WIEDERGEBURT Act III: Chapter 39

I could feel Herleif’s gaze on my back, but I ignored it in favor of kneeling by the lake’s edge and sending my consciousness into the water. The world vanished around me as I closed my eyes and concentrated. Deeper. Deeper. The cool water felt refreshing and nice, at least on the surface, but as I sent my Spiritual Power deeper, a chill entered my body and the feeling of several tons worth of water pressing down on me caused my mind to strain. Finally, I reached the bottom.

“It looks like there aren’t any other Demon Beasts aside from Giant Fresh Water Serpent,” I said out loud, though I was mostly talking to myself. “The bottom of the lake is about one kilometer deep. That’s quite impressive. No wonder such a large creature was able to live in this lake.”

“How do you know all that?” asked Herleif.

“Because the water tells me so.”

“I see. Heh.” Herleif snorted after a moment. I heard fabric rustling behind me. I imagine the older man had crossed his arms. “They say that after reaching the Third State of Spiritualism, a Spiritualist will have reached the pinnacle of talent. However, those of us who have reached this state understand that the Third State of Spiritualism is just the beginning. Upon reaching it, Spiritualists must constantly train to grow more attuned to their affinity. It’s not enough to just become capable of transforming into the element you have an affinity toward. You must become one with it.” He paused. “You’ve reached that level, haven’t you?”

“No,” I said with a deprecating smile. “I haven’t reached the level of perfect attunement with my elements… but I am close.”

As I said this, I sent more of my Spiritual Power into the lake, manipulating the water inside. A strange swelling sensation rose within me. It started from my chest and spread out to encompass the rest of me. When it reached every part of my body, the lake churned like the water was being pulled by gravity.

Herleif looked up and gasped as the water bulged obscenely before something broke the surface, the body of the serpent, which had drifted to the bottom of the lake. As I narrowed my eyes and gritted my teeth, I willed the water to bring the serpent closer. Twenty meters. Fifteen meters. Ten. I forced the currents upward to keep the massive weight from sinking to the bottom, and then created more currents to push the corpse until it rested against the lake shore.

“That was… impressive. Very impressive.” Herleif was able to recover from his shock with admirable swiftness, though even so he was wiping sweat from his forehead. “You say you haven’t reached perfect attunement, but it looks to me like you’re already at that stage to me.”

I smiled as I stood to my feet, shaking my head. “Someone who has reached perfect harmony with their element—in other words, that perfect attunement you’re talking about—would not only have great control over his or her element, they would be able to absorb and manipulate the element in its natural state.”

Walking over to the corpse, I placed my hand upon its scaled surface. The hard scales were cold and wet, but that didn’t bother me as I admired their light blue tint and texture. They looked and felt incredibly soft. However, I could recognize how tough they were by the fact that they didn’t give out even when I tried to pierce them with lightning. As I thought, only by reaching the Third State of Spiritualism could someone punch a hole through these.

“When someone has succeeded in perfectly harmonizing themselves with their element, they’re own ability to manipulate their elemental affinity becomes a thousand times greater,” I lectured Herleif. “They can control the elements in their natural state, becoming a force of nature. Once you reach that state, so long as the element you have an affinity for is nearby, you can absorb it to bolster your own strength.”

“And you have not reached that state?” asked Herleif.

I shook my head again. “I have not.”

“I see. You are quite knowledgeable. I wonder how you acquired that knowledge.”

“Lots of studying, training, and pain,” I answered.

Walking over to the head, I transformed my body into lightning and created a lightning blade out of my left hand, which I used to slice through the scales around the Giant Fresh Water Serpent’s eyes. I quickly cut out the left eye, then the right. I stashed them in the storage ring Kari made before I went to work on each tooth. The teeth were about the size of my forearm, so they were quite big. Once I had cut them all away, I stashed them as well.

Letting out a deep breath, I released my transformation and turned back into flesh and blood. Sweat drenched my forehead almost immediately. My legs shook a little from using the Third State of Spiritualism like this for so long, but I knew I couldn’t stop now.

