Somehow I managed to retain consciousness as I fell, though I couldn’t do anything other than fall.
Gabe! Aurora called out.
She took control of Sky’s Dream and used it to catch me before I fell too far. I let out an “oomph” as I impacted the flying sword. Aurora then directed Sky’s Dream towards the House Icefall airship. It wasn’t a comfortable ride, but it wasn’t like I had much choice in the matter. The others must have noticed my condition, and covered for me as Sky’s Dream carried me to the airship. Otherwise the remaining undead magic beasts would have torn me to shreds.
Moments later, Aurora deposited me onto the airship’s deck.
“Master!” Corie called out, rushing towards me.
Thankfully, it seemed like the assault on the House Icefall airship had died down a little. This gave the others some breathing room.
Corie rolled me onto my back and started to examine me.
“What’s wrong with him?” Lorelei asked, rushing towards me as well.
Aurora popped out of body.
“Gabe burned a huge amount of his life force to take down that undead magic beast,” she explained.
“His condition isn’t critical,” Corie explained as she examined me. “But it will take some time before he recovers; a few days at the very least.”
That meant that I was out for the rest of this fight. While I didn’t regret taking down that Winged Lion, it pissed me off that I had been reduced to a spectator as a result. I thought that by reaching the Foundation Establishment stage, I wouldn’t have to put up with situations like this anymore. That was my mistake. I knew more than anyone that as one’s power rose, so did the level of challenge the universe threw one’s way.
Still, maybe I wasn’t completely useless. As a Foundation Establishment cultivator, I could communicate to people telepathically with my divine sense. I just hadn’t had much reason to use it until now. If nothing else, I could keep an eye on the situation and relay information to the others. Once my head stopped swimming that was.
“Lorelei!” Lady Calla called out as she joined us. “We’re in trouble. The Sun Guard won’t last for much longer, and Lady Sturm is too busy fighting off those undead to help them. If we don’t do something, they’ll all die.”
Lorelei’s shoulders slumped at this.
“What can we do?” she said, sounding exhausted. “We’re having trouble keeping ourselves safe. If it hadn’t been for the young master, we would have been killed by that Third Circle magic beast. The only one who can really do anything is Lady Sturm.”
As they talked with each other, Corie poured a mid-grade healing potion down my throat. It wouldn’t do much, but it was better than nothing.
“We have to do something,” Lady Calla said, putting on a brave face despite the fear in her eyes. “If we kill the necromancer, or necromancers, controlling these undead, then we might have a chance.”
Lorelei frowned at this.
“What do you mean?” she asked.
“I read about it in a book about fighting Dark wizards,” Lady Calla explained. “The undead are like puppets, with the necromancer as the puppet master. If we kill the puppet master, then the puppets will just stop doing anything.” She paused. “That, or they’ll go on a murderous rampage and kill everything in sight until the Dark magic animating them burns away. The book I read mentioned that that might happen.”
Was that how that worked? While I knew that necromancers controlled their creations, I hadn’t realized that it was to this extent. If I had known that, I wouldn’t have wasted my time with the small fry. I would’ve gone for the necromancers right away.
“Given the level of control I’m seeing,” Lady Call said, looking over the battle. “I’m guessing that the necromancer, or necromancers, are in the area; within spirit sense range at the very least. More than that, I think they’re using magic circles to increase the number of undead that they can control. Otherwise, there wouldn’t be this many.”
Lorelei stared at her kin with a stunned expression on her face.
“Just what kinds of books have you been reading?” she asked, flabbergasted.
Lady Calla’s expression turned bashful.
“I’ve read up on a number of subjects to prepare for the Solarian Imperial Academy,” she said.
Kudos to the book nerd.
“Leroy,” Lorelei called out. “Can you let Lady Sturm know what Calla just told me?”
Leroy shot out a gout of fire, burning an undead avian magic beast to ash.
“A little busy at the moment,” he called back, not looking at her.
Lorelei’s lips thinned, and her expression tightened.
‘Let me handle this,’ I said to her through telepathy. My mind had recovered enough so I could do that much at least.
Lorelei’s eyes widened as she looked down at me.
“Young master?” she asked. “Did…did you just talk to me in my mind?”
Corie and Lady Calla both gave her mystified looks, before looking down at me.
‘Yes,’ I said, speaking to all three of them at the same time.
Like Lorelei, their eyes widened.
“What…how…” Corie started to say, before shaking her head. “It doesn’t matter.”
She continued to tend to me. Meanwhile, Lady Calla just stared at me in complete shock.
