Chapters 31-32

Peak-Stone and five others closed in as one, their quick steps completely soundless in the cavernous expanse. Three approached from behind while Peak-Stone and her two protégés attacked from the front—the hypnotic flow of her twirling twin daggers leaving behind the faintest of pink smoke trails in her wake. Bright-Burner, for his part, could only look on with pride. The visibility of her blade heart a clear sign of her mastery. The two groups arrived simultaneously and struck out in well trained unison—Peak-Stone bringing down her blades in a diagonal cross, while the rest stepped up and thrust their own weapons forward from every conceivable angle.

Just as their weapons were about to pierce the slave’s hide however, the impossible happened. A sudden eruption of crimson exploded out from the slave as if, in that very instant, all of the blood in its veins were violently expelled. Transforming into a series of deadly crystalline shards. Several foot long jagged blades that then began to revolve. To churn around its body at great speeds. And all the while his sworn were too shocked to respond, most still well within the sphere of its influence. Overwhelming those closest in a matter of seconds, while simultaneously shredding any weapon forces rallied against it into nothing more than faint ripples in the air.

What in the name of the master was that?!

Before Bright-Burner could fully comprehend it, however, the slave’s relentless assault continued. As Peak-Stone and her chosen staggered back in pained surprise, blood streaming freely from copious shallow cuts, the crimson shards slowed, then swiftly retracted. To be replaced by eight-inch-long claws made of that same strange, crystalline material.

What could only, in retrospect, be…! Something Bright-Burner hadn’t even thought possible. Condensed blade force…?! Sprouting from its knuckles like retractable claws. So impossibly vivid and densely compacted that it physically hurt to lay one's eyes upon. Then, with a twist of its torso and sweep of its arms, it brought its claws to bear in a brilliant crescent arc. Gouts of blood trailed on twining ribbons of crimson smoke, as the heads of all six of his sworn were sent flying.

A great bellow echoed throughout the vast space as Silver-Mane was made to witness the death of his mate. A seismic impact rocked the cavern floor a second later—a rippling wave of fractured stone at least three full head heights tall expanding outwards from the clan-born’s initial hammer strike. In response the slave, unable to run from, around, or underneath the incoming wave, did the only thing left to it. It went over. A mistake on its part, though Bright-Burner was still too stunned to fully appreciate it. Knowing the tactic well by now, Bright-Burner could only watch as the slave launched itself into the air, in order to avoid the rippling wall of stone, only to be met with a different kind of wall on the way up. Because the wave had never been intended to wound the slave. Not initially.

Belying his imposing stature, Mud-Berry didn’t brace himself for impact as one might’ve expected, but instead ran towards the encroaching calamity full tilt. Then, when the timing was just right, he jumped—the seismic wave, if anything, helping to propel him even further. The well-practiced maneuver was carried out flawlessly, carrying the male up and over the wave, and directly into the path of the oncoming slave.

In that moment he wished he could’ve seen the surprised look on the slave's face, though it’s death would simply have to do as consolation. Through main-force alone, Mud-Berry swung his mighty shield to bat the slave as one might swat away a fly. It’s airborne privileges abruptly provoked, the slave careened helplessly towards the ground. And, more specifically, into the path of a hammer already in motion. Right before the slaves hide was obliterated by the flat of the weapon, however, another explosion of what had to be hundreds of crystalline blades erupted from the slave—erasing any of the smashing force imbued into the blow and cutting deep divots into the time-honored relic. As a result, the almighty swing from that gigantic hammer sent the slave flying, though not nearly as far as it should have.

The slave flipped several times through the air until it somehow, implausibly, managed to land squarely on its feet. Granted, it wasn’t as if the slave had come away unscathed in the exchange. Staggering, it took several drunken steps before it steadied itself, and even then, its hind legs didn’t appear to be entirely stable.

So, the thing isn’t invulnerable after all.

In its disorientation, the slave failed to move in time, and, as both warriors rapidly approached, was therefore in no position to escape as death closed in from both sides. From the left, Mud-Berry with his massive shield, and from the right, Silver-Mane with his ancient hammer. The two were drenched in so much smashing force that the floor at their feet didn’t just crack, it crumbled.

