A Novel Concept - He Who Eludes Death-Chapter 421 - 410: Rule Breaker

A bolt as thick as his thigh slammed into Priam.

Lvl Up: [Lightning Resistance] lvl 17

CONST +2

VIT +1

He blacked out for a second before his vitality dragged him back.

"The massive thunderhead is nothing more than the packaging for the High Trib," Braato growled. "Dying now would be premature."

They pressed deeper into the cumulonimbus for nearly a minute before Priam's hearts began to pound. Fear clamped his gut with the icy grip of a judge at the gates of the afterlife. I'm a step away from hell…

"Ready?" Braato's voice carried through wind and thunder, a resonant boom of its own.

The warrior was close enough that Priam could have reached out and touched him—yet he couldn't see even his outline. The storm's magical and visual opacity was absolute.

"Give me a minute."

Heavenly Dragon demanded an Epic or Legendary resistance for every gate. A perfectionist at heart, Priam had forged the first two from ideal skills, and he had no intention of stopping now. [Karmic Consequence Resistance] couldn't remain merely a high-tier skill.

Potential - Skill Creation

Do you wish to downgrade the rarity of [Karmic Consequence Resistance - Epic]?

Yes.

Potential required: Error. No root skill detected.

…Fuck.

A week of formal education in a dream couldn't cover everything about the System, but it seemed obvious to Priam that skills were acquired at varying ranks. For example, [Radiation Resistance] had begun at epic, which felt natural given its difficulty and both its genetic and magical reach. So it made sense that [Karmic Consequence Resistance] had no rare equivalent. But it screws me over.

"Every second we waste here is another chance for Léo to pull his thumb out and grind your buddy and his little soldiers into sausage," Braato reminded him.

"You think I don't know that?" Anger surged, but Priam forced it down. "I want to downgrade my resistance to make it ideal, but the System can't find a root skill."

"Mmh. Delete it."

"Excuse me?"

"Delete it," the colossus repeated. "The System will strip the soul rune but leave your aetheric and genetic code untouched. Your body will be right where it'd have been if you'd developed the skill without the System or a core."

"That's possible?!"

"The System is a highway to the Zenith, but at the end of the day, there are many other roads," Braato said. "Point is, you'll be able to relearn that resistance, or something close, easily. Like muscle memory."

Priam wasn't the trusting type, and from a stranger such advice was cause for alarm. An easy way to shoot himself in the foot. However, the Tier 3 Gaesert didn't look like a liar. Having worn a mask all his life, Priam thought he could recognize them.

A good feeling wasn't enough. Priam preferred reason to instinct, and found another argument: If he's lying, better to find out now than later.

Potential - Skill Creation

Do you wish to delete [Karmic Consequence Resistance - Epic]?

Yes.

Recast : 190 POT

Hard delete : 570 POT

Mmh. Five hundred and seventy… Three points per level, multiplied by nineteen levels, multiplied by a malus of ten. Exactly ten times what the skill has brought me since I first acquired it. Full delete must mean scrubbing every trace. A deep purge, leaving behind neither Potential, nor attributes, nor anything. Plus the price of the cleaning…

A permanent decision.

On the other hand, erasing only the soul rune is three times cheaper.

The timing was terrible, but Priam was a scientist at heart. He needed to understand the world almost as much as he needed to be free.

I see only one reason to recast a skill: to grow a mediocre skill to a medium one, or even high and ideal. It costs three times more Potential than the skill ever yielded, so if possible, it's better to succeed on the first try...

Priam spared a thought for [Ideal Aether Manipulation] before reflecting on the poor output. Was it a System limitation, or a tax?

As for the hard delete, Priam knew that, in theory, a Tier 0 could only possess five legendary skills. A Tier 1 soul only had room to accommodate a single Mythic skill. This option allowed one to erase a poor choice.

The Concepts want to plant someone's ass on the Eighth Throne. From there, a kid who locks himself into a dead-end build because of one bad choice early on is one less candidate. A permissive System which lets you shift course if you discover new talents or passions makes sense to not miss the late bloomers. I guess the Seven are on a mission…

Somewhere in the past weeks, Priam had lost sight of the big picture. Tribulations, quests, the Necromoon, and a dozen other calamities had made him forget the System's mission: to optimize user progression. Forcing a born swordsman to wield a spear was a dead end. And if that meant tossing a multiversal war into the mix to make sure he grabbed a sword eventually, so be it. Damn it, they've thought of everything. If I weren't a pawn in their game, I'd applaud the bastards.

