Mila
Congratulations!
Trial Tower Tournament Round II is over.
You have made it to the top 1024.
You have gained 13,705,240,500 trial points from your opponent.
Reward: Total Accumulated Trial Points X 2
Current Total Accumulated Trial Points: 5,216,820,889,307,993,712
Mila also got far more money than she ever had before, the elf having been far, far richer than Prince Morin Daal, but she wasn’t happy.
Aalam had been tortured and all she’d managed to do was ruin the Trial Tower for the bastard and steal his money, not give him any kind of true trouble.
Sitting down, she then waited half an hour for Aalam to reappear, but he didn’t. Instead, she got a System message.
Your familiar, the Heavenly Spark Soul King, has fallen into a coma and has not responded to requests to rejoin the Trial Tower.
System protection for the Heavenly Spark Soul King will be released in one hour.
Good luck participating without your familiar.
Mila’s first reaction was anger, followed closely by sadness. Aalam had likely been psychologically scarred for life, yet that rich bastard was going to be fine. But then she realized the coma was much more likely just Aalam falling out of the Id state, which didn’t necessarily mean he would be in a bad place when he woke up.
Granted, he almost certainly would be—being tortured like that was very, very far from fun—but the fact he’d entered into a coma wasn't indicative of how bad things would be.
Centering herself, Mila took a deep breath. There was nothing she could do to help Aalam psychologically until he woke up, but she could make sure he didn't have any extra stressors he'd have to deal with.
Contacting Isaiah to go back to the soul well to protect Aalam once the System’s protection was gone, Mila then took the Left Hand of the Runescribe off of Aalam’s corpse and put it on her own left hand. Then she placed everything in her possession other than the clothes she was wearing into the Left Hand of the Runescribe as well.
This was followed by a half day of meditation, and then the next round started.
Trial Tower Tournament Round III is starting.
Randomly generating competition.
Arena Combat competition chosen.
You and your opponent will each appear in a small arena.
The first to kill the other will have their trial points doubled.
The world faded and she appeared in a large stone room, perfectly circular with a roughly 250 meter radius and a 25 meter ceiling at the edges. The ceiling wasn’t perfectly flat, rising up to 35 meters at the center, and it was covered with a large sigil made from orange and yellow fire which read as ‘combat’ in the most common rune style of the universe.
In short, it looked almost exactly like the first trial room from the tutorial, where she had met Aalam after their deaths, only it was five times bigger.
She was on one side of the room, about 100 meters away from the wall, and, on the other side was her opponent. Tall, well over two meters, he was a humanoid lizard man cultivator with three fingers on his hands, hooves instead of feet, and an extended jaw like a wolf. Covering his entire body were bronze scales and a long prehensile tail extended from his lower back. Finally, he was wearing a black gi, with a large seemingly Heroic grade greatsword on his back and a spatial storage ring on the middle finger of his right hand.
“He’s a coran,” Nana Xara sent to her. “In general, they are very martially focused and value honor, but they are also almost always combat pragmatists, so your plan should work.”
* * *
Brom
Brom Karendesh looked at the woman in front of him. She had dark skin for a human, with shoulder length wavy black hair, and she was wearing black robes and a dark azure fingerless glove on her left hand. But she didn’t seem strong enough to have made it to the third round of the Trial Tower’s tournament section. Her aura was relatively powerful, and it seemed she’d practiced an advanced cultivation technique, but his instincts were telling him her other stats were far weaker than his.
Then, however, instead of trying to fight him, she bowed. “I am Zera Mara, a humble stealth expert from the Timore Galaxy Cluster. Might I have Lord’s name?”
Ah. That made more sense to Brom. During the Free For All Kill For All section, a stealth expert would have an easier time moving between rounds. Then, if she somehow got lucky, it wasn’t impossible for one such as her to make it to the third round of the tournament if the competition types suited her.
“Brom Karendesh, of the Bronze Legion.” Brom drew his greatsword, readying an attack.
“I know I’m no match for you, Lord Karendesh.” The woman bowed to him again, putting up no defense. “But I’m wondering if you would be interested in a trade before eliminating me from the competition. Your illustrious self almost certainly has quite a few universal credits, while I happen to have a biological weapon capable of killing even one such as you in under an hour, along with the antidote. For someone such as yourself, it might make the difference between a loss and a defeat during later rounds, as your opponent would have to waste quite a bit of resources fighting it off.”