Transforming into lightning again, I cut an incision from the tip of the serpent’s jaw all the way to the base of its tail. I cut the underbelly instead of the top since it was softer and the scales on the bottom weren’t as useful. It would be okay if I ruined those. After cutting the creature opened, I transformed back into a human and began the process of skinning it.

Skinning a snake that was easily around 100 meters in length took a lot of work. I had to peel back the skin centimeter by centimeter, tugging it off the muscules with my alchemy enhanced strength. These scales were harder than most alloys, meaning they didn’t have much yield and required more effort to remove. However, I eventually managed to peel off and store the skin.

“How much of this Demon Beast are you planning to salvage?” asked Herleif. He stood some distance away, watching with a look of admiration as I worked.

“As much as I can,” I answered, heading up to the Demon Beast’s head once again. “Every part of an A-rank Demon Beast is valuable. Some parts can be used for alchemy, while other parts can be turned into weapons, armor, and even clothing. It would be a shame if I couldn’t get everything I could from this.”

Hopping onto the Giant Fresh Water Serpent’s head, I carved out a massive hole in its skull, grimacing only a little as I reached in, feeling around. It took longer than I would have liked to find the monster core. The feeling of slime and brain fluids engulfing my arm was not a pleasant one, but I eventually wrapped my fingers around something hard and round, pulling it out.

The monster core was a pure blue and sparkled like a crystal clear lake. It was larger than the average C or B-rank monster core. Overall, I’d say it was just a little smaller than my head. This core would become an important ingredient for one of the alchemy pills I needed to refine.

I stashed the core in my storage and then began removing the ribs, pulling them from the spinal column and stowing them away one bone at a time. Only after I had removed and stored every bone, including the spinal column, did I feel satisfied. There were still some organs left over, but my storage ring could no longer contain anymore. The remaining organs were useful. However, compared to everything else, they were the most useless part of this Demon Beast.

“Okay.” I turned to the amused Herleif. “I’m done. Let me just wash myself off, and then we can head out.”

Herleif stared at me like he wasn’t sure how to respond, but then he shook his head and chuckled.

“For such a pretty-looking boy, you are quite the monster, aren’t you?”

“That’s rude,” I muttered as I went over to the lake so I could wash off the blood staining my body and clothes.

***

Not counting the time it took for me to salvage everything I could from the Giant Fresh Water Serpent corpse, it took six days to cross the valley. We didn’t run into anymore incidents, though I did see a few Demon Beasts eying us from a distance. None of them came up to attack us. I assumed they understood, instinctively, that they would die if they did.

At the end of the valley was another forest. Unlike the forests I was used to seeing, however, this one was massive, and not just in terms of how far it spread. The trees towered over us by hundreds of feet. Each tree had a trunk so thick it would take at least ten of me standing with our hands locked to circle it. Of course, that was just some of the trees. A few were so big they appeared large enough to fit a minor noble family’s mansion inside of them.

In my previous life, Mount Himmellyn was the furthest north I had ever been, which meant I hadn’t traveled beyond the valley we just left.

The further into the forest we traveled, the more dangerous the world around us became. A-rank Demon Beasts were far more common in this place. There were the Dryad Queens, A-rank evolutions of the B-rank Demon Beast Dryad.

Dryad Queens were phenomenally beautiful creatures who lived in the trees. I meant that literally instead of figuratively. While their bodies could travel beyond the trees, they would lose strength the longer they stayed outside. Fortunately, this limited how far they could move as Dryads were linked to a single tree.

Dryads and Dryad Queens tempted humans and other Demon Beasts with their powerful appearance and intoxicating pheromones, which addled the mind and made you hallucinate. I had fortunately prepared an antidote in advance, so the only issue we ran into when confronting a Dryad Queen was Herleif’s own perverse tendencies. I had to knock him out several times to keep him from going over to one.

