NOVEL NEXT Chapter 212: Lotus
The scorching flames had completely no effect on Damien!
The orc choked, body twitching. Damien wrenched the blade out sideways. The commander collapsed to his knees, coughing blood.
The rest of the squad swirled and adjusted their attacks efficiently.
One orc roared, leapt forward, and brought down a cleaver with the weight of a falling boulder. Damien side-stepped. The cleaver struck ground, splitting the earth.
A second orc circled behind him with twin daggers alight with ember runes. Damien spun and parried with the flat of his blade, then delivered a precise elbow to the orc's face. The orc's skull shattered like wet pottery.
Another bellowed and hurled a fireball the size of a carriage. Damien raised his palm.
The fireball struck.
And dissolved against his skin like rain hitting stone.
He charged forward.
Two orcs tried to intercept him. One thrust a burning spear at his side. Damien leaned back, grabbed the shaft mid-strike, and ripped the weapon free, then kicked the orc in the chest.
The orc was launched back into a boulder. The boulder cracked.
Damien flipped the spear once and hurled it like a javelin.
The second orc didn't dodge fast enough. The spear impaled him clean through the abdomen and pinned him to a tree, where he thrashed once before going limp.
Nine remained.
They hesitated.
The leader was still gasping on his knees, clutching his shoulder.
Damien walked toward them, calm, slow, each step deliberate.
The largest orc gritted his teeth and charged with a two-handed axe, fire spiraling around him in a protective cyclone. Damien ducked the first swing, stepped inside the second, and drove his knee into the orc's stomach. As the orc doubled over, Damien brought his fist up and shattered the orc's jaw.
Another lunged from the side.
Damien turned, grabbed the orc's wrist mid-swing, twisted, and sent the orc flying over his shoulder into the last remaining fighters.
"Run!" The surviving orcs didn't bother with their teammates and immediately broke and fled in all directions.
Damien turned back to his team and smiled.
"Fire immunity." Blackie said softly.
The system spoke instead, inside his mind:
[Immunity Confirmed: Fire]
[Residual Elemental Energy Absorption: 3% Complete]
[Threshold Achieved: Body now adapts more efficiently to external fire-based mana sources]
He stood slowly, wiping a line of blood off his wrist with the back of his sleeve.
As silence returned to the forest, General Hei Tian swallowed slowly.
He watched as Damien wiped his hands on a tattered cloth, calm as a mountain storm.
Hei Tian said nothing.
But inside, something twisted.
He had just witnessed someone walk into an ancient, protected basin, dodge divine traps, consume a priceless treasure without a second thought, and casually render one of the five natural elements irrelevant.
The group moved in tense silence, weaving through the thinning edge of the dead forest, where twisted roots gave way to soft, spongey soil and long patches of stagnant green water. The air shifted. What had been merely heavy with rot now grew thick with death—cloying, metallic, and sharp. Every breath stung the throat.
The trees vanished completely behind them. In their place rose gnarled stalks of blackened grass and spore-flecked lily pads that hissed faintly with acidic mist. Pale bubbles burst across the swamp's surface at irregular intervals, releasing pockets of gas that reeked of decay and age-old poison.
General Hei Tian's face twisted. "This is the wrong way," he said again, this time more forcefully. "The Bloodroot Ginseng is to the southeast. This swamp doesn't even register on our maps. It's unmarked. Untouched."
He hesitated. "And for good reason."
Damien didn't respond.
He stepped forward without hesitation, boots crunching across half-sunken stone and patches of dark moss that oozed underfoot. His senses were alight—no, drawn. The air felt wrong, but not to him. The scent of death that clung to the swamp stirred something inside him. Not revulsion. Not fear.
Recognition.
Hei Tian tried again, more urgently now. "We need to find the Bloodroot before the other dragons do. Every second we spend wandering off track—"
"Quiet," Damien said.
The word wasn't loud. But it silenced the air around it.
Blackie followed behind, her steps light and measured, her tail low, her voice a soft murmur. "This place is saturated in death. And something old. I can't quite tell where it's coming from."
Damien didn't answer.
He simply kept walking, eyes scanning the terrain as though he'd seen it in a dream.
And then he found it.
Nestled in the crook of a shattered stone altar, half-submerged in a glowing pool of grey-black water, a flower swayed where no breeze blew. Its petals were curved like blades. Its stem was withered yet alive. The bloom itself emitted a low, pulsing light that didn't brighten the swamp—it devoured it.
A Deathroot Lotus.
The color drained from General Hei Tian's face. "That… that's impossible. That's a Deathroot Lotus. Those aren't even plants. They're cursed artifacts. It's said even the Four Emperors couldn't extract one without unleashing a wave of high-grade undead."
His voice dropped further. "This place was a minor battlefield. The death energy here must've kept it alive all these years. That flower alone could summon a legion."
Blackie stepped beside Damien and narrowed her eyes. "The legends weren't wrong. The Lotus produces a pulse of necrotic mana strong enough to awaken anything nearby—corpses, lingering resentments, even bones turned to dust. If you reach for it, everything sleeping in this swamp will rise."
Her voice lowered. "Even you would be overwhelmed."
Damien stepped forward.
The moment Damien's boot touched the edge of the murky pool, the air screamed.
It wasn't a sound carried on wind. It was the atmosphere itself tearing, like the swamp's breath had been held for centuries and finally exhaled in a cry of rage and hunger.
The water began to boil.
A ring of pale light burst outward from the flower and pulsed once like a heartbeat. Then again. Faster. Louder. Reality warped subtly, the trees at the edge of the clearing twisting away from the pool as if recoiling in terror.
Then came the movement.