Chapter Seven
Diegen let out a blood-curdling cry as he was violently thrown through the portal, bracing himself for the impact. When he emerged on the other side, his body slammed into a hard, rocky surface, sending waves of excruciating pain coursing through him. He groaned in agony as he struggled to get up, feeling dizzy and disoriented.
Suddenly, a burst of flames erupted from above, scorching the air and setting his clothes alight. Diegen screamed as he frantically rolled on the ground to extinguish the flames. He could smell burning hair.
Just as he thought he was safe, a large piece of debris shot out of the portal and hurtled towards him at breakneck speed. It was a jagged plank of wood, its splintered edges glinting in the dim light. Diegen's heart raced as he watched the deadly object hurtling towards his face, ready to impale him.
At the last second, he managed to roll out of the way, his body narrowly avoiding the sharp end of the broken table leg. He scrambled backwards, his heart pounding in his chest as he watched the portal spit out more rubble and debris, each piece more deadly than the last.
It seemed that his plan to collapse the building had succeeded after all. Breathing a sigh of relief, he laid there on the cool ground, taking a second to collect himself. As he did so, a series of blue notifications popped up in his vision.
—-
You exhibited the exquisite ability to move undetected.
The stat, ‘Stealth’, has been unlocked.
—-
You have slain a monster.
You have slain a monster.
You have slain a monster.
…
You have eliminated a large number of monsters at the same time.
You have gained a significant amount of experience!
—-
Congratulations, you have reached Level 2!
You have obtained two ability points.
You may upgrade any stat or ability by one level.*
*Warning! You will not be able to change your choice once it is made. Please think carefully before you make your selection.
—-
Congratulations, you have met the conditions for your first Fork in your Path.
Please visit a nearby temple to select your Fork.
—-
Name Diegen Faerfeld Rank/Level Astral, Level 2 Race Sa’nasi Path Way of the Soul Fork Unselected Strength Discovery (Intermediate) Endurance Discovery (Intermediate) Dexterity Discovery (Basic) Agility Discovery (Basic) Shimmer Discovery (Basic) Skills Slash (Basic) Thrust (Basic) Innate Abilities Sixth Sense (Basic) ??? Path-Related Abilities ??? Unspent Ability Points 2
—-
‘Level 2, huh? I don’t feel any different,” Diegen thought.
He certainly didn’t know what a Fork was, but he guessed that he’d learn eventually when he got to a temple.
“If I can get to a temple,” Diegen said aloud, sighing.
There was also the matter of the unspent ability points he got, but he didn’t know which stats or abilities to use it on. He didn’t have enough answers, and there didn’t seem to be a limited time window he had to use it on, so he pushed these considerations aside for now.
“Where am I, anyway?”
He tried to pull up a map on his PPC, but while it was functional, he didn’t seem to be able to get a signal to be able to connect to the network. Trying to call Holdar and Miranda on it didn’t work either.
The portal floating in mid-air was the only source of light in the tunnel, which was what he was pretty sure he was in. The space around him was probably only four or five meters high and around that length in diameter, but the tunnel seemed to extend much further into the darkness in front of him and behind him.
With a bit of strain, Diegen got to his feet. He tried to light his dagger on fire like he did during his battle against the Gulatroxian Prime, but no matter what he tried, the dagger didn’t respond. He assumed that the trigger was the anger he felt during the heat of battle, since the artifact was named the Dagger of Wrath, but trying to feel that same blazing anger now was like trying to light a wet log on fire.
There was no going back through the portal now, and he could either go one or the other down this tunnel. He picked one at random. Due to the lack of light, he was forced to abandon his sense of sight and rely on his other senses instead.
He stumbled forward, his hands groping blindly along the slimy walls, hoping to find some kind of indication that he was heading in the right direction. But every turn felt the same, every section of the tunnel seemingly identical.
Diegen lost track of time as he walked. His stomach growled loudly, and he realized with a sinking feeling that he had been walking for what felt like days without any sustenance. His tongue felt like sandpaper in his mouth, and his throat was parched beyond measure. He was forced to lap up some of the moisture on the wall and bear with the disgusting taste of it.
