A Novel Concept - A death a day, MC will live anyway!-Chapter 333: Scars make lessons stick

Lvl Up: [In the Zone] lvl 2

PERC +3

VIVA +3

DEXT +3

“We’ve detected a life signature at the top of the tower.”

“Just one?”

“Yes. All personnel evacuated hours ago.”

“Good.”

“Uh, sir?”

“Yeah?”

“This is a Wartech complex, a paramilitary security firm. The target may have access to their equipment.”

“He’s gonna need it.”

Priam’s haunted gaze locked onto the towering black monolith, roughly thirty stories tall. Somewhere up there was the tenth clone of the son the System had unceremoniously thrown into his arms. A descendant he felt no real love for, but one he couldn't bring himself to execute in cold blood. Killing someone was never easy. Slaying his own blood...

His mind in turmoil, Priam approached the tower’s base and placed a hand against the cold surface. He had no intention of taking the elevator up for a face-to-face confrontation. Out of sight, out of mind, right?

Promesse materialized in his other hand, and a single thrust obliterated one of the tower’s supporting walls. Four strikes later, the metal groaned in protest as the building’s frame was beginning to buckle.

[Kinetic Sovereignty].

The collapse halted mid-motion as Priam absorbed the tower’s weight. The skill was meant to manipulate kinetic energy, not raw force, but the System didn’t seem to mind the distinction. A titanic power coursed through his pathways, and Priam allowed himself a smirk—suspending over a hundred thousand tons of concrete, glass, and steel barely made his aether circuits heat up. A few weeks ago, his meridians would have exploded. In fact, they had.

“What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger, right? Or maybe that only applies to physical trials…”

Shoving the depressive thought aside, Priam stored energy for fifteen seconds, until his reserves brimmed. The moment he hit full capacity, he reversed the flow.

The paramilitary complex launched skyward as if gravity had flipped. His legendary skill altered its trajectory, upending the structure so that its roof pointed straight down. [Kinetic Sovereignty].

Like a divine spear hurled from the heavens, the tower plummeted, striking the ground with cataclysmic force. The structure crumpled in on itself, collapsing like a soda can beneath a hydraulic press, entombing the tenth clone beneath a mountain of wreckage. Floating in Arkana’s twilight sky, Priam watched the shockwave ripple outward, making the entire district tremble. When the quake finally subsided, he descended onto the debris, closed his eyes, and focused on his bare feet. If the clone had survived, its beating heart would betray it—unlike necromantic horrors, his nemesis’ creations still had functioning circulatory systems.

“No pulse. He’s dead,” he confirmed after a minute.

"That was the last one."

“Are you sure?”

“One of our agents just found the eleventh clone’s head in a dumpster.”

Jasmine had beaten him to the punch.

“Then only the original remains.”

“I don’t think we can help locate him. Something’s blocking us.”

“That’s—”

As if a compass had just fused with his brain, Priam felt his attention compelled toward a specific direction. His add-on informed him that the source of this new sense was an old Title.

[Threat Killer - Bronze] - You're not the shield that protects humanity. You are the spear that destroys its enemies. This choice says a lot about you because you didn't hesitate for a moment. You're getting to know yourself better, and you don't look away when you meet your reflection.

Humanity fears monsters. Will monsters fear you?

You detect threats to humanity.

STR +10%

By endangering humanity, the necromantic horde had just betrayed the position of its creator.

“—irrelevant. I know where he is.”

The city block looked like any other unremarkable residential cluster in Arkana. If you didn’t live here, there was no reason to give it a second glance. No food stalls, no shops, no clubs for partying. On second thought, the lack of commerce was almost suspicious.

“I’m guessing these aren’t just ordinary apartments,” Priam mused.

His handler answered in his earpiece. “It seems like they are—”

“You’re looking at a void location,” Abernathy interrupted. “My department isn’t authorized to investigate here. I don’t have the clearance to know more, so expect the unexpected.”

“Noted. I’ll take it from here. Thanks for your cooperation.”

“Likewise. Hopefully, you won’t destroy what’s left of my city before your fight is over…”

“I’ll do my best,” Priam said, yanking out the earpiece and crushing it between his fingers. The device fizzled before he tossed it into a nearby trash bin. The apocalypse was no excuse for bad manners.

Priam turned toward the row of buildings, studying the doors facing him. To maintain the illusion of normalcy, all had to be used regularly, ensuring no immediate suspicion from neighbors. But that didn’t mean they all led somewhere meaningful.

