Chapter 23 - Limbo
A Tomb Creeper was a five-meter-tall creature of moss and grey tiles, and red, stretchy flesh acted like glue between them.
It was built like a turtle, and when it shrank, it took the form of a large, mossy boulder, hard to distinguish from the surroundings. Its snappy jaw bit at the barrier surrounding the expedition base. The area around the bite had created some cracks.
How did it even get here? Liesel frowned. It could have only wandered out from the deepest layer of the Necropolis, where the tomb was.
It should only be a rank 2 demon, which posed no threat, except for its camouflage in certain terrain and its ability to mask its presence from an observer.
"Can you kill it?" Liesel asked.
"It's a weird creature. I will have to destroy almost all of its body to kill it."
"I can take care of it. You should let your nerves rest; they'll have to work hard in the afternoon."
"I can immobilize him."
Liesel raised a brow. That's not a common spell for an offensive-type mage. Though even a barrier spell should be out of the ordinary for Fiya, who seemed to be practiced in corridor cleaning spells.
A spell circle manifested over the mage's hand, slowly and deliberately. Without the barrier, she would've died.
Liesel stepped out of the ward from the right side of the Tomb Creeper, unsheathing her sword. Her nerves were still aching from last night's reckless charge, but the Materiality slipped through them with ease, entering her fingers and into the tip of her blade.
The creeper turned towards her, slow and heavy. Its jaw dropped, and from its throat, a light glowed. And it shot at Liesel like a concentrated sunray. She stepped to the side, as Fiya also stepped out of the barrier from behind the demon and conjured silver chains from the ground that tied the creature down.
That's stronger than the Assassin's. Liesel marveled at its strength as the demon stretched its neck and bit the chain, failing to break it.
It snapped its head towards her when she neared it, before it could've bit, Liesel stabbed her broken sword through the lower jaw, pinning it to the ground.
It would have been hard alone, but with a mage, it was easier.
Liesel stared at Fiya, who was probably waiting for her to finish off the demon.
"Why don't you wait inside?" Liesel suggested.
Fiya shook her head. "I don't get an upset stomach from watching demons die."
I doubt anyone's that weak-willed... Liesel held those words to herself.
"Guess so," Liesel said. She drew Materiality into her hand. It formed the Unravelling Rune. She settled her hand onto the Tomb Creeper's head. Fiya eyed her curiously. The rune burst into trailing energy on the surface of the demon's body like lightning streaks, multiplying each time it blinked across its body, until the entire body was covered in white energy. It then split into hundreds of thousands of hair-thin strands of energy and soaked into her hand.
Except for the tiny amount of blood on the ground, she had absorbed most likely more than a ton of mass into her soul.
Fiya's eyes were as round as cups.
"Don't tell others about it," Liesel said, grinning slightly. "It's pretty useless in an actual battle."
Fiya nodded dumbly before asking, "What did you do?"
"I can store energy, and at some point, it will accumulate into an attribute point," Liesel answered. She didn't consider herself an apt judge of character, but she liked to go along with her gut feelings. Fiya didn't seem like the type to spread rumors. Half-convincing lies were better than desperate attempts at hiding, and that would've only wasted this opportunity of absorbing such a unique creature. If a few people around her knew, she'd be much more comfortable. She'd have to hint at
"That sounds useful."
"It will eventually help me out, I hope, but for now, it is just a bothersome job that I have to remind myself every time I have to kill a demon."
[Analysis and Extraction process started
Estimated Time: 18 Hours]
Liesel cursed under her breath. Almost an entire day.
"Can you not use your skill on the Door Guardian?" Fiya asked.
"I have to defeat the demon. So long as it has the will to fight, it doesn't work. And ff the guardian can resist your magic, I doubt this skill would be helpful."
Fiya nodded. "I don't mean to be nosy, but you are not a Swordman Archetype. What's your real Archetype?"
Liesel shrugged, smiling slightly. "I don't have enough skill to be considered any Archetype."
Fiya frowned. "You don't..." There was a horror in her voice behind the awe. "But you are so much stronger than Sarkot or Garvin. Even Kurvam."
