– Era of the Wastes, Cycle 218, Season of the Rising Moon, Day 1 –
The heavens roared and never ceased following the bloody blade on Terry’s king spear. Like the deadly reaper of the realm itself, he waltzed through the mass of mushroom-sprouting invaders. Whatever mana curse was compelling the dull-eyed army to threaten the sanctity of the dungeon and its mana, there was no room to hesitate.
All of Terry’s exhaustion had been washed away by the liquid mana that was running through his channels and reaching his bloodstream from specific locations. The double infusion of wholly naturalized mana into every cell of his body was completely intoxicating. His strength and speed were incomparable to ever before. The only weapon he could trust to withstand the increased ferocity was the king spear with its unbreakable pole and blade strengthened by lightning.
Terry rippled over the battlefield as the harbinger of a changing crimson tide. Wherever he arrived, the curse’s crimson glow vanished to be replaced by the crimson of ancient blood. Around him, the dungeon creatures were following along and tearing viciously into the invaders outside his immediate reach.
Seeing the Arcanian from a distance, the martialists were fighting with renewed spirits. They did not benefit from the same supplement of mana like the mage, but they stubbornly refused to let their muscles rest when there were more throats and tendons to be cut. This was an opportunity to avenge themselves. This was their last hopeful rebellion against death.
They tried to make sense of what they were experiencing but came up short. The whole realm felt heavier than before. Mana suppression. The eerie quiet of immobilized enemies. The strengthening scent of fresh blood. There were many that saw the Arcanian as a mighty senior wielding a domain of authority and an unavoidable spear intent. This was their best attempt at describing the phenomenon in their own vocabulary.
Naturally, their attempts at explaining the abilities of an empowered mage and mana cultivator in terms of martialism were off the mark. Few of them had ever met the strongest martialists among their sects. None of them had ever met an individual at the pinnacle of orthodox mana use, much less glimpsed beyond its supposed limits.
Limits.
Terry himself could start to sense the limits of his borrowed power. The dungeon’s mana was submitting to him swiftly and completely. It was practically offering itself up for the mage’s use. Nevertheless, it was still on Terry to use it. He had to shape and prime the Immovable Object spells. He had to force the mana into the form of spell slicers and direct them towards all the blooming hostile spell structures.
He was beginning to realize one of the reasons why a dungeon might have chosen to cooperate with him specifically at this moment. All of his past training had acted as a multiplier for his natural talent in the pillars of mana foundation.
Now his own mana and spell control acted as multipliers for the offered mana.
His ranged naturalization practice accelerated the speed of flipping the ambient mana into his oscillating mana type.
His mana touch acted as a conductor for unparalleled parallelization of his casting, even beyond the reach of his regular mana sense.
The synergy of everything together was much greater than the individual parts.
Terry suspected that the dungeon had more things to consider than these self-evident qualities, but he had little chance to understand such a foreign mind.
The way the battlefield had flipped, he doubted that such an occurrence had ever happened before in this folded space during all the time that it had been threatened by mana-cursed invaders.
Perhaps it was the fact that he just so happened to bring a fiendish item connected to an enormous mana pool of foreign nature. A mana source whose mind-influencing side-effect was evidently useless on a dungeon and nothing more than a welcome supply of usable mana.
There was probably more to it, but this was not the time to ponder. He did not know how long this state of empowerment and mana sharing could last.
Terry pushed a vast mass of mana to the other side of the tear in reality. He was running out of enemies to slay on this side and time was of the essence.
His mana overwhelmed the spores.
His spell slicers erupted in a vast wall of overwhelming disruption.
His mana bubble rippled and the Immovable Object spell grew like mushrooms on the fungus-infested army.
Terry boldly followed his mana and stepped into unknown territory.
Two weird sensations forced themselves onto the mage at once…
His mana sight fleetingly seemed to gain another layer of color he had never perceived before. Purple glows in the distance from his back – around the area where his martialist allies were cleaning up the mana-cursed invaders. More faint purple traces from the assimilated beasts of the dungeon itself.
On the side to his front, however, there was nothing in that wavelength of color.
Nearly nothing.
His mind itched from his mana touch and something was itching in an entirely new manner. Something small. Stationary. Behind thousands more of fungus-infested soldiers.
The second weird sensation was a certain stickiness to his movements. Before, everything had slowed down the moment the dungeon had granted him access to liquified mana and enhanced senses.