A more dangerous creature we ran into was a Zuggtmoy. They were another humanoid shaped Demon Beast with an A-rank and possessed incredible power over rot and decay, meaning they had a strong element for darkness and a minor affinity for earth. A Zuggtmoy’s humanoid form was a facsimile. Her entire body was composed of a vast collection of fungus that gained an approximation of sentience from absorbing the Spiritual Power exuded from nature.

Defeating her was easy. I didn’t even have to do anything since Herleif took care of her with his fire element.

One of the more fortunate aspects of traveling into an area with more A-rank Demon Beasts was that there were less Demon Beasts to fight overall.

Demon Beasts were territorial creatures. They did not like other Demon Beasts encroaching upon their territory. This was especially true for the stronger Demon Beasts ranked A and above. Since this forest was home to Demon Beasts of this caliber, few of the lower ranking ones were present. The ones that were belonged to a pack led by an A-rank Demon Beast. While this did increase their threat level, Herleif and I avoided places with a strong Demon Beast presence.

It took several days to travel through this forest, but we eventually reached the end, or what I thought was the end.

“This is…”

“Yes.” Herleif nodded. “Welcome to the Morkdypt Ravine.”

What lay before us was a massive scar in the earth that traveled for what must have been at least a kilometer. It was wider than the ravine near Nevaria. It was also far, far longer. I couldn’t even imagine how deep it would be.

The area around the ravine was also strangely desolate. The surface was dried and cracked, like the land had grown parched and dry and, unable to maintain life, everything within the vicinity had withered. Of course, considering this entire ravine was surrounded by forest on either side, I couldn’t imagine why this one spot alone appeared so desolate.

“Where are the Sekbeists?” I asked.

“We’re a bit further from where I found the Sekbeists entering the Morkdypt Ravine.” Herleif traveled back into the forest. “Come. We’ll travel through the forest so we don’t get spotted. I’ll take you to where I found the Sekbeists.”

At his insistence, I traveled into the forest alongside Herleif, which we cut through quickly. I followed behind the man as he led me to wherever we were going. We didn’t travel for very long. Eventually stopping before a massive tree, Herleif took several deep breaths as he pressed his back against the thick trunk and gestured for me to follow him.

We cautiously eased ourselves out from around the tree, and Herleif pointed at something by the ledge of the Morkdypt Ravine several dozen meters out.

“There they are. The Sekbeists.”

Herleif was indeed correct. I could never forget that vaguely human-shaped face with puke green skin, black spots covering it, and sunken features. Red eyes surrounded by black instead of white stood out from a face that looked like a human skull with no muscles wrapped in flesh. Hands covered in thick claws extending from fingers gave off a menacing appearance.

There were two Sekbeists present, standing guard over what appeared to be an entrance. There was nothing marking this as an entrance into the Morkdypt Ravine, but I recognized that they wouldn’t be standing guard if there was nothing there.

“What should we do?” I asked Herleif.

“We need to get down there, preferably without being spotted,” Herleif said. “There are no other entrances into the Morkdypt Ravine, and believe me, I’ve checked. That means we need to kill those guards, dispose of their bodies, and slip into ravine undetected. We’ll want to be careful, though. Sekbeists come and go from here all the time, though most of them are simple Grunts.”

“I understand,” I said. “Leave these two to me.”

Herleif nodded and stepped back as I disappeared within a simple Flash Step. It only took me one step to cover the nearly one hundred meters distance between me and the Sekbeists, appearing behind them. Neither Sekbeist noticed me.

Before they had the chance to notice me, I pressed my hands against their backs, channeled my Spiritual Power, and changed it from simple power into the water element, which I used to create two swords. The swords shot from my hand and speared the two Sekbeists through the back. I made sure to hit their hearts, killing them instantly.

Since I didn’t want the sound of their bodies hitting to ground to reach anyone, I grabbed them before they could fall, disappeared within another Flash Step, and reappeared right next to a blinking Herleif. I set the Sekbeists on the ground, then looked at the flabbergasted man.