‘I’ll let Mother know about what Lady Calla told us,’ I told them. ‘Just focus on keeping yourselves safe while I do so.’
Lorelei nodded with a frustrated expression on her face. I knew that look well. It was the look of someone who cursed their own weakness and their inability to help when it mattered. It was something I experienced many times during my life as Immortal Celestial Thunder.
‘Mother,’ I called out, reaching towards her with my divine sense.
“Gabriel?” she asked out loud. Since she hadn’t reached the Foundation Establishment stage, she couldn’t speak telepathically using her divine sense. As far as I knew, wizards couldn’t do this, except with their familiars. It was a cultivator specific ability.
‘Yes, Mother,’ I said. ‘I have something to tell you.’
“A little busy at the moment,” she said.
That was an understatement. Mother had dealt with most of the Third Circle undead magic beasts that had gone after her. However, several more peeled away from the House Solaria airship to take their place. They could afford to since it looked like the Sun Guard were on their last legs. The shield protecting them looked like it would collapse at any moment.
‘This is important,’ I said, before relaying to her the information I learned from Lady Calla.
“If the necromancers controlling this horde are in the area, they must be concealed,” she said, while dodging an attack from a Third Circle magic beast. “I can’t sense them at all.”
I swept the area around us with my divine sense. Neither could I. Reaching the Foundation Establishment stage had expanded the limits of my divine sense. Still, it looked like it wasn’t enough.
Not unless I wanted to do something risky and dangerous.
‘I’ll find them,’ I told Mother. ‘When I do, be ready to take them out.’
Mother just nodded in response and focused on the enemies in front of her.
‘Aurora,’ I said to my familiar. ‘I’m about to do something stupid. I’ll need your help to keep my mind together afterwards.’
What now? she asked in a wary tone.
‘I’m going to push beyond the limits of my divine sense in order to find the necromancers controlling the undead horde,’ I said. ‘If I don’t, we’re all going to die.’
I thought Aurora would argue with me more about this, but she just gave me the mental equivalent of a nod.
I understand, she said. Do what you need to do.
I gave her a mental smile, before sweeping the area with my divine sense one last time. Maybe I would get lucky. However, I didn’t find anything. Damn. Oh well. Here went nothing.
Like before, rather than waste time and possibly fail, I decided to go for broke right from the get go. The current limit of my divine sense seemed to be at peak Fourth Circle, or low Fifth Circle. Since that was the case, I went even further beyond that.
I pushed my divine sense to the Sixth Circle.
Right away, I felt something inside me crack. Pain assaulted my mind, both inside and out. It felt like my mind was falling to pieces, while some kind of pressure was squeezing it. However, the pain I felt now was nothing compared to the pain I felt when I mutilated my own soul in order to nourish the divine storm dragon core.
Something warm touched my lips and dripped down my cheeks.
“Oh gods,” Lorelei said. “What happened to him? Why is he bleeding?”
“I don’t know,” Corie said, her voice grim.
After that, I ignored them and focused on searching for the necromancers. By the ancestors, I had forgotten what it felt like to use my divine sense at this level. Everything around me looked crisper and clearer. I could see more. It was as if I had been a newborn babe beforehand, with the world around me as little more than shapes and colors. Seeing the world through divine sense at the Sixth Circle gave everything more definition, making it look sharper. It felt like I had finally opened my eyes. Despite the pain, it felt good.
Still, I wouldn’t be able to maintain this for long. If I tried, my mind would suffer permanent damage. I might even end up destroying my mind altogether. A body with a soul but no mind. What a horrible fate.
I found the necromancers right away. With my divine sense at the Sixth Circle, piercing through their concealments had been laughably easy. There were about seven of them. They stood atop a hill a few miles away. A large magic circle that exuded a grotesque, smoky aura surrounded the hill. I assumed this was the magic circle that kept them hidden.
In addition to the concealment magic circle that surrounded the hill, the necromancers stood inside another magic circle. Rather, it looked like they each stood inside their own individual magic circles, with a larger magic circle connecting them all. It all looked complicated, and I couldn’t make heads or tails of it. Still, if Lady Calla was right, that complicated magic circle was what allowed the necromancers to control all the undead attacking us.
This story has been taken without authorization. Report any sightings.
‘They’re over there!’ I told Mother, showing her what I saw with my divine sense.
Mother roared in response, and broke free from the Third Circle magic beasts that surrounded her. I watched as she flew over to the hill where the necromancers stood. At first they didn’t react, but when they realized that Mother was flying right towards them, they started to panic. And they were right to panic. Despite the size of the horde they controlled, this group of necromancers wasn’t that powerful. They were all within the Third Circle. Mother would slaughter them with ease.
