NOVEL NEXT Chapter 92 – Ekatroncheiron
Firstly, a dimensional hole that connected the main world to the Elemental Repository was opened. Accompanying the stream of lightning elemental particles, there were copious amounts of lesser lightning elementals pouring out like a broken dam. Their mere existence produces strong lightning-path radiation. When over a hundred lesser lightning elementals- which are on the brink of advancement to rank 1 stacked their radiation together, the atmosphere is immediately affected.
As such, it isn’t unusual that an elemental wave occurred as a side effect.
These Minor Elemental Waves are actually quite common, they were like rain and could happen literally almost everywhere, manifesting in various forms.
This was because the dimensional laws of the world are deep enough to cater countless manifestations. Since it is a lightning-path elemental wave, the phenomena are connected to lightning.
Naturally, lightning-path radiation contains (low) heat, electricity and magnetic fields. Rank 0 lightning elementals could barely affect the area around them, but when a hundred of them unleash their radiation to the fullest, the air is ionized.
When the cold air of the Land of Autumn Rain met with a burst of high temperature ionized air, the wind shear is automatically followed by other phenomena. These harsh differences in temperature immediately cause a change in the environment that’s accelerated further by it’s elemental nature.
Nearly an instant later, there was a low-altitude cloud forming above the lightning lake. From a natural color of white, the clouds are infected with the static electricity of the lightning lake. They immediately turned dark as a prelude to a great thunderstorm.
While the lesser lightning elementals are unleashing their radiation to the fullest, the Elemental Repository too, is infecting the main world’s environment with its own. The burst of lightning elemental particles are so high that they affect terrestrial magnetism.
The rainfall that was about to fall acted as though it was being held together by some sort of anti-gravity field; a pseudo-updraft had occurred, delaying the inevitable flood.
“This is… a microburst pulse storm…” Mordred, who was hidden within one of the lizardmen houses, muttered to himself. He’s observing the Minor Elemental Wave, and if the chance presented itself, he wanted to make use of it to awaken his own Lightning. “Night Raid should be exiting the Elemental Repository right about… now.”
Just as he predicted, moments before the Microburst Pulse Storm arrived, there was a group of shadowy humans mounted on top of distorted shadows pouncing towards the main world, which was accompanied by countless other lightning elementals. Some of their figures are burning, but they are still alive, despite being heavily wounded.
The Elemental Repository opened once every 21 years. This was usually an auspicious event for the Lightning Horn Tribe whose livelihood depended on the Lightning Lake.
That being said, it was natural for the lizardmen to have some sort of tribal event around it.
Historically speaking, they were unable to use magic nor made a contract with lesser lightning elementals due to the lack of knowledge and inheritances. Even if the lizardmen tribe knew the immature Blue Lotus Heavenly Mana Spring is special, they don’t know what’s special about it. Thus, they were incapable of opening the micro-plane and unable to exploit the resources that grew within.
However, now that a group of humans had made a fuss about it, it was only expected that the semi-bidecade event which was usually filled with worship and paying respects to the ‘spirits’ would now be changed.
The path made out of floating magnetic rocks which was pinned by the efforts of Lightning Horn Tribe’s chieftain across generations is guarded with the strongest lizardmen elites. Due to Lupusrazor’s battle with the chieftain, a large portion of the path has been melted, but they are quickly patched up. Although not to the previous level, at least there are some progress of repairs. Other than swimming in electric water which was enough to fry Kai who had the highest resistance against lightning-path environmental hazards, Night Raid will have to retreat through the path of magnetic rocks.
“We’ve successfully snatched that dubious-looking Elemental Spring Egg and retreated to the main world… It’ll fetch quite a sum if we sell it to the Hunter Association, but what now?” Kai stipulated.
The situation is not looking good for Night Raid. Their external appearance is draped under a misty black veil conjured by the dark-path lifeforms, the Deopirs. Without special measures- which the lizardmen lack- normal inspection is insufficient to assess the damage to their bodies. Even if they are protected by lightning-resistance potions and are literally invisible from the senses of lightning elementals, merely exploring the Elemental Repository which was optimized for lightning elementals to thrive has taken a toll on them.
The lightning-path environmental hazard is too much for them, everyone was clear about their own condition.
“Cough!” Tengen coughed steaming hot blood, electric sparks crackled on the puddle of blood. As a sword cultivator specialized for pure offense, he has the weakest defense against environmental hazards. “Captain, my organs are fried…” He reported after quickly drinking a healing potion. “Ptui!” He spit a bit of the potion mixed with blood and saliva. He was sick of the taste because he had to ‘rehydrate’ with potion instead of water while they were exploring the Elemental Repository. “I am not in any condition for combat.”
