WEIDERGEBURT Act III: Chapter 3

The closer we came to the palace, the more I realized that, yes, this really was a palace—a majestic structure unlike anything I’d ever seen in my entire life. It did not look like something that could have ever been crafted from human hands. This structure, which appeared to have been carved from a single block of some unknown material, contained an aesthetic that was unknown to me. Considering how much I had traveled, this unusual design shocked me.

Kari would have loved to see it.

The entrance was guarded by a group of Elites. There were no Grunts in sight.

Our group was easily spotted, and the moment they saw us, the Elites all howled obscenities before summoning the powers of darkness. While I was surprised to see them using an element, their powers were limited to shadow manipulation, which was something like a subdivision of the darkness element. Any darkness-affinity Spiritualist could manipulate shadows.

That said, while they couldn’t create weapons of pure darkness, when several spears appeared from within our own shadows, our group became shocked. Two of them were unable to respond in time. A young woman was pierced through the chest by her own shadow, while a middle-aged man received a punctured throat.

The man died instantly. Blood gushed from his wound as he tumbled to the ground. The woman was not dead, though now she had a gaping hole in her chest that had broken through her Rune-protected armor. She lay on the ground. Blood was forming a puddle underneath her. However, Dagan and his healers quickly went up to her and began working hard to save the woman’s life.

Seeing two of my comrades go down, I decided not to wait up for them and disappeared quickly. The Flash Step took me right next to one of the Elites, who soon found his head being removed from his shoulders when I swung the Dragon’s Tail Ruler.

Continuing with my swing, I didn’t hesitate to rotate on the balls of my feet, spinning around and cutting through the next Elite closest to me. The creature died instantly. I had sliced his body in half from his left hip to his right shoulder.

“He’s in our midst! Kill him!” one of the Elites shouted, but the noise he produced soon died down when I crushed his throat with a sharp kick. As the Sekbeist fell to the ground and shook as though he was having muscle spasms, I used the Flash Step once more and quickly decimate the ranks of the remaining Sekbeists.

When I finished killing all of them, I turned to look at the group traveling with me. Erica and Tungsten were in the lead. I was relieved to see that the young woman had also survived. Her face was pale, sweat caused her skin to glisten, and she looked shaken, but she was alive. The same couldn’t be said for the man with the punctured throat.

“I’m beginning to wonder if we even needed to bring so many,” Erica said as she saw the dead bodies. “I feel like you could take these things on by yourself if you needed to.”

I shrugged. “Maybe, but if there are any Warlords inside, I might find myself unable to deal with them, depending on how strong they are.”

“Let’s keep moving,” Tungsten said before either of us could continue.

Erica huffed, but I just shrugged and turned toward the massive door. Like the rest of this palace, the door was made of a material I’d never seen before. I placed a hand on it and frowned. It was cool to the touch and perfectly smooth, but it was also heavy. When I tried to open it, the door wouldn’t budge.

“Maybe we should all try pushing it open together,” Erica suggested.

I agreed. “It’s worth a shot.”

While Dagan and the other healers stood back, Erica, Tungsten, myself, and the other Paladin Sect and Battling Valkyrie members placed our hands on the door and pushed. Our muscles strained. Our faces clenched. However, ever so slowly, the door began opening. We only managed to open it a little bit, but it was enough for us to slip inside.

The room on the other side was well-lit with glowing crystals. They were not monster core lamps, but something I’d never seen before. Likewise, this room was quite big, like an entrance hall but somehow different. I couldn’t really explain it. However, on the other side of the door were a set of stairs leading not up, but down. A few doors on our left and right also led deeper into the palace.

“Which way do you think we should travel?” asked one of the girls. I think I remember her. She was one of the women who had traveled with us to the peninsula, the place where we first confronted the Sekbeist. Sadly, I could not remember her name.

“Maybe we should split up,” a young man with reddish-brown hair said.

“No.” I shook my head. “We have no idea how many enemies there are. Splitting up is a bad idea, especially since we have no way to communicate with each other in the event that we find something.”

“That’s… a good point,” the young man conceded.

“I say we go down,” Erica decided. “Whenever there is something really important that people are trying to keep a secret, they always place it in their basement.”

“I’m not sure I understand your logic there, but I agree that traveling down is the best one we have right now,” I said.

“Then it’s decided. Down we go.” Erica clapped her hands.

With our decision made, we traveled down the stairs, which were brightly lit like the rest of the place, though this actually made me more wary than if everything had been dark. I wondered if I had become so used to ruins and other dark places that I could no longer deal with light.

