Emerald Alchemist, Ch 31: Attacking the Sect (Patreon)

The three of them flew toward the ruins like comets heading for the earth. Their auras raged outward at full power and surrounded them in flames, promising destruction when they landed.

There was an enormous grin on Elamrin’s face as they approached. A loud and wild laughter rang out from him as he let loose for the first time in ages.

“This is what cultivating is all about!” he roared as he flew to the front. Torrents of white flame condensed into roiling spheres in his hands. “I hate politics!”

The spheres he’d created burned like miniature stars and it felt like the world was falling inward toward them. There was a massive amount of energy in an Inspired Aura cultivator’s attack.

By contrast, Vesana’s expression was hard as she stared at the ruins.

“Uncle, be careful of the kidnapped alchemists!” she shouted back. “You can’t just blow everything up!”

“Watch me!” Elamrin laughed more loudly as he flew faster, outdistancing his niece and Verse. “You two go rescue those guys! The rest are mine!”

His figure turned into a streak of blazing white light as he accelerated. A mighty boom of compressed flame exploded out around him as he reappeared above the sect.

“Get out here and die, you filthy dogs!” he roared, still laughing like a madman.

“This is why mother stuck him in a political position,” Vesana said in a pained voice as she covered her eyes with her hand. “He’s a battle maniac. I should have warned you.

“He’s completely unbribable, which is how he ended up as an enforcer. Whenever he sees someone breaking the guild rules, all he wants to do is beat them into a pulp.”

“I like him,” Verse said with a laugh as he reached out and grabbed Vesana’s hand, pulling her along with him as he flew faster. “But we should hurry up before he really lets loose.”

As they approached the ruins, emerald flames surged across his skin, reacting to the energy that was growing stronger below. The pull to find out what happened was growing stronger.

It came with a demand for justice, like the ancient dragon whose blood had spilled here was roaring for him to finish what he’d started.

Suppressing that desire wasn’t going to help, so he channeled it instead, letting it accelerate his mind and fill him with wrath as he scanned across the ruins.

“There are only two buildings intact enough for a group of alchemists to work together,” he said as he pointed at them. “Let’s search one and then the other.”

One of the buildings was to the right side of the ruins, and the other was on the far side from where they were approaching.

Altogether, the ruins sprawled over an area about two kilometers across, with most of the buildings little more than tumbled stone. It was a small area for cultivators at their level, so they should be able to search it quickly.

Some of the defenders were beginning to stir as they noticed their approach. A few flew up into the air to attack Elamrin, but a moment later they were hurled back down like broken debris, their bodies blazing with white flame.

They crashed into the ruined buildings in explosions of stone, sending a rain of rocks across the sky.

More joined them, but they were much too weak to stop the wild enforcer. Elamrin seized one of them in each hand and slammed them together. Then he hurled them across the sky at another pair that had just started to fly toward him.

He wasn’t even bothering with complex techniques. He was just letting loose. It was tempting to join him, but it could wait until they rescued the alchemists, and right now, he was providing a good distraction to let them do exactly that.

There were flares of energy from broken wards and spiritual waves as various barriers tried to form, but under Elamrin’s attack, nothing was successful. A rain of blazing meteors shot from his hands now, targeting every stone building in the area and anything that could hide a ward.

Explosions rocked the area.

As Verse flew toward the first intact building, the silent pulse of a formation washed over his skin, but the defense was lacking.

His eyes narrowed as a spear of emerald flames formed in his hand. He pulled back his arm and hurled it ahead of him at a ward he could sense, one of half a dozen on this approach. Elamrin was getting a lot of them, but not everything.

The wards seemed to be focused on privacy and a little bit of defense rather than attacking, which made sense with a hidden location, but they still needed to be destroyed. It was a bad idea to let an enemy have a formation.

The formation node was embedded into the base of a wall and as his emerald spear struck it, the entire wall exploded into a hurricane of debris that shot across the area, joining the cloud of destruction that was already there.

