Chương 122: Chapter 121- The Core

Astra looked at Eli from across the central core of the ritual with a dubious glance as she questioned the plan once more, " Are you sure you want to do this?" Eli grimaced, " Not really but I'm starting to run out of things to try. We can always use [Veilrend] but given what that did to the small enchantment on the target at the range, I really don't want to know what will happen with something huge like this one."

He shrugged, " It's probably a dumb idea, but you said we don't have any way of draining the power from those capacitors, so maybe overloading them instead will work? I can always try severing the runes afterwards if it doesn't work, but something this big unraveling will probably kill us and I don't want to do that if I can avoid it. Can't hurt to try right?" Astra shook her head, " Well it is certainly an idea." She glanced up to the ceiling of the cavern above, " Do you think we waited long enough?

They should have left the estate by now, right?" Eli looked up, the light of one of the pulses illuminating his face from below. They were coming fast now, the interval between them now more than ten seconds." Yeah they should have, and we really can't wait much longer." He glanced back down at the dark spot Astra had marked on the floor with an extinguished torch, and then back over at a few more that crossed various lines in the core of the ritual.

The one he was standing over marked the intake for the section he was about to try and overload, Astra stood over another, and the others were where he was supposed to cut with [Veilrend] should this idea fail, something he suspected both of them expected to happen. Eli had already told Tia to wait by the entrance to the cavern, since he had no idea what to expect, just that it was nothing good.

She had mostly listened, and was currently perched on a stalagmite at the crest of the small rise, but far enough clear from the ritual that his worry was lessened." Ready?" Elias looked up and gave Astra a nod as they both stepped forward and pressed their hands to the ground as he unraveled a thin ribbon of mana and started threading it towards his palms." I will count from five, and we begin on the final count of 'mark'." Elias spooled the thread of mana just behind one palm as she began counting." …

three, two, one, mark!" Eli connected the thread to the mark that sat between his palms on the stone below, and as it connected he could feel the ritual begin to siphon off power from him. Within moments he knew the effort was doomed to fail, as he could feel a massive ocean of power contained in the stone below him. Given that Astra had already tried a few similar things already, and therefore likely already knew, he was surprised that she still agreed to try.

The spiraling patterns below him lit up, a hint of cerulean blue tinging the crimson of the pulses as his mana entered the grooves. As he pushed he could feel resistance as it began to feel full, and as he pushed against the barrier, straining to burst it, before the wall could give way, he could feel a small leak burst through the dam. A streak of blue shot out from the side of the pattern and shunted down a nearby channel, into a small circular shape coiling and pooling in the center of it." Stop, STOP!"

Elias pulled his hands away as he heard swearing and looked up to see a similar pattern at Astra's feet where she stood on the other side of the formation, the only difference was the scarlet crimson color of her mana filling the pattern. Astra swore, watching the pattern quietly for a moment before speaking, " Damn these strange runes. Well. Turns out that secondary formation was an overflow buffer."

The pair watched as their mana spread through ritual the pulses began growing faster and faster, no more than a few seconds in between each pulse. As they grew closer and closer together a tremor shivered through the ground, and both of them tensed as Tia gave off an indignant startled squawk in the distance. The tremor built it a rumble as the earth and stone of the cavern began shifting and vibrating as small pebbles clattered across the ground and the occasional stone fell from the ceiling above.

Eli shouted, " TIA GET OUT OF HERE!" No. If you're staying I'm staying. Eli looked over as the small wyvern clung to the stone in the distance, he could feel her determination rippling through the bond and knew it would be a lost cause. She's faster than me anyways, if anyone can outrun a cave-in it'll be her. Eli looked over at Astra, she was warily watching the cave ceiling above, but turned to meet his eyes as she felt his gaze.

The trembling continued to escalate as the pulses accelerated, rhythmic flashes of light illuminating the room. He shouted to be heard over the rumbling." NOW?" Astra took several steps back to stand clear of the ritual's center before shouting back." NO TIME LIKE THE PRESENT. IF WE ARE GOING TO DO IT, NOW IS THE TIME."

Eli grimaced, his eyes sank down to the lines in the core of the ritual, fixated on the marks that had been made as he ran one hand over the blade of his weapon and he drew in a sharp breath and let it out slowly. Two strokes. One and two, in and out. Nothing you haven't done before. He hummed a few bars of an old song under his breath to steel his nerves, the drums in his chest uncoiling, and tapping out a couple of beats in response.

A wave of reassurance rippled down the tether, Eli looked up to give Astra a small smile in thanks before a wave of energy traveled down the shaft as he triggered [Veilrend] and darted forwards. A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation. The song responded to his nerves, and as his pulse raced the drums joined in, each step echoing with the booming beat in his chest.

He swept forward, eyes locked on the first long line of marks that was strung across a line of delicate filigrees sprouting from the very center of the core, the place where the last four cultists had spent their final moments starting the ritual. Eli took a final step and swept his distortion coated blade through the stone, previously cutting through the center of the sooty marks, the stone parting like butter before a hot blade, but as he met the first line of the ritual he gritted his teeth. OH FUCK.

This is going to be BAD. His blade swept through the lines just as easily as the stone, but where the other enchantments he cut had felt like fine thread, or at worst sturdy yarn that still fell before the shears of a seamstress, the ritual channels felt like high tension steel cables.

The thick bands of taught and humming with power had barely moved before he crouched, sweeping his left foot wide as he twisted with his hips to pivot into the next strike, but he could feel the tense cables and the potential building and pooling around the severed edges.

