[MA] 106. Receptacles of Hope (Patreon)

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[A/N: Explanations for my absence at the end of the final chapter I'll release today (there will be 4 total)]

After killing the bug that dared to touch her daughter, Saelihn Herfiel teleported the drow world back to the Milky Way Galaxy, where the Pioneer Tutorial had taken place. Then she returned home.

She materialized in her enormous, luxurious room and immediately sent a command to all high elves.

"Return home, close borders, and mobilize for war."

The Dreamer might not have known her daughter had been in the Pioneer Tutorial, but the Primordial Bridge would have. The daughter and mother pair had been set up. That had left her with a choice: upset the Bridge by not killing the Dreamer or upset the Primordials by killing them.

She had been forced to pick the latter. A long time ago, the Bridge had utterly defeated her when she had fought it to avenge her dead disciple. Only their mercy had allowed her to keep her life, and now she had repaid it.

She had no idea if she could resist the ire of the Primordials—despite their supposed might, they hadn't acted directly against the Alliance since the Bridge's creation—but she did know not repaying the Bridge would've caused her death. And as the only high elven A-rank alive, her fall would mean the fall of her entire race at the hands of their enemies. Even if the high elves survived, it would be with terrible sacrifices, like the drow. She would rather see her people gone than become barely more than single-minded biological golems.

She didn't expect the Primordials to attack though. She had helped the Bridge, and it should offer some measure of protection against the Primordials. She didn't see how killing her by following unrecorded orders would help either of those two powers.

Either way, the high elves would do what they must to protect their freedom and lifestyle. The Primordials might or not appear, yet the Alliance was coming for sure. The Queen of Spring and Autumn had killed a Titled B-rank and would soon refuse to pay for her crimes. Alliance law required they try to take her by force, and her people would go to war to prevent that.

Fortunately, the Bridge had also given her a political gift by having her act in their stead. The killing of the Dreamer would send a clear message to everyone: she was willing to go even against the Primordials if they crossed her bottom line. Who would she not dare to offend?

The drow used their aggressiveness to wage wars. She would use her perceived aggressiveness to dissuade some challengers.

She hadn't the slightest idea why the Bridge was willing to let it look like they had refused to save the Dreamer out of political pressure, but she wouldn't investigate it. When the overwhelmingly powerful told you to sit down, you obeyed without asking questions.

As for whoever had schemed to help the humans, she didn't care much. Everyone had an agenda in the Alliance. The humans had never been her problem, nor would they ever be.

In the end, the outcome wasn't terrible for her. She would even go as far as to consider it acceptable. As long as she didn't die, her race would come out stronger for it. Everyone with an inkling of intelligence knew an all-out civil war was coming to the Alliance anyway, and she had just established a position of power right before it started. It would help her make more allies than enemies if she played it right.

The Queen of Spring and Autumn was also glad her daughter had befriended the Drow Maiden. Few had ever allied with the drow because of their aggressive nature, and even those few had decided it was better to betray the dark elves than continue the alliance. However, there was no denying they were formidable warriors with experience and interesting tricks up their sleeves.

It was time to see how far the pitiful race could go when it wasn't betrayed.

= - = - =

The moment the True Enemy died, the Bloody Mists of Tar'Shalon started dissipating.

The magic that kept them together crumbled when its purpose was fulfilled. The souls of fallen Guardians could stay if they had wanted, but they were exhausted. Instead, they would seek the answer to the great mystery of the afterlife: did souls go anywhere when they dissipated? Would they reincarnate, find a mystical afterlife place, or just cease existing? Whatever happened, they preferred it over their pitiful continued existence.

A few hundred thousand would rather stay, but the drow were ordered by the Autharchs to not give them any receptacles to avoid issues. A soul without a physical vessel or sustaining magic couldn't stay in Reality. They also faded away.

A couple days after the True Enemy died, dark mists no longer hid—or protected—Tar'Shalon.

The living drow had kept kneeling all the time in honor of their people's sacrifice. The moment the True Enemy died, they had felt the true purpose of the mists on their connected souls. The distance factor stopped affecting them as the mists dissipated, weakening all nearby and strengthening those far away. They also felt a weight being lifted from them. The mists had kept an overwhelming sense of tension, paranoia, and defeatism over them. Now, it was mostly gone.

Yet, though the mists were gone, some of their power remained.

All Autarchs carried three objects of power for the day they killed the True Enemy. If lost, the objects were created anew at a high cost.

They were called the Receptacles of Hope.

The Receptacle of Bloody Hope was a red orb that absorbed all the blood the mists were made of.

The Receptacle of Wise Hope was a white orb that took what it could of the collective knowledge and intent of the souls.

And the Receptacle of Obstinate Hope was a black orb containing their willpower.

The Triarchy would keep ruling while connected to the Receptacle of Wise Hope. They would draw from the wisdom and intent of the past to decide the path forward. They would also add their own knowledge and purpose to the mass to pass to their successors. That's how the drow had operated before the mists had been created.

The other two Receptacles of Hope would be given to twelve worthy beings to draw from. It would hopefully help them reach the greatly desired A-rank. Their heart shackles had been removed with the True Enemy's death, yet they were still weakened and malnourished. The drow could only produce so many Guardians at the cost of many lives and weaker foundations for the survivors. Their overall power was weaker than others of the same rank. They needed the extra push.

Nine would be B-ranks, and three, C-ranks. The logic was simple: the B-ranks were closest to advancing, but maybe their Path was too cemented already. Perhaps they needed the freshness and hope of the younger C-ranks.

The decision would be made in the only way the drow made all decisions that could impact their entire race: the Triarchy would decide it.

A few days after the Day of Deliverance, twelve drow were called to the center of the world, the seat of power of the Autarchs.

