NOVEL NEXT XI. Precision
Cyril had little time to think as the humanoids closed in around him. Stone spikes erupted from his body, grazing several of the more eager opponents. They dodged away with a disturbing nimbleness, multi-jointed limbs flexing in a dextrous display eerily reminiscent of spiders moving. Their retreat offered him some breathing room, a few seconds to think.
He didn't know enough about the humanoids to risk dragging out the fight for long. The best option was to overwhelm them quickly and do his best to avoid the swarm of monsters that would be attracted to the disturbance.
Taking a deep breath, he unclipped the half-spear from the little stone fastener at his waist. He expanded the weapon to a full eight-foot length with a pulse of Earth qi, then cast Transmute into the spearhead. At the cost of half of his qi, a knuckle's worth of the tip transformed into rusted iron.
He found himself secretly quite pleased with the effect from his new Cursed Blessing. Before acquiring Scion of the Underdark, he had almost exhausted his entire core to create a single fleck of the material. His own limited comprehension simply claimed that it increased his Metal affinity, but he suspected the hidden benefits were substantial. Not bad, but you're still a parasite, he cursed at the obliterated symbol.
One of the humanoids grew tired of circling and made a dash for Cyril's back. It weaved between the spikes as if it was able to see them perfectly. Darkvision?
His martial instincts broke through the fugue of curiosity and surprise as his training kicked in. He trapped the shaft of his spear between the side of his arm and his body and whirled around; the iron tip of the blade passed cleanly through the humanoid's neck at an upward angle, encountering the barest hint of resistance before severing the cervical vertebrae with a click.
Cyril smiled at the confirmation about the power of the rusted iron. Cracks had formed along the rest of the blade and the haft, but transmuted material gleamed wickedly, ready for more.
The humanoid collapsed to its knees, its half-severed head flopping backwards. Ichor spurted. Dismissing the stone spikes growing from his body, Cyril charged through the gap left behind from the fallen opponent. Half to avoid the bloody mess, half to put some space between him and the humanoids.
Howls tore from their mouths at the death of their companion. Wincing at the noise, Cyril crushed the closest one into the ground with Pressure. Both of his Flickers, hovering high above the battlefield, swept down like meteors and intercepted a pair of the humanoids.
That left two still focused on him. He kept moving away from the group, heading farther down the street in the direction of the palace. At the same time, he kept the Flickers focused on their respective marks--directly on them, immolating them in ethereal intensity they were helpless to prevent or avoid.
A sharp pain in his head broke through his battle trance. Constructing the ladder had drained much of his mental energy, and he was still straining himself to split his attention too much. He shook his head and resolved to finish the fight as soon as possible.
Enraged at the sorry state of their companions, the remaining humanoids charged him. He met them halfway, spear at the ready. Even though they were twice his size, their similar anatomy gave them a distinct disadvantage--his practice with the spear against other cultivators more or less translated to fighting with them. They were intelligent monsters, but still monsters, flinging themselves at him with tooth and claw.
The rusted iron speartip punched holes in their bodies as they tried to break through its range, twisted fingers grasping just out of reach of his face. He tripped one with a sweep of the shaft, cracking it behind the knee. A quick spin of the spear generated enough momentum to sever its spinal cord as it collapsed to the ground.
The final humanoid lasted a couple more seconds. Long enough for him to confirm that their hearts were in the same approximate location and they would die if it was pierced. He kicked the humanoid off of his spear and stumbled back as the adrenaline dumped out of his body.
Panting, he returned toward the original circle of the fight. The humanoid he had crushed with Pressure was attempting to return to its feet despite half of its skeleton being shattered. Gods, they were tough, if not that scary in direct combat. He paralyzed it with a precise thrust through the throat.
Strangely enough, only the piles of ash and the one with the destroyed heart had released their death essence. Internal decapitation was apparently not enough to actually kill them. Disturbing. He finished destroying all of their hearts a few moments before the first few sandwyrms began to emerge through the flagstones.
Uninterested in a more prolonged battle that would inevitably lead everything within miles his way, Cyril absorbed as much of the death essence as possible and fled in the direction of the palace. The longer he waited to distribute it into his soul, more and more energy would be wasted to entropic loss. In order not to trigger a breakthrough mid-flight, he brought the Dominion of Gravity to 99/100 and dumped the rest into Mass.
