In an instant, several key factors fell into place in Caeden's head, and he suddenly understood what was going on in Black Reach much better. Unfortunately, the situation was so much worse than they could have ever guessed. This had suddenly turned from something Blaine could deal with to a new category of disaster.

By using Investigative sense on the stone, Caeden learned its origins and nature automatically. His shrouds could read the stone on a metaphysical level, giving him an understanding of it that went beyond just its base properties. This was a Heartstone from a Volcanus Gigantus, and it was going to kill everyone on this continent if they didn't somehow manage to stop it.

The Heartstone was a monster-generated item. As the team had seen with the Rockadillos and even more from all the monsters down in the caverns and tunnels, sometimes monsters would drop magical materials and ether crystals when they discorporated. It was a relatively common occurrence.

What wasn't common was a monster-generated object. The magical substances and ether crystals most monsters dropped were naturally occurring. They could be found simply by finding a source in the world, usually near the monster that dropped it. A Thistlevine Lurker might drop a log of Decaywood. Searching the marsh around the monster would likely reveal a nearby Decaywood tree.

This phenomenon was so common it was how the CA often determined where to dig for ether. If a large group of Seamonkeys appeared and all of them dropped water ether, you could almost guarantee mining in the vicinity would reveal a vein of the crystal. It was one of the most useful aspects of monsters.

A monster-generated item was different. Exactly as the name implied, it was an object created inside the monster during its life. They were fleetingly rare because only absurdly powerful monsters even had a chance of making one. Only those above 1 billion IP in strength could create the weakest of items. They also happened to be the single most coveted materials in existence. Monster-generated items were more powerful than anything that occurred in nature, capable of being forged into armaments of myth and legend.

The Heartstone was one such object.

Each item had its own unique magical effects and properties that belonged to that type of item alone. A Volcanus Gigantus Heartstone could do things only that type of Heartstone could do. Usually, these effects were the primary reason these items were so coveted. The effects they created naturally would normally be almost impossible to recreate with traditional etherforging.

This particular item was a horrible exception. The Heartstone of a Volcanus Giginatus had one single ability. Monstrous Resurrection. When the monster containing it discorperated, the Heartstone would absorb Ki from the world around it and then reform the monster spontaneously. The stone was nearly indestructible, and the absorption process was essentially unstoppable.

This Heartstone was days from fulfilling its purpose. A new Volcanus Gigantus, an actual Magma Titan, was about to be born underneath Mining Station 003. A monster with the equivalent power of 1 billion IP. Caeden's team would be annihilated just standing near it. Even Blaine, a True Shroud Swordmaster, would have to put his life on the line to kill it.

This also explained several things. Black Reach itself, for example. The mountain, slightly smaller than and visually different from its neighbors with rich deposits of multiple types of ether, was the byproduct of the last Magma Titan that had died here. Along with the Heartstone, the monster had left a literal mountain behind when it discorporated.

This also explained the story of this town's founding. The monster the ancient shrouded had fought was the last Magma Titan. The reason he had people settle here was because he knew its remains would be a near-bottomless treasure trove of wealth for his descendants and the people he had protected. It also explained his death.

Caeden had two questions that ate at him for a while now. Why had the founding shrouded died? He had never heard of anything that could cause such irreparable harm to a shrouded that they wasted away. Why had the orange light appeared now? Of course, he now knew that the light was the sign of the Heartstone awakening, ready to birth a brand new calamity into the world. But why now? The answer to both was the same.

The sword.

The ancient shrouded had obviously known that the Heartstone would inevitably undue all his work in slaying the Magma Titan. Any shrouded with even a passing understanding of investigative sense could discern the function of the Heartstone. Destroying it was a moot point. The amount of shroud one would have to use to destroy the Heartstone beyond functionality would also provide it with enough Ki to complete its purpose. So he found a way to stop it.

Somehow, somewhere, the ancestor found or made this sword, something with intense suppressive properties that could seal the Heartstone, preventing a new Magma Titan from ever arising. He had to have known that the mere act of wielding the weapon long enough to force it into the core of the stone would cause irreversible damage to his shroud, and by extension, his soul. He had corrupted his immortality and cut his lifespan to a fraction of its potential to prevent another calamity from destroying his home continent.

Somehow, the Revolution fucked it up.

It was the only viable explanation for why the seal was failing now. There was no way that the ancestor had gone through all the effort and sacrificed his own life just to create a seal that would only last a few tens of thousands of years. So the Revolution must have done something to ruin it.

Forcing himself to look up at the sword despite the recoiling of his shrouds, Caeden looked it over for any signs of tampering. When he first laid eyes on the galactic vista contained in the sword, his focus was primarily on how it was affecting him. Now that he was looking for any inconsistencies, one jumped out at him almost immediately. Just above the point where the blade met the surface of the stone, a small section of the centermost part of the sword had been removed, allowing Caeden to see through the blade.