The life that Liesel was supposed to lead, and the mantle that she should've worn by now, the crusaders she should be commanding, compared to that, she was a failure. As much as she felt strong and valuable among this expedition team or the Rand Company, her peers wouldn't see that as worth their notice.
Liesel turned back and returned to the base. To be compared to random ascendants of the Iron League was in itself an insult. It should be a given.
Liesel exhaled as she checked her sword. It was still not dry.
"Did I say something rude?" Fiya asked, standing at the door. Probably the first time she respected that boundary.
"No," Liesel replied. "I just remembered about the sword."
That was a lie. She was imagining, purely as a mental exercise, what role she would have played in the wake of the Celestial Graveyard's disaster. Not longingly, because even if she were given another opportunity, she'd not join the White Crusader army. The girl who hoped for that life was dead. The Laks Empire that she saw no longer existed. It never had, but she had been given the vague notion of.
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And she knew she had no attachment to that dream because the Mindeater forced her to live them, and she felt nothing. So she couldn't possibly have any attachment towards them, either fondly or remorsely. It was simply a fact.
Or perhaps, surviving the Mindeater's magic was a simple act of mental exercise. Because she surely felt pain there, even if that didn't make her react.
Liesel clasped the sword's case shut, as well as the faucet of creeping worries in her mind.
*******
Smoke drifted off the steel surface of the Door Guardian. The ice beneath its feet shattered, and the cracks trailed all the way into the mist. It had used the sword to guard against the spell and succeeded fairly easily. There was no indicator of their progress from a creature with no pain receptors and impenetrable armor. It remained steady, unbothered, as if mocking the mage's failure.
Fiya's right hand was red. She was gasping for breath as she stared in disbelief. Blood trickled out of her nose, which she wiped with the sleeve of her left arm. Mixed with the sweat on her face, there were actual tears. It had taken over fifteen minutes to weave that spell. And over a minute to cast it, and for that minute, all the energy used in the spell coursed through Fiya's Soul Vein.
"I don't know what else I am supposed to do."
This time, the spell was above and beyond her level. Just performing it was a marvel, even if it was far from perfect. Her left hand kept swelling from the overdraw. It was slowly taking a shade redder than before.
"Breathe, Fiya." Liesel rested her hand on Fiya's back. The mage's entire body was shaking. It slowly calmed as Liesel circled her hand on her back.
"It's not your fault that it is so strong," Liesel said. "You were exceptional. Beyond what should be expected of you."
She was sure this spell could kill the Guardian after dissolving its magical resistance. Now, she felt a little compelled to use it once Fiya had recovered. It seemed impossible to kill the Guardian by herself. She could never match the destructive output of the mage.
There has to be a way. The Custodian couldn't have given me an impossible quest.
She held this belief deeply, even though Auram had made it clear the Custodian was acting on his urgency rather than actual reality. And even reminding herself of that fact did little to convince her otherwise.
"You can take her back to the base," Liesel said to Verka. There were only four people here other than Liesel, and the remainder were resting at the base from exhaustion. They had managed to hunt over sixty Materiality Cores today, but sustained too many injuries and spent too much energy to stick with the group.
"Are you planning on injuring yourself futilely again?" Verka asked.
Liesel didn't answer. No answer could be considered appropriate after all. She hadn't sustained any lasting injury today, though. A few superficial cuts, and she learned that Layering was still a tier below where it could be useful in any capacity in battle. She could finally see the trail of its blade, as her body had finally adapted to its speed and strength. It was still far from where she'd say she was actually standing on comparable footing. Without the ability to step away from the Guardian's red line, she'd have been sliced hundreds of times by this point.
Auram was there, observing her every action with some worry. Liesel would prefer to be alone, but she didn't have the heart to turn away the spirit.
"Fur misses you," Auram said.
Liesel nodded. They were on their way back to the base.
"Are they taking care of him?"
"He's Moonblessed. That's one thing you don't have to worry about, but at this rate, he's going to lose his capacity to hunt. I try to keep him reminded, he is your companion, but that's another thing I am not sure he will remember."
