B5 Chapter 35

We entered a cave at the bottom of the seemingly endless stretch of freezing fog. It spread far and wide, and it wouldn’t surprise me if I had to travel down more than twenty kilometers to reach the bottom of the mountain. That was how massive the mountain peaks were.

Just thinking about that made me shudder. Or it was the cold that crept up slowly to shroud me and freeze me to death.

Once we reached the bottom of the mountain beneath the monastery, Aureus helped us locate a cave system with thousands of tunnels. It was an elaborate system we wouldn’t have found without an impeccable Earthen Aspect or the ability to sense all there was to the earth and stone of Razarn.

The cave we entered was… unique, to say the least. It seemed less like a place carved from stone and more like a wound frozen into Razarn itself. Ice coated every surface in layers so pure and dense that the original rock grew harder to recognize with every step we took. Jagged crystal formations rose from the floor and ceiling alike, intertwining into vast arches and glittering pillars, which did little to calm our nerves.

Pale blue light drifted through the frozen landscape without any visible source, refracting endlessly through countless facets. The air was motionless and bitterly cold, burning through my spirit flame’s protection effortlessly. Even Zegrath was suffering. Volca’s fire protected her, yet she was a being so closely attuned to fire that she wouldn’t survive long in an environment like that.

Ice-attuned ether saturated the cavern beyond reason. It seeped from every crystalline surface, flowed through every crack, and hung suspended in the air like invisible mist. The ether was so concentrated that reality itself appeared sluggish beneath its influence.

Tiny snowflakes formed from nothing and drifted lazily through the air before crystallizing. The tunnels split again and again, but it was not hard to follow our targets. Aureus, with ever-increasing earthen tremors, located the tunnels reaching deeper into the heart of the mountain, while Sapsie and I made sure to focus on the Spawns and ensure they wouldn’t move away from us.

Eventually, the passage widened into a cavern vast enough to swallow entire valleys. The ceiling vanished into darkness overhead, while the frozen floor stretched outward like an endless white sea. And finally, gathered around the center of the extensive hall stood the huddled forms of the Devourer’s Spawns. Some knelt, others stood or prostrated themselves toward a single point, as if bound by devotion.

At first it was hard to tell why, but the reason became painfully obvious as, at the heart of the cavern, bloomed a sea of crystallized flowers. Even if my ether control and perception had been much worse, I would have sensed those beauties. An abundance of ether oozed from each of the flowers, creating the very environment Zegrath and I hated so much.

If I didn’t know any better, the flowers could just as well be the origin of the freezing fog, though there was no way to be certain about that.

“What is that?” Zegrath’s muffled voice rang in my ears.

“A… Spawn?” I wondered as my eyes drifted from the huddled forms of the Spawns toward the sea of thousands upon thousands of crystallized flowers. Their translucent petals formed entirely from ice-attuned ether condensed into physical shape. Some resembled roses carved from sapphire glass, but the beauty ahead did not distract me nearly as much as the terror blooming in my heart.

For an object that ought to spread fear hovered above the sea of frozen flowers. A marble.

It was no larger than a clenched fist, and it suspended effortlessly in the center of the cavern hall. Its surface was perfectly smooth and utterly black. Not the black of obsidian or the darkness of a moonless night but something deeper. It was the abyss given shape. That was the only logical explanation.

Looking upon it felt wrong, as though my eyes searched desperately for texture, reflection, or… something. And the Spawns, eleven in total, stared at it as if caught in a spell. And maybe, just maybe, that was it.

Because it was the 12th Spawn Sapsie had seen on the mountain peak. The World Tree had been wrong though. The dozen Spawns were not weak. Not all of them, at least. The marble certainly was not, even if I couldn’t tell what it was. It was just there, unmoving, silent, and I could feel the Insignia’s hatred toward it with every fiber of my being.

The Insignia erupted without my doing. It cloaked me in boundless white light that summoned the spirit flame of purification and flooded me with power and a simple task. Destroy the marble.

The Spawns didn’t even matter at this moment as all attention focused on the marble hovering above the sea of flowers. But the Spawns did not think like that. They spun around, their shrieks filling the cavern, and without hesitation, they bounded toward me.

“What are you doing?!” Zegrath cursed and unleashed more of Volca’s power within her. It drained her, yet it also filled her with the power needed to eliminate Spawns.

“I don’t know either,” I spat back in panic. “It’s not listening.”

Control yourself. A slap was all it took to regain my bearing.

Getting hold of the panic rising within me, I squashed it and transformed it into utter calm.

Stolen novel; please report.

“Don’t die on me,” I called out before teleporting right into the mass of Spawns, bladed appendages growing from my lower back.

The evolved version of Nullblade, Annihilation Blade, coated the extremities, basking them in a dark hue. Nullblade’s silver glow was no more, but that was for the better. For it had been replaced with something much greater. Annihilation Blade, a trait born from Nox’s in-depth understanding of the Blade Essence, cut easily through the first Spawn, splitting it into two.

I would have applied my Insignia’s power to the scythed appendages, but that wasn’t necessary. The Insignia did that on its own already. It raged, filled me with power, and spread out to envelop the enchanted swords appearing in my hands as soon as they materialized.

