Adamant Blood

Mark breathed, focusing. Calming.

In a distant sort of way, Mark knew he was injured. Probably a lot. His legs hurt. Might have broken some bones in his feet, too. His left leg was bleeding for some reason, and somehow there was a sword cut on his thigh, right next to his dog bite wound, but both were small; barely touched. He wasn’t even bleeding that bad, but there was blood. His sand-brown jeans were dark red here and there. His hands were bleeding, too. His skin was too soft to hold the edge of the aqueduct like he had done.

But he stood on a white circular platform that glowed faintly.

Mist spread across the platform, gentle and fluttering. The world beyond the platform was a star-filled sky, with Earth hanging up there like a blue and green marble, cast in white clouds and illuminated like a crescent. The grey, pock-marked surface of the moon spread out in every direction beyond the platform. Golden, glowing spires rose here and there in cracks in Luna, and roads spread across the surface, though Mark couldn’t see a single living person.

This was the City of Demons.

Arakino.

The Palace of Ascension.

Mark’s Ascension was here. Right there. In the middle of the platform. A plinth held in the center of the room. It was a spear of crystal with a floating blob of prismatic power shimmering bright, just above the tip. It was magical. Mark’s heart beat hard.

Addashield floated on the other side of the Ascension Plinth, most of his body hidden behind his obscuring magics, only his eyes and strips of clothed body visible. With a solid, heavy voice, Addashield said, “I told you that at this point that I would do something to the pure mana, to ensure you rose with adamantiumkinesis. I don’t have to do that.

“I would have needed to do that to cleave to the New Contract that I made with my demon, but you made it all the way through, on your own. I barely helped. I would say I helped about 5%, and only really because of that fish. Even that wasn’t much of a help, because I saw you already saw the fish.

“You can tell people that when they ask about it, later.

“Mark Careed.

“You will go far. You will face many troubles, but you will go far. Perhaps, eventually, you can even replace what I used to be, and what I can no longer be at all.

“I will not be directing your growth like I said I would. Adamantiumkinesis and healing are already yours. What you will gain without me will be weaker in the beginning, but your end result will be stronger, and I will not harm your future growth by offering you decisions in this matter. I will not be going back to my Old Contract, for you have secured something far better than that, and I must repent for my crimes with my death.

“Touch the prismatic mana.”

Red darkness swirled around Addashield, furious and terrible, a voice drowning out the weight of Addasheld’s words with something much more demonic. “NO! I want him! Infraction! INFRACTION! In—”

“TOUCH IT NOW, BOY!” Addashield spat at Mark, his invisibility not wavering at all. And then he yelled at himself, at a clawed, red hand, “By your own words I am taking the deal—”

“INFRACTION!”

“Do not shout illusions—”

Mark had no idea what was happening, exactly, but he believed Addashield was doing the right thing so he rushed the prismatic mana and grabbed it—

Red-black hatred filled the air even as Mark’s vision turned to rainbows. Something took hold inside of his body like a heartbeat that thrummed reality itself.

“NO!”

A rush of red-lined blackness flickered, visible only as a glimmer, like a sweeping fishing line—

Addashield’s silver light grabbed that red and pulled it back, and then suddenly he threw his arms wide and two black rushes of metal scattered far, far away, launched by silver light. The silver vanished revealing red hatred glowing around black bowling balls; his bracers of adamantium.

An impossible fortune rocketed away into the dark of space, above Luna, into the demon city of Arakino.

Mark was sure Addashield was yelling at his demon, but the voices turned indistinct, red warring with silver, or something like that—

But the rainbows all around him changed. The Demon City Arakino briefly appeared as something else. It was not the moon’s surface, littered with canyon-sized cracks, filled with golden spires and golden lights. The roads on the surface were not empty at all.

It was a metropolis of flying cars and green hills and tall forests and people on picnics, or flying across the skies, or living in the open and just going about their days. Couples holding hands. Babies nursing at breasts. Children running around, living free and without worry.

It was Mark’s dream to give that to people. To heal the broken worlds of Earth, and Daihoon, even though he had no idea about the real size of either. The real nature of the beast.

Mark’s mind opened to the truth of his own desire.

It would take him lifetimes to be the person he wanted to be.

And here, now, was the beginning.

- - - -

Mark sat in a chair in front of a desk.

A person sat behind the desk. The person was made of stone. Mark did not know them, but the stone man knew Mark.

The stone man put a piece of paper in front of Mark. “Here are your Awakening results. Read them, and then I have something to tell you.”

Mark could do nothing but look down at the paper.

