Calm down, calm down. I am not going to hurt you." Rian whispered as he slowly approached the cage with careful steps while hiding a small dagger behind his back.
"That's right. You don't have to make a noise." He slowly reached the cage, coming face to face with the bird-like creature glowering at him with its narrow eyes.
Now comes the hard part. Rian narrowed his eyes, making sure he had accurately assessed the creature's position in the darkness. He struck forward, his dagger flashing out, aiming for the bird's neck without wasting a single moment.
Unfortunately, the bird was prepared as well. As if on instinct, the moment it saw the dagger, it screeched out in a highly shrill voice. Rian's dagger met the creature's neck, ending its life. Alas, the damage was already done.
==
Water Affinity Essence Fragments Acquired: 3 (44/100)
Water Affinity Essence Fragments Acquired: 2 (47/100)
Water Affinity Essence Fragments Acquired: 2 (49/100)
Progress: 49% - 51 more required to unlock Water Affinity.
==
"Did you hear that?"
"It's one of the Dravs, do you think that psychopath came back?"
Listening to the sound of approaching footsteps, Rian didn't even glance at the floating screen before straight up bolting towards the other side of the room, in the window he had originally entered from.
"The door… It's not moving. It's locked from the other side. It is him, quick run behind in the alley and catch that bastard."
"Damn it." Hearing the guards' commotion behind him, Rian quickly squeezed himself out of the window and took off running in the opposite alley, not stopping until he had made his way towards one of the crowded areas of the city.
"Phew, that was close." Rian let out a long sigh before resuming walking. It had been a couple of nights since he had started hitting up some of the higher-grade restaurants in the city to test his new cursed powers. He had been trying to kill some of the magical beasts kept there, hoping to boost his water elemental affinity. The Dravs, that horrendous bird beast in particular, were his target.
And the reason was simple. Being a delicacy, they were often killed only hours ago before being cooked, meaning these restaurants often stored quite a decent amount of them alive in their storage areas, making them a perfect target for the broke Rian.
"I probably shouldn't break into that one for the third time. Seriously, why the hell did that bird have to wake up all of a sudden, things were going so well." Rian let another sigh as he finally stepped onto the main street
Tall skyscrapers loomed in the distance, their sides plastered with giant holographic ads. Up in the sky, one could see dozens of spaceships regularly entering and exiting the atmosphere. Neon signs glowed as far as his eyes could see, and at his side, he could see hundreds of floating cars rushing through the roads.
It had already been four days since he had received his past life memories. That's right, he was calling them memories from a past life to save himself from all the identity crisis bullshit. He used to be Leo. Now he was Rian. That was it. End of the story.
As for how it had happened, or how a game from his "past life" could predict the future from his current life, he had no idea. Frankly, he didn't even have time to worry about these questions.
Anyway, a lot had happened since then. First, the Titan's death had been thankfully attributed to the princess rather than that violent surge of energy that had burst out when he became an Heir.
He was questioned as well, with several officials coming to the hospital and asking him how he had ended up in the giant's stomach. Before all of a sudden, everyone had stopped coming, with news outlets reporting how Rian had stupidly wandered into the hunting grounds before being swallowed by the Titan and graciously saved by Princess Mirai. Yes, yes, it wasn't hard to imagine what had happened there.
As for the princess, her video of getting puked on had gone viral throughout the galaxy, with people from all four quadrants making fun of her. Rian, as well, had tried to join in the fun with some alt accounts, trying to coin the nickname Puke Princess. That, unfortunately, had been taking some time to stick.
The result of this, however, was that Rian hadn't returned to his dorm room ever since getting discharged from the hospital, just in case another one of her goons tried to feed him to something that chewed before swallowing.
So here he was, roaming around the Aetherion Academy City, experimenting with his new powers by breaking into restaurants and killing fresh Dravs.
Pausing at an intersection, his gaze moved up toward one of the screens floating in the sky, showing a livestream of one of the ongoing Planar Wars. The scene was currently focusing on a single player as he stood under a chapel dressed in all red robes. Not far from him was the figure of a young woman, standing in the middle of several guests, dressed in a flowing red dress, holding a bouquet of flowers in her hands.
"Seems like Tiriel is going to manage to go through the wedding after all. Guess in the end, Selnom and all the other players ' efforts were all for naught.