There were very few Sekbeists to fight as we traveled down. Fortunately, none of them were difficult to deal with. I had already reached a state of spiritualism where firing off condensed beams of water and lightning nonstop was as easy as breathing. Sekbeist after Sekbeist fell with smoking holes in their chests.

After the first staircase, we traveled down several hallways. These halls had numerous traps, like ceilings that collapsed on you when you put your foot on the wrong tile, trapdoors that opened up to a spike-filled pit, and axes that fell from the sky. There were even some Rune activated traps that launched elemental attacks.

We barely had to deal with any of them, and the reason was because of the Sekbeists.

“It looks like the Sekbeists have already triggered most of the traps,” Erica said with a pensive frown. She looked at one of the Sekbeist corpses, an Elite whose arms had been ripped off. It looked like someone or something had clamped on his arms and bitten them off. The Sekbeist’s last expression was frozen in horror.

“That’s both a good thing and worrying,” I said. “If they have triggered most of the traps, it means they might have already reached what they came here for.”

“Then we should hurry,” Tungsten said, and Erica, myself, and the others agreed.

We rushed forward, reaching the end of the hall and entering a large room. I could not see the other side of this room, which surprised me, but then I glanced down at where the floor suddenly disappeared. Several dozen meters from the door we had just entered through was a massive abyss.

I walked over to the edge of the abyss and looked down. It didn’t look like there was anything at the bottom, which made me wonder how big this floating island was. It was obviously huge. I’d seen it from the outside, but I don’t know, somehow, seeing something like this inside of the palace made me understand how massive this floating island truly was.

“How are we going to get across this?” asked one of the women.

“I can carry you,” I suggested. “I have a technique called the Jump Step, which allows me to, essentially, walk on air. It will take multiple trips though. I can only carry so many people at a time.” I paused, then grimaced. “Also, since I’m not sure how far the other side is, I don’t know if I’ll have enough Spiritual Power to actually make it.”

“Let’s save that as a last resort,” Tungsten said as he looked around before pointing out something that the rest of us missed. “It looks like there is something built into the ceiling.”

I looked up and saw a chain that was hanging just a little above the wall. Following the chain, I saw that it traveled toward the wall, where it was being held up by a pulley. The remaining chain went straight down and ended in a lever.

“I guess we need to pull this.” I walked up to the lever and placed my hand on it. “Is everyone ready?”

Everyone confirmed their readiness, so I pulled the lever. High above me, the chains cranked and moved. I listened to the sound while stepping away from the lever and watched on with the others. As the seconds ticked by, I finally saw something appearing from within the darkness, traveling toward us. It was…

“A gondola?” I muttered in disbelief. I had seen these before, but none of them were this impressive. They were crude objects that required manpower to use. This one appeared to be moving on its own.

As the gondola came to a stop, Erica walked up to the object and wrapped her knuckles against it several times. A metallic but hollow sound rang out. She looked around some, then opened the door and turned back to us.

“I guess we’re supposed to go inside.” She smiled. “All aboard.”

None of us had much choice, so our group traveled inside. The interior was spacious. There were no seats, just a space surrounded by four walls, a floor, and a ceiling. Nothing else existed inside of this chamber.

“I guess one of us needs to pull that lever again,” Erica said… and then looked at me. When she looked at me, Tungsten and everyone else turned to me as well.

Sighing, I said, “I’ll do it.”

I knew Erica was suggesting I be the one to pull the lever because I had the Flash Step, but I was a little resentful that she was making me do it without even asking how I felt about it.

Wearing a mildly annoyed frown, I hopped out of the gondola and made for the lever.

***

Meeting with the empress was not an easy thing to do despite living in the same place. I had not seen Empress Hilda since before the Demon Beast attacked Nevaria. I knew this was because she was busy dealing with a whole host of problems.

As the sovereign ruler of this city-state, she was responsible for overseeing the repairs on the city, allocating funds to various groups and businesses, meeting with delegates and nobles to discuss the situation, and this was on top of all the other duties she had been responsible for before the Demon Beast attack. She couldn’t just drop all that work to meet with me.

I spent my days with Kari, Fay, and Lin. Sometimes I would spend my day with all three of them. Other days I would take one of them into the city and spend the day with them alone. I tried to be a good fiance by giving them as much attention equally as I could, though I did recognize that I probably gave Kari a little more attention than either Fay or Lin. She and I had been married in all but name in my past life, so I couldn’t help that. Despite my show of favoritism, neither Fay or Lin complained. I oftentimes felt like they were too good for me.

