Chapter 95: Sidetracked

Arson’s heart hurt in a way that he hadn’t ever experienced while being in Maelstrom.

Who would do this to a Realm whose society is based primarily in trade and service?

Arson jogged toward the scar in the land that wrapped around Maelstrom's outer shell. The road along the way was filled with people in need, and Arson helped the more obvious cases the best he could with his limited power.

A woman unable to get down from her apartment window was brought to the street below by Jill. Jane on the move to clear yet another doorway, even Arson was unaware of how the construct knew which buildings had people in them.

Maybe connected to my dominion. I wonder if my Living Constructs are just naturally connected to all of my abilities?

Arson assumed he’d never see upgrades to the constructs he made in his childhood, but when they’d started to change, almost in the subtlest of ways like his Gestalt forms, he began to wonder.

The video of himself fighting Moriarty confused Arson, Reaper was capable of maneuvers Arson had only been able to accomplish with far more mana than he currently had access to.

Even as Arson rolled a health potion to a woman crying over a barely breathing man, he focused more on the skills used, how they were used, and not the small group of people collecting behind him.

He specifically liked the mana lightning, wondering how to recreate it, experimenting with a lifted hand as he jogged. Jill and Jane continued to work, and Arson finally made it to the edge, a plummet of thousands of feet only a few yards away.

Arson drew Sky from his spacial inventory and a chime like a rung bell emanated from the weapon before a notification popped up.

*I’m Alive. Pt1: As a living weapon Sky must grow as you grow. She has decided for herself to follow a hybrid diet of energies, raw talent, and rare materials. Gather 1 rare material, allow for Sky to taste 1 foreign energy, defeat 100 enemies with the use of Sky unassisted.*

Arson frowned at the notification. It lacked many key details, and had been somehow framed like a quest, yet he had no option to decline. The words I’m Alive Pt1 situating themselves at the top of his to-do list.

He looked at the weapon and sighed. Then he lifted it above his head and squeezed the handle. Sky’s blade spinning faster and faster. Not to the point that a tornado was created, not that Arson believed he could currently manage it, but enough to potentially slow his descent.

“Nothing like diving in to get a taste test,” said Arson looking up at the weapon and down into the massive trench in front of him. It was then that he turned around, standing at the edge of potential oblivion, that he saw a group of people cheering. The crowd starting to clap to Arson’s confusion, and since he didn’t know why he was being praised in such a manner, he fled.

A skillful backflip and Arson found himself descending into what he thought would be pure anarchy and chaos below, only to see a largely different picture from his new vantage. There was of course robbing and looting. A growing criminal element, and even an uncontrolled inferno being used as a power source.

Yet Arson also saw many people helping one another. The sight made him think of Troy and how willing she’d be to help these people. His thoughts a piggybank of unorganized details all valuable in their own right.

I wanted to come search for you today, my love. Bring you home and have you help me with this silly Coliseum, but duty calls…

Arson felt obligated to fix his home. Help those above and below ground.

The Under-city hadn’t been a thought in his mind since he was small, but seeing it now, even more neglected and forgotten, filled him with the same sense of responsibility he felt with each section of the dump that was cleaned, or junkyard cleared.

The city above had been reunited through a manmade cataclysm with the Lost and Living Artifact that was truly a place once known as Vivarium. A citadel for lost Cultivators, the legacy of a motherland of orphaned gods known across realms and time.

Not even Arson was aware of its majesty, none alive in the realm did. What Arson was aware of, was the screams that drew his eyes toward a section of land below, cluttered with several still intact buildings. Not only were these buildings filled with particularly valuable goods causing them to be assaulted on many sides by groups from above and below ground, Arson saw a black set of misshapen creatures emerging from the darkness.

Only a few at first, a man dragged into a dark alley was feasted upon by the group. Then it was as if the sight triggered his perception to track more of the same details, more and more demons noticed by the breath as he dove.

It can’t be, a plague here in our city, we would have noticed by now, right?

Arson’s thoughts raced and he forced himself to cut the trickle of mana he poured into his weapon, stopping its spin completely. Then he dove toward the section of buildings he’d seen from above, swooping into a broken window near the top of the stack of structures.

