The Jester of Apocalypse

Chapter 140: Test Dummy

Marven stood in his spirit realm. It still took the form of the golden fields he used to toil in, but it had been thoroughly wrecked by that point. Destruction spread all around him.

Unknowingly, he had almost the same thought as his companions at roughly the same time.

‘Isn’t this a little too easy?’

They hadn’t ascended to the diamond path yet due to the demigod and the emperor’s ability to track them if they did so, so they were only at the level of a Master. But that didn’t matter one bit.

The emperor archgoblin stood before him. It was eerily similar to a human. Barring its slightly green skin and pointed ears, it was impossible to tell it apart from any ordinary person. If he had met this thing in the streets, he wouldn’t have even batted an eye. He would have just thought it was a spirit beast. It was clothed in the primitive garb of its kin and held a sword high with pride. He had already slain the three other diamond-ranked threats. And this was the last one.

It glared at him with intelligent hatred in its eyes, “Preposterous,” it spat. “To have achieved this level of power… only to be forced to surrender it to another? I can not accept it.”

It raised its blade. Marven raised his in turn.

The two combatants stared at each other for a few moments. Then, they dashed.

His sword curved beneath the guard of the goblin with speed easily rivaling its own. To have closed the speed difference between the third step of the platinum and the first step of the diamond path was an unbelievable achievement. His son’s means were indeed out of this world.

But his superior physical abilities were not why he dominated the fight. The goblin moved to block the incoming strike, but then suddenly, his sword appeared from above, traveling from the exact opposite direction.

A surprised “Wha—!?” was all it could muster as the sword made a nasty gash down its torso.

“My son taught me that one,” he shared with a grin, and, with the wound he inflicted, gained the upper hand, proceeding to dominate the fight.

With a curved piercing technique, he cut through the goblin’s arm and into its torso, then kicked it right into a heavenly image of a sword descending from the sky, which pierced through its body and pinned it to the ground.

Marven took a deep breath. Then, as if the heavens themselves were stepping in, the sky morphed into a thousand images of blades like the one he held in his hands. They struck like lightning, turning the archgoblin into a pincushion and ending the fight.

As he finished his trial, having evolved all his abilities to diamond rank, he looked at the others. Nobody even appeared tired. Raised eyebrows made rounds as they all realized they weren’t alone in their confusion. Indeed. It turned out that having unquantifiable years of fighting experience and power superior to first-step-diamond-path cultivators made such a trial almost disappointingly easy.

***

Neave grinned down at them like a toddler who had just prepared a highly unpleasant surprise for his parents as he raised an eyebrow, “No problems, then?”

They shrugged. Even Gabrias hadn’t struggled. With his techniques, which allowed him to manifest qi arrows, and his movement techniques, he had probably pelted his opponents from a distance. Heavens knew that nothing he had fought was particularly fast, even at diamond rank.

He pondered their states and then asked, “Any surprising evolutions?” he asked. He was hoping that nothing of the sort would ruin their power. But he had hopefully accounted enough for such possibilities.

All of them raised a hand at that. He couldn’t hold back the sigh as he first pointed at Marven.

His father started his recount of the changes. “The Sword Saint’s Domain,” he said, “has become… Well, how do I put it? Anything that I slay within it becomes a temporary sword spirit that fights by my side.”

That was pretty neat. But it likely wouldn’t be much help in the fight against Hosolar. “Anything else?” he asked him.

“No… Not really,” Marven shrugged. “Severing Light had acquired a spinning function, but that’s about it.”

So everything was fine there. Then, he turned to Harel. “What changed with you?”

She thought for a moment. “Right about everything,” she said.

That was not pretty neat. But he reserved his judgment for when she finished sharing the details.

“Let me see,” she started. “Superior Blood Python Physique became Winged Python Physique. Withering Touch is a lot more potent, but it also has some backlash and hurts me, too, but I think it's fine, mostly. The speed power now has a burst function, and Lifeforce Syphon no longer has a limit, but there is nothing to prevent the excessive lifeforce from hurting me, either.”

He thought about it for a moment, then shrugged. “Not optimal, but you can learn to cope with it.” Then, finally unable to restrain himself from asking, he chirped. “Did you get wings!?”

She smirked, and a pair of fleshy, scaly red wings appeared behind her.

“Wooooow,” Neave clapped. “That’s so cool! Okay, next.”

