A Novel Concept - He Who Eludes Death-Chapter 407 - 396: A Shocking Trap

Dishnu's directions were far from GPS-accurate, but Priam still found the artificial clearing in under ten minutes. The moment he spotted hundreds of protruding stumps, he knew he was in the right place.

"Apparently, Aydan needs wood," he mused, decapitating a corrupted creature that wandered too close.

A quick scan of the area revealed a narrow path that led deeper into the woods. Priam followed it until it ended abruptly at a large stone block. The trail went no further, halting too suddenly. The Champion paused, scanning his surroundings. Half-dead trees, a gloomy pallor to the light, the stench of rotting corpses, and the distant howls of the damned. Just another forgettable patch of haunted forest, if not for the stone slab that resisted his Domain.

He stepped closer, feeling along the surface for a hidden mechanism. Five full minutes of prodding, poking, and even groping the most intimate crevices yielded nothing. [Kinetic Sovereignty] cleared the earth and tangled roots to reveal a stone column plunging deep into the ground before merging with the bedrock. Without using his Breath, he wouldn't get inside.

Rather than wake the whole island, Priam opted to continue his stealth run. [Moon Mist] unfurled, drowning the area in a thick fog that clung to every surface like a second skin. Searching for a hidden door or emergency exit, he was nearly surprised when he sensed a suction about fifty meters away.

"Bingo."

Hidden beneath a patch of ferns was a cracked tree stump. Deep in the fissure, a golf-ball-sized hole quietly siphoned air with a steady draw. A ventilation system?

Priam closed his eyes and reached for his Concept. The perception granted by Unity allowed him to trace his mist slipping twenty meters underground, passing the bedrock before spreading into a broader chamber.

The Juggernaut stepped forward and rode the mist.

He opened his eyes to a room aglow with soft green light, courtesy of a ceiling strung with bioluminescent fungi. The clang of metal hitting stone drew his gaze to a two-pronged fork at his feet. Priam picked it up and handed it back to its astonished owner.

"Good evening," he said with a smile.

"INTRUDER!" the soldier shrieked, lunging. His shout was absorbed by [Echolocation]; his charge halted by [Kinetic Sovereignty].

Lvl Up: [Echolocation] lvl 27

PERC +2

DEXT +1

A swift strike to the base of the neck knocked him out cold just as his partner finished drawing his blade. The weapon met Promesse in a horizontal arc.

The man cursed at the sight of his warped blade, his eyes darting to the mess hall exit five meters away. It might as well have been on the far side of the island. The Empyrean leapt, but never landed.

Priam unleashed a kinetic pulse, crushing the man's natural resistance with his high meta-authority and flooding his inside with Domain. The kind of trick only possible when the disparity in attributes and Supremacies was vast. Once the enemy's brain was under his sphere's control, Priam paused the blood flow for a few seconds to stun him.

It would have been easier to kill the Empyrean, but Esmée had hinted she might soon break free from her family's grip. Should she succeed, these soldiers might fall under her command. Sparing them was a token of Priam's good will.

"In any case, they're not much of a threat." Priam eyed the two unconscious elites, his grin fading. "I wonder if Vertex sees me as weak, too…"

A glance at the warriors' meal trays showed their purées untouched. Curious, Priam dipped a finger into the pale sludge, tasted it, then spat it out.

"Tastes like someone pissed in ginger. Blueberry deserves a raise," muttered the Lord of Oasis, before correcting himself. "Blueberry deserves a salary."

The mess hall had two exits, three with the kitchen. After incapacitating the three criminals inside—guilty of crimes against cuisine—Priam picked a door at random. It opened onto a corridor not unlike those found in submarines, though carved from rock instead of metal. As he stepped into the passage, his aether perception spiked, warning him of a sudden surge of magic.

Runes lining the doorframe ignited. Priam leapt back just as a lattice of laser-like light sealed the threshold. Without the forewarning from [Ideal Aether Perception], even his high agility wouldn't have saved him. Indeed, his instincts had remained silent.

"This bunker sure isn't thief-friendly."

As a child, Priam had learned to fear fire by touching it. Twenty years later, he extended his hand into the lasers. The Juggernaut grunted as his fingers began to sear. The scent and sizzle of cooking meat lost their charm when it was his own flesh burning.

Lvl Up: [Solar Resistance] lvl 23

CONST +2

VIT +1

"Oh?"

It had been ages since his light resistance had gained a level. He was long past sunburns, so short of sitting under a giant magnifying glass or tanking a beam from Arnold himself, opportunities to grind the skill were rare.