However, this was different. Terry’s eyes told him that he was moving just as quickly as before.
It took a moment to notice the changes in mana that followed him. The source of the ‘sticky’ sensation. In his wake, the dungeon’s claim followed. With every step, the dungeon was spreading its influence and turning the invasion around.
Soon, Terry was not fighting alone in the strange side of isolated space. He was joined by countless dungeon beings pushing into the foreign reality with a vengeance.
Covered by the spell-disrupting wall of mana and immobilizing spellwork, the dungeon was continuing a one-sided massacre. Even the crimson spores were starting to evaporate within the mana under the dungeon’s influence.
Terry did not notice that the tear in reality grew bigger and different at the same time. The seal was being changed to further open the current gate while reinforcing another location. It did not matter to the mage, because he had his own target in his sights, or rather in his mana feelers.
With an enormous infusion of mana, the king spear pierced through the battlefield and right into a tiny stump of wood. Lightning raged forth from the strange heaven above. The intense flickering of light left behind dark charcoal that bled something resembling glowing snakes – the cursed tree’s insides were glowing from heat.
Terry could finally feel it. The kind of mana whose existence he had suspected but failed to detect before. If not for the immense power flowing through his veins and mana channels, he would have received another shiver on his back when his naturalized mana came into contact with the strange channeling anchor embedded into the devilish tree stump.
These fungus-infested folks were not channelers themselves, but the mana-curse infecting them was somehow guided by an otherrealm entity through a placed anchor.
Terry noted with grim determination that destroying the channeling mechanism did not stop the mana-cursed army. The spores continued to blast forth from every one of their wounds. The dull-eyed hosts continued to fight.
To his elation, the difference in their fighting was like night and day.
When before they had shown a small sphere of agency, then now it had shrunken all the way to the individual. When before, they had cooperated with the other members of the fungus-infested army, now it appeared to be every individual for themselves. No more than reacting to immediate stimulus for self-preservation.
Easy pickings for a mad dungeon.
***
“What just happened?!” A martialist exclaimed between heavy breaths.
“I think… I think we’ve won?” His only remaining sect member muttered.
“We? Hardly,” scoffed Annabelle lightly and wiped some blood from her forehead. She was still wearing her indistinct black combat robes. She pointed at Terry. “That was his win.”
The Arcanian had seemingly fallen unconscious in the midst of mushroom-covered corpses vanishing into nothingness and all the retreating dungeon beings.
“If he had powers like that, why didn’t he play it sooner?”
“Shut it! What if the senior from Arcana hears you?”
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“My junior is dead! If he—”
“Look! Something is happening!” The martialist pointed at a woman in the clothes of the Thunderous Palm Sect. It was the one that had betrayed her own sect members for Lightning Heart Peaches. She was rushing towards a platform that had been raised from the ground.
“Dungeon rewards! Quick!” Many among the martialists were tripping over their own feet to catch up and get their share of spoils.
“Ingrates.” Guillermo hissed. The elf was bandaging one of his arms and shook his head. He glanced at Terry, only to see a familiar leopard-spotted felan rushing towards the Arcanian.
Guillermo was observing Rafael with suspicion but quickly raised an eyebrow in surprise. He had taken the fungus-infested army and even the appearance of the supposedly extinct goblinoid giants in stride, but the sight of Rafael choosing to check on Terry instead of being the first to lay his paws on exposed treasures was truly beyond his expectations.
“Something is changing…” Zhang muttered while Chun was helping him stand up. He was not heavily injured, but he had pushed himself far beyond his limits.
“I thought the portal would close itself again, but now with the army defeated, it seems that…” Chun furrowed her brow.
“No, not that. Up there.” Zhang, who had been lying on the ground before, had gotten a better look at the sky.
A giant translucent figure appeared. “You have done this old ancestor proud. The seal has been restored.” The figure bowed slightly with cupped hands. “Gratitude.”
“Zip it, old fart.”
“Ancestor my shapely buttocks.” “Shapely?”
“Who wants to be your descendant? How about you become my descendant? You can call me grand-daddy.”
With the threat of the invasion repelled, many of the remaining martialists fell back into old habits. The words from the projected senior were largely ignored and several small fights broke out over the dungeon rewards.
Surprisingly, a sizable group of martialists did not join the clamoring for riches. This group instead stepped next to Rafael and crowded around Terry.
“How is he?” Zhang asked. He and Chun were supporting each other to stand upright.
