[Ashborn-B1] 70. Looming Threat (Patreon)

LXX

Looming Threat

The Snow Moons patched the hole in the wall. It was a titanic effort that required the combined power of more than disciples. When they finished, our forces invited the others to camp with us—there was no telling what would happen once the shrine activated, after all. However (and I don’t think anyone was surprised), the Dragonflight, Immortals, and Black Fangs decided to camp separately.

Sitting on a chair pulled from Kayle’s storage ring, I took a bite from some dried rations.

“Do you think the entire shrine got flooded, Lady Sunstrider.”

Leah was standing behind me with her arms linked behind her back.

“That would be my guess.”

Not one of the many entrances budged an inch when we tried opening them. That was too bad for all the people who were stranded on the other side.

I grabbed my locator. Duke and Kiaya were still missing. My gaze found Kiran. He was sitting around a fire with Rin, holding his hands near the flame for warmth.

He perked up, turned towards me and waved merrily.

‘Tougher to kill than a cockroach, huh.’ He must seriously believe in the truth of that statement. “I just hope her power extends to the other two as well,” I mumbled.

I didn’t particularly care for Leila (nor she for me), but I didn’t wish her ill.

A shadow moving in the corner of my sight made me turn. Leah was still standing behind me. ‘At least she’s taking her job seriously.’

I glanced at the text over her head.

[Sunchaser - lvl. 24]

At lvl. 24, she was above the middle of the pack and the peak of the Novice stage. If correct, she should be preparing to breakthrough.

“You can cultivate if you want to,” I said.

“My core is already saturated, Lady Sunstrider. I’ll perform my breakthrough after we exit this shrine.”

I hummed. Breaking through would make her stronger, but there were also downsides to advancing. For one, your body would need to get used to the changes in your physique. Second, your core’s speed would decrease for some time since it’d be sensitive from the rapid expansion following advancement. While it wasn’t much, added together, the inconsistencies could make or break a fight.

That said, I would still advance. Going up a stage came with upgrading one of your core abilities.

I turned back to my palm. A thin branch spooled out of my skin and wrapped around my hand.

System messages confirmed what I’d already realised.

New Skill [Cindertree Recreation (Uncommon)] recognised!

Cindertree Recreation: Allows the users to recreate different parts of the sacred tree and its offshoots. Recreated parts are not as powerful as their original.

‘I was right.’ My status screen came into view.

Level: 21

Class: Ashenkeeper - Sacred

Stage: Late Novice

Titles: [Flame Rebirth, Dragon’s Dogma I, Dragon’s Dogma II, Herald of the Western Mountain]

Soul Aspect: [Sacred Ashen Garden]

Skills: [Keeper’s Prerogative (Common), Keeper’s Bond (Common), Keeper’s Mind (Common), Cindertree Recreation (Uncommon)]

Vitality: 16 (19)

Strength: 13 (31)

Dexterity: 20 (20)

Fortitude: 18 (21)

Perception: 16 (19)

Arcane: 30 (33)

Free Points: 0

‘A fourth skill…’ Every class was only supposed to gain three skills that evolved as the person climbed through the subsequent stages of cultivation. It was different for me. ‘I can gain more skills on my own.’

My lack of guaranteed upgrades was traded in for more flexibility and the potential for gaining better skills earlier.

…If I played my cards right.

I dove into meditation and condensed the remainder of my experience.

Ashenkeeper - lvl. 21 -> Ashenkeeper - lvl. 25.

Your stage has advanced to Peak Novice.

12 free stat points gained.

Vitality: 20 (23)

Strength: 17 (35)

Dexterity: 21 (24)

Fortitude: 18 (21)

Perception: 17 (20)

Arcane: 32 (35)

Free Points: 0

I breathed in deep and welcomed the untold benefit of Saber’s Flame Horizon: I gained more experience for team kills than regular. That, my experience buffs, and the killing I’d already done on the journey here, had given me enough to reach peak.

My shard once more grew denser. Now, it held enough energy for me to summon two peak stage summons at the same time.

‘Right on time.’

Battle-wise, the upgrade would take a serious load of my shoulders. Unlocking that second summon was such a priority that I forewent spending energy on creating another flametalon (Saber’s skill sent my sole one into regeneration).

I briefly exited my meditative state to regain my composure.

“Congratulations on advancing,” Leah said.

“Thank you.”

Wasting no time, I linked my hands, controlled my breathing again, and turned to my garden. Flames spread into a whole world. The cindertree’s branches swayed as if they were waving. The bud that’d sprouted from its limbs was no longer something so small. A round, orange fruit, composed of many flame-shaped components with swirl patterns on each one hung from a stalk. It wasn’t yet ripe, for the flames were growing brighter with each passing hour, but it wouldn’t be long.

Three pairs of eyes burned into me. I didn’t face my summons. There was no telling what the fruit would do, but an educated guess wasn’t hard to make.

‘Who am I going to give it to?’

Ashwing had been the first to reach peak, so perhaps her. But most of her abilities weren’t offensive in nature. The next best would be Saber—and perhaps it had to be him, lest he grow aggressive again and try to fight his brethren at every turn—but if I was looking for the biggest increase in raw power…

Skul’s form curled around his tree as if I’d called for him.

I scoffed. “Don’t get your hopes up.”

There were other things to take into consideration beyond who’d give the biggest increase in immediate power. One of which was that Ashwing’s trees could produce multiples of each other. A tool like that would translate to further combat power in the long run.

‘We’ll see.’

It wasn’t ready yet anyway. I didn’t need to make a decision right now.

Briefly, I approached Skul’s tree and inspected the mounds beside the base. Those were the corpses of the drakes I’d absorbed while battling and during our flight. There were less than I wanted.

