Chapter 248 Tying up all loose ends Part 2
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"... What is this place?" Dale mumbled to himself as he looked around
'It's too dark to see anything.' He thought as he tried looking around only to see complete darkness
/Shine…/
Dale raised his right hand, having his Mana course through his body, but even then, the light from his hand only illuminated a few centimeters away from his body, as if the darkness around him was consuming the light and suppressing it.
As he waved his hands around, he felt that the air had some weight to it, as if he was surrounded by thick mist.
/Crunk… Crack…/
'These sounds…'
As if reacting to his actions, sounds echoed from the darkness in front of him, sending shivers down his spine.
His body was unconsciously reacting to whatever he couldn't see.
'Shit… I don't feel good.'
'Should I...'
"Dale, calm down." A voice echoed from his waist
"! You…"
Dale looked down, and lo and behold, strapped to his waist, a golden head stood, was it always there? Shinning faintly?
It was obviously David, the Holy Relic!
"W-What are you doing here? Actually, never mind that, where are…"
"Shiu… Stop talking, if you don't wish to vanish." David said with a sharp gaze as he looked up at Dale, his tone deep and heavy
"Just follow my eyes for now, you'll know when to talk."
"I… Okay." Dale replied as he gave David a nod
'He seems to know something, that's a start.'
/Shine…/
As he said that, David's eyes shone in faint golden light, illuminating the darkness around them.
This place seemed to be some sort of cellar, a dark room made of smooth stone.
A deeper inspection revealed to Dale that he was at the edge of a platform with a deep abyss behind him.
"Try not to overstep, if you fall here, I may not be able to pull you out."
"..."
A bead of sweat fell from Dale's face when he heard that, prompting him to start walking, following David's light.
/Crack… Crunk…/
As they walked on the platform, they kept hearing sounds coming from their surroundings, as if there were chains rattling all around them.
It made Dale imagine all kinds of things, with none of them not being safe.
"Stop… We're here." David said as he adjusted his gaze
"Raise me a bit."
Following his words, Dale silently held David at his stomach, allowing him to illuminate what was in front of them.
"..."
'What is that?'
Standing atop a circular platform completely covered in strange runic symbols, stood a gigantic bluish crystal suspended by dozens of metallic chains that moved from time to time.
'So that's where that rattling sound was coming from… The movement of the chains.'
Each of the individual chain pieces was as large as his entire arm's length, not only that, they were embedded with all kinds of runes as well, albeit this time, they were consistent, repeating every so often as compared to the ones in the circular altar that looked chaotic and ugly to look at.
/Squint…/
Squinting his eyes, Dale felt he saw something moving within the crystal… The shadowy figure of some kind…
/Rattle…/
Everything felt oddly silent, and until David gave him the signal, Dale remained silent…
But he wasn't the one to break the silent as the chains above the crystal suddenly started trembling.
/Shine…/
The runes glowed with faint light, becoming brighter the closer they were to the crystal.
And this light allowed Dale to see clearly what stood within…
"...!!!"
[Demi-Lich Elriharad Qrubin
Challenge Level: ???
]
Inside the crystal stood a creature half man half skeleton, slowly rotting, one side at a time, from its right side to its left.
As if a portion of its body stood frozen in time while the other succumbed to the elements…
A name Dale knew very well… One of the Division Commanders of the Corps, and one of the Grand Artificers of the Empire a hundred years ago…
What was he doing here?! And most importantly… Why did he have a monster window?
This meant that… This creature whose power he couldn't even stimate… Was very much alive.
'A lich?!... No, yet to be… This isn't looking good…'
But before Dale could fall into the realms of his own thoughts, David continued:
"This is the culprit behind our unwanted stay in this forsaken place… This damned old man." David said as he focused his eyes on the Lich
"... Where are we?"
"... Deep beneath the Mage Tower, an isolated chamber that can only be reached via teleportation as you experienced just now, this also means that it's impossible to leave."
To that, Dale looked at the edges of the platforms, and David replied:
"You'll only find nothingness down there... And Miasma, this place was built to store any excess Miasma and seal it away, eventually using it as an energy source as it slowly degraded over time."
"If you fall, you'll be subjected to the sealing mechanisms of the Tower, together with a torrent of Miasma, it's a death trap."
"Then, what is this place?"
"The very center of the Ritual that surrounds the Catacombs, what holds everything together."
"I thought that was you?"
David shook his head slowly, or tried at least.
"I was only meant to be an amplifying point of sorts, a node that composes this grander net."
"Very much how the Church is a node, though albeit neither substitute for each other, at the very least the Church's existence stabilizes the net more."
"... So the Ritual was the creation of a mage and not the Church?"
"... Kind of, a mix of both... It was originally mostly a creation of the Church 300 years ago, but then, that guy in front of us changed everything, improving the design to work with both Arcane and Divine forces, mostly Arcane."
"Why... Is he here? I thought..."
'That the Division Commanders were all... Well, gone.'
"That's... Complicated, we can leave that for later."
"Alright, then… I imagine we aren't supposed to defeat this thing to leave, right?" Dale asked awkwardly as he coughed at his hand
"Of course not, doing so is not only impossible but counterproductive."
"I didn't go through a century of torture down there only to undo all of that work now." David said in a sharp tone as he looked straight at the trapped Lich's head
"In any case, we've talked for far too long... Old fart! How long are you going to sleep for? We don't have all day!" He exclaimed loudly as the light in his eyes suddenly grew stronger
"..."
