Gleam [Karma Cultivator Isekai] - Chapter 98: Pay the tab

The trip back to the top of the tower was peaceful, if still just a little eerie. Something about giant, thorny vines tearing a city apart just didn’t sit right with Chance. Fortunately, they reached the rune circle at the top of the tower without any more encounters.

Chance and Bella stood across from the circle, looking at it warily. There was no indication of where it would send them or if it even still functioned.

“So…” Bella trailed off, then nodded toward the circle. “What’s your luck thinking?”

“No idea. It’s not really thinking much of anything. It’s probably fine.”

“Probably?”

“It looks like a rune circle.”

Bella scrunched her nose and crossed her arms. Then she shrugged. “Well, I didn’t see any other ways down from the island. The runes don’t look damaged at least, so it probably works.”

“We’ll go through together so my luck rubs off on you,” Chance said. He extended a hand and Bella took it. They looked at the circle for a moment longer, then stepped forward together.

Their feet hit the center of the circle as one. As soon as Chance’s heel made contact with the ground, a trill of energy raced up his feet and into his spine. Essence burst forth from the rune circle and enveloped both of them, swallowing them in glowing blue light.

The world rushed past Chance’s ears. The only part of his body that he could feel was his hand clutching Bella’s as he flitted across space, carried by the Essence in a blur toward wherever the rune circle was connected to.

Then, as abruptly as it had started, the Essence vanished. Chance and Bella landed on hard stone together and both pinwheeled their arms to avoid falling. A cold breeze brushed against Chance’s skin and he shivered.

The rune circle had deposited them on a wide, flat stretch of polished marble. Rubble littered it, fallen from scattered walls that rose up around them. There looked to have once been other structures built on the marble, but they’d been destroyed so long ago that Chance couldn’t even begin to make out what they’d once been.

And, more importantly, Chance’s attention was on something else. A short distance from them, next to a large fallen chunk of masonry, were four men. Two stood on either side, and the tension between the two groups was so palpable that Chance could have cut it with a knife.

In the same moment that Chance noticed them, one of the men spotted them. Chance nudged Bella in the side, but she’d noticed them already as well. A faint sheen shimmered over her skin as Bella intensified her defenses.

“When’d they get here, Nate? I didn’t see ‘em arrive.” one of the men asked. Chance dubbed him Red on behalf of a set of matching red clothes that the man wore.

“I wasn’t watching, idiot. You were the lookout,” Nate replied from beside him. He and Red glanced from Chance and Bella to the other two men, who did the same.

Chance cleared his throat and raised a hand in greeting. “Hello.”

“Seriously?” Bella asked.

“What? Maybe they’re friendly.”

“Do they look friendly?”

“You shouldn’t judge people on appearances.”

“They were literally about to start fighting,” Bella said. She crossed her arms and looked over to the four men. “Were you not?”

“Were not,” Red said. At the exact same time, Nate nodded and said, “Yup.”

The four men glared at each other again. Bella sent a knowing glance at Chance, who threw his hands up.

“Well, they aren’t fighting now! Why are you all about to fight?”

The men looked at each other. Nate frowned and scrunched his nose, lost deep in thought. Red was the first of them to respond. He thrust a finger toward the other two men.

“Because they’ve got a bunch of good stuff.”

“Likely words from the group that looted this area before we got here,” one of the others growled. He cracked his neck. “I know you’ve got the artifacts that were here. Hand ‘em over.”

“Look who’s talking about likely words,” Nate spat. “You’re the toe eating bats trying to convince us that we got here first, when we both know you got here first. You two looted the area and are pretending we did it so those two kids join to help you fight us. Well, it won’t work. These two jokers are actually the ones that have everything.”

I’m pretty sure you’re all jokers. How did you manage to get this far without dying?

“Maybe we could resolve this peacefully?” Chance suggested, taking a careful step toward them. Bella sent a warning glance at him, then suppressed a sigh and moved together with Chance.

“Peaceful? What makes you think these idiots will be smart enough to do that?” Nate demanded.

“Yeah! What makes you think that?” one of the other two added. He and Nate glared at each other.

“Well, you’re already talking. That’s a good start. You both claim that the other group got here first, right?”

Everyone nodded.

“Okay. And you all claim that you haven’t actually gotten any of the loot yourselves.”

Chance received another set of four nods.

“So, logically, if nobody is lying, then neither of you have anything. Has anyone gotten anything thus far? Or have you not been able to loot anything in the Ancient Realm yet?”

“Nothing,” Nate said with a scowl. The other all nodded in agreement before remembering that they were supposed to hate each other and immediately resuming their glaring competition.

“So if you all empty your pockets, it would be obvious that nobody has anything and there’s no reason to fight!”

A second passed. Then two. Nate and Red exchanged a glance. The other two men did the same.

“I’m not doing it first. They might attack when my hands are in my pockets,” Nate said.

Red nodded empathetically.

“Well, you might do the same. You’re the evil bastard that came up with that kind of idea,” one of the other men said, mirroring Red’s posture. “We won’t go first either.”

“For the love of – just do it at the same time,” Bella snapped, exasperated. Red opened his mouth. Bella pierced him with a glare sharp enough to pierce steel. “Shut up. Do what I say.”