For a brief moment, Bright-Burner dared to hope, before the largest eruption of blades he’d seen thus far shrouded all three in a maelstrom of glittering crimson. When, after less than a second had passed, the whirling sphere of crystalline blades finally cleared, it revealed the two warriors, slightly worse for the wear, undeterred as they barreled towards the impudent slave. Though, regardless of how keen they might have been, the damage was already done. The terrible force that’d once sheathed them was now completely gone. Even still, the raw power of a trained, fully grown warrior cast was not to be underestimated. Bright-Burner still held out hope.

Then, a series of things happened in very quick succession. His two sworn reached the surface dweller and struck, the slave held its ground and, implausibly, lashed out to either side. A colossal boom rocked the massive space—picking up bits of stone, dust, and debris and flinging them out and away in concentric rings of grit.

There came a second of complete calm wherein he tried desperately to pierce the dust laden air. When it finally settled enough for him to do so, Bright-Burner could barely believe what he saw. Not only had the slave somehow received the attacks, but it appeared to have rebuffed them entirely. Both Mud-Berry and Silver-Mane were sent reeling from the exchange, while the slave appeared winded, though otherwise unharmed. Then it moved with a speed it hadn’t deigned to display up until then, and in the next moment, the headless corpse of Silver-Mane was falling lifelessly to the ground.

What was happening? How was this happening? What in the burrows was he? Some sort of demon?!

Bright-Burner was before the demon before he’d made the conscious decision to move. With all of the combined might of his superior spearing force, not to mention the hundreds upon hundreds of hours he’d spent honing this singular technique, he thrust—spear tip shining with the blazing green that was his namesake—intent on ending this tragic farce once and for all. When his spear was mere inches from the demon's throat however, a single hand clamped down onto the shaft of his spear. Where that hand touched, hundreds of crimson flashes sparked in rapid succession—the strobing light show somehow nullifying his spearing force entirely in what felt to him like an instant.

Bright-Burner could only look on in helpless confusion as his technique was neatly dismantled. As if it were the easiest thing in the world. Far too incredulous to do anything more, he looked into the demon's eyes, he was met with neither pity, nor remorse. Only two chilling pits of liquid darkness. Mocking eyes entirely devoid of warmth. The demon’s eyes shifted. Following the- no, it’s attention Bright-Burner glanced down, only to notice, for the very first time, the extended digit hovering just beneath his snout.

DEATH

Bright-Burner leapt backwards, completely abandoning his spear, just as the space he’d once occupied was consumed by a churning whirlwind of crimson blades. Bright-Burner was under no illusions as to what would’ve befallen him had he found himself still there even a second later.

Demon. Monster!

The abomination slumped slightly after the expenditure. Had Bright-Burner still held his grandsire’s spear he might’ve used it as an opening to attack. Now that he knew what the thing was truly capable of however…? Even with a spear in hand, he was no longer as confident in his chances as he’d once been. In fact, he was beginning to believe he’d made a crucial mistake. An egregious miscalculation. That they all had, one way or another.

Mud-Berry appeared before him with a crack of cratered stone, standing sentinel like the reliable impasse that he was. Hefting his massive shield in the face of death’s wraith avatar made flesh, the hulking clan-born turned his head and gave Bright-Burner a solemn nod. Bright-Burner, helpless to do anything more, simply nodded back in response. He would make sure that his sacrifice would not be in vain. The clans needed to be warned of the threat they truly faced before anymore brave warrior cast were sent needlessly to their deaths.

He would make certain that tales of his bravery, of all his sworn’s bravery, were known all throughout the burrows and beyond. By the master he swore it, right before he turned tail and ran. The boom of something heavy impacting the ground echoed from behind him, making the earth quake and shift under his rapidly retreating feet.

Against his better judgement, Bright-Burner turned back to see what had happened. Oddly enough, though he’d initially meant for it to be a brief backwards glance, his head, it would seem, had other ideas. Because, for whatever reason, it just kept on turning. And turning and turning, while everything around him began to fade. Until eventually, with a dull impact he barely felt, the world as he’d known it went black.

  ————————————————————

Your body has transcended its natural limits.

62 CELESTIAL ESSENCE CONSOLIDATED.

Your mind has transcended its natural limits.

62 CELESTIAL ESSENCE CONSOLIDATED.

Your spirit has transcended its natural limits.

62 CELESTIAL ESSENCE CONSOLIDATED.

Jun was getting really fucking tired of being ambushed. More specifically, he was just really fucking tired in general. That had to have been the fourteenth ambush in half as many hours, and by now, he was feeling thoroughly spent. And not just physically or emotionally either. He’d been pushing his mantra to the very limits of his capabilities nonstop, ever since the very first surprise engagement. Apparently, you couldn’t just do something like that without incurring certain debilitating costs in return. Not at his level of advancement anyway.