Elamrin’s wild laughter rang out in the air where some of the sect cultivators were still trying to fight him, but a lot had already gotten the message. The enforcer’s intimidation was fearsome and quite a few were running away instead of even trying to fight.

They were escaping from the ruins like rats exploding from a sinking ship, heading in wild arcs away in every direction.

At that moment, however, a wave of cold, blood-red energy swept across the sky like a ghastly breeze and slammed into Elamrin, sending him staggering back a few steps. The enforcer’s expression became more serious as he turned toward the source of it.

Quickly, a figure resolved in the sky opposite him, forming like a ghost out of the wave of blood-red energy. His body looked skeletal and white, and his hair was in wild disarray.

Two bloody wounds cut across his chest, showing that he’d already been in a fight, but despite that, the energy radiating from him was sharp and overwhelming.

He could only be the sect master.

Based on his appearance, he’d also already been forced to reveal his demonic bloodline.

As he appeared, a cold wind howled down across the ruins and the sky turned darker as it was covered by grey clouds. His voice roared across the sky in a furious thunder.

“Scum! You dare to launch a sneak attack on me? To try and take what is mine?” There was no reason in his words, only unbridled arrogance and fury.

All of his previous composure and coldness from when he’d spoken through the communication was gone, and replaced by rage, but despite that, there was a measure of dark confidence in his voice.

He must have tangled with the four Inspired Realm cultivators attacking the main sect and then decided to abandon it before running here to try and salvage his plan.

His injuries said that initial meeting hadn’t gone well for him, but despite that, he was sure of himself, as if he didn’t believe he would lose.

“I am in the process of ascension,” he growled, his voice caring easily across the area. “A few more days and it will be complete. There is nothing you can do now.”

He shouted a phrase in a language that sounded like it tore his throat to speak it.

The words scratched at Verse’s mind, just on the verge of understanding. It felt like he’d heard them before, but he wasn’t sure where. The language was clearly demonic.

“It means ‘Purify the world with sacred blood,’” the shrine’s voice echoed in Verse’s mind as it translated. “Be careful of this one. That language shouldn’t come from a human throat. It’s the language of the Netherblood Demons, a variant of the main language spoken by the Elder Races. His heritage is much stronger than Corpsewind’s. He must have awoken an ancestral memory buried in his bloodline, perhaps because of the energy here.”

A bone-white wind began to spiral through the air around the sect master, slicing across the bloody light that was already there like bones exploding from a corpse. It brought with it a freezing cold that felt like it was from the underworld.

Here and there, flashes of skulls and tumbling bones were visible, slowly churning in the air as it formed a massive river of blood that stretched through the sky from one side to the other.

The weight of his presence crushed down on the ruins, making it hard to breathe. Even the sect cultivators trying to fly upward suddenly found themselves plummeting back toward the ground, where they slammed into the dirt.

Verse and Vesana were far enough away that the aura brushed past them, just touching them with an edge of that presence, but it still felt to Verse like he’d been kicked in the chest.

He tracked the sect master’s movements, watching the river of blood and bone as it swept toward Elamrin. He wasn’t sure if the enforcer would be able to handle it.

But Vesana’s uncle was no pushover. As soon as he caught himself, he flew forward to the same spot again. His aura blazed more brightly, rising twice as high as before.

He had been knocked back mostly by surprise.

The energy coming from him was just as heavy as the sect master’s. It pressed down on the ruins like a burning mountain as an ocean of brilliant white flame swept out from him.

The flames collided with the river of blood and bone, making swathes of it explode into white steam as it was pushed backward.

The two forces raged across the sky, covering the ruins like two storm fronts were battling in the heavens.

“Heras Gosaren, Sect Master of the Crimson Shade Sect,” Elamrin shouted harshly. “You are accused of the assassination of an Alchemist Guild branch manager, kidnapping registered alchemists, and of attempting to manufacture demonic pills. The evidence is sufficient that you will have no trial. If you stand down now and accept my judgment, your life may be spared. If not, you will die where you stand.”

