After the discovery of Anadei’s missing body, Cyril left the palace in a daze.

It was not inconceivable to him that her resting place had been defiled. Hunger-Made-Alive or the Half-Ascended Wyrm may have consumed her skeleton, acquiring some benefit from the relic bones of a saintess. Her own people may have used it as a last resort in the twilight years of their decline. The corpse of a transcendent cultivator was a priceless artifact. They could have made scrying-mirrors with handles carved from her bones, blended her marrow into alchemical concoctions--all manner of morbid possibilities.

Even in death, others sacrificed her for their benefit.

The discovery put him in a strange mood. He felt as if he was wandering through a cruel dream. The exact reason it bothered him so much eluded him, but Cyril wanted to destroy something.

Fortunately, he had a city full of monsters that needed purging.

The first one he came across was one of the four-legged animals. It clopped along the outskirts of the palace courtyard, its cloven hooves leaving behind wisps of smoke with each step. He had only seen them from a distance before. Up close, it was more disturbing.

The monster resembled a dark camel with no hump, like the animals known as horses westerners favored. A massive jaw dominated most of its head, and in place of eyes, long stalks bent and waved about like shadowy tongues tasting the air.

It kept to the perimeter, head bowed low as if it was ready to charge at a moment’s notice. Some of the monsters were testing the area after Hunger-Made-Alive’s defeat, too stupid or too curious for their own good. Cyril suspected the ones that had ventured too far were the source of bloodflower-ridden corpses inside the palace garden.

A quick Pressure Cantrip flattened it into a bloody mess. Cyril blinked in surprise. Either the black horses were far less durable than the other monsters, or the leap to Middle Condensation had drastically improved the power behind the basic technique. Its death energy filled his Dominion of Earth eight points, putting it at the lower end of the scale for monsters in this region of the Underdark.

Cyril continued in the direction of the Library, obliterating monsters as he went. He tried his best not to destroy the city further, limiting his Pressure Cantrips and sending a pair of Flickers to scour the side streets and alleyways. His recent advancements had elevated him to the point it took more effort than not to limit his trail of devastation. A minimum-strength Pressure was enough to shatter cobblestones.

He did, at one point, condemn a small section of the city after coming across a wyrmling nest. He had hurried past it on his initial rush to the palace, but now he had time to clean up the mess.

Mounds of half-devoured monster corpses filled the area, bloated and emitting a horrendous stench. Newly-hatched wyrmlings, pale and grotesque, squirmed and writhed through the offal. Larger ones had tunneled honeycombs into the buildings; he could make out hints of their sinuous forms gleaming in Flicker’s light.

Half of the neighborhood was completely infested.

Cyril resisted the urge to crush the entire area with a Pressure that would rival one of Behemoth’s steps. The resulting bloodrain would have been a serious mess.

After some consideration, he placed his hand against the ground and released a flood of earth qi. A thick layer of E-grade bronze rose up from the ground in a wide, curving wall that rose up to the heavens. He visualized his desired result--a dome that enclosed all of the condemned buildings--and drained most of his core attempting to bring it into existence.

Shaping the broad, hollow barrier instead of forming one massive chunk of metal required more focus than he expected, and it kept trying to collapse in on itself until he added supporting struts. In the end, he was only able to form half of the dome with his current reservoir of qi.

He settled into a lotus position and constructed a stone sphere around himself, just large enough to sit inside comfortably. A few holes near the top allowed him to breathe, while still being small enough to rebuff the smallest wyrmlings. He meditated as best he could for the next thirty minutes until his core refilled. His dark mood prevented him from gaining much insight during the trance.

After his core refilled, he constructed the other half of the dome until the entire section was completely encased within a bronze hemisphere. This second attempt was more efficient, only draining two-thirds of his qi. After a brief rest, he sealed the ground in a layer of bronze, completely isolating the wyrmling nest from the rest of the world.

Many of the larger monsters had fled during the construction of the bronze dome. A waste, but he had no real method of wide-scale area control outside of the Gravity domain, which would have just driven them deeper underground. Despite the inefficiency of the process, Cyril considered it an exercise in willshaping and exploring the limits of his new power more than anything.

He directed one of his Flickers into the dome. The ethereal flame passed straight through the metal. Once it reached the center, hovering there like a small sun, Cyril poured qi into the construct. Pale light seeped out through the metal, and sections of the dome glowed a dull red.

Death energy drifted up into the air. First, a trickle, then a flood, as the inferno raged on. Sweat started to bead Cyril’s brow, even as he put more distance between himself and the superheated dome. Faint squeals and hisses rang out, intensifying as the heat grew.

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Within thirty seconds, Cyril had more than enough to elevate his Dominion of Earth to the Third Sphere. He drew in the energy until it reached 999/1000. After some thought, he transferred the remainder into the Dominion of Gravity, elevating it to 527/1000.

From what Cyril had been told, ascending to the Third Sphere was not quite as simple as the Second. He suspected that the darksteel throne had served as a natural treasure while he was striving for Middle Condensation, smoothing out the process and helping reforge his arm. He had no special arrangements for reaching the Third Sphere of Earth, but figured it would be a waste regardless. Behemoth’s existence alone sufficed as a direct conduit to the Heavenly Peaks.