This got Brom’s interest. He was a Strength, Endurance, and Toughness focused warrior. If he wanted to fight defensively, he could hold off almost everyone he knew of his generation’s young experts, except for Krysta La’Vordi, for at least thirty minutes. With such a weapon added to his arsenal, he might be able to even get second place if Krysta La’Vordi wasn’t in his side of the bracket.
“Show me.” He didn’t put away his sword, wary of some kind of trick, but he was pretty sure the woman had no way of harming him.
Rising back up from her bow, the woman summoned a small open vial from a subspace seemingly in the glove on her left hand and downed it. Then Brom’s senses felt small microbes try to start entering his body, apparently originating from the glove as well.
They were relatively easy to defend against, his qi passively destroying them, but before each of their deaths they seemed to eat a bit of his qi, creating more of themselves, and he was pretty sure they were multiplying in the air and on the ground and walls as well, passively absorbing the mana of the room. For a few minutes, he was able to fight against the plague without losing much of his resources, but, after five minutes, the amount started to increase and it took more of his resources to keep the disease away.
At this point, the woman took off the glove on her right hand, moved forward, and placed it on the ground 200 meters in front of him before backing off. Brom then moved forward to investigate and he realized he wouldn’t be able to break into the glove to gain access to either the disease or the antidotes.
Picking up the glove and tossing it back to the woman, Brom then said, “Alright. What are your terms?”
Zera Mara has sent you a contract request.
Terms:
Zera Mara will give you 10 vials of F Rank Bacterial Plague III along with 10 vials of antidote You will give Zera Mara 48 D rank universal creditsPunishment:
Death in the Trial Tower
Do you accept?
Yes/No
The woman put the glove back on, temporarily bringing her fingers together and interlocking them in the process, but the gesture looked completely natural to Brom, so he agreed, transferring 48 D rank universal credits to the woman.
Instead of giving him the plague and antidotes, however, the woman just smiled at him. “Please kill yourself.”
Brom felt his soul start to burn and he quickly looked at the contract again.
Terms:
Zera Mara will give you 10 vials of F Rank Bacterial Plague III along with 10 vials of antidote You will give Zera Mara 48 D rank universal credits You will not try to harm Zera Mara You will obey all of Zera Mara’s demandsPunishment:
Death in the Trial Tower
He’d been tricked. The woman had a high grade version of the Devil’s Contract skill and he belatedly realized the gesture she’d done with her hands likely meant in some language in the universe that there was a trap.
A second later, Brom’s projection in the Trial Tower died and he woke up surrounded by his attendants and the 26 buff mages his father had hired.
Trial Tower Tournament Round III has ended with your loss.
Total Accumulated Trial Points: 27,415,955,304
Congratulations!
Your rank in the F rank Trial Tower is 769.
Taking a deep breath, Brom just shook his head. Then he rose and knelt on the ground as his father, one of the twelve subleaders of the Bronze Legion, entered the room.
“Report.” His father’s deep voice boomed out, his aura and Laws covering the room and making everyone but Brom shake.
“I made it to the third round of the tournament and then met a weak cultivator who tricked me into a contract she made using a high grade Devil’s Contract skill before ordering me to kill myself, breaking my soul when I wouldn’t comply. I have no excuse for my foolishness.”
“Everyone out.” His father coldly glared at everyone in the room and they all fled.
Then he walked over and knelt in front of Brom, giving him a hug. “Tell me all the details and what you’ve learned. These types of experiences are best reflected on so you can avoid making the same mistakes again in the future.”
Thirteen_Life_Legion
Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/thirteenlifelegion
Vote for SotSK on TopWebFiction! http://topwebfiction.com/listings/shadow-of-the-soul-king/
And a special thank you to Shadow of the Soul King's patrons, who get to read the latest chapters as they are written and edited.
If you are unable to support Shadow of the Soul King monetarily but are enjoying the story, please like, comment, and add Shadow of the Soul King to your reader list to help more readers see the story. It will be much appreciated, especially comments. As an author, feedback is always of value.
Also, any mentions on social media would be awesome. Let's see if we can get that thief who posted the first 25 chapters of the story to webnovel.com off the first page of a 'Shadow of the Soul King' google search.