After I sneakily absorbed the elite, the Dragonflight paid more attention to their wounded, going so far as to destroy the corpses of their comrades outright. When the bodies wracked a certain degree of damage, my shard no longer cared for them.

The result was that he would not be reaching peak right now. Perhaps if I went out of my way to kill an elite as the shrine played out, but Erri wouldn’t take that lying down.

Unhurried steps carried me to the side of the cindertree. One of the branches reached out to me as I approached and gingerly touched my cheek.

I smiled and rubbed it back. “I’m glad to see you, too.”

My eyelids drooped as I stroked its hide. Unlike before, I could sense a current of…something running beneath the tree’s skin.

‘What is this?’ It wasn’t essence, that I could tell. I followed the path the energy took through the tree. However, it was a slippery thing. The moment I tried to focus on it, it became a blurry mess to my senses with no clear end or beginning.

‘Is it because of my new skill?’ Maybe I needed to upgrade it to get a better feel of what was going on.

“Well, it’s not like you’re going anywhere. I’ll figure it out later.”

The branch tapped the side of my head like it encouraged me, then retreated.

I stepped out of the garden.

Around me, disciples went over their equipment while they cast nervous glances around the chamber. Many lingered on the Frost Giant King, whose aura washed over you no matter where you were.

‘We’re in for trouble.’ A lot of it.

The one guarantee was that many would die during this shrine.

Which was of course why Rin was whistling as she cleaned her trident and inspected the sharpness of its tongs.

My own blade needed no inspection; I’d barely used it since losing Red Fang. I turned to my new ability instead.

‘Cindertree Recreation…’

The ability description put no limit on how and where I could conjure the parts, or even which parts I could produce in particular. So I should, for example, be able to shoot branches from my feet, too. Not that I would use it like that (It would destroy my shoes, and I didn’t want to walk bare feet), but it should be possible.

What followed was me playing with the ability. I figured out that I didn’t have to move my arms at all to create a branch—merely thinking of it was enough to have it shooting from my palm. And as I conjectured, the branches were not limited to coming out of my hands. I could expel them from basically anywhere on my body.

‘What about the range of control?’

That appeared to be around five metres. Within that range, I could freely manipulate and move any branches as if they were still shooting out my palm—twisting, making them larger, or shrinking them were all no issue. It was after I passed that range that the ability stopped working. I could still retract my branches (pulling me closer or merely shrinking them), but that was about it.

‘Okay. But what something that’s not a branch?’

They were the simplest and easiest object I could think of conjuring, but the skill said ‘different parts’.

“What else is there…?”

Leaves, I supposed, but I failed to see how that would be useful. Recreating the entire tree might be possible, but I got the sense doing so was a bit outside of my wheelhouse at the moment—I’d only just unlocked the skill.

…I thought back to the woman on the mural, the ancestor covered in crimson scales, with wings protruding from her back.

I hummed and turned over my hand. Essence gathered underneath the surface, then bubbled out and settled on top like a coating. My hand discoloured—

“Lady Sunstrider.”

The essence slipped out of my grasp and the discoloration vanished.

Leah inclined her head in apology. “I didn’t mean to disturb you, but the matter is urgent.”

Aurille was with her.

“We want to discuss our plan,” Aurille said.

I side-eyed the shrine. The energy swirling around the Divine Being’s pillar was becoming visible to the naked eye.

I pushed myself to my feet and followed Aurille.

Our alliance had setup a simple headquarters in the centre of our army. We’d chosen to not even erect a tent, as there was no outside weather to shield ourselves from, and the heat radiating from the Divine Being was quite the pleasant turn around form the constant cold.

Jake and Drew studied the pillars in the distance. Aurille enjoyed a cup of cold tea. Rin was balancing on her chair, her eyes half closed.

Raven and Kayle sent me a look, to which I shrugged. How was it my fault that she decided not to have manners?

Ren and Leah, at least, were standing ramrod straight behind me. Though the boy kept sending looks in Kayle’s direction. After the Dawnflame beauty notices, she kept smiling at him.

I refrained from snorting.

Tsall’s voice drew everyone’s attention back to the table. “The main issue will be the activation sequence of the pillars.”

“How so?” Jake asked.

“We’re out of luck if all the pillars activate at once.”

From what we were told, the pillars would be on a timer. Our job would be to protect them until that timer ran out. But we didn’t know how those pillars would activate. Many things in the Tomb had already changed from the time the Vermilion Dawn entered—the flood, for example. The shrine would likely not stay the same either.

Therefore, our best bet was to split out forces so we could respond to anything. However, that made us easier targets for the three other clans in the shrine.

“Won’t it be in their best interest to complete the shrine, too?” Ren asked.

Kayle giggled. “Of course. They’ll leave just enough of us to clear the shrine, and too little to defend ourselves afterwards.”

Ren scratched the back of his head and chuckled awkwardly.

I shook my head.

“We want the opposite to happen,” Aurille said and turned to me. “Should it be possible to move between the pillars, we can pick the right moment to strike.”

And eliminate the most troublesome members: Gaje and Erri. Aedan was an issue, too, but she wasn’t in the same league as the Omens.

My gaze cast out over the plane of grass. I could barely make out the Black Fangs as a cluster of dots.

‘They must be planning the same thing.’

So it would come down to who could pick their moment the best, and how difficult the shrine would be.

We still had to plan for the lvl. 70 behemoth waiting for us on his comfy throne.

Its size not withstanding, it was at least double the level of our highest level members. That wasn’t just a doubling in power. Its capacity for essence and the ferocity of its moves would be unlike anything we’d ever faced.

But more than anything, because of the flood, we couldn’t escape from this place. No matter what happened.

…

Were we going to survive this?