Emerald Alchemist, Ch 23: Dao of Stone (Patreon)

The cavern was a scene of destruction. Shattered walls and corroded stone covered the entire area as the crash of battle faded away.

Rubble was everywhere, a mix of dark obsidian that was still burning with internal flames that warred with dead-looking sections filled with gray scars where Corpsewind’s aura had damaged them.

With the elder dead, the spiritual energy of the stone was slowly returning, increasing the heat and making the flames in the obsidian leap higher, but it would take a little while for it to all come back.

Massive slabs of stone had fallen from the walls during the fight, making the cavern wider than before, but in some sections the ceiling was caved in. In others, the rubble was piled so high it might as well have been a new wall.

Only the center area was relatively clear of debris. The forces there had blown the stone away, leaving a rough space.

Leaf had disappeared during the fight, probably watching from somewhere calmer. Now he returned and leapt onto Verse’s shoulder. He rubbed his head against him, hissing in displeasure.

Verse scratched his scales as he caught his breath.

Then he made a painful journey to strip the three corpses of their spatial rings and talismans. There wasn’t much left of either assassin, but their rings and equipment were still there.

After that, he sat down in the center of the cavern to recover his energy.

The spiritual pressure of the chasm had trapped the talismans embedded in the assassins’ bodies and prevented them from returning to the sect, which was one of the reasons he’d chosen to descend so far before taking a stand.

The sect probably had a soul link that would alert them when the assassins died, so they would know the result, but keeping the details from them was almost as good.

Corpsewind only had one talisman that tried to escape when he died, one that was more simpler than the assassins, but it had fizzled out as well. It looked like a simple tracking beacon.

Either way, he wasn’t concerned about the sect’s reaction. They had sent some of their best and they’d all been killed with no explanation.

That should be enough to frighten them.

They would probably assume a senior cultivator had intervened on Verse’s behalf, perhaps one from the Alchemists’ Guild or the Imperial Knights, and saved him. They would be worried about offending that supporter and wasting more people, so they should hesitate to attack him again.

At least for a little while.

It was unlikely they would think it was his own strength. The probably was too low for them to comprehend it. He let out a low chuckle at the thought.

Then he winced. His ribs were fractured and the movement sent a sharp pain through his side.

Emerald, jade, and silver energies were surging through his body, flooding all of the broken parts as they worked to put him back together. His first dragon meridian hummed as he breathed in energy from the world and sent it pouring into his dantian.

He was in sorry shape, but he would heal.

He grumbled as he pulled out a master-quality healing salve and began to apply it to his wounds. It wasn’t much, but it was his and it would speed things up a little, at least for the surface wounds.

Once that was done, he let out a slow breath and cleared his mind, focusing on the insights from the battle. He’d learned a lot in fighting Corpsewind, especially with that strange physique the man had.

He wasn’t a Netherblood Demon, but he had a trace bloodline related to them and he’d been formidable. It gave Verse a new appreciation for the Elder Races, including his own.

Without his dragon bloodline, he would be dead right now.

He looked down at his skin, which was still showing the outline of his scales, and gave himself a nod. Fighting down here had kept that information from the public knowledge, which was what he needed.

He wasn’t sure how much interaction the sect had with the Netherblood Demons who were in control of the other Hearts, or even if the demons were still actively managing them. The record he’d found in the Emerald Hall was old enough that a lot of things could have changed since then.

Just in case, hiding his heritage was still the best, especially if there was something more than a faint bloodline connection for Corpsewind.

Where there was one bloodline, there could be more.

He was sure that the sect’s soul slave techniques descended from that heritage. The energy in that bone crown had been similar to what Corpsewind used. The ancestor of the sect had probably been a demon descendant himself.

There was a chance that bloodline was common among the sect’s elite, which meant the elder’s death would make a stir, but at this point, the only one he was really worried about was the sect master.

If the other elders were similar to Corpsewind, he was confident in escaping. He still had a couple of talismans to help, and more than that, he’d come to this chasm for a reason.

This far beneath the earth, the Dao of Stone was strong. It was exactly what he needed.

If he’d been at the Aligned realm, that fight would have been over a lot faster.

Before he let those thoughts go too far, he focused his energy on healing. There would be time for that as soon as he put himself back together.

He’d used up all of the offensive and defensive talismans in that fight, as well as all of the Amethyst Harrow Pills, but they’d all proved their worth. He’d been right to get them.