At the moment, all four of us were sparring.

“Take this!” Lin shouted as she slammed her tail into the ground. The floor shattered underneath her incredible power. I shuddered to think what would have happened if I hadn’t moved away in time. This snake-woman really didn’t know how to hold back!

While I was busy admiring the damage Lin had done to the courtyard floor, Kari and Fay appeared on either side of me. Kari, holding a dull ranseur meant for sparring in her hand, thrust out her weapon as though to pierce me through the head. On the other hand, Fay threw out a pair of punishing blows that would have snapped my arm like a twig if I let the attack land.

Good thing I had no intention of letting that happen.

I didn’t bother using the Flash Step to avoid their attacks. I tilted my body backwards. The ranseur flew past my head, missing me by a hair. At the same time, while dodging the ranseur, I spun around and swatted Fay’s hands with a quick swipe, which knocked both fists off course and caused Fay to stumble forward—right into my knee.

“Hurk!”

The redhead doubled over as I struck her in the gut with me knee, though it was more like she had walked into it. I had simply used her own momentum against her. While Fay was out of the picture, I began dodging Kari’s attacks, which had grown more vicious.

Ranseurs were generally used as thrusting weapons. They were great for piercing opponents, but they also had another use, and that was trapping an enemy’s weapon in the space below the main blade. I had already learned the hard way not to use the Dragon’s Tail Ruler when attacking her.

While I dodged her thrusts, Lin came up behind me and tried to strike my lower back with a powerful corkscrew punch. I twisted my body away. My hope was that Kari would accidentally hit her, giving me a chance to back off and get some breathing room. Unfortunately for me, that wasn’t what happened.

Kari and Lin either knew what I was planning or just worked really well together. Rather than striking each other, they turned on a dime and attacked me in sync. I soon found myself being forced back as the two double-teamed me. Kari attacked with her ranseur, spinning and dancing and thrusting at me with movements so swift they were nothing but a blur. Meanwhile, Lin had created a set of ethereal poison claws that she attacked me with. The dark purple claws extended from her hands and left smoke trails as though the atmosphere was being burned.

Matters only became worse when Fay recovered and attacked, making it three on one instead of two on one.

Finding myself on the verge of losing, I realized I couldn’t afford to take it easy on them, so I activated the Second State of Spiritualism, taking my Spiritual Aura into my body and using my increased physical abilities to push them back.

I blocked a swing of Kari’s ranseur, knocked it out of her hand, and thrust a palm into her chest. As she flew back, Lin attacked me with several swipes. Blood spurted from several wounds on my body. Smoke hissed out of the wounds as the poison corroded my skin. I relied on my water element to heal the damage and retaliated with a swift kick that knocked her back. Immediately after kicking Lin away, Fay came at me my blind spot. Dodging Fay’s punch, which had only been a tad slower than Kari’s thrust, I grabbed the woman’s arm, rotated our bodies, and used her momentum as leverage to flip her over my shoulder. Fay’s scream stopped when she swallowed her tongue after smacking back first against the hard ground.

Huffing a little, I looked at the girls as they lay on the ground around me, not quite beaten but still exhausted. I used the time they picked themselves up to wipe the sweat from my face so it wouldn’t get in my eyes.

Kari, Lin, and Fay were all relying on the Second State of Spiritualism to spar against me. Of course, this meant their physical prowess was more impressive than almost any Spiritualist in Nevaria. Not only had they reached the Second State of Spiritualism, but they had used my Body Forging Pills to increase their strength. Even without the Second State of Spiritualism, all of them were capable of punching holes through walls with their bare fists.

“How is it that even when we have you outnumbered three to one, we still can’t win?” asked Kari as she set the butt of her ranseur on the ground and leaned against it.

I shrugged but didn’t take my eyes off them. Lin was trying to sneak around behind me, and I didn’t want to be caught unaware.

“Experience,” I suggested. “You girls are amazingly talented and strong, but I still have more experience with fighting than you.”

As I said this, I sidestepped to the left, dodging an ethereal poison snake that Lin had sent at me, then spun around and met Lin’s claws with a powerful fist covered in the lightning element.

“GYA!!!”

Lin screeched as she jerked backward, falling to the ground and twitching as arcs of lightning coursed over her body.

