The Jester of Apocalypse
Chapter 85: Children

Marven and Dukean stared, frozen, at the absurd sight before them.

Hunter groaned and whimpered, kicking himself away from Harel, who still gripped the bloody branch like a dagger.

Once the old cultivator regained himself, he walked forward, concealing a sigh and ensuring he stayed silent lest he said something he would regret.

Harel dropped the sharp branch and stepped back, hyperventilating. "I’m… I’m so sorry,” she apologized, “I didn’t mean to do it. I’m… I’m sorry, Hunter. Oh heavens, I’m so sorry."

Marven forced his expression to calm and looked at Harel, "Calm down, Harel.”

Harel’s eyes reddened, and tears streaked down her cheeks. "I’m…" She ran off to her room.

Nobody stopped her.

Marven checked Hunter's wound. Luckily, it was far from lethal. It wasn’t even that deep. It had already stopped bleeding. Harel had probably swung out of reflex, but her nerves had to be frayed as hell if that was how she reacted.

He knew exactly why Harel did what she did. Having spent his life surrounded by women, he could at least somewhat claim he understood them.

This was Hunter’s fault. However, that wouldn’t fly without any hiccups.

Once Marven was done, he lifted Hunter off his feet. The kid looked terrified and awfully confused. He stared at Marven, a disbelieving expression seared into his face.

He wanted to say, was that it? She stabbed me, and you will just let her go?

Rather than letting Hunter ask the question, Marven put an arm on his shoulder and spoke, "Already getting stabbed by girls at such a young age… You really are my son."

Hunter stared at Marven with absolute disbelief, "You think this is time to be joking!? I was just trying to help her, she…"

"Hunter, please,” Marven cut him off with a stern glare. “She shouldn’t have stabbed you, but she did tell you to back off."

“But she freaking—”

“I know, I know,” Marven said. “I can’t and won’t let her act like that.”

Marven calmed his nerves and walked over to Harel’s room. Usually, he would wait for her to calm down and then offer her food, but neither was an option.

So he barged inside, choosing to be methodically indelicate instead.

Harel sat curled up in a corner, her face buried between her knees. "Leave me alone,” she managed through muffled sobs.

"That was a weak stab, honestly. I can’t believe you’ve spent all that time training under me."

Harel wept and hugged her knees tighter, "I didn’t mean to do it." She coughed and bawled, pushing her face into her legs, "I really didn’t mean to do it, I promise."

"I know you didn’t,” he said. “But that’s no excuse.”

She went silent.

Marven sighed. “I can look past it this one time. But any time anyone makes you feel uncomfortable, you should reach out to me instead of stabbing them”

Somehow, she managed to nod.

It was essential to make her feel safe, but excusing her behavior wasn’t how to do that. He allowed her to cry for a while longer, and once she somewhat calmed down, he yelled for Dukean to bring them some water.

Once she drank, he waited a few more moments for her to calm down.

Then, he located a neat, sword-shaped branch with a sharp edge and returned to the room. He showed her a technique, one that wasn’t of his own making, but it was a decent one she could learn something from.

She meekly nodded and grabbed the branch, although somewhat hesitantly.

"As punishment, you are not to leave this room until I allow you to," he declared. “Do you understand?”

Nodding in response, she tightened her grip on the sword.

“Good,” he said as he left the room, but not before adding, “Don’t worry. He’s going to be fine.”

***

Harel remained alone, and she looked down at the sword-shaped branch. There was a hint of hesitation in her movements as she swung it. Her swings usually didn't take much to put her into a meditative state, but they failed to do so now, no matter how many times she repeated the movements.

It wasn’t long until she put the branch down.

Harel sat on the ground and chose to meditate instead.

***

The worst part of strategizing was when one had to face unexpected difficulties. However, Neave knew precisely these difficulties made the trial and error process so exciting and ultimately rewarding.

He still thought the difficulties could go to hell—an opinion he held rather passionately.

The glass puppet cocked its head at him for the gazillionth time, yet again not comprehending what Neave was trying to explain.

How did one teach a plant? How could one educate an alien bush from a mystery realm?

Neave truly wished he could just pull ideas out of his brain and shove them into the plant so it would, even once, get what he was trying to tell it.

It wasn’t stupid, either. Hell, for a damn plant, it was brilliant. Some concepts, however, were obviously out of its reach. Was it just too young to get it?

Neave had concluded that the best way to spread the glass shrubs over the realm was to teach this plant how to manipulate life force. All he would have to do then could then was spoon-feed it life force, and it could, in turn, spread it over the realm and grow more mini-shrubs.

Now… usually… this would be an idiotic idea. The plant was, well, a plant, but even putting that aside, it was only in the foundation realm. Expecting anyone to be able to manipulate life force as early as that was foolish. He himself was an exception among exceptions.

But—

"But you’re already fucking doing it!” He screamed in frustration. “Look! There! You just did it again!"

The golem cocked its head again, and this time Neave could swear it was feigning ignorance. He narrowed his eyes at it and bared his teeth, testing the glass puppet for any signs of guilt.

Alas, nothing.

Once he observed the flow of life force in the plant, he quickly realized that it was manually controlling it to expand its roots. However, it refused to share with the smaller shrubs.

It wasn’t long until Neave concluded that the plant could do it—it was just a damn cheapskate.

"What are you, a freakin’ toddler!?"