He should have made even more Amethyst Harrow Pills, but it was a good lesson for the future. They hadn’t lasted for long, but they’d been a key factor in breaking through Corpsewind’s aura.

He’d been unsure of their effect until he saw them in battle, but now he knew why the dragons praised them so highly.

They were incredibly useful.

If they’d been a higher rank, they would have let him tear apart Corpsewind’s aura and his specters immediately, and he could have saved a lot of trouble. They were basically like storing up energy and dragon fire for the future, and then unleashing it against ghosts.

But those were just some of the small lessons from the battle.

The major gain was from the fight against Corpsewind and using his dao. It was rare for him to use Dusk to Dawn in battle, and to use so many Solar Cycles at once.

It gave him a better understanding of his Dao of the Crimson Sunset and the Dao of the Endless Dawn, as well as how they were two sides of the same coin.

A few months back, he’d discussed the idea with the shrine and come up with a name for the combined dao, which he’d started using to describe his body cultivation after it was altered the first time he unleashed Dusk to Dawn.

Now, he was sure it was correct.

The Dao of the Undaunted Sun.

It was an existence that could die and be reborn, cycling eternally as it shone in the dark. A sun with two sides, both rising and falling.

It felt right.

It came with a serious regeneration and healing ability, which he was currently putting to good use. Even as he thought about it, one of the cracks in his ribs fused together with a crackling sound.

Other than that, he’d gained a deeper understanding of some of his related daos, especially Fire, which felt like it was about to break through to the Heart of the Dao stage soon.

Currently, only the Crimson Sunset and Endless Dawn were at that stage.

Once the broader concept of Fire joined them, it would be easier for him to progress the rest of his Jade Foundation to that level as well. Everything would proceed according to the method of the Jade Scripture.

He gave the results a satisfied nod, letting them distract him from the ache of healing. The battle had drawn him away from his work, but it was worth it.

When he was finished assessing the changes, he looked down at the three spatial rings he’d gathered. One by one, he began to go through them, sorting out the contents and placing the ones he wanted to keep into his own spatial ring.

The rest could be sold.

After a few minutes, a slight smile lingered on his lips. Unlike the last group of assassins, these two were wealthy, and that didn’t even take into account the great pile of resources stored in Corpsewind’s ring.

In total, he gathered over 10,000 mid-grade spirit stones from Corpsewind, as well as a few thousand more from the assassins. There were even a hundred high grade ones.

It was a significant boost to his wealth, more than enough to pay for the talismans he’d used.

Other than that, there were dozens of pills, talismans, random rare ores, some spiritual herbs, gems, and other things that the three of them had collected over time.

There weren’t too many good weapons or artifacts, but there were some. His eyes lit up when he pulled two of them out of Corpsewind’s ring. One was a dark bronze staff and the other was an amulet made of some gray metal he didn’t recognize.

Both were Primal Spirit-level artifacts.

They weren’t suited for him, since he preferred a spear or his bare hands, but he could trade them in the auction house for something he liked better.

It would go a long way toward replacing the Flowing Gold Spear, which was half ruined from the force he’d channeled through it. The internal formation in it had burned out, leaving it as little more than an expensive stick.

As for why Corpsewind hadn’t used them, he could tell they weren’t suited for him either. It must have been hard to find something to match his demonic physique.

He stored away the artifacts and everything else of value. Then he destroyed a handful of items that were too much trouble to keep, including some of the sect’s poisons and unstable talismans.

When he was done, he turned his attention to Corpsewind’s body. The assassins’ corpses had already been destroyed, but the elder’s was mostly intact. His demonic traits were even more pronounced in death. He looked like a bony skeleton.

He should probably incinerate it.

“Should we do anything special with his corpse?” he asked the shrine with a frown. “Will it damage this area to leave it here?”

“Demons do have a bad habit of corrupting an area where they die and turning it into a pool of negative energy,” the shrine replied calmly. “With all the fire energy here, it’s unlikely, but there’s always the chance he could turn into some type of fire-aligned shade, especially if anything else dies nearby and adds new energy to the mix.

“If he were more pure-blooded, you could refine him into an artifact that would gather vital energy from those you kill, like a reusable healing talisman, or make a demon heart pill out of him to test your mind…or use his bones in a spirit-trapping formation.”

The shrine let out a thoughtful hum as it considered the possibilities, but then it gave a mental shake of its head.

