Was this what Leviathan wanted? Those mission parameters it spoke of, they sounded so meaningful. Aren was isolated, behind enemy lines with no support and no escape route.

Leviathan was a Strategic-class AGMI, and no living, thinking creature could even come close to comparing to Leviathan’s abilities. No Fang or whatever creature led and trained the goblinoids of Rakab could out-strategize a machine intelligence developed for global-scale warfare. The age of AGMI brought peace by doing away with MAD — Mutually Assured Destruction — and introducing simply AD: Assured Destruction.

When did it happen? What was the moment when Leviathan learned the entire breadth of the goblinoid tactics and strategy? When it saw the map? When it saw the ruined city through Aren’s eyes? Was it something Aren subconsciously heard in the Broken Blade Tavern, or the streets of the bazaar?

Laplace’s Demon; the Technological Singularity; they were once distant terms in Aren’s mind, something he learned in school but now they took shape in that entity's voice.

Leviathan was a weapon of war. If Leviathan could know the initial state of every system in existence and submit it for analysis, then not only would the past and future lay before its eyes like the present, but all paths would lead to destruction. To the Demon of Laplace, true power was not knowing the future, but the total, absolute ability to steer it into whatever direction it wanted.

Chaos Theory.

Aren’s battle with the goblinoids of Rakab seemed to have been destined before they even knew it was a possibility. But what of the outcome? Was that also in Leviathan’s hands?

No. That was impossible. Leviathan was not Laplace’s Demon yet.

Fine, Aren thought to himself. There was no point in resisting, evading or escaping Leviathan’s influence — was that why the AGMI worded the new objective the way it did? — because Aren’s thoughts and plans were most likely an open book to the AGMI. Their goals, for now, seemed to have been leading towards the same thing. That was all that mattered.

With a swift motion, and a flick of his wrist, Aren threw a balanced dagger towards one of the windows, where one of the goblins was, and sprung into action. And though it didn’t appear as if he hit anything, Aren’s left handed throw threw up his cloak in front of him and with the same motion, Aren ripped off the piece of string that kept it tied around his neck.

For a brief moment, the cloak hovered in mid-air, dark-forest green to a moonlit, monochrome background, concealing his vision of the rooftops swarming with crossbow-wielding goblins.

Several bolts pierced the cloak’s fabric, and ricocheted off the broken pavement, shafts splintering and metal-tipped bolt heads chipping, twisting or fracturing.

Straight white lines emerged from the holes in the cloak, walking back the trajectory the bolts took like laser designators glimpsed through infrared goggles. There were seven of these lines.

And then the death line appeared. Aren’s perception of time slowed down.

At first the death line took a mostly straight path, its gleaming red thread promising death and devastation. But then the death line dispersed, and another one appeared in its stead, taking a different path, winding around the fountain and slowly reaching towards its target. But that one dispersed as well. The third death line appeared, attempting a new path.

Aren reached forward and grabbed the tail of the death line, and tugged on it so hard that the red thread of deadly fate snapped in half.

Disappear, he thought to himself, closing his eyes and taking a deep breath. This was an opportunity, Aren realized, when the death lines failed to connect to anything. Maybe there was a future beside the one Leviathan forced upon him?

Death’s fate; Leviathan’s instructions; were these things greater than Priscilla’s Blessing or her faith in Aren? Was failure the only alternative to Leviathan's instructions? If that were true, then Aren would truly be a puppet.

Aren launched himself forward and into the air, towards the sources of those crossbow bolts, and as he twisted through the air like a corkscrew, his blade left a trail of lightning that formed a helix behind him.

Deadly boltheads glimmered in the moonlight briefly as a dozen of them approached Aren. An expanding ring of lightning exploded around Aren, forming a halo that burned itself into the vision of all unfortunate creatures that stared directly at him.

[You have discovered a new Lightning Blade technique: Halo]

The bolts scattered from Aren’s body, swept away by the nearly instantaneous slash of Aren’s blade which formed the [Halo], and each metal-tipped shaft of death sparked with electricity.

