Low-Fantasy Occultist

Chapter 386

The mana in the valley was dense enough that it made casting delicate spells difficult. Inside the temple, it formed a suffocating blanket that was impossible to ignore, even for those lacking keen mystical senses.

Outside the main chamber, it was stifling. The violet haze was so thick here that Nick could see it swirling around without needing to use [Empyrean Intuition].

The combination of the dungeon’s own mana, the psychic energies that Vane is unleashing, and the Feral God’s domain is something I never thought was possible. It feels like something will have to give eventually. This is just too much.

Still, he had a more urgent problem to address before he could confront that looming threat.

Ord looked like a different man. The well-maintained but old iron armor he’d worn during the weeks he’d known him was gone, replaced by a suit of interlocking Sunsteel plates. His new greataxe was a slab of enchanted steel that would have cost a year’s earnings in Alluria, and it made his already impressive bulk genuinely intimidating.

Beside him, Tessa held a new bow carved from white bone, and her quiver was full of arrows tipped in alchemical tar.

For adventurers like them, this level of equipment would only have been possible at the end of their careers, if they managed to live that long.

House Hone had offered it as a side benefit of their betrayal, and though it pained Nick, he knew there weren’t many adventurers who would have refused such wealth.

"You should have run," Ord rumbled. He shifted his grip on the axe, getting ready for the fight he knew was coming. "We gave you a chance at the lake. Why did you have to follow?”

"We told you," Tessa added, drawing the bowstring taut. Her voice shook, but her hands remained steady, and her aim was fixed on Nick’s throat. “We are not going to die for your little project. This is bigger than you all.”

Monte spat to the side. Though he hadn’t known them longer than Nick, he’d fought shoulder to shoulder with Ord on the battlefield, and that forged a bond that shouldn’t have been broken so easily. The fact that their betrayal coincided with Terence’s death likely only intensified his anger. "That’s all it took? A shiny suit of armor?”

“We did this for our future," Ord corrected, raising the axe. “This is the last warning. Go back. We don't want to, but we will kill you if we have to.”

“Liar,” Malik said softly, standing firm before Nick. He didn't wear Sunsteel, nor did his gear have any special enchantments. His chainmail was the same scratched, dented piece he had since leaving the Tower, and his shield bore scars from many blows, despite repairs. “But I wouldn’t expect a dead man to care about the truth.”

“We named you dead,” Yvonne cut in, before the traitors could dare justify themselves.

More than anything they had said until that moment, that seemed to strike a chord in Ord’s and Tessa’s hearts. Nick sensed the flicker of genuine surprise, sadness, and the resulting hardening of their hearts.

There was no turning back from that. Either side would have to die.

Malik slammed his spear against his shield.

CLANG.

"We named you dead!" he repeated with a roar, and the sound of his voice echoed off the obsidian walls like a gavel strike, heavy and final.

Ord flinched. For a moment, the mercenary seemed small inside his big armor.

“Nick, go!" Yvonne shouted, rushing ahead.

Nick hesitated for a fraction of a second. The Hones had not spoken so far, but he knew they were still skilled soldiers, and with the powerful equipment they wore, this would not be an easy fight, even if he stayed.

If he left, there was a real chance that his friends might lose. That they might die here.

Yet the mana in the air kept growing heavier, and he knew he couldn’t wait any longer. Giving Vane so much time to set up would only backfire, and, despite his desire to stay and fight, that was more important.

"Give them hell," he whispered.

Channeling the air around him and shaping it to his will, he propelled himself upward, soaring along the curved wall of the antechamber and bypassing the phalanx entirely thanks to [Wind Step].

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"Stop him!" Tessa shouted, releasing her arrow.

But Yvonne was already there. Her greatsword flashed, knocking the arrow out of the air with a spark of steel.

"Eyes on me, traitor!" she snarled, crashing into the archer with the force of a landslide.

Below them, Malik caught Ord’s falling axe on his shield. The impact sent a shockwave that cracked the floor, but Malik didn't move an inch. He roared and pushed back, causing the traitor to stumble into the Hones’ formation.

Nick landed past the line, skidding toward the final silver doors.

The Hones elites turned to pursue, but Raphael didn’t let them, weaving a complex web of spatial mana. "I don't think so," he said coldly.

He snapped his fingers, and the air between Nick and everyone else became an impassable barrier of warped space, with himself as its fulcrum.

"Go, Nick!" Raphael shouted, even as sweat beaded on his forehead, holding the distortion against the psychic spells that flashed. "End it!”

Nick turned away and sprinted toward the silver doors, feeling both grateful and burdened, yet trusting his friends.

As he reached for the handles, the mana pressure suddenly spiked. The air became heavy, forcing the breath from his lungs, and the violet haze darkened to solid black briefly before snapping back.

SYSTEM NOTIFICATION

Your Trait [Blasphemy] has prevented the effects of a [Divine Domain].

Nick staggered as bile rose in his throat. It’s no longer minor. What the hell is Vane doing to let the Feral God grow so present?!

Still, he pushed through the phantom sensation of bloodthirsty howls echoing in his ears, knowing they could not reach him as long as [Blasphemy] held.

