Bro, I'm not an Undead!

The light of dawn had brought with it greater prospects for the voyage to all aboard the vast vessel that was practically flying over the clear waters, looking to gain more and more speed with every several kilometers it covered in a second.

The fact that there was still a considerable distance to the Central Boundary even with such speed, and even while accounting for elapsed time since departure, was staggering.

The broad horizon that featured nothing but the clear waters ahead – and not a single island whatsoever – only served to reinforce just how difficult it would be to traverse with normal teleportation means.

What also reinforced this idea, were the changes in the sky. Vaguely, the cloudy blue sky was getting marred with what looked like faint, greyish….scars. They looked like webbing cracks past the clouds, etched into the atmosphere.

In all honesty, it was easy to miss, but Replicus had noticed it rather quickly.

This was the first glimpse at the damage done millennia ago by Jiggorrhax the Abiding Madness.

It was a simple visual either. As Replicus had warned Allora before, contact with people or objects from afar was beginning to get scrambled. Warping techniques were already started to get constrained.

That wasn’t all.

The atmosphere as the ship approached the Boundary was growing more and more… unreadable. Airflow had gaps, mana had chaotic patterns and even the light was unevenly distributed – not accounting for cloud cover.

This was the first sign of the trouble that was brewing ahead.

All that said, Replicus encouraged his subordinates not to take any of it too seriously, which turned out to be a cinch since Allora and Grim were mostly easy-going, Pherdanta was unshaken by such, and Baddan had grown quite confident since receiving his new technique.

Seeing his troupe behaving as they normally would put Replicus’ soul at ease.

However, there was one thing that unsettled the crew very effectively.

Naturally, it was Araeyn.

The Apostle freaked even Replicus out a little.

If the Penetrator didn’t give him a direct order for something, he would simply stand on the cathead or bowsprit of the ship with the wind blowing his off-white hair and watch what was going on in all directions.

Hours would pass with the pale bastard standing at attention with no dynamic poses to refresh the eyes of the spectators at all.

Grim considered sharing a similar hair type to such a rigid individual an insult. Replicus agreed.

Araeyn didn’t care, unfortunately.

Of course, Replicus knew that the Apostle wasn’t simply sightseeing.

Replicus had given the carcass from which Araeyn was born several skills that he wanted to be added to this non-racial, non-Class skill set.

[Greater Flowing Hubris].

[Greater Mana Understanding].

[Excel].

These skills allowed Araeyn to get a firm grasp on how the concepts of a world worked passively through the atmosphere and actively by engaging with living beings in any way.

Mana, humans, beasts. Araeyn understood a fair bit of all these three by now.

He was constantly learning.

Additionally, he had the natural ability to gain an appreciation of the various dimensions in the Null Verse, which fed into his skill [Grandiose Manifestation], which allowed him to manifest the characteristics of those dimensions where he pleased.

Replicus didn’t want a demonstration yet.

He didn’t even want to see what Araeyn’s racial skills looked like unless they were used in combat.

The reserves of Null Life Essence and Mana that had been built into this ship – stored in two of the ten rooms added into the vessel – weren’t as vast as those in the Honing Fortress, and since the Astute Duke of Transversal only used Null Life Essence, Replicus didn’t want to tempt the rebel into exhausting their reserves already.

Asides from the developments of Replicus’ ship, the Penetrator had noticed other vessels belonging to the other Faction leaders as well.

They were spread far apart, isolated from each other. Replicus and his crew had yet to see any of the inevitable altercations yet, which wasn’t exclusively a good thing.

By the time the sun rose its invisible pedestal in the sky, Replicus had spotted sixteen other vessels.

Inwardly, he really hoped he wouldn’t get to see the Bishop anytime soon.

Unlike the Incandescent Stage Faction leaders, Replicus was unable to see through the umbrella-shaped shield of lights that hid the decks of the similar vessels.

