Aghanim's Rubick Chapter 20

Chapter 20:

It hummed, twirling through the formless blackness that formed its home, giddy with anticipation. Once, a long time ago, it had been summoned to destroy a country. It could no longer remember the face of its summoner nor the name of the country, nor did it truly care. What was important is how it was banished.

Being ‘killed’ by a Hero was nothing new of course, it was truly rare for it to be in a body strong enough to hold up against the paragons of Humanity, nor did it really wish to bring its true might forward on any of those occasions. It would always be re-summoned eventually, so putting in any true effort at any one particular moment that it occurred was meaningless.

No, what intrigued it this time was the mask that this Hero wore. Despite its diminished strength, a direct blow by its claws should have at least left a scratch, but this bone white construction was completely unaffected. Idly, it had scanned the item, interested in what could have been the nature of the enchantment that blocked the blow, only to discover something much more interesting.

A Time Paradox. The Mask could not be damaged, not because of an enchantment, but because it was a fixed point in time. Something would occur in the future that required the mask to be whole and undamaged, so it would remain that way until that moment arrived. Throughout it’s long life, it had never even heard of such a thing, never mind witnessing it. It was instantly obsessed.

When the time paradox resolved, what would happen to the Mask? It did not know, for this had never happened before. Intriguing, interesting, fascinating. Would it accrue all the damage that had been prevented to it over time only to release it all in one destructive burst? Would it fade to nothingness? Would it merely lose it’s paradoxical properties and act as a normal mask?

So many interesting possibilities!

So, it followed the mask, observing, watching, waiting. The next thing of note pertaining to the artefact occurred soon enough, or at least soon enough to a being as old as it was. The mask was passed on, from teacher to student.

It must admit, it had grown somewhat attached to the Hero that had banished it, but ultimately it followed the mask, determining that the item itself was the source of the paradox, not the Hero. The entertainment value of it’s observation dropped significantly afterwards, the so-called ‘Conqueror of Flames’ was much less impressive than her mentor, with less consequential battles the obvious result.

Didn’t the mortals believe that the student should eventually surpass the master? It wondered who that reflected more poorly on, the Master or the Student. Truthfully, when the Conqueror’s life started to draw too close, it was almost relieved. Soon the Mask would change hands, perhaps to a more intriguing user.

It was so, so gloriously correct.

Rubick.

The Grand Magus.

Such an arrogant name. Such a bold claim. It almost beggared belief that he lived up to it. Magic sung for him, twisting and contorting in ways it had never seen before. It’s attention well and truly grabbed, it devoured all it could from the paltry window it had into this being’s life. It longed to grow more brazen in it’s observations, but it was still loath to draw Guy’s ire for something it only suspected.

You see, living where it did, in this sea of Black, there is only one thing that truly held it’s heart. Magic. Knowledge. The more it knew, the more it could do, the more it could do, the more it could learn. It was a glorious, never ending stairway into the realm of the very gods themselves. This fascination is what allowed it to fend off it’s ‘siblings’, their understanding skin deep, not truly foundational. Such weak knowledge could never match him, and they knew it.

Of course, the world was not fair, as Guy proved. Sufficient power was enough to overcome any gap in knowledge, after a point. At least so it had thought.

Rubick was different. He could see Magic, understand it, shape it in a way that was completely unlike anything he had even imagined being possible. When he had used that modified Lightning Magic to evaporate the Orc Lord, it had been enraptured, watching every single iota of the most beautiful spell work it had ever witnessed.

That was what had allowed Blanc to slip through when the Slime had initiated a summoning. It had seen the White prowling around it’s territories, sniffing out where it had been situated, but apparently she had been more resourceful than it had anticipated. Deducing what it had been so taken by and using the opportunity to steal the march, it was such a Blanc thing to do that it should have been anticipated.

Still, it hadn’t done so, hadn’t been attentive enough and paid the price. It had resolved to never fall so short again. Being forced to beg the White, now named Lucifer, to allow it into the service of her new master had been humiliating to the extreme. Still, it was the only possible option, especially after Lucifer had confirmed exactly what it had always suspected.

Rubick could manipulate Raw Magic. Theoretically, with enough practice and time, he could do away with the need to use constructed spells entirely and cast from pure thought alone. Not to mention his ambition, to wrest the very secrets of creation itself from it’s jealous keepers.

