“Who are you?”

“I am… Sir Galloway. I am a Dragon-Knight. I am—I am Master-Tier. My strongest skill is The Sword Ascending.”

“And what have you become?”

“Your empty vessel, taken, twisted, broken. An echo of me has been brought back through Necromancy.”

“And why have you become this?”

“Because—because I slaughtered innocent villagers in a fit of rage when they used the wrong title to address me.”

“And why were you cut down? Were you cut down by the villagers?”

“No—most of them died; they had little chance against me.”

“So, why did you die?”

“Because you were there, drinking at the tavern in the village… and I did not know—Great Valor Thann. I did not know it was you. I didn’t know—”

“If you did, you would have gone to some other village, to kill some other people, for whatever foolish reason. The System wanted you to die this day, and you helped it. You chose to be unwise; you chose to be a monstrous tyrant; you chose to spit on your own valor and honor and virtue. Knight. Knight should mean something. I know the Semper Paragon of your people. He believes in these values, values beyond strength and violence.”

“I… Great Valor Thann, I am—”

“What use is an apology now? I speak to only a shadow of what was. What a waste. I will make a final use of you. Understand and take what solace you can when I spend your life, knowing it will be to kill another monster.”

“I… surrender myself to your power, Legend Valor.”

“Ha. Because you have no other choice, fool.”

-Conversation with the newly animated Sir Galloway and Legendary Pathbearer Valor Thann

65 (I)

Puppeteer

2 Minutes Prior…

The arrow impacted a few meters away from the Jealousy, and Uva materialized a second later. She had Adam bind her to the arrow and fire her off. Meanwhile, he was to go and assist Shiv in getting Valor’s arm after finding his rapier again. The Jealousy was her duty—and only hers.

The Weaveresses would ambush and bleed the remaining dragons as best they could. Meanwhile, Valor needed to regain his strength. The Necromancy used by the Legendary Pathbearer drained him greatly, leaving him diminished and barely capable of flight. When she last saw him, he was resting in the mud near the mind-broken water and fire dragons, guarded by a single Trapdoor Weaveress.

Uva stared at the unmoving Jealousy and sighed as she observed its body. The Greater Demon was entirely healed. Its mind, however, was still broken, and it would take a substantial act on her part to bind herself to its consciousness and guide its actions once more. Perhaps more power than she had left. But she needed to find a way. She had to. Shiv needed her. Weave needed this. She would not fail them. No matter the cost. No matter the price.

Uva focused her Psychomancy, and immediately, an incredible pain washed through her. She could feel the blood vessels bursting inside her skull from the effort, but still, she forced her power out. It trickled forth like water leaking from a crack in a dam, extending all too slowly toward the Jealousy’s broken mind.

“Flow,” Uva snarled, pitting her raw will against the mana strain.

Shroud of the Shapeless Mind > 91

But just a moment before she could reach the Jealousy, it all became too much. Something popped in her head, and Uva collapsed to her knees, clutching her head.

And that was all it took to spare her life. A sudden slash tore through the air above her. Then something struck the ground beside her. A shockwave blasted Uva off her feet. As she was flung into the air, she reflexively launched a pillar of ice at her attacker—only for it to shatter against the face of an approaching dragon. Its body was a mass of moving shadows, aside from two blood-red eyes and a chestpiece made of dense wood and blossoming flowers.

It drove a spear infused with Dynamancy into her chest. A blast of force crashed into the Umbral. Uva cried out, feeling her sternum break. She bounced across the ground, skipping as she momentarily lost focus. Then the dragon was on top of her, driving its spear down. She twisted her body to the side—and it was the additional bone plating that saved her this time. It adapted to the blow and allowed her to shrug the massive dagger’s tip off with all her strength. The dragon growled as its weapon sank into the earth, and Uva created a pillar of ice and smashed it across the dragon’s head.

It broke. The dragon just laughed. Then, it swatted her with the flat of its spear.

Uva cried out as something popped in her right leg, and she impacted the Jealousy—stopping dead against the hard carapace of its body. She clung to the colossal monster as the dragon came for her again, driving its blade through the Jealousy’s outer shell and barely missing Uva. Yet, the spear was lodged in place, for the Jealousy was Master-Tier in Toughness as well, and the dragon roared in frustration before releasing its spear. But it chose the wise choice far too late, for when it turned on Uva, it was just in time to take a lance of mind magic into the skull.

The dragon flinched back, clutching its head, while Uva felt an incredible cluster headache explode through her skull. Blood rained down her eyes and ears, but she seized the pain and poured it into the dragon, using a technique that Shiv used so well.

The Dragon-Knight gave a wail of agony as it collapsed. It vomited from the pain as it tried to rise, and it howled for the hurt to end. It howled for the Composer, because that was what Uva was currently doing. Their minds blurred and blended into each other, but only one of them was a Psychomancer, and only one was trained in swimming through the chaos of another’s mind.

