Symbiotic Ascension : A Progression Fantasy Adventure

"Another dimension, then." Glenn rubbed the corner of his eyes. "Strangely, that doesn't surprise me."

"That makes three known dimensions, then." Milena counted on her fingers. "The real world- or Limbo, the Beyond, and the Outer Space."

Glenn raised his head, recalling his "viewing" of Diamanes' memories and the Dead God in space. "Are we even sure it's another dimension? I have really good reasons to think the Outer Space is just a pretty name for, well, space."

Nelg shook his head. "I know what you're thinking about, and no." He looked at Glenn's left, purple hand and smirked. "My best guess is that the resident monster over there made a mistake."

Diamanes scoffed. "Sure, buddy. Why don't you go play with daddy flat-Earth in the corner of the room, hmm?"

Nelg crossed his arms, smug. "Prove me wrong, then."

Diamanes paused, silent. An awkward moment passed until Lucian cleared his throat. "So we know the Gods live in an 'Outer Space', which might or might not be another dimension. And we know that because Nelg followed souls passing away."

"That's more or less correct," Nelg groaned, " But I'll let you have it."

Lucian shook his head, bewildered. "What are we even going to do with this information? You guys want to commit deicide? Aren't our souls going to be banished to the pits of hell or whatever else Onnea and the rest have in stock?"

Milena sneered. "She'd be such a bitch to do that, after everything we've done for her and this world!"

Everyone looked at the young woman in awe. She stared back and waved her hand dismissively. "What? Excuse me from having a little crisis of faith, okay?"

"This is good progress," Liara carefully changed the subject. "Nelg, anything else you learned you'd care to share while we're there?"

Nelg shook his head. "Nope. My research has reached a standstill, and I'm currently looking for a breakthrough. Maybe I'll discover a hint in those black flames, Glenn and you wield." He glanced at Sahro. "And that katana, too."

Sahro clenched the weapon tightly, suspicious. "What do you want to do with it?"

Nelg shrugged. "Study it. Try it. Test it. All sorts of things. I doubt I'd be able to break it, considering it can survive that crazy attack you used earlier."

The Black Heirs reluctantly nodded. "I'll find a way to kill you if you so much as scratch the blade," he warned. Nelg raised his eyebrows at that, amused.

"Good luck with that."

The W.O.R.M. came to a sudden stop, the heavy machinery grumbling. "We have arrived," announced Javier's digital voice.

A door appeared to the side of the room, pushing itself through the wall. It opened back into the pyramid that Lucian, Liara, and Milena had previously visited. The three quickly did a resume of their short but surprising passage in there for Glenn, Sahro, Nelg, and Decimius, who was listening more out of politeness than curiosity.

Glenn stared at the pale, creepy bastard standing nearby, waiting for them. "So this was all your plan, then, Javier." His voice was somber, a little rough even.

Javier nodded slowly, grabbing a piece of paper and scribbling on it.

"It was the only way. To accomplish the will of the Twin Sisters and give this world a chance."

"You're oddly confident in those Goddesses of yours," remarked Sahro, his thumb rapping against the hilt of his katana. Javier shrugged and pointed at the white tree the W.O.R.M. had gobbled earlier.

"Glenn, if you can transport this with your powers."

Glenn silently complied, using Gravity Manipulation to carefully lift the marble sculpture and make it float right beside the group. They followed Javier into the pyramid, inviting curious stares from its inhabitants, all Pale Sons that had migrated from King's Rise to here, the middle of nowhere in the worst desert of the world.

'Not that you know about many deserts,' remarked Diamanes.

'Why don't you just shut up, hmm?'

"In here, in the socket." Javier scribbled before pointing at a weird hole in the ground. Glenn gently guided the sculpted tree, which perfectly fit in. They all looked around in expectation with awe, but nothing happened.

"Is that it?" Milena asked, unnerved. "I thought there'd be something grand, but..."

Javier shook his head and pointed at Liara and Sahro. "Liara, on the white tree. Sahro, run to the other side of the pyramid. Count a hundred breaths and infuse your Aura in the black tree."

Sahro begrudginly darted away while Liara pressed her hand against the sculpture. "I suppose I must infuse my Aura too." She shook her head. "I can't. I can only use my Mana now."

Javier nodded and scribbled some more. "That's fine. It just needs to be a special Black Heir's energy."