Hunter was mostly spared unfortunate changes, but his Ultimate Barrier became the victim of ill luck. It became considerably more powerful, but it could only be used in the all-encompassing mode, and he could no longer move when he used it. Well, he could move, but not the barrier. It stayed wherever he put it. This wasn’t to say it was a terrible change, but the power lost much of its flexibility.

Neave sighed. “Can you at least decide who gets to move through it?”

Hunter winced and shook his head. “No. In fact, while I can move through it, anyone inside or outside the barrier can’t.”

That made him pause. “Well, couldn’t you use it to trap someone, then?”

The boy gaped briefly, cupped his chin, then reluctantly nodded. “That is technically possible, but not even I can attack the person while they’re trapped.”

Which made it pretty useless against the demigod, who was the exact person they needed to use it against.

“What about your other powers?” he asked.

“Mostly the same,” Hunter answered. “Although Black Wyvern Physique did turn into Black Dragon Physique, just as we presumed.”

“Nice,” Neave said, throwing his brother a high five.

Next up was Gabrias. It was then that they noticed how grave the man looked.

“Oh, no,” he groaned. “What went wrong?”

“Well…,” he started reluctantly. “First, the Homing Projectiles spirit power is basically gone. It diverged completely and evolved into Splitting Projectiles.”

That was… Well, it depended on how it worked, but seeing the lack of excitement in Gabrias’ expression, it probably wasn’t optimal.

He continued, “As you probably assume, My Lord, it is… not the best. It merely copies the shape of the projectile into five phantasmal replicas, but their power is limited to what the spirit power itself can recreate. But—” he said, raising a finger. “If I invest life force into it, I can recreate the projectile more accurately—naturally, the more life force, the closer the copy will be to the original.”

Well. That was depressing. Nobody expected Hosolar, a demigod heavenly messenger, to be an easy target to hit, and that was precisely why they had picked the Homing Projectiles spirit power, to begin with. Who cared how many replicas he could create if none of them hit?

Sighing, Neave asked, “Any other changes?”

“Well…”

That didn’t sound good.

“My strength-boosting power has also changed. Now, it is more effective the more injured I am.”

“Oh, come on!” he groaned. That really sucked. Gabrias was meant to stay as in one piece as possible and as far as he could go. “Does your lifeforce being low count as an injury?” he asked.

“No,” and the man denied.

“Is it at least as strong as it was at platinum-rank if you’re perfectly healthy?”

The man shook his head again. Neave was really hoping that that was it for divergences. And thankfully, Gabrias confirmed that to be the case.

Next up was Dukean, who was smirking. That definitely meant that that asshole got something good.

“What is it?” Neave asked. “Come on, spit it out.”

“Three words—Elemental Pheonix Physique.”

Everyone nodded at that.

“Let me guess,” Neave started. “You get to resurrect when you die?”

“Once a day,” he declared arrogantly. “Not only am I highly resistant to all elements, but I also resurrect in a storm of elemental energies.”

“Oh, great,” Harel said, snorting at him. “We have acquired a walking bomb as an ally.”

The others chuckled at that a bit. And then, it was time to ask the big question. “What about your… other powers.”

Indeed. His other powers had all been at gold rank.

Dukean sighed at the question. “The same as in the Nightmare Realm.”

Well, that was to be expected. His powers then evolved into Hellfire Annihilation, Supreme Metal Manipulation, Heat Syphon, Storm Manipulation, and Supreme Earth Manipulation. Only two out of five powers were anywhere close to what they were at the start. Neither of them synergized particularly well, but there was no overt interference between them, so he wouldn’t press the issue too hard.

But that didn’t mean that they were optimal. Hellfire Annihilation was too fickle and unstable, Heat Syphon could only be used through direct touch, and Storm Manipulation was… honestly? Kind of useless. Sure, he could technically strike someone with lightning, but it was about as reliable as a rain dance and a prayer. Not to mention that it had quite literally zero use underground.

The overall situation wasn’t that bad. They had some workarounds, but nobody had to start from the beginning, which was good. The main course had been served—and now, it was time for the dessert.

Neave started taking their weapons out of his dimension ring.

Indeed. This had been the thing that they were lacking while in the Nightmare Realm. High-ranked metals. Working with diamond-rank metal had been an utter pain in the ass for him, however, and he was hoping that their spirits could bear using them until they could ascend to the diamond path.

The first item he pulled out was Marven’s new sword. It was made from a red diamond-rank metal that the old man had provided himself, actually. He had a red sword in his dimension ring, but it was something he could only use outside of combat, as it required perfect focus, lest he killed himself with it.