Before Katsuki could reply, the dark clouds drowned them under a microburst of heavy downpour mixed with electromagnetic pulse. The water containing electricity was lethal to most rank 0 entities, but they were able to resist the majority of the damage. On the other hand, the windy downburst that would grind mortal flesh was more dangerous than the downpour itself.
“Damn it!” Katsuki cursed. Since the Night Raid members are heavily wounded due to the environmental hazards, then her Deopirs are literally on the brink of death. Fortunately, these semi-elemental lifeforms’ weakness is light, not lightning. They could survive for some more time.
The lizardmen saw a chance. Unlike Night Raid, they weren’t too affected by the microburst of electromagnetic pulse. Water and lightning are their element, they used the chance to march slowly upon the wounded group of humans.
While Night Raid are unprepared, it was the lightning elementals who helped them.
Of course, it’s not like the lesser lightning elementals had good intentions. In the first place, lightning elementals are rather capricious, they were extremely moody and would act depending on their emotion.
When the rank 0 lesser elementals which were like children reached the main world, they were ecstatic to experience the new world. The microburst pulse storms which were dangerous towards Night Raid and offered some level of difficulties to the lizardmen were incredibly beneficial for them.
Lesser lightning elementals are unable to sense the Night Raid members, after all. In their perspective, the lizardmen are bothersome creatures who tried to pick a fight. At this point, they began fighting against each other.
Lizardmen fists, claws, and spears are fighting against lightning elementals with various shapes and forms.
Of the various types of lightning elementals, most had the form of 10-centimeter tall humanoid fairies with transparent, cicada wings. These are a species of Lightning Elementals known as [Blue Spark Fairy]. Yes, their bodies consist of pure electric-blue lightning elemental particles and they acted similarly to fairies, thus the name.
To the lizardmen, these ‘spirits’ are profound creatures that could control lightning better than themselves. There were folklore and legends about having a contract with these ‘spirits’ which allows lizardmen to gain control upon lightning itself, but folklore and legends are washed away after several generations when there aren’t proper methods to pass down inheritances. There are no lizardmen-scribes, after all.
That being said, the Blue Spark Fairy species is one of the more common lesser lightning elementals, capable of galvanizing the electric current or magnetic field in the environment as if they were their own limbs.
However, this does not make them invulnerable towards the lizardmen’s lightning.
In the first place, the lizardmen’s bodies are clad in bio-electricity literally charged with the intention to kill. The electric current that ran through their bodies is mixed with malicious intent. The lightning elementals couldn’t carelessly absorb the electric current that the lizardmen produces because of said malicious intent, unlike Lupusrazor, which was optimized for such a purpose. Because of this, the absorption rate of the lightning elementals can only reach 20%.
In other words, of all attacks that the lizardmen made, at least 20% of it is being absorbed by the ‘spirits’ simply because of racial advantage.
Boom! Several explosions occur in the battlefield between the lizardmen and the elementals, caused by a [Thunderous Lightning Fairy]. Said fairy is a rank 1 lightning elemental who has advanced and gained the ability to produce thunderbolts and chain lightning1Very very frightening at will. In ranking up, they also grew to twice its diminutive size, making them slightly more conspicuous on the battlefield.
Each time the Thunderous Lightning Fairy flicked her finger, the sound barrier was broken. Lightning attacks might not be effective towards the lizardmen due to the similar element, but the vibration of thunder is not mere lightning.
In the backline, Kai muttered in excitement, “A mutated lightning elemental!” Unfortunately, the team has no leeway to capture it for him. “Captain, we need to mov-”
Before his words finished, a wave of frost wind flowed towards Night Raid’s location from the opposite side of the path of magnetic rock. The frost wind was concentrated, as if it was shot from a cannon. A path of frozen ice is made, and a figure on top of a large wolf is quickly running towards NIght Raid.
“What a sight for sore eyes.” Katsuki muttered in a low voice, her tone containing joy. Every single member of Night Raid thought of the same thing. Through her telepathic link with her deopir slaves, the team instantly rushed through the icy path made by Larissa on top of Lupusrazor.
“Don’t drop your guard!” Larissa spoke as she led the team away before the next pulse storm arrived. “I’ve studied the lightning lake in this few days, there should be a-”
Break! The path of ice suddenly broke and their escape route was blocked by a long-necked aquatic dinosaur. The large-class beast is huge, it has claw marks on its chest. Briefly after its long neck rose to the air, its dark blue rubbery hide near the chest area glowed in bright blue. There wasn’t even a need for a genius to tell that the beast is about to make a dangerous lightning-breath attack. The sheer rank 2 undulation from the beast intimidated Night Raid members, forcing them to pause for a brief moment.
