Moonlight Relic, Ch 24: Desolate Soul Wraith (Patreon)

The wind and moonlight pushed Sam upward as he headed for the wraiths. He could hover now while the moons were out, but he couldn’t fly, and the control plateau disabled teleportation when it was under attack, so he was forced to climb. Despite that, he was ascending quickly.

The wraiths were diving at the cliff and slamming themselves into the greenstone and the defensive shield around the plateau. Then they peeled themselves off and tried it again. Their voices were high-pitched shrieks in the air that grated at the top range of his hearing. He wasn’t sure humans would even be able to hear it. They were definitely trying to reach the astral energy in the self-repair enchantment. Now that it was active, it was far more intense than it had been before.

Why do you think they want the energy here? His thought was directed to the star as he glanced at a thread of astral energy running below his hands. It was like liquid moonlight and stars, rushing along with a bright sparkle.

It’s pure aura. Outsiders consume it when they break into Aster Fall, so it is reasonable that they are seeking more. Perhaps that is the main reason they are banned.

Perhaps it calls to them, Sam growled in agreement, but it doesn’t say much for their common sense.

The two hundred feet to the peak was disappearing under his grip as the greenstone supported him. There was a pull of energy in it that let him hold on, although the surface was designed to be slick. Perhaps at his Evolution, he would see an option to fly or teleport on his own, like the builders must have been able to do. As he climbed, he sent a thought to his father on the first layer. They should have seen the wraiths by now. If they were able to join in, they could split the experience.

“I see them.” Jeric’s response was a confident rumble. “We’ll move to intercept the ones that are lower down and try to block off their retreat here, but it will be difficult to pin them down. They have a lot more mobility than we do. Did you finish with your repair? Something has definitely happened. The entire peak is lit up like a fireworks show.”

“One part is done.” Sam said as he sent back a brief explanation. “Wait for me to get into position up here before you attack. I have an idea.”

As he continued to climb, his thoughts turned to how to improve the overall strength of the relic and the changes to his crafting abilities. As far as he could tell, his Enchanter profession had Evolved into Aura Forger, or at least it was approaching that type of change. The other two hadn’t Evolved yet. They’d received a Heroic ability that allowed them to work differently and he’d been offered a chance to rename them, but they were still the same core abilities.

Either way, his thoughts were on the future rather than on the wraiths as he continued upward. They were dangerous, but after dealing with so many similar things, he didn’t feel a need to get all worked up about them. The thing that bothered him the most was the idea of them escaping. He couldn’t allow that to happen, especially for the big one. The fragments of the blizzard around the mountain gave him an idea, and he began to pull the remnants of it closer, intensifying the wind around the peak.

A moment later, he reached the control plateau. The shield parted around him, letting him grip the edge of the stone and flip himself up. He flew upward, landing on the edge with a crouch. The wraiths were massed below the peak to his left and he looked around the plateau before heading in that direction.

The control pillar was gleaming with a brilliant blue light, the same as Caelus above. There was a thin curtain of energy connecting the two, like a phantom river pouring downward. It wasn’t very strong, but it was there, flickering in and out of existence. This close to it, he could feel it roaring past. That had to be the charge the relic was receiving.

The shining blue crown that marked the peak was invisible to him here. It was part of the shield that protected this area and there was normally a swirl of color that marked it, but it was effectively invisible with all the moonlight in the sky. There was just a bright blue line along the edge where it touched the greenstone.

He stopped just behind the shield, looking out at the wraiths as he waited for his father and the others to get into position. The monsters were oblivious to his presence as they continued attacking the lines. They were easier to see from here, letting him count more than three dozen. They were mostly foggy shapes, but here and there they had the vague outline of a human or a monster. There were even a few bat-like wings that might have belonged to an Ebonstreak Hunter or a wyvern once. To get this many servants, the Desolate Soul Wraith must have been preying on the ruins ever since the Grand Flaw was closed.

“Almost ready,” his father’s voice echoed through the amulet. “Lenei has an idea she wants to try out.”

