Chapter 60: The Advancing Closed Beta
The composite core had been a little too effective.
It was not a spell Hodell shaped with his own hands, so even now, after the fight had ended, he still could not say with certainty where its upper limit lay. The only thing he knew for sure was that if he ever misjudged it inside a confined space again, the result might not be half as neat.
He raised a hand and slowly dispersed the lingering electric field in the workshop. Blue white arcs snapped in the air for a few final breaths before fading into nothing.
Only then did he walk deeper into the pipes.
The steady life signal was still there.
Good.
"You can come out now," he said.
His voice echoed through the workshop, brushing across the cold metal walls and tangled conduits. A few seconds later, a scraping noise came from inside the casing of the centrifugal pump. Then a small, soot smudged head emerged.
Sparrow looked like a mouse dragged out of a thundercloud.
His face was pale, and every strand of hair on his head stood upright from the residual static. His eyes were wide, fixed on Hodell with the same fear and awe people reserved for things they could not understand.
"S- Sir…"
He wriggled the rest of the way out and landed on the floor with a clatter. His knees almost gave out, but he still forced himself upright.
"I'm fine. Those lightning flashes didn't get inside."
His voice was still shaking.
Hodell gave him a brief glance, confirmed there was no hidden damage, and turned away.
"Since you're fine, start working."
He brushed a speck of ash from his cuff, tone indifferent.
"Clear out the spoils."
Sparrow instantly straightened.
"Yes, sir!"
He had grown up in Shadow Valley. He knew better than most that the more questions one asked, the faster one died. Right now, the correct answer was not curiosity, but usefulness.
Hodell opened the panel and glanced at the updated progress.
[Limit Trial: Current Progress 600/1500]
He was still far from enough.
That was annoying.
"Sparrow."
The boy, who had just started rummaging through Boros's pockets, jerked upright as if struck by a whip.
"Sir?"
"When the tide subsides, drag these corpses to the Clearing House and collect every bounty that can be claimed."
Hodell casually used a minor force spell to pile the bodies together. The heap of ruined flesh and scorched armor slid across the floor with a wet metallic scrape.
"Yes, sir."
Three days later, the Magic Tide finally weakened.
The purple red storm clouds over Shadow Valley thinned, the violent lightning receded, and the air returned to something merely oppressive instead of murderous. One after another, the creatures of the wasteland crawled back out of their dens like insects after fire.
At the semi underground Clearing House, the old man behind the counter was enjoying the rare peace.
The Tide had just passed. Normally, nobody came to collect bounties at a time like this. The old man sat with his eyes closed, tapping the relief carved disc beneath his hands with rhythmic precision, looking every bit like a monk halfway to mummification.
Then he heard the dragging.
A heavy, grating, miserable sound.
It scraped across the threshold like something the underworld had sent back unfinished.
He frowned.
A skinny, dirt streaked child staggered through the door, both hands locked around a rope tied to a huge canvas sack. His shoulders were nearly dislocated from the effort. He was panting so hard his chest looked ready to collapse.
"Kid," the old man said without opening his eyes, "this isn't a relief station. Take your trash and get out."
Sparrow said nothing.
He gritted his teeth and gave the rope one last savage yank.
The moment the sack passed fully into the room, the supporting spell Hodell had placed on it broke with a crisp, fragile sound.
Clang!
The full weight slammed down onto the stone floor.
The entire room seemed to shake.
A thick stench of blood, char, and cooked flesh burst from the canvas like a physical wave.
This time the old man's eyes snapped open.
Sparrow leaned against the doorframe, chest heaving. His arms were trembling so badly he could barely lift them. Still, he fumbled in his robe, pulled out a folded note and several belongings stripped from the dead, and laid them carefully on the counter.
"Sir sent me," he said, doing his best to imitate Hodell's flat tone. "To collect the spoils. And the bounties."
The old man's fingertips brushed one token.
Then another.
Then the hilt of a willow leaf dagger.
His expression changed.
"Iron Vulture…"
He grabbed the next item.
"Phantom Blade's weapon… Zola's…"
He went still.
Then his voice rose all at once.
"Boros too?! Mole as well?!"
His face twitched violently. He looked at Sparrow as if the child had crawled out of a grave.
"These five are all in the sack?"
"Yes," Little Sparrow said softly. "Sir said since they insisted on coming to die, he might as well trade them for money."
The old man stared at him, then seized the rope and yanked the sack open.
Even after decades in Shadow Valley, he felt his scalp tighten.
The bodies inside were all wrong.
One had been folded inward until the bones no longer obeyed anatomy.
Another had been burned into a blackened shell by concentrated current.
The slit across Zola's throat was so clean, so impossibly fast, that the old man could tell at a glance she had died before her mind even registered the strike.
He slowly sank back into his chair.
"The Crow Cult. Then Bagel. Now these five…"
His voice had gone dry.
"In fifty years, I've seen madmen, beasts, fugitives, and executioners. I've never seen someone treat the Death List like a shopping list."
He took out a heavy dark gold seal and stamped the papers one after another. His hand, usually steady as stone, slipped once from the shock and left a crooked mark.
When he finished, he shoved a bulging bag of crystals and a dark red inheritance card across the counter.
"Take this back to your master."
His tone had changed. There was awe in it now, and a trace of something close to fear.
"Tell him that from today onward, the North District no longer belongs to Bagel. Nor to anyone else. As long as he lives, that workshop is his throne. No one will dare knock on its doors lightly again."
By the time Sparrow returned, the workshop no longer looked like Bagel's workshop at all.
