Their trip to the Jadewalker’s Earth Shrine had been going smoothly…mostly. The Lord Protector’s speed had been astounding.

Sure, Kallik knew high-level spirit beasts could travel at great speeds, but she’d never witnessed it. The Grand Elk that pulled most buildings of the Wandering Cities could grow to great size and strength, but they were slower, more methodical beasts.

There wasn’t much reason to live in the fast lane when thousands or tens of thousands of humans were willing to jump into the fray to protect you and your herd.

The Lord Protector was on a different level. They’d crossed a distance in the last eight hours that should have taken them most of the day with no rest. Despite that, she could tell the spirit beast was holding back for their sake. Her skills as a Grassreader weren’t even needed. As a [Silver Spirit] ranked Cultivator, Kallik hadn’t failed to notice the small swarm of wasp-like metal insects surrounding them on various sides. She’d have been worried if she’d not seen the strange insects pinch themselves away from the Lord Protector’s metallic skin.

Whatever technique or skill it was, they made perfect scouts. They warned the Lord Protector of any Radiant pits they approached well in advance, along with a few more dangerous spirit plants. Kallik had to direct them around some less obvious dangers, though that was to be expected if the Lord Protector wasn’t a native to the prairies.

The insects were even almost entirely invisible to her [Spirit Sight] but for the slight trace of the Lord Protector’s aura leaking off them. It was the leaking that had first drawn Kallik’s attention to the spirit beast’s injuries. Kallik was one of the primary healers for the Slatewalker village and was well-versed in both human and spirit beast injuries. She didn’t dare scan deeper than the surface, lest she insult their benefactor, but examination was enough to see the Lord Protector’s injuries were…severe.

So severe the Lord Protector had been ‘leaking’ Spirit Energy this entire time. It washed off the creature in such a faint way that Kallik doubted anyone other than she and Ulagan could sense it. Yet, it felt… strange to Kallik’s senses. Raw, uncontrolled, powerful, but subdued and gentle in a way she’d never felt before, like the energy didn’t belong to the Lord Protector at all.

She almost suspected if she cultivated then and there, she could easily absorb the leaking energy herself. That would have been immensely rude, however.

It made more sense now why it was so willing to help them and had ‘requested’ all the ore samples they’d gathered. Metal-affinity creatures were known to eat Spirit-Energy-rich ores and processed metals for growth and recovery. Did the Lord Protector know humans often had a lot of such materials? Had it actively sought them out? Or was it just a lucky break for the creature?

What could have caused such injuries to a powerful maybe-Progenitor? More importantly, had it followed the Lord Protector into the prairies?

For the briefest moments, Kallik worried they could bring home a far greater threat than Kusanagi would ever be. She quickly dismissed that thought. Any being able to force a Progenitor, even a young one, into retreat would be well into the [Earthly Transcendent] realm. The prairie’s chaotic nature would greatly suppress such a creature, and its presence would attract the Akh’lut’s attention. It was a risk, but the benefits of helping the young maybe-Progenitor outweighed those risks by a large margin.

They would reach the Earth Shrine sometime during the next few days at their current speed. Hell, if they kept up their current speed, they might even overtake the village as it made its way to the shrine. Once at the Earth Shrine, she could inform those who needed to know about Kusanagi. Of course, the Lord Protector would remain their ‘guest.’ They could even inquire about any Akh’lut in the shrine and see that their young pup got home.

As for the pup, Kallik wasn’t sure what to make of it. It was more than a little strange for a lone Akh’lut pup to wander alone, more so an unawakened one. Along with having an exceptional talent for cultivation, the Akh’lut was also a race of natural Espers. Espers were remarkably rare, even among the oldest and most powerful clans. Races that had any inborn Esper abilities were rarer still. Even on the massive Skybreaker Continent, with its multitudes of people, the number of such races she knew of could be counted on her hands.

Rumors were Esper powers were more common in magic beasts — who fed on Mana — than in spirit beasts. Though, as far as Kallik knew, those were rumors.

Akh’lut were natural shapeshifters, able to take on multiple forms unique to each individual. Though all shared the same base form. They could even take in the bloodlines of other spirit beasts and incorporate their traits. Most impressively, Akh’lut could take on a complete human form while still in the [Mortal Foundations] realm, despite their bloodline being so strong.

Kallik knew that the closer an Awakened’s bloodline was to their Progenitor’s, the harder it was for them to take human form. This came with all the advantages, both in cultivation and society, one would expect, but should have come at the cost of a thinner, weaker bloodline.

