[Skill-Eater 2] Chapter 83: Manifest Chain (Patreon)

Now that the fight was over, it was time to hightail it back to his cave, nurse his wounds, then figure out what to do next. Before he moved on, Edge took a quick look around to make sure that nothing nasty had arrived while he was busy.

It was deeply unsettling to have half the world replaced with impenetrable blackness, but he tried not to let his fear get in the way. He could feel the tissue in his right eye squirming, tingling as Regeneration went to work healing the damaged organ. He didn’t see any monsters nearby, so he took ten seconds to consider the corpses cooling beside his boots.

The flat monster didn’t have anything worth harvesting, but the scythe-frog was another story. Edge sliced its blade-limbs free from its body, strapped his naginata to his pack, and carried the parts in his hands. I’ll figure out how to store them later, but now I need to go.

He picked out his path and ran until he was reasonably certain that nothing was following him. Then he slowed his pace to focus on stealth, Concealing himself every now and again to erase his trail. As dusk deepened to murky twilight, he crossed the last land bridge and made it back to his island.

Edge had calmed down during the journey, but after he reset his alarm traps and ducked into the enclosure between the boulders, his adrenaline started flowing again. Not due to fear this time around, but in pure, unadulterated excitement. He still had a few details that he needed to figure out, but at long last, his evolution felt close at hand.

He began by trying out his new Rare skill. When the mana came flowing out of his core, a quicksilver tendril emerged from his palm.

It floated in the air light as a breeze, and he could change its position at will. The tendril could stretch about ten feet from his body, and the weapon at the end took any shape he wanted. Animate Weapon would even follow simple commands, such as, “kill anything that enters this cave.”

The versatile skill already looked a bit like the black chains. Let’s see how similar they really are. When Edge asked the Animate Weapon to assume their form, it was happy to comply. Its length segmented to form a chain—identical in appearance to the ones manifested by Extraction except for the color.

It was a step in the right direction, but it wasn’t good enough. Although this weapon was shaped in their likeness, it didn’t feel like the black chains at all. It was missing their awareness—the predatory instincts and sense of purpose that made them… unique. That thought triggered another insight. Skill-Eater said to mutate the skill that was similar to their nature. The token must be the missing ingredient.

While he mulled the matter over, Edge willed his mind into his core. When he found himself standing inside his central chamber, he headed into his skill garden, and thanked Chibime for its assistance.

Then he walked over to the ever-shifting array of blades representing Animate Weapon, pulled up the listing for his newly-merged skill, and read through it one more time.

Animate Weapon (Rare, Rank 1)

You may manifest the weapon of your choice and control it with your will. It can also be automated and obey simple commands. If this weapon is destroyed, you may not use the skill again for 24 hours.

“Damn.” He let out an appreciative whistle. “This skill is amazing.”

Along with the written description, he had been granted a vision once the merger was complete, showing him what it could do. Animate Weapon was the kind of power that every hunter dreamed of obtaining.

Like Manifest Weapon, it allowed him to create a killing tool whose shape could be changed on the fly to take advantage of his prey’s weaknesses. But that was only half the story. Unlike Manifest Weapon, Animate Weapon could operate independently. It was a skill that could fight beside him, increasing his combat potential without dividing his attention.

In short, it was the best weapon skill that he’d ever heard of. Edge was torn in that moment. Part of him wanted to hedge his bets. To keep what was certain to be an invaluable addition to his skillset and find another way to unlock the requirement for his evolution.

But the rest of him was salivating with greed. If the Rare skill is this good already, what kind of power will a Unique mutation offer?

Heart pounding in his chest and adrenaline coursing through his veins, Edge pulled out the Skill-Mutation Token. For a few minutes, he just stood there looking at it, savoring the thrill of the moment. He ran his fingertips across the question mark engraved on one side, then steeled his resolve and committed to his course.

While Edge had grave reservations about swapping out a badass skill for a permanent, potentially-useless addition to his collection, he was willing to trust the ancient being slumbering inside him. He had to believe that the entity whose very name conveyed a mastery of skills, knew what it was doing.

Any way that I slice it, this is more likely to succeed than trying something on my own. Besides, with the convicts breathing down my neck, I can’t afford play it safe.

Afraid that he had misunderstood what he needed to do—that he would wind up binding garbage to a skill socket forever—Edge took a deep breath and addressed the System. “I would like to use this token to mutate Animate Weapon.”

