Chapter 830: A Possessed Master (Patreon)

A/N

Sorry for late chap, was only able to write 1 chap today, enjoy!

The shriek tore through my soul.

Without any hesitation, my spiritual sense entered my inner world because I needed to make sure Yggy was okay.

The sky was a mix of red, blue, and gold.

The Ancient Oak was in the middle of complaining about something, probably an issue related to the bees who were still circling it, but I didn’t care about that at the moment, my attention narrowed in on the patch of moss that was covering something at the base of the Oak’s roots.

I let out a sigh of relief when I saw a green vine with crimson and gold running through its veins pop what would count as its head out and look around at its surroundings like it was surprised to find itself back here.

Great, my buddy was home, and from the looks of it, there was no sign of any damage, which was a great improvement compared to the time that I removed the continent from the map and Yggy with it. That was something the vine hadn’t been too pleased about. But it was good to see that Yggy knew when it was better to return than risk soul damage.

“What happened, buddy?” I asked, even though I already had a good idea. “What was it that terrified you like that?”

Yggy lifted its tip and tapped the ground repeatedly as though trying to explain just how scary of an experience it had been. When it realised that I wasn’t getting what it was trying to convey, it opened the memories and sent them towards me in the scattered way that plants stored things.

Azure quickly helped me organise it into the proper order.

The first thing that I saw was a root cellar and Elder Molric hanging in the air, blood dribbling down his chin, and a man standing before him with his hands folded behind his back. That man was obviously Hiron. The conversation between the two came next, followed by three bodies falling out of a tear in space, and then the chanting which led to them losing their lives for a ritual that Hiron believed couldn’t be avoided if they wanted to save this world.

Listening to Headmaster's reasoning on why he was doing all of this was honestly sad.

Sure, cultivation worlds didn’t have a lack of people trying to take over the world or end it.

Most of them did something like that because they saw it as a way to gain more power, or it was for revenge, or just pure spite. But Hiron wasn’t like any of them. He wasn’t a villain in the typical sense. He was a man who had looked up at the sky and saw something looking back and understood that his world had no chance on its own. And it was this desperation that prepared him to be ready to sell out the one thing that made his people worth being eaten in the first place, and that was cultivation.

A part of me couldn’t blame him. He had seen the destruction and chaos that those with cultivation can cause in the world and had arrived at that being the only conclusion towards everlasting peace.

But he hadn’t seen what I had seen. After all, I originally came from a world with no cultivation, and I had seen the lengths that humans would go to for power, whether they had cultivation or didn't have any cultivation.

“Master,” Azure said in my mind. “Do you think you’d ever pick the same choice as him if the situation was bad enough?”

That was a good question.

Hiron had made a deal with an Otherworldly Being in exchange for protection, and the honest truth was, if you didn’t have the power to protect yourself, then sometimes all you could do was ally yourself with someone, or in this case something, that could defend you.

But the cost being the lives of thousands of innocent people? That wasn’t something I would want to live with. Yet at the same time, I wasn’t foolish enough to think that never giving up and throwing myself headfirst into the problem like some anime protagonist was going to work.

That simply wasn’t realistic.

“I don’t know,” I gave my honest response. “I just hope I never get forced to make a decision like that.”

Having checked on Yggy, I opened Tomas’s eyes and found Kal already looking at me with a concerned look in his eyes.

“That thing,” he said. “It’s back, isn’t it?”

The only response I gave was a nod before pulling the communication talisman out of my sleeve.

“Cairan, I need you to get here as quickly as possible,” I said, channeling golden sun energy into the spiral. “And bring Headmaster Monroe with you. We need you both. We can’t hold back against this thing.”

“I understand, Saint,” Monroe responded without hesitation before taking a brief pause. “But even though Headmaster Monroe is the fastest man alive, it will still take several minutes to reach the vale. Stay alive until then.”

“It’s easier said than done,” I replied. “But I’ll try my best.”

“That’s all I can ask of you.”

As the color of the communication talisman dimmed, I had to admit that hearing Monroe was supposedly the fastest man alive surprised me. This was definitely something I hadn’t known despite multiple loops spent in the Blue Sun Academy. Then again, it likely had something to do with the poor headmaster being removed from the board before even getting a chance to act.

Usually, Kal would trap him in a painting at the beginning of the Blue Sun Academy Arc, and if he didn’t, then Hiron would simply decapitate him and use him as a sacrifice for his ritual as soon as the battle began.

This probably explained why he ended up being quietly filed away in the background of my mind, making me forget that the man was a genuine Rank 8 powerhouse, and someone like that couldn’t be looked down on.

“Lady Laelyn, Beric,” I said, turning my attention towards them. “You need to get under the canopy of the tree, and whatever happens, don’t come out.”

“I'm not standing under a tree while you all figh—"

“This isn’t something you can fight against,” I cut in immediately. “It will take off your head before you can blink even if you had nine of those marks.”

That made Beric’s mouth close, and without another word, he grabbed Laelyn’s elbow and escorted her to the protection of the Eldest Tree. Just as I was releasing a sigh of relief that he hadn't continued arguing, I saw something shoot up into the air in the distance that made my heart stop.

From the Vale, it looked like a dark speck standing on nothing, and despite the distance, I was able to see what it was doing, it was making sure that the barriers really were sealed.

“You came before me, but I won in the end.”

The exact same words as the last loop...

The words went through my chest and out of my back. I was sure that every man and woman in every field between here and the coast just felt that in their teeth. Some of them would decide they were losing their minds. Some would go and pray at whatever shrine was nearest. Most would stand still and wait for it to stop, the same as waiting out thunder.

Then the head came down, and it found us.

It crossed a thousand li in under two heartbeats and stopped in the air forty feet above us.

It looked different to the last time it was free, and my heart hurt just looking at it.

Half the face was still Elder Molric. The lines around the left eye, the stubborn set of the jaw, the hair standing up on one side because he had been rubbing at it with both hands for a week straight. The other half had gone grey and pulled tight over bone. One hand was shrunk down to almost nothing. The robe was the one he'd been wearing when he told me to go and not die because he still needed help with future projects.

Elder Molric was a lot of things, and he would be the first to admit that most of them weren’t any good, but I wasn’t thinking about all of the questionable decisions the elder had made throughout his life. All I could think about was the excitement oozing out of him as he tried to convince me to help him with his experiments. All I could think about were all the memories that we shared together, and this lich-like being had stolen the chance from us to be able to make more.

My chest burned hot, my breathing became heavy, and my fingers dug into the bark of the Eldest Tree.

“Master,” Azure called out. “Your spiritual energies are all over the place. I know this isn’t easy for you, but whatever you are feeling, you need to put it to the side. If you let it cloud your thoughts, it will get you killed, and it will get the boy killed with you. And if you both die, then this world will be lost forever.”

“I know,” I forced myself to reply as Tomas's left eye flashed crimson while the right burned blue, then both went gold and the grass at my feet curled away from me. Even my Dharma Vessel was itching to reveal itself. I breathed in through my nose, held it, then let it out slow until the colours drained back down, until the vessel calmed down. “I'm trying.”

And I really was but trying to control myself as I watched this parasite wear my master like a jacket was probably the hardest thing that I had to do. Honestly, I wanted to kill this thing more than I have ever wanted to kill anything in my life.

A/N

Oh boy, next week will be intense, hope you all enjoy it!

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