Path of Dragons 16 - Chapter 86 - Beautifully Agonizing (Patreon)

Elijah could have flown.  He could have run.  He could have walked much more quickly.  However, on the way to the core of Orveth Kaal, he chose to take his time.  Not because he enjoyed the pain, but because he knew it carried with it an intrinsic value that would eventually help him reach his goal.

Because cultivation wasn’t a zero-sum game.  Results varied.  The tiers were different for each individual, and Elijah was determined to get the absolute most out of reaching the gold tier.

To do that, he’d spent the past half decade or so preparing himself for the final push.  It was longer than he’d expected to be gone, and as a result, part of his mind had settled on the fate of his friends, family, and other trial participants from Earth.  Yet, he refused to cut his process short, and not just for personal reasons.  Rather, he knew good and well that Earth’s fate was tied to his power. 

If he settled for less than the best, there was a good chance they would all suffer for his failure. 

So, he had chosen to eke the last bit of good out of the caustic atmosphere and take his time walking across the continent-sized final ring surrounding the core of the ancestral world.

And along the way, he found beauty he couldn’t have even imagined.  That first palace was just the tip of the iceberg, and he soon encountered dozens more just like it.  Most of them were sized for dragons, so they loomed over the landscape like mountains.  However, unlike the one that hosted the gate to Silvara, they were entirely untouched by nature.

No weeds.  No creeping vines.  Just unabashed architectural achievement that had long since passed into the realm of god-like artistry.  A more cynical person might’ve grown fatigued by the sight of so many flying buttresses, colonnades, graceful towers, and luxurious materials used as mundane building supplies.

Not Elijah, though.

As much as he might criticize the dragons for their focus on beauty over functionality, he couldn’t deny their artistic sensibilities.  Nor could he ignore their achievements.  Appreciation was the minimal threshold.  Elijah soon found himself deep in the throes of admiration.

More than once, he considered stopping, just to explore the wonders they represented.  But he resisted that urge, as much because he remained focused on his goal as because the pain would continue until he finished his task.  It was difficult to truly appreciate art when it came accompanied by unrelenting agony.

Of course, the majesty of nature rivaled the dragons’ creations.  Tall trees with trunks hundreds of feet wide stretched miles into the sky.  Elijah didn’t recognize their species.  They resembled evergreens, but with fatter needles and prickly branches.  Some other trees were more familiar but no less majestic for it.  The same was true of dense patches of ferns and other vegetation. 

Then there was the terrain itself.  It had grown more mountainous with every mile Elijah covered, and with that came waterfalls and streams that would rival any back on Earth, both in size and beauty.

Elijah forced himself to experience it all.  Beauty and pain.  Agony and appreciation.  It all went hand-in-hand, and it provided a little extra incentive to advance his body to gold tier.  After all, he hoped that doing so would help him to endure the atmosphere without pain.  And if that was true, it would free his entire mind to appreciate the wonderous landscape.

In any case, crossing the ring on foot was no quick endeavor, and it took Elijah nearly a month before he found himself on the final stretch.  It presented as a spacious plain with waist-high grass waving peacefully in the wind.  Upon stepping from the tree line, Elijah found himself falling to his knees.

The pain was incredible, but he was accustomed to that.  The real problem was the increased gravity, which hit him like a brick wall.  It was multiple times stronger than what he’d experienced on Fungee’s island, but the big difference was that it came at him from all angles.  And from the inside as well. 

The result was that Elijah felt like he’d been transformed into a singularity trying to collapse in on itself.  However, the work he’d put in over the past few years had prepared him well to combat the pressure, and he forced himself back to his feet.  Then, he took a step.

It was wobbly, but manageable. 

He continued on.

One step after another, he pushed ahead.  His gait remained strong and unhurried, with long strides that ate the distance as quickly as he could manage.  Which was to say that he progressed at a pace that a mortal might’ve found comfortable – in a normal environment.

Through it all, the core loomed.  In some ways, it looked like a star, though instead of pure light, it emitted arcs of glowing ethera, each one dense enough that it could slice right through an unprepared deity.  Elijah wondered if one could destroy him just as easily.

As he went, he refused to use Wild Resurgence or any of his other healing spells.  Instead, he relied solely on his constitution for protection and regeneration for repair.  His training had prepared him well, and his attributes rose to the task.

It was just further evidence that, despite everything he’d been through, he’d barely plumbed the depths of his potential.  There was so much more power within him, and most of it remained entirely untouched.

His goal was to unlock it.

His stride remained steady but slow until he reached the end of the grassland.  Only then did Elijah realize that the ring didn’t extend all the way to the core.  Instead, there was a mile-wide gap between the two. 

Gritting his teeth, Elijah considered what he was meant to do.  The easiest would be to don his Footwraps of the Wild Revenant and use them to Cloud Step across the gap.  However, Elijah discarded that notion after only a moment’s hesitation, knowing good and well that his equipment wouldn’t survive such exposure.  In some ways, it was tied to his own durability, and in a way that he didn’t fully understand.  Yet, Elijah had no doubts that those delicate footwraps would disintegrate within moments of being exposed to the densely caustic ethera.