Thinking of the Terminator, Priam figured a few extra levels couldn't hurt.

Hector had been diagnosed with prostate cancer a few years ago. Though the Tutorial reward had healed him, the habit of waking at night remained.

Four hours past midnight, he rose from bed, greeted his colleagues on shift, and headed to the kitchen for a snack. The moment he opened the mess hall door, a smoky, barbecue aroma wafted over him. Good thing I came.

One step in, and his good mood was replaced by stupefaction. Across the room, a naked man was light bathing in the anti-intrusion lasers.

"... I don't like tan lines," the exhibitionist justified.

Lvl Up: [Solar Resistance] lvl 24, 25

CONST +4

VIT +2 𝒻𝑟ℯℯ𝑤𝑒𝑏𝑛𝘰𝓋𝑒𝓁.𝒸𝑜𝘮

"Not bad for fifteen minutes of training," Priam said, depositing the insomniac guard in the kitchen with the five others already there. He debated continuing his self-inflicted torture, but thought better of it. He had already analyzed the runes and decrypted the trap's four effects. Camouflage, detection, identification, and deployment of an incandescent net.

A cocktail he could reproduce at home, which only lacked an alarm. Priam was certain that was intentional. Alarms could be sound, light, or electrical. During an invasion, the first would only add to the chaos, as it was unlikely someone could reach this chamber without being spotted.

The latter two alarms relied on the magical equivalent of fiber optics or copper wiring to transmit signals to a command center. A skilled aetherist could trace those lines right back to the source to find a leader, or worse, hijack the entire shelter's core systems.

The laser web's sole purpose was to slow or kill an intruder—and it would have done just fine if Priam weren't the unholy fusion of a tank and a mage.

The Juggernaut stepped out of the kitchens just in time to see the laser web flicker. Its energy source sputtered and died, extinguishing the last of the beams and clearing the path forward.

Priam advanced down the corridor, systematically opening each door along the way. He skipped the laundry room, ignored the food stores, and scowled as he took a few drops of acid to the scalp while checking the gym.

Lvl Up: [Acid Resistance] lvl 15

CONST +1

A mirror assured him that the tonsure was not an acceptable hairstyle.

The final door opened onto a dormitory. About thirty humanoid moles turned towards the intruder.

Priam froze for a hundredth of a second before channeling the full force of his Heroic Aura. His mist-cloak blazed a solar orange, and his hair crackled like wildfire. Behind him, the tattooed wings on his back ignited as his phoenix bloodline awakened. Sensing a rival, the dragon stirred. When Priam opened his mouth, it was no longer the man who spoke, but the Juggernaut.

"Nobody move."

Silence fell like a dropped curtain. When the stench of urine assaulted his nostrils, Priam realized he had overdone it. Tier 0 or not, the sum of two bloodlines and an Aura created a spiritual pressure that crushed lesser wills. Half embarrassed, half ashamed, Priam ordered [Chimera] to suppress his bloodlines and resumed in a gentler voice.

"I have a few questions for you. Someone to speak on your behalf?"

A trembling monster woman cast a glance at her companions, then stepped forward.

"Shaya will answer the questions of Your Transcendental Eminence," she stammered, wringing her hands. Clearly, she had volunteered out of courage, not madness.

Priam raised an eyebrow before understanding. [Ciphered Record] blocked any attempt at identifying him, his Aura was far too heavy for a low-tier combatant, and these people had likely never seen a Demiurge. Logically, the stranger standing before them had to be a Transcendent. I can work with that.

The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.

"Where does the prince hide his treasures?" he asked in a neutral tone, neither kind nor cruel. He disliked being feared, but the respect tinged with fear inspired by his display of power might save them violence. The mole-folk wouldn't defend the Empyreans from a Tier 4. Against a Tier 0, though…

"The Empyreans don't entrust us with secrets like that," Shaya replied cautiously.

Priam frowned, irritated by Aydan's casual racism, though his expression was misread.

"B-But," she blurted, "he did have us build two vaults! One in the infirmary and one beneath his dragon's nest."

"A wyrm isn't a dragon, but whatever. Did you dig this bunker?"

The woman tilted her head. Evidently, her Empyrean vocabulary wasn't complete.

"This place," he clarified.

She bowed. "I thank the Transcendent for the lesson. Yes, my clan built this place. Our claws are perfect for tunneling through the outer isles." Despite her fear, a hint of pride colored her voice.

"Impressive. You're talking about the outskirts of the Wandering Islands?"