“Demonic pills?” Heras gave an ugly laugh, his voice carrying easily across the area, but he didn’t deny that he was making them. “Is that all you think this is? Much less that you will be able to carry out your idiotic form of justice? Power is what matters, and here it is in my hands.

“This place is sacred to my ancestors. It is the doorway to truth, the foundation that will lead to a greater world! I won’t let you disrupt all the effort I’ve put into it over the years. Die, you fool, before you interfere with something you don’t understand!”

The blood river howled as it formed into an ocean of roiling blood and tumbling bones, expanding even more than before. It was so large that it merged with the horizon and blotted out the sun, making it feel like it was unending.

Corpsewind’s aura had filled the cavern when he fought Verse, but this was on another level completely. It was like a sea from the underworld had appeared.

The sect master had to be at the middle of the Inspired Aura realm to have an aura like that. His bloodline was also augmenting his strength. It was no surprise that he had become so arrogant.

The cultivators around Boreas weren’t on this level.

If Verse hadn’t called in the Azurewind Guard, it was unlikely that the sect master would have ever found himself in this situation. No one would have been able to push him this far.

Verse frowned as he looked into the sky, and Vesana was pale beside him.

If they were up there, just surviving a casual blow from that power would have been difficult, not to mention defeating the sect master.

Elamrin, however, looked excited.

The only area not covered by the ocean of blood was filled with his flaming aura, which was just as strong. The two energies divided the sky evenly between them.

Whatever advantages the sect master believed he had, they apparently weren’t enough to force Elamrin back. He had to be at the middle or even the late stage of the Inspired Aura realm himself, or that wouldn’t have been possible.

And not only that, but he was backed by the full weight of the Alchemists’ Guild and all the wealth they had access to.

As Verse looked up, he saw Elamrin pull out a row of something that looked like a string of crystal prayer beads that glowed with a bright aura like the sun in one hand and a fiery talisman in the other.

The prayer beads weren’t even active yet, but as soon as they appeared, the blood around them began to smoke and melt backward like it couldn’t stand their presence.

“Demons, is it?” Elamrin laughed out in response as he raised the beads higher. His mood wasn’t even dented by the sect master’s strength. In fact, he was shaking his head like he’d just seen something foolish.

“You think you’re the first one to dig up some old demon bone that’s been buried in the dirt since before the empire’s founding? And that only you will be able to inherit the mantle of power they left behind?” Elamrin laughed again, his voice echoing out like a booming tide.

“Those artifacts are a plague, and they tell the same lies to everyone. It’s a good thing I brought these Sun Crystal Spheres along. They’ve always been good at suppressing demonic energy. Let me show you just how much your arrogance is worth in front of the guild!”

He raised the crystal beads higher, making them blaze even more intensely. An ocean of white flame surged outward, driving back the blood near him, and then he shot forward like a meteor, with his fist leading the way.

As he flew forward, the flames around him formed into an expanding rain of fiery spears that tore into the blood ocean and the bone-white wind above it, ripping massive gashes through them both.

An instant later, the wave of flames slammed into the sect master and hurled him back through the air. The two of them tumbled away, the force of their techniques moving them out of sight in an instant.

The sect master’s techniques were large and impressive, but Vesana’s uncle didn’t lose out. He was cleanly pushing him back. At that moment, the guild enforcer’s voice rang in Verse’s mind.

“You two go get the alchemists,” Elamrin sent through a thread of spiritual energy. His tone was calm, much more than Verse had expected. “This won’t be the first guy who’s gone mad after he got exposed to a demon artifact. These things pop up sometimes, but fortunately not too often. The empire has been studying them for thousands of years and the conclusion is always the same. They’re a calamity waiting to happen. Try not to touch anything weird down there. I’ll tell the guild to come clean it up once we settle this.”

Verse had to hold back a smile at the words. His opinion of the enforcer was increasing by the moment. He was honest, and he was trying to look after them even when he was in a difficult fight.

