Chapter 836: The Mad Cultivator's Last Breath (Patreon)

A/N

Only 1 chap today, probably 1 chap tomo. As for Thursday, I'll likely need to write a long epilogue to close this arc. Then we'll take a week off before continuing. Enjoy!

Chapter 836: The Mad Cultivator's Last Breath

The body before me wasn’t a corpse anymore.

Something lit up under the shrivelled skin of Elder Molric, it started at the sternum as crimson lines and spread outward to trace along his ribs, down both arms, around the sides of his neck, and up into his scalp. 

There were hundreds of them. 

Every single one was a rune that the crazy elder had carved into his body over the centuries, a Rank 7 like him had no need for physical runes, but clearly I had underestimated the man’s passion for experimentation.

All of the runes, including his Foundation Rune, roared, and everything within a 20-metre radius lit up, even Cairan’s wrinkly chin was painted red by the light.

"Move back," the old monk cried out. “He is going to explode!”

The energy all came out in a single push, but fortunately, there was no grandiose explosion. Instead it rolled across the valley floor, lifted the frost off the stones, knocked Beric's hair flat, and then it was gone, thinning out into nothing above the crimson canopy. 

One by one, the runes on Molric’s body dimmed until the foundational rune was the last thing still lit, and then that went dark too.

Hrk. Cough. Ack.

I flinched as a thick spray of blood hit me in the face, but I didn’t care at all because my master was taking the deepest, ugliest breath I have ever heard a human being take.

“You can’t get rid of me that easily,” Elder Molric wheezed. “Not a chance.”

Cairan fell backwards onto his heels.

“I have too many experiments waiting for me,” the elder rasped at the sky. “Did you really think I’ll miss out on the opportunity to research in this new world? Some filthy parasite isn’t going to stop me.”

I laughed, the sound came out broken and wet, but who cared, I sure as hell didn’t.

My arms wrapped halfway around the old man before I remembered that his ribs were currently held together by optimism, so I stopped dead with my hands hovering over him and settled for gripping his good shoulder instead.

“You're alive," I whispered.

"Obviously I am alive." He tried to lift an arm and got it about four inches off the ground before it dropped back down. "Where is my vine?"

"Safe. It ran home to me."

"Good." His eyes crinkled into a smile. "Traitorous little coward. I am extremely proud of it."

For the first time since I met him, the restless glitter in his eyes that was known for disappeared completely.

“Boy,” my master whispered. “Thank you. Thank you for saving my life. Thank you for caring.”

“There’s no need to thank me,” I said, meaning it. “It’s the least a disciple would do for his master.”

“Not my disciples,” the elder laughed, shaking his head before the pain stopped him.

When I looked around, I noticed Beric standing behind me with his mouth hanging open, clearly not expecting the old man to draw another breath. Lady Laelyn had a fistful of her own saint's robes twisted up in her hand and she wasn't letting go of it like she worried that this was a cruel joke and the elder was going to collapse at any moment. Even Kal had come closer too, checking to make sure the elder wasn’t still possessed. 

Their concern for Elder Molric didn’t surprise me, even though they didn’t know him before this battle, they’d seen the character of the elder from the memories that I shared with them. Also, fighting a life and death battle alongside someone causes you to develop some good feelings towards them, no matter how different you may be, some respect will form.

"Head Monk," I said, turning to the old monk, "you told me his organs failed."

"They did." Cairan replied. "I checked multiple times. Saint, there was nothing left in this body to keep it alive."

“The only reason I’m alive is because of an Emergency Preservation Array,” Elder Molric muttered with his eyes now closed. “The bloody thing has nine layers that trigger on death to regenerate the organs.” Then he paused. "I built it hundred of years ago during the time I had no subjects to experiment on but myself. I always knew I’d need it sooner or later, but I never expected to need all nine layers at once."