Several of the necromancers looked like they wanted to run away, but one of them shouted at the others to maintain their positions. I assumed this was their leader. I took a closer look. It was a man who looked average in every way. His features were plain, and he had light tanned skin, brown hair, and brown eyes. Except for the aura of Dark magic that surrounded him, nothing about him stood out to me in any way. If I saw him on the street, I wouldn’t give him a second glance.
Several of the Third Circle magic beasts chased after Mother, but they couldn’t catch up to her despite their best efforts. She flew too fast for them. The necromancers atop the hill started to fidget, despite their leader’s commands and threats. One of them, a young looking woman, broke and ran out of her magic circle.
The lead necromancer fired a Dark magic spell at her, trying to stop her, but it was already too late. Even as the young woman fell to the ground, screaming in agony, I felt something snap with my divine sense. The mana within the complex magic circle started to go crazy. The undead horde, which continued to assault us, reacted much the same way. The Dark magic that animated them went wild, and the undead themselves went into a frenzy. They attacked everything around them, including each other.
This eased things somewhat for the Sun Guard, since less undead attacked them now. However, the ones that continued to attack them did so with a savage ferocity that made their assault beforehand pale in comparison.
With the power of the complex magic circle running out of control, the other necromancers started to flee as well. However, it was too late for them. The fiery lioness that was my mother reached the hill and opened her mouth. A gout of white hot fire burst out of her maw, bathing everything in fire.
The lead necromancer threw down some kind of black orb just before the flames reached him, and disappeared in a cloud of black smoke. Was that some kind of teleportation magical item? Such things were rare, and risky to use. It seemed to have worked out for the leader, since it allowed him to escape my mother’s wrath.
The other necromancers were not so lucky.
They barely had time to scream as Mother’s fire consumed all of them, leaving nothing behind but charred corpses. Her flames burned everything, turning the hill barren. The fire even burned away the magic circles, erasing all traces of them.
I would have seen more, but the cracks in my mind grew too much for me to bear. If I continued to push myself, I would suffer permanent damage. I retracted my divine sense all the way back, which turned out to be a mistake. Physical pain assaulted me, on top of the mental pain I already suffered. I had been too focused on my divine sense to notice. My entire face felt wet, and I realized that it was coated in blood.
“Oh gods,” I heard Lorelei say, her voice filled with tears. “Do something, Corie! He’s dying!”
“I can’t!” Corie said, barely managing to keep her cool. “I don’t know what’s wrong!”
‘Aurora, let them know that I’m all right,’ I said, or tried to at least.
Sharp pain assaulted me, leaving me unable to communicate with my familiar.
Shh, Aurora said in a gentle tone. Despite that, I heard an undercurrent of worry in her voice. Everything is going to be all right, Gabe. There’s no need to push yourself further. Rest now.
I felt her power wrap around my mind. It was like a soothing balm that eased the pain. While it didn’t take away all of the pain, it took away most of it. I felt drowsy all of a sudden. Exhausted in body and mind, I let go and let unconsciousness take me.
----------------------------------------
Pain filled my entire being as a blade pierced my back and emerged from my chest, shattering my soul in the process. However, this pain was nothing compared to the pain of my best friend’s betrayal.
“I’m sorry,” a voice whispered in my ear. “It was the only way.”
That was all I knew before darkness consumed me.
----------------------------------------
When I came too, I had the mother of all headaches. A stabbing pain pierced my brain, as if someone had hammered nails into my head from all sides. That thought made me think of a certain horror film villain, the one with the puzzle box. A groan emerged from my lips, as I clutched my head and curled into a ball. While I had a high tolerance for pain, that didn’t mean I enjoyed it. There was nothing wrong with wussing out every once in a while.
At least the pain distracted me from the empty, hollow feeling that pervaded my body. Burning fifty years of my life span left a void inside me that wouldn’t go away any time soon. All in all, I had done considerable damage to both my body and mind.
I didn’t know where I was. It felt like I was laying on a bed, but it was hard to tell through all the pain.
“You did something very stupid, young man,” a familiar voice said. It came from right in front of me.
I tried to see who it was with my divine sense, but that just made the stabbing pain worse. It died down after a few seconds, and I let out a whimper.
“Leave him alone, you old codger,” Aurora said in a cross voice. “He’s already suffering enough as it is.”
‘Aur-…’ I started to say to my familiar, but stopped when the stabbing pain intensified again.
“Shh,” Aurora said. “Don’t use telepathy, Gabe. Speak to me out loud.”
