The Herald of Chaos strikes again

A heavy gust of cool sea breeze hit them across their faces as Kai and Item-M stood atop one of the Guardian Columns of Alto Mare.

Kai shivered.

He was still wearing his pink shirt imprinted with foaming waves and Item-M had a blue frock over her curvaceous figure, her long hair blowing in the wind like thin strands of red silk. They had come to this height to say a last goodbye to this unfortunate town that had gifted them so much.

Kai looked down and saw the entire town was almost underwater.

If it was before, by now the entire town would have lit up under the bright light of many street lamps, making it impossible to realize that the night was approaching. It would take a lot of time and unending efforts to go back to the same lifestyle as before, he knew. He could already see many of the residents migrating to the main landmass in their ferries.

-/I have seen enough,/- Kai declared. -/I want to lie down./-

Item-M sat down first, her long legs dangling down from the column's edge. Kai lay down on his back and put his head on her lap. He sighed and then whiffed deeply. She smelled of the wet earth after the pitter-patter of the first rain. He stared at the sky beyond her face and looked at the stars, as thousands of questions related to the things that had happened in the last month ran havoc in his mind.

-/Are you sure I can't store you in my Inventory?/- Kai asked Item-M, adjusting his eyes to look into hers.

The question felt too absurd to ask even to him, let alone to Item-M, who couldn't help but smile wryly upon hearing that. Yet Kai's intention was plain. She was his Item now, and Kai would do anything to get his hands on a way to store a live Contestant in his Inventory.

If there was such a way, then Item-M didn't know it. "No." She shook her head bluntly. "You can't, master. But there is another way to have me with you in your next Side Mission."

-/Is it related to me becoming a Captain of Guard?/- Kai guessed.

When Kai had come to this world, the System had changed his Side Mission to an Officer Qualifying Mission. Kai later found out that the High Priest of the Temple of Hastur was behind this change. And then he had sent Item-M to monitor Kai, and if necessary, kill him.

Kai had turned all that into a mummer's show by making Item-M betray the Temple.

Now that she was his Item, it made little sense to even think what her response would be at the end of this mission. Kai already considered himself a Captain of Guard. Though, in reality, he would only get the rank after leaving this world.

Item-M nodded. "A Captain of Guard can form a Party of up to 4 members, master," she reminded him. "You can ask Chaos to add me as a Party member, to which I will assent despite being into the Primordial Tower. I have some 30 Order Contestants to kill to complete my Kill Count of the 3rd floor. I should be able to do it in 2 weeks. Then I can attempt my floor-ascension mission."

She paused, taking a deep breath, and then lifted her hand. Her fingers ran through Kai's hair effortlessly.

Kai noticed her rosy cheeks but said nothing. For a moment, he even wanted to fondle her large breasts. The thought had crossed his mind many times, and Kai didn't actually hide his intentions.

Yet, the tangled thoughts about his new Stat, the useless legendary Item, and now Selene's incomprehensible attitude weren't in favor of his mood. He didn't even want to think about the lack of any response from his manhood as he thought of doing things to Item-M that were more intimate than just staring at her curves.

Kai saw her noticing his wild stare. Then she looked away, probably gazing far into the horizon. Her fingers pressed deep into his scalp, and even though Kai's head was quite far from her heart, he could feel it speeding up, thumping wildly.

"The next steps are simple," Item-M continued, biting her lower lip. "After two weeks, you can create a Side Mission, specifying that you need the help of a team. In these cases, Party members of the Captain of Guard are given priorities. Chaos would send me to you with that Side Mission as my floor-ascension mission. The timing should match, though. So you must wait for at least two weeks."

It was a straightforward process, Kai realized. He just wondered why someone like Arlen did not have Party members with him during his Initiation Mission.

'Arlen Silvas is a man of a hundred secrets,' Kai thought, taking his eyes off her. 'Whenever I think I have figured him out, there always surfaces something new and baffling about him. He is not an ordinary noble, that I am sure of.'

