)+\( Hugo )/+(

Waiting before he went back to camp would've been the smart thing. Coming up with something to tell them all instead of trying to explain himself on the spot would have been wise. Eliminating the other patrolling spies would've been his best choice.

Instead, he'd woken, groggy - and powerful - and followed his instinct to sprint back to his people. He'd been unprepared to fend off Yudel's accusations of choosing violence when 'Belar and Yudel were attempting to broker peace between their peoples'. Yudel's story was made all the more believable by the fact that Hugo had been keeping his real magic hidden.

It became clear, as minutes passed, that more of his nobles harbored some distance and disbelief than he would've imagined. Hugo wasn't going to have a good solution to the situation that would be beneficial to them - so he used the best option he could think of.

Hugo was tempted. Lured by the idea of lifting a palm, squeezing his fingers, and ending Yudel's life. He came close. Magic hovered around the man he'd long called friend, and then faded.

He wasn't a monster. At least, not to his own people. They'd seen enough violence - he could fix things, improve them peacefully.

He declared, for all assembled, that he was undertaking a tribulation to prove his truth and righteousness. It was an ancient custom seldom used in noble circles, let alone by the royal family. In the face of an accusation, one could name a backer who would assume their duties, then venture forth alone. When they had done enough good deeds to equal or come close to their accused actions, they would return and be considered cleared of any wrongs.

Hugo ignored objections, and named Vomar Niarina his backer. The man was, importantly, not one of his most ardent supporters, but instead hailed from a family of justices that treated every interaction as a test of their integrity. Vomar accepted, and surprised Hugo by giving him the standard hour to speak and make his case before his departure.

Hugo used the time to warn his people of Yudel's motives, and the danger they all knew Belar truly was. He didn't need to convince them, but only to sow enough doubt to prevent the man from making any moves to align his people with the corporation. It seemed to work.

When his hour was up, took an offered sack of supplies, and ventured forth.

If he could take the Belar guards down - the best use of his time was to protect his people more directly. His target, the second of two Belar spies that stayed near their camp, died a day later. Hugo expected it to be harder to take him out, but the man fell just as easily as the first.

Level: 25 -> 26

The next week was spent in wait.

Hugo had a general idea of where the enemies came from, based on where they assembled and rotated out. He was only off by a few hundred meters.

The pair of men were both G-grade, with power armor to keep them and their heavy loads mobile.

It was the first time Hugo had killed two at once. The strain was immense. It left him dry and fatigued in new ways - but he took them both down. Their path through the forest was easy to follow - made even easier by the extra supplies meant for the spies.

His improved, F grade body took him swiftly to his destination, a small encampment set against the side of a hill. Fabricated metal walls rose in a single-story building topped with an antenna and a walkway made from perforated material. The guards here were poorly disciplined. They played games while on watch, and often fell asleep in the lone watchtower that rose over a familiar-looking building. Hugo took the guards that were stationed in the structure to mean there were at least a few of his fellow Vuxarinans imprisoned inside.

He started on the third night.

An antlered quadraped screeched at the bright moon. The sound sent a few birds to wing off a nearby tree, and Hugo held still as the patrolling man flicked his eyes over where he hid amidst branches. One was doable. Not easy, but straightforward. Hugo wasn't just going to do the same thing as before, though. He was starting to understand. There were better ways to apply his skill. He brought it up, and again puzzled at the pieces the system chose to omit.

Soulreaver [legendary]

Active / Passive. Use mana to manipulate soul energy, create connections, and directly attack another's soul with your own. If your ******* and Soul Strength are above those of the target, they take direct, unchallenged soul damage. Souls of defeated beings may be absorbed. You may prevent the decay of an absorbed soul's individualism by feeding it requisite mana. Soul power does not decay. Advanced practitioners may use Soulsight. Highly advanced practitioners may unlock Soulsmithing. Master practitioners may *********.

He kept his Soulsight active almost constantly now. It was partly tactical, and part preference. He preferred to see the illumination and density of the souls around him - it made everything more tangible and significant, like the truths of the world were bared before him. It showed him that some of his people and his enemies were more powerful than others, even at similar levels. It gave him indications of a person's demeanor, and whether they were truly independent of mind and self. It helped him understand that there were fundamental differences between beasts and people that went beyond rational thinking. It was a world of new color and possibility, and he wanted it always.