In that instant, Lupusrazor takes action. Intense stream of air is moving towards the shark-gills on its neck. In less than a second, Lupusrazor produced icy frost winds like that of a cannon, it made a new icy path towards another direction that spanned a hundred meters.
Larissa also reacted quickly, she waved her hand and three mechanical werewolves were taken out. The mecha-werewolves immediately pounced towards the large long-necked beast, trying their best to buy some time while Night Raid left through the new icy path.
“Those puppets…” Katsuki and Reiki showed interest while they were running for their lives. An explosion of ice and lightning followed suit as the mecha-werewolves self-destructed one at a time to push back the rank 2 beast further.
“You will have to compensate me for using my trump card.” Larissa Agatha the hunter-priestess of the Shallow Waters muttered in a tired voice.
Lupusrazor repeated its frost wind breath attack a few more times before they reached the edge of the lake. Fortunately, the shore lacked the dangers of the lake’s core area. Thus, they were able to quickly disappear from the sights and senses of the occupied lizardmen, slipping away in the chaos
…
“Fall back!!” The lizardmen chieftain immediately called for retreat the moment Night Raid left the lightning lake’s periphery.
Naturally, while the lizardmen are retreating, the lightning elementals who have picked a fight with them wouldn’t leave them be. They chased the lizardmen until they reached the village, killing a few lizardmen in the process.
The lightning elementals were about to continue their killing spree, but when Mordred made an appearance, they stopped their actions.
He is wearing a black military pants, boots and a sleeveless rashguard on top. A few pouches are on his pants and back waist, but the sole weapon in his possession is “merely” a large caliber magnum pistol, being held on his left thigh.
The presence of the pale-skinned Mordred who had a heterochromia of red and gold made the elementals confused, due to the sheer contrast to the lizardmen they had just been fighting. Lizardmen are quickly kneeling in subservience behind him, led by the rank 2 chieftain whose brain has been tempered by Mordred.
“The [Mental Commissar] seemed to have full effect. Unless the chieftain undergoes a protogenic ascension, he’ll never be free from my method.” Mordred nodded while inspecting the lizardmen chieftain. Then, his attention is brought back to the lightning elementals.
He waved his hand, unleashing his AT-Field which was colored electric blue that corresponds to lightning-path. When the elementals felt the familiarity with Mordred, most of them immediately gathered around him as if Mordred is their kin.
This was caused by the traits of lightning elementals.
Elemental lifeforms do not have souls. In a literal sense, elementals were a lump of elemental particles who have coagulated and gained sentience due to various reasons, one of it being the will of the heavens or simply due to the supporting environment. Until they reached the rank of Legends, or for some rare special cases, rank 2 Lords, elementals wouldn’t have a soul. This could be likened to the process of humans gaining souls after a few weeks of being conceived in their mother’s womb. Until that point, humans are just a lump of enzymes and proteins.
For the purpose of comparison: Lesser earth elementals are dim, they can only act on their elemental instinct and are incapable of having complex thought. They would group up together and follow herd mentality.
On the other hand, lesser lightning elementals are a little bit smarter and are capricious. They would follow the whims of their mood and make decisions based on it.
Until they gained true sentience by awakening a truesoul, most elementals would have no unique personality of their own. They would be akin to manufactured dolls who have a set mentality depending on their species, but it doesn't mean they don’t have self-preservation instinct; they merely lack more than a base understanding of the world around them. When threatened, elemental lifeforms would retaliate.
Then, to collect elementals as the base material to refine a Ekatroncheiron, there was a need to fool them.
While he was staying in the lightning lake, his soul had been accumulating lightning elemental particles nigh-endlessly. At this moment, he unleashed his soul radiation like a burning flame, releasing the energy he had accumulated. The ‘heat’ of this ‘fire’ would saturate the elementals in a beneficial way due to Mordred’s unique methods.
In a sense, the energy he releases into the air is mixed with his own comprehension of lightning, similar in nature to energy charged with malicious intent. Hundreds of gigabytes worth of comprehension are being disseminated with the lightning particles: these are True Meanings, so to speak.
Once again, elemental lifeforms are, despite not having a personality of their own until reaching a certain point, governed by instinct. One of them is the instinct to evolve and become stronger, which was exploited by him.