His head was, quite literally, killing him, seeing as the pulsing migraines were so intense at times that thinking became an absolute chore. Not something you wanted to be actively grappling with whilst in the middle of a life-or-death struggle, believe it or not. He truly felt as though, if he had to conceive one more of those infernal blade cyclones, his brain would actually explode from the strain. And his body hadn’t gone unscathed in the repeated clashes either.

He was a bruised, torn, and pulverized mess. His body so stiff in places that it was a genuine struggle to even move at times. It had gotten to the point that he’d resorted to letting his enemies come to him in the last few fights, because just the thought of putting in any more effort than he absolutely had to, made his stomach churn with nausea.

Even the mending pills and tonics, he was finding, could only do so much. Not to mention his clothes, which were basically just shredded rags at this point. Not that it really mattered so much down here. Because really, who was going to judge him? The rats?

Ivory, for her part, wasn’t doing much better. Her abilities having taken a far greater toll on her mentally than his own abilities’ backlash and any number of physical wounds he’d received combined. Gone was the bubbly companion of only a few hours before. Now, in her place lay a limp, drained husk whose every breath was a raggedly labored affair—her skin an ominous sickly grey where it’d previously been a pristine, alabaster white. It might’ve been less concerning if she had a way to even marginally recover after each high paced engagement, but, as it was, she only appeared to be getting worse.

Now, that wasn’t to say that they’d gained nothing from their ordeal. His own personal advancements having helped considerably in easing the burden Ivory bore in just keeping him alive.

First, in terms of beast cores alone he had to have collected upwards of a hundred and fifty of the things. It was to the point that he was genuinely concerned he’d reach his dimensional bags weight limit pretty soon if he didn’t find somewhere to deal with them all. More importantly though, while a hundred odd beast cores weren’t anything to sneeze at, it still palled in comparison to the progress he’d made in his cultivation.

Ding!

Congratulations!

Your Mantra [Sword Slash] (Good Quality) has evolved.

[Sword Slash] (Good Quality) has become:

[Sword Cyclone] (Great Quality) +10 resonance.

Ding!

Congratulations!

Your resonance pillar has ascended.

Advanced from |Blinded Sapling| [20 of 20] to |Aged Stone| [2 of 30].

The path is as inscrutable as ever, though time brings with it its own kind of wisdom. You idle and contemplate. Your entire world contained within a small garden.

Your insight has transcended its natural limits.

250 CELESTIAL ESSENCE CONSOLIDATED.

Name: Beckonfrost Zhaoshen Junwei

Race: Human

Cultivation: Spirit Condensation Realm: 7th Stage

Bloodline: NOT APPLICABLE

Titles: Merchant of Promise, Fledgeling Magnate, Budding Sage

Resonance Pillar: Aged Stone [2 of 30]

Cultivated Body: NOT APPLICABLE

Body: 0 Stars (2,539 Celestial Essence)

Mind: 0 Stars (2,539 Celestial Essence)

Spirit: 0 Stars (2,149 Celestial Essence)

Insight: 0 Stars (541 Celestial Essence)

Just like the last time, it hadn’t been some great epiphany or revelation that’d led him to make this breakthrough in understanding. It couldn’t have been, since his mind had been rather occupied at the time with the simple act of staying alive. It’d been during one of the previous engagements, while being harried by an especially persistent rat-kin—in what had honestly been one of the toughest fights thus far—that he’d come to a sudden, heart stopping realization. Not because of how brilliantly inspired of a notion it was, but because of how suicidally dense he’d been up until that point. Ultimately leaving him with but a single pertinent question. That question being: why in the name of the emperor was he only using his hands?

Sure, it made sense in the context of a fighting style, or some sort of combat-oriented approach, but he was no great warrior. He didn’t have years' worth of experience to rely on in his fights. Stances, fighting forms, and techniques were entirely foreign to him. In fact, he strongly believed that the only reason he’d survived as long as he had, was due entirely to the imparted vision, the near constant influx of celestial essence, and the circulation method he’d stumbled upon. If it weren’t for those three things, he had no doubts whatsoever that he would’ve died a long time ago in these gods' forsaken caves.