Soulsmithing wasn't something he really understood - but attacks, he could experiment with. Surrounding and crushing souls worked best to kill beasts, so it was what he'd adopted with people. But it was a slow, difficult process. He tensed in anticipation, and the tree groaned. The guard stopped, and swiveled towards him - so Hugo acted.

Instead of trying to surround and crush the soul, Hugo sent out a thin appendage from himself. The mixture of soul and magic was sharp as a blade, aimed for a spot of weak density in the man. He shivered as the crafted blade plunged into him, then spasmed as Hugo drew it up and over to another weak spot. Hugo kept at it, but the man took longer to go down than his usual method. The only interesting thing was that he hadn't died screaming like the others. Maybe there was something important in that.

He pulled the body to a small river where he'd seen carnivores gather, stripped off the man's armor, and buried it in a nearby grove.

On his next target, Hugo tried going for the thickest spots in the soul instead of the thinnest. That resulted in another slow death - and screams. Another set of armor joined the grove.

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More patrols were sent out into the night. From the little he overheard, the men blamed nocturnal beasts for their dead friends. Hugo took the next one out when he was on a daylight walk. His attempt to cut the man's soul in half ended poorly - and Hugo had stabbed the man through the temple just to put him out of his misery.

Days passed, and a hungry grove filled with burgundy armor.

Nothing happened unless people were in pairs. No one slept on the watchtower anymore. Hugo got slightly more efficient when he threw out the idea of weapons and cutting, and went back to tearing souls apart. His new best tactic was to use two hands, and rotate them in different directions like he was trying to wring out a towel. If he did it quickly enough, he could even prevent them from screaming.

The more souls he absorbed, the quicker the job became. And he needed that. They'd sent out for reinforcements to their position. He had time before the new men would arrive. Enough to make it easy to take the safe route and keep killing the ones here at a distance - but not enough to take out all the guards and get his people to safety.

He vaulted over the wire walls with the ease of a star athlete. Climbing the side of the building was child's play. But when he made it up to the door, Hugo found it locked. It refused to yield, even under his F-grade strength. All three remaining men were inside, sleeping soundly in the comfort of their shut and locked doors. A 'secure' space. Hugo could've tried the other door, or he could have taken his people and left under the cover of night.

Instead, he tried for something new.

Hugo reached out with his hands, and closed his eyes. This was magic, and magic wasn't restricted to his appendages, nor should it care about walls. His two hands turned into four, then six as they hovered above the sleeping men. The complexity of the task threated to break Hugo's concentration. This was the most difficult thing he'd done to date with his magic. He pushed on, and drained himself to grip the men's souls.

A struggle, twist, and violent pull later, Hugo panted on the perforated floor of the walkway. He forced himself to his feet, and entered the now-empty building's ground floor. A minute later, he entered the square yellow structure, and used the keys he found to release the people inside. His people.

Most of them recognized Hugo. All of them stared at his eyes.

They listened to him with reverence, and he slowly guided them back towards the camp he'd exiled himself from.

When their malnourished and weak band made it to the settlement, Hugo departed without ever stepping foot inside. He wasn't returning, because he wasn't done.

Hugo knew, more than anything, that he needed to be stronger. He needed to be ready.

He'd managed a feat in taking out three people at once - but three was nothing compared to the forces Belar had brought into this tutorial, and the numbers that waited for them on Vuxarina itself.

To be a leader, a true leader in this new reality required strength, like what he'd seen in Serroc. The power to realize the outcomes you wanted, in addition to the wisdom required to understand what to aim for.

Hugo climbed to the summit of a small mountain, and surveyed the space before him. Power churned and flooded his eyes as he scanned for the next encampment. When he saw something promising, he set off towards it.

Safety for his people. Growth for himself. It would all come, with every Belar base he eliminated.

You have cleared an Enemy Camp!