Once inside, he triggered Sky once more, using just enough mana to hover in place close to where he’d entered. His brow rose at the sight his eyes took in. The interior of the building completely open, the only walls were those Arson could see separating what he guessed may be either laboratories or presentation rooms.

Many of the men and woman within the interior wore either lab coats, and fought for their lives against a growing horde of rotting creatures and the plethora of raiders that had swarmed the area, or security guard uniforms, far less discriminate in their choice of target.

Arson would have assumed the obvious researchers would have been less tactful and feeling the duress of shock and adrenaline, but no, it was the guards that panicked to the point of unnecessary violence and friendly fire.

All of the traversable space lined the exterior of the building, each floor like a stair, viewable all the way down. A spiral escalator was accessible going both up and down from floor to floor that lined the interior portion of the Skyscraper. Arson’s architectural mind could imagine how dazzlingly intricate the design of the interior of the building must have been, but much of it was ablaze now, entire sections of the interior dislodged from the frame completely shifting the look of what had been there.

Arson analyzed the situation, watching those trying to escape begin to lose the fight to escape, even though most fought with the high ground. Not wanting to waste time, he sent Moriarty a message through his Overlay, and moved toward the highest available landing point.

Arson: Have you finished building the bridge across the scar?

Arson aimed for a group of charging creatures, his weapon hand raised and pointed toward the group. He triggered the fan, and was pulled downward with a jerk of motion, and a burst of speed.

Arson collided with the group of demons with a boom as his weapon tore through most of the creatures with ease, his hand slamming into the ground with a punch. A crack left in the stone floor.

Arson spun, swinging Sky in a wide arc, with a cleave that easily sliced the rest of the nearby demons in half. Arson watched the counter in his vision tick up to 13 and smiled to himself.

Well, the raw talent portion of the task shouldn’t be too hard if all I must do is use my weapon to my best ability.

He sped passed a guard whom he’d noticed had been aiming her weapon at him since he landed. A mana pistol in her hand warmed and ready.

“Don’t you come near me!” She screamed when Arson got within range, closed her eyes and started to fire. Arson grumbled as he was forced to dodge not knowing what mixtures of energies could be fired from the gun. Which gave him an idea.

Arson didn’t trust that he wouldn’t get some sort of odd quest or trial the moment he began to use mana fully, but what about his weapons and constructs, he was unsure still, and knew they may be good conduits for his skills as long as the system didn’t notice his actions.

Jill and Jane rose from his shoulders, both charging conductive water orbs as they moved alongside him.

He didn’t have an immensely high regeneration currently, but it was high enough that allowing the constructs a steady flow of mana was still viable while he used Sky to combat foes at closer ranges.

The scared guard continued to fire blindly. At first he fully intended to avoid her entirely, but he’d also assumed she’d run out of mana by that point, and knew anyone could get off a lucky shot.

With my luck she’d end up shooting my achilles tendon off my body, or my ear off the side of my face…

Having no other choice, he slayed the demon that had been approaching the woman from behind, and turned back to her.

“Stop shooting at me or I’ll start shooting back,” Arson said to her. Sky spinning in front of him, upheld to block more of the incoming shots.

His weapon drank in the energy from the mana based projectile and after the seventh shot absorbed, the task to let Sky taste test new energies was competed, 1/1, shown on the list.

Arson was tempted to shoot the woman, but didn’t for two reasons. The first being, that he felt she was hysterically firing at anything that moved, which he found strange for anyone who was trained to guard and protect.

Most companies or organizations within Maelstrom had long ago adopted the harshest of hiring practices, and Arson knew that with the level of tech he’d seen on entry, whoever owned this building most likely wasn’t an exception.

While the second reason was his glance at Jill. The construct floating just above his shoulder was aimed in threat toward the woman firing at him. A conductive water Orb growing in power in its palm, with a storm at its center, and tendrils of power lashing about in every direction like a miniature sun filled with the fury of the sky itself. Additionally, there was the ring of crackling power that rotated violently around the constructs armored wrist that looked identical to the power that reaper had used.

Is that sparking mana lightning…?

The dark laughter he heard before Jill fired made Arson’s stomach drop. He slowed his perception as much as he could, the largely unused ability allowed him to see the conductive water orb around a meter away from where it had been fired. Arson moved.

Diving toward the orb with an overhead slash from Sky. His downward slice splitting the orb in half, and the blade of his weapon drinking in the the energy in slow motion, before Arson sighed in relief.