Kneeling, Priam examined the pavement. Most passersby scuffed their shoes while walking, leaving behind minute traces of debris. If one entrance had noticeably more accumulation than the others, it meant heavier foot traffic—odd for a block where every building was roughly the same size.

Walking the street, Priam soon found a suspicious porch. It looked as mundane as the rest, but his enhanced vision detected a higher concentration of crushed particles. An ordinary human would see only dirt. Priam, with his perception nearly ninety times greater than the average man, read the erosion of countless footsteps.

He approached the door, attempted to slip his mist through the cracks—and smirked when it failed. According to his Domain, in addition to impressive technological shielding, runes sealed the passage. [Kinetic Sovereignty].

The sigils didn’t even register the legendary skill. Silently, the lock turned, and the door swung open. Priam stepped into a standard apartment lobby and whistled as he sensed the meter-thick layer of lead beneath his feet. A bunker. One impervious to anything short of nuclear annihilation. The metal framework was laced with an intricate network of runes and he took a moment to analyze them.

“Absorption, vibration, boundary, heat, shield, kinetic, conduit… That’s a vector? Yeah, up. And that’s down. Then redirection, divination, vision, jamming—!” Priam listed before collapsing as a sharp pain detonated in his skull.

Lvl Up: [Ciphered Record] lvl 3

MEM +6

META (Affinity) +6

META (Authority) +15

Meta(Authority) exceeds 500 points. First milestone reached. Congratulations!

[All-rounder - Gold] becomes [Jack of all trades - Legendary] !

[Jack of all trades] - You have reached the first threshold in every physical, mental, and spiritual attribute at Tier 0. All facets of your being have been sharpened as you dabbled in many skills. A warrior, strategist, and mage all at once, your versatility allows you to find a solution suited to every problem.

Some claim you're a Master of none; silence these rumors.

Bonus (All-rounder): MEM +30%

Bonus (Jack of all trades): Skill progression speed +1%

Snapping his attention away from the sigils, Priam clenched his teeth and rubbed his temples. “Fuck!”

Some kind of divinatory trap had lashed out, punishing his curiosity. His legendary-tier resistance had redirected most of the strike into the void, and his absurdly high constitution had endured the rest. Still, Priam grimaced as without [Ciphered Record], his brain would have liquefied.

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“A defense capable of killing a Tier 2…” His lips curled into a grin. “Interesting.”

Despite the pain, excitement flickered beneath the surface. The prospect of unraveling a new layer of magic was intoxicating. But Priam resisted the urge—if the formation could learn, repeated probing might strengthen its defenses. The array contained hundreds of runes, most unfamiliar despite his training with the Mercenaries. Like letters forming words, each sigil’s meaning could shift in combination. His add-on calculated that it would take weeks to decode the defensive arrays.

“Maybe if I invest in certain Merits and leverage my dream evolution, I could shave that time down... but not to less than an hour.”

According to [Threat Killer], his nemesis was right below his feet, and for a moment, Priam entertained the idea of using his full power to break through the defenses. With Breath, he might have a chance… or maybe not. Even if I could, I’d rather keep that ace for the final fight.

Clenching his fists at the thought of his opponent’s identity, Priam decided to explore the ground floor to find the bunker’s official entrance. The second doorway he checked confirmed his suspicions—this wasn’t just an apartment complex. The tiled flooring abruptly transitioned into synthetic paneling, and at the heart of a room the size of an entire apartment sat a reception desk that had no business being in a residential building.

Priam scanned the room and smirked when he spotted a fire evacuation plan pinned behind the desk.

“Regulations will be the death of us,” he muttered, tracing the layout. Two staircases with one leading downward.

After pushing through two simple doors, Priam found himself before a reinforced blast door with a magnetic lock. Less secure than the main entrance, it allowed tendrils of mist to seep through.

Twenty meters behind it, Priam noticed a massive hatch. Whoever designed this bunker had been paranoid because the entrance was reinforced even more heavily than the rest of the structure. Not that it mattered as the hatch was open.

Priam grinned at the sight of a woman sitting at the edge of the void, legs swinging idly over the abyss.

“Took you long enough.”

“I’d bet you haven’t been here for more than five minutes,” Priam replied with a genuine smile. His first in a long time.

“Four minutes and thirty-two seconds, according to the add-on you so generously gifted me.” She crossed her arms. “Doesn’t change the fact that it’s rude to keep a lady waiting.”

Priam feigned surprise. “A lady? You brought a friend?”

Jasmine shot him a glare. “Next time, you can deal with your kid’s clones by yourself.” Her face twisted in a grimace at the same time as Priam’s. “Sorry, I shouldn’t have said that.”

