Chapter 436: To catch one’s breath

Today's chap! Read the 435 before!

PS: Priam Character Sheet 
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PSSS: @Derze created a mini-game on the Discord server to cultivate Micro, Domain, Mastery, and your bloodline. If you enjoy numbers go up and wish to reach the Zenith, feel free to check it out (Discord link: https://discord.gg/HQDDnwpFmS).

*

How do you access the Colosseum when every Hearthstone is on cooldown? The answer came in three words: Colosseum VIP Token.

Instead of burning all of theirs, Priam had an idea: bring Jasmine, Esmée, and Kazuki into his internal world. Activating the Token teleported him into the Colosseum hall, his friends in his secret backpack. With this trick, and by giving their Tokens to Priam, they could visit the Colosseum once a week. And that was without considering the Hearthstones!

Opening a portal to release his friends, Priam smiled as Jasmine hopped through. Esmée followed, regal strides and chin held high. A faint smile on her lips shattered the ice-princess image and warmed the Juggernaut’s heart.

His expression darkened when Kazuki arrived, hoping on one leg. Mental exhaustion had ended the spear invocation.

“Need Promesse as a crutch?” Priam offered.

“No, thank you. The shame my gait brings me only strengthens my resolve to hold my projections longer.”

What could one say to that? Priam could only bow to such sheer badassery.

“Well, well, well… Visitors?”

Descending the stairs, Béchar opened his arms to welcome the Champions. “How happy I am to see you!”

“You say that because you were lonely, or because the farther we go into the waves, the shorter your contract with the System lasts?” Priam grinned.

“Both! How far are you planning to go?”

“Far. I want to see what lies beyond Clock.”

After a few words, Kazuki and Esmée stepped forward to challenge the Colosseum’s monsters. Jasmine excused herself; the assassin planned to find the Moon’s Hideout for more stealth-oriented training.

Priam found himself alone with Béchar. The shapeshifter raised a brow and stepped close enough for the young man to smell his breath.

“What are you—”

“With all this mist, it’s hard to read your eyes, but… you look worried.”

Priam opened his mouth, closed it, frowned, then shrugged. “It’s complicated.”

“And what is that like in more than three words?”

“... On one hand, life’s good: we just won a war, and we recruited another very useful Champion.”

“Very beautiful, you mean.”

Priam cleared his throat. “That too.” A shadow crossed his face. “On the other hand, I feel guilty being happy when I look at Kazuki. Which is bad, because the last thing he needs is to think he’s dragging down the mood.”

“I see. He really lost his leg?”

“And his wife.”

“Oh.”

The two males fell into silence until Béchar clapped Priam on the back with a brutal, yet affectionate blow—the kind that would have burst the lungs of a normal human.

“Everyone grieves differently, but if you want my opinion… A friend doesn’t need you to cry with him. A friend needs you to laugh with him.”

For a few seconds, they stared at each other, until Priam narrowed his eyes.

“... Who’d you steal that line from?”

“I just made it up,” Béchar groaned. “Damn it, I thought it sounded cool!”

“It was cool. Sorry for ruining it.”

The Colosseum supervisor shoved him toward the arena.

“Go die.”

*

Seeing the boar charge him, Priam found himself laughing. A few months earlier, seeing a hundred kilos beast barreling toward him with enough kinetic energy to dent a car’s bumper, he would have screamed and looked for something to climb. Today, he simply flexed his Domain. Their two meta authorities clashed; Priam won by a landslide. The animal slowed, as if caught in quicksand. The tyranny of [Kinetic Sovereignty] was absolute.

Almost absolute. The skill only petrified the creature’s exterior, skin and bristles included. Beneath that, blood kept flowing through its veins and arteries. Theoretically, the attribute gap allowed Priam to freeze the beast’s lifeblood by overpowering its innate resistance—its meta endurance—but that would have been a colossal waste of willpower.

Besides, the goal today wasn’t to train the legendary skill but one of its Concepts, Breath. So instead of fully immobilizing the animal, Priam demonstrated fine kinetic proficiency. The boar’s legs might as well have been encased in concrete, yet its torso retained enough amplitude for the beast to breathe. Likewise, its jaw was locked, but not its nostrils.

Priam allowed himself a smile as the capture proved successful. He lifted the beast a meter off the ground and approached. Two red, furious eyes glared back at him.

“You look about as nasty as a necro slave. Good, I won’t feel guilty about what comes next.”

Instead of rushing the Colosseum, Priam had decided to experiment on his skills and abilities. Once he reached Tier 1, he would be able to upgrade his Concepts again, so he should prepare ahead of time.

Closing his eyes, he let his soul resonate with Breath. Instantly, a new sense awakened: an omnidirectional sight translating every nearby respiration as a blaze. In addition to his own breathing, Priam detected a second one, very close. It belonged to the boar.

Slipping his Concept on like a glove, the Juggernaut seized the creature’s breath and squeezed to asphyxiate it. A resistance rose against his will. Driven by instinct, the animal fought the command.

Priam didn’t give him a choice, backing his order with his entire being. The boar yielded almost immediately.

