Utarou and Vicar John stood in the middle of the 300 or so Templar Knights that the Avoisian Church had sent.
Before them was the leader of this expedition
Templar Adam.
He had long blonde hair, sharp features and bright emerald green eyes.
“So, you’re the heretical Blessed Being I’ve heard so much about!” Adam laughed as he jumped off his horse, his voice was smooth and relaxed, resonating even as the thunder storm raged on.
“Hah, glad to hear my name’s gotten around. Utarou Nishimura, at your service.” Utarou said, sticking his hand out to greet Adam.
As he raised it hand, it was chopped off, without Adam appearing to have even moved.
“Sorry, sorry. When I heard your blessing was perfect immortality I wanted to test it out.” Adam apologised in a jovial tone as Utarou saw his severed hand turn into mush as it fell onto the ground.
“I’m glad I don’t feel pain anymore then.” Utarou laughed nervously as he simply grew a new hand.
Templar Adam had a fierce presence to him, despite the harsh storm his radiant smile pierced through it, along with his immense strength.
“Lucky you; So John, what compelled you to bring me the heretic with none of the beasts he’s been cultivating?” Adam asked with a sigh, sitting on the ground, leaning against his sword, clearly completely unthreatened by Utarou’s presence.
“This!” Utarou declared, shoving the clam-like monster in Adam’s face.
“A monster that controls spirits? What of it?” Adam asked with a casual smile.
“The woman that eats monsters, she has the ability to open their skill trees as well.” Vicar John explained.
“Oh? An interesting novelty but I fail to see what it does for us.”
“Its a named monster called the Avoisian Ghost Core. I verified the woman had no ability to forge it’s name either.” Vicar John explained seriously. Adam paused, looking down as he scratched his chin.
“That is quite interesting.” Adam agreed, standing up as he took to the small shelled monster from Utarou and examined it.
“And now because you’re hypocrites, you can’t attack us.” Utarou declared triumphantly. Adam laughed as he handed the creature to his squire.
“No, I’m afraid that isn’t how this is going to work.” Adam smirked.
“Hey, that's not fair! You guys don’t get to just-” Utarou was cut off as Adam sliced his head off, grabbing his hair to hold up his decapitated head so the two men could be at eye level.
Quite concerningly, he had managed to slow Utarou’s healing to a crawl using one of his skills.
“Skill 9 of the Holy Path, Humility. Though clearly your immortality trumps it, considering it’s a blessing from God themselves perhaps that’s to be expected.” Adam explained as Utarou tried to speak, finding his lack of lungs to make that difficult.
“Now, let’s discuss some basic theology. You seem to not comprehend the magnitude of the situation. Beyond any Divine path, there lay only demons. There are islands of savages that go down the same path you are intending to tread, in only 4 generations they turn from a human into something that cannot be saved. Women having their wombs torn open by piles of flesh that secrete acid, children who speak unknown languages to commune with dead gods, men who cannot stop their unquenchable thirst for the blood as they decay into something that cannot be called a man. These are not hypothetical stories the church tells us, these are things I have personally had to put down with my own hands.” Adam explained to the slowly healing head of Utarou, his lungs having finally reformed enough to allow him to speak.
“Bleargh… I haven’t tasted blood in a while.” Utarou spat, a lump of healing flesh coming out with it. Adam chuckled softly.
“I see you are unphased. I see that if I would want to stop you, I’d need to lock you in the deepest darkest hole I can find and bury you with the heaviest stones.” Adam laughed, throwing Utarou’s head aside and releasing his skill, letting Utarou’s body spring back into existence as his healing powers were now unbound, falling into the mud just at Vicar John’s feet.
“You uh, seem to have thought this out.” Utarou laughed nervously as Adam picked up his sword.
Utarou was out of his league.
The entire village of Dryholm was doomed unless he could think of something, fast.
“W-what is so good about this Holy Path anyway!? Aren’t all of these skills coming from the same menu?!” Utarou sputtered as Adam went to walk past him.
Adam smirked.
“You know, I was hoping you’d say that.” Adam smiled.
“The Avoisian Church believes in the supremacy of the menu as you common folk put it. Though we with Divine Right prefer to call it the soul.” Adam explained, opening up his menu to show it to Utarou.
His Legacy Skill stuck out immediately, and how he’d only invested into one specific path.
Divine Right, and he had unlocked 16 skills in one continuous line.
“This the Holy Path. See? I’ve just got one more to go and I’ll have completed it! First man in over a decade to do so, if you’d let me brag a little.” Adam smiled.
“Yet, despite being so close to this goal, I’ve always wondered what would happen if I explored these other paths? I mean, I’ve never heard of a single noble going much further than investing in these boring old skills to improve their health, ability to negotiate and other such nonsense.” Adam explained, pointing to the handful of tier 1 skills at the bottom of his skill tree which he hadn’t invested in.
“They’re all written in God’s word, yet somehow some of them result in such savagery and evil… It boggles the mind.” Adam sighed melodramatically.
“R-right, so God’s not exactly telling you to burn my Monster Girl project down right…?” Utarou said nervously.
Adam laughed as he pulled Utarou up.
“No, no they’re not!” Adam snorted, grabbing the jacket from Utarou’s last body and putting it on him.
“However, there is a reason why the church respects those with skills such as Divine Right. We were born with it, as decreed by God… And if we are given this ability, then we must follow our Holy Path… What a bother, if only someone was able to figure out some new Holy Paths.” Adam sighed.
“I… I think I got the hint.” Utarou gulped.
“5 years Utarou. I want to see what you can do in that time. I don’t think God gave you this blessing without reason.” Adam explained cheerfully.
“Vicar, congrats. You’re getting a new job. Establish a Church in this village, help the monster woman to locate these things and deal with them swiftly. Let’s see if this Blessed Being can find some new Holy Paths.” Adam declared, much to Vicar John’s befuddlement.
“W-what?! Sir you can’t mean allowing such heresy to continue?!” John scoffed.
“I think you’re on team Monster Girl now John!” Utarou laughed, pulling Vicar John in by the shoulders.
“Ah I do enjoy your enthusiasm, but not quite. This is a test given to us by God. I do not know if you’ve been sent as a destroyer or as a creator. Thus, there seems to be only one real solution.” Adam smiled as he looked up into the sky, the clouds clearing briefly to reveal the starry sky.
“W-what is it?” Utarou asked, no longer so sure everything was safe.
“In 5 years I will have unlocked the final skill on the Holy Path of someone born with Divine Right. The only known Tier 4 Skill, Perfection.” Adam explained with a grin.
“T-tier 4? Those exist?” Utarou stuttered, in all of his research he’d never heard of them, only as ideas scribbled in the margins of books on the subject.
“Should you produce your own tier 4 skill… Well that would be a clear sign we’ve been complacent and you were sent here to fix that, right?” Adam laughed, placing a hand on Utarou’s shoulder.
“Of course, if you can’t… Then you’ll have corrupted these poor people’s very souls so far off the Holy Path I will have to wipe this province off the map. I hope I’ve made myself clear.” Adam explained coldly.
“V-very…” Utarou nodded, gulping.
He’d now pushed Dryholm’s destruction to 5 years in the future should he be unable to discover how to make a Tier 4 skill within 5 short years.
But more importantly he had another thought.
“If Tier 3 skills can lead to legacy mutations like having glowing Eyes… then Tier 4 Skills must be the key to unlocking the power to real monster girl transformations…” Utarou thought giddily, though if he wasn’t so scared of Adam he’d show it a bit more.