Only for him to be sent hurtling off his feet by the secondary ring of mana lightning that followed the orb of chaos that was the upgraded conductive water orb.

The ring struck him hard enough to knock his weapon from his hand. His entire mana system reset by the energy that surged through him. His heart stopping in the same instant that his vision went black. Arson convulsed through the air as his watch began to ring with a Holo-call from Moriarty. His watch ringing while he fell.

Even as he flew through the air, alarm bells flared to life in his mind. Not because of his current predicament, but because he knew he hadn’t made Jill fire. The thought consuming his mind as he fell unconscious.

“Hello, you’ve reached the assistant of Sovereign Arson Omni, how may I help you?” asked Anastasia from his wrist after answering Moriarty’s call.

“Umm hello, I’m trying to get in contact with Arson, he isn’t answering my messages. I’ve completed the bridge that he requested. It's simple and won’t last forever but it—“

“I will make sure he knows that you are reaching out as soon as possible. Was that all?” Arson’s body continued to spiral downward, his path sending him clear through the air and over the edge of the area he’d landed earlier. Jill soared after Arson, while Jane fired the orb of power that remained.

“Is there a time frame I should wait before I call back?” The orb pierced the sky, streaking passed Arson’s body; the shot angled perfectly in a way that allowed the secondary Ring to flow around Arson. The conductive water orb’s secondary attack apparently expanded the farther it traveled. The large halo gnashing the surrounding air as it pushed to catch the orb in front of it.

“No, he’s rather busy at the moment, but as I said I can take a message?” The orb struck the ground and an implosion occurred below Arson at the orb’s impact point. Demons sucked toward the area from all around, ripped from the feast of bodies inside the building they now inhabited.

"Mmm hmm... call Moriarty, bridge is completed, want to know what to do next, or where to meet up... okay, I think I got that jotted down perfectly, anything else?” Bodies of demons smashed into one another by the dozen, a blink before the ring of mana lightning rippled through the group of gathered creatures turning the mana that gave them the life to move, into the power that turned everything below Arson’s descending form, into ash and bones.

“No, I guess not, I’ll just wait and work on improving the bridge, please don’t forget to pass on my mess—“

“Okay bye!”

Arson collided with the ground, a plume of ash and dust created on impact. Jill and Jane were both too late to grab the young man, the pair both barrel-rolling to avoid an additional collision. Sky landed blade first not far from Arson’s own head.

The sounds of demons scratching and growling grew as more entered the area, Jill and Jane already orbiting around Arson defensively.

“Hey, brat, wake up!” More of the demonic creatures could be seen approaching by the breath, Anastasia’s warnings growing more frantic.

“Oye, if you get eaten, I’ll detonate and kill everyone you love!” Jill and Jane started to summon conductive water orbs, firing rapid fire, none as powerful as the two the constructs had just used. The far more simplified versions of the attack enough to scatter the few demons brave enough to charge in.

“Okay, you want to play, I’ll play!” A charge similar to the deep rainbow of colors that Arson’s Mana Lightning used, charged in the borders within the face of Arson’s watch.

“You were warned,” said Anastasia, cackling as she pushed an unknown amount of volatile and foreign manas into Arson’s body.

All the muscles in the young man’s frame tightened and restricted, and his eyes shot open as he lurched upright.

“What in all of the Maiden’s realms,” yelled Arson as he gasped for breath. His chest heaving at the energies running through his veins like adrenaline fused with liquid lightning.

Arson looked around frantically for whatever or whoever had attacked him, only to realize he must have fallen unconscious at some point. Unaware of the how and when of his current situation.

A thought filling his mind as he saw both Jill and Jane firing at creatures all around himself.

“Am I losing control?”

The fear of what could be happening to him filled him with dread, as any loss of his will or sanity was Arson’s only real fears beside the loss of his loved ones.

“Umm, I don’t know…” started Anastasia, completely aware of what was happening within Arson’s body. Not that she would tell him, as it wasn’t life threatening.

“But I do have a message for you,” said Anastasia with a smile as Arson rose to his feet and raised his watch to receive whatever message she had for him.

“What did I miss,” said Arson with a sigh, his AI’s response making him roll his eyes.

“Bridge is done!”