I nodded and let out another whimper. My familiar embraced me with her claws and wings. Her presence felt warm and comforting.
“Do you know what you did to yourself, Gabriel?” the voice said.
I opened my eyes for a brief moment. It felt like someone jabbed me in the eyes with hot needles, forcing me to close them again. However, before I did, I saw Grandfather Gabe sitting on a chair next to my bed.
“I almost permanently damaged my mind,” I said through gritted teeth. “To the point where I can’t use spirit sense or telepathy.”
I almost said divine sense, but stopped myself in time. No need to let Grandfather Gabe know that I was a reincarnated Immortal. While I trusted him, I only trusted him so far.
“At least you’re aware of the result of your folly,” Grandfather Gabe said. “That’s something, at least.”
I nodded. While I hadn’t experienced this before, even during my life as Immortal Celestial Thunder, I knew the symptoms. When a cultivator suffered significant damage to their mind, they were unable to use any of their mental abilities for a time. At least my mental faculties were still intact.
“It was necessary,” I said, still keeping my eyes closed. “If I hadn’t found those necromancers, then we would have all died.”
Grandfather Gabe sighed.
“Yes, I am aware of the situation,” he said. “Claire told me when she came back to Sturm Hill in order to fetch me, so I could heal you. Perhaps what you did was indeed necessary, Gabriel. However, that doesn’t make it any less stupid.”
He poked me in the forehead. A bit of his mana entered my body, easing the pain somewhat.
“You need to take better care of yourself, for the sake of your loved ones if nothing else. Do you know how frantic your mother was when she came to me? I had never seen her like that before, and I hope to never see her like that again. She wasn’t the only one either. While your familiar here is maintaining a calm facade, she’s barely holding herself together. Your disciples aren’t even trying to pretend.”
While I felt guilty about worrying my loved ones, and causing them pain like this, I didn’t regret my actions. That Winged Lion would have killed my disciples, and if I hadn’t found those necromancers, then we would have all died. Rather, I was pissed at myself for not finding them earlier. My ignorance almost got us all killed.
“And that is on top of the years you burned from your life span,” Grandfather Gabe said. “You’re lucky that you didn’t burn yourself out completely.”
“It wasn’t luck,” I said. “It was a deliberate calculation on my part. I only lost fifty years.”
“And you think fifty years is nothing?” my great grandfather scoffed.
I opened my eyes to glare at him. The lighting in the room stabbed me in the eyes again, but I ignored the pain so I could get my point across. Grandfather Gabe sat next to me with his arms crossed, a displeased expression on his face.
“In the long run, yes,” I said. “There are various medicines and pills that can help me recover the years I burned away.” I mean, I didn’t know if they existed here on Lumina, but with the right ingredients, I could make them myself. “Not only that, but advancing to the next large realm will boost my lifespan even further. Losing fifty years is nothing, especially at my rate of advancement. While you might think of me as a reckless young man, don’t forget that I am a reincarnated cultivator from Spirit Earth. I do know what I am doing. What I did last night wasn’t a desperate risk, taken to deal with a difficult situation. It was a deliberate sacrifice on my part to take care of a threat to the people I love.”
Grandfather Gabe held my eyes for several seconds, before letting out another sigh.
“Desperate or deliberate,” he said. “You still made your loved ones suffer, and caused them to worry about your health.” His gaze sharpened. “Tell me this, Gabriel. Were those sacrifices really necessary, or were you so preoccupied with handling everything yourself that you didn’t bother asking anyone else for help?”
“Of course it was neces-…” I started to answer, but Grandfather Gabe held up a hand to stop me.
“I have a rough account of what happened last night,” he said. “Perhaps it was necessary for you to push your spirit sense past its limits and almost break your mind. But what about the Winged Lion that almost attacked the House Icefall airship? Caitlyn Walters was there. She’s in the Third Circle, and I know what she’s capable of. Why didn’t you work with her to take the Winged Lion down?”
I shook my head.
“It would have taken too long,” I said. “By the time we dealt with it, other Third Circle magic beasts might have shown up. Besides, there was also a horde of weaker undead magic beasts that we needed to contend with. Bringing down the Winged Lion in one, decisive blow was the best option there.”
Grandfather Gabe opened his mouth to respond, but I cut him off this time.
“And before you say that one of us should have fled back to Sturm Hill in order to retrieve you, we didn’t have enough time,” I said. “The only one who could have done so within a reasonable time frame was Mother, but that was never an option. Without her, we would have all died before the both of you returned.”
