Chapter 29 (Patreon)

A\N: This will get an editing pass later. Sorry for the chapter slow down! I went back and compiled notes on allllll o f my chapters plus edited a few for royalroad. Now that I have a strong notes set up Im going to have a much easier time writing forward and making sure the plots are tied together.

Thanks for reading!

***

FENG SAI

I didn’t stop running when I hit the treeline. I heard the corrupted Titan above me, saw it as a black streak darting around the sky in flashes through the thickening canopy. Other monsters rose to greet it, giant birds offended it crossed into their territory, and the sky filled with animal calls.

The forest whipped by. I left the monsters behind. The sky disappeared above me, choked by by the leaves of monstrous, ancient trees. I ran until the noises were far, far behind me, and all that remained was the call of birds.

I shattered the Anti-Light movement technique, slowing until I returned to a regular pace in the forest.

The trees opened into a meadow that revealed the sky. Half of it was blocked by the rising mountain. Snow covered its distant peaks; rivers trailed down its side.

The clearing in the forest was full of flowers that pointed up at the sun. Floating blobs in a dozen gem-like colors spun in circles below the treeline. They folded over themselves as they drifted on the breeze. I walked forward, watching as they darted away.

[Cloudseed Jellyfish, Level 2]

[These passive manabeasts school and reproduce inside of clouds in massive number. They absorb water from the environment around them. Once they reach a critical mass, they explode out of the cloud and seed others.]

Nothing here was a threat to me. Instead, I looked back, squinting to try to see the distant fight. It was too far away. I was near the foot of the mountain now, miles away; I thought I might have seen distant dots over the far treeline.

This chamber was far, far larger than any I had seen before. And I had almost died at its entrance; a single direct strike from the memory of the Titan here would’ve killed me. It’s power was horrifying. And worst of all, I felt it. It had come so close, I had sensed its presence.

It had no cultivation at all.

I had nearly died to a monster that lacked cultivation.

I shuddered at the thought. But I didn’t have time to stop and think about it. The hunts throughout my childhood had put me in significant danger; danger of maiming or dismemberment. Not of instant, violent death.

The alert that had appeared when I entered this Chamber came to my mind. I recalled it.

[Warning: You have reached the Core Chamber.]

I didn’t know what that meant for the dungeon. I sighed. If only Dale had been actually helpful, I would’ve been able to navigate the place better.

The dungeon-spirit that had become a pseudo-companion to me climbed up on my back and onto my shoulder.

“What about you? What’s up with the core chamber?”

Littlebird chirped, happily this time.

“So it’s something good, then.” I said, frowning.

Each chamber of the dungeon seemed like a memory of significant import to the Titan’s life and history. They were almost puzzles at times; bringing the bird to the creek and sitting with it while it recovered had opened a door to the dungeon.

The room I had fallen into after shattering the desert through the unintentional use of the formation to kill the Titan had been completely different. From what I had seen, there had been no puzzle. There was barely even a chamber. Just a path of bodies that the Trailblazers involved had carved a path through.

“What’s the puzzle here, Littlebird?” I asked, folding my arms and looking around. I had to find out how to get out of this dungeon before that bird caught up to me. I didn’t have any chance in killing that monster.

I had gained plenty of benefits. It was time to leave the dungeon and look elsewhere. Especially before Dale found me again and decided to remove any witnesses.

“Whatever the puzzle is, it has to be near the mountain. The entire chamber is built around it.” I ruminated aloud. Littlebird chirped along happily.

I listened for the sound of fighting. I heard the noise of bugs and birds in the trees, of wind roaring ahead, and of the little Jellyfish swirling around behind me. But I didn’t hear fighting. I cautiously made my way through the clearing, pushing through the tall flowers.

There were no surprises, no predators, no traps. Just the raw, untouched nature, more impressed onto the birds memories than anything else had been. I moved toward the mountain, shaping my techniques to accelerate, avoiding the openings and meadows wherever I could.

Breaks between the treeline featured jagged sections of ground, and, at one point, an entire river pouring down off the mountain. It was shallow but wide, eroding a section of the floating island. I jumped across the rocks that it carved up out of the dirt.

The forest turned upward, the ground at a grade as I made my way closer and closer to the mountain.

Then the treeline ended.

The dirt was too thin. Trees grabbed onto what earth remained, roots spreading across exposed stone as I stared up at the mountain.

I must have crossed fully to the side of the mountain; at an angle, it hid the irregularity in the massive stone cliff-face before me.

A city split the mountain in half, carved out of the stone itself.

Unlike the desert city, which was a shattered ruin, it was whole and in one piece. Nature had barely overtaken it as it had with the precursor ruin I found on first entering the world. Sun and rain had faded the paint on the colorful vista’s of a vertical city built up the sloping walls. It looked like a blade had bisected the mountain in half.

Sparkling veins of ore criss-crossed the valley that bisected the mountain, glimmering in the sunlight of the memory chamber.

This place was too vast — too great to be something remembered. Rather than memories, the chambers seemed like pieces of history that had impressed themselves thoroughly onto the Titan that experienced them.

I walked toward the city cautiously. I recognized the embedded placement of a vast formation — all the qi around me shifted subtlely. Whatever was here, it was already powered.

A main thoroughfare crossed the city built into the gouge. Giant pillars remained where great bridges once connected the disparate sides of the city that rose away on either side of me, winding roads up the sides connecting to hundreds of houses.

I walked on the left side of the valley, staring at the middle where I felt the qi perturbed by the formation. It must have been some kind of defensive formation — the city had no walls. But maybe floating in the air was enough.

[Anti-Earth Spirit Vein]

[An Exotic Material transfigured by an elaborate technique. The spirit-veins in this island have been converted to create an anti-gravity affect.]

Farm tools littered the side of an open warehouse. The door was missing, wood long since rotten away. But the tools remained, handles and all. I felt the buzz of qi on them.

[Sickle of the Otherworldly Cultivator]

[Shovel of the Otherworldly Cultivator]

[Till of the Otherworldly Cultivator]

[An Enchanted tool made of exotic materials. Identify level too low to identify properties.]

A peak inside the open window showed more of the same piled on the floor. It was an entire warehouse of farm tools. I continued forward. There had been an entire city here; hundreds of people.

The desert ruins had dozens of signs of battle. But there was no sign of battle here. Whoever was here left of their own accord.

I stepped over a line of rubble left behind by the collapsed bridge above; time and weathering had claimed its remains, dropping it into the ground. As I approached the end of the thoroughfare, the city grew more and more thin, and the nature of the buildings changed.

A waterfall fell down the side of the mountain and accumulated in a massive pond, now laden with algae so thick it seemed solid. The water accumulated and drained away through a hole in the top, probably deep down and off the side of the island. There were more water wells higher up, draining melting snow from the mountain’s distant peak.

It made the entire air here wet as water dissipated from the waterfall.

Whereas before, the houses were carved into smooth stone walls, here, the walls were replaced entirely by stacked bricks, piled high up the face of the mountain. Killing slits in the stone began to appear at regular angles. The first doors I had seen in this entire journey began to pocket the walls.

[Fortress door, Anti-Metal]

[A Fortified and Enchanted door, designed to resist attacks. Built into an Anti-Light Order city-fortress.]

I stopped, looking back at the door, then down the street. The entire fortress was built around some central point, and it wasn’t the entrance to the city on this side.

It confirmed what I suspected — this was another Anti-Light ruin. They seemed to dot this entire continent.

I approached the door, sword in hand. Anti-Light ruins only meant one thing to me.

Loot.