The whole cave chamber looked like a disaster zone with more corpses than ground visible. Victor could only let out a sigh as he looked at his collapsed grandson. Spreading his divine sense over Williams body revealed a handful of wounds that needed to be healed. He would heal it but thought it better to make Rigel do it. This little mission had started making William and Rigel more comfortable with each other, but it was best to take every opportunity too deepen their kinship.

"Do you mind healing him?"

Rigel moved as if he had been waiting for the words to leave Victors mouth.

"Not at all."

"Only heal the worst of it."

Victor believed it to be better for to leave enough to remind William that there were consequences.

Healing the worst of the wounds wasn't hard even without any true healing techniques, Rigel simply channeled some of his own higher quality forest Qi into Williams body before guiding it to the worst of the wounds and allowing Williams Qi to fuse with it as it healed his wounds.

After the simple procedure, Rigel looked over to the Queens still smouldering corpse. When the Queen had shot that beam Rigel had been surprised and moved to protect William, even if it had turned out to be unnecessary.

"That Qi beam surprised me. The fire Qi had a high purity too. I wonder what allowed them to become like that."

Victor agreed. This had turned out to be more serious than he believed. He had initially beloved that the mantis colony had simply found some natural treasure. But as he spread his divine sense to the deeper parts of the nest he only sensed a strong flow of Qi before his sense was blocked. Most natural treasures were born with natural formations which tended to hide and protect them, but his instincts told him that this was something else.

The conversation was interrupted as William turned over before continuing to sleep the healing already helping, otherwise movment would have woken him up from the pain.

Rigel changed the conversation as thinking about what changed the mantises was futile, besides, they would know soon enough.

"The queen had the battle power of a low end Root perfection cultivator. William certainly has a talent for swordsmanship, you can see that he's your grandson, although he needs more experience too temper himself and truly shine."

The voice of Rigel brought up worried thoughts of Williams future in Victor. William had managed to kill a Qi beast which held a major cultivation realm advantage in power, which was impressive. But In Victor's opinion, William didn't have any great talent in swordsmanship, he believed that Williams talent laid in combat, which made him worried for his grandsons future.

While combat prowess was held in high esteem, especially in sects. Sects had a fascination with combat power that bordered on obsession. Even peaceful sects which focused on other matters like alchemy or formations gave members with high combat power special privileges. But this was a double edged sword as those same member was almost constantly in danger and had few future paths available.

"That's what I'm worried about. He reminds me too much about myself in my youth."

Rigel didn't know what to say to that, Victor was widely admired by many, not only in the Aurora clan's territory but even throughput the country. Comparing someone to him was a high praise seeing as how he was the recognized number one sword sage in the country and believed to be one of the best in the continent if not the world.

For Victor though, this was a point of worry. While he had a talent for combat and swordsmanship, he was foolish in his youth. In the hight of his foolishness he had even joined the war that birthed a country that dominated the west of the continent. Worst of all was that he didn't join the war because he believed in anything or any grand goal, nor even for any reward, but simply because he became friends with a young prince and believed that it would be fun. It had ultimately turned out fine, with him becoming a noble and creating clan that controlled the north-east most sector of the country but it could have easily turned out a thousand other ways.

Victor had initially been worried of Williams obsession with duals and training but had turned a blind eye to it, simply believing it to be a youthful fascination with cultivation, swordsmanship and fighting, but this mission had revealed a previously hidden bloodlust and fascination with battle. Such behaviour would fit in with sects.

The first thing William felt as he awoke was the terrible aching of his whole body.

Opening his eyes revealed the same cave that he had been in before. The only thing that was different was a notable lack or corpses, compared to before fatigue had claimed his consciousness were there had been more corpses then dirt floor visible.

The aching was a low constant that became a bit more dull as he focused on his Qi circulation to steady himself. There was little more that he could do if he didn't want to use one of his healing talismans, which he believed to be a waste.

Standing up and checking his own body revealed that it had only been healed enough to ensure no long lasting damage to his body. William wasn't sure if he was happy or not that the unknown medicine hadn't been used on him.

It didn't take long for William to spot Victor and Rigel as they were standing near while peering into the tunnel that led deeper into the nest. As William joined them he was immediately lectured by Victor in a tone that held disapproval.

"A battle is not a place to lose your patience and attack in anger. Any mistake could lead too your death and not all beings will be as dumb as the mantises."

The rebuke was ineffective on lowering his mood since he was happy that his hearing was once again normal. William wanted to defend himself but couldn't come up with a good defense, making him give up on trying to justify his battle style. He also wasn't completely blind to the fact that most of his moves in the later part of the battle had been done out of bloodlust and fury rather than with any plan in mind.

"I didn't...... It won't happen again."

"Good, good. Other than that, you did good. Your moves were sharp and you made the right decision in using the barrier to defend against the Queen's Qi beam."

Victor's face had a small smile on his face as he patted Williams head while praising him.

William was a little more happy knowing that not everything he had done in the last battle was a mistake.