They entered one by one, unsure of what to expect.

Liya was the last to be invited.

= - = - - =

Liya entered the room to find it changed. Instead of the naked drow in capsules, connected to tubes and waiting for death as they ruled over their people, she found three drow in simple garbs, sitting on the ground of an empty room, around three floating orbs.

One of the orbs was white and shining brightly, floating higher than the others. The red and black ones shone at least half less and floated that much lower.

"Hello, child," one of the three Autharchs, the only male, said.

None of them were the same ones she had seen only months before. Those had sacrificed themselves to disconnect the Bloody Mists from Tar'Shalon and send it against the True Enemy when the giant lizard interfered. These Autarchs were younger, though they also had the dark elves' characteristic white hair.

Liya had known two of them before their ascension. Now, they had no names anymore. They were the Autharchs and nothing else, their previous identities stripped from them. She immediately stopped seeing them as individuals and started taking them as the living manifestation of her people's will.

"Come, sit with us," one of the females commanded, pointing to the empty spot around the orbs.

Liya obeyed. She could feel great power coming from the orbs, but she had no idea what they were.

"The drow will go through great changes in the coming days," a female said. "We'll need great power to survive."

"Twelve were chosen to bear the burden. Eleven came already, and three have fallen. Their corpses were reclaimed," another female informed.

Any corpse the drow could recover was recycled into resources. Most D-ranks and lower were processed into food for those too weak to become Guardians and thus stop needing food. C-ranks and stronger became magic items. Nothing was wasted.

"You're the last one we chose," the male said. "Touch the two lower orbs and absorb their power. Those before you took too little power, but the Receptacles of Hope can bear no more than twelve connections. Take however much you can because all the remaining power will go to waste once you're done."

It didn't even cross her mind to question them about the safety of the process. Three had fallen, and if she did too, she would at least help nourish the following generation. There was no space for egoism among the drow.

She touched the two orbs, and pain followed.

The red orb imbued raw physical power into her. Her body was repeatedly deformed, broken, and remade. The laws of physics were crushed under the sheer weight of power in that orb. It demanded her body to grow stronger, and it had no choice but to obey.

The black orb was more mystical. It improved her will. Increasing willpower wasn't simply done, and it was always costly. It also usually negatively affected one's mind. However, the black orb contained raw, unadulterated willpower that could be safely absorbed. That could only be harvested if willfully donated by the departing souls that wanted to strengthen the next generations and didn't mind potentially going to the afterlife as lesser beings.

That donation was very ineffective. However, when billions of lives were piled together, it created a powerful effect.

The red orb strengthened Liya's body, and the black orb, her mind.

Souls hosted at least half the mind of biological mortals. The higher a Guardian's rank, the less their mind required being part of a physical brain. At C-rank, the brain stopped being relevant at all, and the mind completely turned into part of the soul.

Therefore, when empowering her mind, the black orb strengthened her soul. Her soul went through the same changes as her body; it twisted, bloated, exploded, deconstructed, and was created anew.

The system flashed warnings for her to stop. She was going beyond the stats limits of the C-rank, and the system didn't have the resources to defer the changes—or didn't care enough to do it. It did promise a price to pay, but the Autarchs' will was absolute. She would never dare to suggest they change their course of action without a good enough reason, like the orcs' treason.

Liya grunted and screamed in pain. Some races would take it as her being disrespectful of their gift. The drow had long ago let go of deceit, masks, and pretense. She was hurting, and there was nothing wrong with showing it.

It would be easier to take all that power if she had been at B-rank, but she hadn't been allowed to rank up yet. The Maiden and the Rising Star were only allowed to reach B-rank when their successors were adequately prepared. Her successor was being trained, but she was still D-rank, too weak and vulnerable to enemy attacks to take the mantle of drow Maiden.

So Liya kept drawing from the orbs, growing stronger at the cost of billions of lives and overwhelming pain.

She went past all limits she considered safe, for to let all that power and sacrifice of her antecessors go to waste would be something she couldn't live with. She would rather die than live with that shame.

After what felt like an eternity, the orbs crumbled, their power entirely spent.

Liya survived.

The same couldn't be said for the room. It was covered in blood and gore expelled from her body as it went through countless transformations. Some of it had even corroded the metal of the room.

She now looked too much like a high elf, except for slightly larger muscles, dark bluish skin, white hair, and white eyes. She regretted losing her scars, marks of power and visual reminders of past betrayals. Yet, as with all the drow, she was turning a new page in her history.

Liya started at her hand, marveling at her new strength.

"You'll need time to adapt to your new power," a female said.

"You can't be allowed to fall," the male asserted.

"We are under heavy political pressure for entering the new race's galaxy before it's open to the Alliance, but we managed to condition our retreat on acquiring an Observer spot in the human world. You shall go."

"You'll be more protected there than anywhere else we can send you," a female explained. "The consequences of attacking the Dreamer are much worse than mere politics. Our enemies are already coming in numbers, strengthened by new enemies that backed the Dreamer, and we're unsure if the high elves will honor our alliance. We will need to abandon this world and disperse if they don't."

Liya wanted to stay and fight, but her desire didn't matter at all. She looked at them. "For how long will I be safe?"

"The human world will remain closed to the Alliance for one human year, less than one drow month. Use this time to the utmost."

"Avoid all contact with your charge until then. We cannot deal with the consequences of breaking the non-interference rule."

"But then train him in the drow way. Regardless of how he came to be one of us, the fact remains that he is our responsibility. It is bad enough to leave him fending for himself for so long."

Liya nodded. "It shall be as you will it," she said.

"Then go," they ordered in unison, and she was teleported away.

[A/N: Their meeting has been prophesied! =O

Tomorrow's chapter will finish the Tutorial Arc once and for all, and then we get to Earth.]

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