“But he’s not pureblooded and it’s best not to go down that road. The Kin went to war over those methods more than once. You shouldn’t bring them back without great need.”

Verse nodded. He would do better with pills than carving up demons, but it was good to know it was an option, even if he had no intention of using it.

He summoned a wave of emerald flame. Before long, Corpsewind was nothing but ash.

When that was done, he rubbed Leaf’s head and then closed his eyes, focusing all of his energy on healing.

***

Eventually, he opened his eyes and let out a breath of emerald flames. It had taken a little while, but his injuries were healed.

It was time.

He dusted off his robe as he stood up, studying the cavern with bright eyes. Then he headed down the tunnel deeper into the chasm, searching for a location with an even more impressive presence of Stone.

A few hours later, he reached a cavern where the weight of the earth pressed down on his spirit like a mountain. Instead of being a problem, it was comfortable, almost restful.

It made his jade essence condense in response, until his cultivation was pressing back against the world with similar force.

He looked around, and then he headed even deeper. He walked for hours before he stopped again.

Here, the weight of stone was so great that it felt like his jade essence had turned to stone itself. Without his bloodline, even taking a single step would be difficult. With it, he moved easily, passing through the dense energy like it was water.

He was miles below the surface, so far down that Primal Spirit cultivators would have been crushed to death by the weight.

This place was good.

He took a deep breath as he studied his Jade Foundation, especially the location where the fifth elemental pillar needed to rise. Then he nodded.

He sat down on the stone floor of the cavern as he began to meditate, letting his mind merge into the weight of the world.

At the same time, he opened his spirit to the weight of stone around him, letting it flow in. His breath became still and slow, and his spirit silent, until it was like he’d turned to stone himself.

His skin began to turn grey as impressions of Stone filled his mind.

These were the bones of the mountains, the foundation of existence, the earth and stone that supported life. With his bloodline’s natural resonance with Stone, the barrier between him and greater understanding was as thin as paper.

With his eyes closed, he reached out to the stone all around, expanding his spirit to its greatest extent. Then he began to hum.

It was a deep rumble like the very beginning of a dragon’s roar, one full of spiritual energy that was the purest expression of his cultivation and bloodline. It thrummed through his chest and bones as it spread outward.

The stone around him began to echo in response, returning the hum. At first it was a different note, one that sent fluctuations of power crashing against his heart like steel walls, which almost ruptured some of his blood vessels, but he changed the pitch and it began to smooth out.

He continued to test and match the energy he was pouring out against the returning echoes, and his familiarity with the stones began to increase.

The heart of the note he was using was the final pillar in his Jade Foundation, which began to resonate in response. There was a space where Stone should be, but it was missing right now, like a missing note.

With four pillars complete, the foundation was nearly done, but it could only be completed by the right element. Note by note, he let the resonance of the energy test it.

Each echo that came from the earth was a suggestion from the world, offering him an idea for how to complete his foundation. For now, he let them crash against the emptiness, enduring the collision with his spirit.

Each echo carved its meaning into him and added to his understanding of Stone.

At the same time, he was meditating, studying the weight of Stone around him as he searched for the final insight. With this much Stone energy, there was no need for elemental crystals or treasures.

If he couldn’t feel the truth of the element here, he would be truly blind.

Time passed and his body was as still as the Earth. As his familiarity with Stone progressed, his skin turned darker until it matched the shade of the obsidian around him, and his internal flames leapt through it as he copied the ones in the walls.

Then he set aside the flames and focused just on Stone. Slowly, the color of his body changed again, becoming deeper and more weathered, until he resembled a stone statue, his exterior weathered and grey.

His movements were as slow as the earth, but his heart continued to beat. Each drumbeat was sent out an echo now that rolled out into the world. Then it returned, crashing against him.

Like that, he stood there, his body unmoving, as all around the returning echoes from the Stone struck him. Bit by bit, they tested him, turning him harder and denser, and he studied the truth they held.

He’d once cultivated a Stone Body, which now served as a foundation for this technique, but he could still feel his heart slowing down.

Soon, it would stop.

That was the danger of this method.

On the Heavengold Imperial World, this technique was called “Becoming the Dao.” It was something that anyone with an understanding of the Aligned realm could attempt, even before they reached that level, and it was widely regarded as suicide.

