Amongst the monsters, the confusion only increased as they tried to find the cause of the successive sonic booms but continuously failed to detect anything. It caused a wave of restlessness to spread through the monster had mental energies strained due to being in close proximity to the Grand Formation, something that was especially evident in the monster that had just recently escaped the forest and still had not shed its effects. This caused them to further fall into confusion, in the end lashing out at anything in the surrounding.
Like a spark giving birth to fire, chaos was left in their wake but neither Inero-ie nor Cile had any interest in it. Carefully secured within his arms, Cile tried to focus on Inero-ie’s Qi circulation, a simple task made unbearably tricky due to the crushing feeling that was pressuring her body.
Despite the multiple strengthening effects Inero-ie had applied to his body, he was still suffering from the effects of moving at such high speed so there could be nothing said for her. Though she wanted to observe how he controlled the Qi, her body was weak and she had to focus all her mental energy on protecting herself.
Another moment and they were now in front of the gargantuan Grand Formation. Then they were inside. The acceleration came to a sudden stop and Cile felt the air forcefully, brutally hammered out of her lungs, and then as Inero-ie tried to place her down, he suddenly noticed her weakened state, carefully acting as her support.
Always alone, never had the thought even crossed his mind that should protect her, something that had occurred multiple times before during this journey but while previously he could fairly quickly detect his errors, this time though, he had been fully focused on controlling the Qi furiously galloping inside his body as well as his body running at super fast speed.
“I was thoughtless,” Inero-ie conveyed through the Thread.
“No need, how much time do I have,” Cile asked, forcing her body to endure and then looked at the ground blow.
Though her voice was almost instantly shredded by the ever-present howling winds, the Threads gave him a perfect sense of his surroundings, overwhelmingly so. “A most five minutes,” Inero-ie replied and then he spread his Melding to the princess seeing as she was still unable to bear the effects of the speed.
“Thank you but no need, let's go,” said Cile in her characteristic neutral voice, devoid of any emotions, and then both of them dived into the ice.
----------------------------------------
Just like what she had seen outside the forest, below the surface was filled to the brim with the root system shining in her eyes, some thick and branching into thinner roots and eventually surrounding the Grand Formation. They could not approach the Grand Formation itself, as though a barrier stopped them once they were a certain distance from the massive formation.
Still, as deeper as they went, these roots had filled the space, not even an inch of space free.
‘But why?’ Cile thought as she came to a stop not going down any further, moving as close to them as safely possible. What was the reason for this? What did these things achieve from this? Qi flowed out of her body, heading towards specific roots which promptly sucked the Qi, its suction trying to pull even more Qi from her body. She watched as the root shined with a greeted intensity than those in the surroundings and this shining effect flowed to the bigger roots as her Qi was passed downwards.
Though she tried to follow the process, it stopped as the roots refined her Qi, purifying it of her signature.
Inero-ie followed behind silently counting time. A few minutes had already passed since he had overloaded his core, most of which was time spent here as the princess observed this massive root system that surrounded this equally massive formation.
They dived even deeper finding nothing different, the root system seemed to have latched onto the barrier that kept the monsters from coming too close to the Grand Formation. Moving down at high speed, they could make out the curve that was ordinarily invisible due to its massive size.
This book is hosted on another platform. Read the official version and support the author's work.
"Have you tried to see how deep they go?" Asked Cile. From what she could see, they had completely surrounded the Grand Formation underground.
"I never tried but there has to be a limit. A few more kilometers and we will breach the Under Dark. It shouldn't be strong enough to bear the cold or the monsters that inhabit that place." Inero-ie replied.
The five minutes had passed and before Inero-ie could remind her, Cile motioned Inero-ie and then started heading towards the surface.
Constantly moving while maintaining the Melding expanded quite a bit of his Qi reserve, reducing the explosive force inside his core. It was good in a way as it would reduce the effort to expel this Qi once they were close to the settlement.
His attention shifted to the princess. Just like she could freely control the ice with seemingly no usage of Qi, she had maintained the Melding while using only a tiny bit of her Qi. It was only for the ice for when she had tried darkness Melding, the spike in Qi usage had been exponentially greater.
He cleared his mind of useless thoughts, gathering them, and throwing them into the corner of his mind along with other useless things. It had nothing to do with him. As requested by the being in the frozen castle, he had taught her to the best of his abilities during this journey except about the Threads. But that required specialized training in formations that would take time to pass on. Time that he did not want to waste. He wanted to go to the Frozen Sea as soon as possible and die.
Once he had secured her, he rushed at full speed but this time he deployed formation around her to reduce the discomfort that she would feel.
----------------------------------------
As Inero-ie came to a sudden stop, sonic booms erupted behind him while the inertia pulled at both their bodies, trying to drag them forward but was unable to do so. The Core Barrier was in front of him, a few minutes at his speed and he would enter the the Core section of the Grand Formation. He did not immediately enter, first closing his eyes, once again asserting his control over the Qi, making sure not a single wisp was picked up. This place was filled with sensors and scanners and he did not want his signals to be picked up.
Once he was satisfied, he resumed the run but this time his speed was much lower, still, this Grand Formation was relatively a new one and thus incomparable to the capital whose Core section had a radius of hundred of kilometers. Compared to that this was nothing, just five kilometers which would be covered in the twenty or so seconds he still had.
Even upon just entering the Core section, it was possible to see the humongous settlement, powerful lights shining from it, lighting up the whole section. This far though, the area was dark, the light barely able to reach it.
After gazing at the multi-layered settlement, each successive layer setting upon the previous one, once again turned her attention to the Qi circulating inside Inero-ie’s body.
Ice columns, some thin, some thick, some large, some small, of all sizes, had formed a complicated forest but it was unable to reduce Inero-ie's speed as he effortlessly weaved through the columns, easily outrunning any monsters that he did come across. As he neared the settlement, that light got brighter and brighter, though, in this forest of columns, it was difficult to ascertain that, the shadows cast by the lights were dark.
Finally, as they emerged out of the forest of frozen columns, what awaited them was the shining ground, as though innumerable jewels had been combined to create the surface and then there were pillars behind them, likewise sparkling, creating a beautiful scenery.
Once he was a few hundred meters away from the towering settlement, Inero-ie stopped, sensing his surroundings and once he found the desired place, he ran towards it. Qi flooded through the Threads, the mound of ice in front of him hallowing and creating enough space to be comfortable sit for both of them. Once inside, the mound sealed itself once again.
This time Cile was not overwhelmed with a feeling of weakness like the last time. The formations created by Inero-ie along with her own efforts barely able to offset the effects of such high speed. Still, her body screamed in pain with every little movement, something that did not actually affect her. Uncaring of the pain, she turned towards Inero-io who now sat cross-legged on the ground.
‘No damage,’ she had noticed it but his Qi circuits were still working without any damage, still circulating the Qi that they should not have been able to handle. Then she noticed his body suit that had been deformed, stuck unnaturally deep inside his body. Maybe he too had his body bruised due to the speed.
What she was more curious about was him not uttering a single sound despite the pain he should be feeling. Though it had occurred throughout this journey, it once again reinforced the fact that he was unlike a normal human, or even a normal harvester for that matter.
The major circuits emerging from his heart were all bright, while the heart shined like the solar crystal on the top layer of the capital. As these major circuits carried the Qi throughout his body, branching into circuits of various sizes, the brightness likewise had spread across his whole body. In the end, the Qi eventually reached the circuits so small that she could not see them but what she could see was the Qi that left his body making the hallowed out space dense in Qi.