A Journey Unwanted

Chapter 535 - 523: Abyssal power

[Realm: Uhorus]

[Location: Verdantis]

[Western Outskirts]

"This clearing should suffice." Aerinon’s quiet voice carried easily across the snow despite never rising above a conversational tone.

Both spawns of Octavia heard him immediately as their footsteps gradually came to a halt.

Alyssia took a slow look around the area before them.

It was an open stretch of snow-covered land, wide enough that nothing obstructed one’s view for quite some distance. Rolling white hills surrounded the clearing in waves, broken only occasionally by outcroppings of dark stone jutting through the snow. Beyond them, the mountains of Verdantis loomed beneath the skies, while the black tears continued to bleed slowly.

The place felt isolated.

If something went wrong there would be little for the ensuing destruction to reach besides snow and stone.

Alyssia eventually looked back toward Aerinon.

"I understand choosing an open space," she began, still surveying the landscape, "but how exactly are you planning to draw Abyssal Creatures here? From everything I’ve seen, they usually emerge from those dreadful tears in the sky."

Aerinon’s lone eye drifted upward toward those same tears.

"They do." His answer came without hesitation. "But Abyssal Creatures do not function as ordinary wildlife does."

Lucinda and Alyssia both watched him quietly.

"They are unlike Astrothians." He spoke carefully, choosing his wording. "They operate according to something much closer to a program than genuine thought." His gaze remained fixed upon the dark heavens. "The lesser variants instinctively—or perhaps more accurately, mechanically—gravitate toward stronger concentrations of Abyssal influence."

He paused briefly.

"I would hesitate to call it instinct." His expression remained unreadable. "Nor is it self-preservation. They simply move toward greater sources because doing so produces greater destruction. That is their purpose. The mindless ones, at least."

Lucinda slowly nodded as understanding settled across her expression.

"So that’s what you meant." She looked thoughtfully toward the distant horizon. "I’m guessing that if an Abyssal Warden remains manifested for long enough..." Her eyes returned to Aerinon. "...the surrounding lesser creatures eventually begin gathering around it."

She remembered the catastrophe that had nearly consumed Verdantis.

"It would explain why the Warden here had so many around it." A small pause followed. "You’re planning to become that source yourself, aren’t you?"

Aerinon gave a short nod. "Yes." Nothing more, but after a brief moment he continued speaking. "I’ll attract the rogue Abyssal Creatures scattered throughout the surrounding region."

Alyssia frowned thoughtfully.

"And..." She tilted her head. "...roughly how many should we expect?"

There wasn’t even the slightest hint of concern in Aerinon’s voice.

"A hundred." Another brief pause followed. "Perhaps several tens of thousands." He gave the smallest shrug imaginable. As though both estimates belonged comfortably within the same category.

Alyssia stared.

"...Excuse me?" Now it was her turn to give another pause as her red eyes widened. "What sort of absurd leap in numbers is that?" She threw one hand into the air. "You went from one hundred to several tens of thousands as though those figures were remotely comparable!"

Aerinon regarded her with complete calm.

"It is an unpredictable process." His answer remained entirely straightforward. "There are too many variables to narrow the estimate further."

Lucinda quietly considered his explanation. "I suppose that’s fair." She looked across the vast clearing. "If the number truly climbs that high..." Her voice remained surprisingly composed. "...then I doubt we’ll have much choice but to increase our output accordingly."

She glanced sideways toward Alyssia; a small smile slowly appeared.

"Though..." Her tone became noticeably lighter. "...if things become truly overwhelming..." She folded her hands together. "...I imagine another enormous explosion would solve the immediate problem." Her smile grew ever so slightly. "You seemed particularly talented at those." She looked directly at Alyssia.

Alyssia slowly turned toward her; the expression she gave Lucinda was wonderfully dry.

"You’re enjoying this far more than you ought to."

Lucinda’s smile refused to disappear. "I might be."

"So you are teasing me," Alyssia sighed. There was no real annoyance behind her voice anymore. Only reluctant acceptance, and Lucinda gave the tiniest shrug.

"Maybe." The answer came with just enough innocence to make it obvious she was doing exactly that.

Before Alyssia could respond, Lucinda turned her attention back toward Aerinon as her expression became thoughtful once again.

"I’ll admit..." she spoke honestly. "...I still have reservations about making use of anything related to the Abyss." Her gaze lingered on him. "It isn’t exactly comforting. But you don’t strike me as someone who would willingly rely upon power you couldn’t fully control." She met his lone eye. "So I trust you’ve already accounted for the risks."

For the first time since arriving, Aerinon’s expression changed. Only slightly, one eyebrow lifted by the smallest fraction.

So subtly that neither Lucinda nor Alyssia noticed.

("What exactly is this?") The thought crossed his mind almost absentmindedly. ("Blind trust?") He dismissed the possibility almost immediately. ("No.") His gaze remained on Lucinda. ("That doesn’t suit her.") He quietly examined the confidence with which she had spoken. ("Lucinda has never been careless. She’s cautious and far too thoughtful to simply place faith in someone’s character without reason.")

His thoughts lingered there.

("But despite that...") He frowned inwardly. ("She’s different from usual.") There was something difficult to define about it. ("Idealistic?") He considered the word. ("Heroic?") Perhaps, he wasn’t entirely certain. ("Whatever the proper description may be...") His gaze drifted away. ("She genuinely believes people should use their strength responsibly.")

A realization followed.

("I had assumed she’d remain fixed in that way of thinking forever.") Another moment passed. ("So where does this confidence come from?")