In other words, what reason was there for him to adhere to the conventional methods of fighting, if it wasn’t a contest he was likely to win? And if he couldn’t out-skill his opponents outright, could he not put them off their guard by being entirely unconventional instead? He’d long since learned how to condense and release multiple ruby red blades at once, and it was a process utterly removed from any particular origin so far as he could tell. What was, therefore, stopping him from releasing said blades from anywhere on his body? His stubborn refusal to think outside of the box, that was what. He’d first needed to break himself out of the insidious mindset that, “You would use your hands to swing an actual blade, so any aura blade he created had to originate from his hands.”

Once he’d finally gotten over that bad habit, then learned to actively manipulate the blades once they’d already been formed—far easier than it sounded, seeing as, more and more, his abilities were beginning to feel like extensions of himself—the notification of his mantra’s evolution had appeared. It didn’t make a lot of sense to him—that he was essentially being rewarded for correcting his own innate stupidity—but hey, he wasn’t complaining. In all honesty he’d likely need all the help he could get if he was to have any chance of escaping this gauntlet alive.

In other news, or, he supposed, lack thereof, he’d still yet to figure out what advancing his resonance stage did for him exactly. He was apparently an aged stone now, though he couldn’t really say he felt all that much different compared to before. In any case, the way things were going, he’d passively grow his resonance as he progressed, so whether it ultimately proved fruitful or not should become apparent the further he advanced.

Which brought him to yet another worry he’d been grappling with. Simply put, his cutting mantra just wasn’t cutting it anymore. After facing off against a wide range of powerful opponents, he’d come to realize that it wasn’t the fix all solution he’d once believed it to be. Sure, his mantras were plenty powerful, especially after the upgrade he’d received, but they weren’t the solution to every problem. Case in point, the two bruisers that’d just thrown him around like a rag doll.

And while his cyclones had eviscerated their auras in the end, he hadn’t been able to do much more than deliver shallow cuts when he wasn’t putting the whole of his intent into a single sword slash. Then, when push eventually came to shove, he’d been forced to rely on raw attributes and his circulation method to just barely rebuff their attacks—nearly breaking himself between the two in the process. He couldn’t help but think that if he too had the concept of crushing, fights like those would become child’s play.

With a groan, Jun staggered over toward each of the steaming corpses, both from the group he’d just fought and the one that’d come before. Gathering up all the heads was still an excruciating chore, though he never even considered leaving them behind. He had plans for them after all. When he was finally finished with his grisly task, despite every fiber of his being screaming in protest, he turned away from the gruesome sight, made sure Ivory was nice and secure in the crook of his arm, and limped his way towards what he could only hope was salvation.

The strange structure Ivory had spotted ahead a few hours back.

Ever since entering this impossible space, he hadn’t seen heads nor tails of an end to the vastness. It’d just seemed to go on and on indefinitely. Though to his great relief, his fears of an infinite cavern expanse turned out to be unfounded. By the soft glow of his system screens, he caught sight of what he first pegged as a natural phenomenon. A steep, practically vertical cliff face that could only have been a feature of the cave system, he thought.

The closer he approached, however, the less sure of that he became. Until he was practically on top of the thing. It took him a full thirty minutes to travel from one part of the grand edifice to the other, and by then it was undeniable. The smooth stone blocks stacked atop one another? The intricate and ornate spiral carvings lining every inch of masonry—wherever the black marble wasn’t chipped, missing, or polished smooth by the passage of time that was. It was a wall. A massive wall hemmed in by stone monoliths of truly prodigious proportions, given that his head didn’t even crest the smallest toe on the statues’ sandal-clad feet.

While truly colossal in scale, and holding an intangible sort of weight to it, the wall itself wasn’t a particularly well kept bastion. Great spiderweb cracks dug deep fissures into the stonework—likely hairline if one were to take the full scale of the structure into consideration, while still wide enough for five men to walk abreast from his relatively puny perspective. An ancient city for giants apparently.

For the next half hour Jun explored what turned out to be, in truth, a city made for, and most likely by, giants. As far as he could tell it was as massive in its scope as it was in scale. But most peculiarly, those of gigantic descent didn’t seem to have been the only denizens of the fortress city. The signs were subtle yet prevalent once you knew to look. Indications that far smaller residents had once walked these streets. Recesses hollowed into the stone revealed human sized double doors and gaping tunnel entrances. Walkways were burrowed directly into the street like long, winding trenches that seemed to go on indefinitely. Like small veins beneath the real foot traffic of the city.

