Low-Fantasy Occultist

Chapter 382

Nick knew that pitting his soul against the Southern Guardian wouldn’t be as simple as when he had defeated the others.

Not only was it mainly a spiritual being, merely trapped in a flesh prison, but its true power lay in the merging of souls. He was basically stepping into its home field and challenging it where it was strongest.

That, too, was part of [Chesed], at least according to his interpretation. He needed to grant the Guardian the mercy of oblivion, and to do that, he had to understand it and take on a part of its suffering.

One moment, Nick was standing at the edge of the physical world, with the Shard howling with power in his hands; the next, he was drowning in a sea of gray, viscous thought.

When he opened his eyes again, he found himself in a village made of wood and stone, burning with a colorless fire. Around him, hundreds of faceless figures scrambled in the mud, screaming silently as they fled from a golden figure.

At first, he thought it might have been the Feral God itself, or its avatar, but his senses quickly disabused him of that idea.

This mana… I recognize it. It is the same one I found in the chamber below the swamp.

It shouldn't have been surprising that a healer so skilled as to impress Semreh could become powerful enough to pass as a god, even if just for an instant. But given what Nick knew of his purpose, seeing the glowing figure torture the souls of hundreds, cracking them apart and merging them back together just to see what would happen, was still shocking.

“Save us,” a thousand voices whispered against Nick’s mental barriers. “Don’t let us end. Don’t let us fade.”

Their pressure threatened to crush Nick’s individuality and turn him into just another brick in their wall of flesh. They believed that living, no matter how painful, was better than facing the void.

The battle had long ended in the real world. The healer had gone mad with the power given to him by the Feral God and had already left the site of the massacre, yet in the ether, its echoes were so strong that even now, centuries later, it felt as if it was still happening.

Nick ignored the screams for help, at least for a moment. He planted his feet firmly on the ground, centering himself, and feeling the Tree of Life anchoring him. The roots of Malkuth dug deep into the bedrock of his identity. The trunk of Yesod channeled the raw mana of the dungeon, filtering out the corruption until only power remained.

“It is over,” he said. “I see your pain, your anguish, but know this: the battle is over.” Alongside his voice, concepts echoed out, strengthened by his now mighty spiritual presence, and they rippled through the mindscape, weakening the golden figure’s power enough to give the tortured souls a moment of respite.

His surroundings changed abruptly, dissolving into swirls of multicolored mana until the souls merged into a single entity. The healer was no longer present, but its influence lingered, manifesting as a massive hydra that now stood in its place, bound by its own soul to haunt the swamp forever.

It lashed out the moment it was whole, with tentacles of pure grief, trying to infect him with its trauma.

Nick didn't dodge, allowing the attack to hit his spiritual frame.

It burned. It felt like dipping his soul in acid, a pain so deep it was impossible to truly put into words. But the crystallization he had experienced, the arduous leveling, the Steps he had taken, all had hardened his soul into a mighty bulwark, something as close to solid as a soul could become without reaching the final steps. He didn't break.

This was the true test. He had to understand, to genuinely feel mercy. To render a true judgment, he needed to experience everything the Guardian embodied.

And so he let the incredible pain, sorrows, hatreds, and the relief of still being alive wash over him, fill him up, and glut himself on them until only the mighty fortress he’d built as a structure ensured he wasn’t swept away by the tides.

Flashes of memories passed through his mind’s eye. He saw everything, from scenes of the villagers' daily lives before their fates were so deeply warped, to simple monsters haunting the swamp in search of their next meal.

He watched the healer do his job correctly, setting broken bones and assisting in delivering children into their mothers' arms.

He also watched the same man descend further into madness as his experiments continued to fail, and he started searching for the answer in something greater than himself.

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Finally, he saw the peak of that insanity, how the man who once was a protector became a hunter, how he used the powers he’d developed to heal to instead cause harm, drinking from the fountain of forbidden knowledge to complete his masterpiece, the Well.

The flood faded away with one final scene, where the fractured amalgam of souls saw the warped healer realize, if only for a moment, what he had done, how far he had fallen, and turn his own power inward, binding his soul to the Well to prevent further massacres.

The last piece of the puzzle finally clicked into place, and he understood why so much time had passed since the healer’s life and the current events without any new appearances.

The dungeon’s appearance must have granted the Feral God enough power to start influencing its servant again, even if the Inner Guardian remains bound by his own power.

But that was for later. For now, Nick absorbed everything he had learned and all the emotions he had received from the hydra, making them his own. He expanded the definition of his own soul to include the suffering, while at the same time stripping the Guardian of its raison d’être.

“Let go,” he whispered. “I have this.”

The concept of Chesed blossomed. It was a blinding light, acting like a surgeon’s scalpel, and cutting away a gangrenous limb upon the necrotic darkness that was the hydra. It was the absolute, overwhelming authority of Mercy.