/Open…/
While Dale remained silent at David's rude and borderline suicidal behavior, the Lich's sole eye opened slowly.
It immediately fell onto Dale, a dead and seemingly hollow gaze…
But that only lasted a second before light sparked within, causing the Lich to blink as the monster window above its head vanished.
/Spark.../
On its hollow eye socket, a blue flame sparked.
"Urg… My head hurts…" The Lich, Qrubin said as he used his eye to look around
His mouth remained motionless and so did his body, and that made sense given it was encased in crystal.
"Of course it hurts, there's nothing in it!" David said ironically as he looked at Qrubin
"Urg… Just… Shut for a moment… Give me a... A debrief of the situation…"
"How long has it been?"
"About 100 years, I've been removed from the seal as you can see, but the situation is stable enough since now I have the Church working somewhat properly again."
"So long?... Then... Everyone..."
Qrubin remained silent for a few moments, thinking about something silently.
"Sigh… It's too late to cry over it anyway, I already gave them my goodbyes." He said as he closed his left eye and the flame on his right eye socket dimmed
After he stood in silence for another few moments, he opened his eye, turning to Dale.
"Then… The boy next to you… Are you the one that lifted the seal? I can't imagine this chunk of gold doing anything on its own."
"I…"
"He's the one that saved me, the wielder of Caladgolg."
"Hum... So that old chunk of metal finally found someone?"
"... More like someone good enough."
"Hey…"
"It doesn't matter, to hold it is in itself proof of one's own self-worth…"
Seeing Dale's somewhat confused expression, Qrubin stopped his phrase to say:
"It's a bit late but we have that time..."
"I'm Elriharad Qrubin, Grand Artificer of the Southern Corps… Or at the very least, his remains."
"It's hard to say if I'm still... Myself, at this point in time."
Hearing that, Dale thought it was time to ask the very thing that had been plaguing his mind from the moment he found out who he was.
What happened?
"... Can I ask…?"
"We'll get there, first, what I want to know is why we're here?" David asked as he looked around
"Hum… Yes, I remember now… This hasn't been the first time I've been fully awakened." Qrubin said as he looked up
"I can't tell when but… I've always been partially awaken, keeping the ritual in place… But sometime ago, I felt a sudden tension on the seal… And I was momentarily woken up to manage that."
"I imagine that was your doing." He said as he looked at David
"Can you tell me what happened?"
"I was already planning to…" David said as he started to narrate his story, from when he was placed in the altar on the fifth floor of the Catacombs next to the Great Commander's empty Coffin and Caladgolg to when Dale saved him by cleansing the corruption
…
"... And then, we left the Church, that was about…? A month ago? I haven't tracked time that well to be honest."
"... How shocking." Qrubin said after he processed David's story
"Despite all of our actions, they somehow managed to breach the seal and corrupt you, draining your power to sustain themselves…"
"I see, that was why the energy signatures suddenly spiked, the emergency security measures activated, forcing them back onto their cells."
"The corruption didn't affect you by the looks of it, they merely drained your powers… But to think even Caladgolg was affected…" Qrubin said as he closed his eyes
"Such a shame."
"It's not like this wasn't expected old man, eventually, everything wears down, I might even say we lasted longer than expected."
"... You're right, but this isn't acceptable."
"When we remade the seal, we made it so it would degrade in specific spots in order to systematically unleash the creatures it trapped and to give them a sense of freedom… To weaken them as much as possible so that our descendants had a chance against them."
"Given how they had no sense of unity, they wouldn't work together to free themselves, on the contrary, they had to fight each other to sustain themselves down there."
"It was made to maximize time, to force them to eliminate each other or at least weaken themselves… But right beneath my eyes they almost set themselves free." Qrubin said as his eyebrow furrowed
"They played me for a fool… It's infuriating but that's the very reason the Catacombs exist."
"The bodies of tens of thousands of powerful warriors scattered over a dozen generations suppress the existences even the mightiest of them were unable to take down."
"… At least now I understand a bit more. We should proceed." He said as his eye turned to Dale
"I apologize if things have been going a bit too fast, but I'm unsure how long I myself have left before I'm forced back into my… Previous state."
"... What was that?" Dale asked as he looked at Qrubin
"A consequence of my own actions, the result of dabbling in forbidden powers."
"Have you ever heard of Dark Magic?"
/Shake.../
Dale initially had the urge to nod in compliance, of course he had heard of Dark magic, he had a max-level dark Magician back when he played Zenith, it was one of the many Classes he tested.
But since this wasn't exactly in line with what he should know, he denied it, shaking his head.
And it wasn't like he was lying either, the language of Azimuth isn't the same as that of Zenith, and many of their own terms are rules aren't quite the same.
Dark magic of Azimuth may be something completely different from anything he had ever seen... Or maybe even be a kind of magical practice Zenith deemed normal or forbidden, but not Dark Magic in itself.
Above all, he didn't wish to avoid the chance to learn more about the topic, not when he was face to face with the best teacher there was.
"That's to be expected... Dark Magic vanished from the world during the initial stages of the Old Empire, that in itself was over a thousand years ago."
"Some remnants of it still remain... Such as WitchCraft, but what a Witch does with Dark magic goes as far as a Monkey using a rock to crack open a sea shell."
"Not complex but effective enough."
"... Very well, I was itching to tell this to someone... To leave this story behind before it's too late."
"And to warn of my impending doom." He said as his voice grew deeper
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Notes
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