“Knocked out,” said Rafael. “Looks bad, but all parts are still attached and where they should be, I believe. He’s still lacking a tail. Perhaps one of the humans should check him over. I’m not an expert in healing or humans.”
Chalita crouched down next to Rafael. The body she had possessed was now severely bruised and contained many roughly bandaged burns and cuts.
“Watch what you’re doing,” barked Annabelle with a threatening glare at Chalita.
“Yeah, if I sense anything strange, I won’t hold back” growled Guillermo.
The Outcast from the Ironbark Fist Sect and the sister of the Blazing Sun siblings were not the only ones that were sending warning gazes towards the woman of the Shadowed Forest Sect.
“My grudge is not with Terry,” spat Chalita. “On the contrary, I naturally consider this man my benefactor.”
The statement sparked several nods among the group.
Chalita sent a speck of mana into Terry’s body and eventually looked at Rafael. “Did you use a healing item?”
“I wish I could. I would if I had any left,” grumbled Rafael. “I used up everything before Terry… did whatever he did there.”
“Strange,” muttered Chalita pensively. “I can sense several wounds that seem to have closed not long ago. From superficial to severe. I can’t sense any remaining physical injuries.”
“How is that possible?” exclaimed Chun. “I saw him skewered by spells before.”
“I saw him engulfed in fire at some point.”
“I’m pretty sure his left arm was bent the wrong way when I last saw him.”
“These are not injuries that heal on their own,” commented Zhang. “Even with a freakish mana pool.”
“And his mana pool has already bottomed out completely.” Annabelle pointed out. As far as their mana sight could tell, there was not a single drop of mana left in Terry’s body. “He could not possibly be cloaking his mana while being unconscious, could he?”
Rafael put a finger on Terry’s neck to check for the magic necklace that cloaked mana automatically. Of course, the Arcanian had removed the necklace before the battle to not waste any mana on the necklace’s effect. Rafael shook his head. “No, I don’t think he can do that.”
“His skin has lost some color.” Guillermo pointed out. “Is that regular paleness or the beginnings of mana corruption?” He glanced among the group. “Does anyone have anything to treat that?”
“It’s just slight,” added Zhang. “Even if it was related to taking in foreign mana, this would be extremely mild. I doubt we have to worry about that.”
“Not taking any chances on this man’s life,” growled Guillermo sternly.
“I think I have something.” One of the other martialists handed over an item for Guillermo to check and apply.
“Speaking of mana…” Annabelle looked inquisitively at Chalita. “How are his mana channels?”
“Strained but completely intact from what I sensed,” replied Chalita and shrugged with a meaningful glance.
“No visible blood vessels,” muttered Zhang pensively.
“How?” Annabelle shook her head with a furrowed brow. “The amount of mana he wielded at the end was insane. Even the First Elder would not be able to do that. Definitely not without injuring his mana channels.”
“Beats me,” said Chalita. “The Arcanian did fight while keeping mana outside his body though.”
“He practiced that before the battle, yes.”
“I remember the sight. It looked strange.”
“But it was not to this extent,” stressed Zhang. “Never to this extent. That was…”
“And it would just raise more questions,” added Chun. “Where did the mana come from if it never passed through his mana channels?”
“Who gives a shit?” Rafael blurted out with frustration. “Is he okay?”
“I think so,” said Chalita. “His mana is already starting to regenerate at an unreasonable rate. Probably just needs time to recover and wake up.”
Rafael clicked his tongue and his eyes wandered to the locations of the dungeon rewards. He seemed to be conflicted. His gaze shifted between the rewards, the unconscious Arcanian, and the other martialists standing around his former ally from the Proving Grounds.
As much as he wanted to, Rafael did not trust the others as much as he trusted Terry, which meant that he was forced to watch them watch him. The thought of letting good magic items escape from his paws was agonizing but Rafael steadfastly stood by his choice. He was determined to protect the man.
Some of the other martialists were wearing similarly conflicted expressions. Their eyes were dancing the same steps over the area as Rafael’s. Drawn in by the valuable items, only to be forced back to their vulnerable benefactor.
“Rotten bastards.” Rafael cursed to vent his frustrations. He was glaring at the treasure-greedy martialists in the back. “Ingrates.” He could not prevent a trace of envy from seeping into his voice. “Imbeciles.”
“Perhaps we could— What’s going on?”
A sound that was like a mixture of a ticking clock and mirrors breaking echoed through the air and then the heavens split into a kaleidoscope. The center of gravity flipped and everything else flipped with it.
