Chapter 835: The Price of Magic (Patreon)

A/N

1 chap, enjoy!

Chapter 835: The Price of Magic

I didn’t waste a second.

At this point in my cultivation journey, I knew better than to start monologuing because that would be the moment the enemy began to count your heartbeat and work out which one will be your last.

So, the second the words left my mouth, I commanded all two hundred feet of vines to flex at the same time, but I wasn’t trying to crush the vessel, I was reaching past it.

This wasn’t something I had any experience in, if I was being honest, Cairan had sat cross-legged in front of me explaining how the avatar could interact with spirits and souls similar to the Blue Sun.

The way he had described it was water sitting inside a cup, you needed to know where the water ended and where the clay began, only then would you be able to pour. Yet as simple as the example sounded, it was a different matter trying to tear an ancient sorcerer from my master’s body.

“NO!”

The half of the mouth that still had lips let out a screech that caused every single leaf in the Sacred Ring to drop at once. Behind me, Beric fell to one knee, while Lady Laelyn collapsed under the pressure. I couldn’t worry about them because the noise in my own skull was driving me crazy.

The being was fighting with everything it had. I’ll give it that. And it was having some effect. The purple matrices that ignited along the ribs caused the air around the chest to disagree with itself, making my tendrils slide off.

Digging Tomas’s feet into the dirt, I drew as much golden sun energy as I could from the roots wrapped around my ankles until my vision blurred so that I could keep a hold of it. Just when I thought it was about to slither out of my grasp, the left arm came up and dug its own fingers into its own sternum, straight into the burning matrix.

“Old man,” I whispered, watching the flesh of that hand blacken and curl from the wrist down.

The matrix guttered.

“Get out of my chest, you squatter!” Molric's voice, cracked down the middle, half of it belonging to something else. “Do you have any idea how long it took me to grow this liver back?”

Then one of the eyes turned to me, I recognised the look in it, it was the same one that the elder got when he was at the precipice of pulling off an experiment that he thought he had no hope in completing.

“What you waiting for, boy?” he said. “Stop holding back. Don’t worry. I might be old, but I can take it.”

Steeling my heart, I stopped being gentle, and stopped thinking of the body as my master’s and started thinking of it as a splinter under a fingernail

Every tendril I had pierced it from all sides and began to pull.

Fortunately for us, the connection between the Otherworldly Being and the body was a thin, greasy weave of threads because Sect Master Yuan's technique had frayed most of them for me, and what was left came apart in my grip with a sound that shook the Sacred Ring.

The vessel arched backwards in the air, the mouth opened wider than a human jaw should open, and whatever came out of it, came out reluctantly and turned the entire valley dim like somebody had turned the world's contrast down by a third for a full second.

Without the parasite piloting the vessel, my master’s body went limp.

My tendrils gently lowered him down on the flattest patch of ground I could find.

“Cairan!” I called out, keeping my eyes on the soul of the Otherworldly Being.

The Head Monk didn’t hesitate, the hundred and eighty feet of golden avatar dissipated as Cairan landed beside the body.

“I’ll protect him, Saint,” he said as his fingers went to the elder’s throat and then to his chest. “You finish this.”

Even though I wanted to be there, checking up on my master, whether he was alive or not, I had a responsibility I couldn’t delay – destroying the soul of an Otherworldly Being that was caught by my Dharma Vessel.

Now that the being was out of the vessel, I could see it properly for the first time, and like most souls that I had encountered in my cultivation journey, it was in the shape of a man but with no real features to speak of.

However, what I couldn’t stop staring at were the thousands of black veins that crawled all over its form. They were thick and swollen at the joints, and what sent a spike of fear through my body was the way they pulsed, like they were a poison that was alive.

“Ah, so this is where it ends,” the Otherworldly Being smiled despite not having any real features to smile with, but somehow, I knew it was smiling. “I always knew my end would be a tragic one, just like every sorcerer before me, and every sorcerer after me will too.” The head tilted, and the black veins along the neck flexed. “That is the price of magic, boy. Nothing is given, everything is borrowed, and every debt gets called in eventually.” It laughed. “Mine simply took longer than most.”