The forging press had gone quiet for the moment, leaving only the soft hiss of coolant and the low murmur of automated instruments. The stench of old oil and blood was fading, replaced by the cleaner scent of fresh alloy, precision lubricant, and newly installed components.
Hodell stood before a suspended exoskeleton frame, silver gray segments floating around him in orderly silence.
He had spent the last few days tearing apart Bagel's stock, scavenging the useful parts, discarding the trash, and redesigning the structure from the ground up.
Bagel's equipment had been built for brute force.
Hodell needed something else.
Speed.
Silence.
Insulation.
Concealment.
A personal shell that suited the way he actually fought.
When the last segment locked into place, he stepped before the mirror and opened his arms.
The modules slid over him one after another.
No loud activation sound. No dramatic flare.
Only a series of close, intimate clicks, like the scales of some cold creature settling into place.
The completed armor was matte lead gray. It hugged the line of his body rather than swelling it outward. The outer layer was coated in a special insulating finish that absorbed and broke up external magic fluctuations. Along the spine, a pale segmented support frame spread downward like the bones of a white carrion bird.
He looked at it for a long moment.
Then named it.
[White Crow]
[Type: Personal Armor]
[Quality: Blue]
[Armor Value: 2800]
[Defense: 210 Physical / 550 Magic]
[Attribute Bonus: Agility -7, Strength +12]
[Equipment Requirement: Strength 30]
[Height: 1.92m while worn]
[Weight: 145kg]
[Control Method: Neural Link Conduction]
[Energy Source: None]
[Operational Consumption: 1 to 10 energy per minute]
[Core Power: None]
[Body Module: Liquid Orichalcum Skeleton 32%, Polymer Anti Magic Fiber Skin 45%, Self Lubricating Ceramic Pivot 23%]
[Defense Module: Energy Insulating Thermal Coating, Physical Shock Absorption Layer, Refractive Anti Wear Armor Plates]
[Stealth Module: Sonic Cancellation Array, Cold Flow Thermal Masking Device, Non Energy Level Fluctuation Engine]
[Auxiliary Module: Neural Synapse Enhancer]
[Attached Ability: Anti Magic Material. Passive. Immune to spell splash damage below 20 energy. Reduces magic impact by 40 percent. In Magic Tide environments, the wearer is not affected by external chaotic energy erosion]
[Note: It is the only silent bird in the storm. The solitary White Crow never seeks light, because it is itself a place where light dies.]
Hodell studied his reflection and nodded slowly.
Whether it was superpower, magic, or machinery, the conclusion was always the same.
A man's romance was still his gear.
He stepped outside to test it.
The alloy floor plate beneath his foot exploded with a crack as he launched forward. In the blink of an eye, his lead gray silhouette had crossed the yard.
"This response lag still needs tuning," he murmured.
He stopped before a half meter wide load bearing column and drove a straight punch into it.
Bang!
The heavy gauntlet hit like a siege ram.
Cracks webbed across the concrete. Then the entire column let out a groan and burst apart into flying rubble.
Hodell flexed his fingers and looked down. The armor surface was unmarred.
Then he tested the thermal coating.
A sheet of pale purple fire washed over the frame. The heat dispersed almost instantly against the outer material, leaving the inside unaffected.
"Not bad."
When he returned, he let the White Crow disassemble itself and settle back onto the rack in neat silver pieces.
Sparrow came running over with a stack of reports and rough intelligence summaries.
"Sir," he said breathlessly, "everything outside has exploded."
Hodell took the towel the boy offered and wiped the back of his neck.
"Explain."
Sparrow eagerly placed down a small projector. A crude map of Shadow Valley appeared above the bench, marked with lines, names, and red points.
"Right now, the whole valley is talking about you. The old man at the Clearing House raised your ranking to seventy second on the Death List, but everyone says that number's too low. The gamblers have already started giving you nicknames."
He swallowed.
"North District Arbiter. Shadow of Silence. Black Ghost. Some people even say the Empire sent you here in secret to clean out the wasteland."
Hodell snorted softly.
"Nicknames are just fear wearing perfume."
Sparrow nodded hard and hurried to the next point.
"Mr. Homan moved very quickly. After taking over Iron Vulture and Mole's assets, the Polar Merchant Guild sealed off the three main trade routes in the North District with armed caravans. The smaller factions all pulled back. Some ran. Some disbanded. Nobody wants to test the weather right now."
That part was expected.
Homan was a merchant. Merchants moved fastest when profit and fear were mixed together.
"There's one more thing," Sparrow said, lowering his voice. "This isn't on the Death List. It's spreading through the black market channels."
He adjusted the projection. A new line of information appeared.
Anonymous bounty.
Target requirement: any individual possessing high level spatial talent or short range teleportation ability.
The price was absurd.
Enough to buy a residence in the core ring of Cloud Dream River.
Hodell narrowed his eyes.
No name.
No faction.
Nothing that could be traced.
Either The School still refused to let go of him, or someone else had started to suspect the truth behind Ryan's death.
Neither possibility was pleasant.
"Interesting," he murmured.
Before he could say more, a new notification suddenly appeared in his mind.
He paused.
Then looked at the panel.
[Beta test detected. Acquiring data…]
[Data acquisition complete.]
[Closed beta duration: 12 days.]
For the first time in a while, an unmistakable smile appeared at the corner of Hodell's mouth.
At last.
The countdown had truly begun.
.....
[If you don't want to wait for the next update, read 50 chapters ahead on P@treon.]
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