A whistling sound filled the air as he spun his blade in an arc, spinning his poleaxe in a wide circle before dipping down at an angle to cut through the stone once more, this final line tracing through a set of dense convoluted patterns that Astra said was most likely fueling the core, and therefore the rest of the ritual through the pulses it emitted.

As Eli spun and his blade dipped through the stone once more, this time cutting through an endless series of lines, the hair on the back of his neck stood straight as a shiver ran down his spine. Fuck. Fuck fuckfuckfuck…. An endless stream of profanity ran through his mind, he had no idea what he was doing, what he was breaking, but even so he knew it felt dangerous.

Some bestial instinct was telling him to flee, that he was no better than a chimpanzee running loose with a chainsaw through a nuclear power plant, and if he didn't get out of here and soon he would meet the same fate as his imaginary primate. Crouching low on the back swing, his legs coiled beneath him as Eli pushed off, leaping with his might to get clear of the core, and his urgency rising as a surge of energy welled up behind him.

A series of long loping strides carried Eli across the ritual and as he cleared the edge of the formation he turned to glance back at the core. Visually there was not much else to see, but with his [Mana Sense], the center lit up in a riot of colors. Astra gave him a concerned look from across the circle as the rumble deepened, an almost angry pitch to the sound at the tremors grew, nearly the whole cavern shaking now." WHAT IS WRONG? DID IT WORK?"

She shouted across the room from Eli, the sound of loose stones clattering down from above nearly drowning out her words. He bellowed back at her, trying to pitch his voice so the words can be heard despite the clamor in the room." I DON'T KNOW, MAYBE? IT FELT REALLY BAD THOUGH, A LOT OF POWER GETTING INTERUPTED."

Astra gave the center of the formation a wary glance, squirting at it, the tell-tale gathering of mana around her eyes as she triggered her own vision Skill, he didn't know much about what hers did, but as she recoiled eyes wide he knew she had seen enough." ELI… THAT'S A LOT OF MANA"" I CAN'T SEE THE TYPE, BUT WE PROBABLY NEED TO GO." Elias wrinkled his brow, as he studied the dome shaped confluence of power building around the core as crackles of angry crimson energy rippled outwards with each pulse.

The waves of power stuttering and hiccuping instead of the smooth flows from before. She can't tell the type, I mean it's clearly spatial or void. Eli glanced at his weapon as he switched off [Veilrend] he would have thought that same pale white energy fueling the pane of distortion would be obvious, but maybe that was just his affinity at play.

He froze as he glanced at the blade, a terrifying thought running through his mind, his gaze shifting to the dome crackling and sparking in the center of the room, a wave of horror seizing his heart in his chest as his eyes darted around the room. If [Veilrend] is this powerful at 25 mana per second, what will that thing do in an enclosed space? Eli was no mathematician, but it didn't take a genius to figure out that they were not outrunning what came next.

As the dome began to swell and crack under the strain of the energy surging outwards, his gaze locked onto Astra across the chamber and his thoughts went into overdrive as he scrambled for anything to stop what was coming. Wait. The shroud… His gaze flickered down to his mana pool. Mana: 168/950 Not enough. A shattering sound filled the air as Eli ran out of time, and he had no more time for thoughts or calculations, as an overwhelming wave of terror gripped heart, everything else fell away.

His counterpoint was about to die, and nothing else mattered. A cold sheet of mana flashed over his skin as he turned at an angle that only he could see. His skin writhed and twisted as he flickered momentarily through the void, his entire body shuddering as his insides became his outsides, and as his kidneys and intestines were buffeted by an unseen wind, he found himself immensely grateful that his eyes were now internal and not external.

He could feel a presence nearby, so massive that it boggled the mind, and Elias briefly wondered if this was how a flea felt when it stood next to an elephant. His mind shuddered as he froze trying to avoid its notice as the enormous eldritch being hovered nearby. Even with no sight the sheer physicality of the entity pressed upon the fabric of the void, and like a minnow swimming near the flank of passing whale Elias was beneath notice, as the being drifted past focused on something he could not sense.

Eli gasped in deep breath as his body reverted back into its original shape and form as he re-entered reality as he knew it just in front of a startled Astra as he flung his arms wide sheltering her as best he could as a wall of distorted space bloomed behind him. Time slowed for Eli as death approached, and her eyes flew wide in terror as the air around them rippled and shattered in a wave rushing outwards.

The corpses of the cultists were shredded where they laid, torches bent and bowed, and stalactites worn shorn from the ceiling. Massive rents were torn in the earth below and the ceiling above, and Eli could see the roof begin to collapse inwards as the wave reached the upper surface.

The flesh of the nearby corpses of the cultists was torn under the effects of the convulsions of the local spatial distortions, and with a series of snaps and wet splashes their bones shattered and as blood and offal sprayed into the air. When the wave met them at the outer edge of the circle the protective shroud of [Veilstep] had yet to recede, and the wave parted around Elias like the prow of a ship cutting through stormy swells.

Eli screamed in pain as he felt a heavy tug on the lower left arm, the nerves screaming as if on fire, in the very same place the shroud had not covered when he was low on mana before. As he watched the wave travel onwards he found it hard to care, as a deep sense of relief roared up washing over him as he realized he had made it, she would live to see another day.

Eli lifted a hand to touch her face as he nearly wept in relief, and Astra gaped in horror as nothing appeared, as his left arm had been severed cleanly just below the elbow as if done by the world's largest scalpel. Astra gasped in horror as a gout of blood spurted from the stump, painting the front of her breastplate crimson, as Eli stumbled and dropped to his knees, his vision fading as he grew lightheaded, as she screamed." ELI!"