Chapter 267: B3: C57: The Most Beautiful
Morning rays shone over Frivolous City with a dimness that was unusual even for Late Autumn.
The Corma Star hadn’t fully recovered from being drained by Ruvaria. It looked brown compared to the honey gold light beaming from the Star Core.
Still, enough visible light filtered down between the colorful canvas awnings and streamers strung between buildings made from white porous rocks similar to limestone.
Zarian didn’t mind the dimness as he strolled through the uneasy and shifty streets. He passed with a relaxed air about him even when citizens from the mid to low caste stopped to gawk at him or run away in panic.
He was under extreme System Suppression. He also was holding back a majority of his power with his own tight controls.
That way, he made it easier for others to be around him and not get crushed by his presence. He didn’t want to set the wrong precedent while in a casual setting.
That didn’t take away from how easily Zarian maneuvered around crowds of nervous, confused, and excited low-level non-rankers.
When a stream of them blocked him off on a four-way street, Para gently nudged people aside with a ghostly touch. No one could see what moved them because of their low Wonder stat.
Thus, Zarian could move nonstop by foot.
He could’ve flown, but he wanted to navigate at the street level to ground himself and feel closer to humanity again. Bianca was doing the same, no doubt, and probably engaging in random conversations as she went, even though she could move across the city with a few flashy steps.
Zarian only needed one fancy step and a cast of Void Waltz to close the distance as well. But there was something nice about the mundane approach when there were so many options.
He was so powerful he could literally walk through walls like passing through a beaded curtain.
Well, maybe not the walls of Frivolous City. Ruvaria had left a network of wards that would reinforce the city for the next century.
Not everything had the benefit of Ruvaria’s sorcery, however.
Zarian ended up at a marketplace square that was the most bustling in the city. Scents of fishy foods, local spices, and island sweets wafted through the air. Merchants and low-level adventurers stood at their stalls, all draped in a variety of colors and positioned haphazardly in crooked rows and columns that turned the marketplace into a maze filled with bumbling people.
The vendors called out about their wares, such as shiny common items or their most prized uncommon possessions, which were all inflated in price.
Even after all the deaths, masterful battles, the appearance of a Champion Regressor, and the full establishment of a skeleton administration backed by spectral spider police, some people still sold products dishonestly to make some extra coins.
Zarian chuckled softly. He turned his attention away from the casual swindlers. He was too big and had too many other concerns for stuff like that. And he was free evil +7.
Who was he to police that stuff?
He looked at the major attraction of the marketplace. There was a large wooden stage at the center with a big hefty block that served two purposes before Zarian’s and Para’s arrival.
Either someone would lose their head on the block while the crowds reacted based on their caste – the servant caste would react with horror while getting reminded of their placement at the bottom, and the rich patron caste would react with fervor over the casual killing of an unruly servant.
Or they would sell people off in an auction, especially women, children, and very handsome young men.
“Hey, does anyone need this stage for anything?” Zarian asked.
Almost everyone froze, shivering from the sound of his voice.
The youngest seemed the least affected.
Zarian sensed the Star System getting involved there, giving the children the opposite of System Suppression, like something akin to a System Enhancement, even if a slight one.
Zarian could understand the practicality of that. He probably wouldn’t have noticed the System Enhancement if he hadn’t achieved his current range of power.
Since the adults were scared like deer caught in headlights, he looked toward the nearest child, a seven-year-old boy who was Level 1.
Zarian beckoned him with a wave of his hand. The enhanced and scruffy kid ran over while looking at Zarian with big brown eyes, mouth hanging agape.
“Hey, little man. Anyone gonna need this stage?” Zarian repeated.
The kid looked at the stage. He shook his head. Then, with a pout, he said, “I hate that stage.”
“Why?” Zarian asked.
“They sold my mom. They sold my friend’s big sister. They sell a lot of people or kill them if they act bad. They were going to sell me, too, but then you killed all the people sellers and people buyers.”
Zarian slowly nodded. Then he tilted his head toward the stage and said, “Para, would you do the honor?”
“Gladly.”
Para’s voice resounded from around the entire square in a feminine but ghoulish tone. She spoke with volume, too, making her presence felt by everyone. That was because she could be anywhere while still tethered to Zarian.
They were still figuring out the complex and powerful nature of the new Parasite Phantom skill. Para seemed to have more freedom to interact with stuff around Zarian as long as it was halfway between his body and the furthest his aura could reach.
Zarian could reach really, really far with his aura even while suppressed, even while holding back his full range of power. Zarian wasn’t even wearing his Intense Arcana Hat +1, which shortened his reach drastically.
