Rieren didn’t have time to wonder about what she was seeing. She pulled herself away from the Abyss Rent just as it burst with monsters emerging out from it.
Or, they would have, had Kervantes not acted.
With a soft mechanical clank, the automaton shot up with blinding speed and thrust his arm in front of the Abyss Rent. The huge claw of the Blightmane that had been about to emerge was pushed right back inside.
Kervantes’s ceramic-plated arm entered the Abyss Rent instead, and he held it there. A burst of purple light blistered along the mechanical length of his limb. The pulse made the entire Abyss Rent flicker. When Kervantes pulled his arm back, no more monsters followed out. Not a single one.
“What are you doing here?” Rieren asked, mind bubbling with questions. Had he just interacted with an Abyss Rent, despite not being able to cultivate? “And I thought you had no right to harm Abyssals?”
The automaton slowly turned to her. His arm was still up. Rieren had seen what sort of abilities the different automatons possessed, and even recalled Kervantes’s exact capabilities. Her battle with him in her last life had been a rather furious thing.
But she wasn’t prepared for it, this time. She had been stronger the last time she had delved through the entire dungeon. There had been much more time to prepare, more time to fumble through some mistake while still getting stronger overall. She hadn’t entered the dungeon barely a month after the start of the apocalypse.
“Are you an Abyssal too?” Kervantes said. “A secret one? Did you think you could simply pop out of an Abyss Rent and none would notice?”
“If I were an Abyssal, why have you not killed me yet?” Rieren asked.
“I am giving you the benefit of a doubt. Answer my question.”
“I am no Abyssal. However, I know much about the Abyss and Abyss Rents, and how to work with them. In fact, I intend to open a different one. Does that make me an Abyssal to you?”
Kervantes didn’t have any human features from which to judge his physiological reaction at Rieren’s words. But the way his arm didn’t lower proved that she was right in assuming her words certainly hadn’t placated the Automaton.
“You would open more?” the automaton asked. “Worse than a monster, that is what you are. A traitor!”
“Nothing so dramatic, I assure you.”
Rieren took a quick, deep breath, then explained what she knew of the Abyss Rents and how she needed their time manipulation properties to cultivate. Only by growing stronger could she truly help those she intended to.
“What proof do you have of such wild theories?” Kervantes asked once Rieren had finished speaking.
She had already purchased her proof. Rieren pulled out the hourglass from her storage ring. Just as she had suspected the sand grains weren’t pouring down.
No, they were floating down, like feathers falling from a rooftop.
Kervantes’s face peered closer at the hourglass. She couldn’t tell if he was thoughtful or if he was dismissive. Once more, she lamented the automatons didn’t have any way of expressing their emotions.
“I see,” the Ceramic Automaton finally said. “It would seem time is indeed moving strangely here.”
“It is also strange that you have not felt it yet. I was under the impression it does not work as well on organic matter, but it may be that it responds to Essence.”
“Strange indeed. What are your intentions again?”
“Close this Abyss Rent so the dungeon can open a different one in a different location. Somewhere I can cultivate the Essence with the right Aspect.”
“And how do you intend to make another Abyss Rent open up where you need it to? Unless you have the Essence to do it yourself.”
Rieren tutted. If she had that much Essence, she wouldn’t be bothering to cultivate. Opening the Abyss Rents needed a great deal of corrupted Essence, something that Elder Olg likely only barely had. Rieren was far from the Elder’s level.
“I will simply be enticing the dungeon to create a new Abyss Rent in a different location,” she said. “I might not have enough Abyss-Aspected Essence to create an Abyss Rent of my own, but if I can carefully use the Essence I do have, I can make the dungeon plop open one where I need it to.”
Kervantes looked at the Abyss Rent, as though considering. Rieren tried to see if she could glean anything from him. She found it difficult. Nevertheless, there was an easy method of finding out.
“Kervantes,” she said. “What is your intention? Why are you here? What are you doing?”
The automaton looked back at her. She thought he would refuse to answer with how long he remained silent, but then he began speaking.
“I wish to rid the dungeon of the influence of the Abyssals,” he said.
