Mythshaper

The horned skink was swift as a breeze. Fire arrows and wind blades rained down the blackened gorge and its rugged walls, following after the agile demon, yet the rawboned lizard evaded them all, skipping from one wall to the other, taking full advantage of its slim, angular form.

Surprisingly, the elite demon was not much larger than I was, as most suncursed monsters I had encountered only seemed to grow in weight and bulk the stronger they became. Probably why this lizard had proven to be a tough anomaly to kill. So far, the only damage it had taken was from the two aura strikes on its long tail when it attempted to dash at me.

But alas, it had been utterly depressing once the horned skink decided to flee. It was rare for my Aether roots to strain against a single elite demon, but this thing—this cursed thing—made almost a hundred of my spells obsolete.

Well, I had hunted two other elite demons before this, but that had been followed by almost an hour of walking—enough time for my channels and Aether roots to return to full capacity.

Unable to restrain myself, I finally wove half my threads into a positive charge of lightning and struck before the weave even came to fruition. A clap of white lightning flashed forward, catching it head-on despite all its attempts to slip past.

Instantly, the slippery bastard fell off the wall, a shrill cry emanating from its mouth. It was far from dying, however. The shock wore off in a matter of moments. The demon jumped to its feet and dashed off with its tail between its legs.

I had hardly any time to reverse the weave to form a second positive charge, let alone compile the other half of my threads. With Haste, I chased after it, which proved to be unnecessary. As soon as a substantial force of lightning manifested, it jumped from my grasp to strike the fleeing lizard.

The pitiful cry arose as its form crashed down, squirming in foetal unrest. Hovering above it, I poured all the essence I could pull into the weave as a white flash of lightning cascaded down upon the immobilised beast, charring its flesh beyond recognition.

"That's quite enough, lad," Father said, his palm patting my shoulder. "It's dead."

My threads froze and untangled as the leftover charge still descended upon the dead beast.

[Way of Lightning I (100/100) is complete.]

[+2 Arcane. Unable to improve Arcane as it stands on a threshold.]

I released the breath I had been holding, withdrawing the essence threads into the famished primal seed.

"Agility variants are tough," Father said.

I could not agree more.

"After your initial failure," Mum said, a handkerchief pressed to her nose, "I believed you'd have to let it off." She eyed the singed lizard. "Your lighting shaping is not battleready."

That was to be expected, though I believed the only way to raise lightning mastery quickly was through battle. I had not utilised lightning at all when I was with others, fearing an Ares spell might strike them. Now, with only my parents accompanying me, I had no such fear.

There were more living things on the second layer. We had barely scratched the peripheral areas, and yet there were already so many nests of monsters. I alone had detected the presence of over a dozen elite demons. Unfortunately, it was damnably hard to find one without its flock of minions.

My essence reservoir was far deeper than my rank suggested, yet even so, it was not ample enough for me to dispatch over a thousand lesser minions to have a go at an elite demon. My parents were unlikely to work as a deterrent between the lesser and elite demons for me to have a one-on-one battle, as that would be spoon-feeding me. They had gone to great lengths to keep me company here—to teach me how it was done, not make it convenient.

Collecting the demon core, I gazed at the paths ahead. There were countless winding paths in the middle layer of the chasm, each opening filled with murky darkness the two light constructs failed to illuminate beyond a few metres.

Since I would not be getting an answer from them, I crept into an opening without much thought. The depths were damp and colder, filled with stale air and looming darkness. The rotting stench was not a new addition, albeit it had become more common.

"It's even creepier here," I said, feeling the coldness prickle my skin.

"Only creepy?" Mum asked. "You feel nothing else?"

I shot her a quizzical look, wondering what else was noteworthy. Faltering in my step, I mulled over everything I had noticed since entering the middle layer.

"Well," I opened my lips, "the darkness, it seems to be more… condensed?"

The two light constructs could easily illuminate over twenty metres around us. Now, the distance seemed to be decreasing the longer we spent down here. It was like a dark veil of mist, eating away every speck of light.

"What else?" she asked.

A frown creased my brow. It did not irritate me that she did not give me the answer that was painstakingly obvious to her. She wanted me to figure it out on my own. It was one of her little tests, to see how far I had come. Over the years, I had come to relish tests like these, mostly because I had grown good at finding the truth within. It left a sense of satisfaction and fulfilment once I unravelled it on my own. Though on some rare occasions, the tests were so damnably irritating and boring—like the sand-picking exercise—that they produced the opposite outcome.

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I gazed at my surroundings, opening fractal sight. To my surprise, even my gift seemed to struggle to penetrate the dark mist.

Hmm. What if the darkness isn't really darkness itself? I considered.

"It isn't the darkness, is it?" I said absent-mindedly, concentrating on the misty shroud obscuring my sight. "Its some kind of black mist… that…" My gaze darted to Mum. "It's not just eating light."

A strum of inspiration gripped me as my pupils contracted. To test my theory, a few of my essence threads sprang up to weave into a simple fireball. I scrutinised it, observed it again and again, applying various amounts of essence, as something became horrifyingly evident.

The black mist was not only eating light. "It is also eating my essence."

"Now you know why the chasms are so perilous," Mum said, approval lacing her tone. "And it doesn't just eat your essence. It can suppress any of your abilities if you spend too much time in the depths."

"The effect isn't as lethal to aura," Father added. "Not at this layer, at least."

"Does it affect your essence, too?" I asked him. Considering his gift of Nullification—which rendered all essence skills and spells useless—I wondered if it had a similar interaction with the black mist.

