novelraw Chapter 1029 - 1028 - Irony
Chapter 1029 - 1028 - Irony
The corridors have no light.
It has been so long since any kind of light touched the corridors were many caskets are lined along the walls. A single metal path was laid out between each slot. Anyone from Earth would recognize it as a place from science fiction but the various dark sigils flaring occasionally would dismiss it.
Cultivation could mimic science and eventually surpass the limited understanding humans had.
Sadly, the perversion of nature was not limited to science nor the mortal realms.
A shadowy figure walked slowly up the main corridor. She did not seem to need any light to see her way. She gently waved her delicate fingers in the air and the sigils flared briefly. Her dark beauty was beyond any possible reality but there she stood.
Her ash gray skin and white hair braided over dark leathers revealed her for the species she was.
A Fiend!
"More lairs lost again. Someone knows what to look for." Her voice was darkly beautiful, enough to entrance any that heard it but outside her race it would cause a sickening reaction.
Her very existence would make all other races pull back in revulsion despite her beauty.
Her lithe figure dismissed the weavings on several of the caskets as they no longer served a purpose.
The great plan was failing!
The Great One had originated the plan and the foolish cultivators greedy for eternal life had helped it along back before any knew of the danger.
Unlike the Realm Refiner that required a rather clear facility that could not be hidden, the current was extremely well hidden. It was kilometers deep and wide but not even she knew how much.
It had taken millions of years and resources untold to pull it off. Hiding it had required sacrifices and more overt battles to keep the sects and other powers away.
The perfection of it always appealed to her.
Once activated, the lower realms would be transformed into pure power for them! No more having to harvest from farms or individuals. They would transform an entire Celestial Fields into their power!
It had been perfect, until it went wrong.
The Realm Refiner was activated too early to start. They were long ready but unprepared with their forces spread across the 2nd layer.
Many died when the great constructs began to function. She had been inside with the others, so they were fine but billions died back at the beginning.
Still, it ironically helped spread the Corruption as the outside world called it. She had laughed as they comically underestimated what they were doing.
They thought it was a direct attack against Immortals! That had simply been a happy accident! The real target was preparing the upper layers for refinement and isolating the dangerously powerful Radiant and Sovereign Tiers from being able to interfere!
The latter may be locked away in the 4th layer, but they could send armies of Radiants down to the 2nd! It could not be allowed!
"Tck, if this keeps up, the main relays will start to break in about 10,000 years. What is taking the Refiner so long?" Her words revealed the weakness of the plan. By cutting off the layers, they cut off any ability to check on the progress.
Supposedly, the Realm Refiner would take a century at most to complete its task before ascending.
After over a million years, they knew truly that things had gone wrong. Attempts to descend failed miserably so they could only give up.
They observed and manipulated the layer with their agents as the chaos unleashed was truly amusing. She frowned as another casket went dark on her tour.
It had started in the east.
Someone, no something, had revealed a lair and power they could not fight! It ripped apart their wards like paper and an emerald dragon spirit of all things flared right above them! It was invulnerable to them!
It had been cut off by her but the damage was done. The ancestral dragons had awakened! Even though their clans were weakened, the power of those dragons could not be underestimated!
Those old monsters would not move unless their bloodline was in danger, and a few had when they were, it had caused untold headaches for their plan.
It took nearly 300 thousand years to recover after the Blessed Amber Scale fiasco!
Those damn dragons had caused havoc in the mountainous regions until the last of the main line had been killed by their agents!
She moved on from the caskets before coming to a larger circular area of the compound. If it was viewed from above, the central area was the largest commons with corridors branching off from it. It was like spokes on a wheel.
Thousands of Fiends was all it took to enact their plan but still, the sacrifice was high.
She finally came into pale light from Fiend light crystals. She found even more irony that their plan basically wiped out Fiend resources in the 2nd layer so all that still existed was inside the confines of their compound.
She followed the sounds of angry voices and smirked. The side project many had been working on before the Great One's grand design were suffering.
She had enjoyed it to an extent as it made them even but then that damned emerald power showed up again!
She came to a large room where many male Fiends were arguing loudly about the loss of integrity to their bloodline arrays.
It had been a long term plan to slowly affect the minds of powers aligned against them. It had taken billions of years of careful groundwork but it had coincided with the plans of the Great One.
Originally, it had been a plan to simply cause long term disruption to the various powers but then it became a good foundation to help the Corruption consume more cultivators. The more that died, the better for the bloodline arrays.
As the original plan failed to produce results in under a century, it became far more useful.
Irony was practically the word of the last million years!
"I am telling you, that damned dragon showed up there! The Divine Ruin we used as bait caught it!" A voice perked her interest at the mention of that emerald dragon.
"Even if that was true, the Triple Maester Taren Cord showed up in Crescent City. Those strange artifacts that ripped Qi away had to be his work too after Kun City! He is tied to that dragon or part of its lineage!" She came upon a meeting where impossibly handsome men with ash gray skin and white hair were arguing.
Useless, the lot of them.
They had become complacent after their arrays spread to most of the major to mid powers. They also barraged her with how essential their groundwork had been long ago.
Now, they joined her pain as they suffered losses.
"What happened after that damned battle?!" A slim man spoke up but she ignored him as she passed by. They were just weavers after all. Their work with the array was impressive but ultimately a parlor trick.
She moved deeper into the central complex until she came to a set of dark double doors. She bowed low and waited.
Time passed but she did move until the doors swung inward.
"Sela, what do you have for me?" A voice spoke that made her shiver. Unlike the arguing fools she passed by, the current voice was powerful and demanded obedience.
"We have lost 5 more lairs in the east. It took some confirmation but they come from a place called Amber Scale City." She said nothing else and waited.
A sigh came from the room beyond the doors.
"The arrays are not working in that direction as well as they used to either. It does not seem to be deliberate like the attack near the Ruin, just a side effect. Yet I sense the root of it is the strange Maester and his companion. Send out orders to kill them. Take no chances." Sela bowed low and the doors slammed shut.
Any threat to the plan was killed out of hand but to receive specific orders from the controller was new. It meant that Maester was more than just a casual threat!
"I obey, great lord!" She quickly moved back and consulted the few lairs still connected to the area. The agents brought her updates but she frowned.
"Gone?! How could he be gone?!" They did not have the answer but her blood froze at the likely answer. He was in the Ruin!
"Send assassins into that Ruin now!" She felt the positive response and closed the connection. The agents would take it from there. The worst case was manipulating the weakened arrays in that area too but she did not think they needed that.
The Ruin was theirs for the taking anytime, but the war had been useful to their needs. It was time to focus it on their targets. She sneered as the puppets danced on her strings. The arrays were useful but she was the real power behind the plan!
The irony that the bloodline array located their enemy while being useless was besides the point. She would make sure they succeeded! The Great One demanded no less!