Of course, it was foolish to slap a manichean label on the System or the Concepts. Neither benevolent nor cruel, they simply lived by the maxim: the ends justify the means. When severity appeared, it served a purpose.

Well. Either way, it works for me. Soft delete.

POT -190

[Karmic Consequence Resistance - Epic] recasted!

Pain flared through his soul like a brand, searing him for a single breath. Like a tattoo torn away by laser, or hair ripped by wax, the soul-bound rune was deleted.

His jaw clenched in agony, Priam closed his eyes and focused on Micro. According to the Gaesert, the Supremacy governed his body—and thus his Body Tempering. Time to test the trick.

Priam's first gate lay in his brain and bolstered [Ciphered Record]. That legendary resistance anonymized him by disrupting all attempts at divination and scrambling magical surveillance. As a result, cursing or targeting him with karmic skills became far more difficult.

He located a crystalline aether ring, no bigger than a grain of rice, inside his brain and commanded the gate to cease interference. The resistance obeyed for a fraction of a second before rebelling. Micro I was too crude a tool to fully command a once-tempered resistance.

It didn't matter. Priam had already reached his goal. For that split millisecond without his divinatory shield—when every mage in the cosmos could, in theory, glimpse him—thousands of karmic chains had lashed out across space to bind him. Fraudulent contracts, one-sided promises, mandatory riddles, curses, hexes, and all manner of skills tried to worm their way in, all clawing for a weakness.

Priam arched an eyebrow when he realized most attacks were from low Tier casters. They shouldn't have been fast enough to exploit his brief vulnerability. Only one conclusion fit. At any given moment, millions of lunatics are trying to scry me, curse me, and bind me. Don't people have better things to do?

If he could still smile, it was because he was standing in the right place. The High Tribulation itself churned like a magical maelstrom only meters away, grinding every karmic attack to magical dust. What fragments reached Priam were harmless. Still enough for his body to react.

His Homo Elysian physique was doing what it did best: adapt. Like an organism injected with a vaccine, it began to weave a new resistance from the remnants of the skill Priam had just erased.

Four heartbeats after momentarily disabling [Ciphered Record], the System confirmed his gamble had paid off.

Prerequisites met:

[Homo Elysian Obsession]

[Life is Hard; I'm Harder]

Death by failing a Sphinx's riddle

Suicide to a thorn effect

What thorn effect? Ah, the perverse elf at the end of my quintuple Tribulation! I threw a Breath at her, she reflected part of it, and I died. My twenty-sixth death. Ah, I'd forgotten that one.

The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.

Once again, Priam reminded himself that his perfect memory was nothing more than a library to store information. The Talent didn't index his recollections. If he didn't remember owning a book, he would never think to pull it off the shelf. I suppose that's what the Memory attribute is really for. A problem for later.

Following the Juggernaut's Path

̶F̶a̶t̶e̶ ̶t̶e̶s̶t̶e̶d̶ ̶b̶y̶ ̶

[̶R̶e̶d̶a̶c̶t̶e̶d̶]̶

"What the—" Priam squinted at the sixth requirement. It looked perfectly valid in his opinion, yet the line had been struck out. Two possibilities came to mind. First, Thaal himself might have intervened, choosing not to draw the attention of She Who Weaves Fate. An entity petty enough to punish minor slights wouldn't accept being used as a stepping stone. The second option was worse: perhaps the System itself preferred not to provoke a Tier 9.

After a moment's thought, Priam only sighed. Either way, I've got my five requirements.

You have gained an ideal skill.

[Rule Breaker - Epic] - Level 19 - The stone that falls into water stirs ripples. Cause and effect. Karma applies this law to souls. Every thought, word, and act carries consequences that return to us.

However, unlike the stone, the soul resonates with aether. That property makes karma both so lax and so binding.

If karma is a religion, this skill is the heretic's first weapon. This resistance mitigates your karmic debt when you defy an imposed or exploitative rule or contract. The price of breaking such chains is reduced. Breaking your own word still exacts its toll.