Thrusting the Shard against the doors, he released a [Push], and they banged open, letting him in.

Yet the moment he stepped through, the doors closed on their own and cut him off from the battle. The chaos behind him was replaced by a humming silence that made him even more on edge than he already was.

Without letting himself hesitate, Nick stepped into the inner sanctum. It was a massive obsidian dome, large enough to hold a cathedral, with smooth, glass-like walls that reflected the light from the center.

That must be the Well, he thought.

Calder’s memories had not done it justice. It was a vast pool of liquid power, but that wasn’t all. Above it, visible only to his etheric senses, was a geyser of blinding white light that shot up from the depths of the earth and vanished into the ceiling. It roared silently, a torrent of raw energy that made the hair on Nick’s arms stand up.

That alone was comparable in power to what he’d felt during the titanic battle between Marthas and the Daughter of Fate, and he knew it was only the outflow, what little the Well expelled at any time as the density of its liquid fluctuated.

And suspended above it, trapped in a cage of silver light, was the werewolf he’d seen manipulating the Greater Ritual.

He was much taller than the other werewolves he’d encountered, easily nine feet high, with midnight-black fur and rippling muscles. He hovered in the air, his limbs stretched by chains of psychic energy radiating from four large pylons surrounding the Well, similar to the ones used against the Southern Guardian, but significantly stronger.

The chains pierced into his flesh, burning and smoking, but the Wolf didn't cry out, enduring what had to be significant pain without emotion.

Standing on a platform overlooking the Well was Captain Vane.

The man appeared exhausted. His armor was burned, his mask missing, and blood dripped from his nose. Still, he worked skillfully on the runic controls of a dwarven console, and his eyes shone with triumph.

"You are persistent, I will give you that," Vane said, his voice amplified by the room’s acoustics, but he didn't look around, keeping his eyes on the Wolf. "But you are late.”

Are the chains siphoning power? No, they are just taking a bit of its mana, but it's mainly to use it. Is the wolf’s power a kind of key? Considering that its previous incarnation sealed the Well, that might be true.

A steady flow of violet essence was being drawn from the Well into a crystal matrix at Vane’s feet, and although Nick had no idea what it was meant to do, he doubted it was anything good.

The entire setup was intricate, too intricate to have been assembled from smuggled artifacts and battle spoils. If anything, this confirmed his suspicions that House Hone had long been operating in the north and possibly even trading with the dark dwarves, but that seemed like a secondary concern at best now.

“What are you doing?” He asked, since Vane seemed like he wanted to talk.

"I am distilling the essence of the Well, running through the Inner Guardian to make it consumable," Vane said with an almost feverish tone. "The extraction is nearly complete. With this, humanity’s chains will finally be broken.”

Could it really be that simple? A sip of a potion, and the limitations the System imposed are gone?

“I should thank you,” Vane finally turned around with a weary smile. "You cleared the path for me. You destroyed the Anchors, disrupting the Ritual it was setting up, which was enough for my containment field to hold him. This would not have been possible had it been at full strength.”

Nick considered attacking then, but something told him he was missing an important piece of the puzzle. His eyes roamed around, trying and failing to find whatever it was that was triggering his instincts, until they settled back on the wolf.

He was hanging limp, yes, but his head was raised. And his eyes, burning, violet eyes filled with a terrifying intelligence, were locked on Nick.

The Inner Guardian slowly smiled, revealing wickedly sharp teeth.

A cold dread settled in Nick’s stomach. That wasn’t the look of a defeated monster.

The pressure, Nick thought, desperately trying to figure out what was happening. It didn't lessen when we killed the Guardians. It grew worse. Why did it grow worse?

Pushing [Empyrean Intuition] hard, Nick scoured every inch of the chamber, ignoring the stinging pain that came from witnessing something so intensely powerful as the Well so close. He even went so far as to channel the spell through the Shard just to amp up its power.

"Vane," Nick said softly, his voice dropping to a whisper as he finally understood what was happening. “Stop. Now.”

Power was being drawn from the Well, yes, and the wolf’s essence was the key to enabling that, but at the same time, it was being martyred, a sacrificial lamb in the temple of his God.

"It is done," Vane declared, as he reached for the crystal.

"Stop!" Nick roared, stepping closer. "Look at the flow! The ritual is still ongoing!”

Vane frowned, tapping a few glowing runes. "What are you talking about? The readings are stable. The extraction is—“

The Wolf laughed. It was a deep, resonant rumble that shook dust from the ceiling.

"Stable," the Wolf mocked. His voice was gravelly from disuse and age, yet beneath it lay a terrible drive, a fervor Nick recognized with dread as divine in origin. "Yes. The door is finally stable.”

Vane froze. He stared at the beast, confusion warring with arrogance on his face. "Silence, creature. Whatever you might attempt, you will only bring more suffering upon yourself! Your bindings are infallible!”

The Wolf’s smile grew wider, showing teeth that looked like obsidian daggers. "I am not bound, little thief. I am anchored.”

Nick felt a sudden, violent jerk in the mana around him. He didn’t have time to react as three objects were ripped from his ring, streaking through the air like meteors and bypassing its protections, while he sensed the Greater Ritual roaring back into existence.