By ‘devouring’ the lightning particles that Mordred produced, these lesser lightning elementals could gain the necessary knowledge and attainment to advance and mutate into unique species. Even the rank 1 elemental, the Thunderous Lightning Fairy, wouldn’t miss this chance to gain an advantage in terms of lightning-path attainment.
Unfortunately for them, Mordred isn’t a benevolent saint. The lightning particles he releases could be used to cultivate his spiritual force (due to his unique physiology as an Armored Soul Tribe) to rank 1. When he sacrificed his chance to advance his spiritual force cultivation, it was obviously for a greater benefit.
While they were frolicking around Mordred who’s glowing in electric blue radiance, the elementals were getting high, their consciousness slowly grinding to a halt.
Unlike the lizardmen who mixed their bioelectricity with malicious intent, Mordred’s lightning had a high corruption property, containing enslavement will.
In less than ten minutes, the one hundred or so lightning elementals who have exited the Elemental Repository for advancement in the main world have been… subjugated.
Still being swarmed by elementals after the process had ended, Mordred pinched the spot between his eyes, suppressing the phantom pain in his sea of consciousness. Enslaving this amount of elemental lifeforms is too taxing for him as he had to balance the telepathic expenditure of a hundred or so elementals. If not for the fact that he’s been heavily accumulating telepathic thoughts in his crystal processor, it would be impossible for him to do it.
Still, his telepathic resources are being rapidly used. The burden is roughly several hundred megabytes worth of information per second, it isn’t wise for him to delay because he only has several terabytes of telepathic resources in his crystal processor.
In an instant, he waved his hand and killed half of the elementals using a sound-path method, prioritizing the ones who have higher retaliation. The lightning elementals are enslaved, therefore they did not retaliate nor follow their survival instinct. And so, most of them are killed rather easily.
With another wave of his hand, Mordred collected the corpse of the lightning elementals.
Since earth elemental’s corpses are mud, then lightning elemental’s
corpses are plasma.That’s right, they could be considered as a plasmoid lifeform. The rich lightning particle in the plasma is extremely useful in refining high-tech magic machinery weapons, especially for refining superconductors and whatnot. However, he didn’t do all this to refine such tools. No, he needs the plasmoid corpses to refine Ymir into an Ekatroncheiron.
Manipulating a magnetic field with his AT-Field, the elemental corpses are being collected inside of a formless magnetic containment field. The blue plasma of lightning elemental corpses are instantly being processed by Mordred’s refinement-path method, a variant of Micro-Soundfield Forge with a similar concept, but not only upgraded to keep up with the higher rank, but also to manage what equivalated to lightning-path plasma corpses.
Swoosh! Blue plasma fire belched from the formless magnetic containment field as they were being compressed and refined into a new material that was lower in terms of weight but higher in terms of energy density. It isn’t 100% efficient, so not all of the energy is condensed into it, hence the weight reduction.
In the middle of this process, Mordred killed another batch of lightning elementals, half of the remaining 50-ish elementals, to get more materials. The plasmoid lifeforms are barely passable as replacement materials, and thus, his next material is something far higher in quality than the elementals.
Mordred waved his hand once more, producing a lump of prismatic lump of soul.
In the material world, this prismatic lump of soul has the form of pure information current. Naturlich, it was his own Chaldean Soul, his foundation being used as a material. With the new addition, the blue plasma fire burns in myriad colors as if a teacher were burning various chemicals to produce colorful fire in a class experiment.
In truth, Mordred’s truesoul is the finest rank 1 soul-path material that he can get his hands on. Despite using a mere trace of his own foundation, it was sufficient for the next process.
The next material is Ymir, his own split soul. The Spectral Soul soundlessly exited from the Soul Phylactery and immediately jumped towards the formless forge which contained a lump of prismatic-colored plasma fire. The sight is extremely beautiful as Mordred’s refinement-path methods contain the profundity of various other paths such as information, rule, soul, sound, and lightning.
The pulse storm, which should be dangerous to mechanical beings, are harmless towards the undead machinery that Mordred was composed of. Not only did he go unharmed under the maelstrom, but he also used the pulse storm to assist the refinement process. By altering the magnetic field and terrestrial magnetism, he was perfectly capable of dispersing or making use of the lightning-path minor elemental wave.
Of course, he used the enslaved elementals to aid in the refinement by channeling the energy of the environment towards the formless forge. Through their assistance, the extremely complex refinement process which includes soul engineering that requires multitasking capabilities is handled successfully.
Swoosh! When the refinement process had finished, Mordred dispersed the formless forge as a humanoid figure of faint prismatic light stood from it. From his physical appearance, nobody would be able to guess that it is a living being. Rather, he looked like a holographic image instead.