A thinner bloodline, such as found in the older clans who had regularly mingled and mixed with human clans, would make taking on a human form easier. This came with all the benefits — in cultivation and society as a whole — one would expect, but at the cost of power, as their bloodline weakened.

On the other hand, a clan who strived to keep their bloodline purer would have stronger, more stable bloodlines. Bloodlines closer to their ‘Origin’. But this also made it far more difficult to take a human form. Often, such clans would be unable to even do so until the middle of the [Earthly Transcendence] realm.

The matter was a hotly debated subject among the Awakened clans, or so Kallik had heard.

The Akh’lut, however, were different.

Despite the high purity of their bloodline, the Akh’lut could freely shift into human form from an early age… if trained properly. Thanks to their shapeshifting abilities, the Akh’lut had managed to retain the strength of their bloodline, while still obtaining all the benefits of a human form.

This naturally drew both jealousy and greed from others. The sheer strength of the Akh’lut bloodline, coupled with how the Akh’lut could easily incorporate foreign bloodlines with little harm, made them a target. Their bodies could be used for all sorts of alchemical reagents and pills that could improve another Awakened bloodline… or even awaken a long dormant bloodline in a human, from some distant ancestor.

However, adult Akh’lut were unimaginably dangerous and could fight on par with those several steps higher than them, even outside the natural suppression of the Radiant Sea. Thus, the children were often the ones targeted by the more… unsavory types of Cultivators. Rumors in the Wandering Cities said this was the primary reason the Akh’lut had come to the Radiant Sea Prairies to begin with.

This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

The chaotic energy and natural suppression made it a perfect, safe ‘nursery’ for their young, and most young Akh’lut parents would return here to raise their children once the wanderlust of youth had faded.

The only way she could imagine the pup being separated from its caretakers was if said caretakers had been killed. Few things in the prairies could pull that off. Coupled with the Beast Lord’s reemergence, events didn’t bode well for the short-term peace in the prairies. At best, it meant Kusanagi was gathering forces to attack the Akh’lut… and already had at least one success.

At worst, the survivors might be implicated before they got to tell their story. That would spell doom for the Slatewalker Village, either by the Jadewalkers or the Akh’lut themselves.

Since fate seemed fond of beating Kallik into the ground, it threw one more problem onto her plate.

“Zolzaya! Keep pressure on the wound! Altan, get me the [Metal-Eating Shadespores] from the left pouch!… No! I said left! LEFT!”

Kallik commanded the group with expert precision developed over decades of working with fresh apprentices. She poured more Spirit Energy into Yutu’s convulsing body as she fought off the coppery colored veins spreading outward from the young man’s wound.

The boy had been doing well and making a speedy recovery, thanks to the expensive medicines and whatever the Lord Protector had done. Yet, after only a few hours of travel, the boy had taken a turn for the worse. The Lord Protector noticed first, and when he stopped, Kallik had to scan Yutu before she saw the problem.

Thin threads of copper slowly spread from a tumorous mass growing in the boy’s wound.

Kallik’s heart sank as she recognized it instantly. [Copper Seed Poison].

A rare, special poison derived from the Sword-Devouring Armadillo found near the Adventurer’s City-State of Halirosa. She’d only encountered it once during her own adventuring days. Or at least the result. Her nightmares had lasted for weeks.

The metal from a Sword-Devouring Armadillo’s shell could ‘remember’ shapes and transform into them when Spirit Energy was applied. The creature used this to defend itself, molding its shell into the various armaments and armor it had eaten. Artificers often used the organic metals that grew on the creature to create adaptable weapons and armor.

In fact, it was surprisingly similar to how Ganbaatar described the Lord Protector’s ability to create weapons from its carapace. Though if the wasp scouts were any sign, the maybe-Progenitor’s abilities were on an entirely different level.

[Copper Seed Poison], despite its name, wasn’t a true poison. Instead, it was a tiny grain of this metal, altered through alchemy and other arts. Once inserted into an object containing Spirit Energy, the metal would feed on that energy and grow into the “memory” stored by the creator. Typically, this was of twisting vines and snaring roots, thus its name.

It would make more sense that Kusanagi could take down multiple adult Akh’lut if he had this kind of thing, especially if they were protecting a pup.

One particularly sadistic serial killer, nicknamed the Copper Artist, had created a variant that would twist the victim into disgusting parodies of ‘art’ that melded flesh and metal. The killer would mix these seeds into his victims’ food, at random, it seemed. The entire city had nearly starved, as most were too afraid to eat even the food they had prepared themselves. A few victims had been ‘safe’ at home, after all.