Liara nodded, tense. Glenn crossed his arms, watching intently. Even Milena looked entranced, too curious to know what was going to happen. Only Lucian was wandering around, asking mundane questions to the Pale Sons and just enjoying life like always.

"What. Happening?" Decimius grunted to Nelg.

"I have no idea," shrugged Nelg. "But it's probably going to be interesting."

Eventually, a hundred breaths passed, and Liara infused her Mana into the sculpture, Sahro doing the same with his Aura on the other side of the pyramid. Silver light trickled out of the branches, like sap out of a real tree. But then, maybe it was a real tree, just weirder than usual trees.

'You have weird thoughts sometimes, you know that?' Diamanes mocked, spying in Glenn's mind shamelessly.

"Let me enjoy whatever this is, okay?" He muttered back, staring at the silver sap. It trickled on the ground, ignoring the black sand and finding its way to a water channel. A sap channel might be more accurate when he thought back to it. They all followed the silver sap as it slowly progressed through the pyramid, filling in more channels and illuminating the interior with a beautiful, dreamy silver hue.

This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it

Glenn dashed through the air and found the same scenery on the other side of the pyramid, where Sahro had been. The Black Heir looked shocked in the distance, similarly following the silver sap like a dog stalking its prey.

The sap formed a circle around the center of the pyramid, forming a sort of symbol. The sap then moved inside the circle, turning into a beautiful spiral. It rose in the air with a shimmering glow.

"What is happening, Javier?" Glenn asked in a low voice, a little worried on the side.

Javier shook his head, even smirking a bit. Glenn almost doubted his eyes at that. It was already hard to come to terms with the fact that the silent hunter was alive, but him smiling? Was the end of the world nigh?

The silver sap coagulated mid-air until it turned into a sort of crystal tears. The sap returned to the ground, still flowing through the channels but not doing anything else. Liara and Sahro flew up to the crystal tear, exchanging a look before grabbing it at the same time.

Ting!

A clear sound echoed through the pyramid. The black sand trembled and receded into the ground, like water flowing seeping through cracks. The silver sap shone bright once more, chasing away the black sand. The pyramid shook and moved.

"Javier, where's the exit?!" Glenn yelled, his Mana surging out in preparation.

But again, Javier simply shook his head, his arms crossed. Glenn gritted his teeth and prepared a relatively non-destructive spell, a Solar Flare. 'That'll be enough to make a hole through the ceiling!'

Just as he was about to cast it, he heard it.

The sound of water flowing.

It was so foreign, so bizarre to hear water that Glenn lost control of his spell, letting it dissipate harmlessly. The center of the pyramid rumbled, a hole opening in the ground. Glenn barely had the time to blink before an incredible amount of water surged out of it.

"Water? Was the pyramid sitting on a water source?" Milena shouted over the rumbling water.

Lucian shook his head, composed and smiling. "No, no, this isn't it. The Ink Dunes only have a few oases and sources of water, and they've all already been mapped with the help of our water mages. This place doesn't even figure on the map.

Glenn hastily activated his Mana Sight and almost choked on his saliva at what he saw.

An absurdly massive quantity of Mana was flooding into the pyramid, all disappearing down the hole at the center. The ceiling shook and creaked open, the sound of a mechanism echoing through the pyramid. Glenn didn't waste the opportunity and immediately shot for the exit. The sunlight was crushing down on him with violent heat, yet that same heat was chased away by the freshness of the exploding water.

Liara and Sahro flew next to him, followed by Milena, Lucian, and Decimius. Javier was standing on the side of the pyramid with a satisfied smile.

The water flowed over the pyramid's walls, falling into the desert. But instead of being consumed by the black sand, seeping through the ground and disappearing, it had the same effect as inside the structure. The black dunes melted, turned into flat, fertile land. The desert collapsed as the River of Life returned, propagating through ancient channels long forgotten.

Glenn gasped and lit up his Observer. The puzzle was complete, and he could finally understand it.

The ruined towers spread randomly around the desert weren't so random. They were there to act like Mana relays, the most outward towers grabbing Mana and sending it down the system. That same Mana was sent to the center pyramid, the River of Life, where it was then spread back in a water form filled with energy and life.

For the first time, black sand turned into brown dirt, and plants grew over the once sterile ground. Ferns sprouted out, followed by small trees that simply kept on stretching out for the sky. The air was charged with humidity and Mana, favoring rapid growth.

As far as Glenn could see, the black desert turned green.

