The Four Items! (3)

Phoenix's Egg!

Kai had expected that this Dark Scroll potion would have some absurd requirements of ingredients. But this was stretching things too far.

Phoenixes lived long, burning to ashes, and then resurrecting from them. One could search for a hundred years, and yet not find the distant hint of a Phoenix's egg.

Kai and Item-M shared a look, worry flashing in their eyes. This potion would suck their wealth dry.

The only good thing was that Kai had an organization backing him up.

"How many Mission Credits can the entire Sun and Moon Organization muster?" he asked Red Sun.

Item-R scratched his chin, frowning. "It's still OK," he replied, looking at the Woodcut Portkey. "Only for now, though. I doubt it will stop revealing such ingredients, my liege."

Doubt? Kai shook his head. There was no doubt. It would happen. "Let's go."

Kai and his Items entered the 7th Circle, the Circle of Hermit. In front of them stood a small hill, on top of which there was a hut. Kai lifted the Compass and saw the needle pointing directly toward the hut.

The hut's door threw open, then.

Two one-handed Inferi knights walked out in dusty, tattered white armor, one missing right hand, and the other left. In their hands, they wielded halberds, the eye slits of their helmet letting out a red glow.

"8th floor…" Red Sun mumbled.

Low-level, Kai added inwardly. Still, their having the strength of 8th-floor Contestants meant it would be impossible for Item-M, Item-S, and Cersei to take them on, even if they worked together. The gap between the 6th and 7th-floor Contestants was already huge, but when one put together a team of ladies like them, it was still manageable.

The 8th floor couldn't be compared with the lower levels even remotely. Moreover, there were two of them.

And yet they must clear this one as well, without Kai and Red Sun having to intervene.

Moraine the Elegant stepped up and walked toward the hill as the knights stepped down. Each step seemed to shake the hill, and beastly growls kept echoing in the surroundings.

A gust of wind picked up the pace, lifting Moraine's hair.

It was then it happened.

A strong flash of blue and gold blinded the eyes, Moraine's curvy figure disappearing within it.

When the flash receded, something else had appeared in her place.

Something truly elegant.

The armor was blue and gold, with a touch of silver flashing here and there. The previous Iron Man armor she had, which Kai had destroyed in his fight with Shadow Lord, couldn't even hold a candle in front of this one.

The plates, the shine, and the curves—it felt like it was meant for a figure like the one Moraine had.

"Mark-fucking-49!" Red Sun cursed, licking his lips. "I told you Avengers favor her."

Kai had to nod.

Moraine the Elegant already had the Blessing of an Old One, and that too related to another Deep One, named Grim Butterfly. It was not a full Blessing like Item-S, still powerful in its own right.

She could force out the Yokai lingering in the Spiritual World and then disintegrate them, turning them into pure HP, MP, or SP. But this was only a crude use of her Blessing, and even she didn't know the true measures of it.

Then she was the successor of Hysteria the Elegant from the Claymore Random World, letting her have one of the top sword-based Abilities.

But nothing could compare to the practical application of her being favored by the Avengers. At first, Kai didn't know what it meant, and how she could just go and get armor from them.

Kai had already known that Moraine's true name was not Moraine. But it was only when Moraine had figured out him being a Glitched Contestant, and with her thinking that he was also a reincarnated Emperor's descendant, that she had told only him about her origins. Her true origins.

It turned out… Moraine's original world was none other than one of the infinite Avengers Random World.

It turned out… Moraine was not a nobody in her previous life. All Contestants… ALL… had something special about them for them to be found worthy of reincarnating in the Primordial Tower. And all had a past hideous enough for them to adapt and accept the game of the Systems.

Well. Moraine left behind these kinds of Contestants too far in status.

Even Kai himself, at least without his Glitch, couldn't have compared to her status when it came to previous life occupations.

Moraine's true name was Morgan… Morgan H. Stark.

Tony Stark's daughter!

It was because of this that the Temple of Amon-Gorloth had been trying to take control of her. By releasing her Sounga's seal, Kai had truly pissed them off.

Kai saw Moraine flying up, shooting out beams of fire from Rescue Armor's repulsors. And he smiled.

Temple of Amon-Gorloth and I were already destined to stand against each other because of Item-S, Kai thought. Item-E's true worth is far greater than making an enemy of them.

It was especially so when Moraine had told him about all kinds of armor from Avengers Random World in detail, and which armor would suit him. It could never be Iron Man armor.

Kai wanted something else.

A boom rang out as Moraine fired herself toward the knights. In return, the knights lunged at her, their speeds not less than hers.

Suddenly, the metallic backpack on the Rescue Armor's back flipped open and out came two arrays of Autonomous Energy Displacer Sentries. Moraine paused midair and brought the Energy Displacers forward.

The knights couldn't fly like her. The two Inferi put their feet against each other and pushed, trying to dodge whatever was coming for them.

They underestimated her.

Screeeechhhh!!!

A blue beam of blinding light shot out of the Energy Displacers and hit one knight, who vainly tried to block it using the sword. The beam took the knight along with it and landed on the small hill. It didn't stop there.

If the hill had shaken before, when the knights were descending, now it was crying.

A massive boom rang out as an immeasurable deep hole appeared on the face of the hill, the knight lost and dead.

Moraine put the Energy Displacers back and shot toward the other knight, who still had to land on earth.

When it saw her coming, it raised its halberd and brought down, air sizzling under the might of its weapon. The power behind the knight's blow was truly heart-palpating. One blow was enough to kill a top-level 6th-floor Contestant dozens of times.

Not that the knight was weak. It was just that Kai's Items were abnormally and illogically strong, like himself.

The entire world stagnated, becoming gray and lifeless. Moraine took out the Claymore and flew so elegantly that it felt like she was walking.

Even before the halberd descended, Moraine appeared in front of the knight and thrust her sword into its chest. Then, as the world began regaining its original color, and time picked up its normal speed, she pulled out the sword and flew to the back of the knight.

The halberd descended, met the air, and hacked nothing. Moraine put her palm against the hole in the knight's back and fired a powerful beam.

With a resounding boom, the knight got blasted into smithereens.

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AN: You can access up to 21 Chapters ahead of WN on Patre0n and Ko-Fi. Links available in Synopsis.

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