The Last Dainv

"Hey, Gale," Kyle said. "Can you smell and taste where this guy came from?"

Gale extended Presence Between's tendrils outward, searching for the scent trail. The dead man's signature may be gone, obliterated even, by a blast of fire and anger, but his residue lives on, presence lingering even after his death.

It was time for the Dark Hunter to shine in times of need. The times where the hunt was clearly on.

The trail led further into the crevasse, deeper into the canyon system where shadows lurk as the light at the end of the tunnel could be seen. His scent was acidic blood-like if that made any sense.

Why would a man carry the scent of blood? But it was obvious. It was in the name of the Blood Blade Sect.

"Gale," Rachel said.

Gale saluted, stopping his own internal monologuing even though it was just getting to the good part. Pointing towards the end of the crevasse, he said, "Trail leads forward. He came from deeper inside."

"Well, ok. Let's finish up mining all of this first," Rachel said, cracking her knuckles again. "Stupid floating bluey..."

"Go on, children. Mine the mines," Erin said.

Lily walked over to Gale and held out the Fraedium gem. "Put this in your space storage. Don't want to lose it."

Taking the gem from her hand, Gale dematerialized it into a separate slot. The greenish blue glow disappeared as it entered his storage.

Rachel turned toward the remaining Yinidium vein and started punching again. Controlled explosions tore chunks from the canyon wall. Each piece fell, and Gale dematerialized them before they hit the ground.

An hour passed.

Most of the vein had been blasted out. The silvery-brass swirls that had covered the canyon wall now sat in Gale's space storage, waiting to be refined and to be used by Glory Industries under Grand Researcher Erin of the Weber Conglomerate.

And in a sudden stroke of luck, Gale saw the glint of the remaining chunk embedded in the rock near the corner of the vein.

It was about the size of a watermelon. It was too small for Rachel to want to blast it away into smaller chunks.

Perfect size for Erebus, the pickaxe of doom, to finally shine and prove itself to be stronger than an Efficiency V diamond pickaxe.

He walked up to the wall and raised the pickaxe above his head. The weight felt perfect in his hands. Falling down into the rock, the surrounding Yinidium chunk crunched as the stone cracked. One more swing, and the chunk fell free from the wall, making him smile wide.

All it took was two hits. It would have taken multiple hits in minecraft.

"Happy now?" Rachel asked.

"Most definitely utmost happy."

"Good. Now track where the body came from."

Taking point once more, he led the group deeper into the crevasse. It was straight all the way through, no narrowing or anything. After about twenty minutes of straight walking, the light at the end of the tunnel could be seen.

Gale ran for it and the others followed him.

When they came out, more sand dunes came into view.

"Why did you run?!" Rachel asked.

"It was the light at the end of the tunnel..." Gale muttered.

Rachel took a deep breath, then shook her head. "Fine. Can you still sense where the man came from?"

Gale extended his tendrils and sniffed the air with Presence Between. The dead man's scent trail was still there, strong and definitely followable, as if the man didn't even use any temperature sigil or anything to control his own temperature.

"The man was sweating a lot," Gale said. "How come?"

"Jiuling usually don't use climate control," Kyle shrugged.

"And no climate control means no snack while on rift raids," Clyde said.

"That's normal for Jiuling," Rachel said. "The Blue Witches and Salem Witches are kind of popular for desert rifts because of their temperature sigils. But the Jiuling refuses to ask for help from the Knights or Path. They won't use anyone who can provide climate control if it means working with other factions."

"Tradition is the way," Kyle said. "We must suffer as our ancestors suffered. Sweat is honour. Heatstroke is glory."

"Stop that," Lily said.

"I'm just saying that's how they are."

"You're being an idiot."

"Am I wrong though?"

"He's not wrong though," Clyde said.

"Shut up," Lily elbowed Kyle.

The group continued through the sand dunes, following the scent trail that Gale kept tracking with his tendrils. The dead man had been running, based on the spacing of his sweat droplet scents that had already dried up. He was probably running towards the rift entrance, but why the hurry?

Two more hours passed, and the terrain changed again.

The sand dunes gave way to harder ground. Giant rocks jutted up from the earth in sharp spikes. Each spike rose at around 30 to 45 degree angle from where they originated from the sand. Each one was about as tall as the Eiffel Tower, maybe even taller, probably.

