Wraithwood Botanist

Envision what that’s like, the feeling of freedom and comfort and relief that washes over you.

That’s what happened when the blockage in my core broke free. It dissolved, and mana suddenly flowed through my body like a breeze, and my core sped up two to three times faster, spinning effortlessly like an oiled machine. For a minute, things got so smooth that I stupidly believed that threading was as effortless as breathing and stopped chanting. Then, the black hole that had replaced my mana core in my spine overflowed with mana, and I cried out, starting my chant again.

But that chant. I could feel how it worked.

The spell started out feeling like it was taking a sledgehammer to raw ore, breaking it open in search of precious stones. Now, it felt like an artisan using their smooth hands to expand and refine clay on a potter’s wheel—sculpting. Limitless.

A thunderous boom quaked as something hit the barrier, and beasts roared in the distance. Things were getting nasty… but.

This was my chance. I had absolute dominion over my core, and no matter how much I fed it, it could take more. It could have been the only chance I’d get to catch up to Kline and be useful. So I trusted they would call out if they needed me and pressed on, activating Moxle Dilation and churning my core as fast as I could. All the mana within the third evolution core I was threading was sucked right into my spine—and did so quicker than my core or spell could handle it.

So, I decided to connect to the mana in my environment as I did on the day that I established my core. I closed my eyes deeper… and deeper… and deeper… and then gave the order.

Apokálypsis.

2.

Damn! How much power can she take? Kyro cried as he watched mana spiral toward Mira. If it were her watching from above, she would describe the sight as a hurricane, with her being the eye of the storm.

The beasts were attracted to concentrations of mana, and Mira’s new Kyfer core was siphoning mana directly from the vein, attracting every beast in the area.

Kyro looked to his side and saw Kline sitting beside him on an Ethereal Bridge, bloody and exhausted, watching the beasts—wondering if they would eat the others and move on or attack. Then, Kyro looked at his hands. One was crusted white and unusable, and the other was burnt.

Things were getting bleak.

3.

Kori barged into Elana’s meeting, disrupting critical parts of the negotiation and causing her entire face to bulge. Worse, he did it wearing hunting attire, leather armor contrasting against the pristine white room with two formally dressed gods.

"May I help you?" Elana asked coolly.

"No. You… could certainly… possibly help your disciple. She’s about to die."

Kori’s words squeezed Elana’s chest like a sponge, and she found herself standing. "Forgive me," she said. "We will need to negotiate at another time."

The gods were aghast.

"To help a disciple?" The gods were a couple, man and woman, and the man was half as incensed as the woman, who looked positively livid. "Do you understand how far we’ve traveled to come here?"

Elana understood. Gods were not accustomed to being disregarded for any reason—least of all for disciples. In god society, every servant, cook, and worker was a disciple, as those who sought ultimate power in the lower domains and became demigods would not submit themselves to the lives of laborers and servants unless they received resources and training. That’s why the idea of Elana forgoing her meeting with her business partners for a mere disciple was unbelievable.

Yet. The mere thought that anyone below a high god would compare their value to her disciple was inconceivable, delusional, and offensive, and something snapped in Elana.

"I am aware how far you’ve traveled, yes," she said. "And if you will forgive my intrusion, I will make up—"

"Make it up to us…" the man said. "It cost over a billion denara to travel here and you mean to make it up to us."

"I will promptly reimburse you."

"It’s not about the money."

Elana took a deep breath and turned to the door. "Have a wonderful day."

"If you walk out that door, we will take this to the Daelia Council."

"Oh, is that so?" Elana turned around with an intense gaze. "Well, if you do speak to the council, please inform them that the reason they cannot buy our upcoming line of resources is because their weak, pathetic representatives had grown complacent by wearing their council’s reputation and power like a coat. And as a result, they were unable to grasp that the ’disciple’ in question is the same one responsible for obtaining resources for this product line."

Elana took a step forward and released the crushing aura of a ninth evolution god, making the man fall into his chair, wheezing under the pressure. Kori took a knee, and the businesswoman’s eyes bulged.