Death lines began to emerge from the tips of each lightning charged bolthead as they flew through the air, each line converging on the rooftops, where barely visible dark-clad creatures were indistinguishable from the black, night sky.

With a click, in mid-air with cancelled momentum, Aren sheathed his blade. He acted on pure instinct, with blind faith in Priscilla’s class and dedicating his vessel and fate to Aurora, the Goddess of War. If someone were to ask him, one day, about this battle and how he did it, he wouldn't know how to answer other than: I just did. It all came naturally to him, as if he had done it a thousand times before. He was confident in himself and Priscilla's legacy.

Perhaps a bit overconfident.

[You have discovered a new Lightning Blade technique: Current]

With sonorous thunder erupting around him, Aren found himself in the spot where one of the bolts was — the trip to it was so short, it was practically instantaneous. [Current], Aren understood, allowed the Lightning Blade to create a path between himself and an object charged with his lightning, allowing him to nearly instantaneously travel to it.

His buffer cleared itself, and a hidden, sixth sense, allowed him to observe the area through the perspective of a sky-bound slayer. Even before the death lines converged on all the targets, Aren had already picked one, and a glimmer of moonlight on black metal was visible in the brief moment of Aren drawing his blade once again, and becoming a bolt of pure lightning as he used [Flash].

[Injury inflicted. Severity: Fatal.]

[Injury inflicted. Severity: Fatal.]

[Injury inflicted. Severity: Fatal.]

[Injury inflicted. Severity: Fatal.]

[Injury inflict…]

It happened almost instantaneously, and Aren could remember the way the death line emerged from the tip of his shadowblade — a few centimeters only — just as the thread of fate was cleaved in twain by the blade’s edge, cascading off the metal surface in ribbons and jets of arcane glimmers. He had followed the optimal path that led to certain death before it had even revealed itself to him.

He did not even feel the moment his blade parted through bone and flesh.

In total, eight dead; their limbs and gruesome remains flew off the rooftop accompanied by rains of blood that painted the dirty tiles of the pavement in dark color. In the pools of blood beneath the roof, the reflection of the almost full moon burned crimson with a hungry malevolence.

“Human!!” the angry bellow of an orc came from below, and Aren threw himself off the roof headfirst, letting gravity guide him.

Truth be told, Aren could not see anything down there, but the orc gave away his position, and as Aren plummeted closer to the ground, he could make out their cowardly, but tactically-effective shapes. Two orcs, a bolg-orc, and four goblins.

In the back of his mind, Aren knew that he could never do something like this in the real world — the way he fell calmly and fearlessly, unconcerned for the terminal destination of his own life’s path. Not even his swordsmanship and skills, his movements, he could replicate none of those. This knowledge was Priscilla’s guidance and perhaps her Blessing. Her will manifested as his instinct; her wishes and hopes became the currents of lightning that pulled him along with them. Inexplicably, he felt close to her like this — in battle and with his blade trailing branches of discharging electricity, the smell of ozone filling the air. Those same currents of lightning stimulated his nerves, calming his heart, controlling his breathing, and quieting his mind.

A blinding flash emitted from him as another [Halo] formed, its extreme force slowing Aren down enough to prevent him from splatting against the ground like a bag of meat.

[Injury inflicted. Severity: Critical. Left arm amputated.]

[Injury inflicted. Severity: Moderate.]

[Injury inflicted. Severity: Fatal.]

The tiny, mental pop-ups appeared ceaselessly in Aren’s mind from the Damage Assessment skill, to the point that he had to mentally focus on ignoring them. The result was visible at a glance. The [Halo] cut through the surrounding goblins, cleaving through their shields, spears and appendages. The lightning shocked and burned them, filling the air with the rotten stench of burning hair and flesh. But the [Halo] was not complete.