“Which is my intention as well. But here specifically, what do you wish to do?”
“The Dungeon Core has barred my access to it. I cannot reach the centre of the dungeon.”
Rieren frowned. “Was that not the case earlier? Were you not exiled to prowl the exterior of the dungeon?”
“That was not the case. Close, but not exact. While I had been told to stay away from the Abyssals and not impeded the Dungeon Core’s wishes, I still had the ability to enter the room where the Dungeon Core stayed, had I so wished. Now… it has been sealed off from everyone.”
“That is… concerning.”
“Yes.”
The story has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.
Rieren couldn’t begin to imagine what might have led to the Dungeon Core taking that sort of action. Then again, maybe it hadn’t done so voluntarily. Maybe the Abyssals, and perhaps whichever Aetherians were working along with them, had convinced or coerced it into doing so.
Regardless of its reason for doing so, the main thing was that it was now closed off to outside influences. Anything could be going on, which was likely what had Kervantes so worried and distraught.
“All the more reason that we have to use the Abyss Rents,” Rieren said.
“What do you mean?” the automaton asked. “Was it not your original intention to use the Abyss Rents to perform your cultivation? Are you suggesting we can use them to travel to the Dungeon Core itself?”
“That had not been my original intention, but now… yes, I think so.”
If Kervantes had possessed eyes, Rieren was certain she would have seen them narrow, going by the automaton’s next words.
“You sound doubtful,” he said.
“It will not easy. While we may be able to evade a great number of Abyssals by being fast, we will not be able to go through without facing any, and within the Abyss, the monsters are much stronger than they are in the Mortal Realm.”
Kervantes looked away. “And that does not include what we will find within the Dungeon Core’s chamber as well.”
“Exactly. In other words, I need to grow stronger as fast as I can, then gather those of the others that I trust, and then we can all invade your Dungeon Core’s chamber together.”
“Invade.”
Rieren sighed. “You know what I mean.”
Kervantes didn’t look satisfied, and for good reason, Rieren had to admit. She still hadn’t been fully truthful to him about the others’ intentions. For all she knew, the Sect intended to use the Dungeon Core in a way no better—in Kervantes’s eyes—than how the Abyssals were intending to.
“Lead on, then,” the automaton said. “To wherever you need to open a new Abyss Rent.”
“I will,” Rieren said. “But first, I must cultivate away this one.”
It was going to be a long process. She recalled well that it had taken a whole group of disciples several hours to cultivate away one Abyss Rent. The problem was that it kept regenerating. Rieren could increase the rate at which she drew in natural Essence with the help of some ingredients, but it wouldn’t make the overall cultivation much faster for her.
At least it would fill up her Aspect pillars within her elixir field faster.
“We may be interrupted,” she said. “Those monsters we dealt with are not likely to be last ones.” She paused. “Has the Dungeon Core truly sealed off everyone or is it only you? I recall you mentioning how none of the dungeon guardians could harm the Abyssals. And yet, you killed a few.”
Kervantes made a clicking sound in his throat that Rieren interpreted as annoyance. “I was told by the Dungeon Core to not kill any Abyssals within the dungeon. Fortunately, the Abyss Rents and all that lie beyond it do not fall in that category. As such, I am still obeying the letter of the law.”
“But clearly not the spirit. If you have been killing monsters in Abyss Rents so far—”
“The ones here are my first victims.”
It seemed that desperation had finally made the automaton crack, though not to the point that he had forgotten all that he had to obey. Strange how keeping to that line of reasoning was so logically human.
“Ah,” Rieren said. “I apologize for the line of inquiry, then.”
Kervantes shook his head with more clicks. “It is of no consequence. But I will protect you, have no fear. Though, I suppose it would be better if I were to enter the Abyss itself.”
“How can you enter it? You don’t have any Essence…” No. Creatures like the Ceramic Automaton couldn’t channel Essence. That didn’t mean they couldn’t possess Essence. After all, the Dungeon Core’s Essence was what granted them their life. Oh. Rieren’s eyes widened. The dungeon. “You have corrupted Essence, don’t you? Thanks to your Dungeon Core.”
