BOOK 9: CHAPTER 79: BENEATH THE BOUGHS

It was one of the worst things Elijah had ever experienced.

He’d been digested by a whale. He’d had his skin ripped from his body. His bones had been pulverized on countless occasions, and he’d even been torn in half. But none of those things even came close to comparing to the feelings he experienced when breaking, then resetting the dogs’ badly healed bones.

“I’m going to hear those whimpers in my sleep.”

Ray laid his head on Elijah’s lap, but Elijah ignored it. Instead, he focused on Oscar, who wore a haunted expression.

“They understand that it was necessary,” the other man said. “They don’t blame you.”

Elijah sighed, his hand finally finding the dog’s head. As he stroked Ray’s fur, he responded, “I know that. It doesn’t help.”

Indeed, he could still hear their cries of pain, and he didn’t think he’d soon forget them. It was one thing to break and reset his own bones. He’d done that more times than he could count, and while it was far from pleasant, he’d accepted it as necessary. But doing it to companions? That was different. It was even worse when those companions were dogs.

There was just something about hurting animals that triggered every ounce of disgust he could muster. With that came self-loathing, and for the first time ever, he wished he’d been offered the Healer archetype. Ron could have properly healed the dogs without causing pain.

It was a ridiculous notion. Elijah knew he’d have been dead a thousand times over if he’d been anything but a Druid. And what’s more, the archetype fit him like a glove. But guilt over causing so much pain to the innocent animals was enough to drive him into irrationality.

He pushed it away and into the same facet of his mind that usually housed all of his other negative feelings. There, it could mingle with all the rest of his guilt. The anger. The frustration over his many failures. One day, he would need to deal with that cloud of negativity. But the middle of a Primal Realm definitely wasn’t the time to cope with his trauma.

So, once it was locked away, he turned his attention to the task at hand. Despite climbing the Unyielding Path and spending more time on the earth-themed trial than any of the others, Elijah knew they weren’t finished. Something awaited at the top of the mountain, and they only had to follow the curve of the tunnel to confront it.

With that in mind, he pushed himself to his feet, then checked all of his gear. He was missing one of his greaves – lost during the Crucible of Fire – but the rest of his armor was still intact. That didn’t mean it was in good shape, though. He felt that one good hit would tear it to pieces.

The Verdant Fang looked brand new, though, and the Antlers of the Wild Revenant – unseen though they were – remained in perfect condition as well. The Sash of the Whirlwind had frayed a bit at the edges, and at some point, he’d lost the Snake Totem. He hadn’t even realized it was gone until that moment.

“What is it?” Oscar asked.

“I lost my necklace.”

“Was it important?”

Elijah shook his head. “Not really. I usually didn’t even remember I was wearing it,” he said. The effect was helpful, extending his afflictions by fifteen percent, but the attribute bonuses were negligible. In all, it was a loss, but not a terribly impactful one. “It’s fine, though.”

He checked his Ghoul-Hide Satchel, which had proven itself to be incredibly durable. After everything he’d been through, there wasn’t a mark on it. Of course, it still looked like it had been stitched together by a child, and given its name, from something wholly unsavory. But it looked the same now as it had when he’d gotten it as a tower reward. It had been years since then, and it felt like even longer.

“Do you ever wonder what you’d be doing if none of this had happened?” Elijah asked, looking up from the satchel. “You know, if the world hadn’t changed.”

Oscar shook his head. “No.”

“Really? I do. I mean, I was dying when all of this happened, so if I’m honest, I’d be dead right now. But if I did survive…you know, if I’d never gotten cancer…I’d probably still be in Hawaii. Maybe I’d have gotten a promotion at work. Probably not, but there’s a chance. Even if I didn’t, I had a pretty easy life. Would I have gotten married? Nina wanted to. I could see that she was waiting for me to ask,” he babbled. “She’s probably dead now. They all are. I should be too. A thousand times over.

“I just sometimes wonder why I’m the one who survived. I’m not that special. I mean…Kirlissa says I have a uniquely powerful attunement to nature, but I’m sure I’m not the only person in the world who had that kind of connection. They should have survived. Not me,” Elijah said. “Dat should still be here. So should Alyssa. They were both so much better than me. So…so much better.”

Elijah knew he was just babbling. He’d bottled his trauma for so long that it had bubbled over the edge without him even noticing it. And now that it was loose, he didn’t know how to put it back in its place.

