The Ninth Wonder-Chapter 26: The black winter (1)

"Your skills?! You can control flames, and make your skin hard?!" Harley blurted out upon hearing Vernox’s explanation.

At this point, it would just be a good explanation that the Oracle simply doesn’t like him. First of all giving him the worst possible skill set, and then proceeding to give him an actual riddle after questioning the trial.

Then there was Vernox himself.

Harley didn’t know much about him, not even the family he served, or what his background was. And honestly he cared less for such things; he just wanted to get the hell out of this trial and take a cigarette.

"Enough with the questions, what did you do to her?" Vernox asked with a raised brow and Harley only had a cold smile on his face.

"You didn’t think I was dumb, did you? I knew they were too suspicious." Harley turned towards the girl and raised the sword, closing his eyes before swinging with all of his might.

*Shaa...!*

The sound of blood spurting made Harley turn around before opening his eyes to see Vernox having a confused expression on his face. 𝕗𝗿𝕖𝐞𝐰𝗲𝕓𝐧𝕠𝕧𝗲𝐥.𝚌𝐨𝚖

"What? I put something similar to poison in their drink before. Remember when I had an outburst? I took their bottle; in that moment my second hand was invisible and I put the ash into the drink and stormed off."

"...damn." Vernox felt a shiver.

He really wanted to ask how Harley really escaped the pirate ship in detail, but they didn’t have much time for that right now.

"You’re really something else. Even with no skill, you can kill a man." He shook his head, brushing a bit of his hair back.

’Trying to show off your long hair?’ Harley chuckled.

"I finally got an artifact." Vernox spoke with a smile, and a red ball of light emerged from his palm, slowly reshaping and getting bigger till it resembled a weapon, then the light went dim.

In his hands was a long, curved blade that was similar to the one that the lizardman was holding. It had a handle that seemed to have the shape of a bone beneath with many inscriptions running across the black blade in gold.

"It’s very powerful." Vernox spoke, swinging it around.

"Artifacts are from Mortal, heroic, legendary, transcendent, and Divine. This here is a Transcendent rank item." Vernox spoke, dismissing the sword.

Harley was smiling, but at the same time he was shaking his head, contemplating whether to curse the Oracle or not.

"I don’t know, I’m jealous but it would come in handy. You can even use it to kill the godsworn, assuming the Oracle of the resistance would have time for us." Harley spoke.

The two of them made their way out of the cave, not even bothering to check for treasures.

There was a big difference between artifacts within a trial and one the Oracle gave after killing a creature. The ones within a trial can never bind with a challenger in any way.

As a challenger, you can use the artifacts within a trial if you know their verses, but an artifact would only truly be yours if you earned it from the Oracle.

At least that’s what Harley knows about them; he also knew that the transcendent rank artifact was due to how strong the lizardman was.

{You have received an artifact!}

...

Harley and Vernox were already out of the cave. They were already making their way to the next monster site.

"I’m interested in this one. Black winter." Harley picked out one of the papers that Vernox had squeezed into his jacket.

There were a few missions that were considerable, but only one caught Harley’s eye. The last mission that they went on was Vernox’s choice, so this one would be his own choice.

"Why this one? It would be difficult to handle because of its power." Vernox looked at Harley with a frown.

"Aye, I didn’t ask you any questions when you brought us to a lizard lair; let me make my own decisions now." Harley stretched his arms, looking up to the sky.

The sun was already setting.

"We wasted a lot of time here." He commented.

Considering the fact that they came here in the morning when the sun was just beyond the horizon, it should have been over two hours at least from then.

After preparations, they immediately set out to the next destination.

Vernox didn’t look tired, but Harley was. Straight from running from an inn where he tried to have sleep, to meeting with the watcher who had wild dogs, to meeting Vernox, all in one morning.

And he hadn’t even slept for over five days now. The last time he slept was on the ship.

"Oh, I was curious about something." Vernox broke the silence, and Harley only nodded, prompting him to speak.

"We don’t know each other very well. You’re smart, but have no skill. What did you do before the trial?"