Gale had only seen pictures of the Eiffel Tower in books, but based on how small the humans were compared to the tower, these hundreds of spikes were probably about the same. And he could feel something inside them.

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There was a sort of resonance inside them, similar energy as the Fraedium gem that Lily had given him, covered in a rocky exterior.

"There's something weird about this," Kyle said.

"Yeah," Clyde said. "It's too quiet. We already know those Blood Blade bastards are using Fraedium gems for a ritual, probably. So where are they? Why isn't anyone guarding this place?"

"The twins' observation is astute," Erin floated forward. "It is highly possible that the Blood Blade Sect is using Fraedium gems for ritualistic purposes. Fraedium can contain a large amount of multiple types of energy at once, making it ideal for complex spell functions. However, what is strange is that Aur does not have any technology nor spells to utilize Fraedium gems. The knowledge of their properties should be unknown."

"No point in thinking about it," Rachel said. "Ollie isn't here with us. No one to ask questions about current Aur tech. We'll figure it out when we get back."

Lily crossed her arms. "If Rachel destroys one of those things to get what's inside, that's going to cause a lot of commotion. Those spikes are huge. The quake would be felt from kilometres away."

"We only need Fraedium the size of a small shed," Erin said. "Each fragment is incredibly dense and will suffice for our use case. A controlled extraction from one of the smaller spikes should be sufficient."

"Which one's the smallest?" Rachel asked.

Gale's Presence Between extended to look at each spike that jutted out. They were all enormous. None was any smaller than the previous. The smallest one would be only just a couple of tens of metres shorter than the tallest one.

"All of them are big," Gale said. "How about we dig into it instead of exploding it?"

"That actually works," Rachel said.

"Coolio," Kyle said.

The group started walking toward the spike field. Gale kept his tendrils extended, sweeping for any signatures that might indicate Blood Blade presence.

Walking for a few minutes, it was clearly obvious that they weren't getting any closer. Even as they walked, the landscape didn't change. Only the feeling of walking was clear.

Presence Between didn't feel the distance decreasing at all. However, it felt their surroundings move, except for those in the distance.

"Hold on," Lily said. "Are those things getting any closer to you guys?"

"Yep. Felt it too," Kyle said. "Not this shit again."

"For once, I agree with you," Rachel said, tightening her fist.

Erin raised her hand above her head.

A complex magic circle formed in the air, expanding outward until it covered the entire area above them as far as the eye could see.

Gale had no idea what any of the patterns meant, but it was obvious what it was about to do.

It pulsed once, a full arcane signature that bored down on the whole area.

Then, it faded as fast as it came.

Just like that, the trap array completely dissipated, at least that's what Gale assumed.

"Well," Kyle said. "That was anti-climactic."

"The primitive trap array has been dealt with," Erin said, lowering her hand. "The spatial distortion was elementary in design. A child's toy compared to proper dimensional manipulation. Make haste and mine the Fraedium gems."

Clyde saluted. "Aye aye, captain! Haste shall be made!"

"My title is Grand Researcher," Erin said. "Not captain. Address me properly and do not imagine any other titles for my designation."

"Aye aye, Grand Researcher!"

"Your acknowledgement is acknowledged."

Rachel grumbled. Something about wanting to eat blueberries, though blueberries had nothing to do with this mission. Waving her hand at the group, she pointed to the nearest spike.

"Just go," she said.

The team moved. This time, they were actually moving closer to the object they walked to. The array had completely vanished by whatever Erin did. The spike that had looked huge in the background had suddenly come closer and closer until he had to crane his neck up to see the top.

It was larger than he expected. Definitely bigger than the Eiffel Tower.

"Gale," Lily said. "You're up."

"Start mining," Rachel added. "Make it quick."

Gale materialized Erebus in pickaxe form and approached the spike. The rocky exterior looked thick, but his tendrils told him it was only a couple of inches deep. Beyond that were the gems.

If the alloys weren't sellable, maybe gems were since they were shiny. But that thought was for later.

The pickaxe swung in an arc of pure precision engineered swing. Gale made that up too. That wasn't part of the vanilla minecraft experience.

A satisfying crunch echoed across the spike field as stone cracked and fell away bit by bit to reveal what was inside. A small hole showed the greenish blue underneath.