No answer arrived, nor did he particularly care to search for one. The thought simply lost whatever interest it briefly possessed.

He discarded it.

"Very well." His voice quietly broke the silence. "I’ll begin." He looked between the two spawns of Octavia. "You should establish a barrier around yourselves. Abyssal power is exceptionally foul."

Alyssia folded her arms.

"I believe I gathered as much." She looked toward the sky with obvious distaste. "It has spent the last several days making the skies resemble something thoroughly putrid." Her sarcasm was impossible to miss, and as the words left her lips, a circular red glyph unfolded beneath her feet.

Its lines rotated slowly as a translucent barrier of red mana rose smoothly around her, forming a protective dome. Lucinda followed suit moments later. A similar red glyph blossomed beneath her boots before another barrier enveloped her.

Nothing about his posture suggested he was preparing for anything extraordinary. His hands remained at his sides and his breathing stayed slow. Even his lone visible eye remained half-lidded, carrying that same expression that seemed permanently etched into his face.

The snowy clearing fell quiet.

The wind gradually eased until only drifting flakes crossed the open landscape. For several long moments nothing happened. Lucinda and Alyssia waited in silence, each watching him from behind their red barriers.

Then it happened.

It was neither dramatic nor forceful as the world seemed to quake. An immense wave of black power erupted from him without warning. There was no gradual rise or build-up. One instant he stood motionless; the next, darkness exploded outward.

The sound arrived a heartbeat after the eruption. A towering pillar of pitch-black Abyssal energy burst toward the skies, swallowing Aerinon’s figure almost immediately. The column widened as it climbed, twisting upon itself like countless streams of black smoke compressed into something denser and far heavier than ordinary mana could ever become.

The pressure hit first; Lucinda instinctively planted one foot behind the other as her barrier rippled violently. Alyssia’s red dome distorted with waves as though an invisible ocean had slammed into it. The air seemed to scream as a deafening roar followed as the expanding pressure wave raced across the clearing.

Snow erupted in every direction, entire sheets of white were peeled from the earth and hurled skyward. The surrounding hills trembled as the ground lurched. Large fractures ripped across the frozen earth; great cracks spread away from Aerinon in branching paths, splitting stone beneath the snow as the entire clearing shook beneath them.

Boulders tumbled from nearby slopes as loose rocks collapsed from the surrounding hillsides. Even distant mountain faces released thin white avalanches that spilled down their frozen slopes.

Neither Lucinda nor Alyssia moved, it was because they chose not to. Because for a brief moment their bodies simply refused to. Lucinda’s eyes widened; the red barrier around her continued trembling as violent currents battered its surface, yet her attention had already left the clearing entirely.

She looked upward, toward the skies, toward the Abyssal tears.

Her breath caught.

"..."

The black streams pouring from the tears had changed, they were bending. Every single one, the rivers of darkness that endlessly dripped from the sky no longer fell straight downward. Instead, they curved, twisting almost imperceptibly toward the immense pillar rising from Aerinon.

Lucinda stared, completely unable to look away.

("...What...") The thought barely formed. ("They’re reacting...") Not like when a spawn of Octavia revealed overwhelming mana. This was different; the tears almost seemed drawn toward it, pulled by something impossible to ignore.

Her heart beat noticeably faster.

("I’ve...") Her eyes followed the pillar climbing into the skies. ("...I’ve never seen anything like this before.") Not during battles and not during the appearance of Abyssal Wardens.

Mana she understood; divinity she could comprehend. Even the overwhelming presence of an Abyssal Warden possessed a recognizable nature. This felt fundamentally different; the pressure alone carried a suffocating weight that seemed to press against her skin.

It was not powerful alone; it felt wrong. As though the world reluctantly tolerated its existence.

Beside her, Alyssia remained utterly silent; her red eyes never left the pillar. The violent black currents continued spiraling upward, each rotation sending another tremor through the surrounding landscape.

The aura possessed astonishing density as it swallowed light. Snowflakes that drifted too close simply disappeared within the darkness before emerging elsewhere, torn apart into drifting black particles.

Alyssia slowly tightened her folded arms.

("...What is this?") She had witnessed overwhelming power before; she had wielded overwhelming power before.

Yet this unsettled her, and not because it was stronger than anything she had seen. But because of what it resembled. The sensation and the pressure and that malevolence lingering beneath it.

It reminded her of something, something buried far back within memories she wished remained buried.

Eyes, too many eyes and jagged mouths.

She refused to give the thought shape, refused to name it. Even within her own mind, instead, she merely continued watching.

("How unpleasant.") The words sounded remarkably composed; the feeling beneath them was not ("Whatever this power truly is..."). Her gaze narrowed. ("...it should never feel familiar.")

The pillar continued roaring into the skies for several more seconds. Then it began to recede; the black currents lost their violence first, and the spiraling slowed. The immense column gradually narrowed, shrinking inward instead of dispersing outward; it collapsed into itself.

Layer after layer folded inward until the enormous pillar became little more than a single stream of darkness rising from Aerinon. That too diminished; the final traces of black energy dissolved into the cold air.

Silence returned almost immediately; the earthquake ceased, and snow once again drifted peacefully across the clearing. Even the oppressive pressure vanished as though it had never existed. Only the immense cracks carved across the landscape remained to prove it had.

Aerinon stood exactly where he had been before. His coat shifted gently in the winter breeze. The red barriers surrounding Lucinda and Alyssia shimmered before dissolving into countless particles of red light that scattered into the snowfall.

Neither spoke; for several long moments, they simply stared at him.