SYSTEMBREAKER: Rise Of The Ninth Overlord

#9: A Ruinous Thought

《Now entering the Arbiter's Void.》

Unlike the first time Rhys Artisan did not collapse on his chair. Instead he stood up, throwing his chair backwards and slammed on the Arbiter's desk with both hands.

"You sent me into a deathtrap!"

The Arbiter looked unimpressed, though its lips did twitch a little. The entity let the silence hold for a second longer, as if to indicate that it was above such outbursts.

"If I had placed you in a deathtrap and you had managed to survive, you would have a Legendary Title. Do you have one?"

Rhys Artisan blinked, he checked his notifications and found no title waiting for him. That was fairly normal, even an S grade achievement wasn't worth a title anymore. The Arbiter did have a point, if it wanted him dead, he'd probably be dead. It didn't quite make him any less frustrated.

"So what was that? Another accident?"

He had nearly died in that Initiation Crucible, a Crucible that he should've been able to breeze through. The Arbiter simply leaned back, it had been ready for this.

"No, an agreement, with your Overlords."

And there was the answer. Well shit, there wasn't much he could do about that. His mind did try to make sense of it all.

"You made an agreement with the Overlords to… mess with soldiers from Terra Prime?"

"Now that would be telling wouldn't it?"

The Arbiter tapped its nose and gave him a smile. Rhys Artisan just gave a long frustrated sigh. He was such an idiot, of course all the odd behavior from the Arbiter was a ploy. He was just the tool used to damage the soldiers before they even became a realm 1 adventurer.

"Well then I do believe I promised a reward," the Arbiter took out a letter with a wax seal with a simple single M in the middle, he held it out in between two fingers, "a quest, deliverable to any Guild receptionist in The Dominion."

《Dominion Quest Obtained! Objective:

Deliver a letter from the Arbiter to any head receptionist of the Adventurer's Guild in under a week.

Note: Depending on how this is completed, your realm achievement score may be vastly affected.》

He almost, almost reached out for the letter, a quest from the Arbiter. People would actually kill for something like this. It was something straight out of a story, get sent on a quest and gain a unique advantage over everyone else.

It often came with a bunch of difficult and dangerous encounters.

Rhys Artisan with no safety life leaned back and crossed his arms.

"Hell no."

"A shame."

The Arbiter returned the letter back into his inner pocket. Rhys Artisan almost regretted his decision, that was until a notification popped up in his head. An honest to god Title notification.

《Title: Defiant Mark obtained! Title: Defiant Mark (Epic) You fight against the establishment where you go, within the first day of becoming a Chosen, you have defied the workings of the most powerful government of Terra Prime, slaughtered a Lord in his domain and declined an offer from the greatest known power of two worlds. Greatly increases your resistance to mental effects and auras in The Dominion. 100%-300% depending on various circumstances like realm disparity, skill rarity and your current state of mind.》

A fucking Epic title? Wait, the most powerful government on Terra Prime?

That wasn't good news, as far as he knew, the Western Coalition was still the most powerful government on Terra Prime. He had fucked over soldiers from his own country. Great.

He turned the notification off. The Arbiter's smile held no secrets, almost as if it had predicted all of this to happen. He wondered if this was its method of giving him a reward. The Arbiter was supposed to be fair after all.

"Now then shall we get to business? You have adjacent classes waiting for you."

The Arbiter spread its arms before he could respond, two orbs appeared in front. Rhys Artisan, in his anger, had forgotten a key fact.

You were only invited to the Arbiter's Void when the Crucible System wanted to offer you a class. It normally happened after the First, Fifth and Tenth Crucibles. Even then, people that focused on combat didn't tend to have classes waiting for them after the Initiation Crucible. He didn't quite think he did anything that was non combative at all.

There was one crimson and one golden orb. The golden orb caught his eye first.

《Tactician (Uncommon) You use your mind to outplay your opponents. Tactics and strategies are your game of choice for victory. Gains bonuses towards aura and skills that impact multiple people.》

A standard shit class, he wasn't taking this one. Even amongst non combative classes it was considered a horrible class with terrible upgrades. There was some theorizing that the multiplicative effects on an army could be applied to an army of adventurers, but really, who had an army of adventurers? He moved on.

The crimson orb floated like a taint in the world. He now had a distinct aversion to demonic classes but the figure in the middle caught his eye.

《Saboteur (Rare) You burned, outmanoeuvred, tricked and played with them all. It didn't matter if they were in your way or not, they all turned to ash in the end. Gains passive bonuses to explosions, fires and demolitions caused by you. Gains minor bonuses to all skills related to heat and destruction.》

Well, the description the description was a little rude. The villagers weren't really his fault and the Bone Sovereign deserved everything it got. Okay, he didn't really have an excuse for the drake. He didn't actually have to kill him. Actually... Rhys Artisan decided the drake deserved it too.

The quality of the class though. A goddamn Rare class before the fifth realm upgrade. The crystal showed a man in a hood, overlooking a city on fire. The Rare tag made him far, far too curious.

He'd heard of the class before but didn't remember the details. As far as he knew, nobody had taken it before.

What would it be like to be a [Saboteur]?

~

A great city was ablaze before the hooded figure on top of a hill. The continuous and periodic explosions made a mess out of the very people that were trying to give aid. It did not do this out of desire to watch people die, but to burn it all down so that something new could rise from the ashes. It hoped it would be a better one.

It?

The scene was disjointed to Rhys Artisan. It wasn't like the [Vanguard] orb. He didn't feel like he was the [Saboteur] himself, but rather that he had just hitched a ride and was watching a scene from a monitor. Something tickled at his mind. A voice.

Ah, don't say anything.

Rhys Artisan could hear the [Saboteur] think. He considered trying to say something back but thought better of it.

A platoon of powered soldiers ran out of the gates and charged at the [Saboteur]. They were screaming for his head. Vengeance and justice burning in their eyes. What had the [Saboteur] done?

Unimportant, what's important is that you're being played. Focus on the Arbiter instead, oh and don't take the class, it doesn't suit you.

The [Saboteur] had five different scenarios going through its mind. Not a single one was focused on the legion that was running at him.

[Parallel Processing]

One thread of thought latched onto Rhys Artisan and guided him towards four different 'screens'. Three different threads were helping him look at the different angles he was in. The differing perspectives revealed the ploy that he had missed.

The Arbiter was still playing a game with him. It didn't stop at the soldiers. The actions were too off, too uncaring compared to the other excerpts. If the Arbiter really wanted to deal with the soldiers he could have just told Rhys Artisan to inform the Overlords. There wasn't a need for everything that had happened to him. The [Saboteur] believed the title was evidence as well.

Then why? Rhys Artisan tried to send the thought back, it felt clumsy compared to the [Saboteur]'s clean and clear thoughts.

There's too much we don't know, the Arbiter never specified what the agreement was. Pay attention, be suspicious, always be suspicious. It's clearly not the impartial entity we thought it was.

Rhys Artisan tried to think ahead, trying to figure out the Arbiter's angle and what was going on.

…No, you're not going to outsmart him. Even all of this, myself especially, might be part of its plan. You just have to accept that. The smartest call would be to find somewhere where you can stop playing its game.

He was dejected at the [Saboteur]'s plan, in one eye he saw the legion start to speed up as they activated their skills. There was a flicker of amusement from the [Saboteur].

Well there is one way to figure out if I'm part of its plot.

The hooded figure looked up at the sky and grinned, this was who the [Saboteur] was, a ruiner of plans and plots, a destroyer of order. It spread its arms as he looked beyond the fake sky, as if it could see the entity that looked down on him.

"[A Ruinous Thought-"