Outworld Liberators-Chapter 159: Fighting The Hidden Eldritch Without Swords

Sweet steam from the teas curled through the arena like incense, and the pastries vanished from plates as fast as attendants could set them down.

In the glassed upper boxes, cultivators leaned forward with bright eyes and sharper appetites, asking where they could buy such treats, already planning them as travel rations and sect snacks.

A few even shifted in their seats, blinking at the strange ease in their meridians, as if their cultivation had loosened a knot.

The ghost attendants only smiled, hands folded, and apologized with practiced grace.

Below, the mortals had no gilded couches or lacquered sofas. Still, their chairs were soft, the cushions thick, and each seat had a peculiar plank fixed at the side.

Radeon watched one attendant hook pale fingers under it and pull. The plank swung out and locked, becoming a small table.

It was a classroom trick from his former life, stolen clean and reborn here.

The mortals stared, then tried it themselves, murmuring when they felt the convenience settle into their bones.

Food came next, hauled in with a care that made it feel like ceremony. Three dishes per person, one drink.

A hot bowl of noodles that fogged the air. Slices of meat that shone with oil and spice. Then a small cup of frozen soft cream.

No one in the lower boxes ate at first. Their eyes kept lifting to the upper boxes, measuring manners through glass, afraid it would be rude to chew while the lofty ones sat solemn.

Then they saw cultivators laughing softly, sipping, biting, licking sugar from their fingers.

The mortals began to eat, first cautious, then hungry, then openly gorging as if they feared the bowls might vanish.

Eldric stepped into the center. Chairs scraped. Mouths paused mid chew. One man hurriedly wrapped half a slice of meat in cloth, hands trembling like a thief caught in daylight.

A ripple of panic threatened to become a wave. Eldric lifted one hand, palm outward, and the air itself seemed to settle.

"Eat while I speak. Treat this old man as but a show. I insist."

A few laughed, unsure. Radeon saw Tiberius in one of the upper boxes, ancient eyes narrowing in appraisal, then easing.

The man had lived long enough to collect eccentrics like scars. He lifted his cup as if to accept the invitation.

"Eat, drink, come, simply listen to the old man," Tiberius said.

The cultivators continued, slower now, savoring with the dignity they pretended they had never abandoned.

The mortals followed suit. Chewing became quieter. Ears and eyes tilted toward the center like a field of grain turning to sun.

Eldric waved both hands. Qi rose as green smoke, thin as breath at first, then thickening into coils. It shifted color in his grasp, green to gold to a bruised violet, turning language into light.

"We have been using different terms for the same things," he said. "Acquired stage. Ordinary grade. Normal item. Every region, every sect, every craft, a new name. It confuses buyers, it confuses apprentices, it confuses even the masters."

Nods moved through the boxes, reluctant agreement made visible. Radeon had heard the same complaints whispered in markets and shouted in back rooms.

No one wanted to build standards. Standards meant work with no glory, and every path had its own proud vocabulary.

Two attendants entered. One carried a sword. The other came empty handed and stood still. Eldric’s smile did not change.

"Let me show you."

The swordsman swung. Steel bit flesh. Ribs cracked. Blood bloomed across robes in a red flower that spread too fast.

The unarmed attendant staggered, eyes rolling, breath making a wet sound that turned stomachs.

Gasps snapped through the arena. Even cultivators frowned at the sudden violence.

Eldric raised a finger. The wounded man forced a pill into his mouth. His throat worked once. Twice.

The torn flesh knitted shut like cloth pulled together, bone setting clean beneath skin.

He stood straight again, no scar, no tremor, as if pain had been a story told about someone else.

Another pair stepped in. The swordsman struck again, same angle, same intent.

This time the blade shattered with a ringing scream, fragments flashing like powdered talc. The target did not even bruise.

Then a third attendant appeared, already mangled, arm hanging wrong, blood streaming from a gash that should have killed him earlier.

He swallowed a pill. The smallest cuts crusted over. The big wound kept pouring, stubborn and oozing.

Eldric took a pill from his own sleeve and placed it in the man’s mouth.

The bleeding stopped. Flesh sealed. Color returned to lips.

Eldric lifted the first sword, letting the light catch its edge.

"This sword can kill a fellow gilded core," he said, voice calm, as if he were discussing weather.

He lifted the green pill that had restored the first man.

"This pill can also cure a gilded core. If the effect reaches the same level, why do we pretend the level is different. Why do we give them different names."

It landed the way a thrown stone lands in still water. Ripples of thought, then murmurs. Radeon watched faces shift, not because they were slow, but because the answer was so plain it felt like an insult.

He also felt something else, a grit under the tongue, a wrongness that did not belong to honest disagreement.

’They should have unified this long ago,’ Radeon thought. ’This confusion is being fed.’

An Eldritch influence, he was sure of it, something that loved disharmony and fattened on wasted effort.

He did not know where it hid, or what level it wore like a skin. He only knew it was not normal for standards to slip out of the world like names forgotten in sleep.

Eldric lowered his hands. Boards rose from beneath the arena floor, one after another, smooth as if the stone itself had decided to present evidence.

They climbed into view with his proposed rules set out for all to see, and the arena grew quiet in a new way, the way a room quiets when people realize the game has changed.

{Service and Product Levels}

[Common → Uncommon → Rare → Epic → Legendary → Mythical]

{Categories of Quality}

[Subpar → Mediocre → Satisfactory → Official → Advanced → Superior → Peerless]

{Special Subcategories}

[Exotic] (A special measurements for special variant of an item does not normally appear. Only applicable to natural items from plants to animal products.)

[Numbered] (A manufactured item that will be limited to a specific quantity without surpassing said quantity.)

[Customized] (A manufactured item that had been modified to suit a particular client or group.)

{Pricing Appraisal Calculations}

[Reliability] [35%] (The probability the item works as intended when needed, under real conditions.)

[Frequency] [30%] (How often the item meaningfully affects decisions or outcomes in normal use.)

[Impact] [22.5%] (The magnitude of advantage or outcome change when the item is used successfully.)

[Breadth] [12.5%] (How many distinct scenarios the item remains meaningfully useful in.)