Gale worked his way around the hole, expanding it swing by swing. The pickaxe rose and fell, creating a square on the exterior.

After about ten minutes, the square hole was about the size of a small shed. Four more swings at each corner sent accurate cracks to each corner that made the perfect cube.

Using Alter, he willed the gem to move with his hand as he pulled it free from the main deposit. Once it was out, he deposited it into his space storage.

The payload was successfully secured.

"Excellent work, child," Erin said. "Now dig up another one of the same size. Extras are always useful for redundancy and experimentation."

"Another one?" Rachel asked.

"Redundancy is the foundation of reliable engineering. If one fails, a backup must be available. Additionally, we do not want to waste this chance for a deposit of this size. Extras are always welcome."

Gale shrugged. More mining meant more fun. Before he could swing his pickaxe again, Presence Between caught something approaching at a high rate of speed.

Multiple signatures, 8 of them, approaching fast from the south.

Three Resonant and five attuned.

"Shields!" Gale shouted.

Lily reacted instantly. Blue barriers materialized in front of the group just as a volley of daggers came whistling through the air. The blades slammed into her shields and bounced off, each one lodging itself into the sand.

"Enemy contact!" Kyle yelled. "Gale, hurry up and get that backup!"

No time for pickaxe. Time to do this the old fashioned way.

Focusing on the Fraedium gem, he willed Alter to be shaped into a cube along the inside of the Fraedium gem. The size would be shed sized. He activated Alter, then willed the skill to slightly compress in size before using Alter once again to pull out the cube from its deposit.

Once that was done, he dematerialized it into space storage. Compared to mining for 5 whole minutes, this process only took 5 seconds.

Payload secured. Mission complete once again.

"Why didn't you do that in the first place?!" Clyde shouted, firing his rifle at an oncoming Jiuling operative. The shot hit the man in the shoulder, spinning him around but not dropping him.

"I wanted to play pickaxe," Gale said.

"Are you serious right now?!" Lily shouted.

"Leave him alone!" Rachel shouted, green fire already gathering at her fists. "He's having fun!"

Dozens of daggers whistled through the air, hitting Lily's shield uselessly once again. The Jiuling operatives closed in fast, their Blood Qi coating their swords as well as the daggers they threw.

"Leave one of them alive for questioning!" Lily yelled. "Rachel, you're on suicide prevention duty! Make sure whoever we capture can't kill themselves!"

"Got it!"

The team moved.

Clyde aimed his sniper once again at the approaching Resonant. The man was fast, but not fast enough for his perfect aim. One squeeze of the trigger, and the Resonant's head popped.

"Oh shit, these Weber guns are OP," he muttered.

"The armaments I have crafted for the team are meant for the subjugation of the tide. Your surprise is unsurprising," Erin said.

Lily's deagle tracked an Attuned who tried flanking them from the left. Two quick fires, one to the head and one to the chest, took down the operative immediately.

Rachel lunged forward. Distance crossed in a split second. Green fire trailed from her fist. Grabbed the Resonant's head, put him face down on the ground, and engulfed him in green fire, which also knocked him out simultaneously.

"Got our prisoner!" Rachel shouted.

Gale swung Erebus twice. Two reflections shot out from the blade, crescent waves of darkness carving through the air. The first one caught two Attuned operatives in a line. The second one sliced the third Attuned in half.

[Jiuling Swordsman felled.]

[Extracting Origin from Prey...]

[Jiuling Swordsman felled.]

[Extracting Origin from Prey...]

[Jiuling Swordsman felled.]

[Extracting Origin from Prey...]

Kyle's dagger whistled through the air, spinning end over end toward one of the remaining operatives. The man tried to dodge, but Kyle blinked before it reached him and then redirected the dagger to his skull.

Blink once again. Pistol already pointed at the last remaining operative. One shot, dead.

All in all, it took probably less than a minute to dismantle the group of Jiuling.

Everyone gathered at the Resonant Jiuling operative who had been knocked out by Rachel. She looked at Kyle and Clyde with a face of annoyance, as they were the only ones probably capable of extracting any kind of information from the man on the ground.

"You ok, flaming anger?" Kyle asked.

"I hate you so much right now," Rachel said.