My great grandfather gave me an annoyed look, before flicking my forehead.
“Don’t interrupt me,” he said in a cross voice. “You may be a reincarnation from Spirit Earth, but in this life I am your great grandfather. Respect your elders.”
I pouted and closed my eyes.
“Yes, Grandfather Gabe,” I muttered.
“Good,” he said. “Anyway, what I was going to say was that you could have picked up Caitlyn Walters and worked with her to sever one of the Winged Lion’s wings. That’s what you did, correct?”
I didn’t answer him.
“While you are correct in that it would have taken the two of you much longer to kill the Winged Lion, the two of you could have disabled it instead. You hadn’t needed to burn fifty years of your lifespan.”
I buried my face in my bed and maintained my silence.
“You say that fifty years is nothing, but for most, fifty years is everything.” He paused. “Take it from someone who knows. Fifty years can be the difference between making it to the next large realm, or dying of old age. Hell, sometimes all it takes is a single year. Don’t be so cavalier with your life force. I don’t want you to die from old age when you could have lived longer if you had just been more careful.” Pain laced his voice. “I don’t want to go through that again.”
I faced Grandfather Gabe and opened my eyes. He stared off into space, his eyes filled with a deep pain, the kind that scarred the soul.
“Is that what happened to Great Grandmother?” I asked, taking a shot in the dark.
Sky’s Dream used to belong to my great grandmother, but neither Grandfather Gabe nor Mother ever talked about her, even when I asked. Given that context, I assumed something happened to her, but I didn’t know what.
Grandfather Gabe nodded.
“Your grandmother, Sky, was a passionate and proud woman,” he said, a sad smile on his face. “She never held anything back, in both love and hate. And like you, she burned her lifespan whenever she needed an extra boost of power. However, she used up too much and ended up dying far too early. I tried to get her to stop, but she wouldn’t listen. Like you, she didn’t think it was such a big deal. Life extending pills and medicines just delayed the inevitable. In the end, her overconfidence killed her and there was nothing I could do.”
He closed his eyes and took a deep breath. Neither one of us said anything for several seconds.
“Don’t be like, Sky,” Grandfather Gabe said, opening his eyes. “I loved your great grandmother, but she was thoughtless and selfish in the way she treated herself. Don’t make the same mistakes she did. I don’t know what you were like back on Spirit Earth, but I urge you to act with more caution here on Lumina. Consider your loved ones’ feelings, if nothing else. How do you think they would feel if you ended up causing yourself permanent damage, or even dying, because you took it one step too far?”
Grandfather Gabe stood up.
“Please take better care of yourself, Gabriel,” he said. “Don’t put your loved ones through the same pain Sky put me through. Don’t do that to Scarlet Blazing Phoenix. She lost you once already.”
With that, he left the room. I took a look around, and realized that I was in my cabin aboard the House Icefall airship. While I hadn’t seen it with my eyes before, I checked it out with my divine sense when we first boarded.
How long had I been asleep? A day? Several? Weeks? I wasn’t sure.
“Do you agree with him?” I asked Aurora.
She remained silent during my conversation with Grandfather Gabe, but given some of our past conversations, I already knew her answer.
“Yes,” Aurora said. “I do. It pains me to see you treat yourself so ruthlessly.” She paused. “However, unlike the rest of your loved ones, I’m not as afraid to see you die. I don’t want it to happen, let me make that clear, but I know that I’ll be with you even if you do die. Our souls are bound together, now and forever. The rest of your loved ones don’t have that assurance.”
I didn’t respond right away.
“But it was necessary,” I said. “If I hadn’t done what I did, things would have turned out worse. At least the others are alive to worry about me.”
“True,” Aurora conceded. “But what about next time? Will you sacrifice more of your life force? Will you almost break your mind again?”
I clenched my jaw.
“If I need to,” I said.
“Then the solution is simple,” Aurora said. “We need to make sure that we don’t end up in a situation where you need to make those kinds of sacrifices.”
I nodded. She was right. Until the undead attacked us, I hadn’t needed to burn my life force all that much. The last time I had it was when I purged poison from Corie’s body, back when we fought the Black Wolf Gang on the road to Rosewood City.
“That means becoming more powerful ourselves,” I said. “Or gathering powerful allies to watch our back. Both, ideally.”
“Both sound good,” Aurora said.
A wave of exhaustion hit me out of nowhere. It took everything I had to keep my eyes open.
“Later,” I said with a yawn. “Right now, I just want to go to sleep.”
“Sleep then,” Aurora said. “I’ll watch over you.”
With that, I closed my eyes and fell asleep.