Like karma, conflicts begin when there are two people. To settle disputes, rules are needed. When laws grow slanted to favor some over others, they become shackles. The Juggernaut refuses to be bound.

CHAR +3

Meta(Chance) +6

Rule Breaker…

A good skill. One that suited his Path, and his hunger for freedom. The lack of protection against Fate was disappointing, though expected. Still, Priam was a dreamer. Even if he never said it aloud, in his heart, the desire to resist the tyranny of the Tier 9 remained.

"Okay, let's go," Priam announced, before darting forward.

It felt as though he pierced a bubble. Behind him, the storm's fury vanished; ahead lay a world without color. His eyes perceived nothing. Even his Fate vision was warped. Silence crushed his eardrums, his skin felt no air, and even his Domain had gone blind. Here, the aether ran too deep for him to sense. Even [Tribulation Hunter], his trump card, lay dormant—waiting for the trial to begin.

Deprived of his senses, the young man struggled to master the fear rising inside him while instinct screamed. He felt like a fool trespassing on a tiger's den, vaguely aware that something hunted him. Doubt clawed at his resolve. Shit. Why did I walk in here with [He Who Eludes Death] unprimed?! Could someone have tampered with my mind, pushing my courage and gagging my caution? If so, I've just served my death up on a silver platter. I need to turn back—

Color slashed across the black canvas. The image of a boar—no, a daeodon, its monstrous ancestor—manifested. Its presence drove back the oppressive horror of the place. Braato had entered the High Tribulation.

"Old Nekomata's main Path really was karmic in nature. Good, it'll help temper your resistance."

Priam opened his mouth to reply, but no sound emerged. The mind-bridge he tried to weave to communicate collapsed the instant it left his body.

"Tier 0 aether dissipates too fast in Tier 4 density. Don't waste your strength, you'll need it. By the way: don't even think about trying to defeat this Tribulation. You can't, as it isn't yours." A pause. "Even if you manage to pull a miracle out of your Juggernaut ass, baptizing your soul with someone else's Path is the dumbest idea."

With that, the image shifted to Priam's left, shielding a third of the High Tribulation. On his right, another presence materialized in the darkness. Arnold conjured no image, but the Tyrant shouldered a second third.

Whether it sensed Old Nekomata's proximity or simply realized the intruders wouldn't flee, the High Tribulation stirred.

The black world tore apart, revealing the storm. Looking around, Priam saw neither Arnold nor Braato, and chose to descend. Within seconds, he slipped out of the cloud, back to the tribal encampment. Nothing seemed changed. In the distance, Kazuki and his hoplites were locked in battle with the Aelbes. Farther still, Sphinx and Moonie raced through Log-a-rhythm's branches under Alain's amused gaze. Beyond that, things grew too blurred to see clearly, but Priam thought he glimpsed Jasmine lurking in Esmée's shadow. In that same Sector, a thousand star systems away, stood a weary woman. Mom…

Only then did Priam realize the High Tribulation hadn't ended. He was still inside. The trial had woven an illusory world where intangible threads sprouted from his soul, stretching across dimensions to tether him to those he cared for. It was through this karmic tapestry that he could sense them.

A new thread shimmered into being. Where Kazuki's bond burned blue, this one was red. The first was thick and bright, the second thin and dull. Tracing the link back, Priam turned just in time to glimpse a glint of metal, and dodged by a hair. An arrow buried itself in a nearby house, which promptly exploded in a hail of timber.

"Useful for spotting enemies," Priam muttered, raising his hand to summon Promesse. "Any last words?"

"Rohan will kill you!"

The thread between the Aelbe youth and the Champion flickered, even as another line brightened.

"Words carry weight," Priam realized.

Charged with kinetic might, his spear shrieked through the air and silenced the Tier 1 sniper who had hoped to exploit a moment of the Champion's distraction.

As the light left the boy's eyes, Priam frowned. The enemy's skull had bloomed with a bouquet of karmic threads. Most unraveled at death, but several clung stubbornly to Priam. All of them red.

"Guemene!" An Aelbe appeared beside the fresh corpse, checked the pulse, and then glared hatred at the killer. Naturally, a fresh thread now ran from his soul into Priam's. By severing one tie, the Champion had birthed another.

