Chapter 70

When the Blades Fall (VII)

Cain continued staring at the Stellar Sphere, dazed, something in his mind cracking like thunder, booms echoing within. Though he ‘understood’ the sphere, he did not understand it, so to say. It was like memorizing something for the exam from top to bottom rather than learning the underlying framework and, in extension, the work itself. You know it, but not really.

That’s why he had no intention of telling the others that he’d ‘figured it out’, especially Emma and Diya, as they would be adamant about his understanding even if it didn’t merit any awards. He, however, couldn’t explain it -- as even Te’gha didn’t ‘explain’ it to him, just transferred the knowledge directly into his brain.

He sighed and brought up his status screen, sucking in a cold breath at the monumental change it underwent in the span of thirty seconds, something he’d never experienced before -- at least not on this level, anyway.

///Name: Cain Gregory Age: 32 Race: Human

Class: Elementalist Level: 43

Strength: 38 Vitality: 101 Agility: 40 Stamina: 69

Intelligence: 226 Wisdom: 232 Health: 1010 Mana: 3178

Traits: Labourer(B-), Quick-witted(A), Tenacious(B), Leadership(A-), Analysis(A-), Awareness(B-), Keen(C+), Trusting(E-)

Skills: Spell Creation(?), Fire(B+), Frost(B-), Arcane (B), Earth (B-), Wind (S), Blink(C+), Elemental Shield(C+), Water(C), Blood(D+), Mana Burning (D-), Mana Surge(D-), Nature(D+), Body(C+), Aether(D-), Creation(D-), Singularity(A)

Class Skills: Avatar

Created Spells: Falling Fire(C-), Amnesty Shield(B+)

Talents: Perception(Mythic)

Items: Ember’s Quartz(B-), Phoenix’s Feather(A-), Crown of Flames(A), ‘Velthar’s Bracelet(B-), Orb of Deception(S-), Spirited Cloak(A)

Titles: The First Elementalist, Bandit Slayer, Direwolf Slayer, Monster Slayer, Maverick, Spell Creator, The Herald, The One Who Survived Death, Reborn Elementalist, Void Slayer, Slayer of the Nightmares, Blade Mountain Conqueror, The One Who Impressed Spirits, The Master

Achievements: 14 (+1 to Main Stats for each achievement)///

That one line, ‘Talents’, would have immediately put him on the map of the most famous Conquerors in the world during the last timeline, even if everything else around it remained the same. Large corporations would have headhunted him and groomed him for years, essentially manufacturing a superstar out of him. Just one line -- one ‘bonus’ -- was able to change the fate of even the most untalented hacks, and however bad he was, even he didn’t fall into that category.

Sighing, he put away the screen and lit up a cigarette, calming his nerves. Te'gha had already withdrawn into the inventory and spoke nothing else after sharing the secret.

The name 'Ruined King' weighed heavily on Cain's mind, now more so than ever before. He tried to dig even deeper into his memories, searching for anything relating to the enigma... but, if there was something, he either didn't remember it, or it was never shared with him, to begin with.

There were no other quests throughout the first floor referencing the name 'Ruined King' as far as he remembered, and he was never mentioned outside the Graveyard of Swords. Even here, most of the mentions relating to him were obscurely vague, almost bordering the realm of 'red herrings'. Just the name of a big baddy waiting for the party at the end of the dungeon.

Yet, more and more, that notion had begun to warp; the name was coming into prominence, and leaving the reclusive corner where it spent the last timeline. Ruined King was someone of importance -- and the uniting factor in that narrative that he was of importance both to the ante-Human tribes of the Graveyard of Swords as well as Te’gha, who had nothing to do with the tribes here as far as Cain knew.

Could their connection trace all the way back to when the King was a Conqueror? Cain mused inwardly, trying to make sense of it all. However, at this point, virtually every ‘connection’ he would make would just be pure conjecture. For all he knew, the cat wanted the Ruined King dead because of something entirely unrelated and banal.

He waited another few hours for the rest to wake up, eat something quickly, and prepare to set off.

The party turned around as even with Cain having 'figured it out', there was simply no way they would be able to pass to the other side. And even if they theoretically could, they weren't even sure there was a passageway on the other end. As such, Cain led them back to the crumbled room having already determined this was where he took the wrong turn and floated them all one by one to the correct passage.

Emma and Diya were quite dispirited and mostly remained silent, while Senna, too, appeared to be absentminded, leaving only Jamal and Cain to chatter. Just a few minutes in, however, Jamal had enough and joined the silent crew, leaving Cain alone on the front as he led the charge into the next room over with a helpless smile on his face.

Noticing the familiar sight of a slightly askew room, Cain’s helpless smile turned into a thankful one. Though the room still wasn’t ‘normal’, so to say, it was a far cry from making no sense at all.

