“From beyond the veil, the strings extend, guided by my will, I shall mend.” System’s voice echoes from behind the makeshift walls that surround the temple. “With ancient knowledge, I control the flow, unraveling the attack, reversing the blow.”

In an instant Ke’an feels System’s magic course through him bleaching out all other sensations. The spell she used was her Weaver skill which could negate a fatal attack on one person. Everything seems to slow down as Azeraath realizes he fell into some kind of trap but it is too late. The open wound instantly closes and the armor reforms as Ke’an grabs the sabre with his left hand and pulls out his revolver with his right. Azeraath tries to pull his sword out of Ke’an’s grip but finds that he can not.

A bloody smile stretches across Ke’an’s face as he looks Azeraath in the eyes and says in a deadpan voice. “I claim the head if kings.”

He aims the gun, not at Azeraath knowing he can easily dodge, but at the flat of the Greater Wraith Sabre. Azeraath screams as he brings his other hand wielding the ice saw around in hopes to cleave Ke’an in two before he can shoot. In an explosion of fire and force the sword shatters and the two warriors are rocketed away from each other. Ke’an is blasted back skipping along the ground like a rock across a pond until he slams into one of the walls surrounding the temple. Meanwhile Azeraath is sent into one of the many flaming buildings which collapses from the impact.

Ke’an lets out a grunt as he looks in his hands; in his left is half of Azeraath’s shattered blade and in his right is his broken revolver finally ruptured from his magic. Ke’an muses to himself that the plan worked like he and System imagined. System is going to be out of the fight now that she used her Weaver skill which most likely used all of her mana and put her to sleep. He drops the gun in his inventory and focuses on the blade, wasting no time in activating his Usurper skill.

 Ke’an says between gritted teeth. “What was yours is now mine.”

The cold feeling of a new skill entering him quickly passes as his eyes open wide. Finally he gained a new skill in his Regicide skill tree.

Skill Assignment Menu

Assigning a skill will enable you to utilize it without ritual. A skill will be modified by your skill Tree. Skill has automatically been assigned.

He quickly opens his skill menu to look at the new ability not wanting to make the same mistake as before. His skill tree now has a new icon connected by golden roots to Regicide. The icon is of a glaive covered in blood and with a crown hanging from the blade. As he looks at the icon the description materializes.

Skill: Glaive of Entropy 0.00%

Skill type: Bound Weapon 

Cooldown: none

Magic Cost: Variable 

Effect: Call forth the entropic forces given tangible form summon, the Glaive of Entropy. Infusing glaive with minimum mana will activate [Absolute Zero] skill.

Transcendent effect: Glave of Entropy can be summoned as any bladed melee weapon. 

Ke’an shifted his attention to the effect that the Glaive of Entropy will cause.

Absolute Zero

[Elemental Enchantment]

Infuse target weapon with the ancient enchantment that embodies the essence of absolute zero. Weapon will emanate an aura of magic frost. Strike unleash waves of frigid energy freezing anything it is path. With each successful attack weapon will absorb heat from the surrounding, growing colder and bypassing immunities to cold.

Ke’an winces as he stands up the pain of being run through with a blade covered in destructive energy may have healed but he still has phantom soreness. The magic System used only healed the fatal attack and all of the other bumps and bruises still hurt. As he stands he looks at his mini map and as it expands he sees Azeraath’s red dot in the collapsed building. He is hopeful that the raging inferno will be enough to finally put an end to the evil whispered. His hopes are dashed as the dot starts slowly moving out of the flames.

A gruff human man with a shotgun pops his head over the wall and looks down at Ke’an. “You ain’t dead are you lad?”

Ke’an looks up at the man minimizing the map in his vision. “It’ll take more than that to take me out.”

“Well did you kill it?” Another man, this one a stravani asks. “Is it over?”

Ke’an starts walking away and with a wave he says. “Almost. Just stay here, I will be back soon.” Once out of earshot of the defenders he whispers a spell. “From frost comes freeze, break and shatter.”

Frozen mist rises around Ke’an encasing his form in a shroud and minimizing his presence. Shards of silver ice wink in and out of existence in beautiful patterns which gives the cloak a strangely ethereal yet solid definition. He walks at a controlled pace, being sure to track the red dot on his minimap to see where Azeraath will escape the inferno. The dot seems to slow down, moving at a crawl to escape the burning building. 

