Tyrants of Earth - The Legend of Artigan

- Yeah but the Unwanted look ugly and monstrous. Should just put them down where they stand lol. @ Kifnmilo (Unverified)

↪ Why don’t you share your face online and we can all discuss what you look like. @ Jefame (Unverified)

↪ Sure here. @ Kifnmilo (Unverified)

↪ Clearly AI generated, it’s not even good. @ Jefame (Unverified)

*Multiple posts of this nature were mass downvoted into oblivion with prejudice. Most of them were created by Milock.

‘Want to make sure people don’t want to associate with your ideals? Be the most obnoxious person in the room.’

• Ella Maizel, The Tyrants’ Secretary.

The way Rick was staring at Ryan so intensely throughout his experiments had been distracting. At times it looked like the madman was fascinated with him. At times he had just flopped back onto the monster corpses in what looked like depressed defeat. One-Eyed Rick wore his expressions openly without any sort of guile.

While Ryan felt like he had gotten better at ignoring obnoxious reactions by a third party, the yelling was a step too far.

He snapped at Rick. “I’m not actually going to do it. Why do you even care if I blow myself up anyway?”

“Why do I care?! Are you a moron?”

“You tried to take over my body. You failed, now shut up.”

“There is that and then there is completely wasting an opportunity like this.”

Rick genuinely seemed enraged at the possibility that Ryan was about to blow himself up. That thought just made Ryan narrow his eyes.

“You’re still trying to take over my body aren’t you?”

“N–no!” Rick stuttered, indicating that he had, indeed, been thinking about taking over Ryan’s body. The [Seeker of Magic] coughed, trying to cover it up. “That is not what would have happened anyway. One cannot simply just replace your memories with mine and you would be me—at least I don’t have any ability to do so. It would have been a gradual shift. Sooner or later you would have begun to behave and act like me, at which point you would have been susceptible to accepting my memories.”

“Well, thank you for being so honest with me. Sorry if I don’t believe you.”

“Pah. Believe what you want. The simple fact of the matter is that you need me.”

“And why do you say that?” Ryan lifted his left arm, watching the way his mana traveled through it. “I think I’ve made good progress.”

To his surprise, Rick nodded at the arm. “Not only could I make it so that your circulatory system will be truly perfect, but I can provide endless amounts of the right volatile mana for your evolution.”

“Only at the cost of my body right?”

“That ship has long sailed. Your two classes are already too dominant for my plan to work. Even if I had gone through with it, I believe you would have eventually overcome it in the end.”

That seemed… honest enough. In seriousness, Ryan really had no idea how long Rick’s ritual to take over his conceptual space would have taken. He also couldn’t imagine the Aura Tyrant playing nicely with an invader either. So, Rick was after something else.

“Let me guess. You want me to put in a good word with the Witch Tyrant and have it so you don’t have to be stuck down here.”

Rick didn’t even try to hide it. “I will fulfill my promise with her and you and I will never have to meet again.”

Ryan stepped down from his hill. When he reached the bottom, he made it seem like he was seriously contemplating Rick’s offer.

Then Ryan sneered. “And leave you alone so you can find another body to take over? No thanks.”

To Rick’s surprise, Ryan just walked around the monster corpse pile, ignoring One-Eyed Rick and his offer. He bent down, picked up Rax’s personal golem he had dropped on the ground, then walked to the entrance where the digging golem lay. Ryan carefully ripped it apart with his bare hands until he found what he was looking for.

A much less stable, much more roughly made core was in his hand. He walked back up the hill. Now he had three cores.

He grinned down below at Rick.

“Sorry, but I have zero desire to compromise for your help.”

–

Ryan had a problem. It was that, of the cores, only one of of them were probably suitable for his evolution. Rick was probably right that the system exchanged golem heart was completely unsuitable for the task. It had a [Stability Matrix] that he honestly had no idea how it would interact with his mana.

Rax’s personal golem was also not something he could use either. The Trial System said that Rax’s personal golem’s core was realm eight in terms of how much mana was stuffed in there. If he attempted to make all of it into volatile mana it would probably kill him.

Which left the core from the digging golem. A sixth realm core that had been made in classic Rax’s fashion. A bunch of scraps and a bunch of runes that looked sloppily put together, even in his inexpert opinion.

In other words, it was perfect for a volatile antimagic skill.

Only–it meant that Ryan would have one chance. If he failed then he would have no choice but to go on ahead without a mana core.

On the other hand, there was no reason not to at least try it. His right arm still felt topped up from making One-Eyed Rick afraid of him. The worst thing that would happen would be that he’d temporarily lose an arm for the fifth Trial.

Not that big of a deal.

Ryan began by encompassing the digging golem’s core with solidified aura first. He held the orb in his right hand and began pumping as much of his volatile energy into a knife with his left hand. It was one of his knives of returning, the only material around that was suitable enough to hold his highly leveled volatile throw skill and not break apart.

Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

Once it reached a suitable stage, Ryan surrounded it with his aura and then–stabbed into the core.

The white blade surrounded by his own aura had no problem bypassing the solid red aura of the orb. The knife hit the golem core and for a moment, nothing happened. The enchantments held against his volatile energy.

That brief pause gave Ryan time to take a deep breath.

It was like time was slowed as the white volatile knife began to rip apart at the outer layers of enchantments. Some of the Rax’s runes had were flaking off–but the moment four runes were scratched off it passed a moment of no return.

The metal and flesh scraps that made up the outer layer were immediately engulfed by the expanding sea of volatile mana. It melted the material down, turning them into what looked like molten mana as the orb tried to explode outwards.

It cracked the inner walls of his aura as Ryan gritted his teeth to keep it stable. The cracks spread as he desperately tried to repair and reinforce the inner layer. He screamed and held on.