“Can you burn their corpses?”

“I… uh… oh, yes. I can do that.”

Herleif needed several seconds to regain his bearings. He took a couple of deep breaths, then created a powerful but condensed sphere of fire. Heat waves emitted from the flames, but I couldn’t sense any heat, proving to me that unlike Hagan, who had no control over his element at all, this old man was an expert who had gained control over his element.

He tossed the fireball at the corpse, which burnt to ash within an instant. I wrinkled my nose as the scent of burning flesh filled it. Herleif tossed another fireball at the second corpse, consuming the creature near instantly and turning the corpse into charred remains that slowly crumbled away.

“Let’s head into the ravine before more Sekbeists come,” Herleif said.

“I’ll go first,” I told him.

Disappearing within a Flash Step yet again, I once more found myself standing beside the ravine. I looked down to see that, indeed, this particular area of the ravine had a path leading down. That said, I couldn’t see the bottom. At some point, the path, which appeared to travel in one direction, then curve around in and continue in the opposite direction, disappeared into the vast darkness.

There were no Sekbeists traveling up the ravine yet. I didn’t doubt we’d probably run into a few on our way down, but so long as we killed them before they could sound off any alarm, I was sure we’d be fine.

Herleif took much longer than me to reach the ravine, but once he arrived, the two of us began traveling down the path. We moved slowly, cautiously, keeping a constant lookout for trouble.

Just as I suspected, we did run into several Sekbeist. However, I was able to kill them by using the Flash Step and lightning element in conjunction with each other. Herleif burned their corpses.

The further down we went, the less light we had to see with, and it eventually became so dark that I began channeling lightning through my eyes to give me a form of night vision. Because I was using an element to enhance my sight, my ability to see colors was hampered. Everything appeared in shades of blue. However, I was used to using the lightning element in this manner, having done so a lot in my previous life.

“What an ingenious way to use your element,” Herleif murmured when he saw what I was doing.

“You should try doing this too,” I said. “We can’t afford to create light, so using the element to enhance our vision is the best method for seeing in the darkness. Of course, I don’t know how well the fire element will work on enhancing your vision, but it should help.”

“Right you are.”

I couldn’t sense the surge in Spiritual Power from Herleif since I wasn’t using Spiritual Perception, but I could tell when he figured out how to use his fire element to enhance his vision. His back straightened and his step became more sure.

“How interesting,” he murmured. “Everything appears to me in shades of orange.”

Our travels downward continued. My sense of time became skewed as we wandered ever further down. Without the sun and the moons to tell us when it was day and night, I had no idea how much time passed. That said, it couldn’t have been more than two or three days before we finally reached the bottom.

Oddly enough, the bottom of the ravine was not as dark as the path we had used to get there. I stopped channeling lightning through my eyes and looked at the area around us, glowing with a soft blue light. My eyes soon landed on a type of luminescent moss. It was just about everywhere—on the ground, between crevices, and spread across the ravine’s walls.

Because we didn’t know what was down here, Herleif and I remained silent as we continued walking, following a path that curved and sloped. I soon realized this place was a lot like a maze. There were many rocks jutting from the ground that made it hard to see where we were going, much less what was on the other side. Sometimes there would even be several rock formations that created small spaces we had to squeeze between in order to continue moving forward.

There were also a lot of patrols.

Because we couldn’t afford to fight or be spotted this far down, me and Herleif did all we could to avoid the patrols, clinging to the tops of walls and traveling over the heads of our enemies, or hiding behind rock formations until the Sekbeist patrols had passed. The further in we traveled, the more patrols we ran into, until we eventually reached something that I couldn’t make heads or tails out of.

“What… what is this?” I asked in a hushed whisper.

“I don’t know,” Herleif said, his voice equally shocked. “I’ve never seen anything like it before.”