The damp, musty air was thick with the stench of decay, causing him to gag and choke with every breath. His eyes stung from the constant strain of trying to see in the darkness, and he felt his resolve slowly slipping away.
He had no idea how long he had been walking, or if he was even heading in the right direction. The thought of being lost forever in this endless tunnel filled him with a sense of dread that was almost palpable.
His mind began to play tricks on him, and he started to hear strange, unsettling noises that seemed to come from all around him. He couldn’t tell if it was his imagination or if something truly sinister lurked in the darkness.
His body was wracked with exhaustion, and every step felt like he was dragging a thousand-pound weight behind him. He had long since lost track of time and had no idea if it was day or night outside.
Diegen bitterly wondered if he should turn back and try to walk in the opposite direction. Maybe he had chosen the wrong direction after all. Frustration welled up in his chest, and he felt like breaking down in tears.
Strangely, he began to think about his family at this moment. The conversation he had with Holdar back at The Dusty Crown came to mind. Diegen and his family had stopped getting along a long time ago, and it had been years since he’d been home. Funnily enough, he still wouldn’t have chosen to go home even if a portal leading to his home appeared in front of him right now. Even in the darkness of the tunnel, even after having ascended to become an Astral, and as weary and exhausted as he was, Diegen flushed with shame at the thought of his family.
Diegen shook his head free of these thoughts and tried to think of happier things. Now that he was an Astral, maybe he finally could do something with his life. He had started taking odd jobs with Holdar simply because he didn’t know what else to do. If he could get out of this situation, maybe he could become someone who was actually needed by somebody else.
Just when he thought he couldn’t take it anymore, he heard it. The sound of rushing water, echoing through the tunnel like a beacon of hope.
He stumbled towards it, his legs barely able to carry him, his heart pounding with excitement and fear. The sound grew louder and louder, until he was almost sure he would burst from the anticipation.
This novel is published on a different platform. Support the original author by finding the official source.
And then, finally, he saw it. A faint light in the distance, beckoning him forward like a siren’s call.
He quickened his pace, his heart hammering in his chest as he stumbled towards the light. And when he finally arrived, he was greeted with the most breathtaking sight he had ever seen.
As Diegen gazed out into the vast expanse before him, he was struck by the otherworldly beauty that lay before him. The lake was truly massive, its brilliant glow illuminating the darkness and drawing him in like a moth to a flame. The water shimmered and sparkled with the radiance of millions of tiny, bioluminescent fish, moving in perfect unison as they swam in a hypnotic dance around the thundering waterfall at the center of the lake.
As he drew closer to the water's edge, Diegen was awestruck by the sheer scale of the spectacle before him. The fish moved in perfect synchrony, creating a mesmerizing light show that was nothing short of breathtaking. He marveled at the thought of how nature could create something so magnificent, so utterly beyond comprehension.
But as he stood there, lost in wonder, he felt himself losing consciousness due to his exhaustion. But even as he fell, he knew that he had witnessed something truly extraordinary.
✾✾✾
At the border between Haven and the Capital, the Imperial Army fended off the constant pressure brought on by the invading monsters. They had stopped conducting evacuations, having already rescued as many people as they could. There were simply too many people to save and too many enemies to fight.
Justicar Kensworth, a Level 5 Astral and the crown prince’s personal knight, led the defense effort in place of the official commander, who was currently off-planet on other business. His shimmer-reinforced Aoi Hinoken swung gracefully through the air, cutting through the monsters on the front lines as he shouted orders to his men through his PPC.
“Sir! Sir!” One of his Lieutenants came running up to him with his own Hinoken in hand and helped Justicar to dispatch an armored monster that had a single, large horn in the front of its head. His Lieutenant proceeded to adjust his glasses and begin wiping the blood off his blade with a handkerchief in the middle of the battlefield.
A few seconds passed as the battle raged on around them, but the Lieutenant seemed comfortable taking a moment to clean the blood off his blade. “Yes, what is it?” Justicar asked, growing impatient.
