Emerald Alchemist, Ch 30: Allies Arrive (Patreon)

Over the next two hours, Verse worked with his full attention to carve the initial jade seal into his foundation. It was a relatively simple seal, but it took a great deal of effort to make it permanent.

As he finished the final line, a great wave of jade essence swept through his dantian and swirled around the seal that was carved on the first elemental pillar. Then a resonance began to form, creating a thrum that spread in all directions.

The seal on the pillar was massive in his mind’s eye, but it was composed of only a handful of lines. It was an ancient rune for “seal,” the most basic of them all.

Now that it was carved here, he could feel its presence. It was etched in his awareness, waiting for him to call on it. All he needed to do was infuse this symbol with jade essence and a perfect replica of it would appear in his hand or wherever he wanted to place it.

When he was done, he pulled his mind back to the guard room and looked up, checking on what Vesana was doing.

Her guild badge was still on the table in front of her, but there was no active communication. The piles of spirit stone dust were dissolving in the air, adding a bit more spiritual energy to the room than would have been there otherwise.

She was deep in thought as she looked at the map next to her badge. There was a new stack of jade slips next to it, which had to be information that the guard had delivered while he was working.

Verse stretched and then joined her in studying the map and the new information. He had just enough time to familiarize himself with it before a knock came on the door.

When the door swung open, Imriz was there along with another man that Verse hadn’t met before, but the overwhelming presence of the Inspired Aura realm rolled off of him. It was well-hidden, like the guard commander, but it wasn’t completely concealed from Verse’s senses.

He was a well-built man in fashionable robes with dark hair and bright blue eyes that were somehow familiar, and there was a bit of humor lurking on his features, especially when he caught sight of Vesana at the table.

“Uncle!” Vesana’s eyes opened wide as she looked up, and then she leapt to her feet as she sprang across the room, hurling herself into the man’s arms, who caught her with a laugh and spun her around. “How did you get here so quickly?”

“You’re too big to go jumping on your uncle now!” he said as he teased her. “And if you’re going to stir up all this trouble with sects, shouldn’t you be more composed? As for how I got here, well, the guards here were teleporting in from all over, and one of them happened to be in the same city I was, so I hitched a ride when they activated the formation.”

He barely finished the words before he let another laugh, one that was even more cheerful than before. Good will rolled off him, making Verse chuckle as well.

“And this must be your knight you keep talking about!” he said as he turned to Verse and held out his hand, still grinning. “It’s a pleasure to meet you, young fellow. It looks like we’re going to get a chance to destroy a sect together. Do you know how long it’s been since her mother let me do that? I never get to destroy sects anymore! I’m looking forward to it.”

“A pleasure to meet you as well,” Verse said with an answering laugh as he decided he liked this fellow. He had a good nature, and his spirit was larger than his frame. He could see why Vesana talked about him so much.

This was obviously the uncle Vesana had been waiting for. It was good luck that he was able to show up before everything went down.

“The sect certainly deserves it,” Verse added. “I’m glad you got here in time.”

As he studied the man in more depth, he noticed an alchemist’s guild badge marked with a bright yellow star that was tucked prominently by his waist. It was a design he hadn’t seen in person before, but he recognized it as the mark of the enforcement branch.

Vesana and her uncle spent a few minutes chatting and quickly catching up on things, which didn’t take long. It turned out that one of the people she had been in contact with over the past couple of days was him.

They only needed to bring him up to speed on the latest developments, and he was quickly pulled into the planning.

As it turned out, his name was Elamrin, and he was at the early Inspired Aura realm. As part of the guild’s enforcement branch, he was usually referred to as Enforcer Elamrin. Imriz hadn’t expected his arrival, but she quickly worked him into her overall strategy.

“Three other Inspired Aura guards have arrived already,” she said with a smile so small it was barely noticeable. “That makes five, which should be enough. I’ve also gathered up a dozen Primal Spirit guards, including two at the peak stage. Based on the latest intelligence, we should have at least three times the strength that the sect does, and perhaps more. It will be enough to break their formations and eliminate them.”

She looked around the small room and then waved her hand in the air above the table. A moment later, a realistic illusion formed, showing off a small group of people.

Verse had only met one of them before, and that was Ames. It looked like the trainer would be joining this mission.

“Let me familiarize you with our forces,” she said. “They should all be ready by the time we leave here.”

She quickly went through the list of people and showed a brief image and history of each one. All of the Inspired Aura guards were silver-ranked and most of the rest were too. Only a few of the Primal Spirit cultivators were still at bronze. There were no trainees or new guards.