It could be done with almost any elemental dao, assuming you found a place that held a strong enough presence of that energy that you could subsume yourself in it, but the most likely outcome was that you would be destroyed by that same energy long before you reached enlightenment.

Even if you did reach some understanding, you still had to extract yourself. That was even harder than reaching the place safely.

Without his bloodline, he wouldn’t have tried this. With it, however, he’d decided it was reasonable. He could feel the truth of it in his heart.

He remembered how Memory had turned to stone when he created the Heart, but he still lived. Stone held him stable. Even on the verge of death, the element was his ally.

An Emerald Dragon would not be killed by Stone or Wood.

With that said, it still came with risks.

He didn’t plan to spend the rest of his existence as a stone statue that was just barely alive. That was why he kept careful watch on his energy and the process as he let himself slowly turn to stone. It was also why he’d left this element for last.

With the other four elements in his Jade Foundation, he was confident in pulling himself back out.

Fire heated his bones and muscles, Water made his blood circulate, Wind filled his lungs, and Wood flooded him with vitality that kept the stone alive.

On that edge of life and death, he meditated on the meaning of Stone.

After a little while, there was nothing else in the world. Even the presence of the other elements was just a thread of awareness in his mind as he kept them circulating.

Slowly, everything began to slow and stop. He wasn’t sure how much time passed, since stone does not mark the change of hours or days.

He was Stone.

This was the dao.

Patterns began to appear of their own accord, sweeping up the ones that had carved themselves into his spirit and reshaping them into more perfect forms, as the hum he was giving off turned into a great roar that resonated perfectly with the world around him.

He felt the shift as the final element he needed came to life.

The cavern around him trembled as a tide of pure Stone energy roared through it and flooded his body. It disappeared into his dantian like it was drawn down a massive vortex, sweeping toward his nascent Jade Foundation.

Then that enormous current of circulating energy began to spin where the final missing pillar was located. It swiftly condensed, turning into a massive spiritual column that echoed with the deep truth of the Dao of Stone.

As soon as it was present, the Jade Foundation he’d constructed began to appear, rising upward from his essence sea. It was like a massive island stretching from pillar to pillar, taking up the entire space of his dantian.

The ocean still existed below it, but now all of that energy surged upward, reaching for a higher plane of existence.

Verse’s mind was slow, dreaming of the rise and fall of mountains, but there was just enough of his awareness left to place the final lines necessary to connect the Stone pillar to the rest of the foundation.

Then he began his breakthrough to the Aligned Realm.

With the roar of energy flooding through him and his new understanding of Stone, his body swiftly turned back to living flesh. Warmth and vitality surged through him. At the same time, he felt a vast demand for energy.

His essence sea absorbed the energy of Stone that was flooding him and instantly fused it into the foundation he was building, using it to create a layer like bedrock that connected all of the five pillars. It was gone in an instant.

Then it demanded more.

His essence sea began to spin, turning into a huge vortex below the Jade Foundation. At the top, energy poured upward to fuse into the foundation, while below, the level of the sea swiftly dropped.

Within moments, all of his energy would be drained away. Creating his foundation took more energy than he was able to hold.

He could also feel changes running through his body as his bloodline pulled away some of the energy, devouring it for its own transformation. He was already at the Primal Spirit realm in pure strength, but there were key physical changes that went along with his cultivation.

Now, they were happening.

Just like when he’d broken through to the last realm, he could feel the enormous demand for resources.

As soon as he could move, he reached into his spatial ring and yanked out the bottle of Bright Storm Wine. He swallowed a mouthful, letting its energy crash into his essence sea and refill it.

Here in the caverns below the earth, it was difficult to sense the other elements of his Jade Foundation, so he shot upward, using the full force of his cultivation to fly toward the distant sky.

Caverns that had taken him hours to pass by before disappeared in moments as he ignored all caution in favor of pure speed. He was wrapped in wind and flame, and the stone itself propelled him even faster.

The energy in his essence sea continued to drop as his Jade Foundation solidified, and the vast majority of his attention went toward making sure it was as stable as possible. The five pillars resonated with elemental truths as they echoed the world around them.

Slowly, the foundation grew denser, like a continent forming in his dantian. The spiritual clouds in his dantian were the heaven of his internal world and this was the foundation.

The Aligned realm was the stage where your inner world aligned to the outer world, resonating with an elemental truth. For him, it was the five elemental truths that made up jade.

