13-35. Pillars of the Dead
In the end, it took nearly two weeks for Benedict to finish the project. When Elijah went back to collect the new book, he once again asked Benedict to accompany him. But the answer was the same. So it happened that Elijah set out on his own, plunging into the corrupted terrain and leaving Dravkein behind.
Idly, he wondered if he’d ever see it again.
If everything went according to plan, he would. But looking back, Elijah couldn’t deny just how infrequently events followed his intentions. He was prepared for that to happen once again.
Still, he took a few moments to stop and regard the town that had given him so much hope. He could have survived without ever visiting Dravkein, but not well. And certainly not easily. In addition, learning more about the excised world of Gorveth had provided enough information to set him on a path that he hoped would lead him to escaping the planet.
But a lot would need to go right for that plan to come to fruition, and he knew it wouldn’t happen without significant sacrifice. If he managed to return to Earth, it would not be soon.
He would return though. One way or another. Not to save his friends and family. Their fate was already written, and he had no input. If they were to survive, they would have to engineer it for themselves. Instead, Elijah’s thoughts had turned to reunion. Even if he would only find another excised world at the end of his journey, he knew he needed to discover what had happened. He couldn’t stomach not knowing.
With that in mind, he turned away from Dravkein and began his journey. He had thousands of miles to go, and from what Zek had told him, he’d barely experienced a fraction of the danger suffusing Gorveth. There were entire continents that were entirely impassible, even with the benefit of their crystals. Some of that was due to the corrupted atmosphere, but it was also because those areas were populated by hordes of powerful monsters.
The only solace lay in the fact that none of them were technically above the demi-god level. Those that managed to achieve deification – or whatever the abyssal equivalent was – ended up leaving the planet entirely. Whether that was forced upon them or if it was a matter of choice on their part was a mystery.
Whatever the case, Elijah knew that his journey would not be easy. Even with his advantages – in the form of his silver-tier body, his tent, and his Mantle of Authority – he would be sorely tested.
He viewed it as a crucible, though. A means of sharpening himself to a fine edge that might be capable of cutting through the bonds holding him to Gorveth.
The following weeks mirrored his previous experiences. There were plenty of monsters around, but the majority of them were incapable of seeing through Guise of the Stalker. And those that could detect him were unable to kill him, either because he managed to defeat them or due to his ability to flee.
The latter proved necessary more often than he liked. But he made progress, and that was all that really mattered.
On the third week after leaving Dravkein, he saw a city on the horizon. Resting upon a hill, it was a collection of jagged skyscrapers. When Elijah drew closer, he used Eyes of the Eagle to inspect the area, and he was surprised to see that most of the buildings were covered in creeping, vine-like tendrils of corruption. What’s more, even from miles away, he could feel the uptick in the corrosiveness of the atmosphere.
It wasn’t quite strong enough that he needed to deploy his Mantle of Authority, but he could feel the telltale tingling associated with the degradation of his scales. The pace was slow but steady, and Elijah knew that it would soon reach a tipping point.
His instincts told him to skirt the city and move on, but curiosity drove him forward.
About half a mile from the city, he was forced to use his mantle. It spread out around him, negating the effect of the abyss. But within a few hundred more yards, Elijah felt the branches of his soul began to break down. Not quickly, but certainly not without pain. It felt like dousing an open wound in rubbing alcohol. Endurable? Sure. But it was far from pleasant.
Elijah was no stranger to pain, though. He pushed forward until he reached his goal.
Upon arriving at the outskirts of the city, Elijah discovered two very important factors. First, the residents were still present, though they were long since dead. Indeed, they looked like petrified statues, frozen in place for all eternity. Their features were worn smooth, eroded by the elements. But there were just enough details to settle their appearance into the uncanny valley.
Looking upon them sent a tremble of unease up Elijah’s spine.
Once, he’d found something similar when he’d stumbled on the very first ruined city he’d found on Gorveth. Back then, when he’d touched what he thought were statues, they had crumbled into ash that was then swept away on the wind. In this instance, the petrified people were as solid and lifeless as any sculpture.
As he laid his hand on the cold surface, he tried to imagine what had befallen them. Was it an effect of excisement? Or rather, something that happened well before? The result of some skill used by a powerful figure, maybe.