Kervantes hesitated a few heartbeats before answering. “I do.”
Rieren decided not to comment on it. As a mechanical creature, he couldn’t exactly be corrupted physically the way the Elder had been. “Well, you cannot enter the Abyss Rent, unless you wish to remain behind after I have closed it. Instead, we will both be on the cusp.”
“The cusp?”
“Yes. We need to be partially within and partially without it. We both need the temporal irregularity to work in our favour, and it would be best used under the Abyss Rent’s direct influence. But we also need to be able to exit it fully when it is on the verge of collapsing.”
“Ah. That is sensible. Let us begin, then.”
Batcat purred as Rieren pulled it off her head and set it on the ground. Then she channelled Essence through the Malformed Root, bidding Kervantes to keep a hand on her shoulder as she stepped one foot into the Abyss Rent. She kept the other one firmly planted on the ground in the Mortal Realm.
The feeling was strange. There was a rushing sensation over half of Rieren’s body, as though she was sticking out through a window that opened onto a storm. The rest of her within the Mortal Realm was perfectly normal.
One eye could see perfectly, still stuck in the world she normally inhabited. The other was blotted by darkness, lost in the transitory space between the Abyss and the Mortal Realm.
Kervantes was standing nearby, the chill of his mechanical body close enough to touch. Rieren could even feel his impatience. The automaton was pacing this way and that a little.
Apparently, the monsters couldn’t come fast enough for him.
Rieren did her best to centre herself and begin her cultivation. She couldn’t tangibly feel time being slowed down, though one of her eyes still caught the hourglass acting strange. That was proof enough.
First of all, she had to peruse through the options available to her in the System Shop. There was the Purifying Egg they had used with the first Abyss Rent. Rieren bought a few of those. Then she hunted down where the Blood Accelerant pills were. She obtained some of those too.
The last resource she needed, the Abysmal Dawnlight tea, which was the only solvent that would work together with the Blood Accelerant pills, was a bit too expensive. A bottle the size of her small finger cost thirty-four Credits. Almost thirty more than she had left.
Rieren frowned at her lack of Credits. There was nothing she could sell to earn that many Credits in such short notice.
“Kervantes,” she said.
The Ceramic Automaton paused in his pacing. “Yes?”
“I need you to get whichever monsters you kill to me once it is dead. Can you do that, please?”
“Of course. What do you need the bodies for?”
“I wish to sell them to obtain more Credits. My cultivation will go much faster if I can get some of the resources I am missing.”
“Ah, I see. The System Shop, yes? I will find you your monstrous bodies.”
Satisfied that she would be able to reach the peak cultivating pace at some point, Rieren decided to focus on what she could do for now. She acquired enough Credits to obtain one bottle of the Abysmal Dawnlight tea after selling the majority of her Blood Accelerant pills. She still had enough for a couple of doses for their mixture, which would last her for about an hour.
Rieren focused on her cultivation after swallowing one dose. She drew in the naturally corrupted Essence around the Abyss Rent, pulling more and more into her elixir field. Of course, it was being converted to completely pure Essence by the Purifying Egg in her mouth.
It didn’t take long for her to finish filling up one of her Aspect pillars. The first been almost three quarters completed the first time she had begun filling it up. Pure Essence didn’t matter for it. Once it was done, Rieren received another achievement.
New Achievement!
First Aspect Pillar constructed! You have now obtained the first understanding of your primary Aspect. Let the construction of the rest of pillars commence.
Rewards
* 1 Level
* 1 Skill Evolution Point
* 1 Credit
* 1 Domain Point
Rieren had to smile. Both a Domain point and a Skill Evolution point? Those would both come to excellent use.
Just as she was about to continue cultivating while poring over the new options the system had provided, a little commotion went up. Rieren wasn’t in a physical space. Well, not half of her, at least. Yet, there was a heavy trembling from the Abyss side of her.
Before she could react, a loud roar burst through the area, pounding her ears on one side so hard that she nearly pulled herself fully onto the other.
An Abyssal had finally interrupted their proceedings.