"This is surely going to complicate a lot of things. With Velrath's armies and resources now behind him, Tiriel's conquests just became a whole lot more dangerous."
"No doubt. Every other player's got to recalculate their entire strategy after this play."
Ignoring the people standing beside him at the intersection, chatting excitedly about the game, Rian instead pulled out his commlink and immediately went to one of the Planar Games betting websites.
For the last couple of days, he had been betting every last penny on some of the ongoing Planar games based on some of his game knowledge. Unfortunately, these games usually took years to complete, so he was forced to only bet on the small stuff like this one, where one of the players had somehow swindled his way into marrying the daughter of one of the local dukes, immediately flipping the balance of power against all of his competitors in that world.
Thankfully, he was right about this one. Mumbling to himself, Rian decided to check through the extra 20k credits he had just earned when, all of a sudden, a message notification flashed through his commlink.
A single look at the notification was enough to cause a crease to appear on Rian's forehead.
You godforsaken disgrace, stop ignoring these messages and… He immediately swiped the message away before pulling up his father's contact information and contemplating for a second.
Should he block him? His father had become increasingly annoying in the past few days, contacting him again and again about the incident four days ago and repeatedly asking him to meet his half-siblings, the actual heirs to the Ashmere clan.
Rian had obviously done none of that and was pretty sure both of them were currently searching for him like loose hounds.
I mean, he has already cut off all of my financial support. What more could he do other than come here personally to beat me up? Thinking about that, he swiped the contact immediately, putting it on the block list.
He could already imagine his father's reaction to this. But he honestly didn't care. How could he, with this calamity hovering in front of his eyes?
==
Name: Rian Ashmere
Cultivation: 1 Star (High)
Affinity: Air (D+ Grade)
Sigil: Skyrazor Falcon (Grade 9)
Skills and Spells: Swift Wingbeat (Short burst of speed to dodge attacks at close distance), Talon Rake (Hardens the mage's arms and makes them sharper for five seconds)
Title: Heir of the Flesh Throne
Divinity Granted: Biomastery
==
He had spent the last three days trying to make sense of his situation while also going through his memories of Siege Beyond World. And the more of his memories he had confirmed as correct, the more he had prayed the floating screen would somehow disappear.
Unfortunately, that hadn't happened.
At first glance, it might seem like being chosen as an Heir to Godhood was a great thing, which it would have been in any other time in history. Right now, though… not so much.
The game Siege Beyond World was primarily held in the world of Aelthar , where its gods, noble houses, and factions of champions would invade and conquer other worlds.
Only in the later stage of the game was the world of Aelthar itself invaded by a different world-conquering civilization and its gods.
And surprise, surprise, who was their first target? The gods of Aelthar themselves.
One by one, all the gods were hunted down by these foreign gods, with their domains absorbed and souls destroyed to strengthen the foreign gods' power.
"This world is doomed to begin with," Rian mumbled. Stuck with this divinity, the only thing he could do was become strong enough to live through the whole ordeal and escape.
Sighing to himself, Rian looked at the digital clock floating at the edge of his commlink. It was already 3:20 AM in the morning. He needed to start moving if he wanted to reach that place on time.
The light soon turned green, and Rian resumed moving. Walking past the intersection, he soon turned onto another street, slowly making his way towards the city's outskirts.
Soon his surroundings began to change the freshly paved roads began to be replaced by torn-down streets with run-down buildings on both sides of the street.
It was at the half-hour mark when he finally stopped, eventually reaching what seemed like a run-down pub. There, taking a deep breath, he fixed his hood so that it would cover his face and slowly walked inside.
The inside of the pub was exactly as expected. A bunch of drunkards passed out on their seats, and a small counter with booze behind it just beside the door.
Thankfully, Rian hadn't come here for a drink. Ignoring everything, he walked straight towards a door in the back and walked inside, before silently climbing down a set of stairs. As he walked down, the silence around him was replaced by the sounds of screaming and shouting.
"Kill that bastard!"
"Dodge, dodge, damnit! Were you born blind? I said dodge!"
"God damnit! I spent all of my money on this fight, you better win!"
The shouts only grew louder as Rian walked down the stairs and walked across another door in the basement.
There in the center stood a large circular cage, in the middle of which were two Awakened, both of whom were busy throwing spells and lunging at the other with their weapons.