"And also remind them that I neither need their money nor protection. In fact, I’m unconcerned if they declare war. As, whether my disciple succeeds in making it to the harvest or not, I have the resources, power, and connections to wipe their council off the map."

She took another step as the couple cowered.

"Most importantly," Elana said, glowering at the couple from above. "Even if I needed your money and protection and couldn’t afford a costly war, I will not have my disciple disrespected for the sake of a petty business deal. I have warred for less in my life and will continue to do so with people who do not understand their place."

Elana released her pressure and stormed out of the room, grabbing Kori off the ground and physically dragging his limp body along the hallway and into her room. When she got inside, she threw him onto the couch and threw two bottles of Hapsel’s poison on the table along with one glass, as the brutish archer didn’t believe in decency, and then finally looked at the screen.

Mira was in the center of the lake, surrounded in a hypnotic tornado of mana that kept growing, attracting beasts. That wasn’t planned.

Kori groaned and rubbed his forearms and opened the bottle and drank. "You teach ’er that?"

Elana frowned. The technique was called a scala bind. It allowed users to connect into the external mana tapestry directly instead of first breathing mana into a core. It was as advanced as it was dangerous, a key separation point between mortals and demigods. Elana didn’t know when she learned it, but she knew she could by the way Mira was able to learn separation. If she knew that Yakana had taught her during the night he taught her threading, she wouldn’t believe it. She couldn’t believe it even as she watched.

"No," Elana said. "I didn’t."

"So it was Yakana…" Kori took a long swig. "That bastard’s making you look bad. No wonder she defaulted to him."

Mira crudely turned down her evolution technique to utilize Yakana, and Elana couldn’t disagree that it was the best option. Yakana was powerful, but…

"Do you ever cease to embarrass yourself?" Elana poured herself a drink and then pushed it aside, drinking directly from the bottle of amber poison. "It doesn’t matter where she learned it. The simple fact is that she’s attracting beasts and her protectors are… in the sky."

Elana was watching them through Kline’s eyes, and he was above. Worse, when the cat turned to the fluttering imp, the tiny thing’s hand was crusted with aura burn.

At least he had proven useful—

—as useless as he had now become.

"I’m telling you, just trust the little guy," Kori said, scratching his head. "First off, he’s sacrificing his body to protect her. Second, he’s not some random Drokai. He’s gotta be a demi if he can’t use magic that far in, and since he can’t, he’s using cores and sigils to supplement. How many gods do you know that can do that? I mean, sure, there’s no need but…" He took another drink and grimaced as he exhaled. "How many gods even know an offensive sigil? It’s not exactly common. I’d rather just shoot someone, you know?"

Elana frowned. "That’s what I’m afraid of."

Suddenly, a colossal webba (a beast that the oracle would translate to "gorilla" for Mira) tested the water with its toe and then jumped in, crudely believing that its soul was powerful enough to handle the pond—

—it wasn’t. It flailed and turned in front of their very eyes, and when it was done, it turned and attacked its brethren. It was the most powerful, a speed type that quickly grabbed one by the neck and threw it into the pond. Two more attacked, and it became a bloody maul in a moment, with beasts throwing each other around, some landing in the water before the rest ran away.

As for the ones that remained, they turned their attention to Mira.

Kline suddenly jumped onto an Ethereal Bridge, but the Drokai stopped him, pulling out mana core fragments and putting them into his mouth like broken glass, and flew down to the barrier as the beasts smashed into the barrier.

He raised a massive soul core in his left hand, clearly willing to sacrifice the only one he had left, and then created a sigil that Elana had never seen before. It glowed brightly under the foggy water as if it were an array that was already placed there, and she honestly believed it was clearly using the unique properties of an enchantment.

It siphoned directly from mana in the pond, creating a competing vortex as the creatures thrashing in the pond panicked. They tried to flee, but the imp threw an aura spear so powerful it caused its body to explode, sacrificing his hand in one strike.