The instant he voiced those words, his Guide appeared on its own. The mote of golden light danced around his head before shifting into a screen. It seemed that the System was giving him one last chance to change his mind, which hammered home just how big of a risk he was taking.

Warning: Mutated skills may advance in rank, but they may never be removed, Absorbed, or merged. Are you sure that you wish to use your Skill-Mutation Token?

Although the intensity of the moment sent shivers running down his spine, Edge wasn’t the kind of person to second guess himself once he had made a decision. “Fuck it.” He grinned. “It’s time to roll the dice.”

Apparently, that was close enough to consent for the System. Without further fanfare, the token rose from his hand and started spinning. The light it emitted was a rich shade of copper, punctuated by miniature bolts of lightning.

Chibime had walked over while Edge was reading, eager to find out what all the fuss was about. When it saw that what the token was doing, the little guy started laughing like a maniac—enthralled by the resplendent display. His other skill avatars were hanging back in the far end of the garden and seemed both excited and a little afraid.

All such thoughts were driven from his head when the token split down the middle with a thunderous crack and Animate Weapon started shining.

At first, the intensity was comparable to the other powers he’d merged or upgraded. But then the light grew brighter, and a humming filled the air. Brilliant veins of onyx and magenta reached out from the token to embrace the chrome weaponry, pumping the skill full of an energy that felt vaguely similar to potentia.

Only instead of transformative energy that could be guided by its recipient’s will, this change was uncontrolled as far as he could tell. If felt like the token was altering Animate Weapon at the whim of chaos, chance, or destiny, depending on which cosmic force you believed in. But then Edge realized that the black door had cracked open, and energy was flowing through, altering the process in the subtlest of ways before swinging shut again.

By now, the token-warped skill was shining so bright that it would have blinded him if this wasn’t a mental projection taking place inside his core.

Without further ado, the living lightshow hit critical mass. Half a heartbeat later, the shimmering latticework cracked like an eggshell before shattering like glass. Through the fading fragments of fluorescent and neon emerged something that was both newly born and deeply familiar.

His eyes widened in astonishment when he realized that Animate Weapon’s avatar had transformed into the black chains. Or more accurately, the black chain, since there was only one of them.

He knew in that instant that this wasn’t a facsimile. Through the bond he shared with his skills, Edge could tell that this was the same chain that appeared whenever used Extraction. Underlining that truth, one end was sticking out through hole in the black door that hadn’t existed until this moment, and the other was hanging in the air like the head of a flying serpent.

However, this manifestation felt different than when he summoned the chain with Skill-Eater’s ultimate ability. Like it was a different aspect of the same being—one that was far more amiable to his desires.

Intrigued to find out exactly what he’d created, Edge eagerly read the message from the System that appeared a moment later.

You have mutated Animate Weapon <versatile> (Rare, Rank 3) into Manifest Chain <soulbound> (Unique, Rank 1).

Note: Unique skills can only be advanced by Extracting compatible skills of superior ranks.

Manifest Chain <soulbound> (Unique, Rank 1)

You may summon a chain of oblivion and guide it by your will. The chain may also be freed to act at its own discretion. If the manifestation is destroyed, it cannot be summoned again for 24 hours.

At rank one, you may only manifest the left chain, Foebinder. Foebinder is resilient to physical attacks and weak against magic.

The chains of oblivion? That sounds both ominous as hell and completely badass. Soulbound must be the part where I can never remove it from its socket or alter it in any way.

Now that the mutation was complete, Chibime walked over to inspect Edge’s newest skill. There was a tense moment where both powers seemed to be sizing each other up. He sighed in relief when they nodded in a gesture of respect between equals. Well, Chibime did any rate, Foebinder just bobbed in the air.

Thrilled that the gamble had worked out in the end and that his skills were getting along, Edge introduced himself to his new power. They weren’t really strangers by this point, but he wanted to start this new phase of their relationship off on the right foot, and it never hurt to be polite.

When he was done saying hello, Foebinder retracted through the black door and disappeared. It seemed that unlike his other skills, the black chain only appeared when he requested its presence. While it was welcome in his garden, its home was with its twin beyond his central chamber, where the true form of Skill-Eater resided.

That was when the full realization of what had happened broke over him, and Edge began to laugh. Holy shit. It worked!