With each successful attack, the crowd would go wild in cheers, while some would start cursing at the top of their lungs.
Looking at one of the awakened with crimson red hair and a small scar running through his left cheek, Rian let out a sigh of relief. Looks like he had made it in time afterall.
This place right here was the underbelly of Aetherion Academy City. For all its prestige and shiny rankings, the city still hid places like this in the shadows. The underground fighting ring, run by local gangs and known to every student, was proof enough of that.
Of course, the only reason Rian knew about it was due to his in-game knowledge.
Pulling out a mask that covered his face up to his nose, Rian quietly made his way through the shouting crowd and found himself a seat.
He then waited, watching as the crimson-haired boy and his opponents both tried to pummel each other to death, with water and earth affinity spells flying all over the ring. On first glance the fighters seemed pretty evenly matched, however, if they looked closely, they would notice how every attack from the crimson-haired youth was striking at his opponent's fatal points with almost pinpoint ease.
That was to be expected, however. The red-haired boy's real name was Lior Whitlock, nephew of the current Whitlock family head, one of Nehlhim's three major forces, with strength not far behind the Nehlhim Royal Family.
Rian, however, knew him by a different name—the Oracle's dog. Years from now, when the foreign gods invaded Aelthar, the Whitlock family had been one of the first to shift their allegiance, with battle-hungry Lior becoming the right-hand man of one of the Divine Heirs, the Oracle. From there he had gone on a crazed spree, hunting down other gods, capturing them, and delivering them to the Oracle. Just remembering it sent a chill up his spine.
Of course, it didn't help that he was currently watching the culprit smiling while pummeling a man twice his size with ice-forged gauntlets, while he himself bled from more than a dozen cuts across his body.
This guy really is a psychopath. Rian drew in a deep breath. Right now, he had three objectives. First was to learn more about his new divine powers, second was to distract the princess in a way that she would be too busy to get rid of him, for a while atleast and third was to prepare for the upcoming invasion of Taurent in three days.
He had come here today to deal with the first and second problem. Watching Lior step out of the cage injured and exhausted, Rian rose from his seat and walked out into the pub. There, he approached the counter and ordered the cheapest bottle of liquor he could find before heading out into the streets.
'This better work.' Mumbling to himself, Rian looked around to ensure no one was watching before sprinkling the booze over his face and clothes. He then ruffled up his appearance by laying down and rolling across the ground.
This should be enough. Nodding to himself, he staggered into one of the secluded alleys and collapsed, the half-empty bottle of alcohol still in hand.
Then he waited. As the hours passed and night faded into morning, more and more people stumbled out of the bar, some giving him sideways glances before moving on. The outskirts were full of drunkards after all, and seeing one collapsed outside was nothing unusual.
It was only when the first rays of sunlight touched the sky that the person he was waiting for finally stepped out. Lior Whitlock, now wrapped in bandages and smelling of alcohol, stumbled out into the streets before turning and started walking toward the academy dorms.
Now came the difficult part. If he didn't let his guard down, Rian would have to think of another plan.
Drawing on his years of practice acting like a drunk, Rian staggered up from the ground, the half-empty bottle still in hand. "Hey, Lior…" Rian slurred, stumbling forward. "That was an awesome match, dude. You… you totally made me some serious dough back there."
Hearing his name, Lior paused briefly before glancing at Rian's drunken figure and continuing on his way.
"Hey, hey, wait. I… I wanted to talk to you about something." Rian rushed forward, reaching out and placing a hand on Lior's shoulder.
"Get away from me." Lior scowled, swatting Rian's hand aside. But it was already too late. That brief contact was enough for Rian to activate the Nehlhim family's precious bloodline technique, [Mana Disturbance].
A jolt of mana surged through Lior's body, temporarily shutting down his circuits for what Rian estimated to be no more than five seconds. Lior instantly grew alert, leaping back several steps and trying to cast what looked like a ranged spell, only to stare in horror when nothing happened. "You… how?"
Rian didn't give him the chance to finish. Lunging forward, he activated Swift Wingbeat, dagger in hand, aiming directly for Lior's throat as the boy desperately tried to use a movement spell to escape.
"No wait stop, do you not know who I a…?"
Alas, it was all for naught, he dagger drove cleanly through Lior's throat, and his corpse, still frozen in confusion, collapsed onto the street.