Reaper(Cradle #10)(7)

This was the path for him, he decided. He would become known as a creator, a researcher. One who built.

His Path was most suited for creating weapons, which did not bother him. He never lost his admiration for those who kept the world clean, and one of the most hideous plagues in the world was the population of dreadbeasts that roamed the countryside, feeding and spewing out more of their kind.

With his weapons, he would clean the countryside.

He found an ancient labyrinth, built by the original Court of Seven before their ascension. He researched their understanding, growing in knowledge and power. And he built weapons.

To better understand his creations, he sought knowledge of death. He even created a device that would kill and revive him.

He did not realize what a catalyst that would be. As the creator of the world’s deadliest weapons, when he killed and revived himself, he instantly manifested the Death Icon.

Not what he had sought to achieve.

Ozmanthus found it now even easier to create deadly weapons. Too easy. He could create reality-warping weapons on the level of the Abidan before even ascending from the Iteration.

And with his every accomplishment, he grew more alone. No one could match his accomplishments, no one could face him in battle, and no one could understand his insights into the world beyond.

He abandoned his weapons. He focused on another of his talents: his sight. When he advanced to Monarch, he developed the bloodline ability to see.

Ozmanthus was so relieved that he wept. This was the ability that he wanted to define his legacy. And he would leave his descendants with the ability to see as he did, to one day catch up to him.

He named his House after the city he had always sought. The Arelius family should always seek greater insight.

And when he finally ascended, he left a beacon behind, a measure of his power like a black hole sealed in a transparent barrier that resembled glass. When someone appeared from his family with enough talent to join him, they would ascend with the marble, and he would know.

He expected to wait a generation, perhaps two or three.

But he was certain that very soon, House Arelius would be a dynasty that spread to the heavens themselves.



Record complete.





Lindon shouted Northstrider’s name into the sky. He begged, he pleaded, he bargained, and he even threatened. Politely.

The Monarch never responded.

Without his help, Lindon’s chances of repairing Dross fell significantly. But Lindon could try again. Until Dross awakened, he had time to research.

In the meantime, he brought Yerin to the Sword Sage’s void space.

Lindon had expected Yerin to follow him out of curiosity, but the more he hinted that he had something to show her, the more reluctant she became. He dropped several hints, expecting her to sprint ahead of him. Instead, the more she learned, the slower her feet moved.

It was as though she dreaded finding something her master left behind.

Lindon marched into the half-destroyed Tomb, a chunk of its roof caved in and one of its pillars cracked. He had to pick his way around pieces of debris that looked like they had been deposited here by a hurricane.

Yerin paused at the entrance, at the top of the stairs where she had once fought her master’s Remnant. The cold wind grabbed the lock of red hair over her eyes, which she hadn’t had all that time ago.

“Is this gonna kill me if I don’t see it?” she asked.

Lindon stopped. He moved back to her, gently placing his hand on her arm.

She didn’t tremble, but her spirit did.

“We don’t have to do this now,” he said. “We can come back later.”

“It’s not his…body, is it?”

This was the first time he had seen her hesitate over a dead body. Even when she’d removed her master’s sword from his corpse, she hadn’t seemed disturbed.

Then again, he hadn’t known her well back then.

He hurried to reassure her. “It’s not. It’s just some things he left behind.” Lindon had waited to tell her exactly what he found because he had expected her to be eager to see for herself, but he had been wrong.

“Do you want me to tell you first?”

Yerin squared her shoulders. “Nothing to be scared of, is there? He didn’t leave a Dreadgod tucked away.”

Lindon thought of a shriveled, gray-white mummified hand and hesitated to respond. Yerin saw that.

“Bleed and bury me, if he really—”

“No, no, nothing threatening. But there’s no hurry either.”

“Doubt either one of us wants to come back into this script longer than we have to. Let’s do what we’re going to do and be gone.” The suppression field hung heavy on them both, and it hadn’t been long since they’d escaped it the first time.

Lindon searched her face, but took her at her word. He focused his will on a barely-sensed indentation in space at the back of the room.

Then, using a finger of Blackflame madra as a medium, he cut through it.

“Open,” Lindon commanded.

The Sword Sage’s private void space expanded in front of them. They looked through a rift into a large room filled with collected treasures.

Most of the collection seemed to be organized in sections—refining equipment here, training area there—but you could find artwork and swords anywhere. Landscape paintings hung over a rack of nicked wooden swords, while a dancing sculpture of light fluttered beside an Overlord-level sword of condensed venom madra.