He’d been stopped only after almost a month of terror, thanks to the joint efforts of the Adventurers’ Guild and the Esper organization, Avalon.

It was Kallik’s work helping to track down that psychopath that had given her experience with this particularly nasty ‘poison.’ Unfortunately for Yutu, that involved a lengthy and extensive surgery to remove the primary tumor and any bits that might have been left behind.

With the boy’s already severe injuries and the danger of an hours-long surgery in an open field, Kallik didn’t like his chances.

She told the rest of the group as much, to various responses. His chances would be far better if they had a safe place they could hunker down. But moving him too far would weaken him further.

To everyone’s surprise, the Akh’lut pup was the one to break the group’s dour mood. The pup’s chirping bark drew their attention, and they turned to see it happily wagging its fluke like an overexcited puppy. Kallik sighed, but she narrowed her eyes when the pup dipped into the ground, only to pop back up and a few feet further away.

Could it be…? Kallik knew the pup was just on the cusp of true Awakening, but could it already understand the situation? If so, what was it trying to say? Again it dipped down, popping up even further away, but this time it gave a sharp bark, turned, and disappeared into the grass.

Kallik pressed her lips and looked at the rest of the group, seeing the same look of confusion she was sure was on her own face.

In the end, the Lord Protector made the final call. In one smooth motion, they turned, following the small Akh’lut pup.

Only 15 minutes later, they caught up to the pup, standing at the edge of a Radiant Pit. The pup gave another bark and leapt into the pit.

Kallik had a bad feeling and spoke to the group.

“You all might want to hold on to something…”

Kallik’s warning was proven true, as in the next instant, the Lord Protector leapt into the pit. The fall was far greater than Kallik had been expecting. Most Radiant Pits never got deeper than twenty meters, give or take a few.

This one was just short of fifty.

Such a fall would have been more than a little jarring if not for the gouts of flame that sprouted from the sides and legs of the Lord Protector, cushioning their landing. A few more minutes of pushing through the thick Abyssal Radiance Spirit Grass at the bottom revealed something amazing.

In a small clearing in the middle of the Radiant Pit, hidden from the world above, was a set of ruins.

Not just any ruins, either, if the broken obelisk and shattered statues said anything.

This was an abandoned Earth Shrine.

—————————————————————

Alpha wasn’t sure what he was looking at as he observed the scans of the tumorous mass rapidly growing in the young man. His nanites were working at a rapid pace to destroy and contain the thin, metallic wires sprouting from it, but it was a losing battle. The strange tumor seemed to produce the metal out of thin air, and the small pile of bloody wire they’d already pushed out of the boy already far exceeded what should have been possible.

The old woman was helping somehow, but he couldn’t tell what she was doing. Alpha chalked both up to ‘more magical bullcrap’ He knew he was ignoring and suppressing a lot of… problems, but questions and testing would have to wait until after things settled down.

… He just jinxed himself, hadn’t he?

Alpha contemplated just ripping the tumor out of the young man, but calculations showed it would cause far more damage than the nanites could reasonably heal before the wounds killed him.

Surgery was an option, but that would take far longer than the time they had to spare. With no knowing when or where the group would be attacked, extensive surgery in an open field wasn’t the best option. Judging by the older woman’s look, she’d come to the same conclusion. When she spoke, the rest of the human’s downcast eyes confirmed Alpha’s thoughts.

Before the group could decide what to do, Snowball drew their attention. Alpha instantly recognized the motions. It was the same one she’d used during their trip when she had something she wanted to show him. Often it was a pretty new plant or some shiny rock, true, but some finds had been interesting at least.

He couldn’t fathom what the Whale-pup could want them to see at this moment, but he knew she was a smart pupper. So, on a hunch, he followed her.

What they found was… interesting, to say the least. Instead of the expected plant or landmark, they found the ruins of a settlement. The ruins weren’t ancient, but old enough that nature had started reclaiming them. Moss-covered rubble was strewn across the clearing, large enough to hold several hundred humans comfortably.

At the center, a large, half-collapsed building that vaguely reminded Alpha of Aztec construction surrounded a broken obelisk. The obelisk would have been an impressive sight had it not been split in two down the middle, though it was not tall enough to peek out of the deep pit, the settlement rested in.

The older woman tapped his side and pointed towards the building in the middle. Alpha got the message and made his way towards the gaping hole in its side, just large enough for him to slip through.

It looked like they were stopping, after all.

Alpha always had enjoyed tomb rai—ahem—‘archeology.’.