Bonus Experience Awarded! (+1,000 xp)

Level: 26 -> 30

Quest Updated - Faction Wars! Faction Wars - Claim your place as the dominant faction in this Tutorial Space through conquest or negotiation. NOTICE: Negotiation unavailable. Objectives: 1. Clear or Conquer Enemy Camps and Fortresses (1 -> 2 / ??) 2. Defeat Enemies (19 -> 33 / ???) 3. Clear the Main Camp(s) ( 0 / 1) 4. Defeat the Enemy Faction Leader within this Tutorial Instance (0 / 1) 5. Secret Challenge: Liberated Fighters. Free prisoners from enemy faction(s) and have them join [The Osteal Empire]. ( 60 -> 79 / ???) 6. Secret Challenge: One Man Army. Conquer Camps without utilizing any combatant allies in offensive movements. (1 -> 2 / ??) 7. Secret Challenge: Blitz Campaign. Conquer any Three Camps within three days of each other.

+ Reid +

Reid braced as another attack slammed into the back of his armor. The momentum of the strike pushed him forward into a rock wall, then dragged him through the sandy dirt with violent motion. He barely managed to get his feet back under himself before he was pulled into the beast's mouth. Requiem cleaved off a chunk of the sticky, person-sized tongue and managed one strike to the creature's face before another tongue slammed into his side.

When Reid read his questline stage description, he expected some kind of predator - his hunch had been that the grey cats he saw in the forest would be his next foe. Instead, Reid had been met with a trio of shimmering, quasi-invisible chameleons that were each the size of a van. They used a combination of their innate coloring mechanisms and a healthy dose of illusion magic to disguise their positions, and their attacks. When they were close enough, they attacked with their tongues, and tried to pull Reid in to devour him.

At farther distances, the creatures used magic to try and blast off Reid's armor, and his skin. He still wasn't completely certain whether they were doing it with sand magic, wind magic, or some combination of both, but he was absolutely certain the attacks sucked. Even when they didn't do any damage, the swirling material got caught in his eyes, and his mouth, and the gaps in his armor where he had to move. The bit that did get in his eyes made it that much harder to see - and hit - his targets, especially with the illusion magic playing at his senses.

Reid had determined three things in this fight. First, illusion magic was going to be the next thread he made a targeted resistance construct for. Second, the sandblasting would've been a hellish attack for anyone that didn't have Reid's level of durability. Third, taking his time in getting to this fight was the right call.

The fight wasn't easy. Reid had been thrown around by the three chameleon's tongues like a ragdoll, and the fact that there were three of them had been a problem, mostly because they were able to smoothly coordinate with one another to keep Reid on the defensive. His openings to attack were slim.

It took him a few minutes of getting yanked around to really find his rhythm, but once he did, Reid wore away at the beasts the same way their sandblast attacks attempted to wear away at him, and he was able to do so because of his improved stats.

Tongue cuts. Bloody sides that were harder to disguise against the pale rock and brown sands. One beast he'd managed to stab through the eye. A successful gambit in dodging a tongue, and throwing a shrapnel brock into the creature's snapping mouth.

Reid weaved in and out of attacks when he could spot them, and recovered quickly when he couldn't dodge. The fight turned farther in his favor with every passing minute. He let himself get dragged towards one of the creatures again, and kicked off the ground at the last moment to get above it. He ignored the shimmer of swimming images and colors to smash Requiem down on top of the creature's skull. His weapon, strengthened again to match him, cracked the skull on the first strike, and pulped its contents on the second.

The beast dropped dead.

Next, Reid turned his attention to the one that his brock had wounded. Its bleeding mouth discolored the sand around it and made the thing easy to find. A short engagement and plenty of dodges later, Reid struck a killing blow by savaging its lungs, then crushing its spine.

Facing the last, compared to the danger of multiple beasts, was easy.

Reid weaved through the space, sand kicked up from every turn and motion of his boots as he closed distance. The beast lord peppered him with sand, tongue, and even took a swipe at him with its slow front claws. Reid closed and swung, then retreated back to avoid its magic and keep his eyes free of sand.

The fight was his. He'd rushed to the fight because of how close he'd gotten to running out the timer, once he left himself time to recover after seriously damaging his metaphysical self. But victory would grant him the best thing of all - free time.

He would finish the last chameleon off, hopefully get enough experience to raise a level, and then spend the next week or two self-affixing to max himself out again, while making more restrictor constructs in his threadspace. Then, Nyx would let him have a lesson that would focus on how Conduits were actually supposed to funct-

An unexpected notification derailed Reid's train of thought.

Congratulations! Your Faction has cleared an enemy camp. Sole Contributor: Hugo Vux ...

Reid's mouth hung open as he stared at the text.

Then a bloody tongue slammed into the side of his head.

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