Zek had revealed a little of Gorveth’s history – enough to establish that the natives had always been warlike. Perhaps this city had been destroyed before the threat of excisement had claimed the planet.
That filled Elijah with secondhand regret that persisted as he progressed into the city itself. More petrified people stood in the wide avenues, with those jagged buildings rising on either side and casting everything in dense shadow. The tendrils of corruption slithered ever so slightly at Elijah’s presence.
Not enough to incite alarm, but he was ready to shift into the Shape of the Sky and flee the area at the first sign of trouble. There was no telling what monsters nested within such a desolate place.
He didn’t return to the Shape of the Scourge, though. And as such, Guise of the Stalker remained unavailable. Instead, he walked among those buildings as a man and imagined living in such a place. Had the residents been happy? They’d had lives. Goals. Dreams. They’d had families and friends. Loved ones of all sorts.
But they were all gone now.
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Frozen in time and turned to lifeless stone.
Elijah could only take solace in the fact that it had obviously come quickly. Most of the people had been frozen mid-activity.
For a while, he wandered the city. Partly, he did so in search of anything useful, but his bout of exploration was also driven by intense and morbid curiosity. He couldn’t escape the parallels to Earth, and as he strode between those skyscrapers, he imagined Seattle’s buildings in their place. Or New York’s. Even Ironshore’s.
And every now and again, he saw a statue that might’ve once resembled Miguel. Or Carmen. Sadie. Or any of a hundred other people who’d once depended on him and his grove for protection.
Guilt twisted through him until, at last, he’d had enough.
However, just as he was preparing to leave, he felt a tremble beneath him. The tendrils snaking around the buildings slithered, inching across the open spaces. The tremble turned into a minor earthquake.
Struggling to keep his balance, Elijah shifted into the Shape of the Scourge and tried to let the Guise of the Stalker settle over him. However, when it refused to activate, he finally realized that he was in trouble. Something had noticed him.
And it was watching him.
Elijah leaped, bounded off of Cloud Step, and initiated the transformation into Shape of the Sky. It was just in time, and before he managed to rise ten feet into the air, a tangle of tentacles unfurled and slammed into the spot he’d just vacated. They moved so quickly that they shattered any once-living statues without even targeting them.
Nearby, a building erupted into an explosion of stone and black tendrils. They whipped out, snapping around Elijah and surrounding him. Bones creaked under their influence, but even though he was in his most vulnerable form, they didn’t break. Such was the benefit of progressing his body cultivation.
But it was obvious that he couldn’t remain in the Shape of the Sky. So, after casting Wild Resurgence, he transformed again. This time, he let himself morph into his hundred-foot-long dragon form.
The sudden increase in size took the tendrils by surprise. His emerald-scaled body tore them apart, giving him enough room to flap his wings. Once. Then twice. He gained altitude.
And then, something emerged from the ruins of the shattered building.
It was enormous, and it pulsed with the power of a peak demi-god. Moreover, the abyssal creature was bipedal, with seven arms and thousands of tentacles growing from its back. It had no head. Rather, its torso simply ended.
But that didn’t mean it had no eyes. Or a mouth. Indeed, its body was covered in both. Yawning maws full of comparatively tiny – and razor-sharp – teeth stood next to hundreds of blinking orbs. Some looked almost human, but others resembled the compound eyes usually reserved for arachnids or insects.
They were all disturbing, though.
Not that Elijah had much time to truly appreciate the macabre horror. He didn’t, because the thing wasted no time before issuing an attack. Hundreds of tentacles erupted from the monster while many, many more came from below. It was only then that Elijah came to realize that it was all one creature – a fact that was driven home when the thing shed the confines of the crumbling building. That action revealed it in all its glory.
Elijah very much wished it hadn’t.
Down below what Elijah decided to call its waist was a mass of knotted tendrils that descended into the ground. But below that was a comparatively narrow bit of blackened flesh that connected to the hill itself, which was no more than a bulbous, miles-wide tumor.
When Elijah used Soul of the Wild to look closer, he found his perception blocked. Or rather, muddied. It had led him to believe the hill was as inanimate as the surrounding desolation native to the excised planet.