The floor was slightly askew, at an angle, which resulted in the entire room being tilted slightly to the right side. Calling it a room, however, was a bit of a stretch as it was more of a district of sorts, with nearly a dozen buildings cradling the walls. The buildings’ designs were varied, ranging from flat, square ones, to more flamboyant curves and bends that ran up the walls and then outwardly.

Predominantly built from a gold-dyed brick and some silver, it looked more like a treasure room than a ‘district’ within the palace. Though there were some paths rounding the buildings, Cain had no intention of searching through any of them as they were a hazard of their own. On the video he watched, the leading tank of the party was cleaved in half in one of the buildings without even getting a chance to defend himself.

The entire structure of the ‘district’ was built so that it circles the central plaza where a long-since dried up fountain resided, cast out of pure gold, surrounded by raving nature that rippled out across the plaza and the surrounding buildings, turning the entire place into a self-sustaining biome of sorts.

The group didn’t pause to rest, immediately heading into the courtyard with Cain’s warning to walk slowly at first as it was difficult getting used to essentially walking on a tilt. Their speed slowed down somewhat, but they continued without a hitch, carefully avoiding any potential pitfalls and making their way by the fountain and toward the other side where thirteen separate passages stood tall within the wall.

Cain took the rightmost this time around, walking through the cylindrical passage with a slightly flattened bottom that acted as a road.

They crossed the section rather quickly, finding themselves yet again at a strange place, this time open-roofed. Light bent over the top ends of the frame, spilling over into the natural preserve of wild plants cradling ruins of what looked to be a cross-section of sorts. Paths and roads crossed around the now-destroyed buildings, spanning nearly two miles across.

“Damn,” Jamal mumbled. “This reminds me so much of those sci-fi movies depicting Earth after humanity ended and stuff. It’s... it’s kinda creepy how similar they are, actually.”

“Yeah...” Emma nodded. “This is pretty much how it would look if we just disappeared one day. Just with the added portion of wildlife roaming the streets instead of there just being plants and stuff.”

“Wait--shit,” Cain reached toward Senna who’d stepped inside already, charging Creation and Wind immediately and wrapping a hand-shaped silhouette around her and jerking her back immediately. The young girl cried out as a sound of snapping bones echoed out into the world. However, before others could ask what happened, hundreds of vines ripped from underground, digging out a twenty-feet wide hole where Senna just stood and shooting well past it into the air before retreating, almost like snakes. “Heal her.” Cain frowned and signaled to Diya as he gently laid Senna down. The young girl had begun crying right after, pain assailing every inch of her body. It didn’t last long, however, as a golden light quickly wrapped around her and healed all her broken bones.

“... you couldn’t have been gentler?” Emma asked.

“It’ll be much difficult, now,” Cain sighed, rubbing the bridge of his nose. “It’s alert.”

“What’s alert?” Jamal asked.

“Whatever the head of those vines is,” Cain shrugged. “Some big-ass plant living underground.”

“How do you know?”

“A Skill I got,” Cain replied. “Allows me to see the world in like a wireframe view as long as it’s not too complex.”

“Oh...” a quick lie seemed to sate Jamal’s curiosity as his eyes veered over to the open space, likely trying to ‘see’ the monster himself. It wasn’t really much of a lie, though, Cain mused; even if his Skyeye wasn’t able to perceive the monster, he suspected he would have been able to at the very least see the wiggling vines residing just below the surface.

At the very center of the open space, roughly fifty feet below was a flower-shaped plant, approximately ten feet tall and fifteen feet wide. Hundreds of tentacle-like vines sprouted from its side, a bloody-red flower blooming at the very top, angled toward them as though it could 'see'. The party that ran this place the last time also alerted the 'monster' and ended up fleeing, barely escaping with their lives.

Cain, however, didn't want to run away as the 'monster' wasn't particularly powerful; his Perception talent allowed him to assess it even this far out, and the report that came back stated that it was just level 10. The difference, however, is that levels were a bit misleading with plants that, technically, obtained a form of cognitive sentience. Nonetheless, it did roughly signal the general damage it would deal with each strike.

Furthermore, this battle would actually be a form of good training for the actual boss of this place as it would involve a lot of dodging and using Skills on the move as it was physically impossible to remain stationary for longer than two seconds and not die. As long as our heads don’t get pierced, we should be fine, he deliberated. Senna and Jamal can take the front this time around, dodging the vines while digging to unearth it, while Emma can stay beside Diya and act as her shield. I’ll just stay back and help them out if it gets tough...

“Alright, rest for ten minutes,” he said, walking a few paces back into the cylindrical tunnel. “And get mentally ready to fight that weird thing.”