It could not be left out of this.

Still, Lucifer’s stunt had been a wake up call. The Paradox mask was still important, but it paled in comparison to the legend that it had guided it’s attentions towards. It could not afford to be left out of anything, to be sidelined at all, to not be taught everything that it’s hopeful new master could teach.

It knew that Rubick’s unique ability to use magic could likely not be replicated, but it knew, wit ha deep certainty that working together, they could still accomplish miracles.

To that end, it had planned. It had plotted. It had prepared. Nothing could be left to chance.

Drawing a long, wickedly sharp claw down a naked, perfectly pale breast on her chest, Noir smiled to herself.

If she could not be her new Lord’s first, she would do her utmost to be his best.

And Noir’s best was a frightening thing indeed.

---ARARAR---

Luck was a fickle thing, Yuuki Kagurazaka knew. Still, riding out it’s twists and turns is what truly separated the wheat from the chaff. Shizu’s death had been an unfortunate thing to him personally, but her rescue had been a devastating thing to him professionally. He held a fondness for the woman who had mentored him and allowed him to find his feet in this world, but that affection was a double edged sword.

Shizu was just too nice a teacher, you see.

She took an interest in even her former student’s lives, ensuring that she was kept abreast of all the new developments in their lives, letting them know that she was available should they need any help or support. When you dealt in some… questionable practices, such a devoted teacher was quite the inconvenience to work around.

Of course, such thoughts were kept exceedingly private when he greeted her back, hearing her impossible tales of a Monster in the Jura forest that was capable of immense Magical feats. He would have written it off as a fortuitous Skill interaction, where her specific problem lined up particularly well with said Monster’s innate abilities, but the report he received from Clayman on one hand and the adventurers surrounding the Forest on another told a different story.

This Rubick had apparently killed an Orc Disaster, which spoke to some truly unusual strength. Doubly so for a Monster no one had ever heard of before. Worrying, especially as Jura was the scene for one of his close friend’s path to power. Thankfully, when one door closed another one opened.

Shizu had been hurt by the backlash of whatever happened to end the Orc Disaster, collapsing in the middle of teaching her young class, freaking out the children and distressing them greatly. Thankfully, he was able to calm them down and take advantage of the situation. He had no idea why Shizu would have been knocked out, besides telling him that she had been named by Rubick as part of him saving her.

It could have been a Harvest Festival, but Yuuki doubted it. The Orc Disaster had not been given the Demon Lord Seed before it was killed, according to Laplace and Rubick was not nearly old enough to have formed one naturally. Still, it was a possibility that he noted down. He had sent orders to Clayman to put his operations in the Forest on hold for now while he pounced on this golden opportunity.

Damrada was able to procure a truly fascinating toxin from the Imperial Alchemists on short notice, which he used to ensure that Shizu’s sudden coma was extended. Then he used his old connections to call for his testing device.

Hinata had arrived, listened to his story about what Shizu had told him about this strange new monster and then was taken to see her bedridden mentor. The girl’s face had been like it was carved from stone, perfectly malleable to his suggestions for what could have been the cause. Of course, he was careful to only insinuate, never outright accuse anyone involved of foul play.

He was unsure, but he suspected that Hinata had a Skill that allowed her to determine lies. Better safe than sorry.

Hinata had stopped him with a resolute hand on his shoulder, promising to get to the bottom of this and free their mentor from her predicament, before she had whirled around and marched back to Lubelius to get forces to join her in said endeavour.

While he watched her retreating back, Yuuki wondered to himself what someone with a functioning conscience would be feeling in that moment.

The thought amused him.

---ARARAR---

“I have returned, My Lord.” Lucifer knelt on one knee before me, hand over her chest, head bowed, “As promised, I have brought with me one hundred of my most promising subordinates. Merely give the word, and they will ensure that your enemies will have no secrets hidden from you.”

I turned my gaze up from the kneeling Demon, casting my gaze over her promised hundred, newly inhabiting Treant wood puppet bodies. I had infused the frames with my magic, kickstarting the process of the materials evolution, something that would continue to happen as the Demons themselves grew stronger and fed the wood with their own Magic.