That was the most Elder Molric sentence I had ever heard, but it didn’t surprise me. After all, it was well known that every high-level cultivator had multiple life-saving precautions in place. However, they won’t all be the same, and I didn’t think surviving a possession by a higher-level being was going to be cheap.

With his permission, I pushed a thread of spiritual energy through my master’s chest to see what kind of price a life-saving technique like that cost, and I quickly realised there was nothing to find.

Like Head Monk Cairan had mentioned before, everything had been destroyed, and even if it hadn’t been at that time, it was now after Elder Molric had sacrificed his cultivation to save his life.

“It isn’t good, is it?” my master asked, noticing the expression on my face.

I didn’t say anything because I couldn’t get anything past my throat.

“Ah,” the elder smiled weakly, his head rolling back to face the sky. “Well.”

That was all he said. There was no screaming, no raging, no suicidal actions. Typically, when a cultivator was crippled and lost their cultivation, they treated it worse than death, and I understood why. In a world like this, where power decided everything, losing your power means losing your voice, your protection, your position in society, and eventually your life, since a mortal body that had been chewed up like Elder Molric’s had been.

With the state that he was in, he probably wouldn’t last more than a couple of years, but honestly, we couldn’t complain. My master had gone from certain death to being able to breathe, complain, and have some form of life even if he didn't have legs...

However, if there was one person that I’d bet was capable of clawing his cultivation back out of a hole this deep, it was the old lunatic who had experimented with energies that had driven countless practitioners before him insane.

So, yeah, the cultivator was dead for now, but the human was still alive. That was better than nothing. I wasn’t the only one grateful, in my inner world, Yggy tapped three times against the Ancient Oak’s root while sending a warm, bright feeling through the soul bond.

“Yeah, buddy,” I whispered. “He's okay.”

With that dealt with, I stood up and looked around to see that the Vermilion Vale was a mess.

The Eldest Tree’s roots had gone hunting, tearing a trench sixty feet long. The ridgeline had a bite taken out of it. There were two severed legs lying in the frost about thirty paces out, which was going to require a conversation later. Above all of it, the crimson canopy of the Vale was still swaying, the barrier over the world was sealed, and the thing that had been circling out there for who knows how many cycles couldn’t get in.

Why shouldn’t I be happy with how it turned out?

One of the Otherworldly Beings was shut out, the other one was devoured, and we were all breathing. It was over. It was actually over.

“So,” Kal said, turning to look at me with dry blood still on his mouth. “What now?"

“Now we destroy the two suns.”

There was silence for a solid few seconds.

“What did you say?” Monroe said. “Say that again.”

“The Red Sun and the Blue Sun have to go.”

“Boy.” The Headmaster of the Blue Sun Academy stepped in front of me, and up close I could see the burst blood vessels in both his eyes from the beating he’d taken. “Do you even understand what you are saying? Those two suns are the only sources of cultivation energy on this continent. Every practitioner alive draws from one or the other. My academy, his academy, the monastery, every wandering rogue with a rune under his skin. You destroy those, and you destroy cultivation itself."

“I know.”

“Then why….?”

“Because I don’t trust them.” I looked up at the sky, at the two burning discs floating there. “Both of those things have been leaking rot into every person who cultivates for over a thousand years.” My hands closed into fists. “If I leave even a thread of that behind, then it’ll only be a matter of time before somebody’s going to be standing exactly here dealing with another otherworldly threat, and I won’t be around to help them."

“So your solution is to leave the world blind and powerless?"

“My solution,” I said, “is to make them a new sun."

Monroe stared at me. Kal didn’t say anything, it was clearly something he had been thinking about for a while. Head Monk Cairan’s eyes widened in excitement. Beric and Lady Laelyn had expressions on their faces which told me that they realised this was out of their depth. Elder Thorn, who was still standing beside the Eldest Tree, snapped his head in my direction.

"You’re going to bring back the Golden Sun," the old man whispered.

“Yes,” I smiled. “One free of corruption.”

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