“Ah, right. Sorry,” his Lieutenant said, clearing his throat and adjusting the buttons on his shirt, which had become loose in the heat of battle. It looked as though he might say something, but he accidentally put some of the buttons in the wrong holes and had to unbutton them to rebutton them in their correct positions.
Justicar began to feel the urge to punch his Lieutenant. “Could you do that after you tell me what you came here to tell me?”
“Sorry, sorry,” his Lieutenant said. He flicked his hair back and then noticed that one of his shoelaces had become untied. The two men froze in place, both staring at those loose shoelaces.
“If you do that up before you tell me what’s going on, I swear to Luxuria that I will strike you down here and now,” Justicar said in a low, threatening tone.
“But-”
“Lieutenant, does this face look like I’m joking?”
“…There are a few civilians in processing who claim to know something about who is responsible for the monster invasion,” his Lieutenant said, trying very obviously not to look at his untied shoelaces. He adjusted his glasses over and over and raised his chin to the sky. His eyeballs kept drifting down to his feet, but he seemed to be trying very hard because he slingshot them back up to the sky when they drifted too low.
“And you couldn’t have told me that from the beginning?” Justicar asked incredulously. “You know what, forget it. Let’s go back inside the walls. I need to call the prince.”
“Sir?”
“What is it now?”
“May I tie my shoelaces first?”
“…”
✾✾✾
Behind the walls of the Capital's processing center, Holdar sat in the bleak waiting area for his friend to come back. It had been days since he had been able to reach Diegen over the network, and he couldn't help but wonder if he was already dead. The situation in Haven had gone from bad to worse, with no end in sight.
Monsters were pouring into the district through the destroyed Northern Gate, spawning outbreaks inside the district itself, leaving death and destruction in their wake. The walls that had kept them safe for over a century were now useless, and the Astrals who were supposed to protect them were struggling to adapt to the new, deadly situation. With the number of monsters increasing by the day, the death toll was rising rapidly, leaving the surviving population traumatized and broken.
Evacuation was the only option, and while a million people had been evacuated to the Capital, many more were presumed dead or still waiting to be rescued. A survivor's camp had been set up for those who made it out alive, but it was a desolate place, far from the luxury of the city. Those who had lost everything were forced to make use of old tents and portable washrooms. They had to pay for everything with Shard, from food to water to shelter.Barricades were established between the camp and the rest of the Capital to prevent unauthorized access into the deeper areas of the Capital, and some of the survivors were employed to build a wall in its place. The only people who could access those deeper areas were those that had a social credit score of over five figures, which pretty much limited it to nobles, high ranking officials, and CEOs of large companies. Not even Astrals had a score that high, so they were forced to stay in the camp with regular Sa’nasi.
Holdar had been lucky to be among those who had been evacuated in the first caravan, and he had helped the initial group set up the camp, earning a good chunk of social credit on the first day. Even now, he was still helping the construction crew out and earning some credits in the process. Selling those credits on the open market was the only reason he could afford to stay there.
Anyone unable to pay for a tent was forced to relocate, whether it was to a different district in the greater Capital area or a different city or town. This wouldn’t have been a problem if going through the Capital itself wasn’t banned, forcing them to traverse through monster-riddled territory if they wanted to leave. None of the regular ground- or air-based transportation services were running due to the danger involved in transport. It was thus that most of the survivors took up jobs as they were needed. Even Astrals were forced to aid in the defense to earn their keep, though their compensation was considerably higher than that of the regular Sa’nasi laborers.
All the while, the tall, grand buildings within the Capital loomed behind the barricades that the Sa’nasi were laboring to build. The large glass windows and pearly white walls starkly contrasted with the gray block of wall that they were constructing to separate their camp from the rest of the city. The sculptures that stood tall on the other side of the wall, and the murals that adorned the sides of apartment buildings were a mockery to the portable washrooms and hole-ridden tents that were on Holdar’s side of the wall.
A digital banner hung from the gates that said ‘Survivors, be grateful for the protection you are receiving from the Empire’, with the various costs for goods listed underneath if they wished to purchase them. They weren’t exorbitant prices, but three square meals a day and a day’s tent rental was pretty much all one could afford with the amount of pay they were offering for a day’s labor.
