Chapter 258 Volume IV - Chapter 103: Virgonium Filled Cave
Minutes had passed since we entered the cave. The daylight had long since disappeared due to the cave's sinuous structure, and the only illumination was the lights on the armor of the three dwarves beside me and a tiny flame in my left hand.
These lights were quite sufficient, in fact, there was hardly a spot in the cave that we couldn't see, but... I kept having this strange feeling.
It felt like we couldn't see everything. At the same time, the strangeness of the little flame in my hand...
Even if my mastery of flame magic was low, it shouldn't have been difficult to control a flame this small. Nevertheless, with every step I took, the flame in my palms flickered, as if it was being pulled somewhere. It seemed to want to get out from under my control.
"How long has it been?"
After my question, Gurdas spoke without taking his eyes from the depths of the cave.
"It's only been ten minutes. Is there a problem?"
"Ten minutes..."
This time Gurdas paused, turned his head slightly, and looked at me with his left eye. All I could do in response to his questioning expression was to sigh slightly and show him the flame in my left hand.
Gurdas, of course, did not understand what I meant as he looked at the flame I showed him.
"My flame is becoming unstable as if it is trying to get out of my control. Whatever is in the depths of this cave... we are getting closer."
The two dwarves behind Gurdas clutched their weapons for a moment, fearful expressions on their faces.
"Is yer flame... reactin' to somethin' inside the mountain?"
"Exactly."
"T- The ancient creature... can it still be alive?!"
One of the dwarves literally jumped at the thought, and the other had a similar reaction. Gurdas rubbed his forehead with his hand, took a deep breath and exhaled.
"We keep movin' forward, don't let yer fear take hold. Ye already know, if trouble finds us, we can skedaddle outta here in a blink."
He was right. We had a gate device that would stay open for about ten seconds, just in case, and would take us close to our ship.
The dwarves relaxed a little at these words, but they remained cautious.
Slowly but surely we made our way deeper into the cave, my flame growing more and more out of control, as if it were rejecting me as its user. Nevertheless, I did not extinguish it, because I was curious to see what would happen in the end.
Would it extinguish on its own? Or would it fly out of my control in one direction or another? It could have been something else entirely.
In the midst of these thoughts, Gurdas suddenly paused and our group turned to him, tense.
"This..."
Gurdas stared at the space in front of him, frozen in place. It was clear that he was looking at a holographic screen that he could see through his helmet. What mattered was what he saw there.
"Gurdas...?"
"They were right... This place is full of virgonium. My sensors are beepin' like crazy."
Gurdas suddenly quickened his pace, and there was nothing we could do but follow him.
With each step, my flame became more unstable, and then, in the pitch blackness of the cave, there were traces of a light source outside of us. As the narrow corridor of the cave slowly began to widen, a dim, purplish light faintly caught my attention.
At last, Gurdas stopped running, staring open-mouthed at the sight before him. It was no different for the other two dwarves. At what seemed to be the end of the cave, what we saw was literally mesmerizing.
The cave had grown into a huge space. We didn't even need our lanterns and my flame for light. The purple-colored mineral, virgonium, which covered a large part of the cave walls, allowed us to see most everything in the cave with its own purple light.
It was like a crystal, it was everywhere. It was so... beautiful, dizzying with the amount of mana it trapped, channeled, and concentrated within itself. It was also too much, which is part of what made it so mesmerizing.
"This... is even more than we thought."
One of the dwarves approached the crystal closest to him and held out his hand to it, his eyes wide.
"Is that mana...? I have a really... strange feelin' in my body."
Dwarves could not use or feel mana. But at this point, when the mana was extremely dense, it was impossible even for them not to feel its effects.
I was no different, in fact... even worse than them.
My head was spinning. The enormous amount of mana filling the cave was affecting the mana within me. My flame was more unstable than ever. It was also changing color, trying to shift into shades of blue.
"Idiot! Don't touch it!"
Gurdas' words caused the dwarf, who had almost touched the virgonium, to jump in place. His eyes turned to Gurdas in fear, then looked at him blankly.
"We ain't sure if it'll do anythin' to ya or not. We'll scoop it up like we were told, and then we'll high-tail it outta here."
Gurdas was not immersed in the magical nature of the virgonium, his mission was the only thing on his mind.
"U- understood..."
The dwarves swallowed, then moved slightly away from the virgoniums. This time they took out a device from their dimensional inventory, a device they would use to cut and collect the virgonium.
All the while, I was still staring at my flame, struggling to hold it together, trying to keep its color normal.
When Gurdas had finished with the dwarves, he turned to me. He looked at the flame in my hand and then at me.
"Aiden, I will ask again... Is something wrong?"
His voice trembled slightly toward the end.
No... it didn't. There was nothing wrong with him, I was dizzy.
It wasn't just the mana in this huge cave that was affecting me, it was something else, something different...
'Aiden... you can hear me, right?'
I swallowed, deciding to try something I wasn't sure what the outcome would be, but at the same time, I had confidence.
'Sith, don't do anything to me from this point on, no matter what. We're probably going to lose contact, but don't panic. I have something I need to do and this is... there.'
Sith hesitated for a while... but finally gave in and gave his answer quickly.
'I trust you. Do what you need to do and then let's get out of here. This place... it doesn't give me a good feeling. Just be quick.'
I smiled at Sith's response, this time saying only two words to Gurdas.
"Don't worry."
I focused on that strange feeling I had felt since the moment we entered this cave.
I closed my eyes, letting myself go with the flow of mana.
"Aide... n..."
Gurdas's voice suddenly began to dissipate. I couldn't hear the rest of his sentence. The purple light I could see behind my eyelids slowly gave way to darkness.
I took a slow step, the flame in my palm and the mana filling the entire cave were the only things I could feel.
The mana circulating in the cave fluctuated for a moment. The color of my flame became bluer and bluer, and its vibration intensified.
I took another step, and this time I felt the mana in the cave slowly moving toward me.
My flame was begging me to let go of my control, it felt like a child I was holding by the hand. So, before I took my next step, I decided to do something: I stopped controlling my flame.
The last remaining orange parts of the flame quickly turned blue, then met the mana inside the cave.
I felt the flow of mana moving toward me suddenly change. My flame slowly moved to a point as it reacted with this mana. And all that mana inside the cave followed it.
All this mana that was moving toward me slowly changed to another direction. It forced me to follow it with a force as if it was pushing me.
I didn't resist it, I quickened my pace, following the mana that was guiding me.
It didn't take me long to realize that the density of mana in the cave was increasing, and the temperature was rising with every step I took. The blue flame, which was no longer under my control, did not seem to be bothered by these changes, on the contrary, it seemed to rejoice.
I kept moving forward, trying to ignore the increasing heat and mana density, and when I started to feel like I was nearing the end of my walk, something else happened.
My whole perception was suddenly turned upside down. I felt a pressure as if the whole world was collapsing on me, I even stopped breathing.
And then... I looked at what had caused it.
Something that perhaps no human being should ever see.
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