"Indeed. Minerals here rarely surpass Tier 3. In comparison, they say that at the heart of the Empire, the bedrock reaches Tier 7."

Priam smirked. When he had left the Tutorial, he had mistaken Elysium for Hell. In truth, the Concepts had dropped him in the kiddie pool.

"Maybe someday your claws will carve through that kind of material."

The female mole gave a timid smile.

"How many secondary exits are there?"

"The entrance is the only way in or out," she said, then made a face. On her mole-like face, the grimace was monstrous. "There are some ventilation shafts, but they're really narrow."

"I know about them. Do you have a map?"

Shaya crouched and placed a claw against the floor. With a few swift strokes, she sketched the bunker.

"Thank you. That's all I need."

The mole-folk went even more rigid at the phrase, bracing for judgment from the false Transcendent.

"Wait until dawn before leaving. Do that, and you'll never see me as an enemy," said Priam, flashing his Aura for a split second as a warning.

"L-Lord!" Shaya called.

"Yes?"

"Could you… could you seal the door?"

"Sealing the door doesn't make much sense when you can just dig through the wall to get out."

"The Prince doesn't have much regard for us. If we plead stupidity to justify our inaction, he'll believe us."

Torn between laughter and anger, Priam finally sighed. "Listen to me closely…"

A ton of condensed mist and [Kinetic Sovereignty] formed a hand-thick ice plate that sealed the dormitory. Not his best work, but Priam didn't want to doom the mole tribe to cannibalism, just prevent them from leaving for a few hours.

According to the mole's map, he was near the entrance of the bunker. To be thorough, Priam explored the last few meters and found a circular stone embedded in a rune-covered leading upward. The Champion destroyed the magical elevator.

"I'm not locked in here with you, you're locked in here with me," he quoted.

Turning back, he returned to the mess hall and took the last door. The new corridor forked into a Y. The left path led to the royal quarters and garrison, while the right led to the plantations, pharmacy, and various utility rooms.

If video games had taught Priam anything, it was to loot everything. Even the most unassuming clay pot might hide an emerald.

He took the right path, saving the wyrm for last. Following the hallway, he came upon two guards stationed in front of a door.

"Halt!" one barked, drawing his weapon.

"Relax," Priam said, smiling as he projected a sliver of his Heroic Aura. Tied to his Charisma, it could sway first impressions.

"Night passphrase," snapped the soldier.

Meeting a stranger in the depths of their secret shelter, with no alarms raised, the soldier knew there was a chance Priam had a right to be there. To avoid making a blunder, he didn't directly attack the unknown face. That was where a passphrase proved useful.

"Knowing Aydan? Uh... 'Long live misogyny'?"

Priam's attempt at humor fell flat, and the guards struck at once. Two swords struck Priam in the chest, sinking a phalange deep. The shock on their faces mirrored the Juggernaut's.

"This might sound arrogant, but you can already be proud of having pierced my skin," he said before casually sweeping them aside. Using his kinetic proficiency to silence the clatter of armor, he knocked them out and levitated their unconscious forms behind him. If a patrol passed by, two missing guards raised fewer questions than two corpses.

The door opened to reveal a heated greenhouse lit by runes too exquisite to have been made by anyone but Esmée. Priam nodded to the two mole farmers inside, shut the door behind him, and melted the lock.

"Shaya and the others are safe. You will be too, as long as you behave. Hide these two," he said, dropping the guards at their feet while flaring his Aura.

The locals, their instincts shaped by life in Elysium, obeyed without question. Priam took the opportunity to stroll between rows of vegetables, sampling alien fruits and storing a plant of each in his internal world. Maybe Myuri would be able to identify their origin and properties.

The next room housed an infirmary and a few sleeping wounded. None stirred, and Priam left them be. Aydan was the real enemy, not his soldiers. Hell, some of them might even be conscripts.

The final chamber was more lab than clinic. According to the mole pharmacist present, the place contained more drugs for muscle growth than actual medicine. Priam held up the room more out of a sense of duty than real need until he found a safe embedded in the far wall. His Domain perceived only void, betraying a magical metal.

"Nice," the thief grinned. Having browsed the Sun Shop catalogue, he recognized this vault's model retailed for a hundred thousand Sun Points. Sure, one could cut costs by buying the raw materials and forging the thing themself, but one truth remained constant: no one spent a fortune to hide paracetamol.

As Priam brought his palm near the metal, his instincts stirred. The outside of the safe was clean, giving no clue about the nature of the trap waiting for a would-be thief.