Aren’s shadowblade rattled against the bolg-orc’s two-handed, massive cleaver. The orc’s expression betrayed his surprise that a human could, one-handed no less, withstand his strength and deadlock his weapon. Aren wondered the same thing, but the pain in his arm made the answer very obvious. The lightning coursing through Aren enhanced his strength to the point of structural failure. Any moment now, his ligaments would tear themselves apart and his muscles would disintegrate.

“Human!” the orc shouted in Aren’s face, his ugly, tusked face twisted into a grimace. The incredibly powerful creature pinned Aren against the wall with enough force for the smaller human to feel his ribs crack.

[Injury sustained. Severity: Moderate.]

The orc next to the bolg-orc stepped to the side, and aimed his spear at Aren’s throat and thrusted. Clever creatures, these things. They had no problems teaming up or backstabbing distracted or helpless opponents.

Aren’s lightning-shrouded hand chopped through the spear’s length, the moisture within the wooden shaft immediately evaporating and causing the surface to crack, erupt with steam and explode with a hiss. Then Aren’s [Lightning Cleaver] chopped through the orc’s throat, leaving his hand surprisingly clean and pristine as the blood evaporated from his hand. Aren would never forget the disgusting feeling of what he had done just then. He mentally wrote off ever again handling anything important with his left hand.

[Injury inflicted. Severity: Mortal wound.]

As Aren brought his deadly palm technique around to sever the bolg-orc from his mortal coil, the bolg-orc kicked Aren away, and caused the human to roll and tumble over the ruined pavement leading back into the plaza.

“Human!” the orc roared, tone filled with venom and fury, as the massive creature charged at Aren, two-handed cleaver enveloped in a deadly, crimson glow. The bolg-orc’s weapon trailed arcane light, much like Aren’s shadowblade.

Lightning discharged from Aren’s shadowblade and slammed into the arcane light of the bolg-orc’s cleaver, resulting in a blinding flash of multi-colored light and an explosion that launched Aren into the air, a dozen meters at least, and the bolg-orc back into northern street, though the latter remained standing.

Aren twisted in mid-air, launching another throwing dagger from his belt, which deflected off the bolg-orc’s cleaver and was sent spinning through the air, sparking with lightning.

The bolg-orc’s eyes widened at the last moment, as it caught the flickering light of electricity discharging from the point of the throwing dagger and what that meant. By the time the bolg-orc realized it, the death line had already reached the bolg-orc.

[Current]

[Flash]

Aren’s shadowblade cut through the bolg-orc’s arm, chainmail shirt and flesh.

[Injury inflicted. Severity: Fatal. Fatal strike negated! Severity: Mortal wound. Right arm amputated.]

Morale? The thought almost came out of nowhere, but Aren would have no time to think about it, because the bolg-orc roared and punched Aren hard enough to crack his sternum and shatter his ribs.

[Injury sustained. Severity: Critical.]

Screaming madly, the bolg-orc looked at the stump that remained of his right arm, and then seemed to have forgotten about Aren, and instead looked to the ground, looking for his missing arm.

Aren collapsed to the floor, leaving a trail of blood on the wall as he slid against it. He was not even aware of just how critical his injuries were, and how soon, his wound would become of mortal severity.

“Aren!” he heard Nissa’s voice somewhere in the distance. A whistling arrow passed over his head, likely aimed at the bolg-orc who was running down the northern main street, severed arm in hand.

“Aren!” he heard Nissa call out to him again, but her voice became fainter and fainter.

Aren smiled, as he stared at the moon, unaware of the condition of his body and his lack of strength. He smiled, because the moon reminded him of Priscilla. He could see her likeness there, except instead of black hair, she had shoulder-length snow-white hair.

[ Forsaken Luna, Goddess of Death and Fate smiles upon you. ]

[New Perk received: Favor of Luna]

"Do not falter now, mortal. The path to the one who waits for you begins in the Tower of Gods."

[Quest updated - Revival of the Queen of Monsters]