Honestly, I had expected for it to try to convince me to let it go, to join its side, or even to beg for its life. After all, I’d read enough novels to know the script, that when a villain got caught, they would do anything in their power to survive, even if it meant debasing themselves. But then again, I guess that a being that had reached the level of power that this one had attained had a pride and self-respect that it wouldn’t compromise on even in the face of death.

I didn’t know if its attempt at conversation was honest or if this was another trick, so I raised my right hand. “Yggy,” I whispered. “Eat.”

The Otherworldly Being didn’t even get a chance to make a sound before all two hundred feet of vines tore the soul to shreds as the Genesis Seed’s presence went through those black veins the same as water going into dry soil.

Yet instead of dissipating into pure energy, a second thing appeared behind the destroyed soul. It was the size of my thumb, a curled shape that had folded in on itself, its surface slowly turning over as if it were breathing.

Looking at it caused my heart to stop for a second.

To my physical eyes, it was tiny, but what my spiritual sense saw was something different.

Its presence in the spiritual realm was overwhelming, had it been standing on the horizon, it would have encompassed the entire world. Rank 8 aura couldn’t compare to it. The lich-like being wearing Hiron’s body couldn’t compare to it. Hell, the only thing that could was the Otherworldly Being that had tried to break down the physical barriers of this world.

What…what the hell was that?

As if sensing my gaze, its eyes opened.

There were two of them, both flaring bright enough that they lit up the whole valley violet for a second.

This…this wasn’t something we could fight. It didn’t matter what clever plan we could think of, what formation we had, or what sacrifices we made, if this thing decided to fight us, it would be over.

Before I could even blink, the being reached out, and forty feet of vine vanished into that small, folded shape without any sound at all. My expression darkened when I realised it had taken the soul that Yggy had been halfway through devouring along with it.

But I couldn’t worry about that, the loss of a section of my avatar punched through my chest. I nearly went face first into the dirt, and just when I thought it was going to finish the job, the thing fell apart into nothing.

The rest of my avatar dissipated, my knees hit the dirt hard enough to hurt, but I got up to my feet anyway, a frown on my face as I wondered what the hell had just happened.

From what I could tell, this tiny yet terrifying thing had some contract with the lich-like being, and from the words of the being, the price of it was its soul, which explained why the thing had acted like it had and then left instead of destroying us.

This was way beyond my pay grade.

I could barely deal with Otherworldly Being, how was I expected to understand their relationship with entities that they made deals with for power. Shaking my head, I focused on the matter at hand, like I had promised, the lich was destroyed, devoured by what seemed to be its own power source.

“Saint, I’m sorry,” Cairan’s voice drew my attention to my master’s still body. “There was too much taken from him. His meridians are ash. His major organs have all failed. There’s nothing we can do for him.”

Taking a deep breath to steady my racing heart, I walked over to find Elder Molric lying on his back with the frost melting in a circle around him.

The old man’s face was his own again on both sides, his body had shrivelled up like the energy had been drained out of him, and his chest wasn’t moving. Seeing this, I didn’t say anything, I just stood there, not feeling anything as memories of our time together raced through my mind.

My heart had died alongside my master.

“Lad.” A hand came down on my shoulder, weighing heavy as a mountain. It was Beric. “He died the death of a soldier, fighting a monster ranks above him, I don’t know any better ending than that. You should be proud of him.”

“If he hadn’t fought with all we had, I don’t think we would be standing here right now,” Kal said softly, his hand resting on my other shoulder. “We owe him our lives, but he didn’t die for nothing, he left behind a free world.”

“Boy,” an older voice said. It was Monroe of all people. The Headmaster of the Blue Sun Academy walked over, for a moment, it looked like he was going to pat me, but then he thought better of it. "I told you we could not afford to save one man.” He let out a slow breath. "But I did not want this. I did not want anyone to die today. I cannot do anything to make this better, but I promise, this world will not forget him, I will make sure of it."

I didn’t say anything; I couldn’t say anything.

My throat had closed up, annoying droplets were streaming down my face even though the sky was clear, and the energy had left my body completely. All I wanted to do was go away, find a dark place to curl up in and sleep forever.

Hrk-ack!

My eyes snapped open at the sound, all signs of fatigue forgotten, my entire focus was on the corpse lying before me.

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