That seemed to be Fay and Kari’s cue to attack. They used the Flash Step to close the distance. I frowned as I went to attack them, but then paused and spun around, raising my left foot in a kick that knocked back Kari’s ranseur.

“How?!” Kari asked as the after image she had tried to fool me with vanished.

“What do you mean how? I made this technique. It’s obvious I would know when you’re trying to fool me with an after image.”

I grinned as I kicked Kari’s legs out from underneath her. At the same time, I countered Fay’s punch by knocking her hand upward, rotating my entire arm, and locking her fist underneath my armpit. The redhead struggled to get out, but I knocked her senseless with a powerful headbutt. My attack caused her legs to give out. She fell onto her rear end, her eyes spinning in their sockets.

“Okay.” I sighed. “I think we’re done sparring for the day.”

Whenever we finished sparring, I would always use the water element to heal the girls of whatever injuries they had suffered, and today was no different. As they sat there, I placed my hands over them and channeled the water element through them. A blue light enveloped my hands. It extended into the girls, who sighed in relief as their injuries vanished.

“I can’t believe we lost again,” Kari complained. “I thought we had you for sure this time.”

“You’re still a decade too soon to beat me,” I said with a laugh, which caused Kari to pout. There was no way I’d tell her that they had been a pinch away from forcing me to use the Third State of Spiritualism to combat them. I wanted them to grow stronger, so I was trying my best to fight without relying on the Third State of Spiritualism, which would make me so powerful none of them would stand a chance.

“Next time.” Kari crossed her arms and pouted. “Next time, I’m going to win for sure.”

“I’ll be looking forward to it,” I said honestly.

“You really don’t go easy on us, do you?” Fay said.

“Going easy on you would defeat the entire purpose of this training,” I told her. “The goal in all of this is to sharpen your combat senses and teach you to work as a team in order to overcome a stronger opponent. If you can defeat me when I’m using the Second State of Spiritualism, then you should be more than capable of defeating A-rank Demon Beasts that are on the cusp of reaching the S-rank.” I paused for a moment before switching topics. “Speaking of Spiritual States, I believe it’s time you three learned more about the Third State of Spiritualism.”

When the girls realized I was about to begin teaching them something important, they made themselves more comfortable. Instead of lying sprawled on the ground like a couple of dead hogs, each of them moved back until they were sitting against the wall of the courtyard we’d been using for our spar. I stood before them and quickly reviewed what I wanted to teach in my head.

“The Third State of Spiritualism is the next level up from the Second State of Spiritualism,” I began. “The first state is forming a Spiritual Aura, the second state is taking that aura into your body to increase your physical prowess, while the third state is becoming one with your element.”

Kari, Lin, and Fay nodded their heads. They already knew this much. However, I believed it was important to start from this point so they would understand my lesson better.

“When a Spiritualist becomes one with his or her element, they are able to transform their body into that element. However, this isn’t the only thing they are capable of. A Spiritualist who has reached the Third State of Spiritualism no longer has to rely on movements to activate a Spiritual Technique. Their body and mind has become so aligned with their Spiritual Power and element that they can manipulate the element to form any attack they please.”

As I said this, Fay’s eyes suddenly widened. “This is why you never taught me any Spiritual Techniques, isn’t it?!”

“Yes.” I nodded. “Aside from it just being better to only have one or two techniques that you have mastered, once you have reached the Third State of Spiritualism, it doesn’t matter how many Spiritual Techniques you have because you no longer need to use them. You can just manipulate your element to do whatever you want. If you can imagine it, you can create it.”

As I spoke, I lifted my hand and channeled Spiritual Power through my palm. Lightning crackled. Arcs of electricity skittered over my hand before turning into a very accurate bust of Fay. The redhead stared at the bust of her, made from my Spiritual Power and the lightning element, then grew pensive as I dismissed the lightning.

“I see… that makes a frightening amount of sense now…”

While Fay went into deep thought, I continued my lecture. “There are several ways to reach the Third State of Spiritualism. The quickest yet most dangerous way is to experience enlightenment during battle. Sometimes when you are forced into a life and death situation, your mind becomes far sharper and you can realize your full potential by breaking through your own limits. However, this method is hard and literally requires you to be in a battle where your life is on the line.”

The three girls paled. I just smiled. This was more or less how I had reached the Third State of Spiritualism, though I didn’t plan on telling them that.