Mila
Congratulations!
Trial Tower Tournament Round II is over.
You have made it to the top 1024.
You have gained 13,705,240,500 trial points from your opponent.
Reward: Total Accumulated Trial Points X 2
Current Total Accumulated Trial Points: 5,216,820,889,307,993,712
Mila also got far more money than she ever had before, the elf having been far, far richer than Prince Morin Daal, but she wasn’t happy.
Aalam had been tortured and all she’d managed to do was ruin the Trial Tower for the bastard and steal his money, not give him any kind of true trouble.
Sitting down, she then waited half an hour for Aalam to reappear, but he didn’t. Instead, she got a System message.
Your familiar, the Heavenly Spark Soul King, has fallen into a coma and has not responded to requests to rejoin the Trial Tower.
System protection for the Heavenly Spark Soul King will be released in one hour.
Good luck participating without your familiar.
Mila’s first reaction was anger, followed closely by sadness. Aalam had likely been psychologically scarred for life, yet that rich bastard was going to be fine. But then she realized the coma was much more likely just Aalam falling out of the Id state, which didn’t necessarily mean he would be in a bad place when he woke up.
Granted, he almost certainly would be—being tortured like that was very, very far from fun—but the fact he’d entered into a coma wasn't indicative of how bad things would be.
Centering herself, Mila took a deep breath. There was nothing she could do to help Aalam psychologically until he woke up, but she could make sure he didn't have any extra stressors he'd have to deal with.
Contacting Isaiah to go back to the soul well to protect Aalam once the System’s protection was gone, Mila then took the Left Hand of the Runescribe off of Aalam’s corpse and put it on her own left hand. Then she placed everything in her possession other than the clothes she was wearing into the Left Hand of the Runescribe as well.
This was followed by a half day of meditation, and then the next round started.
Trial Tower Tournament Round III is starting.
Randomly generating competition.
Arena Combat competition chosen.
You and your opponent will each appear in a small arena.
The first to kill the other will have their trial points doubled.
The world faded and she appeared in a large stone room, perfectly circular with a roughly 250 meter radius and a 25 meter ceiling at the edges. The ceiling wasn’t perfectly flat, rising up to 35 meters at the center, and it was covered with a large sigil made from orange and yellow fire which read as ‘combat’ in the most common rune style of the universe.
In short, it looked almost exactly like the first trial room from the tutorial, where she had met Aalam after their deaths, only it was five times bigger.
She was on one side of the room, about 100 meters away from the wall, and, on the other side was her opponent. Tall, well over two meters, he was a humanoid lizard man cultivator with three fingers on his hands, hooves instead of feet, and an extended jaw like a wolf. Covering his entire body were bronze scales and a long prehensile tail extended from his lower back. Finally, he was wearing a black gi, with a large seemingly Heroic grade greatsword on his back and a spatial storage ring on the middle finger of his right hand.
“He’s a coran,” Nana Xara sent to her. “In general, they are very martially focused and value honor, but they are also almost always combat pragmatists, so your plan should work.”
* * *
Brom
Brom Karendesh looked at the woman in front of him. She had dark skin for a human, with shoulder length wavy black hair, and she was wearing black robes and a dark azure fingerless glove on her left hand. But she didn’t seem strong enough to have made it to the third round of the Trial Tower’s tournament section. Her aura was relatively powerful, and it seemed she’d practiced an advanced cultivation technique, but his instincts were telling him her other stats were far weaker than his.
Then, however, instead of trying to fight him, she bowed. “I am Zera Mara, a humble stealth expert from the Timore Galaxy Cluster. Might I have Lord’s name?”
Ah. That made more sense to Brom. During the Free For All Kill For All section, a stealth expert would have an easier time moving between rounds. Then, if she somehow got lucky, it wasn’t impossible for one such as her to make it to the third round of the tournament if the competition types suited her.
“Brom Karendesh, of the Bronze Legion.” Brom drew his greatsword, readying an attack.
“I know I’m no match for you, Lord Karendesh.” The woman bowed to him again, putting up no defense. “But I’m wondering if you would be interested in a trade before eliminating me from the competition. Your illustrious self almost certainly has quite a few universal credits, while I happen to have a biological weapon capable of killing even one such as you in under an hour, along with the antidote. For someone such as yourself, it might make the difference between a loss and a defeat during later rounds, as your opponent would have to waste quite a bit of resources fighting it off.”
