A Jaded Life

Chapter 1364

“You know, for a supposedly dead guy, this one is quite lively and emotional,” Lia laughed after we had finished our first round of experiments on the Revenant’s actual body. A few tests on its limbs, and the dust those turned into, had been somewhat inconclusive, though Lia had a few ideas for the dust she needed to test in the future. However, those were somewhat vague and not all that fascinating in the grand scheme of things, so she didn’t consider those ideas a sufficient reason to maintain the Revenant’s existence.

No matter what precautions we took, the thing was above one hundred, and its entire existence seemed to be founded in its hatred for me. I had no interest in finding out that the hatred had started to accumulate or something, allowing it to suddenly surpass its already fairly high strength and burst forward in some strange, self-destructive berserker mode. Unless we came across a good reason to keep the thing around after we finished testing a few more ideas, I would gleefully find out what it took to destroy a Revenant. In a way, that was the last experiment I would perform on it, or rather, a final series of experiments. Or something like that.

“Yeah, I think that’s the whole point of this sort of undead,” I shrugged, keeping my distance as the Revenant was still completely and utterly focused on me, to the point that it seemed to ignore Lia completely. Though she was concealed in the shadows, avoiding its attention, something I was unable to do.

And we had tested that one. The thing always seemed to know where I was, to the point that its focus seemed to follow me, no matter how far away I was. We couldn’t be completely certain, given that we didn’t have an accurate map or a functional compass, but I had stepped through the shadows to both of my towers, and Lia reported afterwards that the Revenant’s focus had shifted accordingly. Which was, quite frankly, impressive. If the thing could track me across a continental distance, regardless of the warding at its location and my destination, despite my attempts to conceal myself, I doubted there was anything below direct divine intervention that could prevent a Revenant from tracking its target. And even that was questionable, as we obviously couldn’t test that one.

“You know, somewhat parallel to the old tales about ghosts. Lost souls, kept from the afterlife by some lingering attachment, be it love or hate. Only that this one seems to be completely stuck on the hate-track,” I shuddered for a moment, imagining a creature as powerful as the Revenant completely dedicated to some twisted version of love and targeted at me. It might be almost worse, at least the Revenant’s hate was easy to recognise and deal with; it was simply an enemy to be contained or destroyed. Love might make things seriously weird, especially if the monster in question maintained some form of cunning, as opposed to the mindless hate of the Revenant.

“Imagine a monster taking the form of your lost loved ones and acting with some mindless attachment,” Lia’s suggestion upped the ante and introduced a new level of disturbingly horrifying creatures, making me shudder in disgust. Even just imagining her idea was horrifying, making me briefly wonder if I could create some form of magical construct to mimic that. Or even just a Mind Magic spell that pulled on the target’s worst fear and forced them to confront it, serving as a rather brutal distraction. Something to put on that list of ideas to work on, eventually.

“Let’s not,” I shook my head in disgust. ”I’d rather focus on this particular beasty, I think there’s enough weirdness going on to keep us busy until we decide to either discard it or dump it into some deep, dark hole and seal it in. You know, somewhere it can’t get back out, though I’m not sure I’d be able to make something truly impenetrable. Not with that thing’s level of strength and impervious nature. Just imagine sealing it under rock, only for the thing to start breaking the rock, causing a cave-in. It could then just wait under the rock until its damage is regenerated, and then it could start digging itself out, rinse and repeat,” I told Lia, a shudder running down my spine at the idea. There might be no real way to keep the thing contained, not unless I came across a material it wouldn’t be able to break, no matter how hard it tried. Eternal Ice would likely work, but I couldn’t create that at will just yet. The only way I could currently come up with was to utilise the Nexus Tower to infuse Hard Ice with immense levels of Ice Astral Power over fairly long periods of time, until the Ice absorbed enough of that power and became Eternal.

Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

“What do you have in mind for the Revenant?” Lia asked, looking over to the still crippled thing, “I don’t think I can do anything with it. I’ve tried my particular blend of Mind Magic, but there seems to be no actual mind there, just a vortex of hate and spite, all directed at you. The thing doesn’t even have the self-awareness of an animal, which is quite fascinating in its own right, as well as incredibly creepy.”

“Fascinating,” I admitted, “I’ve tried a few gentle prods and pokes, but the thing is completely allergic to my magic; all I got for my efforts was a headache.”

“So, there’s nothing else to try?” she asked, looking a little disappointed at the failure.

“You know, we could try using a sharp blade to pierce the already regenerated parts, see if we can nail it to the ground or something. If we manage that, we might have a way to secure the thing long-term. If it can’t gain any leverage because we pinned the thing securely, its strength won’t matter,” I suggested with a grin, looking at the creature’s already regrown chest.

“We can’t use any of your items, but I’ve got a few of my old experiments stashed away. “ We can use one of those,” Lia agreed. “I think I’ve got them in Jademoon Tower, in the chest next to my bed there. Can you go check?”

“Yeah, sure,” I nodded, quickly stepping into the shadows to retrieve the objects in question.

Finding something in her chest was rather challenging; the thing was large, internally expanded and had no discernible organisation, but with a bit of searching, I managed.

“There you go,” I handed her a long, somewhat crude dagger. It wasn’t balanced well, too heavy at the base, and the crossguard was far too wide, but for this, it was quite useful.

“Thank you kindly,” she grinned, only for her grin to twist into a frown as she handled the blade for a moment, obviously frustrated with her old work.

“Let’s do this. Can you open some sort of slot under the thing, so we can see how it reacts to the blade at all, before we try anything to pin it down?” she suggested, making me nod in acceptance.

Working the stone below the creature without magically touching it was a bit challenging, but I managed to open a relatively wide slot below the thing, just to the left of its spine. Hopefully, that would allow Lia to pierce through it, without having her blade catch on a rib or the creature’s spine.

“Thanks,” she nodded once I had shown her where the opening was.

“Are you sure you want to make the stab? I can use a conjured construct, I don’t know if the thing will blow up or something,” I suggested, looking to the construct I had used for my earlier tests.

“I’ll be fine. The thing is hunting you, not me. Even when you decapitated it, you didn’t get blown up or something. Why would it blow itself up for me?” she asked, her argument good enough to make me shrug and take some distance, just in case.

Lia then stepped up next to the creature and stabbed down, her strength high enough to have her crappy blade pierce through the Revenant’s body and out the other end.

For a second or three, nothing happened. It was long enough to make Lia take a step back and relax a little, as she kept observing the creature until, suddenly, it burst into dust. The stuff came shooting out of the narrow opening down into the cell like some science-class experiment, making me worry for Lia.

“Shit, you okay?” I yelled out, worried until my mind registered the small, blue window that told me we had killed a Revenant. The EXP we had received for the kill was utterly pitiful, considering the thing’s strength. Maybe it was somewhat similar to the Nethersprites on Mundus. Annoying, but I wasn’t about to test if we could get more by repeating the process, not unless I found a way to make it safe.

“Yeah,” Lia jumped up, out of the cell the Revenant had been in, her hand desperately waving to clear the air before her mouth, “But I really need a shower. Could you help me out?”