BOOK 9: CHAPTER 76: TEST AND TRAVEL

“I’m concerned,” Elijah said, looking out from the interior of the tower where they’d sheltered for the past few days.

“Why? Do you see something?” asked Oscar.

Elijah shook his head. “No. It’s not that.” He sighed, pulling away from the entrance. Doing so shielded him from the effects of the Elemental Maelstrom’s outer bands. With three glyphs, he’d never been safer from the effects. However, they were still destructive enough to strip the skin from a man’s bones. “How long have we been in here?”

“A little more than three months now.”

“And that’s what’s concerning. I lost track of how long I was in my last Primal Realm, but I’m pretty sure it was at least a few months. Maybe longer,” he said. “Then, it took a while before I’d recovered. I don’t know. In all, around five or six months for one Primal Realm. This one doesn’t look like it’ll be any quicker, and the one Sadie’s in is taking even longer.”

Even if she’d completed hers right as he’d entered the Elemental Maelstrom, it still meant that she had been in there for half a year. Though he suspected that she would be in there for longer, especially considering that she hadn’t returned to the grove. He never even considered that she might not have survived.

“I still don’t understand,” Oscar admitted.

“We started with nine. It’s been at least a year since the original warning,” he stated. Then, he recalled the original notification:

Congratulations on conquering your first Primal Realm. With this accomplishment, Earth will embark on the next phase of its integration into the wider universe.

Before your world is truly and permanently integrated, you must prove that you can handle the responsibility thrust upon you. To that end, you are expected to conquer the eight remaining Primal Realms on your world.

You have ten years to accomplish this feat. Doing so will result in full integration. Failing will earn excisement.

“In that time, we’ve taken down one more. When this one’s finished, we’ll be down to six remaining. Five once Sadie completes her mission,” he explained. “It’s not going to be easy, getting in under the deadline. Originally, I thought ten years was a long time. Now, I’m wishing it was twice as long.”

The fact was that he knew that if he took that burden on his own shoulders alone, he would collapse. Each Primal Realm had exacted its toll. The Desolate Reach had been the easiest of them, but that was expected. Their potency was tied to the world’s ambient ethera – at least to some degree – so it made sense that it would have been the least challenging.

Even then, it had claimed Dat’s life. By comparison, the cost he’d incurred during the Chimeric Forge was paltry, if only because he’d been the only one forced to suffer. He could take that, even if he knew good and well that continuing to do so would eventually shatter him.

It was very easy to believe he was unbreakable, that the situation would never get the better of him. But the true threat wasn’t that he would suddenly snap into a thousand pieces and become an incomprehensible mess of a man. That was possible. Post-traumatic stress was a real thing, and it affected everyone differently. However, the more insidious possibility was that it would slowly chip away at who he was until one day, he’d look in the mirror and see something entirely different from what he expected.

It had already begun when he’d put Easton out of its misery, and he’d cracked even further with his most recent bout with vengeance. So, maybe the situation wouldn’t break him. But that didn’t mean it wouldn’t reshape him into something unrecognizable.

Such was the case with the stress of each Primal Realm. A man could only be burned and flayed alive so many times before it scarred him on a deep and immutable level.

And Elijah knew that if he was forced to take the burden of saving the world from excisement on his shoulders alone, he wouldn’t survive the attempt. Other people needed to step up.

Of course, if they didn’t, Elijah knew he wouldn’t shy away from doing what needed to be done. He wasn’t heartless, after all. Yet, for now, he needed to pace himself so he could maintain his sanity for a little longer.

That meant rest. Recuperation. Distracting himself from his own trauma by making soap or carving new staves. Even exploration helped. But he worried about the day when what he needed ceased to coincide with the reality of what was required from him.

“It’s nothing,” he said, kneeling down to scratch Escobar’s ears. “Just worrying over nothing, probably.” He glanced back at Oscar. “You ready to get this thing done?”

Oscar nodded.

And with that, they stepped back into the storm of elements. At first, the effects weren’t too onerous, and they tended toward what Elijah now identified as air-attuned ethera. However, as they crossed paths with the outer bands of the Elemental Maelstrom, the intensity of the storm grew significantly more potent.

But by that point, both Elijah and the pack had grown accustomed to traveling through it. So, he fell back into the rhythm of healing everyone as they made their way toward the fourth and final challenge, which was known as the Unyielding Path. Along the way, they were forced to fight familiar wildlife, but in the first few days, nothing truly threatened them.

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It was another week before the flavor of the ambient ethera shifted, indicating that they were getting closer to their destination. That was reflected in a seemingly sudden change in the wildlife. Gone were the representatives of the other elements, and in their place were big, bulky, and incredibly durable beasts.

The first they encountered was a creature Freddy – through Oscar – claimed was called a Rocklaw, and it looked like nothing so much as a landbound lobster. The only difference between it and a normal crustacean was that it was armored in granite-like stone that blended almost perfectly into the terrain.

And it was the size of a horse, which was a horrifying but not unexpected feature. Killing it proved to be incredibly difficult, and the only solace they found was that it moved fairly slowly outside of its initial attempt at an ambush. In the end, it took almost an hour to wear it down until its rocky carapace cracked, revealing internal organs that looked geodic in nature.

Oddly enough, they still pulsed with life and thick, mud-like liquid.