-/Two weeks are too much,/- Kai told her. -/Can't you kill 30 Contestants in a single battle? They are just a bunch of 3rd-floor rats, aren't they?/-

Item-M giggled womanly. Only in these kinds of moments, and often when she bluntly rebuked him as if he was but a child in her eyes, did Kai recall she was not as she seemed. She was over 100-years-old, and though in the grand scheme of things 100 years were too little, it was still a gap not big enough to ignore.

Another gust of playful wind brought some loose hair in front of her eyes.

"I am but a supportive Contestant, master," she told him, curling back those hairs behind her ear. "I assist other Chaos' Contestants in battle. The System then counts my assists, those that result in successful kills, as part of my Kill Count. Without my other Abilities, it's too hard for me to kill that many in a single battle by myself."

Item-M had already told him about these things. It was indeed as she said, Kai reflected. For her, killing 30 Order Contestants in one week was stretching things too far.

Kai lifted his head off her lap, his face becoming hard. -/I want you there in one week,/- he told her, his hand flicking to take some things out of his MRB. -/First, as you told me, the High Priest will send Contestants after you. I know you can look after yourself, but now you belong to me. So you must have all the means to kill anyone whenever and however you desire. Second, I want us to reach the 4th-floor together. I am sick of having Items I can't use./-

Two little boxes appeared in his hands and Kai placed them in between him and Item-M. He opened the first one. It had little bone fragments that looked like finger joints and long strands of bright white tendons.

Item-M gasped, looking at them.

These were the bone fragments Kai had taken out of the wings. The wings of the legendary Pokemon, Latias.

The anatomy of Latias had bemused Kai. As he had cut her wings open, instead of finding a detailed bone structure as one could expect from a bird species, he had found these bone fragments. They were spread across her wings, connected with thin but extremely powerful tendons.

'So these are the reasons for her unflappable wings,' Kai had guessed then.

The number of these fragments was so low that Kai could neither use them to get himself a saber nor use them for some armor.

Though Kai couldn't see Latias' grade in System's terms, as she was a main-storyline magical beast like the Ukrainian Ironbelly, she was still a legendary Pokemon. Item-M had guessed that constrained by the limits of his mission, this Latias might be a D+ or C- graded magical beast, as the grade of the same magical beasts varied with different timelines allotted at different floors of the Primordial Tower.

After wasting the Great Redshanks' bill to forge sabers and not a spear, Kai wanted to use things this time as they were intended.

-/Take them,/- he told Item-M. -/Get yourself a bow. Yes. A bow should be your first choice. Remember to dispose of the smith after using him or her. We don't want high-floor Contestants to keep pestering us, do we?/-

"Master, I…"

-/Don't whimper./- Kai snapped. -/What was your oath again? You live at my command and you will die at my command. That all that is yours is now mine. And all that will be yours will be mine too. You swear this, didn't you?/-

Item-M went pink. "Yes," she said, puffing up her breasts. "Yes, I did."

-/Then stop thinking of yourself as a human anymore, Item-M,/- Kai quipped, sneering. -/You are just an Item to which I am adding accessories. What are you? Say it./-

"Your Item, master."

Kai smiled. He passed the box to her. Then he opened the second box.

This time Item-M neither gasped nor hinted of any refusal. Kai nodded to himself, seeing that. In the second box, there were two rows of tiny glass vials with 5 in each row. One row of glass vials had blue corks over them, and the other had white. Kai took out 3 blue-corked vials and one white-corked vial.

All vials had colorless liquid rippling within them.

He gave them to her.

-/The blue-corked vials have Light-Neurotoxin,/- he told her. -/I have already told you about it thoroughly before. Smear them on the arrows, and you won't have to worry about accuracy too much. We will worry about getting you an Ability related to Archery later./-

Item-M nodded solemnly. "Yes, master," she said. "And this other vial…"

Kai closed the box, putting it back into his MRB. -/That's only for drastic measures,/- he explained. -/It has Selene's Soul-Neurotoxin. Don't let it touch your skin, otherwise, it will melt into you. Find yourself a way to use it in a better manner. You are a smart woman./-

Item-M took the compliment with a smile.