He sent back a confirmation as he continued gathering the blizzard together, focusing it into a spiral that began to spin around the peak. As he worked, he looked around the control plateau again, searching for the effects of the self-repair enchantment. There were silver lines lighting up the stones at his feet like a web, but the plateau had been spared most of the damage that affected the rest of the relic. Whatever repairs were happening here, they had to be mostly internal.

Here and there, he could feel snarls where the energy was misaligned. Silver ripples were washing over them like waves on a shore, slowly pushing and pulling the design back to its original configuration.

How much energy will the relic be able to gather? The question was on Sam's mind as he watched it. Will the alignment fully charge it?

It has 12% stored power, but 40% is the recommended reserve. While the moons are close, it can operate without tapping into it. If it were in perfect condition, the alignment would completely recharge it, but it may be limited by its current disrepair. It is still at 32% integrity.

The star flickered as it drew his attention to the control pillar, and a moment later a notification for the relic sprang up in Sam’s mind.

Stored Energy: 12%.

Auric Charge: 819,108 / 500,000,000.

There are two separate systems in the relic, the star added. The stored energy is for overall operations, while the auric charge is the power it can exert on the local dimension. Currently, it is operating at a tiny fraction of its capability.

As he watched, the auric charge ticked upward by a few points and hovered there. The relic must have tried to repair the connection many times over the years, but it had never been able to. There was just enough of a trickle from the alignments to keep it going, but not enough for it to defend the area.

The self-repair enchantment is focusing on restoring the connection between the two systems, which are linked to the crown around the control plateau. It should be able to absorb astral energy more efficiently within a day or two.

After that, it will absorb a background level of energy to maintain its daily operation, even while the moons are distant, but there will be a high efficiency loss until the repairs are further along.

Sam nodded as something that looked like a falling star shot across the blue curtain connecting to the control pillar. There was a vastness to it, stretching out into the dark, that raised a question about the nature of the world and the powers above it. He barely understood what he had just repaired, and that was an area he needed to address.

What is a Heroic Tier Ability? he asked as he turned his attention to the rewards he’d just received. Is that what comes after Epic?

Based on the relic’s memory, Heroic is extremely rare. It is beyond Epic, but that is not the right way to think of it. It cannot be achieved by leveling up an ability. It is a category of its own.

What do you mean?

Heroic Abilities bend natural laws in some way. Yours, for example, allow you to craft without components or to turn a common rock into something more. Once you grow into them, it is unlikely that any Enchanter in the world will be able to rival you, or at least you will not suffer the same limitation on materials as they do.

The star’s words didn’t clarify everything, but it did tell him that if he had the opportunity to get one of his combat abilities to Heroic, he should take it. It would be useful the next time he faced something like the Blood Elemental.

Is there a tier beyond Heroic? Sam’s curiosity got the best of him as he asked the question.

No such tier is recorded. The star was silent for a moment as it scanned through its memories. Based on a theory from researchers who once worked here, the only higher tier would be classified as Divine. An ability on that level would be similar to the World Core itself.

Sam frowned as he turned away from the pillar. He didn’t know if a Divine Ability existed in the world, but he was sure that something out there was as powerful as the World Core. Otherwise, it wouldn’t have any enemies, and the relic would never have been broken.

The better question was if anything like that was still around.

He checked on his father’s position, and a moment later, he got the signal that they were ready. Without the need to say anything else, he stepped outside of the barrier and reached up to the blizzard winds that were whipping around the peak.

His talons flickered as he drew the runes for the First Snow in the air. They shone with a brilliant crystal light against the dark sky as he added a few more runes and released it into the blizzard. He could feel the aura in the runes more intensely now, as well as how to shape them into spells, which had to be the result of Aura Forging. A profession didn’t add directly to your strength, but an ability did. It felt more natural than ever to combine runes with the world. The spell spiraled upward as it disappeared into the storm.

Below him, the wraiths were gathered in a cloud as they continued to attack the enchantment lines. The dark mass of shadowy forms writhed as a forbidding breeze blew past them. Something in their instincts pulled their attention skyward to where a howling blast of ice came barreling down. The wind was laden with ice as it tore down the mountainside and curved around the mass of wraiths, blocking their escape.

A moment later, it swallowed them.

