Chapter 198: Orange Interference
While Moon was looking with eyes full of wariness at Symbiotic Spark’s sudden energetic wiggling, questioning if the thing was behaving normally, Ed nodded. "As far as I kno—"
Before he could finish his words, the item jumped, aiming for Moon’s arm. He jerked it away but was too slow to evade it.
Not only his; even Ed’s face changed, blinking in surprise.
"WHAT THE HELL?" Moon screamed, unsure of what to do now.
"Brat, don’t panic." Ed started talking very calmly. "Say if it’s getting painful; the system will start notifying you of integration," he added before his voice turned heavy.
"Say it word by word, without missing a single one," Ed said with utmost seriousness.
Moon nodded, extending his arm away from his face while the crystal fixed itself and started crawling to the inner center of his forearm.
The chains started wiggling around his arm for a moment, before—
Stab~
Stab-Stab~
Feeling the sudden stinging pain, "Aw, aw," Moon said casually at the normal, familiar pain that he was more comfortable with than the weird things Samuel had put him through over the past weeks.
The chains started moving inside his arm, digging into his flesh slowly.
They moved like they were searching for something, as if discovering a new place.
Ding!
[Symbiotic Spark has detected a new host]
[Symbiotic Spark is checking the compatibility with the new host]
[Checking the new host Echo capacity]
[ERROR]
[New host Echo capacity is too high.]
[Checking host sync possibility]
[Searching...]
[Locating Echo...]
[ERROR!]
[Unable to initiate contact with the new host (?) Echo]
Moon started reciting the messages he was seeing one by one. He stole glances at Ed’s face between each message, and the look on his face didn’t seem good.
"Brat, bring your Echo to your arm; let it feel it," Ed said.
Moon’s Echo didn’t flow in the natural sense, which meant the only way for it to be detected by the picky item was for it to run all the way to his chest to find it near his heart. That wasn’t very practical, as the integration would fail by then.
The other way was to do as Ed suggested and allow the item to feel it by bringing the Echo manually.
Moon did as Ed instructed right away.
And the item responded right away...
[Detecting Echo...]
[Identifying state...]
For a little too long a moment, there was nothing. Moon, meanwhile, realized something. "Wait, is that status window the one of this creepy thing?" he exclaimed, pointing at his arm.
"About time you realized." Ed nodded, waiting with Moon for Symbiotic Spark to make a decision.
[Special state detected...]
[State origin: Grey Sky]
[Detecting (?) host Echo value...]
[ERROR!]
[Echo value doesn’t match Echo capacity]
[(?) Host is a second floor ascender]
[ERROR!]
The chains pierced into Moon’s Echo; he tried to shift it into intangibility. "Dammit." But it failed.
"What?" Ed asked.
"It latched onto my Echo; I can’t move it," Moon said through gritted teeth.
"Take it back into your arm; it’ll shrink," Ed advised.
Moon proceeded with the instructions, and it seemed to work.
Before—
Stab~
The tentacle stabbed into his arm, latching onto the Echo once again while it was in the state of natural compression.
It started moving closer to his palm, where the seal on Death Echo was.
[Detecting abnormal state]
[Abnormal Echo detected]
[Echo value negated]
[ERROR!]
Moon recited the last messages, pursing his lips. "I don’t think this is a good thing." He said in disappointment.
Error messages started filling Moon’s vision. He started laughing bitterly. "I think this isn’t gonna work," he said.
Ed sighed deeply before nodding. "Yeah, any longer than this, you’ll be in danger instead." A small blade of Echo radiated off his finger in red.
He stretched his hand to hold Moon’s. "Stay still; it’ll hurt to extract it," he said. "Time is up."
"It’s painful as hell as it is right now," Moon said, while the chains kept digging deeper into his arm, moving back and forth, cornering his Echo. "What about time, though?"
"When I got it from Lucen, he said there was a safe window..." Ed explained, examining the state of Moon’s arm.
Moon pursed his lips but didn’t say anything.
Ed began targeting the spots where he would cut to extract Symbiotic Spark—
Thud~
An orange fluff bolted into Moon’s chest while he was seated, sending him, along with the chair he was seated on, flying.
"Aw, Mishu... dammit." Moon recognised the culprit behind the attack thanks to the orange fur and small point of impact.
"Mishu, stop playing around; I need to get this thing out," Ed said, standing from his seat and moving to where Moon landed.
Mishu stood between Ed and Moon, the slits of his pupils widened. His tail whipped hard at the ground—
Rumble~
Sending destructive force across the hall. He bared his teeth, and his claws tore into the floor.
"What do you think you’re doing?" Ed asked, sending a wave of Echo at Mishu. "Are you trying to get him killed?" His attitude and demeanour changed.
"Mishu, we’ve stayed here together for a long time. Don’t do something stupid; I’ll warn you for the last time," Ed said, taking another step, trying to scare Mishu away.
Yet, he failed.
The cat had disappeared for a few days and returned crazy, or so it seemed to Ed.
"Wait!" Moon suddenly interrupted them. "I think I’m actually okay," he added.
"You know rubbish." Ed wasn’t convinced in the slightest. "Are you leaving your fate to an orange cat?" he spat.
"Wait, listen," Moon said. "I don’t feel any danger from it yet," he tried to explain.
Since the beginning, Moon hadn’t seen a single Fate Alert, except for the one when Mishu executed his sudden takedown; it rose at that time to 30.90%.
Yet, it didn’t react once to Symbiotic Spark in any way. Moon was telling the truth, even though he was afraid the value would jump to 100% in a split second and he would die.
Fate Alert couldn’t save him from a sudden, unexpected situation he could never react to, like when Uon smacked his head.
Their stats were too far apart, and Uon had made the decision to hit Moon only a split second before the attack actually landed.
Moon, one way or another, understood a few characteristics of Fate Alert over the past few fights as well, though he tried his best to ignore it.
He didn’t want to rely on something that could count as cheating by his own personal standards.
Still, right now, there was completely nothing.
If not for Mishu’s sudden attack, he might have completely forgotten to check if he was truly in danger or safe.
For now, Moon wanted to trust Mishu and Fate Alert this once.
Ed was right; he couldn’t run around unable to use items or even check if an item was usable. He couldn’t go around relying on just swings to attack when everyone was throwing magical things left and right.
So he decided to wait and see.
Time ticked by slowly, Ed standing ready to take action the moment anything went wrong, and Moon having his eyes glued to the 30.90% value.
Over an hour passed, Mishu standing between Ed and Moon, ready to jump and intercept Ed regardless of the consequences, while Moon was sitting on the floor comfortably.
Before anyone could react, the error messages stopped.
The chains started spreading all over Moon’s arm—
Buzzz~
With a light buzz, the crystal dissolved into his arm, turning into something that resembled a tattoo of a four-pointed, red-shaped diamond.
All that was left before Moon’s eyes was a single last message.
[Registered Owner]