Flying out of the ship, Caeden had an excellent view of the army of ghosts Damon had summoned all swarming a familiar town. The hanging buildings covered with riotous plantlife climbing up the side of the mountain, interconnected with ethertech elevators were just as impressive now as ever. Though it was slightly soured after Caeden had learned that some of that ethertech had been supplied by the Revolution to keep the leaders of the town silent about the secret mine deep beneath.
Then again, these people were the ones that Caeden sympathized with the most. They weren’t actually revolutionaries bent on mass genocide. They were just normal people, caught between two forces widely outside their control. After all, if the leaders of Mining Station 003 had exposed the Revolution mine, it would have gotten them nothing at best.
There was a very real possibility that the entire town was killed just to prevent any revolutionaries from slipping by, only for more unshrouded to be shipped in to keep the mine going. A scenario that the leaders were no doubt aware of. So when offered some useful rewards in exchange for silence that also kept them safer, he would be hard-pressed to make a different choice himself. Staying quiet was just objectively better for them.
That was also why he felt awful about this town getting caught up in the founder’s mess. He likely hadn’t even realized he’d brought a town along with the mountain it was on, and he certainly didn’t care. These people’s deaths didn’t even factor into the founder’s thoughts. It was a strange confluence of events that had these people arriving here in dire circumstances, only to be saved.
The ghost army swooped down on the town like a swarm of locusts, retrieving people no matter their circumstances. This led to a few awkward situations, with people being grabbed from their beds or even while dressing and bathing, but Caeden whole-heartedly believed that embarrassing them was much better than letting the people die. After all, they had no way of knowing how soon the resurrection of the Magma Titan would be.
Caeden’s Cosmic Smith eyes could see the energy steadily increasing in the Heartstone, but he didn’t know when it would peak. All he could tell was that the Ki-rich air on the far-off continent was causing it to soak up power at an alarming speed.
Caeden felt that they were immensely lucky to have Damon. Perhaps Cat could have accomplished the same task, saving the whole town, but Caeden doubted she could do it nearly as fast as Damon. The more experienced shrouded was fast, controlling vast numbers of ghosts with precision and clearing out thousands of people in minutes. Cat’s undead were generally slower, and Caeden didn’t know how much shroud she was holding onto at the moment. Probably not enough, considering those massive Ether Undead she’d just raised. And he wasn’t about to send anybody into the Forge to recuperate. He was pretty sure it wasn’t time dilated right now anyway.
Taking a peak through the mountain again, Caeden found a few people that Damon had missed in the mines themselves. He flew over to the man riding on his ghost horse. “There are more in the mines. You’ll have to be quick, the Heartstone is growing volatile and I don’t know how long we have.”
“I’m aware. The ghosts can sense the living, but the people in the mines are so dispersed. I’ve been focusing the efforts on the town, as I know I can save the maximum number of people in the minimum amount of time.” Damon waved off Caeden’s words, his focus never shifting from the town.
Caeden sighed. He didn’t think Damon was nearly as concerned about saving those people as he was, but at the same time, there was nothing he could do about it. He couldn’t control Damon’s actions. It was depressing, having all this new power but still coming short. That seemed to have been the anthem of his short time since leaving the Forge. First the founder managing to complete his attempt to gain a shroud, and now saving these people. In both cases all the growth Caeden had experienced from reforging his soul seemed to matter very little. He might even have to watch some of these people die without being able to lift a finger.
He was pulled from his macabre thoughts when the mountain started rumbling. The Heartstone deep at its core started spilling out all the Ki it had absorbed, flooding into the surrounding stone and heating it into magma in moments. And there were still several dozen people left in the mines in a deep pocket.
Watching their faces as the miners seemed to realize something had gone horribly wrong, knowing that they would die without truly realizing what had happened to them, Caeden snapped. “Fuck it. What’s all this for if I can’t do anything with it?”
A thought conjured a broadsword underneath his feet, and Caeden stepped down onto the flying weapon freshly formed from the Forge. He did this to free up his Soul Anchor, the blade reverting back to a base form, if the endlessly changeable weapon could be considered to have a singular ‘true’ form.
