Chapter 214: A Legendary Item

Samael stood quietly in the grand hall, eyes fixed on the massive screen suspended at the front. He wasn’t the only one. All around him, beings of power, gods, apostles, emissaries, high priestesses, and divine attendants were watching the exact same broadcast: The death of the Beast Lord.

Some clicked their tongues in disappointment, irritated by lost bets or underwhelmed by the serpent’s performance. Others leaned in, intrigued. Samael noticed a few aides furiously scribbling down notes on the battle. A handful bolted from the chamber the moment the results were confirmed, activating communication relics to report back to their divine hierarchies.

They were interested in him now. Luke.

Killing the Beast Lord had drawn attention. Divine Orders hoping to establish influence on Earth saw an opportunity. Others, already established, had been watching him for some time, ever since he killed the Orc General, and later, a Midnight Warden. Always punching above his level. Always winning. And not through brute strength, but by evolving. Fast.

“A shame,” someone muttered beside him.

Samael turned. It was Siegfried, a recently ascended apostle now walking the edge of divinity.

“If he’d taken out the Orc Lord before entering the capital, I would’ve had clearance. System rights. To speak to him directly,” Siegfried said.

He meant Luke, of course.

“That special assassin contract he received… felt very pointed. Very personal. Whose initiative was that?” Samael asked, eyes still on the screen.

“Wasn’t mine. Came from my Sovereign,” Siegfried replied with a smirk. “I serve the God of Assassination, remember? Every assassin ends up in his crosshairs eventually. Especially the ones from this tutorial.”

The God of Assassination is taking a personal interest?

Samael sipped his tea. The aroma was rich, the flavor sharp and grounding.

“I’m not sure he’d be easy to recruit,” he said after a moment.

He has this strange habit of treating a god like… just some regular person.

“Doesn’t strike me as someone who’d pledge himself to a divine order.”

Siegfried chuckled. “Maybe not. But he doesn’t need to. The more experience he gains, the more levels he climbs, the more valuable he becomes to Erza. Every one of them is just a walking bag of XP. She’ll collect it all eventually. They’re the livestock. She’s the harvest.”

Samael paused mid-sip, gazing down at the amber liquid. His reflection stared back at him.

“You know,” he said slowly, “there’s an old tale from Earth. Primitive culture, but fascinating nonetheless. It’s about poisons, and the creatures that carry them.”

“Insects?” Siegfried guessed.

Samael gestured toward the screen, where the Beast Lord’s corpse lay still.

“There was once a wise man who wanted to discover the most poisonous creature alive. So he gathered them all, spiders, scorpions, snakes, centipedes, and locked them in a single space. He didn’t interfere. He just… waited. Let nature run its course.”

“They tore each other apart.”

“They did. No hesitation. No strategy. Just pure instinct. They knew what they were, and they acted on it. The massacre was inevitable. In the end, only one survived. Not because it started as the strongest. That’s the thing. Having the deadliest venom means nothing if one bite from something weaker still kills you.”

Samael’s voice lowered.

“The survivor didn’t win because it was born powerful. It won because it was forged in that pit. Poisoned again and again, pushed past its limits, forced to adapt. Its venom became deadlier. Its instincts sharper. And it didn’t just survive… it evolved.”

He set the cup down, eyes never leaving the screen.

“In the end, it wasn’t about who entered that place the strongest. It was about who came out.”

“That’s my master’s assessment of the human named Luke. The more pressure he’s under, the more cornered he is, the weaker he seems… the more dangerous he becomes. He adapts. He strategizes. He kills. If anyone plans to hunt him down, they’d better understand they might just be crafting the very poison that ends up destroying them.”

He lifted the cup again, unfazed, and drank in silence.

“That came from the Primordial of Darkness himself?” Siegfried asked, clearly taken aback.

“Yes. From the Primordial himself,” Samael replied.

Siegfried turned his attention back to the screen, now with a new level of interest. Samael followed his gaze. Luke was standing again, rising from the rubble.

So, you really did it. You kept your word and killed the Beast Lord solo.

Even Samael hadn’t expected that.

“I would’ve given you the information anyway,” he muttered under his breath.

But then, a smile tugged at the corner of his mouth as he watched Luke staring down at the item newly granted by the system, his prize for slaying the Beast Lord.

Let’s see what you’ll do with that reward.

***

Luke pushed himself off the ground, coughing as a cloud of dust billowed around him. But his body was completely intact. Not a scratch. The chain of race level-ups had healed him fully. More than once, even. The explosion had launched him through the air, scorched his skin, slammed him into rubble. If he had used a regular arrow, it wouldn’t have handled that much mana. It would’ve detonated in his hands. The only reason it worked was because of the material, the fang fragment from the Beast Lord. That thing had held.

If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. Please report it.

Maybe that’s what rarity was really about. The arrows from his quiver were basic. Fine for most fights. But they weren’t built to channel destruction. He looked down just in time to see his bow crumble into ash in his hand.

“No…” he muttered as the last of it disintegrated.

[Warning: Your item Angelica’s Bow has been completely destroyed and is reconstructing inside your inventory. If this happens again, it will be permanently lost.]

Relief washed over him. For a second. That bow was more than just gear. It was a gift from Angelica, a memory. And he still needed it. He still needed it for Bartholomew.

He coughed again, walking forward through the haze. The air reeked of scorched flesh. The system had confirmed the Beast Lord’s death, but he needed to see it with his own eyes.