EG Book 7 Chapter 30 (Patreon)

*** AUTHOR’S NOTE ***

Chapter one of two!

*** AUTHOR’S NOTE

The air through the portal felt empty, the world hollow. There was still Aether, but when I absorbed it through my meridians it seemed to shrink in on itself. My gathering efficiency had dropped off a cliff, making it maybe five percent of what it should be. “Sia, did your gathering drop as soon as we arrived?” I asked as he flew into the sky.

Off in the distance, I could see flying creatures, looking like the Wargs only with Bat-like wings. Air Aether buoyed them up, letting the ungainly things fly. Below us, a few Ghouls had tried to jump and grab Sia as he flew through the portal, but only succeeded in getting their limbs burnt away. “Yes. The Aether here is devoid of Truth, and nearly worthless to us. At least you still have a very large quantity of refill powders and pills,” Sia said.

“True. Alright, we need to head that way,” I told him, indicating where I saw the ribbon of Aether leading.

Sia turned to the left and then dove sharply. A Bat Warg shot through the spot where he’d been, its skin color shifting from the dark blue of the sky to the gray of the stone. I pulled one hand off Sia’s back to throw a quick Fireball at it. While I could use techniques without hand gestures, I was still better at hitting my targets if I did, and I could hold onto Sia regardless of whatever maneuvers he was doing.

The Fire washed over the flying thing and scorched through its wings. With a shriek, it plummeted to the ground. Answering shrieks above us told me there were many, many more that I didn’t see before. My Aether senses swept around me, causing me to look down rather than up. We were still above the canyon, which extended for kilometers from the portal. A steady stream of Ghouls and Wargs were sprinting down it, still in uncountable numbers. The problem was that one in every ten of the undead below me felt like they were level six Beasts. “Oh no,” I told Sia, “Core level Ghouls.”

Sia dropped lower in the sky and said, “Keep my back clear. I will burn through the ones below us as we fly.”

“Got it,” I said, rolling over and wrapping my legs around his torso just below where his wings connected. Above us, high level five Bat Wargs were dive-bombing towards my face. Unlike the rest of the undead, though, these seemed to be able to use some sort of technique, as a wave of hazy Aether exploded out of their mouths.

I grunted as a wash of flame beneath me heated the air, then quickly formed a few Air Shields above us. The Shields I forced to continue moving, adapting the technique on the fly, heh, to keep them in front of the Bats. The first one’s technique hit and seemed to rebound off my Shield, only to bounce back from the Bat towards it. The second impact was harder, but there wasn’t time for a third before the Bat splattered onto the Shield.

My Shield broke, but so did the undead thing. With a quick twist of the runes, the second Shield was rimmed with Fire and Lightning, burning the zombie Bat that ran into it.

The third bat, though, slowed down its dive enough to let the Sound technique bounce thrice, and with the third impact shatter the Air structure of my Shield. The Sound technique then returned to the flying Warg and bounced again. This time, the undead staggered from the impact of its own technique. That’s not going to be pleasant, I thought, then formed two Lightning Bolts. I focused on the incoming wave, then slammed both Bolts forward, hitting it right in the center.

The first Bolt broke the Sound attack into four pieces. The pieces continued forward and out, spreading away from us in such a way that they’d miss on all sides. Instead, they impacted the canyon’s walls and splattered some of the Ghouls below. The second Bolt seized the muscles of the Warg Bat, burning away at its torso for a few seconds, before it recovered and shrieked at us again.

I could feel a massive rush of Essence from below, as Sia burnt away the majority of the Ghouls. This was the first time he’d had to go truly all out, without having to worry about hurting anyone else, since he got his power back. This Essence was gross, wrong in a way that I couldn’t really articulate. I knew I didn't want to keep it that way, but I wasn’t sure how to make it better. Unfortunately, I didn’t have time to deal with it, as more of the Bat Wargs were coming.

I fired a steady stream of Lightning Bolts at them. The majority died again to the first or second one fired at them, but a few continued through my barrage. I was trying to conserve Aether, as Lightning Bolts were the cheapest attack that wasn’t a simple Aether Blast, and it was mostly working. As the first flying zombie got close, I built up a Wrath of the Lightning Herald and let it loose.

It did barely more damage than a Lightning Bolt did. “Sia, area techniques are nearly worthless here!” I shouted, building up a Fireball with a huge heaping of Aether in it. The Bat belted its Sound attack at us, so I broke it with an Air Blade before the Fireball would be disrupted. The Beast hit the Fireball and was blasted into pieces, the cumulative damage enough to break through whatever defenses the Bat had.

The swarm of Bats following behind started to task my ability to multitask, as I threw Lightning Bolts, Fireballs, Air Blades, Metal and Earth Spikes, and even Wood Stakes and Icicles, cycling through the Elements to preserve the Aether balance in my Core. I was rapidly draining, though, while the Bats seemed never ending.

“Look ahead,” Sia said. “Are we close?”

I glanced to the side and up, to find the ribbon of Aether connecting the gate to whatever was powering it was starting to drop towards the ground. Ahead, the canyon walls opened up, and I saw a castle in the middle of a valley. There was still no greenery anywhere. “The castle. Whatever is causing this is coming from the castle!”