What Caeden was thinking of was risky for the miners, but they were about to die anyway, and Caeden didn’t feel like being careful at the moment. He’d been careful, leaving the founder’s little ethertech contraption alone, and now look where it’d gotten him.
The Soul Anchor left his hand, the pommel moving to hover over his palm. Caeden shifted his stance, moving as if he was about to throw the hovering sword. Then, he did. The Soul Anchor shot off fast enough to easily break the sound barrier, headed straight for the mountain.
Before it made contact, Caeden flooded his connection to the Soul Anchor with power, and the sword rapidly expanded from less than three feet long to over a hundred. Its speed didn’t increase in the slightest despite the increased mass, and the edge carved into the mountain rock with frightening ease.
However, Caeden had used the eyes of the Cosmic Smith to judge the velocity as size. When it came to the physical world, his eyes were infallible. The very tip of the sword stopped just as it breached the cave holding the last of the miners. Damon’s ghosts had already grabbed the rest.
The moment it stopped, the Soul Anchor shrunk back to its previous size, leaving a massive gash in the mountain and exposing the cave to the outside through a twelve foot tall by three foot wide gap. Caeden flew through the gap a moment later, immediately creating more flying swords for the miners within.
He needed to be fast, the Heartstone was transforming the mountain at an astounding speed. Already, this cave relatively high up in the mountain was sweltering hot.
“Get on the swords if you want to live.” Caeden instructed, even as he waved his hand and created dozens of spikes that radiated an intense cold. They slammed into the walls and floors, hopefully holding off the transformation of this cave for a little longer.
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The miner gawked at him for a long moment before Caeden created a brilliant flash of light with his aura, molten oranges and reds accompanied by steely grey blooming around his whole body. That snapped the miners out of their stupor, and they quickly climbed onto the swords. Some seemed to not trust their balance, but Caeden wasn’t concerned. These flying swords were infused to create a strong bond with whatever touched them, so long as Ki was supplied. He supplied the Ki, so the miners were now stuck to their swords, whether they wanted to be or not.
Then, they were flying out of there. And not a moment too soon, as an upswell of magma surged through the floor, completely overwhelming the effects of Caeden’s spikes. But they weren’t out yet, as the journey to leave was far more perilous than the entry. Caeden’s spikes had done more than he thought, and the Magma Titan’s revival was progressing faster than he would have believed.
Scant moments had passed, but the path his soul anchor had carved was already even hotter than the cave had been when he entered, and portions of the wall were already melting. Still relying on the sword he’d made to fly, Caeden shifted his Soul Anchor’s form. It changed into a slim blue rapier with crystalline embellishments.
Connecting to it through One Body, One Blade caused a deep cold to settle into Caeden’s bones as a chill aura surrounded his body. For the first time, Caeden pushed past the passive enhancements of his new shroud. Everything it’d done up to this point had cost him not an ounce of shroud. One Body, One Blade seemed unique in that it conferred benefits without him having to do anything but form a connection to a blade.
It seemed to be a feature of domain-level shrouds. The Forge part of Blade Forge also cost Caeden no shroud to maintain. In a similar way, this bond and its effects were a part of his shroud’s domain, requiring nothing from him to use them.
Now though, he wasn’t content with the passive benefits, and started pushing shroud into the bond between him and his Soul Anchor. The chill aura around him bloomed, gaining both breadth and potency in seconds. Caeden was now at the heart of a blizzard, his mere presence counteracting most of the heat.
However, that heat kept growing, causing Caeden to let out an annoyed growl. He couldn’t leave the mountain as quickly as he’d entered, those kinds of speeds would kill the unshrouded he had with him, so his speed was capped. And the transformation of the mountain seemed to be progressing faster than he could move the unshrouded without worrying about their lives.
A surge of heat caused Caeden’s eyes to widen, and he whipped his sword around, blasting out a crescent of blisteringly cold energy in the direction of the source. However, he was too slow and a wave of lava burst from the wall like a geyser. The angle and direction could only be deliberate, as the blast was aimed squarely at the densest collection of unshrouded.
Two were swallowed up before Caeden’s chill crescent could reach the blast. The lava wasn’t natural, being enhanced by the Magma Titan’s Ki. it reduced them to ashes, swords, bones, and all in an instant. Before it could catch any more people, Caeden attack cooled it down to base rock, directly counteracting the Magma titan’s Ki.