This got Brom’s interest. He was a Strength, Endurance, and Toughness focused warrior. If he wanted to fight defensively, he could hold off almost everyone he knew of his generation’s young experts, except for Krysta La’Vordi, for at least thirty minutes. With such a weapon added to his arsenal, he might be able to even get second place if Krysta La’Vordi wasn’t in his side of the bracket.
“Show me.” He didn’t put away his sword, wary of some kind of trick, but he was pretty sure the woman had no way of harming him.
Rising back up from her bow, the woman summoned a small open vial from a subspace seemingly in the glove on her left hand and downed it. Then Brom’s senses felt small microbes try to start entering his body, apparently originating from the glove as well.
They were relatively easy to defend against, his qi passively destroying them, but before each of their deaths they seemed to eat a bit of his qi, creating more of themselves, and he was pretty sure they were multiplying in the air and on the ground and walls as well, passively absorbing the mana of the room. For a few minutes, he was able to fight against the plague without losing much of his resources, but, after five minutes, the amount started to increase and it took more of his resources to keep the disease away.
At this point, the woman took off the glove on her right hand, moved forward, and placed it on the ground 200 meters in front of him before backing off. Brom then moved forward to investigate and he realized he wouldn’t be able to break into the glove to gain access to either the disease or the antidotes.
Picking up the glove and tossing it back to the woman, Brom then said, “Alright. What are your terms?”
Zera Mara has sent you a contract request.
Terms:
Zera Mara will give you 10 vials of F Rank Bacterial Plague III along with 10 vials of antidote You will give Zera Mara 48 D rank universal creditsPunishment:
Death in the Trial Tower
Do you accept?
Yes/No
The woman put the glove back on, temporarily bringing her fingers together and interlocking them in the process, but the gesture looked completely natural to Brom, so he agreed, transferring 48 D rank universal credits to the woman.
Instead of giving him the plague and antidotes, however, the woman just smiled at him. “Please kill yourself.”
Brom felt his soul start to burn and he quickly looked at the contract again.
Terms:
Zera Mara will give you 10 vials of F Rank Bacterial Plague III along with 10 vials of antidote You will give Zera Mara 48 D rank universal credits You will not try to harm Zera Mara You will obey all of Zera Mara’s demandsPunishment:
Death in the Trial Tower
He’d been tricked. The woman had a high grade version of the Devil’s Contract skill and he belatedly realized the gesture she’d done with her hands likely meant in some language in the universe that there was a trap.
A second later, Brom’s projection in the Trial Tower died and he woke up surrounded by his attendants and the 26 buff mages his father had hired.
Trial Tower Tournament Round III has ended with your loss.
Total Accumulated Trial Points: 27,415,955,304
Congratulations!
Your rank in the F rank Trial Tower is 769.
Taking a deep breath, Brom just shook his head. Then he rose and knelt on the ground as his father, one of the twelve subleaders of the Bronze Legion, entered the room.
“Report.” His father’s deep voice boomed out, his aura and Laws covering the room and making everyone but Brom shake.
“I made it to the third round of the tournament and then met a weak cultivator who tricked me into a contract she made using a high grade Devil’s Contract skill before ordering me to kill myself, breaking my soul when I wouldn’t comply. I have no excuse for my foolishness.”
“Everyone out.” His father coldly glared at everyone in the room and they all fled.
Then he walked over and knelt in front of Brom, giving him a hug. “Tell me all the details and what you’ve learned. These types of experiences are best reflected on so you can avoid making the same mistakes again in the future.”
Thirteen_Life_Legion
Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/thirteenlifelegion
Vote for SotSK on TopWebFiction! http://topwebfiction.com/listings/shadow-of-the-soul-king/
And a special thank you to Shadow of the Soul King's patrons, who get to read the latest chapters as they are written and edited.
If you are unable to support Shadow of the Soul King monetarily but are enjoying the story, please like, comment, and add Shadow of the Soul King to your reader list to help more readers see the story. It will be much appreciated, especially comments. As an author, feedback is always of value.
Also, any mentions on social media would be awesome. Let's see if we can get that thief who posted the first 25 chapters of the story to webnovel.com off the first page of a 'Shadow of the Soul King' google search.