So, basically, everyone in the square was practically inside of Para’s direct interaction range. And that was without Para using Aura Mastery.
With Aura Mastery, Para’s ability to interact and do some scary stuff as a flesh-eating phantom predator was even stronger while coming with unique flavors of magic.
Again, the optionality and freedom was so extreme it was a little overwhelming. Zarian’s overpowered nature made it harder to figure out what they couldn’t do.
Knowing all of that, Zarian had no reason to lift a finger. No reason flex his own power when Para could handle most issues easily.
Para desired any opportunity to flex for herself, too. She needed practice with this powerful evolution of hers.
Zarian felt more of the phantom stream from out his body while remaining incorporeal and invisible. Then flashes of giant, dark red and scaly hands with six fingers and long claws appeared above the marketplace.
The ghastly phantom hands were so large they could hold multiple buildings in their palms. They warped the already dim light shining down through them, shading the marketplace in dark red.
The adults screamed. The children gawked without too much fear, wrapped in a slight bubble of enhanced safety offered by the Star System.
Ignoring the little mortals, Para lowered her fingers and crushed the truly evil stage of slavery, execution, and oppression.
To her, it was an easy, mundane gesture, like snuffing out a little structure made by bugs. To everyone else, it was like watching a titan reach down from the sky and loudly crush an immense structure that was part of the city’s obviously dark history.
The splintered and fragmented remains drizzled down as a ruined pile from between Para’s fingers. Then her monstrous phantom hands disappeared.
The little boy standing next to the Dark Lord went from Level 1 to Level 5.
His eyes bulged at his new growth. He was quick to move on from the powerful display, becoming a bundle of energy who wanted to tell his friends about the sudden growth.
Zarian smiled, shaking his head at the rascal. For an orphan, the boy looked healthy. He was getting the right amount of food he probably hadn’t had the pleasure of eating all of his life … until Zarian removed a certain part of the population that made it so for orphans to starve.
The following silence from the auction stage’s destruction shifted to low murmurs. Then some brave merchant ran over and started collecting pieces of the destroyed auction stage.
Zarian watched the entrepreneurial merchant curiously before noting a strange detail about the stage pieces.
“Uncommon quality,” Zarian mumbled under his breath. “Para, you are so powerful you can naturally enchant objects you interact with, leaving some sort of long-term effect.”
“Oh, that’s impressive,” Para whispered into Zarian’s ear. “It seems I left an uncommon curse of sorts. Touching my curses causes increased hunger but comes with a physical enhancement. The negative slightly outweighs the positive, though, but a clever user of my curse can make it work for them.”
Zarian shook his head in amazement.
Para hadn’t even put any effort into the display of power and destruction. Yet she’d casually cursed all the splinters and fragments of the crushed stage.
Now people were grabbing the cursed items up so they could sell them off to whoever wanted the uncommon enhancements.
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Watching all of that, Zarian had a funny feeling he and Para were becoming too otherworldly to exist in a Lesser World. Or maybe they needed to head back home to Ride-or-Die Village, where everyone was more familiar with their casual Floridian ridiculousness.
It won’t just be Ride-or-Die Village anymore once Foodie and the others defeat the wolf dragons and wolf kobolds. It would become Ride-or-Die Kingdom at that point.
Ride-or-Die Empire, Para shared via mind.
Shaking his head again, Zarian walked off to the side where there was a vendor selling pulped juices. The product came from a common fruit that grew on the many islands on the western side of the Windy Strider Kingdom.
There were no sit-down dining areas, but there was enough space for one near the fruit juice vendor. So Zarian flicked his hand and dropped a nicely made dining table and three cushioned and high-back chairs onto the spot.
He ignored the bulging eyes and mouths falling open from a utility power he’d picked up from the start of his adventures in the Infinita Star System.
Para’s pocket dimension was still flesh based. Zarian’s entire body acted as a medium for accessing their stuff. He imagined from an outsider’s perspective it seemed like he had the power of instant creation. That wasn’t true, but he wouldn’t correct anybody.
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He took one chair, wrapped his lion tail around his waist, and sat back. He reached out with one hand and summoned a goblet made from the skull of a previous enemy.
The vendor came running with a cask, pouring his fruity and tangy juice while tilting his head away to avoid beads of nervous sweat from falling into Zarian’s drink. The man bowed his head over a dozen times before scurrying away without asking for pay.
Shaking his head, Zarian reached out with his free hand and poured a pile of large monster bodies onto the floor. He used compressed walls of air with Aura Mastery to shove the giant bodies up top as the hill of corpses grew.