The rest of the wildlife followed a similar pattern, most often veering toward non-complex or insectile structures. There were plenty of earth-worms around, though they typically steered clear of Elijah and his party. Perhaps they were capable of calculating the risk of an attack. In addition, they were forced to endure attacks from scorpions that seemed like they were made of mud, a sandstone golem-like creature that shot columns of pressurized sand at them, and a host of other creatures.

Their progress slowed to a crawl, which was probably the only reason the giants caught up to them.

There were six in the group, and from what Elijah could tell, they were all freshly ascended. The highest level was probably one-fifty, but the others didn’t fall far behind. In addition, they were all earth giants, as evidenced by their stocky – but still fifteen-foot-tall forms – flowing, mud-like beards, and preference for thick-headed hammers. Their skin was also made of jagged rock.

“They are up to no good,” Oscar remarked when he saw them coming. They moved much faster than expected, but that was probably due to the environment.

“You think?” Elijah asked as the group of giants closed. “That was sarcasm, by the way.”

“I know.”

“Right.”

Sometimes, it was easy to forget that Oscar had lived his whole life among people – at least until fairly recently. Elijah had difficulty determining the other man’s exact age, but he guessed that Oscar was at least in his early thirties. Maybe a little older. So, he clearly had plenty of experience with normal conversation. The wild man look was more than just a façade, but it did hide what had once been a regular person.

Not that regular really existed anymore.

In any case, he said, “Let’s see what they want. Be ready to fight, but hold back until I give the go-ahead. This might be a proper chance to test my new spell.”

Oscar nodded, and they slowed to a stop, planting themselves in a relatively open plain between two rocky escarpments. Freddy ducked behind a boulder, then proceeded to position himself for a flanking attack. Meanwhile, Ray and Maymay took positions behind Jackson and Sophie, who stood to either side of Elijah.

Digby had disappeared, though Elijah felt the disturbance of the earth as he swung wide, clearly intending to attack from the rear. Oscar stood just behind Elijah, ethera swirling around him in a dense cloak as he held multiple abilities on the verge of activation.

For his part, Elijah planted the butt of his scythe in the ground, then embraced the Crown of Authority, which manifested in his deer-skull helmet with antlers of green fire. At the same time, he activated Nature’s Flame, sending similarly hued flames down the haft of his weapon to encircle his arm.

It was only then that the giants reached them.

They stopped about thirty feet away, but even at that distance, they were imposing creatures that radiated the solidity of a mountain range.

“You do not belong here,” said the leader, identifiable because he was bigger and stouter than all the rest. Plus, he was the one that stepped forward and ordered, “Turn back, and we will allow you to live. Remain, and you will die.”

Obviously, they weren’t impressed with Elijah’s status as a cindrandir. That made sense, considering that the manifestation of the Shape of the Master was a denizen of Ignis.

“You sure about that?” Elijah asked. “I’m cool with parting ways, right here and now. I don’t even mind it if you travel with us for protection. But if you’re here to stop me, then I’m going to kill every last one of you.”

“Ha! Your weakness will not defile the sacred trial of the titans! You will never walk the Unyielding Path!”

The other earth giants laughed, the collective sound like an avalanche.

“You’ll be first,” Elijah said, pointing at the leader. “The rest of you will fall soon after.”

“We do not fear you, human.”

It was Elijah’s turn to laugh. “Is that what you think I am? Funny.”

The giants had clearly had enough, because the leader threw himself forward with unerring power. Elijah was ready for it, though. He released the spell he’d held at bay:

Nature’s Claim

Summon an environment-appropriate fungus to overwhelm your enemy. Duration dependent on Ethera attribute. Current: 3.3 minutes. Potency dependent on relative core cultivation. Usable in Shape of Thorn or natural form.

The giant stumbled a step later. Then, he fell to his knees, doubling over in pain. When he looked up, his eyes bulged as he demanded, “What is this?!”

“Life.”

Just then, the stone on his back shattered, and a mushroom erupted from the crater. Then another after that. A hundred more sprouted before the giant let out a great cough, expelling glittering spores into the air. A moment later, the mushrooms reached their limits and burst. The breeze scattered the resultant spores into the other giants. The creatures panicked, trying to back away, but they were too late.

One breath was all it took.

One after another, they fell, just like their leader. Mushrooms – smaller and less forceful than the ones that had grown out of the first giant – shattered their stone flesh and grew to fruition before bursting and continuing the cycle.

Elijah barely watched. Instead, he focused on the sense he gained from Soul of the Wild. That told him more than he could ever learn with his eyes, and the results were staggering. The first target took the full brunt of the spell, and he’d experienced the worst of it. However, the spreading spores had prompted a slightly weaker version in the other giants. From what Elijah could tell, it was close to a third less potent. But even that was enough.

Each subsequent instance was significantly less powerful, but even at its baseline, it was similar to the original Swarm’s afflictions.

And what’s more, it wouldn’t stop for the entire three-and-a-third minute duration.

That meant that, potentially, Elijah had another city killer on his hands. The only solace was that it wouldn’t affect his allies – at least based on his own perception. Otherwise, he would be just as dangerous to his friends as to his enemies.

Even as the last giant breathed its final, labored breath, Elijah wondered how somewhere like Seattle would fare against the combination of Nature’s Claim and Eternal Plague. Not well, he thought. Not well at all.

He glanced back at Oscar, saying, “I guess we need to move on. Let’s go.”

Without waiting for a response, he turned and headed in the direction of the Unyielding Path.