Ke’an finally sees some movement as Azeraath, badly burned and covered head to toe in black ash, crawls out from beneath a collapsed wall. He is surprised at the ragged state of the once proud whispered as he thinks back to System's plan on how they could kill him. Early on in the fight, System said she knew how they could take him out if he was a whispered and given his current state she was right. Not only is he burnt and weak but he also seems to have shrunk in size and muscle.

“You make it sound like all I talk about is stealing stuff.” Ke’an says with forced innocence as he disperses the cloak. “I could do a lot of stuff with invisibility… and if some ancient magic artifacts go missing who's to say who did it.”

“You say it more with your actions than anything.” System responds by shaking her head. “But now that I know what he is and what you can do I have a plan. Whispered are extremely powerful in comparison to the people I made in this world but Forge Masters have a weakness we can exploit.”

“Why didn’t you say this earlier?” Ke’an asks emphatically. 

System glares at Ke’an as she shoots back a response. “Why didn’t you look at your skills earlier? Besides I told you that if it were a whispered I may know how to beat it. When a Forge Master creates something they create a soul bound item that is a part of them. The more powerful the item the more of themselves they have to give to it. When this happens they can even take that portion of themselves back which will have a regeneration effect. So even if you were to land that shot you missed earlier there's a chance the wraith sabre could revive him. The thing is, if all of a Forge Masters’ most powerful items are destroyed, their power goes haywire and ravages their body.”

“That sounds like a big weakness.” Ke’an says.

System nods in agreement. “Oh it is. They know it too, so normally a Forge Master would have thousands of items so that it doesn’t happen and to keep themselves eternally young.”

“We have to find thousands of items to kill this guy?” Ke’an exclaims.

System smerks as she raises a finger wagging it negative. “No, he was brought here from his world in a different reality. Any connection he had to his cache would have been reset. So far we have destroyed two of the three items he created while he was here so if we take out the sabre he will be too weak to fight back.”

Ke’an lets out a sigh. “Do you have a plan for destroying that thing?”

System let out a long breath and averted her eyes. “Yeah, but I know you aren’t going to like it. It involves my Weaver skill and a lot of pain… for you. But you have died before so it won’t be that bad and it will definitely work as long as he doesn’t make another powerful item between now and when we catch up to him.”

Ke’an’s eyes opened wide as he remembered System’s words. He starts running towards Azeraath to finish him off quickly. Azeraath weakly pulls the bone white necklace from his neck and chants a spell with a toothy smile on his face. Ke’an and Azeraath’s eyes lock both ready to finally end this fight.

Ke’an yells with a hard voice as he reaches out his hand. “No! No more!”

Ke’an’s administrator’s authority wraps around the necklace as he forces all of his anger into it while he runs. The ice armor and mist cloak around Ke’an’s body blackens, shifting from its silver color to that of a deep abyss void of anything. The unsettling absence of space has a single star shining faintly within as if looking at it from a great distance in a vast void. Ke’an knows using his Administrators authority again will cause him to pass out but he does not have the skill or strength to fight Azeraath if he regains all of his vitality. He only has one chance and time seems to slow to a crawl as the Reality Editor appears at the same time as he chants his final spell. 

Ke’an screams the spell to summon the Glave of Entropy. “All things wither to the decay of entropy!” 

Apprentice Administrator Reality Editor

You have selected Casidy Necklace of Frost (Level 19). How would you like to edit this item? Edits to individuals can be resisted if their level exceeds yours. This is a forged item under the control of a Forge Master, please note that changes made to this item can be resisted if the Forge Master’s level exceeds yours. You are an Apprentice Administrator your choices are limited to the following:

Reshape

Release trapped spirit

Infuse with magic

View item description(s) (Yes / No)

Ke’an selects, release trapped spirit, and pours all of the mana he had available to him into his Administrator Authority. He knows that he can not allow Azeraath to finish his spell and he can not risk his authority failing. All he can do is hope that Azeraath can not resist his authority in his weakened state. The forest goes dark as all of the trees that were alight with the ghostly white flame instantaneously burn out and all of their life force is sucked out of them and into Ke’an’s final gambit.

Everything happens in the blink of an eye as Ke’an sees the necklace in Azeraath’s hand disintegrate into a fine dust. Azeraath’s smile quickly left his face as he is unsure as to what just happened, but he doesn’t have long to ponder it as Ke’an appears standing over him. He looks more like a death knight in plate armor made of shadows and a cloak made from a starless night sky. A glaive of glistening silver appears in his hands from the ether as Ke’an swings the blade down for the final cut. He feels the impact and hears a body hit the ground but he falls unconscious as the overuse of his authority puts him to sleep.