Neave had shaped it to the best of his ability and imbued it with a standard sharpness-enhancing spirit power. Naturally, he had also treated the material through alchemy techniques. It was yet again lighter than a feather. Frankly, with Marven’s set of spirit powers, he would be surprised if there was anything that the old man couldn’t cut apart.

Next up was Harel’s spiked ball on a chain. His new one was made of a material that strikingly resembled ordinary steel but was anything but. Yet another weapon of diamond-ranked material, this one purchased from the merchant in the capital.

It yet again held a destructive power within.

Hunter’s massive sword and heavy shield were much of the same fare as his weapons back in the loop, but the roles were shifted slightly. The sword no longer had the same force-ignoring properties, but it could reflect force instead, while the shield could absorb it. It was a slight departure from his previous style but one that worked better, in everyone’s opinion.

Also, he had unfortunately been forced to make the two weapons out of platinum-ranked material instead of diamond-ranked material. Not only were two weapons with diamond ranked material way too heavy for Hunter’s spirit, but using two diamond-ranked weapons with gigantic spirits just wasn’t possible. They clashed too much and hyper-accelerated the qi flowing through them until either the weapons or their user exploded.

Gabrias received not one but seven different bows. With a dimension ring on his finger, he could swap between them at a moment’s notice, and there was no excuse not to prepare for every possibility.

The first bow, one made from a brown, sleek metal, was just really damn hard to pull and multiplied the force of every arrow shot out of it. It needed to be used with real arrows, which were also prepared. He was meant to use this when he was handed a solid opportunity.

Then, there were the death, fire, wind, ice, and metal-type bows. All manifested their own arrows and had different elemental effects. They were to be swapped and used however he wished.

And then there was the final weapon. A golden bow. This thing was terrifying to hold. Its power was quite simple—it imbued the arrow with turbulent energy. But, half of one’s current life force reserves had to be spent to even use it. Neave had tried pulling it a bit, but thankfully, he could not. It would have probably exploded if it tried absorbing half the life force he had in his body.

Then there was Dukean. His was a perfectly black sword on a chain. The power it held was practically identical to the one he used to have, as per his request. Neave had to recreate the weapon several times to get the desired effect. It didn’t take long, however. And it was just a really high-quality weapon overall—if a bit underwhelming.

They all tested their weapons for a while, admiring the intense power it provided them with. Neave, meanwhile, stared at them enviously. He’d have to use poopy mortal metals. Bleh.

Suddenly, all of them perked up. They were probably sensing something outside of the range of his senses. And it was clearly not to be ignored.

“Neave,” Marven said gravely. “We should run. Now,” he urged him.

“Is it the messenger?” he asked.

“No, but—”

“Then no problem,” he said dismissively. “It’s probably a monster, then.”

“Neave, I’m not sure you—”

“I know, old man, I know. But think about it. You all need to put your new powers to the test, right?” he asked with a massive grin on his face. “Let’s see how well you truly do in action.”

***

The first thing she had sensed were… objects. Weapons of great power. But it didn’t make much sense. For those wielding these weapons were… weak. Perhaps as strong as some of the lowly wyverns. She approached their position, curious and apprehensive.

There, she stepped out into a vast clearing in an underground cavern. Before her stood five creatures. They held those weapons with grace but were clearly on guard. Had they known that she was coming? If so, they had acute senses.

No matter. She would slay them anyway as she searched for the one who—

“Whoa, this thing is pretty powerful!” something yelled from below. There, she spotted one of these things, but in the form of a pink-maned youngling.

She swung her claws out of reflex and struck it directly in the torso. Although it could somehow speak, it was pathetically weak, even weaker than the grown ones. So weak she couldn’t sense any power from it at all. A single swing of her arm had turned its body into a gory mess and scattered it across the caverns.

Then, she blinked. And then blinked again.

That youngling that she had just killed a moment ago… it reappeared. In the literal time it took her to blink an eye. Something was wrong.

It turned to the others beside it and cupped its chin. “I think you guys should take this thing without my help,” it declared as if she weren’t even standing there. “Don’t worry, though. I’m going to step in if something goes wrong.”

Something was terribly wrong. Every instinct in her body flared up, warning her of the danger.

“By the way,” the creature spoke into her ears, suddenly appearing to her left side, and she once more swung, this time pulverizing it into a pink mist. But it reappeared to her right side in the next instant and said, “Do your best! No need to hold back!”