Inside the blizzard, arcs of lightning and jagged shards of ice whirled faster and faster as Sam poured more essence into it, forming a dense sphere that slammed the wraiths backward as they tried to fly away. A few of them started to slip through the cracks in the wind, and he threw an Essence Shield up in front of them, smashing them back.

A shriek ripped outward from the Desolate Soul Wraith as it slammed into the side of the blizzard, its wings tearing dark gouges through the ice. Its form twisted like a tangled sail as it curled around and two angular dark eyes like gashes became visible on the surface as it flipped around, looking for its attacker. A moment later, it let out an ear-piercing shriek as it found Sam. The sound shivered across his bones like a file.

Sam growled as he slammed his hands together, forcing the winds into an even tighter ball. The runes he’d added to the storm were similar to his old scroll for Slow Ice, but more complex, and he had more control over the result now than he’d had with the firestorm. As he poured essence into it, the edges of the blizzard turned into a wall of crackling ice that froze into clumps and continued to spin. Inside, an intense cold spread across the wraiths as their forms were coated with deepening layers of frost.

He didn’t stop there.

The blizzard had begun as a natural storm and there was something he wanted to try now that his abilities had reached Epic and his enchanting had developed. Streams of moonlight and flame poured off of his hands as he began to Intensify the aura of the blizzard. With a whistling pressure, the wind picked up and the temperature dropped even more as the ice inside the wind began to harden.

Most of the wraiths slowed down, their movements hindered by the layers of ice that were covering them. Only the big one continued to fight back, writhing as it slammed into the side of the spell again. When it was knocked backward, it curved around and attacked again. Each impact drained some of the force from the storm and essence poured out of him as he reinforced it, but with the moons out, his energy was holding up.

He continued to Intensify the blizzard as he leapt off the cliff and pulled it along behind him. The wraiths were too high up for his father to join in easily, so he needed to take them down to him. As he descended, a field of holy light lit up the first layer and he changed his fall slightly, directing the wraiths toward the target. A few moments later, the half-frozen storm crashed into the ground above it with a sound like a thousand shattering ice crystals. His essence dropped by nearly ten percent and then started to tick back upward. Inside, the Desolate Soul Wraith let out another nerve-shattering shriek. He growled back at it as he flexed his talons.

“Make a small opening for us!” Lenei shouted from the side as she arrived.

His father and Lesat were right next to her. All three of them were shining with a blessing, their weapons and armor gleaming with light, just like the ground below the wraiths. It looked like that was what she’d been doing.

“Hang on. We can’t let it escape.”

With that, he pulled his hands apart as a miniature sphere began to form between them. Part of the First Snow, along with runes for Blizzard, Ice, and Shield spun at the center. A moment later, the runes disappeared as they fused into the sphere, which began to gleam with a bright aura. He released the spell and let it expand outward across the area, until everything within thirty feet was inside.

“Now we can kill them,” he agreed. “Get ready.”

He reached out to the storm as he began to create an opening. As the winds weakened, the entire storm began to turn unstable, but instead of letting the aura dissipate, he transferred it to the outer shield. It wasn’t much different than pulling aura from the transfer lines.

The Desolate Soul Wraith released a scream as it felt the storm weakening, and it shook the layers of ice off its body as it twisted around, heading for the gap that appeared in the side. As it rushed out, it was met by a bolt of brilliant white that slammed into it. A hammer and a sword lined with a similar energy hit it a second later.

The wraith staggered, but it was too angry to run. Its body was a billowing mass that gleamed with dark threads like pulsing veins, dusted along the surface with a powder of ice crystals. A swirling opening marked with fragmented shadows was visible where a mouth should have been. As soon as it saw the people in front of it, its form flared out to the side like wings and it rushed forward, heading directly for them.

It wasn’t aware that its fate was already sealed.

A little while later, the wraith collapsed on top of the snow, its amorphous body spreading out like a dark cloak. The threads through its body were still and its size had shrunk by half, leaving it only a dozen feet wide. Scorched gashes and rents made it clear how gentle its end had been. Behind it, a field of smaller wraiths lay scattered across the field like cast-off clothing.

The weight of experience descended across the field, swirling around the four of them, and the World Law’s voice rang in Sam’s mind.