The two of us were standing behind a large boulder, gazing out at an object the likes of which I’d never seen before in my life. Light from the moss reflected off its smooth, metallic surface. The object looked like a giant cone jutting from the ground. There were all sorts of strange protrusions jutting from its surface. A number of holes and seems covered the surface, and I could tell from how some parts were uneven that this… this thing had been cobbled together with spare parts. That said, I couldn’t for the life of me figure out what I was looking at.

This object was surrounded by what must have been several battalions of Sekbeist. It looked like they were guarding it. I counted at least fifty from where we hid, but I knew there had to be more. If there were fifty in this single area, then there must have been at least a few hundred spread across the circumfrence of this object.

While I wanted to know what this thing was, I also understood that we had no way of getting close without being spotted, and while I could probably kill a few hundred Sekbeists on my own, I knew there were probably a lot more than just what was guarding this thing. If we drew too much attention to ourselves, we’d definitely have to fight hundreds or maybe even thousands of Sekbeists.

I couldn’t fight that many on my own until I reached the Fourth State of Spiritualism.

Backtracking from there, we entered into one of the caverns located against the ravine walls. This place was also illuminated by glowing moss. We followed the passage as it split into multiple other passages. Sometimes we would run into a dead end and sometimes we would run into Sekbeists. I killed the Sekbeists before they could make a noise and Herleif burnt their corpses into ash.

We eventually reached a massive chamber shaped like a cylinder with several levels leading up and down. Each level had a number of passages. There were also a couple of Sekbeist guards patrolling several of these levels, but ours was mercifully free.

A sound reached our ears after entering this chamber. Tic. Tic. Tic. My ears twitched as the sound of something striking rock echoed all around us.

Me and Herleif slowly walked toward the edge of the cliff and found something almost as shocking as the strange object we’d discovered.

People. There were people other than Sekbeists in this chamber. I saw humans, Werefolk, Lamia, and even Dweorgs. All of them were wearing rags for clothes and held pickaxes in their hands, which they used to chip away at the chamber walls. Focusing on the walls, I noticed there was a type of black ore embedded into the surface, which they appeared to be mining. They would pull out the ore after chipping away the sediment and set it inside of a large cart.

“That ore must be what the Sekbeists are using to create those controllers,” I muttered.

Herleif nodded. “Not only that, but it looks like these people are all slaves. Look at the collars on their necks. You can see Runes inscribed onto the surface.”

I looked at the collars around the necks of everyone present, and I could indeed see the Runes inscribed into the surface of each one. Not only that, I also recognized the symbols. They were the same ones I had seen on the claw-shaped controller.

“The method for controlling a sentient being must be different than the method used to control a Demon Beast,” I theorized. “Otherwise they would just use those claws. I guess using that to control a person would kill them, so they created these collars instead.”

“That is a sound theory,” Herleif agreed.

Since we had discovered a lot already, the two of us decided it was time to leave, but just before we could go back the way we had come, shouting came from above us.

“Hey! Who are you people?! Why don’t you have a slave collar?!”

I looked up to see one of the Sekbeist guards glaring down at us. Taller than the Grunts we had run into above the Morkdypt Ravine, this creature had a pale green body that was clad in armor the color of rust. He had thick brow ridges but no eyebrows and a square jaw covered in scars. Like all the other Elites I had run into, he had no nose, just a pair of wide nostrils. He stood exactly one level above us, a whip in his left hand.

“Don’t tell me—intruders!”

Swearing out loud, I created a lightning javelin in my hand and threw it at the Sekbeist, impaling him through the chest. He screamed and thrashed, tumbling over the side of the ledge and falling to the bottom. His corpse hit the ground with a loud splat as his skull was crushed. The slaves reacted to his sudden fall by screaming incoherently, which just alerted even more of the Sekbeists to our presence.

“Time to go!” Herleif shouted at me, no longer bothering to speak softly.

“I couldn’t agree more!” I shouted back.

Turning around, we quickly disappeared into the maze-like cavern of passages, shouts of “intruder!” chasing after us.