"I will take him to the forest after the expedition. But for now, it's better he stays in the quarters," Liesel saw that problem. She wasn't sure what she could do with the giant bear. He was not a steed by any stretch of the imagination. If they were crossing a river, he might be useful, but on land, she was better off buying or renting a trained steed.
What am I supposed to do about him?
She didn't say it aloud. Auram might not like that answer.
She reached the base without any trouble, mostly thanks to Auram. The healer had been too exhausted to heal her today, so Liesel cleaned the wound and bandaged it. She was back in time for dinner, so Fiya and Yehia had their dinner in her room.
Fiya was having trouble using her non-dominant hand to eat, so Yehia basically started feeding her like a two-year-old.
They also played board games and complained about today's outrageous situation the entire time. That was also only Yehia. It did help Fiya ease after showing her vulnerable side in the Necropolis and having someone feed her.
"What about your hand?" Liesel asked. Fiya's hand had not healed even slightly.
"Sir Borran says I should heal naturally over the next few days. He performed a ritual that should boost my natural healing capacity until then."
"You should not push yourself so hard. It is not the only expedition of your life," Liesel said. "Even if it fails, as long as you can keep growing, the future jobs will be a success."
Natural healing was sort of a last-resort thing. It meant that the soul veins were damaged to the point that even external healing magic would damage them further.
"Says you," Yehia snorted. "I get why she's so reckless, but you? I don't have a single clue."
"Training," Liesel shrugged. She settled the plate on the floor. "Until it is destroyed, I cannot pass up on the treasure trove of training."
"You are insane," Yehia exhaled. "You're strong enough as you are. In your circumstances, I'd have taken a chill guard job for a prison... or even an instructor job. You seem to know your shit. I don't know, there are like ten different subjects they'd accept you in. Why are you trying so hard to become stronger, Liesel?"
"Why shouldn't I?" Liesel answered. "I just cannot imagine a future where I'd regret being stronger."
"Oh, that's a naive belief," Yehia smirked. "Take it from me, once you are old, like really old, you will regret not spending more time living life instead of... in your case, torturing yourself constantly."
Liesel said. "I find everything magic-related to be fun. It is the only life I would choose to live, rather than any other."
The only other life she had known was even less dignified than this one, with even less power, and more often than not, very painful. The life she lived now, at least for her, was easier than the mundane one she had been offered after her mother passed away. It was a year, and she had no memory of anything happening. She was dead in a different way, a decaying corpse grinding away for no purpose.
They left after jumping onto a few more uninteresting topics.
Liesel couldn't practice Layering after what she had done last night. Her exhaustion dragged her into a restless slumber. She woke up somewhat late. By that time, the analysis had been completed.
[Materiality: 100/100
You can forge a Materiality Core.]
The system informed her. It hadn't taken many days in the grand scheme of things, but she was aware that her growth had already come to a screeching halt. The only reason it reached one hundred was because of the unravelled soul. That boosted the total by ten units. At one hundred, she could form a core, and that would put her on the ladder of cultivation, well below anyone on the expedition, but unimaginably higher than where she currently stood.
But Liesel was not going to do it right now. She had only one way to close the gap between her and them. Instead of forming a core at one hundred or two hundred units, she wanted to boost her soul's regrowth and then gather at least a thousand or even two thousand units of Materiality to create the Materiality Core. That should compensate for the gap in energy she currently has. At the same time, it would allow her to pick stronger skills later down the line.
[Soul Analysis and Extraction process completed!
Soul of a youngling Tomb Creeper
Materiality Extracted: 1603
Aspect: Flesh Mutation.
Possible Attribute Absorption:
Strength: +3
Constitution: +2
Perception: +4
Excess Materiality has been disposed of.
Aspect cannot be absorbed (Soul Weaving Skill Required)
Pick an Attribute to align the residue energy.]
Liesel pursed her lips. The Constitution was the attribute she should be advancing. It was the most important, if not the only necessary attribute she needed to grow out of her fragile condition, but she couldn't waste this opportunity. The Constitution wouldn't give her anything worth instantly. Perception, however, especially when she would need it for her next Archetype Skill, seemed compulsory.
[Perception Alignment process started!
Estimated Time: 19 hours 15 minutes]