It was a small sliver, roughly the size of a keyhole. The shape looked like a crystal, with points at either end but flat sides. Like someone had glued two triangles to the shortest sides of a rectangle. This had to be what was causing the seal to malfunction, letting the Heartstone draw in Ki from the surroundings, albeit at a heavily reduced rate. The Revolution had likely been down here for years, and Caeden's understanding was that the Heartstone could fully empower itself in roughly a month.

They had taken out the core of the sword, the centermost point of the blade. Likely a spot of highest functional energy density. Caeden was familiar with the principle, as it was a technique unshrouded ethersmiths used to reverse-engineer infusions. By removing the point of highest energy density, one could easily experiment with that section and receive the clearest results. It was an effective method to discern the nature of the original object's infusion.

That left Caeden slightly puzzled about their current situation. The core of an infused object was a byproduct of the creation process. By nature, everything will always have a point of highest energy density. It shouldn't affect the object's infusion. Basically, even though they removed the core, the sword should still be working as a seal. What they had done shouldn't have allowed the Heartstone to come alive as it had.

Looking at where they had pulled the sample from, it hit him like a bolt of lightning. The sliver had been removed from the point right above where the sword entered the stone. They had pulled the sword out! To get the best sample they had to pull the sword part way out of the stone. Most likely, they had found the weapon sunk into the stone all the way to the hilt. Removing the sword to that degree had obviously weakened the seal.

Which meant that they had gotten incredibly lucky. Pushing the sword back in should restore the seal. At the very least, it would massively delay the resurrection process from a few days to possibly years from now. Even if the Magma Titan's rebirth was now inevitable, a full evacuation could take place.

All he had to do was shove that sword back down.

"How the fuck am I supposed to do that?" Caeden muttered to himself. He could barely look at the damn thing, let alone touch it. More than that, the suppressive effect it blanketed the whole cavern in prevented him from using his full strength. The Heartstone was insanely durable. It would take a massive amount of force to push that blade back in.

"Well, time to get some help and a second opinion." Caeden shrugged. He wasn't going to be doing this alone, that much he was sure of. Honestly, they might still be better off leaving and getting Blaine down here to deal with it. Before they did that though, Caeden wanted to at least try to fix the problem. Thinking that he couldn't fix anything and he should let others deal with it was exactly the kind of mindset he was trying to overcome after all.

Walking out of the chamber after checking on their prisoners, Caeden found his friends gathered around the one man they had pulled out as their first to interrogate. He was screaming his head off about how they were all going to die and that they, the shrouded, were responsible for the end of humanity and a whole bunch of other Revolution propaganda.

"So I'm guessing he didn't know much."

Lily looked up at him with an exasperated expression. "He's got nothing as far as we can tell. They just sent him and the others out here with little knowledge of what was actually going on. In fact, it seems like one of the main principles that the Revolution runs on is information security. Everything he's said indicates that the leadership pumps all the grunts full of propaganda and crap logic, tells them they're on a holy mission, and never gives them any important information."

Caeden nodded. "That's pretty consistent with everything we've seen. It's honestly pretty effective. If the only people exposed to danger have no idea what they're really doing, the actual plan can never be exposed. Too bad it's completely evil."

Lily laughed. "Yes, it is. What are you out here for? Something going on with the prisoners?"

"Actually, we might be in for a worse time than we thought," Caeden explained what he had discovered and what he thought it meant about the past and their current situation.

By the time he was finished, Cat and Erik had both noticed he was there and joined Lily in listening in. Everyone was sharing a look that Caeden had no doubt he had as well.

"This…I don't know what we could do. If we try to mess with the sword, it could kill us." Lily wavered.

"If Blaine tries to mess with the sword, it could kill him. I think we've officially reached the threat level where the difference in danger is kind of a moot point. For all that it sucks, I'm kinda glad the Academy threatened our lives on a weekly basis. Otherwise, I don't think I'd be dealing with this nearly as well." Caeden stated blandly.

It was odd to look objectively at a situation that nearly guaranteed their death and feel…ambivalence. At this point, Caeden was so used to being in deadly situations that it just felt normal. He wasn't sure what that said about his mental state, but it was the truth. They had already known that the Revolution believed the entire mountain was going to collapse, which would kill them just as much as the Magma Titan. Once you reach the threshold of 'certain death,' an increased level of danger is kind of meaningless.

"So, are we doing this or not? I'm not forcing anyone to try, but I don't feel good walking away without even seeing how difficult it would be to push the sword in. If it's really easy, we'll feel pretty stupid worrying about it." Caeden looked at each of them.

"Getting more information is a solid plan." Lily nodded.

"Sounds fun; I'm game." Erik laughed with his usual carefree attitude toward the general concept of death.

"Well, I'm definitely not running around down here without the three of you, so it looks like I'm in too." Cat sighed. "If we die, I will find a way to haunt your ghost."

Caeden shrugged. "That's a risk I'm willing to take."