The boar came at him again, so Hajin rolled clear while his broken ribs went off with the movement, then the cheap sword scraped down the hide behind it without finding anything to cut.
'This sword is decoration,' he thought while circling wide of the tusks, 'so I need something that actually goes through.'
He slipped inside the next charge and punched its jaw, which knocked the whole animal sideways off its line.
A foreleg swept at his head, so he ducked, then kicked the knee carrying all that weight until the joint folded.
The boar went down chest first, so he landed on its back and drove both knees between the shoulders.
Blood came out of its mouth.
Dark mana lit the bristles along its spine before he could put any weight into a second hit, then a blast went off at point blank range, scorched his cheek and threw him several paces back through the churned ground.
[ NewViewer_02: ] wait the pig just exploded? do the pigs here always do that or is this one special
'This thing refuses to stay down,' he thought, working himself upright on one arm while he opened space between them.
The injured boar got back up.
All three Shards were still turning around its tusks while it set its feet for another run.
He gave up on finishing this at base strength, then released the mana he had been holding back since the fight started.
A thin golden Ring formed around his right wrist, so the familiar weight of it settled back into his bones.
[ JunaFanClub: ] the ring is back
'Fine,' he thought, opening and closing his strengthened fingers, 'we do this again with everything the system has finally handed me.'
"Chat," he said, sidestepping another charge with his hand already inside the shop menu, "you people spent real money on me, so let's see what it buys."
[ Stream Credits: 800 ]
'Eight hundred,' he thought while the list scrolled past, 'which is either a weapon or a very expensive apology.'
Most of the menu sat above his credits or asked for stats he did not have, but one damaged entry near the bottom was cheap.
[ Chains of the Goddess ]
[ Condition: 99% Damaged ]
[ Price: 750 Credits ]
[ Note: Binds to unique bloodline only ]
'Ninety-nine percent damaged,' he thought, reading the line again, 'so either it is a paperweight or the number means nothing.'
The boar turned on its bad leg and came back, so he jumped clear with his hand still resting over the purchase.
'No time to be careful,' he thought, pressing confirm.
Weight dropped into his hand out of nothing and took his arm down with it, so his knees folded before his fingers finished closing.
[ LurkerNoMore: ] no no no dont buy the broken one, save up two more weeks and get something that isnt held together by rust
The rusted metal carried a pressure nothing like enchanted steel, older than that and strangely familiar, then his Ring answered with a pulse that went out through the weapon before it came back into his blood.
'That is not ordinary weight,' he thought, shaking his wrist to no result, 'and my hand is not opening.'
His fingers stayed shut around it, the links pressed into his palm as though welded there, while the boar closed the distance.
[ Passive Trait Triggered: Fragment's Blessing ]
[ ×10 Rarity Tier Upgrade Applying to Shop Purchase ]
[ Rarity Upgrade: Normal ➔ Legendary ]
'My trait works on shop purchases,' he thought while the metal began to heat, 'which is excellent news at the worst possible moment.'
[ Bond Required ]
[ Chains of the Goddess requires unique bloodline to activate ]
[ Bind now to unlock functionality ]
'It wants a bonding ceremony,' he thought, watching the tusks come level with his chest, 'right now, with that thing already in the air.'
He bit down on his thumb until the skin broke, then dragged the blood across the links in his fist.
Light came off the metal in one hard burst, the rust burning away from every link while the panel updated in front of his face.
Symbols surfaced across the renewed links, then sank under the polish.
The finished bond read less as ownership than as something the weapon had remembered on its own.
[ Bond Successful ]
[ Chains of the Goddess ]
[ Type: Growth Weapon ]
[ Rank: Rare ]
[ Active Skill: Divine Bind ]
[ Status: Active ]
[ Divine Bind: The chain autonomously locks onto a target upon impact. Once latched, its physical weight multiplies to permanently pin the target down and restrict their movement. ]
'An anchor that sets itself,' he thought, reading the skill line twice, 'which is exactly the thing I have been missing.'
The mass went out of the weapon between one breath and the next, the crushing weight thinning into something his hand carried without any effort at all.
He set his feet and snapped his wrist forward.
The chain uncoiled like a whip and cracked out across the clearing, catching the boar over the face in the middle of its charge.
The impact threw it sideways off its feet, so it met the ground shoulder first and pushed a wall of dust out ahead of it.
Divine Bind took hold the moment one link touched hide, then the weapon put its whole multiplied weight down across the animal's neck.
The charge collapsed under a pressure it could not shake off, so its legs went on working against ground it could no longer leave.
He pulled his arm back, so the chain tore loose off the hide and came home into his fist in the same gold as the Ring.
Fifteen or twenty feet of metal answered his intent.
The stream panel in the corner of his vision was scrolling faster than he could read.
[ CringeSlayer91: ] wait what the hell was that
He flexed his fingers without looking, so the chain answered on the same beat and drew tight across his knuckles before going loose.
[ ShadowMage44: ] bro just pulled a legendary weapon out of nowhere?? and he looks like a menace now
"Round two, big boy," he said, rolling the loose links once over his knuckles.
Out past the capital road, Princess Didi stood with her arms crossed while the last monster of the hunt came apart into ash.
Her knights cheered over the kill and went to packing their gear, none of them thinking about the ground under their feet or about the princess standing apart from all of it.
"I said I wanted to fight it," she said, with her sword still undrawn at her hip, "not stand here watching you finish it for me."
Sir Gazel wiped his blade down a cloth and put it away before he turned to face her with a short bow.
"My apologies, Your Highness," he said, holding the bow longer than courtesy asked for, "the creature was moving toward the supply line, so we acted on protocol."
"Protocol," she said, turning the word over as though it had a taste, "you find protocol every single time it happens to keep me out of a fight."
"We act to protect the royal family," he said, not rising to any of it, "and your safety sits above your training."
"My safety is a cage," she said, walking off with her cape dragging over the churned ground, "at this rate I will never set foot inside a Gate."
"You will," he said to her back.
"They will keep me in the capital until somebody decides I am ready," she said, without turning around for him, "as though experience grows on a tree in the palace garden."
"Experience is what killed my last two squires," he said, checking the treeline the way he checked every treeline, "so I would rather you went on resenting me."
She reached the carriage door, then the ground moved under her before her hand closed on the handle.
The earth bucked once and threw her off balance, so she caught the frame to keep herself off her knees.
Sir Gazel was beside her with a hand on his sword before the shaking had finished.
"Your Highness," he said, putting himself between her and the open ground, "get behind the wheel."
A second tremor opened a crack near the edge of the clearing, so the knights were drawing while the horses fought their reins.
"That is not the hunt settling," she said, with her hand finally going to her sword, "something is walking around under us."
The voice came up through the ground beneath all of them, deep and wrong in a way that made the horses quit fighting their reins.
"Interesting," it said from somewhere below the clearing, "is that royal blood I can smell up there?"
"Get the horses off this ground," Gazel said, pushing her back a step with one arm across her, "before it opens under them."
The clearing began to lift in a slow ring around the carriage.