And the first realm where Jade magic could actually be used. That was where the power of the Jade Scripture Sect began to show itself.

He continued to take measured drinks from the bottle of wine, thankful for the enormous amount of energy it contained.

At the same time, he held a high-grade spirit stone in his other hand and absorbed it to take the edge of the demand. Whenever it crumbled to dust, he grabbed another one and continued.

It was enough, but barely.

The shrine had thought the wine would be enough for him, but it hadn’t taken into account the extreme nature of the Jade Scripture. With both the spirit stones and the wine, he was just able to meet the demand and keep his essence sea from drying up.

A short while later, he exploded out of the tunnels and into the free space of the chasm. Without hesitating, he flew upward, heading for the open sky.

It felt like the right place to be.

Above the chasm, the sky was turning dark as clouds began to form, slowly turning in a massive vortex. They were directly centered above him, and he could feel the enormous energy contained inside.

He glanced up and his expression turned serious. Then he drained the last drop from the bottle of wine and headed up to meet them.

He could sense the enormous danger in those clouds, but also the potential. There were five elements spinning in the storm, one for each part of his Jade Foundation. They’d been called here by his breakthrough.

The storm was a tribulation.

His Jade Foundation was as fragile as a breath, but it was time to test it. The world demanded it.

The Aligned realm was normally too early for a tribution. They weren’t supposed to come until you were at the Dao Echo or Divine realm and bordering on immortality.

But the Jade Scripture was different. Its focus on the elemental laws of nature called tribulations earlier, or at least it had on the Heavengold World. Until he saw the storm, he hadn’t been sure it would happen here.

Breaking through to higher realms came with natural barriers, where you had to prove your dao against the world’s laws. They were dangerous, but they held vast benefits inside as well, if you treated them the right way.

Since this was a nascent tribulation, he had to face it head on as a test of his Jade Foundation and to use the energy inside to temper it. If he succeeded, it would save a great deal of time and help him solidify it at the early Aligned realm.

If he failed, the foundation could crack or end up weaker than he wanted, which could take him years to strengthen. He would have to slowly build it up, bit by bit, until it could take the strain of channeling the elements.

He had no intention of allowing that to happen.

Fortunately, he knew what to do.

His nascent foundation trembled as the five elemental pillars hummed with energy, and silver scales appeared across his body. He drew in a deep breath, and then he let out a resounding roar as he flew toward the clouds.

The roar echoed across the chasm and the volcanic plains below him, frightening beasts to hide in their burrows and warning anyone watching to take shelter from the storm.

He was lucky that this place was far away from the city. Only a few stray adventurers were anywhere close by to see what was happening.

As soon as he was among the clouds, massive bolts of elemental energy began to rain down on him. Columns of fire slammed into his body, stone boulders struck him like hail, twisting columns of wind tried to hurl him from side to side as walls of rain as hard as iron struck from the opposite direction, and sharp leaves like a forest caught up in the storm sliced at his skin.

He broke through the winds as he reached the center of the tempest. There was a gap there like it was waiting for him. He seized the spot that belonged to him, and then he let the storm crash down.

Unlike some cultivators, he wasn’t planning to fight the storm directly. Doing that would waste some of its strength. Instead, he only shifted his body, letting it strike him with full force as he endured the blow.

A growl of pain echoed out as a boulder flung by the storm wind shattered on his shoulder. It was followed by an icy blast of rain that slashed at his skin, as sharp as a blade.

But that also slid off, unable to break through his defense.

His body was strong enough to endure Primal Spirit-level attacks, and this storm was only at the Aligned Realm. It hurt, but he would survive it.

He’d already broken through to the Aligned realm the instant he’d created the five pillars and formed his foundation, and his energy was nearly exhausted, so as he let the storm strike him, there was no defense.

The full power of the tribulation crashed against him, unleashing its fury.

Few cultivators were able to match what he was doing now.

With each blow, a trace of elemental energy seeped through his skin and flowed into his dantian, merging into his Jade Foundation. The elements also tempered his body, slowly improving what he’d already gained from his bloodline cultivation as every cell was bathed in the storm’s fury.

He was being hammered by a pure expression of the elements.

At the same time, it was a vast storm that was much larger than him. He was a slender blade tossed across the sky, thrown one way and then the next by the world’s strength as it tempered him.

Forces slammed against him from every side, hurling him across the heavens and then battering him back in the opposite direction. The world spun until it wasn’t clear where the earth ended and the sky began.