"Can you open it?" he asked the mole-woman.

"I'm afraid not, my lord. General Alexandre and prince Aydan each possess half of the key and only open it in private."

"Oh? Not even the soldiers know what's inside?"

The pharmacist blinked her half-blind eyes. "Some do. Yesterday, I overheard a patient in the infirmary ranting about having his reward confiscated. Judging by his wounds, and the reverence his comrades show him, it's not hard to guess he recently survived a Tribulation."

Greed pulled Priam's grin wider. "Now that's interesting."

"If the Transcendent permits, I'd like to step outside," said the mole-woman. "The princess spent an entire morning enchanting that vault, and she's gifted."

"That's an understatement. You can go."

Once alone, Priam entertained the idea of leaving the chest untouched. Perhaps the gnawing greed inside him was just his bloodline talking. If so, why not follow Vertex's example and only loot the hearthstone?

Then he chuckled. "Nah, I've always been greedy. And I'm way too broke to let this kind of opportunity pass."

As he turned to the safe, a thought crossed his mind—that Esmée would appreciate it if he didn't touch it. Priam crushed the sentiment. He was willing to be nice, not stupid.

"All right, let's get to work."

Priam had never watched a lockpicking tutorial, but he had seen plenty of films where thieves employed all sorts of tricks to open a lock. Even without a hairpin, his mastery over kinetics could substitute for any mundane key. Unfortunately, there was no keyhole in sight. Likewise, the chest bore no interface, no digital scanner, no retinal recognition, and no physical lock whatsoever.

The lock was definitely magical, but Priam hadn't the faintest clue how to locate—let alone override—it.

After five minutes of contemplation, he resigned himself to brute force. Summoning Promesse, Priam touched the vault with the tip of the spear. Nothing happened. No trap, no alarm. Oh Esmée, why can't it be easy?

A halo of light shimmered around the weapon's point as he thrust again… to no effect. Only when Heroic Aura surged to empower his Spear Mastery did the spear's tip barely manage to scratch the surface.

"Damn. With a safe like this, who even needs insurance?"

Frowning, the amateur thief weighed his options. The piercing drill of [Tribulation Heroic Strike] could probably breach the casing, but not without annihilating the contents. Same issue with his Breath. [Kinetic Sovereignty] might be able to tear the reinforced door off, but the anti-Domain jammer kept him from gaining any traction. His senses just slipped off the surface like oil on water. He could push, but not pull.

It would take finesse to crack this vault, and Priam felt frustration building as he realized he lacked the necessary tools.

"I'll have to fix that weakness later," he muttered, invoking [Frozen Meditation] to regain his composure.

Ten seconds later, he dismissed the skill and reassessed his options. He could spend six hours carefully engraving corrosion runes to soften the lock. Too slow. Blow up the wall, haul the vault in Concepts Archipelago, and crack it later. Too noisy. Use Pyro with surgical precision to burn a precise hole through the plating without igniting the bunker. That might work.

It was easier to attune his skin to the Concept than his spear. Banishing Promesse, Priam approached the armored chest. One final inspection revealed nothing new, and he conjured a glove of fire over his hand.

Drawing a breath and bracing for the worst, Priam placed his hand on the metal. His aetheric perception caught a sudden spike of aether—too fast to react.

The world exploded into white.

[Four Headed Hydra] triggered, restoring his head to keep death away. As his hearing returned, Priam caught the dying echo of a ragged scream—his own.

The acrid stench of charred meat, the soot curling along the ceiling, and the fire now raging through the room painted a clear enough picture of what had just happened. If he needed extra confirmation, the System kindly provided another hint.

Lvl Up: [Lightning Resistance] lvl 8,..., 16

CONST +18

VIT +9

Flat on the floor, his vitality knitting scorched flesh back together, Priam couldn't help a chuckle.

"An electric trap? How shocking…"

Status:

PHYSICAL:

Strength 1 253

Constitution 2 181 (+35)

Agility 1 652

Vitality 2 132 (+27)

Perception 994 (+3)

MENTAL:

Vivacity (D) 666

Dexterity 985 (+2)

Memory 1 208

Willpower 1 298

Charisma 998

META:

Meta-affinity (O) 1 443

Meta-focus 886

Meta-endurance 1 616

Meta-perception 861

Meta-chance 1 089

Meta-authority 927

Potential: 33 773 (+27)

Tier 0

[Tribulation]: Five Tribulations pending.

Next thresholds: 12 attributes > 1 200 / 3 attributes > 1 800 / 1 attribute > 2 400