“The second way is through slow enlightenment,” I continued. “This method is the longest, but it is also the most profound because it allows you to become intimately familiar with your element. Reaching the third state this way involves spending long hours meditating and looking inside of yourself in order to come into contact with the element you are aligned to. It generally takes decades to reach the Third State of Spiritualism this way.”

“That way seems a little long,” Lin said.

“It is.” I agreed. “Speaking of, how long does it take for a Lamia to reach the Third State?”

Tilting her head and thumping her tail against the ground as she pondered this question, Lin slowly answered me with only a little uncertainty. “This princess is not completely sure, but she believes it is different for each Lamia. Some simply have a better grasp of their element than others. This princess is actually fairly close to understanding her element, so it shouldn’t take more than a year at most to reach the Third State of Spiritualism. Fortunately, we Lamia do not require long hours of meditation. We will naturally reach the third state provided we live long enough.”

That was about what I had expected her to say. Lamia were different from humans. They were like a combination of Demon Beast and human, able to use Spiritual Techniques without the need for movements and capable of growing stronger simply by living. It was no wonder Queen Medusa had been so strong. That woman had been capable of fighting both Kari and I at the same time.

“I’m so jealous of you, Lin,” Kari said with a sigh. “You get stronger merely by living.”

“But this princess thinks your way of gaining strength is a lot more admirable, Big Sister,” Lin said. “This princess doesn’t have to do anything. You work really hard, and it allows your strength to soar far more quickly than this princess.”

“I guess.”

“Is there a third method of reaching the Third State of Spiritualism?” asked Fay.

“There is.” Stroking my chin, I explained the final method I knew of. “By using alchemy pills, it is possible for someone to forcefully reach the Third State of Spiritualism. I know of several pills that will allow this. However, while using pills is a quick and easy method of reaching the Third State, it is also the most unstable. Because you have not attained enlightenment nor become intimate with your element, it takes longer for you to unleash the full potential of this state.”

“So what you are saying is that we shouldn’t rely on the third method?” asked Kari with a tilt of her head.

“I didn’t say that.” Shaking my head, I continued. “There’s nothing wrong with using alchemy pills to increase your cultivation, but I also don’t think you should rely completely on them. What we’ll be doing to help you two achieve the Third State of Spiritualism is using a combination of the second and third methods. I plan to refine a pill that will help you both with your cultivation. The pill I plan on refining is called the Elemental Enlightenment Pill. As the name suggests, it is a pill that allows someone to reach deep inside of themselves during meditation and come into contact with their elemental affinity.”

Once I finished my explanation, I released a heavy sigh and sat down beside the girls. Kari made room for me between her and Fay. She leaned her head on my shoulder, and then Lin, who sat on Kari’s other side, moved her tail so it was lying lengthwise across me, Kari, and Fay.

“Unfortunately, the Elemental Enlightenment Pill requires a number of ingredients that can only be found by traveling deeper into the Demon Beast Mountain Range. I’ll have to plan an expedition out there so we can gather them.”

“What kind of ingredients do you need?” asked Kari.

“The ones that requires traveling into the Demon Beast Mountain Range are the Spiritual Root of a 1,000 year-old oak tree and the monster core of an A-rank Demon Beast with the elemental affinity of the person I’m refining the pill for. That means we’ll need to find a Demon Beast with a fire affinity and one with a light affinity.”

“Are there Demon Beasts with a light affinity?” asked Fay.

“There are several, actually,” I said. “And I know where at least one of them is.”

In my previous life, I had somehow gained Kari’s light affinity. While I had reached the Third State of Spiritualism for my water and lightning affinities using the first method I mentioned to them, I reached the third state for the light affinity by using the third method. Of course, this meant I was not as good with the light element as I had been with the water and lightning elements. It had taken years of grueling training for me just go get a handle on the light element, and even then, I had not been able to go past the Third State of Spiritualism.

Speaking of, I would need to begin meditating soon. While I couldn’t say anything for sure, I believed I might be able to use the light element now.

While the four of us were relaxing, the door to our left opened and Garret walked out. The old man with the handlebar mustache and windows peak paused upon seeing the extensive amount of damage done to the courtyard. The floor had cracks, dents, and holes all over it. Taking a deep breath as though attempting to keep calm, he looked at me and bowed.

“Lord Eryk, her majesty, Empress Hilda, has requested your presence.”

Oh? Empress Hilda was finally willing to see me? That either meant she had a break from work or there was something she needed.

Standing up, I said goodbye to the girls, and gestured for Garret to lead the way.

I wondered what Empress Hilda wanted to speak to me about.