"What the fuck is he doing?" Kori cried.

The arrow had blasted away all the soul fog, allowing them to see blood chunks rising to the surface of the water underneath the enchantment—which had no form and couldn’t be destroyed.

"He just sacrificed his…" Kori’s eyes widened. "Oh gods."

Any doubt that "Kyro" was a demigod with deep connections died the instant his spell activated. The soul of the colossal gorilla materialized from the pond. It was only thirty feet standing before, but all the souls in the pond added to it like wet clay packing a doll. It became larger and larger until it was the size of the Garna colossus Mira had killed earlier, wrapped in a cloud of swirling fog.

"No way…" Elana whispered.

The beasts backed up warily as they looked at it, falling still as they awaited the verdict. Then, after the soul beast sniffed the air a few times, it lifted its arms and released an earth-shattering roar.

Suddenly, it flew forward, grabbing a third evolution creature by the neck. Its hands passed right through, but the beast still seized and thrashed. It grabbed its soul directly. Then it pulled, and suddenly, the beast it attacked suddenly fell limp, falling to the ground without a single wound.

"Well," Kori wagged his finger at the screen. "At least we got our answer. Seems Brindy’s left a legacy, after all."

The gorilla flew forward again, slamming into another beast. It barely struck, but the victim started wobbling. Suddenly, a few beasts that could use aura attacks flew forward, slashing into the fog monster. It left actual damage, and the monster roared, but it was still exponentially stronger than the beasts. It lifted its two hands and slammed down on the beast’s head.

"This isn’t good," Elana whispered.

Kori wiped his lips with his wrist and looked over. "Why not? You get that thing’s on our side, right?"

Elana’s eyes snapped open and she turned to him in a fury. "Just think you simple-minded buffoon. Do you really think a cursed demigod can sustain that thing?"

Kline’s gaze suddenly turned to Kyro and found him pale and sweating. His shoulders were slouched, one eye was closed, and he was trying to open up a flask with his hands, but they weren’t working. He was trying to slaughter them all as quickly as possible.

"And when it drops…"

Elana turned back to Mira. Hurry up…

4.

Ragnarok raged outside the barrier. Beasts were fighting and splashing and releasing terrifying roars before massive strikes shook the world. I felt like Winston Churchill, smoking a cigar under the shelling, drunk with power and the thrill of war.

I placed faith in Kline and Kyro. If I were really in danger, they would’ve called out to me, asked me to break the barrier, and then saved me. But they didn’t, so I didn’t move.

This was the reality of the situation: I was a strategic asset, but in a battle against third-evolution beasts, I was useless. My arrows didn’t break the skin, and I couldn’t even follow their movements with Moxle Dilation yet.

In direct battle, I was useless.

What I needed was power, and I could finally feel it flowing inot me. It was like a bottomless well. The third evolution crumbled before hell broke loose, but after connecting directly to the mana tapestry, I was pulling mana from the mana vein itself! And while my core had stopped expanding, the mana it allowed me to thread had no limits. It was so smooth, as if I had full control.

I sucked it into my core in a torrent, charging with raw power. It was intoxicating.

I had no idea just how bad things were outside, but I did know that I needed to prepare. So I churned harder and faster, alternating Moxle Dilation to fill my core more and more and more until I could finally feel it. Hot, blistering pain pumping through me. My core was swelling fast and overheating. I was almost to my limit—

—and I probably would’ve hit it, too, if Kline hadn’t splashed into the water outside the barrier and released a desperate cry.

I opened my eyes and found that the pond was clear and sparkling with Kline swimming in it. "What the hell…? What’s going…"

I turned and froze in horror when I saw a hundred-foot behemoth gorilla made of swirling clouds release a cry as beasts surrounded it. Then I understood the desperation. A tiny object flew down from the heavens like a meteorite, crashing into the water. The next moment, the colossus released a final roar before falling to its knees, exploding like the dust cloud from a nuclear explosion—blanketing the world with white.