He had to stop when the bodies threatened to crush nearby vendor stalls, forcing a majority of the nearest merchants and entrepreneurial adventurers to flee in fear of a collapse or one of the dead monsters awakening.
Gallons of blood poured from the lifeless husks, spreading in wide reaching puddles across the marketplace floor, filling up dips and potholes that were ankle deep. It was quite a mess, and it came with some strong mostly briny and fishy smell, but that was just perfectly fine for the hungry, hungry phantom.
As Para feasted on the monster corpses directly with many ravenous phantom mouths, Zarian pulled out a rectangular, hand-sized case from the pocket dimension.
He popped the case open and retrieved a rare High Rose Bramblevale Cigar, leaving four remaining. Still feasting, Para cut the end of the cigar with a snip of her phantom claws, then she used Aura Mastery to light the exposed end on fire.
Zarian puffed, puffed, and took a drink of his juice.
The cigar was nice, even if only of rare quality. The juice was tasteless for him. It was common quality, which had little to no noticeable magic or aura.
Zarian pulled out a small cask with epic elven wine and added it to the juice.
After another sampling taste, Zarian smiled ear-to-ear, which was still a creepy expression because of all the damages that hadn’t gotten fixed up. Para kept him patched up with dark red strings made from his flesh, showing that she could still shapeshift his body, but that would become more unnecessary with time.
His massive appetite remained somewhat, but as long as he took a bite from Foodie’s leftover cooking and fed Para some enormous meals, they would be alright.
Just like that, Zarian vibed while waiting for Bianca to come the rest of the way to him.
Bianca had gotten caught up in another conversation, but she shouldn’t be too long. Before her eventual arrival, Walter finally caught up again. He’d gotten left behind when he ran into some desperate people who needed the therapeutic magic of a Londoner from an alt-world ruled by Great Britain.
Walter ran over, huffing and puffing, while looking between the casually sitting Dark Lord and an enormous pile of dead monsters getting munched on by a mostly invisible phantom. Then Walter looked past the nearest abandoned vending stalls and saw the commotion surrounding the cursed remains of a former stage of oppression.
It also looked like everyone, at least the adults, moved or acted nervously while trying to conduct their business. The children dared each other to move near the Dark Lord and then run away screaming and laughing. Some of them came away with a few new levels when they poked the Dark Lord before running away.
I wonder if those count as high-quality levels, Zarian mused.
You’re a high-quality adventurer, so yes, they should count, Para asserted.
Zarian inwardly chuckled as he watched the alt-world Londoner.
Walter was a little sweaty and red in the face, his eyes darting between everything that was happening, as if he wasn’t sure where to start.
Zarian waved for Walter to take one of three seats at the table.
With a flustered sigh, the Solace Guide dropped into a seat.
The juice vendor came over with a mug of his common drink for Walter. Zarian offered a silver coin, but the mortal vendor turned down the payment while profusely bowing his head and sweating all over the place.
Frowning, the Dark Lord watched the juice vendor scurry off. Then he summoned a few gold coins from some lost treasure he’d picked up somewhere in the Stone Sea River and passed one each to a spectral spider.
The tiny guys fulfilled their duty flawlessly, as spider ninja wizards should, placing the gold coins in the juice vendor’s coin pouch without being noticed. Then they waved their little wizard hats and danced about on top of the juice vendor’s stall while remaining unnoticed by everyone other than Zarian and Para.
With their mission complete and celebratory dance finished, they scurried off to find other adventures or help people in need around Frivolous City.
Meanwhile, Para poured some epic elven wine into Walter’s mug before placing the cask back into the pocket dimension by touching it to Zarian’s shoulder. Since Para remained mostly invisible, even that act of pouring wine seemed to gather a lot of attention from onlookers.
Walter seemed to have grown familiar with all the strangeness that surrounded the Dark Lord.
“Thank you,” Walter forced out.
“De nada,” both Zarian and Para said.
Walter looked at Zarian weirdly with a twitch of his mustache-covered lip. The Solace Guide opened and closed his mouth multiple times as Zarian puffed on his cigar and sipped spiked juice from his skull goblet, enjoying himself.
Finally, Walter took a large mouthful of his drink. His eyes opened wide from the zesty taste and the power of epic elven wine. Then he placed the mug down.
“What the blazes are you really? A devil or an angel? Because I can’t make heads or tails of you, sir,” Walter said. “Are you a bringer of doom and horror? Are you the dark messiah? Yet the children laugh and smile at you as if you are a hero. But all I feel from you is dread or rage at you callous and evil acts masquerading as freedom for all.”
“That’s because your mind is being warped by the good alignment,” Zarian said before puffing and sipping again. “You can’t think fully for yourself while getting directed by the old alignments. I can free you from that pressure. You’ll be great at the free good sub alignment.”
