assault the Scalebound as soon as they attack the Wolfheart. According to our reports it should only take a few days so tell them to be ready to be deployed as soon as possible."
"Yes Sir!" he says before running out of my room, a deserted office in an abandoned warehouse we are currently using as a base of operation.
A brand new teacup floats in my hand and I refill it with trembling hands.
Our objective is finally in our grasp, and nobody can stop us…
…John's PoV…
I may have underestimated the size of the Clan's territories, I've been teleporting for an hour and I still didn't find anything. Going through repeated empty grasslands became quite frustrating, so I teleported back into my mansion for some well deserved recreation.
I retract my armor into its shirt form and take a deep breath of unfiltered air. It's good to be home again, especially after my robbery-related shenanigans. I sit on the nearest sofa and take a look at the pictures of the smith's handbook.
It's a pretty interesting read; it describes the elements as well as their symbols and even gives some example of items that contains them. The grammar is a bit rough, but I think it's caused by the translator that still has trouble deciphering their written language.
I'm not one for wasting time, so I memorized the contents of the book in five seconds of 'real' time. Of course, the time it actually took me was closer to four hours.
All of this was interesting; now let's check the artifacts out.
I grab the plate that used to summon the Spirit and inspect it carefully, I'm surprised to see that its craftsmanship is remarkable, and doesn't seem like anything the Clan could come up with.
*Maybe those guys weren't from the Clans, but outside? I should check them out when I have the time, their technology could be very interesting to study or 'borrow' if they can summon a Spirit.*
I scan the finer details of the folding plate, and notice that the symbols for different elements are engraved in each socket. I then check out one of the weirdly shaped iron disk that were next to the plate and realize that the holes containing Power Stones line up perfectly with the sockets on the plate.
*So it's like a speed loader, but for Power Stones? That's pretty clever, and it looks to be miles better than Riko's sack of loose Stones.*
I then focus on the collapsible baton, and I'm surprised by the amount of fine Power Stones embedded along its intricate golden circuitry.
From what I can tell, they use this thing to control the Formations. However, I don't have a clue as how it actually works.
*A lot of stuff to figure out later… But I wonder what I could do if I could combine runes and Formations.
A certain greedy Goblin comes to my mind; I may dislike his prices, but I can't deny that Krognar is an incredible craftsman. Maybe I could pay him to reverse-engineer the Formations and make them more usable?*
I shake my head, I will think about the idea later. My finances still haven't recovered from my recent purchases, and I have more pressing matters to attend to. And giving access to something with high destructive potential like the Formations to a shady vendor hiding in the Underworld doesn't really seem like a good idea.
It wouldn't be funny if gangs suddenly gained access to Spirits to do their bidding.
I stretch and head into the Altar's room, I turn on the light and pick up a rock before grabbing a random jar. I pour a bit of the blue liquid, according to my memory it's the essence of water. I then tap the cube with the rod next to the pillar and the cube rumbles. The liquid is quickly infused into the rock that gain a faint blue hue.
*The color isn't as intense as the Stones I saw before…*
It's time for an experiment!
I place the freshly infused stone on the central pedestal again and pour more blue liquid into a side pedestal before activating the Altar. The essence of water quickly enters the stone and it turns bright blue.
*Interesting, it looks like I can infuse essence even if the Stone was already infused.*
Now, I grab another jar, this time a jar of yellow and sticky liquid. This is supposed to be the essence of air, so I pour a little bit on another pedestal and infuse the blue Power Stone. The liquid enters the Stone, and faint yellow swirls appear on its surface.
Looks like multiple elements are possible; I wonder if…
An hour passed before I even realized it, but it wasn't wasted at all and I learned valuable information. First of all, there isn't a limit on how many elements you can infuse in one Stone. But the order of infusion is important since infusing two opposite elements in a row results in… an explosive outcome.
Infusing opposite elements also requires a lot of precision since the quantity of each opposing element much be the same, otherwise the Stone becomes instable and explode.
Interestingly enough, the explosive power of the Stone seems to scale with the number of elements.
Learning to make the Power Stones is one thing, but it won't matter if I can't use the Formations. I inspect the Spirit summoning Formation and frown; using this for a test seems like a bad idea, who knows how much Mana this thing could be radiating.
But I do happen to have a way to prevent disasters like that. I check on the phone strapped to my arm and grab one of the large iron speed loader along with the Formation and the collapsible rod before heading to my backyard.
The crater near my house makes me shudder since it awakes unpleasant memories, but I bury them as deep as I can and head towards a more intact area.
I sit down and load the new set of Spirit Stones before extending the rod and waving it above the Formation.
My idiotic gestures come to an end after ten long minutes of failed experiments, I throw the rod away in frustration and-
A torrent of blue sparks suddenly erupts from the metallic plate, and the electricity quickly shapes itself in the form of the Spirit that had attacked me. The electrical shape quickly loses its transparency and soon becomes a creature of flesh and blood, or at least it looks a lot like one.
The creature doesn't move an inch as I slowly approach the rod I carelessly threw away. I finally pick up the instrument and images from the Spirit's point of view flood my brain, the superposition of my own vision with the Spirit's causes my head to hurt. I close my eyes in a panicked attempt to calm the pain, and it somehow works. Now, the only thing I can see is what the Spirit is seeing.
This is a problem; I thought I could use the Spirit as an independent distraction but this method of controls doesn't allow for that.
The creature certainly reacts to the rods movement, but I can't figure out how to move it properly.
It looks like I'll need to study it in more details if I want to use it, but it doesn't seem like it will be worth investing time into it, at least in its current form.
I tap the button in my palm to Rewind to before the activation of the Formation, that way I avoid wasting Power Stones and I don't take the risk of alerting anyone with the potential mana burst caused by the pseudo-Spirit's activation.
*Now, what should I do? Maybe I could experiment with spatial storage, and see if I-*
A notification from my phone interrupts my thoughts, and I'm surprised to see that it's from Riley.
Weird, I thought his mom forbade him from contacting me. Maybe the situation changed or-
The content of the message makes my jaw drop.
*Hey dude, sorry for not replying to your texts but my mom had her hounds set on me to make sure I didn't contact you again. However, she probably ended her surveillance now, considering the situation… But let's get straight to the point. My mom is going to attack the Scalebound compound in four days, and she ordered to purge anyone suspicious enough on her territory.
I know you have your grievances with my mother, and I can understand that she did some terrible things to you… But now isn't the right time to act out.
So please, do your best to not stand out or oppose her. Otherwise, she won't hesitate to unleash the full might of the Wolfheart Family on you. And if she does then Steve and I won't be able to stop her.*
I close the message and sit on the grass while looking at the sky. They will probably ignore my barrier since they didn't attempt anything after I activated it, but what worries me is my modified Scanner. They shouldn't know that I have it but who knows what kind of detection spell the Wolfheart have at their disposition. And Krognar did warn me that possessing the Scanner could get me in deep troubles in certain places.
So I really, really hope Earth isn't one of those places.