Echoes of War, Ch 30: Blood Crystals (Patreon)

“Sleset, take the Ice Drake and bring the Silver Army.” Sam’s words echoed across the sky. “Meet me at the capital.”

“Yes, my lord!” Sleset hissed with delight as the ship curved through the sky until the prow faced the Moonlight Relic. “This world shall finally know what it is to offend the Silver Lord!”

A moment later, the Ice Drake disappeared into the horizon as a crystalline streak, its enchantments blazing. With the ship’s speed, they would gather the Silver Army and be at the capital within hours.

As for himself, the distance to the capital was little more than a step, especially now that he was at the Third Star. A new awareness of the Void around him made teleportation easier than ever. It meant he had a little time to look at his new gains before meeting his army.

He looked down at the remains of the vineyard below him, which was now a wrecked expanse of cracked stone and shattered earth. The grape vines had all been incinerated by the battle. There would be no more rich wines from here for the duke. More important, however, were the spirits of madness that had fled from the battle.

Their presence was a tragedy for the kingdom, but he had to hope that they would leave the normal people alone. The spirits’ desire for power should pull them toward Second and Third Evolution beings as they looked for the strongest people they could possess.

At least his sister and parents were protected by new artifacts he’d given them, and if any of those spirits came near the Moonlight Relic, the wards there would incinerate them. The Ice Sylphs were also guarded by their racial magics. In that regard, his friends and allies wouldn’t suffer from this mess, but the same couldn’t be said of the kingdom.

The most likely targets for possession were the kingdom’s elites and the Bloodline Clans.

A flare of silver runes appeared in the air as he inscribed some messages and then released them, sending them to the relic, the clans, the church, and a few other key places. A moment later, the message spells shimmered and disappeared with a warp of dimensional magic as they headed to their destinations. The least he could do was warn people to be on their guard and keep their defensive artifacts close.

Hopefully, they managed to protect themselves.

He marked the Passion Gate here for more attention later as he turned his mind to the last thing he needed to deal with. A wave of his hand gathered a glittering array of artifacts, weapons, and storage bags from the king’s elites, as well as the experience from the spirits. As civilized races, the elites provided no experience, but several dozen spirits of madness combined for a large amount that made up for it.

The experience flew toward him like effervescent starlight as it fused into his bones. All of the Outsiders were close to his own level or higher, and the World Core’s voice rang in his mind with the result.

Congratulations, Lord of Silver Stars. You have gained nine Class and General levels.

You are now Level 345.

You gain 90 Strength, 90 Constitution, 45 Agility, 45 Wisdom, 450 Intelligence, 450 Aura, 180 Charisma, and 18 free attribute points.

Compared to the gain from essence here, the increase wasn’t as much, but it was getting him closer to his Level 350 ability. He glanced at the results as he tossed the free points into Charisma.

STR: 14,006

CON: 15,839

AGI: 5,006

WIS: 2,587

INT: 25,030

AUR: 25,030

CHA: 2,493

His attributes had increased by more than 10% from that battle and the increase to Third Star. His Intelligence and Aura had also broken through the 25,000 mark. There was no new ability for that, since he’d just gained one at 20,000, but he knew there would be more in the future as his attributes continued to go up. Astral Titans had many racial abilities developed as they grew in strength.

With 5,000 Agility now, there were very few people on Aster Fall who were faster than him except a pure Agility build. When his battle aura was active and added 25% of his Intelligence to Agility, the total was over 11,000. The number of people who could beat him in that regard were probably in the single digits.

Altogether, his attributes were almost 90,000. The total value was enough to put him around the equivalent of Level 530 for regular experience classes. If he added the effect of his battle aura, he was around 120,000 in pure attributes, but they were distributed in a more balanced manner than most classes. His survival ability was greater than a regular 530, but his burst strength was lower, entirely apart from the additional abilities at higher evolutions.

Besides attributes, the major change from the Third Star was the new ability he’d gained: Void Star. There was a deeper awareness of the Void in his senses, like he could fold the fabric of space and peer through it, or even tear a hole and step through to the other side. He had the feeling that with a little practice, he could.

His sense of this primary dimension and the bordering subdimensions was stronger than ever. The primary dimension was as stable as a continent, old and familiar, while each of the subdimensions touching it felt like a ripple in the air, a momentary and passing thing that could be as thin as a passing breeze or as dense as a mountain range. Above all of them, the Void was dark and infinite, stretching out to the farthest reaches of existence. In the darkness, stars burned with brilliant points of light.

