The fire had barely any blast zone, functioning like a hose spewing liquid. The cobblestones burned as the flame started spreading across them. Brown slowly bled into orange and yellow as the forces that gave it supernatural properties could not sustain themselves. Still, there were many divots and craters around Regis’s corpse. Tristan would bet that whoever found the armor would only find ash inside.

Grabbing Shadow Fist he draped him over his shoulders in a fireman carry. He had a long walk and could not drag the man the entire way. None of the guards tried to stop him, both the ones that could still walk simply averted their eyes from Shadow Fist. Blacklake had wanted a distraction, and Tristan would say he had outdone himself. He wondered if the execution was still set to proceed, Elder Forrest might be a forgotten commodity after this.

Tristan started jogging. It was night time and the recent twilight was eery. The light in the east had been getting progressively brighter over the last few weeks. The winter night was warm. Tristan was starting to get concerned and wished Vulcan could reassure him that it was a simple volcano. He pushed his worry aside, it was not productive, and it would not do to worry about the light.

He was slowed down by Shadow Fist, but not to an unreasonable degree. When he had approached the Forrest Caldera, he had been base tier four. After fighting Regis he wanted to think he was around twenty percent of the way into the tier. The second fight had not been a challenge at all. Regis had not waited and healed himself, Tristan would have been surprised if the man had a partially empty kern.

Vulcan would be an issue. This was the first time he had utilized the soul weapons full power. In short, Vulcan was too strong to keep and too important to set aside. There would be little danger in the Caldera after the Lord of the Underworld was dealt with. He needed to heal Vulcan as fast as he could.

Emptying Vulcan of essence was not possible, as he was always absorbing more in the primordial realm. However, if enough polluted essence was removed, the problem would get diluted into being a nonissue. Tristan had no idea how long it would take, but he already had an idea.

The armor he had was starting to turn into a silver steam. It was a surprise and also concerning. If constructs eventually reverted to essence, then what about the screws holding the war machines together? Another Vulcan question. He knew that his constructs lasted much longer, the chain mail shirt he had made back at the mine had shown no signs of dispersing. Tristan was doubtful that it was due to his power.

Testing out the comparison he made a bracelet on his left arm using Vulcan’s reservoir, and one on the right using his own. If neither disappeared, then he would know something else was amiss. However, that would take an hour or so, in the meantime he had a father who was slowly coming out of shock.

“What in all that is unholy was that,” Shadow Fist whispered.

There was a good amount of horror in his voice. The last time they had fought, Tristan had been mid tier two as opposed to Shadow Fist’s peak tier two. Now Shadow Fist was a base tier four against Tristan’s early tier four. Tristan had better weapons, training, opponents, and teachers than Shadow Fist. It should not have come as a surprise when the heavy armor lays out a beating to the stealth specialist.

“Did you expect it to go any differently? I almost beat Henry as a tier two, you were there,” Tristan snorted.

Shadow Fist took a few moments to process Tristan’s words and a few more to gather the air to respond, “Yes, I’m a strong fighter. I should have only needed a little help.”

There was a relatively unknown fact in the Caldera, one that Shadow Fist was unaware of. Fighting changed as someone grew stronger, an invisible tell would become easily noticed at higher tiers. Elements affected the body more, adding and removing options. In short, an experienced tier two would not result in an experienced tier four, unless he was also fighting tier fours at tier two.

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This was why Tristan was better than most people he met. He had been trained against tier fours, and Luke was even keeping his lead. Cutting his way through several elemental armies had gotten him halfway to tier six. That was what separated Siren’s elites from the rest of the caldera. It was a brutal and often discouraging way to grow, but Tristan could not argue with the results.

“No you’re not,” Tristan said, “You were handed your tier, and you get what you pay for.”

Shadow Fist did not talk for the next thirty minutes. It gave the armor plenty of time to dissipate, however, Tristan noticed something odd. The construct around Shadow Fist’s hands showed no sign of dissipating. Taking down both Shadow Fist and Regis had only taken a few minutes, so why would the metal show no signs of dissipating?

Looking at the bracelets, he saw no sign of dispersal. Was it as simple as both objects lacking a force? Tristan made a third bracelet with Vulcan’s reserves and dumped as much adamance as he could into it. A few moments later, the world’s most durable bracelet was made. Five minutes after that, it started smoking.

So this was the reason force channels were important in crafting. It was not a perfect conclusion, as tower steel lacked those channels, but was still filled with a force. This was frustrating, a lack of information was not something he was used to. He would just have to use trial and error to learn, like a normal person.

“What are you planning to do to me?” Shadow Fist muttered. His voice was hollow, almost as if he had given up.

Tristan tried to shrug, but the way he was carrying Shadow Fist made it difficult, “I don’t know. We will likely throw you in a cell where no one has to deal with you.”

Originally, Tristan would have said no prison could hold a tier four. However, his understanding of the tier’s limits let him know that was false. They were just stronger versions of a regular human, so many of the answers that could halt a normal person would still work. Tranquilizers would work, and it would be entirely possible to snip some tendons. Healing could patch them up later if it was ever found to be necessary.

“Then why did you even bother?” Shadow Fist asked.

Tristan had been wondering the same thing. He could not understand it himself. Because we are family sounded nice, but it was also shallow. It was a feeling of unwillingness to do nothing and watch his father die. It was likely the same reason that Shadow Fist had not slid one of his poisoned bone knives between Tristan's ribs. He did not have to announce himself, in fact, the ambush would have been successful if he hadn’t.

“There is a man who rattles on about doing what is right, not what feels right,” Tristan started, unsure himself where the train of thought was heading, “I don’t think it's a creed that gives him what he wants in life. It gives him something I want though, he has a purpose. After the Lord of the Underworld is dead, my current purpose will be pointless. The only two people in the Caldera able to oppress me will be friends. It makes struggling to grow my power seem meaningless. Maybe I will leave the Caldera, but I don’t want to leave with regrets.”

He had channeled his teenage anger into a bullheaded pursuit of power. It would have killed him if anything had been slightly different. Now, there seemed to be less and less to be angry about and more to be grateful about. When some random person scorned him for his kern, it felt less like a system was oppressing him and more like a child was throwing a temper tantrum. Best to ignore it and move on to people he could get along with.

The trees gave way to plains. Tristan had to jump the ditch dug around the large grassland. He was pretty sure that all the ghost crabs had been wiped out, but they were still a threat to him. A guard crab variant would be able to do a lot of damage with its scythe like claws if it caught him by surprise.

They did not see any sign of the large creatures. The unseasonable warmth had allowed the snow to melt and water the ground. Weeds, wild wheat, and corn had started to sprout. All the deaths and corpses had probably been good for the soil.

Two hours later, the River Caldera had come into view. Tristan had contemplated taking Shadow Fist to the Lake Caldera, but he was not sure where they could put him. He also did not want Blacklake to have access to him until after everything had blown over. Not that Shadow Fist would not be questioned, he just would not be tortured.

He also knew that Helen was fragile. She was like a broken vase that had been poorly glued together, and he was sure that being able to speak to her husband could help. Little Tris would probably want to see him as well.

There were no guards outside the gate at this time of night. It was a few hours past midnight, but nowhere near sunrise. A few people patrolled the top of the wall. Tristan contemplated getting their attention, but no guard worth their salt would open a gate for what appeared to be a kidnapping. They would not be wrong either, but if it was sanctioned by the Elder, someone would be expecting Tristan’s arrival.

He would need to wait. So he set Shadow Fist down against the wall and prepared to wait until sunrise.