The marble of smoke agreed with his chosen path, matching his pace. Beetles along the walls turned in his direction as he sprinted past. Tremors behind him revealed at least one wyrm following his trail. As long as the whole swarm didn't come down on his head, he didn't mind a few new sources of essence delivering themselves straight to him. Some shelter would have been nice, though.
Half of the reason he had chosen this path was because it led him in the direction of the building he suspected was a library. Soon enough, the rows of destroyed homes ended in an abandoned square. The library was the centerpiece, a huge, squat structure that dwarfed the surrounding buildings. A boulevard of statues framed the path leading to the entrance, though all of them had been reduced to little more than feet standing atop cracked plinths.
The building itself boasted several large gaps in the facade, including a breach on the left that exposed most of that side of the first level. As Cyril approached, he sensed a strange, yet familiar energy lingering within some of the destruction. Hundreds of small holes dotted the front of the structure, like a rain of arrows had pierced through.
He leaned close to examine one of the holes near the entrance, at around eye-level. Up close, he recognized the specks of translucent silver energy lodged inside. A sister to his own Sun qi, though he wouldn't have recognized it if he hadn't encountered the ifrit first. The damage came from the Dominion of Stars, potent enough that evidence of the celestial rain remained after countless years.
Why, exactly, was the signature qi of the ifrit present in this attack? He revisited the possibility that this wasn't Beljeza at all. She had made it seem like Beljeza was a peaceful nation, and Priestess Anadei a pacifist philosopher-queen, beloved by her people. Had they been in a war with the Underdark, and attacked this city? That might explain why the spirit had been banished down here, to reflect on her sin.
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Of course, the ifrit wasn't the only individual capable of wielding the Dominion of the Stars. The simplest explanations were often right, but he needed more information to confirm anything. And, thankfully, he was standing before a repository of knowledge.
Cyril broke off the bottom half of the spear, careful not to remove the portion containing the transmuted wood. He tossed the useless stone cylinder aside and returned the half-weapon to its spot at his waist.
Before stepping through the empty doorframe of the entrance, he turned and crushed the pursuing sandwyrm with a Pressure. Looked like it was the only one of the swarm that had managed to latch onto him.
He glanced back into the library. No monsters were hiding within that section, as far as he could tell. The sight of the ruined interior made his heart sink more than almost anything else since he woke up.
It must have been a marvelous sight before its destruction--elegant arches, spiraling staircases leading up to the second level, row after row of stone bookshelves holding a huge chunk of mankind's accumulated Knowledge. Grime covered the cracked floor tiles, though he could tell they once formed a gorgeous mosaic of soft colors.
Now both spiral staircases had been reduced to a couple steps on either end, the majority of it reduced to rubble. The bookshelves had collapsed against one another and stood at awkward angles. Little evidence remained of their former contents besides cracked leather spines and dust.
Shaking his head at the loss, Cyril stepped inside and sat down with his back against the wall. Hiding himself from sight may not have been necessary, but the humanoids had seemed to demonstrate some form of darkvision. He suspected the way they reacted to him hadn't relied on sensing movement or vibrations.
After settling into a meditative trance, he drew in the sandwyrm's death essence to fill the remainder of the First Sphere of Gravity.
Pressure built around him, weighing down his head and shoulders. Forcing himself to remain upright, chin tilted high, he reflected on his recent experiences with utilizing gravity. His use of the Dominion had been rather one-sided and repetitive, but that wasn't the worst idea. Many cultivators sought to perfect a singular concept, then build off of that perfection to integrate relevant new techniques in the higher Spheres.
He had explored varying degrees of strength and angles with the Pressure Cantrip. As appealing as concepts like potential flight were, pure destructive force would see him through for now. Something that complemented the Cantrip would be welcome.
His consciousness descended once more into the sea of knowledge, an abstract world formed of information and wisdom opposed to any of the material elements. As his mind floated through it, ambient knowledge flowed in: the relationship of mass and distance, the ways gravity could work with or against itself, a wealth of mathematical concepts and the prerequisite base from which to understand them. Just as soon as they occurred to him, the information vanished, leaving behind traces like the first moments after awakening from a dream.