The question made Harley raise a brow. He had no idea why Vernox would ask such a question, or maybe he doesn’t know...

"Two of us are from different worlds. I’ve always been fighting for my life since I was a baby; I worked my way out of the orphanage and started hawking, then I got a reporter job cause I knew a lot of things about the city, and then I worked part time at a circus because I can act anyhow and people would only laugh. Damn, now I hear it myself that’s quite pitiful." He scoffed at his situation.

The winds blew strongly all of a sudden; it was getting chilly. The location that they were heading to was close by.

"Damn, I’ve been trained all my life to kill. The life of nobles can be called... a masquerade. Everyone is faking themselves to live up to expectations. And people die a lot, like... a lot—"

Vernox paused, flinching as he saw Harley looking at him with a twisted, confused expression.

"You’re making it sound like it’s bad! I haven’t even seen one of those newly invented cars before. I haven’t even eaten pasta before; all that food and money and you’re complaining about living up. Tsk..." Harley clicked his tongue.

"Bring the comfort, I’ll live up to whatever the hell."

"Hahahahaha..." Vernox started laughing before Harley finished talking and Harley’s lips twitched.

"What’s funny?"

The noble cleared his throat, still managing to look cool while doing it.

"Well, it’s true that a man’s problem can be another man’s solution."

The both of them laughed over a few things; the air was already getting colder and they hadn’t met any creature on the way here.

At least it took thirty more minutes until they reached their destination. They could see the walls of the kingdom from here but it was distant.

Ahead of them was a ravine, a deep one.

The ravine opened before them like a vast, sunken cathedral carved by forgotten ice ages and older cruelties. The walls rose sheer on either side, sloping upwards with ice in all sorts of shapes surrounding it.

The floor below was wide enough that a small army could have maneuvered without crowding... if it wasn’t already full. Scattered across that frozen expanse lay bones—hundreds, maybe thousands—human and otherwise, some still wearing rusted scraps of armor or tattered cloaks frozen stiff. Skulls stared upward with empty sockets, jaws locked in silent screams; rib cages cradled drifts of snow that refused to melt; long thigh bones jutted like broken spears half-buried in the ice. The wind moved through the valley in low, sighing gusts, carrying the faint smell of metal.

In the exact center of it all stood the figure which was their target.

He was small against the immensity of the place, yet impossible to ignore. Tall black armor swallowed light rather than reflected it, etched with runes that pulsed like a heartbeat slowing toward stillness. A massive longsword rested point-down before him, its blade sunk several inches into the ice so that frost had already begun to climb the steel in delicate, crystalline filigree. Two curved daggers hung at his hips, their edges shimmering like liquid obsidian. He did not move. He did not turn. He simply existed there, a dark pillar at the heart of a graveyard that had waited for a long time, for someone foolish enough to walk into it.

"This is it." Harley said, shivering slightly.

He felt the cold slide under his shirt like fingers. Beside him Vernox exhaled once—sharp, visible—and the breath hung in the air far longer than it should have, curling into tiny white threads before it drifted down and joined the bones.

Neither of them spoke.

The figure still hadn’t looked their way.

"Before we head in, I got an artifact back in those caves, but I haven’t checked it." Harley said, making Vernox look at him with curiosity.

A white orb emerged from his palm, making a shape before him. He was excited to finally get a weapon from the Oracle that he would understand.

His smile and excitement died all of a sudden, as a pair of boots appeared before him.

They were brown in colour, having white soles and white carvings around the sides.

"Don’t be discouraged, check the description first to be sure." Vernox urged him and he calmed himself down.

"The Oracle better not be playing with me." He willed the details of the boots and the brown piece of paper appeared before him.

[Name: The cleanest boots!

Category: Item

Type: Accessory

Rank: Mortal

Echoes: 1

Status: Clean!

Growth: None.

Description: A sturdy pair of boots that can never get dirty.

Verse: "Clean." — Make the boots as clean as new.]

"ARGHHHH!!!!!"