It made Holdar grind his teeth in distaste. The divide between the noble and commoner classes had always been there, but it had only been exacerbated by the recent crisis. He felt powerless to change his situation, only able to endure the days until something changed around him. Perhaps if it were Diegen, with his newfound powers as an Astral, he could do something about this.
Perhaps if he himself could just become an Astral, he could do something about this. If he had been the one to become an Astral...
A small seed of envy embedded itself in Holdar’s heart.
As the day grew darker, he remembered a night-time lullaby that his mother had sung to him when he was little.
Run far, little cub
The day the forest of crystals grows still
Run far, little cub
The day the demons come for their fill
Run far, little cub
The day the king of nightmares wishes you ill
Run far, little cub
Far, far away
✾✾✾
Not even a hundred meters away from where Holdar sat, Miranda and Asmophel were facing off against Justicar Kensworth and his Lieutenant. It was like a game of Astral chess, with critical information on the line and the Royal Family waiting for their move.
The tension was so thick you could cut it with a photon sword. The only sounds in the room were the Lieutenant's incessant fidgeting, like he was trying to break the record for the most annoying noise in the universe. Miranda and Asmophel tried to stay serious, but it was hard when the Lieutenant kept untying and retying his shoelaces like he was trying to win a knot-tying competition.
Justicar Kensworth was a stoic figure, like a statue made of granite. He'd seen things that would make a black hole blush, and yet here he was, struggling to keep his cool while his Lieutenant played with the button on his cuff like it held the key to the universe. It was like watching a Level 5 Astral trying to wrangle a hyperactive kitten - both impressive and hilarious at the same time.
To all of their relief, a screen flickered into existence on the far wall, and Crown Prince Tyrell Silver appeared before them.
He was sitting on a red-and-gold armchair in the middle of an ornate living room decorated with rare and exotic animals not found on Harenasa. The armchair had been placed atop a large rug made from the pelt of a Hell Bear from the planet Redvimir, and the walls were adorned with the heads of Black Frost Wolves from the planet Quoreni. Both of these animals were as powerful as monsters, if not more.
“Well then?” Tyrell asked impatiently, tapping his foot. “I’m a very busy man. Hurry up and give me the short version, but don’t leave out any of the important details.”
Justicar cleared his throat. “My lord, may I introduce Asmophel and Miranda Hakusen of Heisenken, one of the private corporations operating out of Haven. They have information regarding the potential perpetrators-”
“Hold on a second,” Tyrell interrupted. “Who is that fidgeting next to you?”
“That’s my Lieutenant,” Justicar replied.
“Well, he’s distracting me. Get him out of here.”
“Of course, my lord.” Justicar motioned for his Lieutenant to leave, who practically jumped out of the room.
Tyrell let out a sigh of relief. “Now, what was it you were saying?”
“Prince Tyrell, one of our employees claims to have seen Gulatroxians in the Great Crystal Forest,” Miranda began. “She was badly injured when she returned to us, and we encountered a Gulatroxian Prime who was able to use the same strange portal skill that was used to transport monsters into Haven.”
Tyrell leaned forward in his chair. “Do you have any proof of these claims?”
Miranda hesitated. “Well, not exactly…”
“Then how do you expect me to make decisions based on mere hearsay?” Tyrell asked, running a hand through his fur.
Asmophel spoke up. “There is one additional detail that our employee shared with us that you will likely want to confirm.”
Tyrell raised an eyebrow. “Go on.”
“She said that she saw the Gulatroxians moving a monolithic artifact the size of a crystal tree. She said it looked like a summoning pillar.”
Tyrell’s eyes widened. “Summoning pillar, you say….” He got up from his chair and began pacing around his room. “If what your employee says is true, I’m sure you understand the implications of such an artifact being in play.”
“I’m afraid so, my Lord,” Asmophel said.
“If your employee is right, it means that this is just the beginning of our nightmare,” Tyrell said, stopping in front of the screen. “You had better hope she’s wrong.”