-/OK,/- Kai said, standing up, and Item-M followed him. -/This will let you kill as many as you want in your next battle. You have no more excuses now. Item-M… Mission Over./-

Item-M kneeled and instantly a blue shimmer surrounded her. Her hands flicked, taking out the cream-golden egg which Kai had yet to touch. She put it on the stone floor and lifted her head to look at Kai.

Their eyes matched. The blues became bluer, and accompanied by another salty gust, she vanished.

Kai stood there for a long time afterward, thinking about who knows what and whom. But scarcely he brooded over something so much, and with such uninterrupted focus.

-/What do you think?/- he asked a few minutes later.

Petyr's figure walked out of him. "What is there to think, my lord?" he jested. "You should have claimed her maidenhood, as I suggested to you. Women like her are often weirdly attached to men they lose their maidenhead to. Virginity is both an enticing and frightening thing. And a juicy fruit like her won't ripen anymore but would only go stale."

Kai pondered over those words and compared them to his lack of sexual interest in Item-M.

-/No./- He shook his head. -/There is something wrong here, Petyr. Having feelings for her is one thing. Not getting it up while thinking of her is another thing entirely. The Temple of Hastur only takes virgins as its members. The mystery lies here somewhere./-

Kai crouched down and touched the egg, waiting no longer.

[

Side Mission: The birth of Viserion

Side Mission Status: Success

Side Mission Rewards:

1. 150 Mission Credits

2. +2 Attribute Points

You can teleport to the next world now, Contestant Kai Stormborn

Time Limit: 1 minute

]

A blue shine covered Kai, marking his impending departure.

From his side, Petyr chuckled.

-/What's so funny?/- Kai asked casually.

"The question is not where the mystery lies, my lord," Petyr told Kai. "Rather, where lies her loyalty."

Kai snapped his head, his eyes narrowing. -/She is mine,/- he told Petyr. -/Even now I can feel my absolute control over her soul and flesh. Not to mention she has already betrayed the Temple of Hastur./-

This time Petyr guffawed. His figure became blurry, but he did manage to pass his next words to Kai's ears.

"The Temple of Hastur is not Hastur, my dear lord," Petyr said coolly. "Can't you recall in whose name she swore the Soul-blood oath?"

Petyr disappeared.

Kai craned his neck, brooding over Petyr's question, and gazed at the stars. They were bright, with no shadow of any yellowness about them. The blue of teleportation covered his figure too.

And as his figure blurred, the corner of his lips lifted into an imperceptible smile.

*********

AN: Two Announcements. Discord members can ignore it, as I have already communicated both of these on the server.

1. Reason for the long Pokemon Arc: As you all must have noticed, this Pokemon Arc has lasted quite longer than it's last counterpart (getting egg from the Harry Potter world). There are a few reasons for it:

- There will be no further major arcs related to Pokemon in future. Kai would only visit the Pokemon World for short and deliberate purposes which will last no longer than 3-5 chapters. I have already given him a reason to return. Pokemon will still keep making appearances in other settings

- So, keeping that in mind, I had to lay a good foundation for future plots using this Pokemon Arc. That's why it has lasted for so long. The next Side Mission (in the GOT world, will be as long as the Harry Potter's side mission or in the ball park of that.)

2. Future publishing rate: Sad to say guys, but it's becoming quite difficult for me to keep writing at the same pace, even after lowering the publishing rate. For now, I am confident in putting up 1 quality chapter per day for you guys. Anything above I am not writing but more like scrabbling. Not a good feeling, to be honest, seeing the quality at the end. So I am limiting the chapters to 7-8 per week. Not lower than that, I hope. If things get better for me on Patre0n in the future, then I will up the chapter count depending on the free time I would get from the Job. Till that time, I hope you guys will be understanding, and enjoy the work. Thank you