Could a species humanlike in stature really have coincided with these apparent behemoths? Jun couldn’t even begin to imagine what that must’ve been like. People taking up the role of small rodents in this impossible city’s metropolitan ecosystem. Living entire lives behind residential walls and scurrying underfoot beneath the heels of giants. How had they avoided being squished all the time? Looking around at the desolate, uninhabited place, he figured that, perhaps, they hadn’t. Ultimately it wasn’t really any of his business, and it wasn’t as if thinking on it further would supply any real answers. He’d long since given up on any hopes of retrieving his breathing manual. He just wanted to get to the surface as soon as humanly possible.

So far, since approaching, and then entering the city, he hadn’t come across another ambush or even seen one of the big furry creatures in passing. It was a nice little break, though it wasn’t a change of pace he’d trust his life to. Which was why he was seeking out someplace to hide away for a while and recover.

Picking the first human sized door at random, he entered to find a dust covered space that, while huge compared to his own family's estate, was not nearly as unfathomable as the rest of the city as a whole. He was standing in the entrance hall of what appeared to be a large mansion. The floor tiles were checkered and there were still crooked frames on the walls—though any paintings they might’ve contained had either been stolen or had long since rotted away. The entrance hall and conjoining rooms were something of a mess—a moment of turmoil and clear distress somehow preserved in a strange, timeless stasis.

Items were strewn everywhere, and furniture was toppled as if knocked over in a hurry. There were large divots in the stone, craters pocked the floor, and burn marks blackened many of the walls and ceiling—indicating whatever evacuation, or extinction event had happened here, had in no way been peaceful. No bodies though… Or skeletons he supposed. How long did it take for bones to decompose?

Cautiously Jun made his way through the first floor—the occasional age-old pottery shard turning to powder beneath the weight of his tread. Finally, after a roundabout circuit throughout the main rooms, he found the grand staircase, and took them two at a time. After his cursory sweep, he’d concluded that the place was as deserted as the rest of the forgotten city. That and if he didn’t find a place to rest soon, he might be forced to pick any old spot in the open and take his chances.

He limped down wide hallways—throwing open doors at random. Those that hadn’t already fallen completely off their hinges. He was never met with anything that seemed appropriate. He wasn’t sure why he didn’t just pick one and be done, but he felt that he could do better than a few rotten blankets covering half decayed furniture. And then, fifteen or so doors in, he heard it. The burbling sounds of running water.

After hours spent walking through a near endless expanse, and then a dead city where he only really had his footsteps as company, the reassuring sounds of nature were almost eerie in their normality. Still, it didn’t stop him from rushing towards the noise as best as his broken body would allow. Eventually leading him to round a corner onto a hallway ending in ornate double doors. Reaching them, he pushed one open—eliciting a prolonged creak. On the other side he was met with a sight that nearly took his breath away.

In sharp contrast to the dead city and the cave system beyond, this room smelled almost overpoweringly of life. It was a bathhouse, though one unlike any he’d ever seen. A large pool of clear blue water was fed by a cascade of waterfalls that flowed down from the natural rock formations making up the furthest wall. The waterfalls’ true origins obscured from his vantage by the overgrown plant life practically dominating the area.

Plants that had once likely been well maintained or even purely decorative, had taken over the space in the best way imaginable, creating a miniature oasis in this otherwise desolate wasteland—the whole scene brightly lit by luminous crystals imbedded in the walls and ceiling. The suffused white light somehow serving to brighten the very atmosphere itself as it bounced from craggy rock walls, to fluted columns. From reclining marble statues onto sparkling azure water. Which in turn, returned said light onto the tree canopies above, in ever shifting highlights that rippled—as if with a life of their own.

Just staring at the scene brought him a sense of tranquility. To the point that he felt his eyelids begin to droop as the stress of the past few days compounded all at once. Before he could pass out then and there, however, Jun shed his filthy rags, set an unconscious Ivory down on the water's edge, then dove headfirst into the pool of the oasis.

The water hit him like a cold slap—brisk, though not unpleasantly so. Instantly a cloud of filth bloomed out from his body, only to be swept away by invisible currents. With a gasp, he breached the crystalline surface and shook himself like a wet dog. Swimming backwards until he sat snug against the rim of the pool—on an underwater shelf made for that very purpose—rationally he was aware he should probably wash himself off more thoroughly before finding a proper place to bed for the night. But, before he could even finish that thought, he had already fallen into a deep and dreamless slumber.