Red snapped his mouth closed.

“On three,” Bella said. “No questions. Just do it. Then you’ll know and we can all be on our way. Okay?”

Nate raised a finger. It didn’t make it halfway above his shoulders before he suddenly decided better and let it lower. He cleared his throat and nodded.

“Good. Three. Two. One.”

All four of the men turned their pockets inside out. There was, unsurprisingly to Chance, absolutely nothing in them. Bella tapped her foot impatiently as the two pairs of cultivators looked at each other.

“Happy?” Bella demanded.

Nate chewed his lower lip. He looked to Red for support, but the flamboyantly dressed man averted his gaze and suddenly found the ground fascinating.

“What if he’s got something shoved up his–”

Nate snapped his mouth shut halfway through his sentence. He took a step back, then shook his head. “Never mind. This isn’t worth it. Scary ass lass. Come on. Let’s go. We’re wasting our time here.”

The other two men watched Nate and Red start to head off. They sent a glance toward Bella, then quickly turned away and departed in the opposite direction. Chance grinned and shoved Bella playfully in the shoulder.

“That was incredible! When did you get such a good death glare?”

“I think we’re just lucky that they were pushovers,” Bella muttered under her breath. “They must have just been sitting around here because they weren’t brave enough to go onto any of the islands. I–”

Chance’s neck prickled. The golden mist pooling around his feet flinched back as if struck and he lunged, tackling Bella to the ground. An ear grating screech rang out and Chance rolled to his feet, coming up just as all four of the arguing cultivators pitched over, curved blades of glittering, sickly green protruding from their backs.

Spindly black strands raced across the blades, crossing across the ground like frost and gathering at a point. The blades ripped themselves free, dropping the dead cultivators on the ground. They liquified and joined the flow, rushing to form into the form of a tall, thin man.

Sharp, green hair the color of toxic waste stuck up along head in spikes, dark green veins pulsed beneath his sickly, nearly translucent skin. The man’s features were long and harsh, and he had a ropey scar along his neck. Segmented shoulder guards made of green, interlaced plates covered his upper body, radiating a sickly vomit colored hue. A purple tongue ran along his lips.

“Who do you think you are, interfering with my cultivation?” the man asked, his voice a raspy wheeze.

“What the hell is your problem? Why’d you do that?” Chance demanded, anger sparking in his chest. “They were incompetent!”

“They were fighting,” the man hissed. The plates covering his body rippled like the carapace of an insect. “I was cultivating. You interfered.”

“You were cultivating by watching them fight? What kind of rancid Essence is that?” Bella snarled, rising to her feet. “And you can’t expect people to stay out of your business if they don’t even know it’s yours, asshole.”

“Nobody would bother interfering in something like this.”

“I did,” Chance growled. Essence swirled around him, responding to his agitation. He wasn’t a stranger to death, but four men had just been murdered in front of him for literally no reason beyond the sickly man’s apparent irritation.

A blade of black energy whipped out of the ground directly in front of Chance with no warning. He vaulted backward, letting it pass harmlessly past his face. His urumi materialized in his hand as the blade arced after him and Chance slammed its hilt into the dark Essence.

Golden mist spilled forth as the man’s blade shattered, spraying black fragments across the ground. They turned to liquid, splattering against the marble and sinking into it.

“What Essence do you cultivate?” the man asked with a rasping wheeze. “Your very existence infuriates me.”

“What a coincidence,” Chance said, pulling more from his Gate. “I feel the exact same way about you.”

A wave of green spikes erupted from the ground in front of the man and raced toward them. Bella stepped in front of Chance and spread her hands out. Blue Essence swirled between them and hardened into a wall. The spikes slammed into it, shattering against her defenses. Just like the previous attack, the man’s Essence slipped into the ground once it had broken.

“Infuriating children,” the man hissed. “Vizen will rip ground your writhing souls to dust and revel in your strife.”

“Vizen should speak about himself in first person,” Chance said, fully releasing himself to the Essence within. “What those idiots ever do to you?”

“The lesser creatures exist only to make the stronger even more great,” Vizen replied. “They were my toys to play with. But you will suffice as replacement. I was already watching this circle for easy pickings from the islands. Perhaps even fools such as you will have something of interest.”

Vizen melted and pitched forward, splattering against the ground and sinking into it. Chance spun in a circle, but he couldn’t see anything. He switched to his Aura vision, trying to figure out where Vizen had gone.

Chance’s breath caught in his throat. The entirety of the marble platform around them was lit up with a sickly green.

Two dozen forms bubbled in the ground around Chance and Bella, rising up and forming into clones of Vizen. Their armor pulsated like it was all part of one single organism.

“I don’t like this guy,” Bella muttered. “What does he cultivate?”

“No idea,” Chance replied, readying his urumi. “But if what we just saw wasn’t enough, he was waiting to attack anyone who came out here. He’s scum.”

“The weak cannot judge the strong,” Vizen’s bodies chorused.

“I’ve seen strong,” Chance replied. “You aren’t strong. You’re just a leech that gets stronger from other people’s suffering. Whatever you cultivate is just as disgusting as you are. Come try your luck. I’ve got the bill for the tab you’ve been racking up.”