It kind of was, in a way.

Trying to convince it to share probably wasn’t a strict necessity anyway. It wasn’t like spreading roots was bad or anything.

He had tracked how far they’d spread and concluded they went miles in every direction. There would be countless smaller shrubs growing in the entire area soon anyway, just not as fast as Neave would like. And not as fast as they could if the plant wasn't a fucking—

It took a lot of power to stop himself from going down that route. Thankfully, he did, since he felt that if he hadn't, he would have been well on his way to smashing the shrub to bits.

Forcing a ton of life force into its body was also an option. It would be forced to expend it then. He had actually inadvertently done this once already. But he wouldn’t be employing this tactic, given that it hurt the plant’s spirit.

The shrub hating him wasn't on the list of things Neave wanted to achieve, partially for pragmatic reasons and partially because he was kind of fond of it. It almost seemed to have a sense of humor sometimes. They would get along just fine in time.

Maybe when it grew up a bit.

Through his mighty cunning and trial and error, he eventually managed to cut a deal. As long as the shrub kept spreading its roots, Neave promised it extra life force. Suddenly, it knew precisely what he was getting at and agreed without complaints.

What a selfish brat.

Eventually, it was exhausted from the forceful root spreading, and Neave decided to let it rest while focusing on other stuff in the meantime.

The first of which he was really excited to do.

Neave got up. He struck a ‘cool’ pose, or at least what he thought looked cool, and began chanting. "I summon thee, visage of my likeness, to conquer the realms and subdue the divine! Appear, Violet Avatar!"

A small patch of soil next to Neave lit up with purple light. Mist appeared, swirling in a vortex of power that summoned the… Violet Avatar—the power he added just before they left for the nightmare realm.

A mighty figure of chiseled muscle stood beneath Neave… at only around a foot tall.

Neave’s eyebrow twitched.

"Whyyyyyy!?" He got to his knees, strangling himself and spluttering at the tiny puppet. He raised an eyebrow. "Is it at least strong?"

No. A short test concluded that, no—it wasn’t strong.

It was easy to control, even if the process required him to practically leave his body as he transferred his consciousness into it.

There wasn’t much he could expect. It was a silver-ranked spirit power in the spirit of a foundation realm child. So, it was time to evolve it. Yet, he was hesitant. There wouldn’t be much trouble with the trial monster. Not at first. However, all that Neave could safely do was a single evolution.

Why?

He didn’t really have infinite attempts, and these bastard reptilian monsters really loved evolving into dragons.

Neave was far too aware of the fact that, when in the spirit trial, he had no spirit powers. Without spirit powers, he was perhaps at the third step of the bronze path in strength.

That was an utterly absurd power level for someone still in the foundation realm. Even without spirit powers, he had the physique of someone six realms above him! But it wasn’t enough.

Fighting a platinum-rank monster was facing not overwhelming skill but overwhelming might. He could successfully do it; he was mostly confident. But that didn’t mean he could carelessly take risks, especially not when so much was at stake.

"Is it time…?"

Should he do some more renovation in his spirit realm?

It was true that his current strategy was efficient. Its only real weakness was the inability to cope with flying monsters.

The only thing that mattered was whether investing so much time and effort into a single power was worth it. The answer to that was, oh hell yeah, definitely.

This was an extremely rare type of spirit power that, by its nature, had no way to interfere with any other abilities. It could mess with powers that emerged from those purple snakes, but anything else? Not really.

How much powers overlapped and interfered with one another depended on two things—the target and the nature of the power. There was a lot of overlap in his kit, and frankly, it was likely a more significant issue than he used to suspect. The synergy was there, but interference messed with their overall potency.

And it was likely that a lot of power was lost to this unfortunate interaction.

The purple crystal substance those monsters had consumed was something foreign, something unique. It was a previously unknown element, thus, of a different nature from any of the other powers Neave had.

It was also a purely external power, one that had no impact on his physique. Thus, regardless of its power, it came without any side effects or unwanted consequences. Its target and nature were utterly different from any other power Neave had—thus, it existed in a sort of vacuum, free from all the complications that hindered his other powers.

That wasn’t the only reason why Neave put so much faith into this power.

The avatar vanished and then reappeared. Neave moved his consciousness into it, grabbed a rock, disappeared the avatar, and brought it back into reality—still holding the pebble.

Neave grinned.

This.

This was why he needed this power to work.

It effectively worked the same as a dimension ring, sort of, which meant that Neave could equip the puppet with anything he wanted.

Anything he wanted.

It took even him a moment to fully realize the implications of this.

Stupidly powerful armor? You got it. Mighty equipment? Yup. Weapons of mass destruction? Hehe, fuck yeah, baby!

This little thing was a rule-breaker that he was primed to abuse. However, it was also a whole bag of issues. Mostly, evolving it was a considerable risk.

At that moment, Neave noticed the glass golem hanging over his shoulder, observing the little purple avatar intently.

It pointed at it, then at itself, and cocked its head at Neave.

Neave grinned. "Yes, buddy!” He said in a condescending tone. “I’m just like you now!"

The puppet froze. It looked at the purple avatar on the ground.

It walked up to it, staring at it intently…

And then kicked it with all the power it could muster, splattering it into purple ooze on a distant wall.

Neave stared at the golem, mouth agape, as it struck a self-satisfied pose.

I think this little shit has jealousy problems…