"As the leading figure in this extermination you should see it through to the end and figure out why the Queen became a variant."

This time Rigel and Victor didn't make any moves as they were walking in the tunnel. This tunnel was much shorter than the ones before. Leaving it William saw a spherical chamber that was much larger than all the ones before. All along the wall were clusters of unhatched eggs.

Even with the uncountable amount of eggs trying to cover it, there was something that attracted the all of their eyes as soon as they entered the cave.

There was a crack large enough to fit a person in the wall, from this wall came a bright white light that outshined the mushrooms blue light.

Approaching it revealed that the crack lead into a corridor of extremely polished pure white marble, with no gap visible as if it was all one piece of marble.

Victor and Rigel stood infront of William while studying the corridor through the hole. Except the dirt that was strewn across the floor besides the hole the rest of the visible corridor was pristine.

Rigel spoke with some hesitation after a minute of intense study.

"This looks similar to the workshop of the mad alchemist that I once was invited to explore."

William saw how his grandfather's furrowed his brows before letting out a weak sigh and speaking in a strict tone.

"No point in standing here. I'm taking point, Rigel you are the rear guard. William you are in the middle, keep your eyes open but don't do anything else unless told to."

As William stepped through the hole into the corridor It felt like going through a screen of water. Immediately after entering William felt his heart beat slightly faster as he cleared what he presumed was a barrier. What purpose the barrier had, he didn't know as it made no attempt to block him from entering.

William looked around himself before seeing that one side of the corridor continued to a seemingly dead end and the other side continued until it split into two corridors.

William felt like he wasn't suppose to be here. Especially as his boots tracked in dirt on the previously blemish free floor.

The corridor was wide enough that three people could walk side by side, but Victor and Rigel continued in the same formation and William was to distracted to ask why.

Every five meters there was a crystal lighting up the corridor which the wall and floor reflected into a eye piercing light that was giving William a headache. It was the same to how a field of untouched snow had once annoyed him when he was younger by almost blinding him.

There was finally a reprieve from the eye bleaching light as they reached the fork in the corridor that had been visible from when they first entered.

The continuing corridor to the right showed clear signs of fighting. It wasn't clear to William who had fought here only that the fighting must have been intense as the walls and floor had deep cuts, cracks and other marks that had left the corridor in a state of disrepair that made one imagine that a war had been fought there.

The state of the corridor only became worse as they continued walking, soon enough even the roof wasn't spared as cuts started appearing there. The corridor started becoming more and more difficult to walk in as more of the floor became covered in rubble, the growing darkness didn't help the situation as more and more light-giving crystals had been destroyed.

It was a strange experience as even as the destruction grew there still wasn't any signs of who had been fighting here. There were no corpses no body parts, not even blood splatters.

William had a hard time imagining that there had been no casualties from either sides in a battle this intense which left him believing that whoever had won the battle had purposefully cleaned up anything that could be used to identify them. Even taking the time to take the bodies of the other side so that the battle marks left on them couldn't be studied. William wondered why they would then leave the marks in the corridor, unless these marks were made by the losing side. Which left the question of how strong and accurate the winning side were.

The corridor eventually lead into a room which was compared to the corridor pretty much intact. There were two big slabs of marble collapsed at the end of the corridor, presumably the doors to this room.

William had noticed how his heart keeps beating faster the feeling into the facility he went. Steeping into this room made his heart beat as fast as it had when he was fighting the queen. But he was also starting too struggle to breathe.

Inside the room were five pedestals of pure white marble identical to the rest of the room, each pedestal having something different hovering slightly above them, except for the middle one where there was nothing but shards of glass.

To the left of the empty pedestal there was a free floating fire held encased in a glass square. William wouldn't have known that there was a glass case there if not for the numerous cracks which covered it. The flame didn't look any different from any normal one but the Qi flowing from it made it obvious to everyone that it was anything but normal. William had found what was affecting him as even without a true Qi sense he still felt the Qi radiating from it, making his body feel fear.

William heard Victor swear as he instantly drew some runes with enough Qi to make William sense it.

"Shit!"

The runes surrounded the pedestal holding the flame before creating a spherical barrier cutting Williams senses from it and making him calm down.

It took half a minute before William calmed down enough to study the room. The pedestals were the only thing worth noting as the rest of the room was completely blank.

Studying the pedestals more revealed small etching on each one. Each etching informing what the pedestal held.

To the rightmost pedestal was a small blue crystal which according to the etching was a true preserve soul crystal.

The one next to it held a small yellow crystal ball that was surrounded by two different silver looking metal cogs. Simply referenced in the etching as a alpha mother core.

The center pedestal which held nothing had it's etching destroyed beyond comprehension.

The etching on the pedestal which held the flame called it the true heavenly demon's flame.

William turned away from the flame as simply seeing it made his heart beat faster.

The left most pedestal held a faintly green twig with several buds on it. The etching saying that it was a immature world tree branch.