“I feel wrong.” One martialist muttered weakly.
They were all being overwhelmed from sights in which lines that should have been parallel suddenly converged, then diverged, and only returned to being parallel after nearly a minute.
After the disorienting and nauseating experience finally receded, people were left gasping for breath and wiping away cold sweat. The few unfortunate martialists that were in the process of running or fighting with others had the worst of it. Most of them were now busy emptying their stomachs.
“Did… the space just unfold?” exclaimed Zhang.
“Wait…” Before they could make sense of it, everyone was transported away at the same time.
***
“You did well, son.” A thin-lipped woman in white-golden martialist robes praised the martialist.
“I only did what was expected of me, mother,” replied Shen with insincere modesty.
As soon as the first people made it back from the legendary tomb, their sects had rushed to their location to protect their young geniuses from further confrontations. Naturally, many had also laid their predatory eyes on the young geniuses from other sects. More than one person had escaped the folded space with treasures only to be robbed naked after leaving it.
Everyone inquired about what had happened inside.
As always with these things, Shen had prepared multiple versions of his own account. One for outsiders, one for his own sect, one for his inner circle, and one for his closest confidants. As someone in charge of part of their sect’s intelligence division, he knew better than anyone about the importance of carefully managing information.
People were still camping at the location of this cycle’s place of return, which neighbored the former territory of the Soaring Mountain Sect. Most were busy trading for intel and items. Others were engaging in fights that ranged from friendly spars over thinly veiled aggression, all the way to daylight robbery.
Some were still trying to come to terms with losing those that had not returned – mourning or venting their frustrations on others. Only a handful continued waiting silently and stubbornly, clinging onto hopes that their own young geniuses would somehow create a miracle. However, even they themselves considered it to be little more than wishful thinking.
The more time passed since the last challenger of the tomb had returned, the more the mood changed. Those clinging to hope became more grave. Those whose champions had already returned became more gloating.
The number of violent incidents lessened while the intensity of violence heightened. Even a few elders that were normally composed began revealing their tempers under their own frustrations that were fed by the continued taunts and schadenfreude from others.
“Mistress Mei, How long do we plan to stay?” asked a close friend of Shen’s.
“Not much longer,” replied Shen’s mother. “We’re just waiting for the last batch of reports from our scouts. The forces of the damned Lich Kingdoms are roaming the nearby area and it’s better to pick a path that avoids them.”
“That’s not all we’re doing, I wager.” Shen grinned widely.
“Naturally not.” Mei winked at her son. “While we are going to avoid the Lich Kings’ forces, we are arranging for some of the other sects to run straight into them. Our agents will also keep an eye out for collecting the spoils and for identifying further opportunities.”
“The new expansion of the Lich Kingdoms is problematic,” interjected a man with bushy eyebrows. “It seems that they have accelerated their conquest ever since Arcana’s barrier shattered. If they persist at their current pace, then the next time the tomb opens, the exit location will be in the territory of the Lich Kingdoms. That spells problems.”
“Perhaps we should not let their conquest go unchecked.”
“The tomb will not reopen for years,” stressed Mei. “We’ll concern ourselves with it when the time comes. Until then, let the factions in the area worry about it. It’s their problem and their problems are our opportunities.”
Mei placed a hand on her son’s shoulder. “Don’t worry about the Shadowed Forest Sect, Shen. They have no evidence to press the matter further. Many of them might be seething and blaming you, but they are not united. Divided, their strength is not enough to pressure us.”
Shen’s expression darkened. “I don’t know where they heard the rumor that I had something to do with Chalita’s death in the tomb.” He made sure to put emphasis on the word ‘rumor.’ It was not out of habit or for further secrecy, but simply an inside joke. The people present all knew how true the rumor really was.
“Useless troublemaking. People are minding their own business when it’s worth minding.” Mei replied in the same joking tone. “The useless trash will indulge in gossip and idle speculation. Back to the discussion about the opportunity provided by the Lich Kingdoms.”
“Certainly, why don’t we—?” The man with bushy eyebrows was interrupted by a huge commotion from outside.
“Mistress Mei!” One of Mei’s messengers barged into the tent. “They’ve returned!”
“Who?” demanded Mei impatiently.
“From the tomb! More have returned! Just now, a large group arrived!”
“Impossible,” exclaimed Shen aghast. He and his entourage immediately charged out to see for themselves.
***