Now he was dragging the sect master away for a private battle, trying to give them an opportunity to rescue the kidnapped alchemists here.

For all of his battle lust, he hadn’t lost sight of the big picture.

Despite that, his perspective of the situation was based on the empire’s knowledge, which was limited. He seemed to think the sect master had found a demonic artifact that was from an era preceding the empire.

That wasn’t exactly wrong, but it was far from the full picture. He didn’t seem to be aware of the sect master’s bloodline or how it was interacting with this location. He probably thought the man was being transformed by a demonic artifact.

Verse could have tried to help him, but it wasn’t necessary. The enforcer could clearly hold his own, and even if it was tempting to fly up and test himself against a powerful enemy, he didn’t have any plans to do it right now.

As soon as he’d noticed the energy here, he’d completely lost interest in the sect.

As long as they were destroyed, he was satisfied. He’d arranged for the Azurewind Guard and he’d personally dealt with Renzer at the Alchemist Guild. He had done enough to satisfy his anger.

Elamrin was welcome to the sect master.

He was concerned with more important things.

“We have to move,” Verse said as he shared a serious look with Vesana. “Let’s find the alchemists. Once we get them out, we can deal with whatever else is happening here.”

It wasn’t clear how long they had, so they had to make the most of it.

The sect master would definitely try to return to finish whatever he was doing.

“Given what the sect master said about ascension,” the shrine interjected, “he’s probably trying to turn himself into a full-blooded demon by absorbing the energy below. Just like you are drawn to the dragon blood, he’s drawn to that. After seeing him, I think I know what he’s been using the alchemists for too.”

“What do you think has happened to them?” Verse asked, his words moving at the speed of thought.

The cultivators that had been forced down to the ground by the sect master’s aura were flying up again. A few were running, but most of them were heading toward him and Vesana, clearly intending to attack them.

They’d noticed them now, even with Elamrin’s display taking up most of their attention.

“There’s only one reason to use low-grade alchemists like this,” the shrine explained quickly. “The energy here is mixed with a lot of other things, including that dragon blood you sensed. Some of that energy is dangerous to the sect master, but if he uses them as a filter...it increases his chances of absorbing it without trouble.”

“A filter?” Verse asked with a frown as he sent a claw of emerald flames at a cultivator who was charging toward him. “How does that work?”

The attack sent the man flying across the ruins until he slammed into a stone wall on the far side. An explosion of stone fragments spread out around him.

Vesana was surrounded by her ocean shield again, and the two of them quickly flew through the remaining cultivators, heading for the building they’d spotted.

“It’s a fairly simple technique,” the shrine said. “All that’s necessary is to give them spiritual materials that are grown here and infused with this energy, or something like powdered bone if there’s a demon corpse around, and then get them to merge it into a basic qi restoring pill.

“Alchemy relies on the strength of your spirit. When you handle pill materials, you’re constantly connected to them through your spiritual energy. Normally, this is beneficial to an alchemist, and it can provide a low-level boost to your cultivation if you use the right materials, or a tolerance to substances you use a lot.

“It’s also the reason that poison masters look ill most of the time. They’re constantly being exposed to dangerous substances, and if they don’t balance it out with enough healthy ones, it harms them.

“If you use a simple technique, however, you can make that exposure even stronger until your spirit is directly mixing the materials. Some concentration will let you focus the energy you want into a pill, while other energies get discarded, but that makes them wash over your soul, leaving dirty traces behind. It’s crude, but effective.

“It explains why he didn’t need skilled alchemists, just ones with a good affinity for alchemy. I could be wrong, but it’s the most likely situation.”

“What’s the effect on the alchemists?” Verse asked with a frown as he and Vesana reached the door to the closest building. “Can they recover?”

A trail of scattered cultivators was behind them. None of them were higher than the Aligned realm, so it hadn’t taken much effort to clear the path.