A few minutes later, it died, and the toll of a bell announced the start of the second wave.

Priam frowned. At the end of the confrontation, he could have sworn he felt his attributes working to overwhelm the enemy’s resistance… but the fight had ended too fast for him to parse which ones. Willpower was obvious, as it was the fuel for all Concepts. Another easy answer was meta authority, whose role was to overwhelm an opponent’s natural defenses. But those weren’t the only ones…

Two growls pulled him from his thoughts. New test subjects had volunteered.

*

Five hours later, Priam was watching the siren of the fortieth wave struggle for its life. Far from the violence one might expect, the scene was pitiful, almost tragic. Faced with two innocent eyes set in an angelic face filled with distress, the Champion couldn’t maintain the pressure needed to channel his Concept’s killing move. Knowing the creature was only an artificial construct without an ego, mimicking expressions it didn’t understand, barely helped. It took a certain kind of personality to strangle a beautiful woman without hesitation, and Priam did not check that box.

“Appealing to my sensibilities to elicit pity. Worst part, it’s working,” he growled.

Then Priam had a stroke of genius. Drawing inspiration from famous humans of the old world, he shut his eyes to the world’s misery and let it vanish. Out of sight, out of mind. The ostrich technique worked, and the mental energy needed to wield Breath upon his opponent diminished. Deprived of air, the creature began to convulse.

It’s not just a mood thing. She was using her charisma to resist me!

Priam was almost certain he had finally identified the last attribute in the mathematical formula that could model his ability to dominate an enemy’s breath with his Concept. Now he only had to test his theory.

Easy.

Opening his eyes again, Priam felt Breath’s grip loosen as the siren’s tearful gaze stirred pity in him. Slipping from his hold, she—it—took a breath.

Enjoy it as your last one.

As the Juggernaut activated his Aura, a charisma-dependent ability, a silvery glow lit his eyes. Priam was no longer looking at the siren; the Hero was gazing at a monster.

Every legend agreed that the first archetype held a natural advantage over the second. When it came to History and Myth, that bonus was very real.

The Heroic sight exposed the lie. The siren’s soft features grew hideous, its silky hair turned to filthy algae, its teeth to fangs, and slits opened on its neck. Gills. Beauty gave way to horror, and while her strength rose, her charisma plummeted.

The Champion’s attribute crushed his opponent’s. His Concept tightened its hold, and the monster ceased to breathe.

Her, well, its beauty was also a weapon. Not magical, not hormonal, but an attempt at manipulation nonetheless.

Lvl Up: [Social Resistance] lvl 2
CHAR +3

Pleased with the revelation, Priam resumed asphyxiating his opponent. Noticing the gills flutter, he raised his spear. A slash across the chest confirmed that beneath the impressive masses of fat meant to mess with the siren’s victims’ hormones, no lungs existed. That confirmed his Concept affected enemies regardless of anatomical differences.

I should’ve guessed, considering I managed to detect the respiration of trees, and even their photosynthesis. As a Concept, Breath must be taken broadly: any gas exchange counts.

As the siren withered, Priam’s attention split in two. One train of thought monitored the fight, measuring the resources spent to affect the boss. If he managed to find the formula governing his ability to asphyxiate an enemy, a micro application of the Concept would let him gauge the attribute gap between him and anyone by measuring his resources loss. Damn, that’d be a nice trick to complement [Heroic Identification].

As the siren began to spasm, Priam’s parallel thought zeroed in on potential upgrades for Breath. Tier 1 was around the corner, which meant a Concept upgrade. He saw three possible paths.

Stay on the route of basic respiration, which would likely lead to cellular respiration. In time, the Juggernaut could suffocate any biological foe at the microscopic level, becoming the bane of all regenerators… and the paragon of that same power. Could he stoke his body until it rivaled a hydra? If the body was an engine, a future upgrade might let him tyrannize machines as well. Arnold, I’m looking at you.

Follow the etymological route. Breath also meant the breath of the soul, and it was through dying repeatedly that Priam had deepened his affinity for the Concept. Such an upgrade could turn him into a necromancer or a spiritualist. Despite knowing that meddling with souls was dangerous, part of Priam burned to study the quintessence of his being. And maybe improve it.

Fuse multiple paths: instead of cultivating Breath, why not use it as a foundation to elevate Pyro? A ball of plasma capable of respiration and growth immediately made him think of a phoenix… and of a star. How could he refuse a Concept that called to both his love of fire and his passion for space?

Alternatively, fusing Mist and Breath would lead him into far more esoteric waters, with Ghost, Living Mist, or even Eldritch? Priam could barely imagine Concepts that bizarre, but his explorer’s heart burned to chase those possibilities.

Three paths, each more demanding than the last. Lofty goals; but why settle for less? To Priam’s mind, the growth of a Concept should aim to transcend its limits, to dominate reality and bend laws in ways his enemies would deem impossible. That was the Juggernaut’s way.

Thrilled by the possibilities of the near future, Priam sealed the siren’s final breath and welcomed his next opponent with a smile. Tier 1 was coming soon, but before that, he would strengthen his foundations to the absolute limit!

*

Jasmine - with glasses