“Boss, you mentioned something about us getting something from catching this masked man, right? What is that something? Besides getting to keep the possessions of the Factions we defeat that is,” Allora asked Replicus as they sat on the deck.

“That’s a lot of somethings,” Grim pointed out from the middle of the deck. He had taken over for Pherdanta who had retreated to her room – after an excessive amount of convincing.

Allora waved him off.

Replicus, seated on a chair close to the small cabin, nodded.

“Yes there is,” he said.

He had figured that revealing the reward for the assignment during the briefing he had given immediately after returning from the Severed Union, was pointless.

The nature of the reward wasn’t one that everyone in the Faction could celebrate, after all.

Thus, Replicus had held off on telling even his Unlimited – barring Pherdanta, who had heard from the actual horse’s mouth, even though it didn’t actually have a mouth.

“For capturing the masked man, whether dead or alive – though preferably alive – the Faction leader responsible will get an audience with the Immortals and be granted a reward of their choice,” the Penetrator said.

Allora skewed her face.

“That seems underwhelming,” she said. “The reward is something they choose for you?”

“Indeed. More than a few Faction leaders don’t feel too happy about it either,” Replicus said.

“We’re handling all their dirty work. You’d think they’d be more generous,” Grim chimed in with a shake of his head. “It doesn’t matter if these Immortals created the Severed Union. That shouldn’t have them thinking they can look down on us. We’ve been working hard even before this!”

Replicus concurred but he didn’t see the need to complain as much.

Indeed the Factions worked hard.

Their job, unlike the fodder sent to rampage on the main continents, was divided between consolidating the efforts on said fodder and dealing with threats beyond the main continents.

Replicus had doubted it at first, but after encountering a fair share of purple Clusters and the monsters born within them, he had to agree that there was no way Feinheath wouldn’t have been hit by a few Tier 40 beasts with how many scattered lands over the seas harbored and bred beasts born from untended Clusters.

Even if Maqi and Opungale were powerhouses in their own rights, many calamities had been stalled or stopped thanks to the Severed Union.

This act of dealing with these threats didn’t serve as a contradiction to the philosophy of Severed Union. Stimulating the different societies on Feinheath and Opungale with bandits was different from setting loose disasters on the masses.

At least that was what Eaniss said.

Then again, with what Replicus knew now, he didn’t know the degree of variation between the values of the Head Faction and those of the Immortals.

Allora rationalized.

“I suppose if we all get to meet them, it wouldn’t be so ba—”

BOOOOOOOOOM!

The first to respond to the ship suddenly being sent flying up, and spinning violently in the air, was Replicus.

The waters beyond the ship had suddenly cast away their relaxed stillness and hurled everything, including themselves kilometers upon kilometers into the air!

The sky darkened in the instant, and then everything became dyed in red and gold!

This wasn’t an attack.

Replicus had seen a glimpse of the cause, but as the ship was rising, with the torrent of whisked waves below it, he knew he couldn’t afford to speculate yet.

“[Wealth of Spoils].”

While somehow maintaining a semblance of balance on the deck, Replicus planted his hand onto the beautiful wooden platform, and white light traced itself into the vessel, granting it a skill!

In an instant, the ship stopped spinning and soared high into the sky, ascending in a straight line.

The ship was currently upside down, but that didn’t stop Replicus and company from hastily balancing themselves, some maintaining a hold on the deck and some on the umbrella-shaped shield which still held.

The roar of the insurmountable waters below crying as they were forced to fly in all directions… was awe-inspiring.

From thousands upon thousands of kilometers ahead, the waters of the vast ocean were still rising, and fleeing from an atrocious impact that almost saw the sea be reduced to a mere dam.

Replicus’ sockets lit up bright.

He didn’t need to see past the wall of waters to guess what was going on.

It seemed the masked man and the number one Paladin Champion had finally met.

—

[Author’s Note]

I haven’t been feeling too good of late – mentioned it on the discord. I’m back. It will be business as usual from tomorrow and as I promised, a Mass Release is coming on the 23rd, a proper one.