“I feel like that sometimes,” Oscar admitted. “My family died. I tried to reach them, but…I was too late. I tried to save others, too. But Miami…we were overrun in days. Creatures came from the sea and destroyed everything. They killed everyone. I escaped, but…but nobody else did. I don’t think there were any other survivors.”

Elijah sighed, but he didn’t respond. The sheer loss of life was staggering. He’d known about it. Obviously, he had. But hearing that billions of people had died was one thing. Oscar recounting his personal experiences of the destruction of an entire city of millions of people was entirely different. More impactful. More tragic.

“What keeps you going?” Elijah asked.

“My pack,” he said. “They support me. I protect them. We are one. Separate but together.”

Elijah looked away, momentarily envious. But that only lasted long enough for him to remember that Oscar was in no way okay. The man had his own trauma. He eschewed human contact and spent most of his time in the wilderness. And while there was some appeal to that way of life, it had taken its toll on Oscar. Elijah could never have lived like that.

Nobody could.

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Not indefinitely.

The fact was that human beings were social creatures, and as comforting as canine companionship was, it was no substitute for human contact. No – Oscar was just as broken as Elijah. He just hid his trauma behind the pack.

“We’re quite a pair, huh?” he muttered.

Oscar nodded, though he didn’t give any other indication that he understood what Elijah meant. He was often like that.

In any case, Elijah knew his self-reflection was simply an effort to delay the inevitable. So, he pushed himself to his feet and asked, “Are we ready? Everyone fully recovered?”

A series of barks echoed in the cave, and once again, Oscar gave him a nod. Soon enough, they were trekking down the tunnel. They kept going, steadily wandering upward for nearly five hours until, at last, they reached a large stone door. Upon it were identical glyphs to the ones that had marked their entrance into the trial.

“Strength is the stone that does not yield,” Elijah read aloud. It was a good lesson for the previous challenge, and he suspected it would apply to the coming fight.

He glanced to his right to see the firm and determined set of Oscar’s jaw. To the left were Jackson and Sophie, their postures conveying stoic indomitability. The other dogs were arrayed behind him, though they were no less resolute. Elijah rolled his shoulders, summoning the Verdant Fang to hand. Then, he brought his focus to a sharp point.

“Ready?”

Everyone was.

He pushed against the door, and despite its enormity and weight, it swung inward without protest. The scene that greeted Elijah on the other side was an odd one.

Clearly, they had reached the top of the mountain. The peak was flat and exposed to the elements. Snow whipped around, driven by the powerful winds of a blizzard, but with the glyphs the group had earned in the other trials, the effects were negligible.

Elijah stepped out onto the platform, his entire focus on the feature at its center.

The throne itself was barely recognizable as such. Comprised of multi-colored geodes and jagged crystal, it more resembled an explosion of rock. If it hadn’t been for the creature seated upon it, Elijah never would have known what it was intended to be.

“Mountain titan,” Oscar said.

Elijah didn’t need the label. Outwardly, the creature looked like it was made of a tilted shale formation, jagged and layered, but with subtle variations of gray. Its eyes glowed yellow, and its proportions resembled a dwarf’s, meaning that its shoulders were much wider and heavier than they should have been. The difference, of course, was that, even seated, the thing was massive. Probably forty feet tall. Twice that if it stood.

“The Unyielding Path is not for those of fleeting will,” the thing rumbled. The sound was like an avalanche in progress, grating and deep. An earthquake given voice. But there was understanding there. Not kindness, but perhaps something approaching empathy. Elijah couldn’t quite pin it down, but the creature didn’t possess the sheer arrogance of the other titans they’d faced. “To get this far is a feat worthy of praise. Though you have reached the end of the path, you have not conquered it. Brace yourselves. Endure. Embody the mountain, standing tall against inferior elements.”

Elijah stepped forward, and the dogs fanned out all around him. The second he did, he felt the familiar sensation of gravity increasing. It wasn’t unlike what he’d experienced at the bottom of the mountain, though he could tell from the density of the local ethera that more was in store.

And he knew he didn’t want to go through that again.

The interpretation was clear – they were on a timer. If they didn’t kill the thing quickly, then they would eventually be crushed by the increased pressure. The second that thought crossed his mind, Elijah used Dragon’s Echo, then tapped into the False Grove, and cast Eternal Plague.

