Chapter 92 - Churning Reality

Chapter 92

Churning Reality

By the time Elijah and Delilah woke up, the gory scene had long since vanished, absorbed by the strange, obsidian tiles beneath their feet. The two kids were rather sullen and dejected, a sense of shame permeating their yet-to-develop-fully hearts. Ethan, naturally, paid it no mind; it wasn’t all that strange that they’d be unable to endure the horrors, as there was neither a man nor a woman in the world who did or would.

It was a rite of passage of sorts; so long as they experienced it all a few more times, they’d get adjusted to it. That was the ultimate power of a human–ability to adapt to virtually anything and everything, no matter how mind-bending it might be.

Nonetheless, it took a while for their pale faces to regain some of the rosy complexion, and for the stirred hearts to calm. In the meantime, Ethan stared queerly at the epic-ranked item that he had been given as a reward: it was a small, palm-sized brush, not even an inch wide, with only a few, scattered hairs remaining. The wood it was made of seemed to have been burnt, and it appeared aged and rotting.

At a first glance, it truly looked like an old painting brush that had long since ceased delivering its purpose. However, the description of the item begged to differ.

[Hallowed Canvas]

Rarity: Epic

Level: 0

Uses: 1/1

Special Effect: imagine an occurrence, and paint upon the canvas that is the world. Results vary upon a lot of things.

Fiddling with the brush, Ethan pondered deeply–there were plenty of strange items such as this scattered about both the world and especially the Interdimensional Market. Their descriptions and uses were vague, and oftentimes promised some rather… hopeful things. However, by and large, they were just a gimmick–effectively a toy for children, at best. All the same, most, if not all of them, were of Common and Rare ranks. Few ever passed it, and those that did, delivered some of what they promised in the description.

Ethan, however, didn’t have a lot of hope for the item–for starters, those that did do something weren’t nearly as vague as the Hallowed Canvas. Furthermore, they all had stated Levels that roughly outlined their power. The brush in his hands, though, had none of those things. It was as vague as any random Common-ranked trinket promising to strip the sky of the stars, and its Level was 0. Perhaps, in a way, that was a point of contention–Ethan had never come across another item like it that was Level 0. It meant one of two things: its strength was beyond abysmal… or it was entirely dependent on who used it.

All Level 0 items, be they trinkets or weapons or armours, fell in either of those two ranks: they were just ‘fashion’, effectively, or were simply very loose tools that are both worthless in the hands of those who knew not how to control them, or extremely potent in the hands of those who did. As for the brush… Ethan didn’t know. Furthermore, the item only had one use, so he couldn’t even experiment with it. Even attempting to consider it as some sort of a life-saving treasure was more than just suicidal–it was stupid. Even if, by some miracle, it was precisely that, Ethan was never the type to bank on luck.

In the end, it just became a one-time use tool that he might toss out when at a temporary loss as to what to do.

“Delilah,” he suddenly called out the young girl.

“Y-yes?” she hurriedly shuffled over.

“Do you think you can build a portal here?” Ethan quizzed.

“Here? Uh… I think so. Why?”

“I’m thinking that, one day in the future, once we’ve gotten stronger, we can take the portal back here and reap the rest of the rewards.” Ethan’s words shook both of the kids. “I don’t know if it’s gonna work. The ‘system’, if you want to call it, isn’t exactly known for its willingness to be exploited. But, you know, worth a shot, right?”

“O-of course! I’ll get right on it!” she exclaimed but Ethan quickly dimmed her spirits.

“We can’t just build it on the ground. Though those things are stupid, given enough time, at least one or two are bound to accidentally stumble through the portal. Elijah and I will carve out a platform on a nearby cliff and you can build it there.”

“... we are?” corners of Elijah’s mouth twitched as he glanced back at the toppling cliff behind them. A certain fear arose within him, though he quickly suppressed it. As though reading his mind, Ethan looked at him oddly for a moment before replying.

“You can just boost me from the ground.”

“... that’d be lovely.”

As they didn’t exactly have to be precise, Ethan simply roughly cleaved out stone and rock from the cliff and created a platform roughly a sixty feet into the air. All he could hope at that point was that there were no flying foes that would wander out of the arena and into the portal. But even if there were, he already planned to have some contingencies on the other side that would give him ample warning that something had happened.

After finishing, rather than returning immediately, he decided to rest for a few hours, having a quick lunch and looking through his status window as well as his abilities, a lot of which have levelled up. Nominally, Crimson Blade reached level 3, increasing damage and range, as did Sanguine Snap. A slew of his passive abilities reached Level 2, increasing the potency of his combat ability further. It was just a first step, but levelling abilities up was even harder than levelling up in general, making him rather happy.

