The following night hadn't been as comfortable as Martin would have liked. The ork had to manipulate his Domains to ensure that corrupted creatures and plants didn't swarm them, but even so, he had managed to sleep.
A quick snack of some rations that Jasmine had in the morning and the trio was ready to head out.
Apparently, Jasmine had heard of a creature that would be fitting for Martin's end-game boss, and the ork was more than happy to take a look at it.
Over the next day of walking, Martin saw grand castles that had been torn to pieces by violent storms and crumbling ruins of once grand towers where the stones it had been built from had turned to sand.
All while the mana dense air seemed to practically choke him with every breath. It wasn't pleasant by any stretch of the imagination, but even so, they slowly moved towards the centre of Leltho, the spot where Ewen had performed his ascension spell, which had failed so horribly that it had nuked a decent size of the world.
It was late into the evening when Martin finally saw what they had been heading towards.
In the centre of the country was a massive pillar of crystalized mana, it was glowing with a soft blue colour. However, tinges of reds and yellows could be seen all over the monument to magical failure. The inlaid colours ensured that the entire pillar had every colour possible inside, though the orange groupings were far fewer than the greens and purple.
The entire thing was about 300 meters tall, and ended in a distinctive mushroom cloud shape, really hammering in that this place was a wasteland of some sort.
Martin sighed. He wondered if heavy-handed symbolism should be considered a bug. Then again, he might assign a low-level ticket to this and throw it to the Public Relations department in the main branch. They would probably shoot it down, allowing Martin to justify spending time on removing it.
They camped not far from the massive sign of doom, and Martin wondered if radiation was a thing, but he came to the conclusion that the mana was supposed to symbolize that particular aspect of the cloud.
However, did that mean that every mage was nuclear-powered?
That kind of thoughts ran through Martin's mind as he drifted off, sleeping soundly while forcing his Domains to not generate any of the comforts he would have wanted.
Once more, the night passed without incident, and as morning dawned, and the sun struck the blue crystalized nuclear mushroom cloud, their camp was bathed in multicoloured lights that gave it a strangely fey-like look.
Martin looked over at Jasmine and cleared his throat. They hadn't really talked much during the last day, as he assumed Jasmine had some things she needed to work through.
"So, where is that monster you wanted to show off?" The orkish god of dungeons asked.
"Oi, ain't ya got eyes in yer 'ead? It's right there, innit! Inside that big ol' crystal tree!" Jasmine's grin was wide... too wide. She was clearly putting on a good show hiding her pain.
She nodded towards the massive crystal mushroom cloud. Martin took a closer look at the enormous crystal structure, and it wasn't long before he thought he could make out something in the middle of it.
"Do you have any idea what that thing is?" Martin asked.
It didn't look that big, about the size of a person, which was practically dwarfed by the massive crystal structure. Even up close, it would have been hard to tell what it was thanks to the solid mana's distorting effect.
Jasmine shrugged a bit before pulling out a tattered tome. Martin caught a glimpse of the first page and he was pretty sure it was a crayon drawing of a little girl holding an old man's hand.
Before Martin could say anything the page was gone, as Jasmine flipped through the tome, clearly trying to get to some notes on what was inside the crystal.
"There's no real way o' knowin' what it is without bustin' the thing open, but the current thinkin' is that Ewen didn't put no upper or lower limit on the ritual. So, when he did his ascendin' ritual, everythin' above and below 'im got zapped with divine power too. Now, Old man Erik reckons the critters up top and down below ended up melted together. From what the early readings show, it sounds like a mosquito and an earthworm got mashed up and soaked in divine energy, so Erik went an' called it the Mana Muncher." Jasmine explained.
This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.
Martin nodded along as they packed up their belongings. "Why hasn't it broken free?" He asked, before picking up a small piece of their rations and chugging it towards the crystal pillar.
The god of artillery instantly felt his Domain take hold, and he could easily throw the piece of meat with pinpoint accuracy. However, he threw it high and at an angle, ensuring that the Bearshark had something to run after.
The beast did just that, hammering over the dusty plains after the ration. It jumped a solid 7 meters into the air, catching the snack before landing with no problem.