"Karma… My actions have consequences," the Juggernaut whispered, loosing another shot to fell the sniper's father.

As if he had spoken a magical incantation aloud, the world coated itself in translucent scales. Every surface, every volume bore them. Even Priam's breath set them trembling like dominos. Not enough to topple them, but perceptible. Priam was almost certain he knew their nature.

With a thought, he summoned Pyro and burned a nearby house to cinders. The wood vanished, devoured by flames hot enough to rival the fiercest volcanoes. A scatter of scales lifted, weaving three pale-red threads that tethered him to as many Aelbes. The former residents. Destroying their home impacts their lives, and depending on their decisions and destiny, perhaps that act will one day come back to affect me.

The butterfly effect applied to karma. The fact that an insect's wings might spark a tornado a thousand kilometers away meant nothing to the Concept. But if that tornado killed a family and left behind an orphan, then there existed a link—thin as it was—between the butterfly and the survivor. And to Karma, that mattered.

"But the butterfly effect—or rather, chaos theory—takes time to unfold. Here, part of the change happens instantly," Priam mused, watching certain threads sever in real time. Each snapped filament meant the death of someone—most often in the Hope Sector, at an astronomical remove from the Champion. And yet the information traveled instantly. "Not exactly like quantum entanglement, but there are parallels. And if the color of a thread reflects the bond between two souls… couldn't you use that to communicate across the universe without lag? All it would take is hypnotizing a pair, nudging their feelings with mind-magic, and agreeing on a color code to—"

The idea fascinated Priam until his addon zapped him. He was in the middle of a lethal trial. The fact no danger had yet struck wasn't a good sign. It only meant the threat was insidious.

"Where's the trap?"

Once on alert, it took Priam only a few seconds to realize that the threads around his soul had become tangled. They were forming a noose. He raised a hand to his head and cursed as he felt pressure bearing down on the outermost layer—the one housing his common skills. For now, the partial crystallization of his soul thanks to [Iconoclast] made it bearable.

"But it won't hold. At this pace…"

His add-on quickly calculated that he had no more than nine minutes before the quintessence of his being shattered like an eggshell. And that was if Braato and Arnold didn't let go. I'm not worried about the big guy as his soul's been baptized three times. But my dear rival is another matter.

There wasn't a second to waste. With the experience of his previous temperings, Priam was confident he could pull this one off in ten minutes… A bit too long. Was there a way to buy more time? The answer was yes: relax the knot. That was likely the original purpose of the High Tribulation. Old Nekomata could have managed it with his karmic Concept, but Priam didn't have that tool in his arsenal. Alternatively, a genius like Kazuki might one day forge his soul into a spear sharp enough to sever the threads. Finally, Priam could burn a Seed of Potential to stimulate the growth of [Rule Breaker] and ease the knot's tension. But that last option had a flaw: an ideal skill wasn't the same as a high one. The gap between [Karmic Consequence Resistance] and its replacement would have to be bridged before the latter could level again.

Having confirmed that merging with Pyro was useless, and with no other options left, the Juggernaut chose a cruder approach. Cut the threads that strained him most.

The karmic noose strangling his soul was woven from quadrillions of filaments—the price to be famous—but most were so thin they exerted no pressure at all. Only the strongest ties threatened to crush his soul. The kind of bonds Priam shared with only a handful of people.

His gaze followed one such thread northward. There, Kazuki was battling the Aelbes. Sighing, Priam split his focus in two. One half began the tempering. The other would buy time.

With a bit of luck, Kazuki's life would buy him a few minutes.

Status:

PHYSICAL:

Strength 1 259

Constitution 2 297 (+2)

Agility 1 659

Vitality 2 213 (+2)

Perception 998 (+3)

MENTAL:

Vivacity (D) 666

Dexterity 988 (+3)

Memory 1 219

Willpower 1 310

Charisma 1 010

META:

Meta-affinity (O) 1 459

Meta-focus 902 (+2)

Meta-endurance 1 686

Meta-perception 876 (+5)

Meta-chance 1 367

Meta-authority 1018

Potential: 43 403 (-188)

Tier 0

[Tribulation]: Five Tribulations pending.

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

Next arc already complete on Patreon (50+ chaps ahead) if you want to find out what happens next!

https://www.patreon.com/ANovelConcept