His stats, too, were rather drool-inducing. Even now he had trouble reconciling what he was seeing on the screen with what he predicted his journey to be. After all, the differences were far too stark, even for him.

Name: Ethan Flynn

Age: 32

Race: Human

Level: 33

Variant: N/A

Titles: Explorer, Worldhunter, Arbitrator, Trendsetter, Savanna Hunter, Lion Tamer, Enduring Tapestry, Untamed, Child of Sun, Emperor Slayer, Desert Wanderer, Challenger, Near-Death, The Holy Guardian, Chaos Sower, Willow Snapper, Undying, Survivor

Items: [Tar-Tipped Waeul’s Dagger], [Elegance], [Life-infused Medallion], [Winterwoven Gauntlets], [Willow’s Embrace], [Q’uilon, the Last Breath], [Hallowed Canvas]

Relics: N/A

Class: Blood Inheritor [Prime]

_________________________

Vitality: 186

Strength: 80

Intellect: 19

Agility: 47

Wisdom: 5

Health: 1860

Blood Pool: 21

Damage: 421

Cooldown Reduction: 10% (temp)

Physical Defence: 0 [Reduces physical damage intake by the amount]

Magical Defence: 10 [Reduces magical damage intake by the amount]

____________________________

Abilities:

Core:

Hemomancy, Crimson Rain, Invoke G’huun

Active:

Sanguine Snap, Blood Mania, Crimson Blade, Blood World, Blood Shuffle, Blood Armour

Passive:

Bloodbound, Vampiric Touch, Bleeding Agony, Vorpal Veins, Leeching Touch, Heartlock, Vital Hex, Carmine Covenant, Bloodbound Core, Bloodsoaked Madness, Unbeatable Heart, Unbent, Rivermend

Functions Unlocked: Monster Log, Daily Quest, Inventory, Crafting, Interdimensional Market, Telepathic Communication, Tunnel Dome, Mentorship, Style, Scroll of Information

Reaching Level 33 before even half a year had passed was so far outside his predictions that it wasn’t even worth mentioning. And the 1860 max Health was absolutely insane, as was his damage of 421. By now, he could most-likely out damage even Ronald, though that was mostly just because the young man was severely underleveled at this point. Ethan felt a bit rueful; he understood well enough that if Ronald and Mingzhu tagged along, they would have likely ‘died’ during the second wave. However, they would have still gotten at least 1 level.

“Oh well,” he mumbled to himself, finishing off a beer. There was not much to it–it simply was not meant to be.

About six hours after he’d completed the fourth wave, the trio walked back through the portal, finding themselves in the deep darkness of the underground chamber buried near the lodge up on a mountain. Both kids still appeared pale, unaccustomed to such turbulent travel, but much better than the last time they’d used it.

Leaving the chamber, the warm sun graced them again, and for a brief moment, a sense of tranquillity washed over. It didn’t last long, however–Ronald and Mingzhu appeared like shadows from the lodge, their expression somewhat frantic, the looks in their eyes glazed in terror. Shit… what is it now? Ethan steeled his heart–an anomaly, again, occurred. It was just a matter of what kind, now.

“What’s wrong?” he asked immediately, as both Delilah and Elijah, too, realised that something was wrong.

“A Tunnel… a Tunnel in Poland broke!” Ronald was the first to speak. “There’s, there’s videos of literally thousands of monsters pouring out!” Ethan frowned deeply.

“When?”

“About an hour ago!” So, it was while we were wandering the desert… no passage of time occurred while they were in the arena, so it meant that the Tunnel had collapsed while they were searching for the entrance to it. “They say that there’s already hundreds of thousands of dead!”

“Also, there’s–there’s another Tunnel, in China…” Mingzhu said, her expression dark. “It appeared an hour ago… but there’s been no information on it for the past fifteen minutes…”

“...” Ethan sunk into silence, his expression grim. Naturally, neither of these two things happened before. Something had gone beyond wrong, it seemed. So much so, that whatever ‘balancing scale’ was trying to match up to it was causing things that will ultimately lead to a world barren of life. “Show me,” he added, taking a deep breath. For now, it seemed as though he couldn’t just focus on one tragedy at the time–more and more, he felt his limbs splayed, his attention driven to countless corners. Rather than a smooth rise that he had expected, it felt more like a desperate, mad dash toward the finish line that kept getting further and further away…