Walter shook his head. “But old good is the real good. There is purpose and power in the good alignment already. And I must admit, from one Outsider to another, this freedom of yours sounds like one enormous hoax conjured by a charlatan. A scheme of the most despicable degree to tear down the foundations of what should be.”
Zarian shook his head.
Walter was a tough nut to crack without using force.
People could only join the freedom alignment voluntarily. That was preferable, anyway.
With the help of free evil +7, Zarian imagined plenty of ways to press Walter toward the side of freedom. But most of those ideas were too indirect or elaborate or a waste of time.
Instead, Zarian waited for his best public relations person to show up. Zarian worked better as a scary force that fought for freedom, but that didn’t mean he was the best one at spreading freedom.
“My friend is going to join us,” Zarian said after a few more puffs and sips. “You need to prepare yourself with your abilities. She’s the most beautiful person in this world and maybe across many other Lesser Worlds.”
Walter frowned. “I’m sure your lady friend is wonderful, a true delight, but there are more serious matters that must be discussed between us men of focus and means. The fate of this entire city, no, perhaps the entire universe is at hand. I must know what or who you really are.”
“Pendejo,” Para muttered ghoulishly behind Walter’s neck. “Do not disrespect Bianca. Or you will be made a fool.”
The Londoner jolted in his seat. He looked all over, but Para was not so easy to spot unless she wanted to be seen.
Zarian kept puffing and sipping. He relaxed further into his seat and watched the twitchy and uncertain man sitting across from him.
“Yeah,” Zarian said.
“Yeah?” Walter questioned.
“Yeah, Bianca’s gonna break you without even trying. It’s been nice getting to know you, Walter. Welcome to the side of freedom.”
Walter tried to argue, but he noticed a commotion among the common people at a street leading in and out of the marketplace. He turned in his chair and saw men and women falling to their knees, their heads held low in reverence.
Even children, with their soft System Enhancement, became still and quiet, struck dumb by what they were seeing.
The eerie phenomenon spread across the crowd near that street, all of them kneeling or falling into respectful silence. Their actions or reactions heralded a bright light that seemed like a street-bound sun getting closer and closer to the marketplace.
Because of the angle Zarian had placed their sitting spot, Walter couldn’t quite see the phenomenon growing closer. But the man was clearly alarmed, maybe frightened, as he held the armrests of his seat with a white knuckled grip.
“How b-b-beautiful did you say?” Walter asked.
Zarian finished his cigar and drink, putting the skull goblet back in the pocket dimension. He leaned forward in his seat as the street-bound sun grew closer.
The marketplace became brighter, sending more commoners and low-level adventurers down to their knees. Many of them bowed, unable to lay eyes upon the incoming phenomenon without complete reverence.
Only at the last moment did Zarian answer Walter’s question.
“She’s the most beautiful, Wally Number Three. I’m being factually serious by saying that. And unfortunately for you, you don’t have what it takes for her. Maybe next time.”
Bianca finally made a full appearance, and even Zarian had to admit he was almost struck dumb. His Floridian Mindset didn’t work well against more natural influences.
He wasn’t leaning on his Willpower. At first. Then he remembered he had nearly 1100 Willpower and snapped himself back awake.
By then, Para was engaging Bianca in fast and fluent Cuban Spanish. The two tittered and joked and squealed together girlishly at a rapid pace.
Walter was frozen in his chair, doing his best to hold his bearing. Everyone else knelt and bowed, as if that was their one purpose in the presence of Bianca Garcia.
Zarian stood.
He braced himself, feeling some angst. He expected his friend to frown and show her displeasure at his past actions.
His nerves drew taut with anticipation.
He steeled himself as best he could. He had a lot of Willpower. He had his Floridian Mindset. He was the mythical Conquest Wizard and 31st Mage of the Master Ranks.
But even he had to admit it would hurt like hell to see Bianca’s disappointment.
Still, he planted himself on his feet and braced himself for a hard hit.
Bianca caught him off guard, nearly yanking him off his feet, when she reached him and hugged him close. She was wearing a casual blouse and didn’t mind holding his head to her chest, which was easy for her to do when she was naturally tall and wearing tall heels.
She didn’t seem to care, her arms remaining around his head and neck.
“Zarian, papi, hola, coma estas?! I’m a Master Ranker now and I have all these cool abilities and I fought all these monster baddies covered in corruption and moon rocks. Every time I kill them, I grow stronger and absorb the moonlight and get more levels faster. Oh, and I’ve been reading from that evil mythical book Ruvaria gave me. I’m getting better at that. My free good grew! And I’m becoming more awesome. Oh, pero, everyone can’t stop becoming all weird around me! I have to hide myself sometimes. Or I’ll make an entire city stop because I’m too beautiful and shiny!”