“I only requested the most experienced and loyal people for this mission,” she said. “Now, for the distribution of our forces...since we have two objectives, let’s discuss the breakdown.”

A quick analysis of the sect’s formation, elders, and disciples followed, before she concluded and gave a nod to Elamrin.

“Since the enforcer is from the guild and related to you,” Imriz said, “it would make sense if he goes with your team to rescue the alchemists. The rest of us will focus on the main sect. The location of the sect master is unknown, but if he’s at your location, you will still have the ability to face him. I understand the enforcer is highly skilled.”

“And quite wealthy,” Elamrin said with a grin as he held up a hand with a spatial ring. “I have a full stock of artifacts and talismans to deal with most situations. This won’t be the first rogue Inspired Aura cultivator I’ve hunted down. If he’s there, I’ll take care of him.”

Imriz just nodded, as if she’d expected that.

“Then the last thing to discuss is how to handle the disciples of the sect,” she said. “We’ll announce our presence and the reason we’ve come. If they fight us after that, we’ll eliminate them. For the ones that don’t fight us, I would prefer to let them go.”

Her words were more a command than a request, but it fit with Verse’s own plan. He nodded in agreement, as did Vesana and Elamrin.

“There’s no need to kill all of them,” Verse said. “Some probably don’t even know what’s going on.”

“Good,” Imriz said simply. “Then we’re ready when you are. We can stay in touch with the communication plate I gave you, as well as our badges.”

Verse shared a look with Vesana, and then he looked at Elamrin, who nodded back at him.

The communication information for everyone was already stored in his guard badge, and the Jade Sealing Art was carved into his foundation, so there was nothing else he needed to do.

Overall, gathering the forces here was one of the smoothest operations that Verse had ever seen. The Azurewind Guard lived up to its reputation.

“Let’s head out,” he said decisively. Emerald flames flickered in the air around him as his anger heated the room. “The three of us will head to Sylanis Point and get in position. Let me know when you’re ready to attack and we’ll move at the same time.”

“We rise to victory,” Imriz said with a hard nod as she touched the guild badge on her robes. “Don’t be late.”

With that, her form turned into a shimmer of metallic blue light that looked like rain, and she was gone. It was some type of short-range teleportation, one that she hadn’t used before.

“Finally!” Elamrin said boisterously as a wave of bright white flame poured away from him and wrapped around Verse and Vesana. His laugh rang out in the air as the room around them disappeared.

***

Space warped, blurring past Verse’s awareness in a way that felt familiar. He hadn’t teleported since coming to this world, but it was an innate ability at the Inspired Aura realm, at least for short distances like across a city.

Anything longer required a teleportation formation, which were typically built only by Inspired Aura cultivators and above. That was one reason they were so expensive.

Once a cultivator formed a dao spirit and could begin urging the world’s energy to move around them, teleportation became like second nature.

At the moment, it was also one of the best ways to approach the ruins where the alchemists were being kept. It was nearly instant and made it almost impossible for spies to track them.

Verse could sense the world moving past as they traveled, but he’d expected that. Although it was called teleportation, movement at the Inspired Aura realm was more like extreme speed, or perhaps folding space, rather than true displacement.

Most teleportation formations operated on this same principle, creating a channel for travel that was extremely quick and that ran parallel to the physical realm, but they weren’t instantaneous.

Ripping a pathway between two points in the physical realm required a much higher level of cultivation.

A few moments passed as the world blurred and then they were standing on the slope of a hill, several kilometers away from the ruins that marked Sylanis Point. Birds chirped in the leaves of giant obsidian trees that swayed on every side.

They were just on the edge of the Obsidian Forest near Boreas.

This was the best hiding place for them to study the area and wait for the other team to get into place.

As soon as they arrived, he sent his spiritual awareness carefully around the area, looking for the sect, but after a moment, he pulled it back.

They were alone.

Ahead of them, just around the edge of the hill, he could see the edge of the ruins where the sect was supposed to be. There was a movement of spiritual energy and the living presence of dozens of people inside, which spoke to him through Wood and Stone.

There was also a strange vibration to the spiritual energy in the area, one that just touched the stone below the hill they were on. It was on the edge of his senses, but it was so familiar that there was no mistaking it.

Verse froze as his expression turned intense. The energy was faint, but it was utterly unmistakable. He hadn’t expected to sense it here, but somewhere nearby there was the presence of dragon blood.

It was old and probably imperceptible to anyone else, but to him it stood out like a blazing fire. He frowned as he scanned across the land, searching for the origin.