It did, however, mean he may spend some time lost in meditation. It could be hours or weeks. Fortunately, the trance would slow most of his body functions into a state of near-hibernation, sparing him from wasting away.

Cyril considered settling down into one of his sphere-rooms, but decided on returning to the palace. The gardener-djinn would protect him from any interruptions. Awakening from his trance early would corrupt his Third Sphere. Such flaws could be corrected in time, but the amount of effort it took warranted a preventative measure or two.

He returned to the palace, lost in thought. On the way back, he snagged one of the black beetles off a wall and held onto it. It attempted to fly away, translucent wings flickering. Cyril tried his best to ignore it.

It didn’t feel like he had slaughtered scores of monsters. The evidence rested within his soul, but he felt no pride, no joy. Accumulating power for power’s sake held no real appeal for him at the moment. He wanted to joke with his siblings, tease his parents. His mood grew even darker as he walked through the forsaken city.

Once he reached the entrance hall, he settled down and sealed himself within a bronze sphere-room. Metal stalagmites sprouted along the exterior, just in case. With a flick of his wrist, he summoned a blade out of earth qi and plunged it into the beetle’s head. He cast its corpse aside and filled the remainder of his Second Sphere of Earth with its death energy.

Immediately, a strong, pungent scent scoured his nostrils--a mix of rotten eggs and oud wood, harsh and overwhelming. A rough, gritty texture covered his skin, as if he had rolled in sand. Before he could narrow down the exact nature of the stimuli, he found his mind transported..elsewhere.

At first, there was only darkness and pressure from above. Then his head broke through suffocating earth, and he realized that he was a tiny sprout that had finally won its struggle to break through to the surface. Except there was no warm light or fresh air to greet it. The sky was dark and choked with ash; an ominous pink aurora painted the edges of the tempestuous clouds.

He continued to grow in this desolate landscape until he was a proud sapling. However, his growth was destined to stop there. Not enough nourishment existed within the immediate land. The water had all boiled away, and the feeble light of the aurora could support him no further. He was surprised he had managed to grow so tall in the first place.

More time went by. Within the strange memory, minutes or years could have passed. It meant nothing to him. The simplicity of his thoughts may have bothered him if he had not fused with Behemoth and experienced the faint memory of its divine ignorance. What were years, even a decade, to one of the Titans?

He began to wilt, to wither. The trace nutrients in the ashen soil were exhausted. It was not the fate of the earth for him to prosper.

Then, a group of humans arrived to the area. They stared at the ruined mountain in the distance, pointed at the caldera along its peak. Earth cultivators, from what he overheard of their discussion, excitedly guessing at what rare minerals may exist around the volcano. Cyril couldn’t imagine what such a group would be doing in these lands.

Their leader was a wise man with a kind face, whose bearing spoke of great strength and resolution. His eight-year-old daughter had all of his kindness and stubbornness but none of his wisdom. For some reason, the young girl was strangely attracted to the sprout, nurturing it with her feeble, unbonded core. When a new verdant leaf emerged from the sapling, she screamed in joy and brought her father over to brag.

The leader’s greatest weakness was spoiling his daughter, especially since her mother passed away. And so he, too, tended to the sapling, feeding it some of his qi in the middle of the night while pretending that all of its progress came from his daughter’s tender obsession. As the sapling flourished into a full tree, the only one within a mile of the volcanic site, so too did the daughter’s confidence in herself flourish. And so discovered she was also wise and strong, as long as she was properly nurtured.

The daughter matured, and when her father died, she took over as the leader. The tree continued to prosper. New saplings broke through the surface and survived in the umbrage of its eerie, bloodred canopy.

More time passed. The daughter died.

By then, a small town had grown from the settlement of the wandering earth cultivators. Once a great city had existed on these lands, before the volcano erupted and scoured them from the world. Life grew again.

But the small town was limited by the lack of resources. Though the nearby water was potable, it tasted strongly of ash and many of the townspeople were frail and sickly. The town was the site of a desperate pilgrimage, a last resort for those escaping a worse fate at their backs.

The tree, having grown big and strong, lamented that the people could not break through the shackles of their circumstances. Remembering the bravery and kindness of those who had helped it, it began to siphon all the devastation, all the suffering, all the vengeful karma that corrupted the world, as far as its great roots reached.

The blight slowly faded from the land. As it did, the healthy dark trunk turned pale and withered. Its bloodred leaves split and withered and drifted away in the breeze. It took all the suffering into itself.

The land healed. All but the original tree flourished. Trees and vines displayed their ripe fruit with pride. Clear waters from the nearby lake fed into the city through irrigation channels and, eventually, through an aqueduct.

The city grew.

Cyril felt it take the burden of the world’s blight into itself. He was twisted and shrunken and ancient, and he was proud.

Finally, the tree died.

The citizens of the land all held a great vigil in its honor. Children frolicked around its vicinity, and lovers held hands and locked eyes before its fallen trunk.

Spring came, and a new sprout emerged from the tree’s corpse.

Dominion of Earth:

Third Sphere- authority to sanctify self and world. Purify Cantrip acquired. (0/10000)

Purify- cleanse target impurities and fell karma.