“I am against it. Those bastards are asking for too much and for what? What if we find nothing worth this much expense, how will we then escape?”
“Do we have any other choice, Livian? Or do you think we will be welcomed with open arms after this debacle? Imperial investigators are already after us and they will also start chasing us after this. But if we can get something equally valuable from here we can turn the situation around.”
“I know but… sigh, I really want to strangle that bastard.”
“It was bad luck but now we have another opportunity so prepare yourselves.”
“Then I am gonna proceed with the payment, any objections? Livian, Meelion?”
“Go ahead.”
Nod.
The space started twisting and cracking. For a moment it remained like that but then a hole appeared that seemed to suck in all the light. Smaller than a fist but it quickly started growing until it could easily allow them passage.
A presence.
Nothing could be seen but their hairs stoop up as their senses alerted them to the presence of something gazing at them.
“Here is the payment.”
Something was sucked inside the portal and soon after a stone flew out, Jionic quickly caught it, placing it in her dimensional storage. The presence disappeared as abruptly as it had appeared. Only the portal remained, the space around it shaking lightly.
“Bastards.”
“Ugh, you have the guts to deal with them.”
“Hohoho, of course.”
Donning their suits, they quickly entered the portal.
***
“Shit… really?”
Their armors suits had gone into overdrive the moment they had stepped out of the portal. The air twisted as their armors forcefully blocked the corruptive and overpowering cold from invading and freezing them to death.
The frozen ground beneath their feet thawed while the tiny frozen shards in the air melted as the heat and cold clashed, air twisting due to the heat being released from the armors until they finally acclimated to the new environment.
“What are these imperials thinking? Why the heck did they have to choose a damned death world out of the million others?”
“Jionic, can it be they did not make a contract with the Great Spirit of this world?”
“Not likely, otherwise how could they invest this many resources in this world?”
“Livian, Jionic, concentrate on reinforcing the control over your Qi. External Qi here is too corruptive and chaotic, it may affect our wound.”
A storm of Qi converged. It was sudden and before they could even consider it, the massive amount of Qi started gathering.
“What is this creepy thing?”
Despite the pitch-black darkness that made it impossible to even see the fingers, all three of them could easily sense whatever was happening around them in perfect clarity. This allowed them to sense the thing being created from the converging waves of Qi.
Meeloin waved her hand, forcefully dispersing the maelstrom of Qi as though it never had been there.
Cough..cough.Cough!
“You okay?”
Livian and Jionic both surrounded her. Worried that her injured may have gotten out of control.
“Fuuu… it seems like I was injured more deeply than I imagined. You two be careful, we will take turns to disrupt whatever is being created.”
Nod.
“Okay”
Once she brought her Qi under control again, she addressed Livian.
“Which way?”
“I sense an abnormally dense cluster of life force but nothing except that. It is quite far away too?”
“How far?”
“A few months? I can’t tell, something is messing with my abilities.”
Thinking.
“Should I send out my contracted jinns to scout?”
“Once we get close.”
The Qi that had forcefully been calmed down started converging again. They forcefully disrupted the phenomena again and started moving at full speed but no matter what they did, the phenomena kept following them persistently.
Soon they could no longer be seen and the only thing left behind was the slowly shrinking portal. From the size of an adult to a child, then to a fist, and then even smaller until it was so small that it could no longer be sensed. As though it had disappeared.
The place had regained its calm as the maelstroms of Qi did not occur again as though it had all been an illusion.
Time passed, something that was impossible to tell. Though the sky was adjourned with twinkling stars, they were far away, their lights feeble, unable to pierce through the curtain of darkness that was draped over the world, unable to shed their light on this world. They were just there, twinkling.
Silence. There was nothing. Even the portal had disappeared from the senses.
Suddenly, the ice below the location of the portal started twisting, molding in the shape of a cat.
“A pleasant surprise. Hehehe…”
The sculpture suddenly jumped, disappearing into the minuscule portal.
***
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“Welcome. Please come in.”
“?”
It was a mess, something that he had not expected.
“Ah, I didn’t think you would visit otherwise I would have made this place more presentable.”
With a wave of her hand, the apparatus that was laying on the ground moved, clearing a passage for them to move through.
“No need. I just came to confirm that he is prepared.”
Knrama looked around. This mansion should have been filled with decoration making it more of an art than a structure, but all of the decorations that should have been present were nowhere to be seen, instead replaced with holograms that were glowing with green light and apparatus of all kinds. He could occasionally make out various assembled parts.
“That you don’t need to worry about. I have personally tested him multiple times and can say with confidence that he will pass.”
“That is a relief, Seeker Fria-al. What about his speech problem?”
“I will force him to use that device, with that there will be no problem.”
“Then I hope to see him here often. What are you making here, Seeker?”
“Armor suit. This kid is too reckless and I can’t look after him when he is out there so all I can do is equip him with something that can withstand his craziness.”
“One of my granddaughters will be interested and would have liked to come to visit if she had known about it, unfortunately, she is stuck in her projects.”
“What kind of project?”
“Something related to alloys related to the armor suits, as far as I know.”
“Hoh… she is welcome to visit whenever she comes.”
“Thank you. Is Harvester Inero-ie not present?”
