It took Tristan nearly an hour to reach the back wall. He had been running the entire time, but the winding nature of the streets and the less complete nature of the buildings slowed him down. He was surprised that the buildings were becoming more dilapidated as he got deeper into the city. It was almost as if the fighting had been fiercest in this area.
Following his hunch, Tristan followed the destroyed area. It was not long before he found his first destroyed stairway, the glass tube around it shattered. Half a mile later he found his first corpse. It had been odd that there were no bodies here, elementals were absent, and no spriggon slept in the rubble. For what appeared to be a war zone, that was a bit odd.
So it came as a slight relief when he found the ents corpse. All the extraneous branches had been burned away, making the creature look like a human wearing wooden armor. The six eyes on its mask-like face were split by a neat slice that tore through the top of its head and down into its chest cavity. Tristan might have thought that the ent was killed by this strike if he hadn’t watched the same survive decapitation.
The killing blow had been delivered once the ent was on the ground. There were knuckle shaped indents burned into the ent’s body. Tristan was not sure what tier someone needed to be to exert this kind of force, but they were definitely higher than Tristan.
Vulcan let out a mental whistle, “It’s not every day you find combat focused light essence user.”
“A light kern did this?” Tristan asked wide eyed. He had assumed it had been someone with a fire kern. Light kerns were good for endurance, healing, and not much else in his experience. The only true exception was Jenna, but she relied more on her earth kern than light one.
“Maybe, though I would bet that they had an anima as well. You will be amazed at how effective techniques are,” Vulcan said, “Light has some pretty impressive offense and movement techniques.”
Tristan remembered seeing Conni fight a few times. He had used what he called steps to use his fire anima in unpredictable ways. However, he seemed incapable of utilizing fire in any of the ordinary ways. Kneeling beside the ent, Tristan had to take back his initial dislike of the anima’s limitations.
This also showed that this city had soldiers that could most likely exceed the Caldera’s and they still died out. Standing, Tristan continued on his way. It was not much later that he came across the back wall, and second walled off area. It was circular, like the arena, but had different murals on it. Scales replaced warriors, and men in fancy suits with pens replaced beasts and their sharp fangs.
Pillars were carved to look like they held up the ceiling, despite the wall behind them extending to the roof as well. Tristan nodded to himself. That looked like a government building if he had ever seen one. Now to find a door. He started walking and quickly found a large pair of double doors. They were damaged as if something heavy had been smashed into them repeatedly.
The metal banding was disfigured, and the wood was dented, but all the damage was cosmetic in nature. Tristan placed a hand on the door and was surprised to feel a familiar force in the wood. Adamance. Glancing at the dents in the wood, he could only chuckle. The ents would have had an easier time getting through the stone wall than through the empowered wood.
Unfortunately, the door was just as good at keeping Tristan out as the ents. He did not believe that decay would work on adamance, though he had no proof. Deciding that it wouldn’t hurt to try, Tristan smeared some decay on the wood. It ran down the door leaving behind only surface level damage.
Not sure where to go from here, Tristan turned to his resident adamance expert, “So, how do I break in?”
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Vulcan had been examining the doors, “If you were tier five I could get it open with the control of state that the tier grants your kern,” he paused as if he were thinking, “We can use your tier four talent to weaken the area around the hinges.”
Tristan shuddered at the thought, he had no desire to spend weeks here. Though he did not need to bind decay to everything, just the screws that held the hinges in. And if he did it inside the door, it would have to eat through the door instead of running down its face. Tristan reached out with his metal sense and found the hinges. They swung inward, making them easy to bar.
Speaking of bars, Tristan smiled as he looked to the center of the door. Why loosen four hinges and their foot long bolts when he could simply loosen the bolts holding the bar in place? Reaching up he used his tier four ability and infusion alloy to pump decay alloy into the bolts. They did not need to destroy much of the wood, only enough to loosen them within their housings.
His cocky smile faded when he started realizing just how much essence he would need to use. It would take at least a further two kerns of essence to rot the bolts free. Adamance was stupidly durable. The fact that this level of force was needed to delay Tristan highlighted the faulty nature of defenses.
“How do walls protect people, I can’t imagine that one that fails to keep me out would keep much else out,” Tristan asked. Was safety just an illusion? The ramparts had made him feel safe, but after meeting the drake he couldn’t see a pile of stone stopping it.
“There is a saying in the Numitor empire ‘A fortress is like a tree filled with ripe fruit and when shaken it falls into the devourer’s mouth.’” Vulcan said, “The only way to be safe is to kill anything that can hurt you. In other words, only one person can be safe at any given time.”
Tristan grimaced at that, “It sounds like a depressing way to live.”
“No, what you are feeling is the difference between ignorance and reality. Most people choose to view reality as something subjective, and that makes them happy. They see large piles of gold and high city walls and feel safe. As an emperor, I would rather have ignorant but happy and productive subjects. However, as a friend, I would rather you be prepared to face the monsters that don’t care about wealth or morals. You’re like my uncle, you want to kill those monsters, I would be a poor teacher if I did not tell you how sharp their fangs were,” Vulcan explained this seriously.
Tristan nodded slowly. He had never voiced his plan to one day kill Viral. The man’s last name was Numitor and he was not sure how Vulcan would react to Tristan targeting what was essentially his last of kin. However, Viral was not the only one, Tristan had more than one target. The mythical beasts that had terrorized the Caldera for multiple centuries were made by someone. He intended to find out who and why. This empty city was proof that someone had a lot of deaths to answer for.
“Thank you, and you’re right,” Tristan said, “Most of the things I want to fight are ten tiers higher than myself.”
“Uh…,” Vulcan said uncertainly, “Viral is sixteen tiers higher, and he is extremely powerful powerful for his tier.”
“Oh,” Tristan muttered, a little deflated, “I guess I have a bit more work than I had originally thought.”
He had known that Viral was stronger than Vulcan, but imagining something beyond tier fifteen was beyond him. Tristan could not fathom what someone strong enough to be called a god would be capable of. One day he would, he wondered if he would set up a pantheon as well and if he could get Luke to join it. Luke with god powers, that was a recipe for chaos.
Tristan shook his head to clear it of the frivolous thoughts as he felt the bolts pull free. The doors overlapped slightly to stop the enemy from sawing through the bar, but with the bar being loose now Tristan was able to push the doors open. Once upon a time, they had been weighted to be swung easily. Now, they scraped along the floor. The hinges had loosened under the beating that the ents had given it.
Fortunately, the doors weren’t so heavy that Tristan couldn’t open them with a bit of effort. A few shoves got it wide enough for him to squeeze through. Stepping in he scanned the interior. Contrary to the exterior, the inside was pristine. Dust had settled on most surfaces, but that was a small problem compared to the destruction outside.
Spreading out his metal sense, he felt for moving metal. Armor was common for people, but there was nothing. The interior of this building may have been intact, but it was just as dead as everything else. Glancing back, Tristan decided to shut the door, the tier zero spriggons would be unable to open it. The only living ent could, but the chances of it showing up were quite literally one in a million.