He opened his eyes and exhaled deeply. His body felt more in tune with the world around him, the subtle influence of its physical and metaphysical weight resonating with him. A tingling sensation spread across his navel--where his core resided--and to a lesser extent through his fingers.
Dominion of Gravity:
First Sphere- basic application of force to designated areas. Pressure Cantrip acquired. (100/100)
Cyril pumped a fist. An absolute success, in his eyes. Domain abilities were usually restricted to higher level Spheres, rarely manifesting below the Fourth. No doubt his area of influence and the metaphysical strength behind it wouldn't compare to someone who had invested over a hundred thousand points of death essence into one of their Dominions, but anyone so exalted would have made short work of him anyways, Behemoth or not.
Still, he couldn't keep the smile off his face. While he couldn't quite say he was enjoying his current situation, the rapid progress was intoxicating. And he was out by himself, struggling and destroying monsters, realizing the true path of a martial cultivator.
All of his life, he had been restricted. Other tribes invested into the elites and rulers from birth, supplying them with elixirs and pills and essence to accelerate their growth. A suitable spirit would be found when they were of an appropriate age.
Though Cyril trusted his parent's wisdom, he was a young prince and had often mingled with other nobility. No matter how refined his behavior or impressive his foundations, he had always been an Early Condensation cultivator, and the condescension he felt in their presence was almost palpable.
No hot-blooded prince could bear such indignity without a bit of internal seething. At a gathering, when one of the young lords of the Runewardens boasted about how he had landed the final blow on a manticore--one that had already been brought to brink of death before he ever laid eyes on it, no doubt--Cyril could only stand there, nodding his head, his arms crossed.
He had no real response, after all. What was he supposed to counter with? He had memorized his family pedigree for the past ten thousand years? People stopped being impressed with his ability to manipulate Sun qi around the time he was nine years old. The same skills that made one a prodigy as a child were considered the standard among real cultivators.
Now, he was exploring ruins and annihilating abominations. Experimenting with the powers granted to him by a spiritual bond. A Titan, no less.
Over the years, he had often imagined what kind of entity he would end up with. Some of his elder siblings had bonded with dragons, nine-tailed foxes, and the like, none below the ranking of a peak djinn. On the days where his ego was particularly bruised, he pretended he would have been satisfied with an imp. Anything, as long as it allowed him to end the controlled farce of his own life, and embark on a true journey toward ascendance.
Another insecurity of his had been satisfied as well. There was a question every man asked himself: when my life is threatened and the situation is dire, how do I respond? Am I a coward, deep down? Cyril had never thought of himself as such, but he had never found any real proof to the contrary. Easy enough to be outspoken in public, or remain calm during controlled scenarios such as sparring with blunted weapons. Never before had he been truly threatened.
He found he was quite suited to this violent life.
In the end, he had no doubt that he would have to be more than a martial cultivator. Being the Vessel of a Titan would mean responsibilities and obligations he could not even begin to guess at. But a vindictive part of him really wanted to find that young lord of the Runewardens and make him kiss his slippers.
After indulging in his own glory for a while, he attempted to return to his meditation until his mental exhaustion receded and his core refilled. Ideas and plans flitted through his head, battling with his curiosity to explore more of the area. Other intrusive thoughts swam to the surface, claiming he was wasting time by not heading straight towards the Wyrm, but the others mostly bullied those ones.
He had advanced in both Earth and Gravity in a short time, and that was after reaching a point with his Reinforcement Cantrip where he was able to somewhat stand toe-to-toe with the Half-Ascended monster. Still, he had to be careful not to underestimate it, especially in its own lair. It wouldn't be a bad idea to take another hour or so to finish off his Dominion of Mass.
How greedy can you get? Going to break through into Middle Condensation first, too?
Despite the self-admonishment, he couldn't help but peek at the surface level of his soul:
Dominions:
Sun, Second Sphere 245/1000
Knowledge, Second Sphere 702/1000
Earth, Second Sphere 0/1000
Gravity, Second Sphere 0/1000
Mass, First Sphere 54/100
He was pleased that Mass seemed to have received a slight boost from his new knowledge of Gravity as well. Breaking through had added a few more points to Mass on top of the excess death essence he had invested into it. Not a huge gain, but it bode well for more future synergy between the two Dominions.
Finally, his core refilled, and he stood up. After all that work, it was time for a little play: exploring the library.