Ymir is no longer a Spectral Soul, but an Ekatroncheiron.
As an information-path lifeform, he naturally has the form of pure information current like Mordred’s Chaldean Soul. However, the similarity stops there as he cannot be used to operate machines like Mordred.
“How are you feeling?” Mordred asked, his head was literally steaming hot due to the intense overclocking, a faint trace of burnt metal appeared on his head as the electrochromic metal that made up his skin couldn’t handle the sheer heat. The skies are now clear as the minor elemental wave has been dispersed, and the Lightning Horn Tribe watches Mordred’s action in great reverence.
“I’ll get used to this… form.” Ymir clenched his hands, each of his actions producing a faint trail of boxy pixelated lights.
Mordred pulled out a lump of telepathic will and passed it to Ymir, “I’ve designed Ekatroncheiron by deriving Intelligent Metal’s information-path inheritance and mixed it with my soul-path, using Chaldean Soul as the base reference. You’re the first one ever, therefore you’ll have to explore any flaws or path of advancement. As of now, you should be able to merge with any inanimate object.”
Ymir did as he was instructed. His holographic figure slowly being ‘filled’ from the bottom up with the magnetic rocks that made up the floor. The magnetic rocks slowly crept upwards from his feet, they have the texture of boxy pixels, as if a rendered 3D object.
When the magnetic rock completely ‘filled’ his holographic figure, Ymir had literally transformed into a person made out of rocks.
“This is… refinement-path profundity?” He asked, surprised.
“Correct.” Mordred answered, quelling his doubt. “An Ekatroncheiron should be able to move in the form of pure information current. When in need, you can use any inanimate material in the world as your ‘flesh and blood’. Any material that you use as a temporary body is automatically reinforced into a stronger version of itself depending on your soul foundation. Since we have a shared attainment level, you can further reinforce your body with your refinement-path method, but I wouldn’t suggest doing it.”
He added, “Your ‘racial traits’ alone are good enough for combat, especially for ambush because you’re not limited to humanoid form. If you try to use refinement-path methods on your temporary body, it’ll be harder for you to detach and get away. As long as your truesoul is undamaged, you can keep rebuilding temporary bodies.”
“Ah, I got it!” Ymir nodded.
“Good.” Mordred nudged towards the location of where Night Raid and Larissa have gone. “Prioritize in collecting information and safety above all. I cannot lose an Ekatroncheiron.”
“Understood.” The magnetic rocks body immediately crumbled back into piles of rock. From a glance, it looks as though a shadow departed from the body, chasing where Night Raid last was seen. That shadow is exactly Ymir’s true form, a stream of pure information current.
With his split soul’s departure, it was time for Mordred to amass as much combat power as possible. “If my calculation is correct, the two years preparation time for killing Lord Erebus might be cut significantly.” He turned back, facing the rank 2 lizardmen chieftain. “Thazk, go pillage and capture beasts or other races, but first… you’ll be having a contract with these elementals.”
Thazk, the lizardmen chieftain, expresses joy with his lips. The remaining elementals which are not used as materials or had fallen during the refinement of Ymir numbered 13. He immediately picked twelve of the strongest lizardmen other than himself and presented himself before Mordred.
“My Lord…” He kneeled.
“I’ll teach you how to communicate with lightning elementals. The first step is…” Mordred paused his words. He then turned away and squinted his eyes towards the direction of Mount Kashada. “Let’s do this in your house. You return first.” He waved his hand.
Thazk nodded in acknowledgement. He immediately dispersed the crowd as he led the twelve lizardmen towards the tribe’s largest house.
As for Mordred, he kept on squinting his eyes towards the dark blue mountain that should house a rank 3 giant-class beast above. “A prying method to sense me across timelines, a clairvoyance?” He shook his head. “That entity might only be interested in the birth of an Ekatroncheiron…”
Earlier, Mordred felt an effort of spying across great distances that uses the axis of time as a reference point. Unfortunately for them, Mordred has myriad methods to defend against prying and deductions. Thus, their methods are increasingly more powerful, which means sacrificing stealth for better investigative power, resulting in Mordred recognizing their effort.
“This sensation… as if a rank 3 Legendary used their method.” Mordred tossed the idea of retaliating aside very quickly. A rank 3 entity is something that is too hard for him to handle at the moment, even if he is near-similar in terms of combat power to an entire rank higher in his current state. It is better for him to focus on the task at hand. “Thazk told me the mountain is home to a large-class beast, the Capricious Thunderbird and its descendants… I’ll remember this.” Mordred gripped his hand tight as he followed Thazk’s footsteps.