Body, Healthy Body: 002

Shaper, Adamantium: 004

Mind: ~

Natural, Union: 003

Soul: ~

Arch: ~

Mark had some thoughts.

Those thoughts tumbled out of his mouth, “I guess I understand the names of the six bars on the scanning results—”

Mark paused.

The person sitting behind the desk was a god.

It was Malaqua.

That’s who the stone man was. Malaqua, the Stone God, Arbiter of the System, Demon King or Demon Jailer depending on who you asked, The First Artificial God, and a bunch of other names. That’s who sat behind the desk, here in this golden office on the moon.

The Earth hung in the black sky beyond the windows behind Malaqua, and Mark sat at Malaqua’s desk.

This wasn’t supposed to happen.

He should have been sent right back home, to where he entered the Tutorial, or he could have chosen to enter Daihoon at a small place that needed him. People from Daihoon would get the same sort of option after they took the Tutorial. Mark had been kinda toying with the idea of going to Daihoon right away, but he knew he couldn’t do that. He needed to go back to Orange City, back home. And then he could go to Daihoon, through the normal channels.

Mark gulped.

Malaqua said, “You’ve got a tri-Talent. That’s one of the reasons I’m checking in on you personally. It’s a pretty good tri-Talent, too. Healthy Body is always good; you’ll be surprised at how a simple, good form will be endlessly useful. Adamantiumkinesis is simple enough to understand. Union is also phenomenal, and you’ll need to go to the Church of Freyala to learn of Union, but you don’t have to do that. You’ve got a great synergy here, which you’ll have to discover on your own.

“The second reason for talking to you directly is to give you some context to give to others, since this whole Addashield-thing is going to blow up your entire life and a great deal of the Two Worlds.

“This whole Addashield problems starts with the fact that every single person Addashield ever took through the Tutorial went on to either make a deal with a demon and become a hidden dragon, or else Addashield’s demon, Kanda, ate them a few years after they denied a demonic contract.

“Every 10 years he did this. Every 10 years he led another person through their Tutorial and then he either had them become a hidden dragon through a Hybridization Contract, or they denied the demons and he killed them years afterward, when no one would suspect a thing. He still did all the good he claims to have done, but he was also unrepentant when it came to doing what he needed to do to maintain his life.

“I was only able to see the nature of his duplicity when I became Arbiter of the System 70-odd years ago, after he helped me install myself here, and take over the place. Part of that help was to let him continue guiding people through the Tutorial. At the time, I did not know what he was truly doing, but I learned fast. That is why I always kicked out the people he took through the Tutorial when I found him doing such a thing. I couldn’t actually do anything directly against him, such was the nature of our Contracts, but I could kick him and his cuckoo out of the System, and so I did.

“That problem is fixed now. Addashield no longer exists, and that deal I made is void.”

Mark’s head was swimming. “Okaaay?!”

“I don’t expect you to do anything with this information. I am already telling others. I am telling you because you are involved in a lot of things happening far, far above your head, and I wanted you to go forward with more information than what you have.

“And now, Addashield’s New Contract, made by your completion of the Tutorial without me finding out anything at all until the end, has come to fruition. It is a Hybridization Contract. It’s a good one.

“Addashield repented some by killing himself, but not enough.

“Addashield was a Hero of Humanity. This much has always been true.

“He also killed at least 1 person every 10 years and seeded the world with an unknown number of Hidden Dragons. There are at least 2; his original True Apprentices. Maybe more. I don’t know that whole story. I do know he hated doing this, but that is little comfort for all the people he murdered in my Tutorial, and long before that, when it was called the Thresher.

“I do know that Addashield made a deal with Kanda before you went into your Tutorial. It was a high-risk bet for both of them, because Kanda expected Addashield to go for the New Contract, which was the same as their Old Contract, but Addashield was aiming for the Hybridization Contract.

“However much help Addashield gave you is how much of the resulting dragon would be Kanda, because that was the main bet. There would be no more sacrifices to the Tutorial, or Hidden Dragons, or anything like that. Addashield and Kanda would hybridize, becoming a dragon, based on how much help he needed to give you in the Tutorial.

“He only needed to give you around 5% help, and not even then, and only because of the fish, which you already suspected was there.

“Addashield and Kanda are gone.

“Now there is a new High Dragon, made of 95% Addashield and 5% Kanda.” Malaqua finished with, “You don’t know what a High Dragon is, and that’s fine. With luck, you never will. But if you rise high enough, you absolutely will.

“I cannot answer any questions.

“Good day.”

And then the darkness closed in.

Mark had just enough time to complain, “THE FU—”