Congratulations, Battlefield Reclaimer. You have eliminated a Bounty and defended your world. Experience for the bounty and its servants is split between you and your party.

You are Acknowledged. You gain a Mark.

You receive 1,530,000 Class experience for the battle and 5,000,000 experience as a bonus for the Bounty.

Class Experience: 245,902,980 / 250,000,000

General Experience: 246,079,527 / 250,000,000

Your Trait: Bounty Hunter has reached its second tier.

[You gain +5 Wisdom. Your ability to sense bounties near you has increased by 5%. Range is now 105mi.]

You have earned an Epic Tier reward. You may choose one Ability to upgrade to Epic.

Make your choice now.

He made his choice without any hesitation, selecting Assume Aura. It was the only Class ability he had that was still at Basic. The message faded away as the World Core's energy descended, crashing into him like a tidal wave. The upgrade and the experience burned its way into his bones as he let out a slow hiss of breath and forced himself to endure it.

It looked like the bonus for the bounty bypassed the compression at 99. Bonuses were probably how most people got through it. The wraith hadn’t been as difficult as the Terror, so the rewards were less, but the increase to Bounty Hunter was useful. It raised his Wisdom to 123, and that was going to be necessary.

If his calculation was right, reclaiming Elite auras would need 125 Wisdom to reach an 85% maximum chance and Epic ones would take 155. Right now, he would only have a 53% chance for those. He grumbled to himself about it, but there was nothing to do. He’d just have to get his Wisdom higher or risk losing them.

A glance at his father told him that Jeric had just reached Level 87. Lenei was also 87 and Lesat was right behind at 86. They had received the full amount for the kill, and now they were all solidly in the Epic tier. It made him smile, since it meant that he wasn’t alone in approaching the First Evolution. He just needed to figure out a way for his mother and Krana to level quickly, and someday Altey too.

The wraith’s aura crumbled to ash as he sacrificed it to Identity, filling his senses with the taste of dark ash and wings. Its presence was filled with a drifting, endless search for something. It didn’t feel like hunger, but rather like it was trying to find something it had lost. The notification he’d been waiting for came as the last of the aura disappeared.

Identify Aura has reached the Elite Tier.

[You now have a 30% chance to instantly Identify an aura.]

After that, he went through the rest of the wraiths one by one, Identifying the new ones, which was nearly all of them. Although some of the monsters must have been familiar before they’d been eaten, whatever the wraith had done had switched out their auras for something else. If the Identify was successful, he tried to reclaim anything similar. He ended up with five Elite auras and no Epic ones, but it was good practice for Identify.

As he added the Elite Aura of Crumbling Bone to his storage, the dimension that made it up suddenly began to twist and surge. The disruption was much stronger than the last time and cracks shivered through the area. Then came a force that felt like the World Law and a bit like the astral energy in the relic. It poured into the gaps, filling them with new strength.

Aura Storage has reached the Elite Tier.

[Storage capacity increased from 1200 to 1500 auras.]

As the last step, he claimed the essence in the wraith, which was worth 2,230 stars, moving it quite a bit closer to the fourth layer.

Essence Constellation (Third Layer): 14,398 / 15,000.

Your Strength has increased by 4.

Constitution has increased by 6.

Agility has increased by 1.

Intelligence has increased by 6.

Aura has increased by 6.

By the time that was done, the others had finished with their level gains and were waiting for him. The shield outside their battle was still spinning in an icy wall, and he released the spell, letting the energy dissipate into the night sky.

The silver web of the repair enchantment burned brightly above them, drawing his attention. It was a few feet farther down the peak now, slowly heading to the first layer, but it still had over a hundred feet to go.

Unfortunately, his attention was pulled away from it a moment later as a pulse of warning from the star drew him away. A map of the first layer flared in his mind, and when he saw what was on it, a growing anger rippled through his veins. Highlighted in bright red were over a dozen monsters that were heading directly for the peak. Right behind them, a handful of adventurers were also racing in this direction. One of them in particular stood out, dressed in a dark cloak that billowed all around him.

Human. Dimensional Mage-Tower Magus. Level 184.

It looked like the wraiths weren’t the only ones interested in the aura.