“In his room.”
“Really…”
Being able to hide his aura from him despite the massive difference in cultivation level, and to such an extent. He could see why he could consistently take on missions related to the Outer Barrier despite his cultivation level.
‘Good, good. With this, I don’t have to worry about Cile. He will be able to protect her sufficiently though she will have to make an effort to mold his attitude. But will she? Humm… I will have to leave it to Sline.’
“Do you want to meet him?”
“No need to disturb him. I will be leaving then and will be awaiting the good news.”
***
Ideas flowed through his mind, coming and going like waves, as he tried to get a grasp on the law of Inevitability. Though he still could not get a hold of it, it was better than before. Now he at least had a direction to put his efforts unlike before when he had been flailing randomly hoping to get any result.
‘Inevitable. Something that was bound to happen. Bound to. Maybe now, maybe in the future. But occur nonetheless.’
He was focused on the delaying aspect. From the moment he had been enlightened, there was one application that had instantly sprung into his mind, something that would give him another tool to better fulfill his promise, though like always, it would also contain a path to his desire.
It would be like ‘The Way Through’ in that it would allow him to escape in a dire condition but the aftereffects will similarly be significant. He would survive but there would be a high possibility of death afterward.
That was the basis of anything he did. Something that allowed him to keep his promise but still gave him the possibility of death.
Like the winds blowing across the frozen landscapes, ideas constantly blew through his mind but as he still was not completely healed, he had to curate them, only testing those he felt would show some result.
He could not allow his condition to worsen. With his checkup coming in a few days, he had a suspicion that doctor Shedill could still ban him from going outside if he did not heal properly.
***
“ID?”
“Please follow me.”
Nod.
From the jampacked halls to an empty office. He sat there waiting and after some time the door opened again.
“So you are the young man Shedill asked me to look after. How are you, kid?”
Nod.
“And what is that supposed to mean? You have a mouth so use it.”
“O..k”
“Humm… Can I examine something?”
Nod.
He controlled his reflexes from acting out. He had never stopped training his body even though he had been busy with the law. By now he had regained almost half of his abilities.
The hand approached his neck, threads surrounding it like a mesh making him aware of even the smallest twitch. He sensed Qi slowly leaving the hand and enveloping his neck.
“Your vocal cords are very weak. Even weaker than other harvesters. You should practice speech or it may continue deteriorating.”
Silence.
The doctor went to her desk, a hologram popping as soon as she injected her Qi.
“It amazes me every time I see it… What did you do to damage your body to this extent?”
“S.ki.ll.”
“But why were the symptoms so extreme compared to other times? Did you overuse it?”
Nod.
“Follow me. Let's see how you are doing now.”
The hall was filled to the brim, with people coming and going causing the air to be charged with current as they hurriedly moved towards their destinations. Despite the objectively wider hall, the space instead felt smaller due to the number of people.
The capital with its massive population had a mind-bogglingly large number of harvesters. The number was so large that all of the harvesters in his settlement were nothing more than a drop of water in a bucket.
People were constantly coming in, some lightly injured, others critically, and then there were also those going out.
“How do you sense your surroundings? Using Qi?”
Nod.
“Hoh. You haven’t undergone a single shedding right, how did you train your abilities to such an extent.”
Silence.
“You really don’t like talking. Well, you don’t need to answer, now get in.”
It was quiet. They were inside a long empty hall with pods attached to both the left and right walls of the hall. Sensing where her arm was pointing, his threads spread in that direction and he entered the pod she had pointed.
“Amazing.”
The pod sealed as soon as he was inside and he was quickly submerged inside a liquid. A wave of sleepiness tried sending him to the realm of dreams but he resisted with all his might because once he slept, the barrier he had created would be torn down. Every moment from then on would be hell until he left the barrier.
***
“Overall you are healing well. Compared to the data she had sent, it is even quicker. Do you know why?”
“N..o.”
“Now let's get into the details. Though your major problems are healing well, I found small, almost negligible cracks all over your core. With the strength of your core, it will endure for some time but be warned that if it continues like this you will end up crippled. It won’t kill you.”
His head jerked.
“That's how it is. She told me that you can’t stay inside and always like to wander outside so if you want to continue doing so, I will advise you to stop doing whatever may be putting pressure upon the core.”
***
He withdrew his senses resulting in his awareness dramatically decreasing. One moment he had been able to clearly sense everything in his vicinity, blowing wind, rustling leaves, taught bark of the trees, the smell of the leaves, the warmth of the light.
He could still listen with his ears, smell with his nose, and feel with his skin but it was incomparable to just a moment ago.
Rustle rustle.
Still, they were more than enough to guide him as he wandered through the forest all alone. It was quiet with no sound asides from his footsteps and the swaying grass and rustling leaves.
Deeper and deeper.
Somewhere along the way a new sound mixed into the melody. His body trembled instinctively at the sound of running water. The memories of the time he had dived into the pitch-black and malevolent sea of the Under Dark burst forth.
He sat down, nature’s tunes surrounding him.
Nature was intense, unforgiving, and ready to reap life at any single misstep. That was what he had experienced before but now as he sat on the ground, he experienced a complete contrast. Calm, soothing, healing, attributes he had never assigned to nature.