As the dragon twitched on the ground, trying to fight through the pain, Uva managed to stop the spell. But that was all she managed to do. As she looked at the Jealousy, the world spun, and darkness crashed over her, drowning her consciousness in a wave of blackness and silence.

She came to a moment later, quivering, her body drenched in cold sweat. The dragon lay collapsed not far from her. Both of them were still on top of the Jealousy, struggling to get up. Uva hissed as she fought her way back to her feet, while the Dragon-Knight remained incoherent with pain as it clawed at its skull and sobbed from the suffering. Uva empathized. After all, a good portion of that pain was hers. She materialized spikes of ice and flung them at the dragon; they crashed against its armor and broke. She sighed and stumbled closer to the Jealousy.

“Need… you…” She muttered, speaking to the mind-dead colossus. The Jealousy didn’t respond. Uva clenched her teeth, asked the Composer for strength, and then flung every last bit of her Psychomancy mana into the Jealousy, trying to establish a new connection. Her field shivered. The beginnings of a spell formed—but broke instantly as an inhuman scream of misery left her lips.

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She didn’t even know she was capable of making such a noise. Uva crashed against the Greater Demon. Her skull swam with drifting thoughts. The dragon wasn’t sobbing so much anymore. When it recovered, it would kill her, and unless she managed to push through this, there would be nothing she could do…

Nothing…

Her Psychomancy was spent. Trying to use it at all was more likely to knock her out. But her next highest skill was Parallel-Thinking—an Adept-Tier Skill Evolution from Multi-Task. That wouldn’t be of any help. After that, she had her shortsword and her Cryomancy, but she wasn’t going to kill a Dragon-Knight with that. Not with her Initiate Physicality.

A dagger appeared in her mind. The dagger that killed her mother. If she died here, she would never find out who did it. If she died here, she would never get to set things right, never see her city again, never chide Ikki in front of the group, argue with her Sisters, never make another piece of clothing. Never… never go to another museum. Never hear another one of her goddess’s songs. Never feel Shiv’s touch—taste another of his dishes. Never listen to Adam complain about something.

Shiv. Adam. They were her team too.

They were her boys. And they were fighting dragons. Killing dragons without her. She needed to be with them. She needed—she had no choice but to become someone more.

“Please,” Uva cried, her voice hoarse from screaming. She begged the System, the Composer, anyone that could listen to give her the strength. And then she stopped. Because Uva wasn’t the begging, whimpering kind. She’d had a moment of respite. Now? Now, she dove back into the pain. She wasn’t going to let some traitorous dragon asshole finish her. Uva was either going to assimilate with the Jealousy’s power and melt into its mind once more, or she would break herself trying.

Mana flowed out from her. Incredible pain consumed her—pain beyond anything she knew, comparable only to when she strained herself past that threshold facing Harkness. She would have died then if there weren’t so many Biomancers in Passage. There weren’t going to be Biomancers here, but it didn’t matter. She just needed to live long enough to reach into the Jealousy and stun the other monsters, kill them, break at least one, and make it possible for the others to prevail.

Her mana field felt like it was tearing out of her being. It touched the Jealousy, and finally, Uva felt its broken mind. She reached into it—it was like dragging her mind over burning, jagged blades. Every push carved into her consciousness, and any other Psychomancer she knew might have broken. But she managed to push all the way through, and then a notification appeared in her vision.

But her mind went blank as something struck her hard. Uva screamed as her right leg shattered entirely. She shot high up into the air, twirling a few times before she felt the massive claws of a dragon close around her. Uva gasped and choked. The dragon squeezed, but Shiv’s adamantine plating held. She was spared from being crushed immediately, but still found herself unable to breathe.

Then, she noticed the notification, and despite everything, Uva laughed.

Her boys did it! Somehow! Those mad, Composer-blessed surfacers did it.

Quest Complete: Intercept the Outcast Dragon-Knights of the Descenders Union and their new Aviary allies before they can sell the Right Hand of Valor Thann to Compact and re-open Gate Theborn.

Select a Skill to infuse with +10 Levels

Select a Skill to Evolve to Adept-Tier

Then, a flash of electricity struck her, and she felt her armor’s Magical Resistance slightly fracture. Uva blinked and realized she wasn’t dealing with the same dragon. Instead, she was staring at a dragon that had wind-chimes hanging off of its armor. Its scales were a sky-blue color, and there looked to be the remains of a splattered Weaveress smeared across its arm.

The sight of the dead Weaveress sent a surge of cold rage through Uva, but that only helped to sharpen her focus. She looked at the offered Quest rewards again. Two things were broken inside her just then—her bones and her mind. So, she decided to change that.