But now, he could see it more clearly.
The hill was full of writhing tentacles, like snaking intestines coated in mucus.
And Elijah wanted nothing to do with any of it.
The tendrils slammed into him with the force of speeding bullets, but his emerald scales proved tough enough to foul their piercing power. And he responded by ripping into them with tooth, claw, and pure muscle.
He chomped down on a particularly fat tentacle, only to instantly regret it when his mouth was flooded with corrosive pus. He ignored his roiling disgust, tearing through the rubbery tendril. Anything else would have seen him fall victim to the next attack.
Elijah fought like a draconic dervish, always moving to fend off the attacks coming from every direction. Multiple times, he attempted to fly away, but the monster was smart enough – or at least possessed sufficient instincts – to prevent his escape. A dome of tentacles soon stretched over the city, trapping Elijah inside.
And then, it all began to contract.
The woven mass of tentacles loomed above, while another tangle came from below.
But Elijah was ready. Finally, he let loose with the spell that had been building since he’d taken on his dragon form. He opened his mouth, spewing thousands of glittering moths with every passing second. They swept out, latching onto the defenseless tentacles and delivering their deadly payload of afflictions.
At the same time, Elijah cast Nature’s Claim, adding sprouting mushrooms and fungal infections to the mix. On and on he went, maintaining Eternal Plague until the air was thick with yellow spores and millions of moths.
Only then did he shift his form, taking on the Shape of the Scourge.
A dozen crystalline spiders, barely detectable even with Soul of the Wild, manifested beside him. They didn’t even need to move in order to sink their fangs into the monstrous tentacles. They bit fast and deep, repeatedly inflicting their venom upon the creature before they were crushed beneath multi-ton tendrils of rubbery flesh.
At the same time, Elijah eviscerated every bit of tumor-ridden tissue that came close. His claws shredded the monster’s tendrils while his stinger-tipped tail jabbed anything that moved. He bit and clawed, using Spreading Blight and Ethereal Sepsis with every attack.
But even with all that, it wasn’t enough.
The monster slowed slightly. And its tentacles rotted with every passing second, only for the monster to rip them free and replace them with new ones from below.
Elijah’s initial plan was to shift into a fungal guardian and use Throne of Spores, but he recognized the futility of such a strategy. Adding more infections wouldn’t bring the creature down.
In fact, nothing he could do would kill it. Not anytime soon, at least. He just lacked the power. Hammering home that fact was that, even as he continued to tear through flesh, it began to regrow.
He had no choice.
He needed to escape.
So, without further delay, he returned to his dragon form and started building a spell. As he poured ethera into it, he continued the physical battle. He’d gained a little ground with his previous efforts, but the monster had already begun to recover. Soon, the balance would shift, and Elijah would be overwhelmed.
With that reality weighing down on him, he let the spell build until the contents of his core had dipped below the halfway point. Then, he let loose with Lightning Domain.
Rolling thunder boomed, briefly stunning the constricting dome of knotted tentacles. Then came the lightning, arcing out and stunning the monster. Elijah used that brief opening to slam into the dome. Still seizing from the ongoing Lightning Domain, the thing had no defense against Elijah’s claws.
Still, it took a long ten seconds for him to see the purple-streaked sky. And it was another ten before the opening widened enough for him to slip through.
Even as the monster recovered and sent a thousand tentacles his way, he furiously beat his wings. After gaining a little altitude, he turned his attention to putting as much distance between himself and the tentacles as he could.
Despite the sheer speed of his flight, the tendrils gained a little with every passing second.
And by the time he’d reached the edge of the city, they were only a few dozen feet behind him. A mile later, and they were tickling his tail. But then, suddenly, they stopped.
Elijah kept going for another mile before he craned his long neck to see that the tendrils had retreated. But to his surprise, the city looked far different than it had when he’d arrived.
Because the hill was moving.
The buildings swayed as enormous, slug-like feet dragged it away. Only then did Elijah realize the scale of the creature he’d just fought. He breathed a sigh of relief, knowing full well just how lucky his escape had been.
But that was life on Gorveth. Even seemingly innocuous things were capable of killing the unwary.
With that in mind, he skimmed across the terrain, ready for whatever came next.