"Not as much," Father confirmed. "Here, I can utilise my abilities to the fullest, but if we were to go deeper…" He shook his head. "It would suppress and devour my essence from within. Even with Nullification, I have no confidence in reaching its depths and coming back unscathed."

What could have occurred for such a phenomenon to form here, and to have lasted for millennia?

As we trudged through the rugged surface, Mum and I discussed what could be the cause. The most believable theory involved midnight essence. After all, its main function was to devour other essence—though the black mist did not merely devour; it mutated.

"Is it possible that there may be—"

I could not finish my phrase when a tremor ran through the earth beneath my feet. An earthquake?

"Ashlyn!" Father's voice cut through the upheaval as Mum immediately clutched my arm, pulling me upward into the air.

The next instant, something massive burst through the surface, opening its looming maw at us.

It was colossal.

With a maw large enough to gobble a cart whole, its body was serpentine—worm-like, with a rigid, stony hide akin to a stonegorger. Despite rising several metres through the earth, its tail-end remained buried.

A greater stonegorger worm?

Mum had applied layers of wards to protect us, but the stone worm's maw still loomed close, displaying multiple rows of jagged teeth as large as spearheads.

Father darted towards it, leaving a trail of galewind. His blade, painted in fiery light, plunged two metres beneath its jagged maw. The stonegorger tumbled backwards, a deep cut opening where the flaming blade struck.

It twisted and jerked to strike Father, who glided beneath its lunge, the relic in his hand extending over two metres as rays of blinding sunlight struck its tough exterior. Father swung once, twice, thrice—splintering shards of stone—until the demon recognised we were not easy prey.

A shrill cry rang from the worm's twisted maw, so high-pitched and disconcerting that [Somnus' Reverie] awoke within my primal seed, obstructing the psionic waves.

The stonegorger jerked its head and plunged into the high sidewall, then gorged through rigid stone like crisp breadcrumbs before fleeing.

I watched as the worm, easily over forty metres long, plunged deeper into the chasms. A greater stonegorger of that size carried enough material to equip an entire regiment of legionaries.

Unfortunately, Father did not seem keen on hunting it down, and I understood why. At a rank equalling Fabled, the stonegorger would be a formidable opponent to fell, especially considering how cowardly they were. Once they deemed a meal too troublesome, they would leave in search of easier prey. They did not differentiate between demon or human. Anything in their path was to be devoured.

Decidedly, anything not too troublesome.

Father sheathed Ouroboros. "Looks like it is prudent not go deeper," he said as Mum lowered me back to the ground.

I quickly sprang forward to collect the few shards Father had cut from the monster. At the greater stage, even its exterior materials were comparable to the richest ores mined from the chasm. I could extract at least ten kilograms of prestigious-class material after purification—nearly twice what I had gained from the stonegorger ape we hunted.

"I believe this is enough of a learning experience for the day," Mother finally called once I finished looting.

And with that, the day's expedition came to an end.

Well, not completely. I still had to navigate my way back. It was one of the things Rift Walkers and monster hunters had to learn.

Since we were several kilometres beneath the surface of the Earth, one might assume flying straight up would suffice. Unfortunately, the winding paths did not only lead upwards.

Choosing the wrong one meant several minutes of detour, even with levitation boots at full capacity. A few more wrong turns, and I would be pumping essence into the boots continuously.

There were markings etched along the paths by seasoned chasm delvers. I must have missed some of them earlier, given the speed at which I had been flying.

"Impatience is your only weakness, Pumpkin," Mum had said many times—and it had become painfully obvious. Not that it helped much.

After about half an hour of navigating the twisted passages, I suddenly faltered as [Vigil of Protection] awakened, surrounding me.

[Way of Toxin Resistance I (1/100) is now available.]

Panic gnawed at my heart—then passed. I realised there was no immediate threat to my life. I could smell toxin in the air, but it was too weak, or too dispersed, to be truly harmful with my protection active. Nonetheless, I stopped breathing and channelled my essence, purifying whatever trace I might have inhaled within the essence seed.

I turned to my parents. "The black mist," I asked, "it wouldn't happen to be poisonous, would it?"

Mum shook her head.

I spread my Influence while remaining within the relic's protection and quickly discerned the direction the toxin originated from. The question was whether to turn back or investigate.

It did not resemble the poisonous plumes of a basilisk or other serpentine creatures. Those were far more potent and far less widespread. That meant it was something simpler.

Applying my arcane acuity, I flew towards it. Harmful or not, I did not breathe in, yet I could still imagine the pungent tang of rotten fish at the back of my nose.

A thicker purplish haze loomed ahead, and it became vehemently obvious what the source was.

Multiple lesser demons lay half-dead on the ground as I shot past them, finally coming upon the corpse flower. It stood several metres tall, with six purplish-red petals and dark, crisp undersides, wafting a rotting stench that made me seal my nostrils in disgust.

"Well," Mum interjected, sounding almost revolted, "you know how to kill a Demon Lily, correct?"

I nodded.

The flower was already dying, though it would have taken weeks. I hastened the process, driving a lance of fire into the poisonous forest fiend and smouldering its petals into nothing.

Mum stopped me before I reduced it entirely to ash. Her essence threads dispersed the poisonous air and stench, uprooting what remained of the demon lily. From the remains, she collected a gourd-shaped root.

She glared at it as though it were her mortal enemy, sighed, and tossed it to me. "Should be of some help to raise your Toxin Resistance."