There was one that caught my eye immediately. He was staring at me defiantly, almost challengingly. I raised an eyebrow at him, only for his glare to intensify.

“It appears that not all of your former subordinates are happy with your new position, Lucifer.” I spoke to her, causing her head to snap up and whirl around, locking onto the offending Demon immediately, “A demonstration is in order.”

“My lord.” She turned to stare back up at me, “You need not sully yourself, I shall engrave-”

Her sentence caught in her throat as I peeled back the control I unconsciously kept on my Magic. It came naturally to me, the finely honed fist that grasped every scrap of my Magic. My natural state was perfect control, perfect containment within my Core. It took effort to project out enough energy to form my body, never mind how people in this world seemed to let their power dribble out of them in great waves.

Still, the natural state of my Magic was not the natural state of Magic in the wild. Magic flowed. It moved, streaming through the air until the ambient Magic in the atmosphere erased all personally identifiable traces from it. The stronger the person, the longer it took for this to occur, which is how it seemed that most gauged strength in this world at a glance.

So my perfectly airtight Core meant that I did not just appear weaker than I truly was, I didn’t appear at all. As it was, I seemed to have such a miniscule amount of strength that it could not even be detected.

That was far from the truth, of course, as my suddenly exploding aura proved.

I was pushing the Magic into the air rather than letting it leak naturally, but it hardly made a difference in practical terms. Within an instant, my presence was everywhere in the clearing we occupied, smothering all within it with ease. Several Demons collapsed to their knees in an instant, with the majority lasting slightly longer before their legs buckled as well.

Some possessed enough strength to attempt to fight off the sudden assault, pushing their own auras out in response, the effort holding the tide briefly before they were washed away by the sea of energy that swirled from me.

Lucifer, despite being the closest to me, didn’t even try. In fact, she smiled rapturously, closing her eyes as if basking in my magic, not being oppressed by it.

Just as quickly as it happened, it reversed. Demonstrating my control, I grasped every single bit of Magic I had released and pulled it back to me, reigning in my aura while simultaneously recouping the infinitesimal amount of Magic I used to manifest it.

That left me as the only one standing in the clearing, every single one of the Demons Lucifer had brought on their knees before me, staring up at me with awe in their eyes, tempered by fear.

“Decisions,” My voice rang out across the clearing, “Should be made with full knowledge in hand. You believed me weak. Now you know that is not so. However, I am not a tyrant. I refuse to have unwilling subjects. If the only thing keeping you here is fear of reprisal, from either myself or Lucifer, you are free to leave without consequence. If, however, you truly wish to stay here and swear to serve me as Lucifer has, remain and receive your reward.”

None moved. All of them merely stayed silent, staring up at me resolutely. Nodding, I strode forward, indicating Lucifer to rise and follow me as I did, making a direct beeline to the Demon that had been glaring at me just a short while ago.

“Bravery and foolishness are two sides of the same coin, more often than not.” I spoke to him, as Lucifer glared down at him from my side, “Which motivated you, I wonder?”

“Neither, my Lord.” He spoke back, bowing his head, “It was Loyalty, to my previous master.”

He did not explain further, proving that he possessed wisdom as well.

“He was my lieutenant back home.” Lucifer snarled, “I should have obviously instructed him more thoroughly.”

“Do not punish him for loyalty, Lucifer. His disrespect came from a place of ignorance. I forgive him entirely.” I lightly chided her, before turning to the Lieutenant, “Continue to serve Lucifer faithfully.”

“Gladly, my lord.” He nodded in gratitude.

“Then be Named and Rise, brace one. I Name you; Siegfried.”

White enveloped him, as I moved down the line, naming one Demon after the next. I ran out of my own Magic after 15 such Namings, a testament to the power of Lucifer’s choices. Still, thanks to refills courtesy of the Magic Reactor I keep in my invisible back pocket, I was able to name all one hundred in a single session. The feat earning even more respect from them.

Afterwards, Lucifer began using them for the purpose they were gathered, while at the same time demonstrating aptly what she had learned from the short amount of time she had spent observing me.

Meaning that she delegated everything efficiently and told them to report back regularly then proceeded to do what she wanted instead, namely sticking herself to my side again.

It appears that I have regained my pet stalker.