The main effect of the Void Star was the new awareness, but his teleportation and dimensional abilities had significantly improved, as had his racial abilities like Astral Blade and Astral Rift. With this addition, he met the requirements to use a third racial ability. This one was called Void Barrier, and it was a type of defensive shield. It created a wall of dimensional energy to consume an attack heading toward him.

The three abilities together defined a basic set of short range, long range, and defensive racial abilities for an Astral Titan. The more he practiced with them, the more his understanding of astral energy and the Void would advance. Eventually, he’d be able to develop unique astral energy abilities from their foundation.

The Will of the Path had told him once that he would learn what it meant to be Primordial. As he curled his fingers into a fist, he felt the new power roaring through his body. Then he looked toward the Passion Gate as he frowned. Those words were coming true, but it hadn’t been enough to face the gate by himself. He’d needed Amaris to step in and close it.

At least the ancient ward had worked, even if it only targeted the pure energy from the gate and ignored the spirits that escaped. There was apparently enough of a difference between those Outsiders and the Demon of Demented Passion that they hadn’t alerted it.

He shook his head as he looked over at the spatial bags and loot from the king’s people that were floating nearby. He scanned through it all in an instant, storing away the valuables and useful things before turning the remainder into ash.

Most of it was normal things like coins, scrolls, mediocre artifacts, and some pills, but when he was done, there was a handful of more curious items left, including the bone shield and a dozen or so strange red crystals.

The shield had a clear link to the capital that he planned to investigate in more depth once he arrived, so he stored it away after he finished examining it and turned his attention to the red crystals. Each of them was a diamond-shaped spindle several inches tall and a couple of inches across at the widest point.

The crystals were hard to sense, even sitting on his hand, and it left him puzzled even as he poured his aura into them, tracing out the enchantments one at a time. Their reality was different from the impression in his mind, but layer by layer, he overwhelmed the wards with brute force.

The first thing he noticed was that the enchantments were based on Outsider runes built up in concentric spheres and that the physical structure as a gem was formed from a thin layer of blood that had crystallized into a type of container, its substance merged with the runes. The spindle shape came from a dimensional ward that helped to hide them from detection. More than that, each gem had a different aura signature that matched the person they’d come from, making them unique and locked to that specific individual.

After a few minutes of work, the crystals turned translucent as their interiors revealed themselves and shock ran through him as he realized what the gems were. Now that the gems were unlocked, they shone on his palm like blinding lights. A shimmering pool of experience was gathered at the center of each one, swirling in a bright vortex. Blood red threads connected that energy to the structure of the gem, infusing it with power.

He waited for a moment, but the World Core’s attention didn’t descend. The experience inside the gems was stable, protected by the wards, except that it was slowly dissipating into the structure of the gem. He frowned as he rolled the gems around on his palm and studied the process. It didn’t take him much long to understand how they worked.

He’d been wondering how the Level 399s had power beyond their level. These gems were the answer. The enchantments were designed to hide the experience and block the World Core from taking it away. At the same time, they channeled that power toward the bearer to augment their strength, burning it like an expendable resource.

It was just like carrying around an amulet that enhanced your strength, except in this case, it applied to their attributes. The experience inside was like a mana charge they could use to augment themselves, offering a temporary boost.

It looked like each gem was able to improve as more experience was stored inside. They would provide more power at an increased cost of experience, making them like an aura artifact that could grow.

It was a clever creation.

No wonder the 399s had seemed like they were Level 405 or so. These gems were so linked into their individual auras that it was practically their own power. It gave them a way to avoid the World Limit and to use experience they gained even after they were Level 399. The advantage was obvious.

A bit more study revealed that each gem had a set limit on the amount of experience it could hold, which was linked to its size. As it absorbed experience, the gem would increase in size and power. At the same time, some of that energy would be diverted to improving the wards that protected it from the World Core’s attention and the protective layer that made up its physical structure would grow larger, almost like bark on a tree.

As the power increased, however, it became harder to hide and demanded more of the wards, until at a certain point, it would take more energy to strengthen the wards than what could be held inside. At that point, the gem was unable to continue expanding and had exhausted its potential.

His investigation suggested the true upper limit on a single gem was around Level 407, but past 405 it would become increasingly difficult, with nearly all of the experience lost to the wards, which made that the practical limit. Each of these elites also only had a single gem on them, so it seemed like they were limited to one.

It looked like the blood enchantment they used to control the power wasn’t able to differentiate between gems, so their control probably became unstable if they added more than that. He rubbed his chin as he finished studying them. One was probably enough for them, since they had to constantly refill it with experience as they used it.

Most of the experience gained would go toward growing them and improving the enchantment they offered, but filling them with enough experience to be useful was much easier. A single Level 200 monster should fill the gem to capacity.