That's when he heard it.

Liara's laughter.

The Black Heiress was laughing widely, tears trickling down her face. Tears of happiness, of disbelief at watching the Ink Dunes become that mythical land her father spoke of, like a distant legend. Sahr was silent, his lips sealed, but his eyes laughed as well, wet from emotions.

In front of their very eyes, life returned to the Ink Dunes, regaining its old name little by little, dune by dune.

Thalorieth.

Almost as if echoing that thought, the pyramid shook again, the silver sap surging out right next to the infinite water source. The sap coagulated again in a much thicker material, yet somewhat illusory. The silver light rose and rose, growing taller than the pyramid itself. A gigantic tree of silver bloomed over their heads, casting a miraculous silver glow over them.

Sahro stared at his hands as his skin turned as black as Milena's, while Liara turned as pale as Glenn's. Both had their ears sharpened, the symbol on their foreheads glimmered with that same silver glow, their features refined and sharpened until it was clear they weren't Black Heirs anymore.

Black elves, white elves.

Thalorieth, the elven Kingdom, had finally returned to the world.

***

"This is impossible. Impossible, I say!"

The gold dragon smashed his paw on the granite table, failing to damage it. "First, Sevirox returns, reopening the Horizon Gates, and now Thalorieth comes alive again? How, Onnea, how?!"

An otherworldly beauty sighed, rubbing her forehead painfully. "This... This is outside of all my calculations, Plutus."

"Does this require our physical presence? Must I force you to remember that every second counts?" A bearded sage shouted, a heavy tome strapped to his waist.

A warrior covered in thick leather armor and with countless weapons strapped to his back leaned back in his stone chair. "What are you all worried about? Isn't it time to let go of past grudges anyway? He almost returned. We can't afford to spread chaos with the mortals, can we? Not that it wouldn't benefit me, but I'm trying to look at the greater whole here."

"Bloodblade, this might be the first time you say something sensible," grumbled Plutus. "But we can't possibly allow these old secrets out again. Look at what it did with D three thousand years ago! And now, that same fiend is back!"

"He's not back," corrected Onnea. "I watch over his traces quite carefully, and there are... almost no proofs of his resurgence."

A somber laugh echoed over the table, and they turned to the man sitting at the furthest end. Draped in a black satin cloak, his face hidden under a hood and a scythe resting on his shoulder, he had a presence that none of them could ignore.

"Who sows the wind reaps the storm," he said. "So many 'dead' things coming back to life, it makes you wonder if they were truly dead to begin with, right?"

The Divine Sage scratched his beard, grimacing. "We're not mortals, Nergal, there's no need to be cryptic. Tell us what you know, or leave us be. You've always been opposed to our plans from the start anyway!"

Onnea hid her face in her hands, sighing heavily. "It isn't time for dispute, brothers. Our time is counted. We must do what we need to do, understood?"

Suddenly, an unnaturally thin, weak man appeared in one of the two empty stone chairs, hugging his knees. He was covered in wounds and blood, and thorny vines seemed to sprout from his flesh.

"Fools," he hissed. "You know he will return and set things back to how they were. You shouldn't have just watched back then, you shouldn't! And when he comes back, he will, he will..." Epinos made a manic grin as he ran his thumb across his neck.

All around the table stared at Epinos as he laughed by himself. Nergal stood and pressed his skeletal hands on the table.

"I will do what is expected of me, what is right. I can't say I expect you all to do the same." He shook his head. "But it doesn't matter. Do not forget, friends. Death comes to everyone all the same way. Fighting it is only delaying the inévitable. And once that death comes, I will help you all accept it, just like the responsibilities you're all fleeing from."

He turned to Epinos and hardened his tone. "...Even you, little brother."

Epinos spat on the ground a clot of hardened blood, his eyes filled with hatred. "Return to the darkness you crawled out from, brother. You're the worst of them all."

Nergal simply wrapped his cloak around himself and disappeared, swallowed by the shadows. Onnea sighed and tapped lightly on the table, dismissing all participants, even Epinos. She sat alone, staring at the seat on the other side of the table. A crumbling hole was widening in the backrest of the seat, dark-green Corruption eating at the stone little by little.

The hole had grown wider since their last meeting. The Goddess looked at the starry sky above and joined her hands together.

"Have I done the right thing?" She whispered inquisitively.

But only silence replied to her.

And the hole crumbled wider.