But in that chaos, he found his own stability, slowly drawing strand after strand of elemental energy into his foundation. With each one, the effect of the storm on him lessened. The energy flowed through his cells, tempered them, and then merged into his dantian.

His eyes were half closed, and he didn’t even notice when he began to float steadily in the sky, no longer tossed wildly from side to side. The storm began to spiral around him, striking him with lashes.

Now, each time the strikes landed, they fused cleanly into his body, barely leaving a ripple behind. Whips of fire struck him, but they soaked into his skin, mixed with his own flames, and then flowed into the Fire elemental pillar of his Jade Foundation.

Slowly, a sun appeared in his inner world that began to heat the heavens, and the continent he’d created cracked as volcanic vents appeared on the surface, surging with lava that exploded upward.

Water flowed through his veins as he absorbed the rain and filled his essence sea with it. It formed into waves that towered into the sky and crashed against his Jade Foundation. With each blow, the foundation became denser and more stable.

The leaves on the wind sliced into his skin and disappeared in a burst of elemental light. Trees and soil appeared on the continent, spreading swiftly from one side to the next like a wave of green vitality.

The clouds crashed into him, sending him spinning in the sky, but then they flowed through his body and gave life to a matching storm in the skies of his inner world, each of them roaring with thunder above his Jade Foundation.

As rocky boulders crashed into him on the winds, he reached out and grabbed them, crushing each of them to dust in his hands. He absorbed the elemental energy and sent it rushing toward his foundation.

Stone infused his Jade Foundation with strength as mountains appeared, swiftly rising into the sky, and the continent itself grew denser and more stable.

The cracks in the earth where lava was running sealed over, turning into a layer of volcanic energy just below the surface. A new layer of stone formed, one that was once again swiftly covered in soil, mountains, and trees.

As the storm continued, his eyes closed and his movements calmed, until the storm was battering him with full force from every side. Stones crashed against his cheeks and turned to dust, flames roasted his skin and faded away, rain battered his limbs and shredded his robes, but his eyes didn’t open.

Fragment by fragment, his Jade Foundation grew more stable as his inner world absorbed the elements and advanced by leaps and bounds.

The storm swept across the world below, spiraling into a massive vortex.

He was one with the storm.

***

Hours later, the storm calmed down, turning into strands of elemental energy that disappeared on the wind. Verse floated in the sky, his eyes closed. His robes were shredded, revealing hard-planed muscle and gleaming skin, but there was no sign of a bruise anywhere on his body.

He glowed with health.

His muscles were perfectly sculpted and his long black hair blew in the wind, streaming back from his temples. He looked like part of the sky, his aura perfectly merged with it.

Even standing there, it was hard to spot him against the clouds. He was only a lean figure against the vast horizon. Eventually, he opened his eyes and took a breath.

Clouds swirled around him, moving in time with his lungs.

He could feel a new stability and strength throughout his body, and his awareness of the elements was stronger than before.

With a quick gesture, a sphere of pure jade energy appeared on his palm. He looked down at it, studying it for flaws. Then he nodded.

It was pure jade from one side to the other, a perfect sphere of energy that was different from the five elements that made it up. There was no sign of any misaligned element.

It was perfect.

It meant that his Jade Foundation was a success.

Inside his dantian, the continent that was his Jade Foundation hummed with energy. It looked like a true miniature world now, from earth to sky. Every element was incorporated into a harmonious cycle.

The continent was surrounded by his essence sea, but there was no distinct separation of energy. What had been just liquid before had turned to solid land. The density of his energy felt like it was five times stronger than before.

With a flick of his fingers, the jade essence swirled around and formed a cloud, and then a spear and a sword, before it turned back into a sphere.

“Jade magic,” he said quietly as he studied it. “I’ll have to choose a path for it.”

It would take a little thought.

Jade magic was complex, so he would have to decide which branch of it to follow in the future. Once he trained it, it would be able to accomplish some things that weren’t possible otherwise. It was a mystical art.

But that could wait a little while.

He turned to look at the horizon. Boreas was in that direction.

Right now, he needed to get back to the city and see if the sect had revealed their hand. Hopefully they’d let their guard drop while he was out of the city and Vesana was able to gather some information.

Emerald flames surged in his eyes as he smiled.

If not, then he had plenty of evidence from this attack to use against them.