There were twelve gems in his hand, and they all had differing levels of experience inside. Their sizes varied, from about the width of a man’s little finger to half again that size. It was something that could be easily concealed inside clothing or on a necklace.

The basic construction was elegant in its simplicity. The main enchantment came from the Outsider Path of Blood, providing the aura link and the storage space. They hid themselves within the owner’s aura, making it seem like they had a stronger than normal physique instead of extra experience.

With their owners dead, the wards were quickly weakening. Within a day, they would fail and the World Core would claim the experience. He looked down at them for a moment longer and then he suddenly closed his hand like a steel vise, crushing all twelve into red powder.

A flood of experience filled the air as the spiraling energies inside exploded outward. He immediately claimed it. It wasn’t a lot, about the same as killing a dozen Level 200 monsters, but it was a nice bonus.

As he brushed the red dust off his hands, the key question was where the gems came from. Clearly, someone had studied the Path of Blood well enough to make them and the use was apparently widespread, to the extent that practically every 399 he’d met had one. The Bloodline Clan envoys who had come to Highfold must have had these as well, which was why they also felt stronger than normal. That meant it was something he needed to investigate.

Outsider runes were from the essence system, which meant there was an Outsider somewhere managing them, one that was familiar with the Path of Blood. The only question was the relationship between that figure and these Level 399s. Given how common these gems seemed to be, it might have been going on for a while. It was undoubtedly something the Boundless Alliance had their hands in, but at least it didn’t look like it was going to tear a hole in Aster Fall.

The crystals were also minor enough that they shouldn’t attract attention from a Vos’Rekan. It might be a problem if there was a larger crystal somewhere with more complex enchantments or if the maker of these crystals was using Outsider runes for something else, but that remained to be seen. Right now, it was just a clever way they were trying to get around the World Limit.

He shook his head as he turned to the last thing from the battle. He had 49 new auras from the spirits. They tasted like rotten oranges covered in sugar, overlying the subtle, burnt flavor of ashes and sweat.

Aura of Madness (Heroic).

They were one of the more unpleasant auras he’d encountered, but he still tossed them in his storage with the rest. They might be useful for creating mind-shielding enchantments if he altered them a bit, or even as tracking artifacts for those spirits. He’d look into it once he dealt with the king.

He looked toward the capital and then with a single step, he disappeared in a streak of silver light. The Void sang to him with a deep resonance as he reappeared and then teleported again. Two teleports was enough to put him outside the walls of Veritan. He stood in the Void with his arms folded as he looked down at it, studying his target. It was the first time he’d ever been here, but he’d heard a lot about it.

Veritan was a sprawling city a dozen times larger than Highfold and more than ten million people lived here. The vast central plains fed them, giving them a life of wine and meat, and the stable dimensional energy of the Seal here kept Flaws from appearing most of the time. It made for a sheltered life, one where people seldom went far away. They thought of themselves as the center of the world, their lives untroubled by the chaos of the outer provinces.

He didn’t hate them for that, since it wasn’t as rosy an existence as the king’s messengers would have people believe. The common people had fewer opportunities for growth or change here. The guilds and noble families controlled the majority of the crafts and trade, making it hard for anyone to change their fate.

He much preferred the freedom of the wild, where strength could lead to opportunity, at least for combat classes, even if it had its own problems. He shook his head as he scanned across the city and located the palace. After a moment, he located it on the far western side of the city.

Its grounds took up an enormous section of the city that was miles wide, filled with buildings, cultured forests, parks, lakes, and more. It was a sharp contrast to the rest of the city, where space was at a premium. It almost looked like a country estate. Some lesser manors hugged the area close to it, turning the entire western district of the city into the nobles’ quarter.

He traced out the border of that quarter and then he teleported again, reappearing in the air just above it. At the same time, he locked onto the location of the king and every high level combatant in the area. There was currently a party going on in the main palace. The king was holding a glass of wine in his hand as he lounged on a couch with a few courtesans around him. Musicians were playing to one side while performers created illusions of a dramatic play in the air. None of it showed any concern for the state of the kingdom.

Silver runes flowed from Sam’s hands and flowed away, outlining the border of the nobles’ district as he began to create an enchantment to isolate the area. He didn’t want what was about to happen here to affect the rest of the city.

At the same time, he began shattering the city’s wards, while using another enchantment to silence the effect. It would take a little while to break through the layers of protection on the city, but it gave his army a chance to catch up. The nagas would enjoy what was about to happen.

After the battle at Highfold, he’d warned the king not to interfere. It was time to show him what it meant to anger the Lord of Silver Stars.