Defiance of the Fall

Hand Society had actually been forced to infuse himself with their disgusting compound to keep fighting, whereas the odd one was just unusually competent at taking a beating.
He would no doubt be able to make a decent living as a sparring partner at one of her family ’s Trial Planets.

She had been deeply disappointed that there wasn’t anyone interesting in the arena after something interesting finally happened in this dull Tower climb.
The two siblings from the Primeval Lake were pretty strong, but they were still not strong enough to force her hand even if they joined forces.
It was a shame that there was no one like their grand-uncle in their current generation.
Then it would have truly been a clash of fates.

She felt a bit bad about scorching a few unlucky people out of frustration, but then again it could be seen as them lacking in fate by being spawned so close to her.
After that she let the others escape in time, apart from the despicable fellows who didn ’t respect the proper rules of conduct.
Such people could burn for all she cared.

But something interesting finally had happened.
He seemed to think that no one had noticed his transformation, but everything that her sun illuminated was within her domain.
How could she not see what happened? What kind of encounter would allow one to change between a Human and a Draugr?

More importantly, was he really human? It was extremely minute, but there was something odd hidden within that she had never encountered before.
Something primordial.

Mixing an ordinary Human bloodline with the blood of higher beings was nothing unusual, as humans in general were extraordinarily average.
Her own family was a prime example of that practice.
But the odd thing was that her own bloodline felt some pressure from that man, which she had never encountered before.
At least not against someone in her own grade who hadn ’t undergone their bloodline evolutions yet.

’

That wasn’t the only odd thing, and she couldn’t help herself from being engrossed as she replayed the events in her mind.
It didn’t make sense.
She saw him almost dying from his soul shattering, then somehow being saved by an errant arrow that forced the Red Hand-Assassin to move away.

He then proceeded to eat a natural treasure that somehow changed its provenance mid-consumption, and finally recovering over two minutes.
All without being targeted or hit at all as battles raged all around him.
It was as though his surroundings had been shifted to a separate dimension.
Was it dumb luck? Or accumulated Luck?

She didn ’t think that even she would be that lucky if put in such a situation, and she had almost 200 Luck along with her Fate-augmenting treasures.

So Iz felt like a child who had found an odd colorful bug in their family ’s garden, and her eyes followed the bulky man as he tried to take down a much more skilled opponent by sheer stubbornness.

The man from the Red Hand Society was clearly one of their stronger cadets, likely someone who had survived the hellish training on one of their induction planets.
Anyone who survived long enough to enter the Society from one of those hellholes was an emotionless murderer who had solidified their path with a million corpses.

He kept opening up one wound after another on the Draugr, who was leaking like a sieve by this point.
He was using some nurturing Dao Fragment from the looks of it, but his control of the Fragment was atrocious.
Why didn ’t he form proper Dao Arrays on the wounds?

The humanoid cockroach tried, again and again, to catch his opponent with his axe and the fifteen chains that flailed about in the cage, but he didn ’t seem to possess any means to pierce through the darkness of the shroud.
The assassin effortlessly moved back and forth between the attacks, bursting forward with one stab after another.

Of course, the assassin was facing his own troubles as well.
He was starting to look disfigured from the wounds of the retaliatory strikes.
Absolute strikes were the worst to people like him.
If it was her she could have simply formed a shield of flames to block out any such attempts, but the assassin seemed to follow a much more extreme path lacking such tools.

He had quickly expended the few defensive treasures in his arsenal, and since talismans and arrays didn ’t work here he had to endure a thousand little pin-pricks infused with a corrosive Dao Fragment.
However, the fragments the Draugr used, were just Early Stage, a far cry from her three Middle Fragments that empowered each other.
Even worse, he seemed unable to properly coordinate them into something more potent.

Should she kill the assassin to make sure that the colorful bug didn ’t die? She had already moved a flame tendril to stand ready beneath the miasmic cage.
A quick poke and the struggle would be over.

’

But that would be a bit rude, not to mention somewhat embarrassing to butt in on a fight after having killed a few people for that kind of transgressions.
She guessed she would have to leave it up to fate.

Finally it seemed like the assassin had enough, and he launched a rapid succession of furious stabs as he moved quickly enough to make it hard even for Iz to follow.
But the armored warrior was like an impenetrable fortress, enduring the strikes he could endure and blocking those he could not.

The failed assault was followed by an attempt at escape, and the assassin first tried to teleport out of the miasmic cage.
But he was completely unable to leave, and another special warrior attacked him the moment he tried to slip through the cracks.
A furious assault on one of the towers was only met with a storm of ghosts as well it seemed.

The moment the assassin realized that both killing the man and escaping was impossible he immediately reached down and crushed the token on his belt.
Ever the pragmatists, the assassins.

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The Red Hand Assassin disappeared in a flash, taking the domain with him.
The Draugr stumbled around for a few seconds, seemingly unaware that he had actually won.
The fifteen spectral chains kept flailing back and forth inside the cage as he stood hunched over, ready to eat another stab.

Only after twenty seconds passed did the man have enough presence of mind to look up at the sky.
He had appeared on the 6th spot, meaning that the battle was won.
Only then did he slowly start to move toward the Cosmos Sack, leaving a trail of black goop in his wake.

Iz was unsure what to do.
The man was very interesting, but he was some random person from another part of the universe.
Was there any point in trying to look into his secrets? There were a lot of oddities on his body, but who didn ’t have a secret or two? But it was interesting.

Of course, there was one easy way to test if they had some connection of fate.
She instructed Uyirrik to get to work, and Iz ’s bloodline familiar formed another seal as she channeled a piece of her [World’s End] into the array.

Someone who was dead obviously couldn ’t carry any fate or secrets worth fretting over.