Uva chose to become an Adept in Toughness, and her body suddenly changed.

Skill Evolution: Toughness (Initiate) > Blastmolt (Adept)

The dragon channeled another bolt of lightning into her. At the same time, the shadowy dragon she fought earlier rose over the current Dragon-Knight’s shoulders—and the bastard had its spear back as well. As Uva’s armor took the hit, however, something surprising happened. Her Magical Resistance cracked first, but then she felt her body rattle violently as she exploded a meter back and snapped free from the dragon’s claws. In her place, a shivering echo of her person remained in the dragon’s hands.

She realized that the echo absorbed a portion of the force that just hit her—and then it promptly exploded, surprising the wind dragon.

But then Uva was falling, and the shadow dragon went after her. She immediately put the ten levels into her Psychomancy, and a second transformation took place inside her—but she didn’t wait for the details to load before she flung her mind magic out at the wind dragon.

Skill Evolution: Shroud of the Shapeless Mind (Adept) > Puppeteer of the Formless Strings (Heroic)

Puppeteer of the Formless Strings > 101

As she cast out her power, she expected to feel pain, but there came only strength and expansion. Her mana field broke apart as her Psychomantic sense speared out toward the horizon, growing by an order of magnitude. For a moment, she thought she had destroyed her own magical skill—but instead, her magic had undergone a beautiful metamorphosis. What used to be a solid field broke into hair-thin filaments bound to her mind.

Each filament drifted through existence, brushing other entities capable of thought. The world came alight around her just then, becoming a sea of cognitive constellations. Her own mind narrowed into channels of focus, changing more than even the outside world. Uva’s very consciousness felt like a dense weave of twine. The shadow dragon surged at her. Uva shaped a spell. Strands flowed from her mind, and it was like she was manipulating the entirety of her consciousness as puppet strings. She cast her magic out, and every last string she possessed was drawn away from the world and threaded into the wind dragon.

The beast cried out as Uva pierced into their mind from over a thousand different angles. She felt her Parallel Thinking Skill activate as well as she drove her intent through multiple layers of memory and thought. So focused was she that she didn’t even notice the shadow dragon striking her.

Her right leg popped. There was pain, but Uva diverted the hurt down along her strands into the wind dragon. It promptly clutched its right leg in her stead. Meanwhile, she jolted away from her body again as an echo took part of the blow for her. It exploded, launching the shadow dragon’s spear-strike off course. She caught the shadow dragon’s eyes widening in surprise, but the bulk of her consciousness was flowing elsewhere.

“No!” the wind dragon cried. His scales flared bright as his magical absorption briefly fought her, and his Magical Resistance briefly resisted. “Get out! Get out of my—”

But Uva’s Heroic-Tier Psychomancy was a subtle thing. If the Jealousy was a titanic, hidden blade capable of piercing into someone’s mind and turning them into bombs, Uva was a forest of needles, each pulling their own thread. Nothing she did was truly hidden, but each strand of her new mana web was fine and subtle, and when gathered together, utterly overwhelming. The wind dragon’s ego was pierced through from multiple angles. It cried out once more, but she ordered it to stop with a thought.

Then, before the shadow dragon could come for her, she cast a spell she learned by harvesting the Jealousy’s memories. She transformed herself into Psychomancy mana and channeled her being across the many fibers. The shadow dragon tried to stab her, and it struck nothing but air as she parted into separate streams of translucent mana. And that was another difference she discovered between her and the Jealousy. It destroyed the hosts it occupied. Part of that was because it consumed consciousnesses, but also because its Skill Fusion was ultimately a lethal one.

Uva wouldn’t have been able to wear the Jealousy as she did if Shiv hadn’t hollowed its ego.

She, however, traded raw destructive power for more control. She wove her own ego over the wind dragon’s as he screamed inside of her. No! Let me out! Give me back—

Uva threaded a needle through the dragon’s defiant thoughts and dissolved them with a thought. Suddenly, the dragon stopped its pointless struggle. Wh—no! I… Why can’t I—

And then she stitched herself closer to its senses and bodily functions. When she manipulated the Jealousy, she directed it through mental commands and raw psionic effort. Now, she sewed herself into the dragon’s consciousness, her mana threads reweaving her ego over theirs like a tight knot. After that, what she wanted was what they wanted, and it was like putting on a finely-tailored piece of clothing.

She saw out from the eyes of the wind dragon.

“Where’d she go?” the shadow dragon called, flying over. “Do you see her?”

The entirety of Uva’s mana field was condensed within the wind dragon. She considered pulling a few threads free to strike the other dragon, but decided not to risk it. Experimentation was best done in a controlled setting. Uva decided to go with the more reliable option of making her temporary bodymurder its friend.

Source: Webnovel.com, updated by NovelKeep