“I miss you, too, Bianca,” Zarian said, casually pulling himself back.
“I miss you more!” She burst into tears, which was a relief for Zarian to see.
Some things have changed, but not everything.
The waterworks didn’t last long. She wiped them away with an elegant finger, looked around quickly, then looked down at the dumbstruck Walter.
She smiled.
Walter fell out of his chair and crumbled to the ground at Bianca’s shiny feet.
“Hola, I’m Bianca! You look like an older Wally with a big caterpillar mustache. You’re not as bad as Wallen, though. And you seem a little too stiff. I wonder what the next Wally would look like.”
“Maybe Wally Number Four would be a badass in the higher levels than us.”
“Oh, that would be cool! I might even let him take me out on a date!” Bianca laughed into her palm before glancing back down at the fallen Walter. “Sorry, Wally Number Three, but you have some growing to do.”
Walter opened and closed his mouth, unable to break past being dumbstruck.
“Hm Eh. I see, I see. Bueno.” Bianca seemed to nod randomly to herself. “I know what can help you get going, Wally Number Three. You need some freedom. Want to join?”
She offered her elegant and perfectly manicured hand. An avian cried somewhere in the distance.
Walter joined without a second thought.
Zarian chuckled as the man went through an adjustment period from being influenced by the good alignment to having the deep and hard-fought power of free good +2.
“Oh, I see what you’re saying now,” Walter muttered. “I didn’t realize how much of a puppet I was until I was … freed.”
“Told ya.” Zarian patted Walter on the shoulder. “Work with my skeletons and spiders. They will help you make this city a better place. Oh, and welcome to being part of the freedom alignment and the Ride-or-Die Empire.”
Walter nodded shakily. He looked up at the extremely gorgeous and glamorous Bianca before lowering his gaze and scurrying off.
Bianca pouted. “Aw, he doesn’t want to be friends with me?”
“I don’t think that’s possible for most mortal men and women,” Zarian quipped.
Bianca reached over and squeezed his forearm. “Thank you, Zarian, for being my friend.”
Zarian flinched a little, feeling flustered. He snapped back. “No, thank you for being my friend.”
“No, papi, no! Thank you for being my friend!”
“No, no, no, mami, thank you for being my friend!”
Bianca stood to her tall height and looked down her nose with her golden eyes. Such a look would burn most people on the spot.
Feeling challenged, Zarian snarled and looked back up with a defiant gaze in his void black eyes. His tail snapped left and right aggressively behind him.
The glaring match was intense. Sparks of light and darkness shot through the air between them.
The ground shook across the entire marketplace, rattling the wares of many of the stalls, sending some people with low Agility falling off their feet. The brewing chaos snapped awake the people caught by Bianca’s charm. A considerable panic broke out as they realized how dangerous Bianca and Zarian were in this tiny city of mortals.
Before things become worse, Bianca broke eye contact first, covering her mouth with a hand as she giggled and snorted.
“You bad boy. You are so naughty.” She shook her head, long golden hair swishing, before looking in the direction north. “I know there’s a lot to talk about, but it’ll be easier for you if we’re all together. How about you watch me deal with some paladin baddies and you can see my growth.”
Zarian hesitated, seeing a new version of Bianca that was more … regal and mature.
Surprised, Zarian settled with the only answer that made sense. “Yeah, I would love that.”
“Me too,” Para voiced from the surrounding air. “We can both sense it, Bianca. You are definitely not the woman you were before.”
Bianca smirked. “Well … I am a queen now, the mythical Radiant Queen, but a definite queen.”
“Felicidades!” Para cheered.
“Level? Rank?” Zarian blurted.
Bianca giggled. “Level 113 and 105th Rogue.”
“Holy shit, Bianca, you’ve seriously grown a lot the past ten days. And why do you count as a rogue?”
“Excellent. Mysterious. Our Bianca doesn’t disappoint,” Para commented.
Bianca giggled.
“Gracias, Para, and I have no idea, Zarian. Hannah asked me about that and lots of other things, too. She has so many thoughts and questions, but me and Gilbert aren’t much help. We should probably move quickly and get back to Hannah. Or she might go crazy and drop artillery on another army because she has nobody to talk to about her ideas.”
With that said, Queen Bianca Garcia took to the skies.
Zarian and Para followed, both the wizard and parasite feeling charmed while curious about Bianca’s changes. They were quite happy the paladins had volunteered themselves as dummies for some easy-going power testing.