For a moment, all thoughts of the alchemists were shoved to the back of his mind, but he restrained himself enough not to leap out immediately in search of the source.

After a moment, he sensed another type of energy as well, one that was very similar to Corpsewind’s bloodline.

He hadn’t expected to find it here, but there was no mistaking that signature either. When he put the two together, the combination told a story all its own, and his expression grew darker.

From somewhere beneath the ruins, the faint energy of a dragon’s blood was mixed with the cold aura of demons.

Somehow, this ruin or the land beneath it was connected with the Emerald Halls and the history of his people. There must have been a battle here once, or perhaps something even larger.

He took a deep breath as he forced himself to be calm. Slowly, his hands uncurled from the fists that he’d made and the emerald flames surging across his body retreated beneath his skin.

It was a good thing they were still a long way from the ruins, or that instinctive reaction might have alerted their enemies.

As he got control of himself, he considered the possibilities for how those two energies had both appeared here. It was obvious they were old, which meant it wasn’t something that the sect had done.

But it was still suspicious that they’d chosen this location for their alchemy.

The trace of demonic energy he felt was the only reason he could think of, especially when it was combined with the sect’s demonic bloodline.

There was probably a connection there.

This might be where they had gotten that bloodline, or maybe they were drawn to this area because of it. Either way, they probably weren’t aware that a dragon’s blood had been spilled here.

Other possibilities filled his mind.

Based on that trace of bloodline energy, it was also possible that something that belonged to the Emerald Halls had been stolen and brought here. If that was the case, then this ruin might have once belonged to the demons.

That would explain the sect’s demonic bloodline and their connection to it.

The recording he’d found at the last hall told him the demons had been sweeping away all memory of the other Elder Races and conquering the halls where they could.

Those halls had once been filled with draconic artifacts and treasures. If the demons had seized some of those things and brought them here, it could explain the energy.

He frowned as he considered the possibilities and studied the old walls of the ruins.

Age radiated from them. They didn’t feel as old as the draconic hall, but perhaps they were old enough to have been built near the end, before the halls were closed.

Since there were Emerald Halls, then there could also have been demonic outposts as wells, areas where they gathered or planned for their war. This old ruin might be one of them, or at least the fading remnant of one.

Perhaps this was a location the demons had gathered to plan their war against the other Elder Races.

The energy was old and well-hidden, but now that he’d sensed it, he had to check it out. Rescuing the alchemists would come first, but then he would go exploring.

He held up a hand to get Vesana and Elamrin to wait for a moment, since they were looking at him curiously. Then he closed his eyes and tried to get a better sense of where the energy was the densest.

After a moment, he found it.

The thread of draconic blood was as obvious to him as his own breath. It seemed to be a trait of his race that he could sense where draconic blood had been spilled.

The energy wasn’t coming from the surface where the sect’s cultivators were moving around, but rather from deep below the earth.

In fact, both the dragon and demon energies were buried there. He could sense the demonic energy twining around the more familiar one and faintly suppressing it. Without his bloodline, he wouldn't have found it.

He wondered if the sect knew about what was buried below these ruins, and that was why they had placed their operation here. Perhaps the sect’s master heritage was strong enough that he could sense something familiar.

Verse rubbed his chin as he studied everything in front of him.

Whatever the energy really was, it was quiet for now. The sect’s activity didn’t seem to be affecting it. He wanted to leap down there and seize it to find out what it was and how it was tied into the Emerald Halls, but it wasn’t going anywhere.

It could wait until they’d dealt with the sect.

He turned to Vesana and Elamrin, who were watching him curiously. Then he checked his guard badge, which at that moment began to flash, indicating that the other team was in place.

“When you’re ready,” he said. “They’re waiting for our signal.”

He received nods in return and then he pulled out the two Primal Spirit escape talismans he’d bought from the guard. He handed one of them to Vesana, just to be safe.

“We should be able to escape if it comes down to it,” he said. “Unless their sect master is defending the location himself, these should be enough.”

The sect master was the only one at the Inspired Aura realm, as far as he knew. It was unlikely that the sect was hiding anyone else at the same level. If they had more people like that, they wouldn’t need secret methods to seize power around Boreas.

“Thank you.” Vesana gave him a smile as she took the talisman. She probably had some of her own, but she didn’t refuse.

“Alright,” he said as he sent the answering pulse back through the badge. “Then let’s take care of this.”

Instantly, the three of them leapt into the air, heading straight for the sect ruins. The air whistled around them in shades of emerald flame, ocean blue, and Elamrin’s brilliant white aura, which erupted into the sky like a volcano.