Nox’s scythes whipped left and right, tearing through yet another Spawn, which crumbled to the ground before it could retaliate. Needles made of darkness and shadow burst out of the frozen ground, but I teleported away the moment Predator picked up the movement. I appeared above another Spawn, the tips of my boots covered in Annihilation Blade’s dark hue. Only a fraction of a second passed, but that was enough to analyze the battlefield and learn all there was to understand about my situation.

I kicked one of the Spawn’s heads and smashed its skull, all while pumping it full of the Insignia’s spirit power.

The Spawn squirmed and faded into the frozen cavern, staining the sapphire-blue floor dark. It was still alive and escaped, moving through the cavern to emerge behind Zegrath, dozens of beast heads emerging from its chest and lower body.

The Fire Caldera spun around as soon as she sensed the Spawn, but Volca’s fire was faster than her body. It surged toward the Spawn as soon as it appeared behind her and burned through it while also burning her.

Volca’s spirit power came at a steep price. All the Spirits’ powers were actually quite harmful to the user, especially when they used more spirit power than their souls could handle. I did not have such a problem.

Deep gashes covered the fourth Spawn as my swords carved through the air, whereas Spawns five, six, and seven pounced on me with surprising speed and invisibility. They disappeared from all my senses. Not even my danger sense perked up as claw marks appeared on my upper arm.

But that only meant I wasn’t as powerful as Sapsie, which only made sense. No one was as powerful as Sapsie – not at her Rank, at least – not after consuming so many Elixirs. At this point, the World Tree sproutling could hardly be called a sproutling. She was rooted in my World and had grown to ten meters tall. Her traits had only grown stronger in the last few months, and there was even a new trait that had formed. Fortunately, because I was starting to regret feeding Sapsie so much of my blood and so many Elixirs.

Nature’s Sanctuary triggered as soon as Sapsie willed it to, creating a dome of life and nature. It erupted from the World Tree in the inner World and expanded outward until it covered most of my body. While still premature, the trait was powerful. It blocked several strikes while Lifesight unraveled the dozens of stolen traits the Spawns used to camouflage their presence. Then, just as a claw mark carved itself into the ethereal, emerald-shimmering dome surrounding me, my swords and scythed appendages surged forward.

First, I sensed resistance. Then came the scream and blood. Twisting my swords in the target’s chest and neck, the scythes followed up, severing a series of heads growing from one of the Spawn’s chests and shattering its invisibility. Next came several earthen spikes coated with Annihilation Blade and spirit power, tearing through the Spawn’s shell as well as its mass of nothingness.

The fifth Spawn fell, only to be joined shortly after by the sixth and seventh. The Spawns were not weak. They were likely not that young either, but their prowess was only comparable to that of a Master. Most regular Proto Knights would fall to the power of eleven such Spawns; however, I didn’t count in that calculation.

Zegrath killed her second Spawn, burning through its mass of nothingness, and she was already beyond exhausted. She breathed heavily and shuddered, whether from the cavern’s freezing cold or the exhaustion clinging to her. But she was unwilling to stop and charged her third opponent, azure flames erupting from all over her body, traveling up her shoulders and down her arms to gather within her glaive.

Her molten veins bulged, and an explosion of smoke erupted from her as she flashed across the frozen cavern. One moment she stood a few meters from the Spawn, and in the next, the Spawn screeched and burst into azure flames. It fell apart while Volca’s flames continued to burn until nothing of the Spawn was left behind.

Zegrath collapsed to her knees as soon as the third Spawn died to her blade. Volca’s flames died, and she heaved heavily, looking like she was on the verge of losing consciousness.

I have more spirit power than her. I realized as the Insignia flashed with more and more power.

Something within me stirred, and I knew it was my bond with Aureus, which had grown ceaselessly over the last few months. And ever since I provided the Earthheart with the first vial of Runic Tincture, the soulshare had grown even firmer. Just like the empowerment, which seemed to be moving more and more toward the path of the mind.

Aureus had been moving toward something for a long while now, and the long months I had spent in a coma only seemed to have fortified his gains. He was growing rapidly, which the Runic Tincture and the engravings on Aureus’ heart confirmed yet again.

Do you know what’s happening? I asked Aureus as my heart lurched. Not only was my Soulkin changing. I was too, courtesy of the ever-increasing bond with the Earthheart.

I teleported away from the Spawns to watch massive pillars descend from the ceiling, crushing two Spawns. They tried to flee, but Paralyze stopped them in their tracks. So did the spikes coated in Annihilation Blade piercing their calves and rooting them in place.

I can feel it, yes. But so do you.

Aureus commented mysteriously, though I did have to agree with his statement – in a way. I could feel that something was happening to the Earthheart. Of course I could. When Aureus first evolved into an Earthheart, his evolution hadn’t been complete. That changed when his heart finally settled down and attuned to the Earthen Aspect. The Gravity Aspect had only been formed to help the Earthheart anchor his heart properly, but was that really the end of Aureus’ evolution?

Hadn’t it merely been the beginning of his growth into a proper sacred beast? It was the start of a path that was unprecedented, and I had always known that. Or, at least, I had felt it.

Flooding one of my swords with Annihilation Blade and an enormous amount of spirit power, I slashed through empty space. The air distorted, and the energy exploded and evaporated. But the damage was done. The remaining Spawns screeched as a blade of condensed spirit power ripped through the air, invisible to the bare eye, cutting through their masses of nothingness and incinerating them.