He’d gotten blood from metal, so he figured he could do the same with stone. His swarm erupted into being, immediately attacking the titan. The thing didn’t even twitch as thousands, then tens of thousands of conjured insects fell upon it. Elijah didn’t hold back, tapping into Grove Conduit as well.

Soon, millions – then tens of millions – of tiny insects had been summoned, and they covered every inch of the creature’s body. Elijah could feel vast flows of ethera coursing through him and into the spell that had ultimately destroyed the giant mecha-factory in the Chimeric Forge.

But it did no good.

Even when there were hundreds of millions of flies swarming the mountain titan, Elijah could feel that it’d had no effect. Certainly, they delivered their afflictions. Hundreds of instances of them for each fly. However, that was where they stopped. They had no effect on the creature.

Elijah cut off the spell before he spent too much ethera, then cast Nature’s Claim. Just as they had with the earth giant he’d encountered on the way to the Unyielding Path, mushrooms burst free of the titan’s back, then exploded into spores.

But still, the titan was unmoved.

By that point, the pressure had increased three times, reaching a level similar to what they’d experienced halfway up the spiraling path that had led them to the top of the mountain.

Of course, Elijah’s attacks were not alone. Escobar spent almost forty-five seconds summoning an enormous fire ball that fell upon the mountain titan with an explosion that obliterated every last fly. It burned through the mushrooms as well and scorched the spores from the air.

If it hurt the mountain titan at all, then it certainly didn’t show it.

“Save your ethera!” Oscar shouted. “This isn’t about killing the titan. We can only endure its presence. Be the mountain!”

That went against every single one of Elijah’s instincts, but he had faith in Oscar. He trusted the man as much as he’d ever trusted anyone in his entire life. So, he shifted his focus from attack to endurance.

He sat, crossed his legs, and adopted the same posture – mentally as well as physically – that he’d used to help the pack in its quest for body cultivation. Soon enough, the pressure had increased past what they’d experienced in the last stretch of the Unyielding Path, but they endured. Elijah channeled vast flows of ethera into his healing spells, keeping everyone alive.

The dogs whimpered. Then, they fell silent, unable to even muster sound. If he couldn’t feel their vitality, he would have thought they were dead.

Oscar cycled one ability after another, clearly pushing their constitutions to previously unattainable levels.

But the pressure continued to build.

Elijah could feel his bones on the verge of being crushed into powder. Yet, he endured. Grove Conduit was the savior. Without it, he would have run himself out of ethera a hundred times over. With it, he could barely keep up.

And then, he couldn’t.

Escobar broke first.

Elijah felt it, but as much as he pushed against his heals, reaching previously unattainable heights, he couldn’t heal the dog fast enough. He was going to die. And soon enough, so would Ray and Maymay. Then Freddy, Oscar, and Digby. Jackson and Sophie would endure longer than the others, but unless something changed, they would be crushed as well.

Then, Elijah would be alone.

Even if he survived, which was not guaranteed, he would once again find himself facing the world without companionship.

He couldn’t allow that.

So, with his mind whirling with despair, he focused his attention on another tactic.

His mantle of authority exploded into being, and more forcefully than every before. There was some resistance as the titan pushed back on his efforts, but Elijah’s soul was strong. Too strong to be stopped. The branches of his soul spread in every direction, sheltering the dogs and banishing the thick fog of yellow ethera that had created the pressure.

Elijah pulsed ethera through it, drawing deeply from the Grove Conduit.

And thus, they endured.

Minutes turned to hours, and the pressure far exceeded anything any of them could have ever endured. But beneath the boughs of Elijah’s soul, they were safe.

Four hours after their ordeal began, the mountain titan began to crumble under the weight of his own power. That created a chain reaction that, over the next day, saw him crumble into a thousand shards of jagged stone. The last bit to crumble was his head, which had long since fallen from its perch to roll within thirty feet of Elijah.

And as it cracked, then fell apart, Elijah thought he saw a satisfied smile.

Then, the pressure disappeared.

Elijah kept his mantle of authority going for another few minutes before, at last, he let it fall away. Only then did he let himself acknowledge the cost of his actions.

Channeling so much ethera through his soul had not come without consequences, and he soon found himself losing consciousness. Vaguely, he was aware of Oscar catching him before he fell, but he didn’t have time to acknowledge it before darkness overcame his vision and he passed out.