The next option was just to glide across using his infrequently-used humanoid wings.  He discarded that idea, but for an entirely different reason.  With the increased gravity, he would probably plummet to his death.

Maybe.

The gravity field seemed to emanate from the core itself, but it didn’t function like a planetary body.  Instead, the gap between the inside of the ring and the core was a no-man’s-land that worked on an entirely different version of physics.  Functionally, that meant that Elijah needed to get across rather than simply step free and fall towards the core.

The only real option was to use Shape of the World Serpent.

The reason Elijah hadn’t done so sooner was because he regarded the journey as preparation for what was coming.  The pain was a means to an end.  And while Scales of Eternity would protect him, the ability would also rob him of that necessary foundation. 

He had no choice, though.  Once Elijah established that, he shifted into the Shape of the World Serpent and experienced a surge of relief.  The protective ability didn’t remove the pain altogether, but it cut it down to more manageable levels.  Until that very moment, he’d underestimated how much the agony had affected him.  Sure, he could endure.  He’d spent years acclimating himself to it for that very purpose. 

But it was still there.

Scales of Eternity gave him perspective that he had otherwise lacked, especially concerning the exponential climb of the ethereal density.  He slithered forward and into open sky.

As Elijah had expected, the gravity pressed down on him more strongly than ever.  It was like standing at the event horizon of a black hole, but one that had been split into uncountable other gravity wells, each one pulling in separate directions. 

Elijah set his mouth and pushed ahead. 

Those couple of miles were the toughest stretch of the entire journey, and not by a small degree. With every foot, the ethereal density grew thicker and more toxic, and to the point where even Scales of Eternity were incapable of protecting him.  The force of gravity increased apace, pressing in on him as powerfully as it tried to send him careening downward.

Yet, through force of will, Elijah continued on until, at last, he reached the surface.

When he brushed against it with his nose, he was more than a little surprised to find that it felt a bit like an eggshell.  Slightly rough, with a pebbled texture that he hadn’t expected.  Even odder, it was cool to the touch.

Of course, blades of ethera whipped out and around the thing, slamming into his scales with enough force to cut deep into his body.  Elijah had no choice but to use Wild Resurgence to counter the damage.

But even as he did so, he realized something that should not have surprised him.

He wasn’t satisfied.

Elijah had reached his destination.  He had met his goal.  And yet, it wasn’t enough.  He knew he could go further.  What’s more, he knew precisely how to do so.

Without any other hesitation, he shifted into the Shape of the Primordial Deep.  The sudden loss of Scales of Eternity came with a jolt of pain that nearly shattered his consciousness.  He held on by the thinnest of threads, and just long enough to activate The World is an Ocean.  The activation of the ability came with a dose of clarity, and it halted Elijah’s brief plummet.

He dove into the core.

The shell was hundreds of yards thick.  Maybe miles.  But Elijah swam through it like it was a gentle ocean.  In the form of the giant dragon turtle, he was well accustomed to the incredible pressure that came with the deepest oceans.  As such, it was perhaps even more durable than Shape of the World Serpent.

It was too bad that it was temporary.

Elijah knew that he might be making a mistake.  When The World is an Ocean ran its course, he would be forced to endure the interior of the core without protection.  He could shift back into the Shape of the World Serpent – and he would, if necessary – but he couldn’t rely on that to see him through the process of cultivation.

Not alone.

In fact, he would need every form he could muster if he was going to keep going.  Could he turn around and return to the surface?  Certainly. And it would meet the goal he’d set for himself.  Yet, it wouldn’t be ideal. 

And Elijah hadn’t spent the past few years training himself just to fall short of perfection.  So, he continued to dive, eventually passing through the shell and into what he could only describe as liquid ethera.

It burned like acid, filling his lungs and suffusing his entire body to eat it from the inside out.  Even The World is an Ocean was insufficient to protect him.  Knowing that he was on a timer, he plunged ahead, pushing himself as fast as he could manage.

Once before, he’d experienced the interior of a planetary core.  In that instance, he’d created a crack through which he’d climbed.  But that core was comparatively tiny.  A system-created aspect of a Primal Realm, it was a mere shadow of the real thing.  Orveth Kaal’s core was the size of Luna, at the very least.  That meant he had thousands of miles to go before he reached his new goal – the Worldseed.

Elijah kept Wild Resurgence going, but he knew it wouldn’t be long before he needed more healing than that simple spell could provide.  He didn’t care.

He was committed.

Even if he wanted to turn back, he’d already gone too far.  So, he ground the ridges of his beak together and plunged ahead.  Eventually, The World is an Ocean ran its course, and he was forced to shift again.  This time, he took on his Shape of the Reaver, activating Mycelial Rebirth the second the transformation completed.

At first, the influx of regeneration doused him with relief.  However, the destruction that came with his journey toward the Worldseed would soon outpace even that.

He swam forward, using his powerful limbs for propulsion.

When Mycelial Rebirth ran its course, Elijah shifted into his dragon form, as much because it enhanced his abilities as because it came with increased durability.  The combination of all three of his healing spells and that form’s natural endurance was enough to keep him going.

Still, by the time he reached the tiny Worldseed and wrapped his claw around it, his core was all but empty. 

He had reached his goal, though.

Now, the work could truly commence.