The Guardian screamed, but for once, it was not in anger, but in relief.

The village vanished. The gray faces looked up, their terror easing as their suffering finally ceased. They dissolved, transforming into motes of light that floated upward, passing through Nick, leaving behind whispers of thanks that imprinted themselves on his soul, carving new grooves and giving it greater strength.

“I am the Gate,” Nick chanted, accepting it all. “I am the End.”

The hydra dissolved last, taking the mindscape with it.

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Nick staggered as the sudden return to the material world left him reeling. He leaned heavily on his staff, gasping raggedly as the new Step settled into his soul.

The lake was quiet. The fog, no longer fueled by the suffering of hundreds, started to settle once more.

He dropped to his knees in the mud, letting the Shard slip from his numb fingers and hover nearby. The massive form of the Guardian was already disintegrating, turning into a rain of sludge and mana.

"It is done," Nick rasped, waiting for the cheers, but there was only silence.

At least, until a wet, choking gurgle broke it.

He forced his head up, even as his vision swam, and the afterimages of the soul-battle danced in his periphery, but what he saw froze the blood in his veins.

Two hundred yards away, on the edge of the bank, the Hones were watching.

They stood in a relaxed semicircle, and in the center was Captain Vane. His mask was removed, revealing a handsome, scarred face, completely impassive as he looked down.

At his feet lay Terence.

A spear of compressed earth had been driven through his chest, pinning him to the roots, where he twitched briefly, but the spasms soon faded into silence.

"Beautiful," Vane said softly, looking back up at Nick. "Truly beautiful. I knew you were talented, Crowley, but an exorcism of that magnitude? That is Art.”

Nick tried to stand, but his legs wouldn't cooperate. He was spiritually exhausted from absorbing so much of the Guardian, and he needed time to process it. “You..."

“I have to thank you, from the bottom of my heart,” Vane continued. “I suspect that taking that thing down would have required far more effort and sacrifices on our part, especially since it seemed to ignore even our more unique artifacts. I guess that’s why they say some things should be left to the experts, though I definitely didn’t expect that expert to be a teenager.”

A chuckle broke out among his men, clearly relaxed enough now that they believed they had won.

Painfully, Nick tore his eyes away from Terence’s still body, glancing back toward where he could faintly sense the others. “Raphael. We need—”

Raphael stood stiffly on the left, pale-faced, with a line of blood oozing from his temple. Willow was kneeling, crying softly.

Standing next to both, with a blade to each of their throats, were Tessa and Ord.

"Sorry, kid," Ord grumbled, his voice thick with shame but heavy with resolve. "They offered too much. Gold is good, but a path to Prestige? That can’t be bought.”

"We're tired of being fodder," Tessa added, nearly shrill as she tried to defend herself. “We aren’t just toys for your master to play with!”

Nick felt his face twist into a hateful scowl, and if he had his full strength, he would have incinerated the two in a flash. “I should have known. I should have refused you when you came back.”

And he had suspected them. He had even discussed it with Monte and Raphael, who shared his concern that their story seemed too perfect. Still, when they fought together against the same people who had saved them, and when they took down the Western Guardian working with them, he set aside his paranoia.

He could only regret it. “I should have known,” he spat again.

"Did you?”

The voice didn’t originate from Vane or the two treacherous adventurers.

Nick’s attention was drawn to the side, where the other apprentices and Monte were.

Joran smiled, but it wasn’t a friendly one. A bead of green fire hovered just above the others' heads, effectively holding them hostage more than any knife could.

“What are you doing?” Nick asked, incredulous. Tessa and Ord, he’d expected, but Joran? Sure, he was quieter than the others, more reserved, but he was Tholm’s apprentice just as they all were. Had been for more than a year!

"My job," Joran said. He adjusted his gloves, locking his eyes onto Nick’s without fear. "I was never Tholm's student. My family has served Archmage Hone for three generations.”

What… No, I shouldn’t be so surprised. Even before Tholm broke his neutrality this year, he was known as a highly influential figure in the Tower, and his feud with Hone has been ongoing for a very long time. And I had suspected him, even if I had set those thoughts aside.

“I admit that you were an anomaly, Nick," Joran said coolly. "You were the variable we couldn’t quite predict, and you slowed us down by a lot, but then this opportunity came, and it was you who insisted on pushing deeper into the dungeon, away from Tholm’s protection. You.”

He appeared to delight in twisting the knife further, inflicting more pain.

Nick didn’t give him the anguish he was seeking, too proud to let go now, even if he was genuinely stunned at how quickly everything had fallen apart.

Vane stepped into the muck where the Guardian had dissolved. He reached down and retrieved an object from the slime. It was a crystal sphere, the Guardian’s Core. “Well, I have what I came for," he said, pocketing it after admiring its luster. "The path to the Well is open. Joran, make this quick. We still have a job to do.”