Caeden grit his teeth, looking toward where two of the miners used to be. “Fuck this!”
He paused, letting all the miners flying swords pass him by. At the same time, he raised his Soul Anchor above his head, absolutely flooding it and himself with shroud from One Body, One Soul. the aura round him exploded outward, causing snow and ice to form on the rocks despite their former heat.
Bringing his sword down in an overhead chop, Caedne released a massive crescent of purest, icey blue. The mountain groaned as the edge made contact, the rocks exploding as they rapidly contracted, shifting from near-melting to beyond frozen in a flash.
The wave annihilated the mountainside, leaving only rock dust in its wake. No lava arose from the frozen wasteland Caeden had created. At least, not for a long moment, long enough for Caeden to be sure that the unshrouded had made it safely out of the deep crevice his Soul Anchor had created.
He followed them out at top speed a moment later, finding three of them had minor frostbite from getting caught by the barest edge of the freezing aura he’d created earlier. A glance showed that they’d be just fine, though, so Caeden sent their swords off toward the gathering of ghosts on top of the island facility where Damon had placed the rest of the town’s people.
It was a better place than any other. Although Caeden had cleaved through a segment of the energy shield protecting the island, it wasn’t entirely gone. That allowed the townspeople to remain under the surviving sections, providing a decent level of protection from the upcoming fight. Of course, the shield wouldn’t help them if the Magma Titan turned its direct attention on them, but that was what Caeden was here for.
Turning to face said rapidly reviving Titan, Caeden found that the attack he’d made earlier was less impactful than he’d hoped. It had felt devastating up close, but when taking an entire mountain into perspective, it was a small scar. And it was already vanishing as the heat continued to rise. In other places across the mountain, lava flows as thick as rivers had already formed.
Damon flew up to meet Caeden as they observed the changes. “It looks like it’s almost complete. It’s been what, five minutes?”
“Closer to three. This is too fast. And that’s when it was starting from zero. I know that the Heartstone can reclaim any heat left over from the corpse of the Magam Titan it forms from. The next time around, it’ll be even faster.”
“How are we supposed to deal with this? We’re too far out. The Ki density here is enormous. I know I'll expend more shroud to end the Titan than I’ll regain in a mere few minutes. Even with my reserves, I doubt I can last more than a day.” Damon’s concern broadcast across his face.
“Well, I’m almost certain I’ll have a way to end it once and for all, I just need to wait until I have full access to my new shroud.” Caeden shrugged.
“Will that happen in less than a day?”
“No idea,” Caeden answered honestly. “But you’re forgetting something.”
“What’s that?” Damon looked at him incredulously.
“The Magma Titan is a purely physical being. That means it falls surely in my domain.” Caeden grinned savagely.
Looking at the mountain below, Caeden watched the homes burning, the mines created by generations of hard labor collapsing into magma. The image of the two miners burned into his eyes. Rainbow light bled out, with Caeden’s gaze squarely focused on the rapidly disappearing Heartstone at the core of the new Magma Titan. His Soul Anchor flickered, shifting to suit his needs.
Finally, a pitch black claymore took shape. It radiated cold, but a more piercing, deeper cold than his Soul Anchor’s previous incarnation. This sword sucked at the energy in the air, hungry for more. It even sucked some from Caeden.
Caeden’s skin shifted from it’s dark brown hue to an ashy grey, and he felt a black pit take form in his chest. Flipping the blade around, Caeden reeled back, and flung it downward straight toward the heart of the mountain, all while flooding it with shroud from One Body, One Blade.
Visual distortions surrounded the weapon as it traveled, the air howling as it was unwillingly sucked into the hungry blade. Below, a hand of pure lava burst from the mountain, shattering its surface. An earth shattering roar echoed out across the continent, rattling Caeden’s bones. The Magma Titan was awake, fully and completely.
Caeden's sword made contact with the emerging hand.
Instantly, it bloomed in size until it matched the air, bisecting it entirely and leaving cold, desolate rock behind where lava once formed. The blade kept going, hardly slowed down until it slid firmly into the heart of the mountain. The whole edifice shuttered. As every ounce of energy left it, fed into the insatiable blade.
And that was how the Magma Titan died the first time.