“It depends. Direct exposure to demonic energy is toxic to humans and most other races,” the shrine replied. “It’s like a cold venom that corrodes their spirit. If the alchemists are soul slaves, they won’t have a choice about handling it, and they will eventually kill themselves. Their souls will eventually crumble away under the burden.

“The best scenario is that they have been exposed to enough draconic energy here to balance it out, or at least something like a natural Wood vitality. Anything that opposes the demonic energy would help them last longer.

“Dragon energy is hot where demonic energy is cold, to use very basic terms...so it might balance out, but the more likely result is that when the two meet, they’ll explode. Unless they have a type of variant physique that allows them to absorb foreign energies more easily...or a bloodline that can handle those energies, they’ll eventually die.”

“I’ll do what I can for them,” Verse replied. “Let’s hope for the best. As for what the sect master found here, I need to see it, but let’s deal with the alchemists first.”

He had no intention of allowing the guild to interfere with the draconic energy at this location, so if possible, he planned to wrap up the matter with them and send them away. Then he could search at his own pace.

If there was a demonic artifact, he’d decide what to do with it when he saw it. As for the dragon blood and anything else below, there was no chance he would let it out of his hands.

The truth to everything here was below, tied into that mix of energy.

A moment later, they reached their target. It was a large building, easily big enough to hold a hundred people or more, and it was in better repair than most of the ruins.

He could sense the interior was laid out in several connected courtyards and rooms, but there was a strong enough formation on it that it was difficult to feel the presence of the people inside.

Without hesitating, he pulled back his fist and slammed it into the sealed door of the building. The door exploded inward, collapsing into fragments of wood and dust. Then he stepped through the shattered opening with Vesana at his side.

Inside, rays of light from gaps in the ceiling illuminated aged walls and deteriorated courtyards, but the basic structure was still intact. There was a main hallway leading straight ahead to an open courtyard, while the space opened up to either side as it led onto the wings of the building.

The interior had been divided up into half a dozen workspaces, each of them separated by a low wall, and a strange blue smoke rose up from an alchemy cauldron in each one.

Standing beside each of the cauldrons were pairs of people, half of them in tattered robes and the other half in sect uniforms. The alchemists in tattered robes were blank eyed and didn’t even turn to look as the shards of the door tore across the area.

The sect cultivators did. They had to be keeping an eye on the alchemists or guarding them, and as soon as the door exploded, they spun to look.

The shock on their faces showed that the formation on the building had blocked their awareness of the outside. Until now, they didn’t even know someone was invading.

They were mostly at the Essence Condensation realm, so Verse ignored them, but there was one older man at the center of the group who didn’t hesitate to attack. He looked like he was in charge of everything here.

The pressure of a Primal Spirit cultivator covered the room as a cold and severe wind began to blow.

“Who are you?” he shouted angrily as he raised his hand. He had to be another sect elder, since his aura was only a little weaker than Corpsewind’s.

A large claw of ghostly white energy whistled through the air toward Verse. The chill wind gathered into ethereal blades that lined the finger bones as they reached for him.

Verse snorted as he reached out with a hand covered in emerald flames and lightly tapped at the air. The spot where he touched rang like a bell as a circular wave of silver and golden light began to spin.

The Solar Cycle flew out and tore directly through the claw in an explosion of crackling energy before it continued on toward the sect elder.  The elder’s eyes widened as a yellowish bone shield appeared in front of him, and he ducked behind it.

The Solar Cycle slammed into the shield with a thunderous crack, sending the elder staggering backward, but his shield held.

“I’ll deal with him,” Verse said confidently. “You get the rest.”

Vesana gave him a quick nod and then her movement turned to a blur of white flames as she leapt forward. Her footprints burned in the air.

It was some movement technique that he hadn’t seen her use before, but he didn’t have time to focus on it. The elder had already moved out from behind his shield and was preparing another attack.