“No, it’s…” Priam sighed and moved to sit beside her. “The System really screwed me over with this one.”

“How are you holding up?”

“Badly. I don’t know if I’m weak for hesitating to kill my own blood or if I should tell the System to go fuck itself.”

“These Tribulations…” Jasmine exhaled sharply. “Sometimes I think they’re designed to rip every last shred of empathy from us. To turn us into monsters.”

Priam gazed at the spiral staircase plunging into the depths of the bunker. “The Concepts want to temper our character. Whether my pragmatism teeters on cruelty or I stand my ground despite the hardships, it’s all the same to them.”

But while Priam was quick to ignore pain in pursuit of his goals, his hearts were more sensitive.

Jasmine pulled him into an embrace, and he didn’t resist.

“But killing your son…”

“He’s not really my son.” Priam closed his eyes, thinking of future foes. “One day, an enemy will clone a friend or a family member and use them as leverage or hostage. If that gets to me, I’ll never be free. The System is teaching me a valuable lesson.”

“That’s brutal.”

“Scars make lessons stick.”

As he started feeling a little better, Priam became aware of Jasmine’s scent—a floral fragrance that clashed with her usual fierce and sexy demeanor. When she retracted her thorns, the young woman was… The right adjective escaped him, and Priam frowned.

“Something wrong?”

“Nothing. You smell nice.”

Her heartbeat, steady until now, stuttered. Priam suddenly realized his face was nestled against her chest. Pulling back, he flushed upon noticing she had swapped her cocktail dress for a shadow suit. While it offered perfect visual concealment, it lacked physical protection as her shadows had no substance outside of combat.

“Your dress…”

“After crawling through sewers to kill one of your kid’s clones, I decided to ditch it. The smell was…”

“Atrocious? A shame, it suited you.”

Jasmine smiled brightly and some of the fog obscuring Priam’s mind disappeared.

“Hum. Did you learn anything useful?”

“Yeah. First, I can attack his creations but not him directly. Second, his attacks carry a spiritual echo.”

Priam narrowed his eyes. “Meaning?”

“When he wounds your body, he wounds your soul. That’s doubly dangerous for us Homo Elysians, given our physical-spiritual connection.”

“Ah. That explains how he split my soul during Back in Time. He just had to cut my body.” Priam held up three fingers. “Three Tribulations. First, my nemesis: it forces me to weigh my desire for freedom against my ties to my family and my empathy against my pragmatism.” He lowered his index. “Second, the ability to directly damage the soul. If he severs my arm, I can’t regenerate it until I heal my soul—if that’s even possible. A pointed lesson from the System about my greatest weaknesses as a tank.” The middle finger went down. “Lastly, a countdown. If I take too long to win, it’s game over. A reminder that I’m a shitty tracker and my offense is lagging behind my defense.”

[Kinetic Sovereignty] and Pyro Unity had solved that weakness.

“Knowing what to expect is half the battle,” Jasmine said with a grin. “Shall we?”

“We?”

“I’m coming with you. If there’s fodder, I’ll handle it.”

“...” Priam hesitated, realizing she was worried about him. Did she know he had needed [In the Zone] to execute one of the clones? That he had obliterated the second without giving it a chance to show his face?

“I can kill him.”

“I don’t doubt you,” Jasmine said.

“Soon, he’ll find my spear deep inside his body,” Priam insisted.

“Like his mother before him,” Jasmine said with innocence. “By the way, you never talk about Victoire.”

Recognizing a conversation he had no intention of having, Priam vaulted into the bunker. Jasmine followed, laughing.

Status

PHYSICAL:

Strength 915

Constitution 1 582

Agility 1 256

Vitality 1 468

Perception 881 (+4)

MENTAL:

Vivacity (D) 634 (+3)

Dexterity 787 (+3)

Memory 972 (+11)

Willpower 1 208

Charisma 888

META:

Meta-affinity (O) 1 103 (+8)

Meta-focus 633

Meta-endurance 1 094

Meta-perception 558

Meta-chance 667

Meta-authority 516 (+22)

Potential: 27 209 (+7)

Tier 0

Sun points: 1 143 444

[He Who Eludes Death] charge: PRIMED.

Concepts:

Bloodlines:

Rewards standing:

[Tribulation]: Two Tribulations pending.

Future Tribulations delayed until:

Time: 29 days 21 hours 22 minutes 12 seconds.

Next thresholds: 12 attributes > 900 / 6 attributes > 1 200 / 1 attribute > 1 800

Next arc already complete on Patreon if you want to find out what happens next!

/ANovelConcept