“Understood,” Sia said, then we were enveloped in his Fire and Lightning Aether. With a jerk of acceleration, we covered the half kilometer to the castle in a second, where his wings flared open and we slammed onto the top of the keep. A Warg that had been standing there was flattened, even its Core level body unable to deal with Sia’s flames. Aether attacks from Core-level Ghouls shot into the sky behind us, beams of Death like the Naga’s along with globes of Acid and Corrosion Aether that sought to dissolve whatever they hit.

I leapt off Sia’s back and met a Ghoul’s charge with a Forceful Punch, my aura reaching out to deflect the Acid Ball that it tried to create. It was the first time I’d used my aura to actively fight against a technique, and I felt the strain on my Geist as I pushed it beyond what I’d been trained to do with my aura. The Acid didn’t form, its Aether disrupted before it could, and the creature barreled into my fist and exploded.

There were no more undead on the top of the keep, though I could feel some moving below us. Sia jumped into the air, a wave of Fire reaching out at the oncombing Bat Wargs. “I will keep the riff-raff from entering the keep,” he said before diving below where I could see.

“Burninate,” I told him, then sprinted for the doorway and the stairs down. I knew the staff, if it was what I was sensing, was at most two floors down. Its presence washed out everything around it, so I couldn't tell if there was anyone else in the same room as it, but I didn’t expect to grab it without any fight.

The first level down was a barracks for guards, and it held a dozen Ghouls. They were already rushing towards the doorway up, with the first at the base of the stairs. I met its rush with my trisula, Aether enhancing both my body and my attack, a Forceful Punch and a Fire Bolt merged into one to splatter and burn the too resilient Beast. My left hand was crafting a Fireball that I threw through the top of the doorway to explode in the middle of the room.

The detonation wave tossed another two Ghouls onto the floor in front of me, giving me a perfect attack at the back of their heads. I dropped to a knee and smashed their skulls apart, stilling the undead, permanently I hoped. My Aether Senses screamed at me, and I dove into a roll while flexing the Iron Bones, Granite Skin Technique to cover my body with Stone Aether. It was slightly weaker against physical attacks, but much stronger against Aether, especially Water and its derivatives.

The Acid Ball splattered on the wall behind me, and a few drops burned into my armor. I really need new armor. Stupid armorer saying it would take three weeks to make what I wanted, when we only had a week before leaving. Definitely getting a set made wherever Aleks or Lilianna can point me to as the best, I thought, my skin burning for a second before my Aether finished countering the Ghoul’s technique.

By that time, I’d already crossed half the room’s width as I rolled to my feet. With a swipe, I kicked the strongest Ghoul’s legs out from under it, blasting them with a Metal Aether Blast, though I took a blow to the chest to do so. There were only three left after my Fireball, all at a power level equivalent to my own. Well, equivalent to a normal person at Seed Core anyway. Bruno the Dungeon had shown us the gap between a Complete Condensation and Seed Core, but on the trip across the ocean, Knight Kaminski had made sure to emphasize that we were not normal gatherers and were instead truly elite.

That fact left the Seed Core Ghouls in front of me as barely better than the lower level fodder I’d obliterated with a single technique. The closest one had a haze of gray Death Aether around its fists as it dropped a hammerblow towards my head. The second one was rushing in, I guessed to tackle me to the ground, while the last was creating another Acid Ball.

My left trisula came up, Plasma Edge lining the blade, and sliced off the first Ghoul’s arms at the elbow while I stepped forward. Its fists dropped behind me as my right trisula extended to pierce the tackling Ghoul’s shoulder and detonate an Aether Blast inside. The explosion broke its arm off and threw its body far enough off its path to miss me. I rotated my left shoulder forward at the same time, checking the now arm-less undead into the third’s Acid Ball. A quick burst of Air Aether blew the Acid splatter away from me.

I created a Fire Wall, based loosely on Jon’s Ice Wall technique, behind the two undead as they were knocked by my throw. The two creatures fell into it, bellowing as the Fire cleansed them.

I was slammed forward and had to jerk myself into a dive over my own Fire. I used the wall before the stairway to turn myself around. I immediately had to create an Air Platform and shove myself sideways as a beam of Death blasted the wall beside me. The strongest undead had gotten back to its feet, even with half the flesh on its right thigh gone from my kick.

Stupid undead and not really needing bodies, I grumbled, sending an Aether Slash at the Ghoul that it blocked with a raised forearm covered in Corruption Aether. That same arm then punched out and blasted a beam at me. Trusting my technique, even as I reinforced it, I let the beam hit me in the chest as I rushed at it.

The Ghoul wailed at me, the first instance of one using Sound as an attack. The reverberations struck and tried to break apart the Stone Aether of my technique. Iron Bones, Granite Skin resisted the attack, though, as the multiple layers changed the necessary frequency to truly damage it.

The Ghoul struck just as I would have gotten in range, as I’d expected from something with so little ability to think and plan. I stutter-stepped, taking a single instant longer to reach it. Its hand blurred past my face. My trisula stabbed into its torso. Its Death Aether tried to flow up them, a defensive technique I hadn't seen before, but the pressure of my Lightning Aether vastly overpowered it. Less than a second later, the Ghoul exploded.

I stood over the pieces of the undead, panting from the eruption of effort needed to defeat them quickly. I pulled a Lightning and a Fire refill pill, I’d forgotten the flowery names for them, and tossed them down.

“I am surprised one such as you could survive here,” a grating voice said. Eerie maniacal laughter echoed up the stairs following the statement.