A grim smile pulled at Verse’s lips as he leapt forward. His body was wrapped in emerald flames that melted the elder’s aura wherever they touched it. His cultivation wasn’t enough to completely crush a Primal Spirit cultivator yet, but his physical strength was something else.

A burning emerald fist slammed into the elder’s shield, which was brought up quickly to block, and then the elder’s eyes widened in shock as cracks spread down the surface. The impact was strong enough to pick him up off his feet and send him flying across the room.

Verse followed him, his strikes building one on the other as he slammed his fists into the shield until it began to crumble. When the spiritual barrier it summoned faded, he ripped it away from the elder’s grip and seized the man by the neck, his fingers tightening like a vise.

Then he slammed him face first into the stone floor.

Repeatedly.

It only took a few times before the sect elder lost control of his aura and his eyes began to cross. When he was subdued, Verse quickly sealed his meridians and then raised his hand.

A small jade seal appeared on the tip of his finger, one that resonated with a deep pulse of the dao. It was so realistic that it looked like a carved jade stone had appeared, rather than spiritual energy.

It only took an instant to create it, but the power contained in the seal was as much as ten normal soul talismans. As it appeared, the air turned still around it, as if everything was held in stasis.

This was the initial seal he’d carved into his Jade Foundation for the Jade Sealing Art. It was useful for a number of things, both by itself and with other sigils, including as a base for more complex seals.

A flick of his will sent the seal onto the elder’s chest, where it hovered like a node as the sigils he’d placed on the man’s meridians began to glow. One by one, strands of energy from them merged into the seal, until the man was completely covered by glowing lines, which then began to fade away.

Verse looked down at the seal and nodded. Then he turned around and dragged the man back toward the center of the room. Without a much larger difference in cultivation, he wasn’t worried the elder would break free.

Until someone freed him, he was as helpless as a regular mortal.

It was tempting to kill him, but they needed some information about the sect’s soul slave technique, and this was the most likely person to have some answers.

Back at the center of the room, Vesana had already gathered up the alchemists and the five sect cultivators who were guarding them. The cultivators had been stripped of their spatial items and were sitting on the floor as a bright white chain tied them together.

Vesana’s attention was focused on the five alchemists, who were standing there in a group. They must have followed directions to come together here, but their eyes were looking at nothing. There was no trace of emotion on their faces.

“Soul slave techniques,” Vesana spat angrily as she studied them. As Verse approached, she turned to him. Then she glared at the elder in his hands. “Do you think he has a way to release them?”

“The sect master...will kill both of you...for daring to barge in here,” the elder snarled, or tried to. The words were difficult for him to shape and came slowly after he was slammed into the floor so many times.

“Is that so?” Verse glanced at him. Then he looked up at the ceiling, where he could feel the ward on the alchemy building was still barely intact. A wave of emerald flames gathered around his hand as he launched a strike upward.

The roof of the building exploded into a rain of stone that blew outward and the ward crumbled away, leaving a clear view of the sky and the sound of the battle in the distance.

The rolling thunder of explosive strikes came at irregular intervals, along with the spiritual shockwave of auras colliding. The presence of the battle brought with it a scent of blood and flame, as well as scorched earth.

“Your sect master is currently being executed by the Alchemists’ Guild for daring to kidnap their people,” Verse said calmly. “And your sect is being destroyed by the Azurewind Guard as we speak. By the time they’re done, there will be nothing left. There is no one to protect you.

“The only reason you aren’t already dead is the knowledge of that soul slave technique. And trust me, if you don’t free the alchemists immediately, I’m going to finish what I started.”

As he spoke, the golden aura of the Imperial Knights rose up from the seal on his shoulder and flooded the room with a brilliant aura, one that promised justice.

The sect elder turned as pale as a sheet, a color that was even uglier than the bone white claw he’d summoned. With his cultivation sealed, he knew Verse’s words weren’t a joke. He would be dead with a single strike.

The man who’s truly dangerous isn’t the one who shouts. It’s the one with flat eyes whose tone never changes.