Martin gave a low whistle at the impressive jump of the bearshark, and before long they were on their way once more.
When they finally reached the base of the massive pillar made from pure mana, the god could feel the power radiating off it.
"This is something else. How are we going to get that beast out? I need to defeat it some way if I want to have control over it." Martin said, looking for a way to break the pillar.
Jasmine gave him a look. "You wanna 'ave control over the Mana Muncher, do ya? And what are you the god of, eh?"
Martin smiled. "I am the God of Dungeons and Artillery. So I have the Domains of Plant, Wealth, Beasts and Range."
Jasmine gave him a look but didn't say anything.
The orkish god shifted his jaw a little, grinding his tusks against his upper lip, while looking over his domains to try and find a way to remove the massive piece of crystalized mana.
There weren't many good options, and he wasn't really geared to handling this kind of problem. He was better at taking down beasties, but one of his powers still caught his eye.
From the Wealth Domain he pulled up the great power he had taken on a whim.
The Golden God's Hand [https://i.postimg.cc/JzFy1R4H/image.png]
Martin grinned as he got an idea. Accessing the power he saw a long list of beneficial features, and as expected, a giant tower made of almost pure mana crystalized into form was considered an economic benefit.
The ork was sure that any nation that could mine literal mana would have some sort of economic boon.
The God looked over at The Scribe. "So... is there any country you actually like? I am thinking that someone might enjoy some economic wealth over the next 100 years."
Jasmine paused for a second, unsure of what to say, but finally just shrugged. "Dunno what I actually fancy, but either A'kastin or Mek. Whichever one you reckon would be more fun."
Martin smiled and decided that Celeste could use a spontaneous gift.
He started by dedicating Energy to removing the massive crystal structure from Leltho and then dedicating Energy to adding it to A'kastin.
Energy 5/7
As soon as the Energy was dedicated the massive tower in front of Martin started to dissolve. Slowly the entire thing crumbled into pieces as the resources seemed to vanish into thin air.
Jasmine gave the god a look of pure astonishment. "I didn't feel no mana from ya. What'd you do then?"
The ork shrugged. "I decided that it would make for a nice gift to my friend. No magic, just divinity."
They sat back and slowly watched as the massive crystal tower disappeared into nothing. It would take hours, if not an entire day before the gigantic crystalline structure would be gone, and Martin couldn't help but wonder if the mana density in the area would go down and the density in A'kastin would go up.
Martin didn't assume it would, as his power didn't remove anything other than the resource, and the structure would be back when he stopped dedicating the Energy.
The comfortable silence between Jasmine and Martin was only interrupted whenever the Bearshark found a monster to pounce on, before chewing loudly.
It was late into the evening, bordering on the dead of night, when the trio was woken up by a massive Crystal shard hitting the ground and a bone chilling scream echoed over the planes.
Martin groaned as he woke up, having just managed to fall asleep. He looked towards the top of the pillar and saw that the Mana Muncher had gotten free from the structure.
The ork limbered up his muscles with a groan, adjusted the catapult on his shoulder and nodded. "Full force" He said under his breath to get motivated for the upcoming fight.
The Mana Muncher was a beast if Martin had ever seen one. It was much bigger than he had expected. Instead of being the size of a person, it was the size of a small house, making the ork painfully aware that it had been much further up than he had expected.
The creature itself was a mix of a mosquito and probably multiple earthworms.
Martin didn't know what to call the creature, as it had a fairly large body with a massive Abdomen that seemed to glow blue with mana. It had enormous wings that gave off a droning sound as it moved through the air. However, instead of a head, the beast had five, reminding Martin more of a hydra than a mosquito, as each head was attached to long and thick necks. The necks each had the texture and look of an earthworm, wiggling around and giving the heads quite the mobility. Each head had its own set of massive eyes and a stinger, which Martin idly remembered was called a proboscis, attached, ready to suck out any mana that it came into contact with.
Martin readied himself for battle, grabbing hold of the catapult he wondered just how much of a beating the beast could take before it would submit to him. There was only one way to find out.