Low-Fantasy Occultist Isekai-Chapter 307 - 289

Though Changer had generally appeared interested in maintaining politeness and civility, even with a human sacrifice awaiting death behind him, he was very quick to become aggressive once the situation escalated.

The overwhelming flood of experience that flowed into him was quickly overshadowed by the changes the extra attributes brought. Nick wasn't new to sudden bursts of progress, but this time, it caught him completely off guard.

Not only did he not expect to win so easily and decisively, but he also had no idea it would lead to such valuable gains.

Really, the only thing he could compare this to was when the System granted extra exp for fighting demons, but he was absolutely sure Changer hadn't been one.

If anything, he'd felt completely grounded in the World, rather than alien to it.

The implications of this would need to be considered over time and with a clearer mind, but even a preliminary assessment told him a lot.

Surpassing two hundred in Mana alone was enough to make him feel close to bursting with power, despite having just used a significant portion of his reserves in the previous fight. Then came the points in Wis and Int, which gave him better control over that same energy and more depth to it, until he felt like he could do it all over again.

He knew that was false confidence coming from the high he was feeling, but he couldn't stop the slightly hysterical, happy giggle that escaped his lips.

He'd prepared for a tough fight and had even admitted to himself that he might have to run and leave poor Anthony to his fate if things went wrong. And here he was, standing victorious over the remains of a man who had managed to pull the wool over an entire city.

It felt both terribly anticlimactic and somehow right in a way he couldn't quite explain. Changer was a sort of final boss, someone who managed to manipulate, coerce, and cajole all of Alluria's underworld into a suicidal plan, and that clearly had managed to infiltrate the Tower too, or he wouldn't have known what he knew about his dabbling in the darker magics.

Killing him should have taken a herculean effort, the kind that required an entire team of skilled companions, just like crushing the dungeon had been.

And yet, Nick had been enough on his own. He'd killed the boogeyman, even if it was just through a loophole he hadn't known existed. 𝒇𝙧𝙚𝓮𝙬𝙚𝓫𝒏𝓸𝓿𝓮𝒍.𝓬𝙤𝓶

But recalling how callous Changer had been in offering Anthony's life as a sacrifice, and his complete disregard for the plan's impact on the city, it also seemed like a fitting end.

This was a man who considered himself a mastermind and, above all, a superior being who had the right to cause untold death and destruction for his own obscure reasons.

That he died here, in the depths of the earth, with only a teenage occultist as a witness… It felt right.

With a sigh, Nick stepped away from the corpse and turned back to the altar, waving his hand and turning it liquid for a brief moment, allowing him to pull Anthony out of its cold embrace.

"For all that you are a very unlucky guy, you always manage to survive the roughest situations," he muttered, to no reply, as the teen was still passed out from the shock of the ritual backlash.

A few quick spells restored the chamber to more or less its original state, hiding the signs of the battle, and at last, Nick turned his attention to Changer's corpse, which he vanished into his ring.

He wasn't a fan of collecting bodies he couldn't sell, but this time, he thought he might learn quite a bit from it. The tattoos, especially, should prove to be very instructive, given that they had been protected from Changer's soul's collapse by his bindings.

It was unlikely he'd ever get such a fresh and well-preserved sample, even if he repeated the same process with the other tattooed people on the floors above him. Changer had clearly been a few ranks above them, and his tattoos were much more intricate and resistant than those worn by those guys.

Just as he was about to turn around and head for the surface, with Anthony floating behind him, a spatial disturbance rippled nearby, and a familiar figure waved him through the gaping crack.

"Good job, my dear apprentice. Very good job," Tholm said with a proud smile, "Come, we have much to discuss."