BXBX NOVEL Chapter 149 Trickster's Gifts
The second, Fucha's attack hit him, the chain shone in a silvery light.
The chain was another simple artifact, nothing fancy or powerful. But something he had Asher bring after cleaning up some local bandit's of Damascus outer areas.
It was called "Feel my Pain".
It was created by the God of trickery from Bushman mythology Kaggen/Cagn.
It was mentioned in the novel. As the bandits used it to terrorize the villagers or townsfolk in the outskirts of Damascus.
It was only effective against unawakened people, as it mapped the effect of damage the user receives, and redirects it back to the attacker, after doubling the damage.
It sounds OP and super useful. But as it was made by a trickster God, one can always expect some stupid conditions or restrictions to use it.
This particular artifact had some of them too
— The artifact only works on the user's luck. So there's a 50-50 chance that after using this artifact either the attacker gets double the damage, or the user will end up with triple.
— It can only work on pure physical attacks.
— Can only be used once a day.
…
This was something that Rio used against Esme in one of their spars, and results weren't very nice. So he never tried it again.
But since he was coming to this birthday event, where a physical beatdown of protagonist was going to happen, he took it as a safe keep. If some random kid dragged him into the drama.
He didn't have to worry about getting the double damage on himself, as today he was wearing enough defensive artifacts that would be triggered instantly and negate all damage.
That's what happened now.
As soon as Fucha's attack landed on him, Rio didn't feel a thing, but this tricky artifact worked and gave twice the damage back to him.
Fucha who was feeling satisfied when he finally managed to hit the boy successfully, couldn't even smile proudly, as next second his head got burst open, like someone hit it with a hammer and he fell down.
Looking at Fucha lying down on the ground crying and screaming in pain, his friend Lobo who was helping Damur, got more angry and decided to kill this boy himself.
"I'll kill you, you bastard. Kid or not, I've been pissed off since this morning and you're just overdoing it."
He shouted as he started walking towards him, while pulling the dagger from his waist.
"Pissed off for a day, I've been pissed off for a whole month, you hobo."
Rio said, as he used his last bit of mana to form a muddle of darkness below Lobo's feet, making them sink in the ground.
This was actually the result of him learning shadow bind from Myra. But him being a newb, he couldn't learn or control the shadows and bind anyone.
That's where the advantage of him being the darkness element awakener came into play.
As he simply turned the shadow of someone into a puddle of murky darkness. Turning the ground they stood upon into a marsh ground, that just drags someone into it.
This was also the inspiration he took, from the first nightmare he had after he came here, where Nashi's clones used something similar to drown him in darkness.
Obviously this muddle's hold was weak as hell, since he lacked both the control and mana to keep anyone in place for long. But it was still enough to catch someone off guard and surprise them.
Lobo, who kept trying to free himself by angrily pulling his leg, stared at the boy in anger.
Seeing him angrily shouting and looking at the notification that popped up on his status, he smiled a little.
Backing away one step, he took the position of someone who was about to kick the penalty in the game of football.
'Ready, aim and
After a few seconds came a kick to the balls of the goon lying down, making sure Fucha can never fuck again.
'That's a goal isn't it'
Rio said, as he looked at the notifications and Fucha whose screams got double decibels higher with that soccer kick.
Getting back from the fat Fucha, Rio turned his attention to the last man standing, the man whom he wanted to settle the most.
The reason, why he even came forward to deal with this himself.
Lobo was a character in the novel, which suddenly popped up in the mid sections of the story and actually quite shocked the world.
He appeared in between a war sequence and almost turned the tides of a one side massacre into a battle that almost looked equal on both parties.
Hell, he would've even made his side win, if the other team didn't have the halo of heavens and protagonist on their side.
As all cliche routines go, Lobo, seeing the might of the young hero, decides to join the protagonist camp, saying repeated dialogues like "I'll follow you, until I defeat you one day."
Leon, seeing his prowess in the war and battle, let him join the team.
And that's how the protagonist gets one more capable general for his gang of soldiers.
If anyone's wondering how a weak unawakened roadside thug became strong enough, that he can act as a general in the protagonist's army. It's actually quite simple.
Long story short, after years of acting like a street based goons leader, he finally managed to get the interest of one mighty figure, who took him in as a disciple and taught him everything he knew.
In the novel's mid section, he also had a separate arc, where he helps Leon and Ayla find the real culprit behind Ayla's fathers kidnapping and death.
The culprit behind the scenes, just also happens to be an enemy, our protagonist needed an excuse to kill.
So with Lobo's help and Ayla's revenge as an excuse, Leon kills the guy and gets all the profits.
Knowing all this, if Rio let it slide now, then this Lobo had a chance to become Leon's ally in the future. And that was a no - no for now.
Plus Rio had someone else in mind, whom he wanted to take Lobo's place, and being chosen as the disciple of that guy.
So he had to die.
Now he could've asked his guards, or anyone else to kill this guy, but he decided to do it himself for 2 reasons.
One, he wanted to see for himself, if fate pulls some tricks to stop this death. Or if something else unexpected happens.
Like how when dealing with Chiron, he suddenly appeared just when Rio got his hands on the key to that legacy.
Or how when Esme was dealing with Noah, he suddenly started going through his awakening.
Rio wanted to see if something similar could happen too. He wanted to see if there's some backlash thingy for messing with chosen ones, those villain novels on earth always talked about.
Second reason was that he needed to prepare himself for this world's mentality. The rule of kill or be killed, had always been the go to way of solving anything in Arcadia.
He didn't want a scene where his hands starts shaking, or he starts vomiting at the sight of blood in the middle of some important event.
Nor did he want a repeat of his nightmares from day 1, where the ghost of that bastard starts to haunt him again cause he killed someone.
The more time he had to prepare himself for his fight against the fate written for him, the more he'd be ready to protect himself and the ones close to him.
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A/N - in need of some motivation