The elder looked to the sky, as if hoping for a rescue, but when none came, he began to shake.

“It’s...two parts,” the elder said with difficulty. “Pill...to suppress their will and thoughts, and a technique to bind their cultivation so that it backlashes on them if they try to disobey their master.”

A few moments later, a jade slip with the technique and a bottle of the pills to use it were both in Verse’s hands. He studied them, his lips curling, and then he passed them to Vesana.

“Vile technique,” she muttered as she examined it. Then she stored it away in her spatial ring. “The guild will study it and look for a way to release them without harm. We’ll also try to create an antidote for the pill, if it doesn’t wear off on its own.”

“If you need help with that, let me know,” Verse said with a nod. “I might have a heritage pill that would help.”

His dao was also very good at eroding negative energies. If necessary, he would spend some time helping these alchemists recover from the technique and pill.

“But that’s not the only problem they might have,” he added as he studied the alchemists. The shrine’s words about the filtering technique were clear in his mind as he looked from them to the cauldrons behind them.

“Have you studied what they were doing,” he asked, “and what it might have done to them? I don’t doubt the guild’s resources, but it might not be so easy to fix.”

He could already sense something strange about the five alchemists here, and it made him shake his head as he held back a sense of anger. He wanted to crush the sect elder’s head with his palm just for daring to treat this as if it were normal.

Without thinking, his hand was already reaching out to seize the man, and it took a conscious effort to hold himself back.

He might still have some use, especially if he knew about what else was going on here, and what the sect master had been talking about.

It looked like the shrine was right.

The alchemists’ spirits had been corroded by the presence of a demonic spiritual energy. It was so apparent that it made him want to vomit. It was visible to him like an acidic shadow overlying their meridians and bodies, and even their eyes had traces of it.

It looked like smoke flowing under their skin.

He was sure Vesana couldn’t see it, or she wouldn’t have been acting so calm.

That wasn’t the only thing there, however. There were two other energies in their bodies. One of them was a very faint trace of the draconic energy he’d sensed, but it was barely present, as if whatever they were dealing with had only touched it by chance, rather than directly.

That suggested the dragon blood underground hadn’t been directly disturbed.

It was the third energy that confused him.

The demonic energy was black, sometimes changing to look like a burnt silver shadow, but the other energy was blue, and it was much stronger. Whatever they’d been doing, it looked like they’d been primarily at work to separate the demonic energy from that one.

“The Desolate Mind Pill?” Vesana froze as she turned to look at the cauldrons. “I hadn’t looked at it yet.”

“Whether or not it’s that pill,” Verse said as he tossed the man to the floor and began to walk forward. “There’s definitely something dangerous here.”

A wave of iridescent blue energy was slowly churning in the air above the cauldrons. It was freezingly cold and a sense of danger radiated from it, like just touching it would make it explode in a fury.

Somehow, it felt like that fury would lock the world in ice.

He couldn’t tell how he knew. It was like an instinct. Images came to him of massive beings carved from ice whose movements were like crashing glaciers. It was only flickers, partial concepts.

It had to come from his bloodline, but he wasn’t familiar with what it was showing. A suspicion flared to life in his mind as his expression turned grim.

He stopped in front of the closest cauldron, his body protected by a screen of emerald flames, as he looked down into it. At the bottom of the cauldron, there were four chunks of something that looked like blue stone.

“That...” the shrine’s voice was more grave than Verse had ever heard before as it studied the substance, “is part of an Ice Titan’s body. They were one of the Elder Races and part of the Kin. It looks like what happened here isn’t as simple as we thought.

“Based on the way the demonic energy is infused through it...the owner must have been afflicted with demonic energy, and slowly turning into one of them. The only way that could happen is if the Ice Titan was extremely weak, and probably young.”

The memory of what the dragon recording had said came back to Verse. After the Kin left to fight the war in the heavens, the demons hunted down all the descendants of the Elder Races and destroyed them.

This could only be a remnant of their crimes.