jmclarke

Chapter 898: Jules and Carey

“The Herald of the Traveller?” Alex asked. “Are you serious?”

“Yes,” Carey smiled, looking quite pleased.

The courtyard had fallen silent.

Every eye was focused on the young woman who was both familiar yet unfamiliar. To the research team, Carey was a fallen colleague, one who had been mourned. To the Watchers, she was not only a colleague, but the symbol of a great failure, one where they had failed to protect a student under their charge.

Many here had at...

Chapter 897: The Seeds of Renewal

“What…is it…that you want me to try…father?”

Alex looked over the land, taking in everything around him. “You see all this? I mean, do you see how devastated it is?”

Claygon followed his gaze. “Yes…of…course…”

The group looked over the landscape in silence.

All around were signs of destruction, of unmistakable war.  The land had been ravaged by spawn.

It had been drenched in acid by titans.

Forests were burnt t...

Chapter 896: Aftermath

“Well, looks like it’s stopped.” Thundar pointed. “See?”

At long last, the Ravener’s remains had stopped flooding the floor of the chamber. Most of the enormous cavern was filled with black dust; the remains of the terror that had reigned over Thameland for millenia. Even the lake was saturated with them.

“All that stuff’s got to be worth a fortune!” Thundar rubbed his hands together.

“We’ll split it among the lot of us,” Alex grinned. �...

Chapter 895: Finally Free

“Be ready,” the king of Thameland whispered.

He stood on the walls of the capitol city, looking out.

His muscles ached.

His breathing was heavy, but the power of both the General’s magic and the Traveller’s blessing flowed through him. On the wall around him, his knights remained watchful, scanning the fields ahead. The General’s powerful mercenaries flanked them, and without them, many more lives would have been lost. The city was quiet now, delivered from Ravener...

Chapter 894: I Am Not Meant to Die

Within the Ravener’s dark world, Claygon rampaged like an ancient god of war. 

As his opponent weakened, the golem became more accustomed to his new powers.

The Ravener’s armies fled before the golem’s might.

Its beams and magic were useless against him, while his destructive rays carved trenches through its insides.  

But as Claygon used his new powers inside the construct, he detected power suddenly building in the air around him.

The darkn...

Chapter 893: Cornered

Alexander Roth, General of Thameland, floated within the final node inside the Ravener, stunned at what he was seeing. This place not only produced massive amounts of mana, serving as a sort of control centre for the Ravener’s energies, but it looked exactly like Uldar’s throne room. From here, mana was sent through all of its internal mechanisms. Divinity and mortal fear was channelled throughout its form, powering its weapons and monsters.

This precise copy of Uldar’s throne roo...

Chapter 892: From Throne to Throne

Atop the forest covered mountain in the distance, loomed Aenflynn’s castle. It towered above all else, a symbol of the Fae lord’s power, protected by his magics and rising high above the devastated terrain.

It stood proudly, a symbol of the sovereignty and grace of Och Fir Nog.

A symbol that, in short order, would be no more.

From the peak of one of the castle’s many towers, a radiance brighter than a second sun and more terrible than a thousand chaos bombs, shone. Thi...

Chapter 891: The Last Seat

Being in four places at once meant keeping track of a lot.

In his homeland, Alex had been crushing dungeons, taking control of dungeon cores, casting Army of Heroes on everyone he met, and turning his controlled Ravener-spawn loose on their kin.

Inside the Ravener’s lair, he was fighting alongside his companions, countering the magic of Uldar’s creation as it grew increasingly agitated and desperate. While Claygon was inside the Ravener, Alex was blunting the hole he’d left ...

Chapter 890: Heart of Stone

Lord Aenflynn was long lived. His life had been one of triumphs and frustrations, some small, and some great indeed.

In his youth, he had been a carefree sort; a fae who often slipped into the material world to have some sport, tricking mortals and watching their comical reactions. It had amused him, and often satisfied his curiosities.

One day while in the material world, he met Uldar; a living god, who was truly coming into his own at the time.

From that meeting, one of th...

Chapter 889: Merzhin's Faith

When he was a young child, Saint Merzhin of Thameland sincerely believed that he had been born for one purpose.

To serve Uldar.

He grew up in the church, raised by priests and priestesses, and lived among other children. The young boy had slept on a thin cot, ate simple meals and spent most of his waking hours learning scripture, telling Uldar’s stories, labouring for the church in the kitchens and fields, and worshipping Thameland’s silent god.

Uldar was his life, his s...

Chapter 888: Like His Father

In the moments before Claygon had smashed the crystal against his chest, Alex had to fight his every instinct in order to keep himself from interfering. Every instinct had screamed at him, telling him his golem would get hurt, or worse.

Nor would it be the first time that he’d come close to dying. 

Twice before, in battles with Ravener-spawn and the hidden church, Claygon had been so badly damaged that Alex had thought he’d been destroyed. His clay form had come close to ...

Chapter 887: His Own Path

‘Alright, it’s off balance,’ Alex’s thoughts came through his link with Claygon. ‘You’re up, buddy.’

“Everyone!” he shouted. “Claygon’s gonna be with me! Get ready!”

“Here’s to success!” Theresa shouted, leaping over a cluster of Spawn Knights, to slash a living core. “You can do it!”

“We got this, big guy!” Cedric called to Claygon. “Do your thing!’

“Thank…you!” the golem said, raising his spear.

This...

Chapter 886: Poison

“Why is this happening?” the Ravener’s scream shook its inner world. “How… …but you are—is this an illusion? How are you here and outside at the same time? I sense you elsewhere as well, what are you do—”

“What did…it just say?” Claygon froze in surprise.

As did his companions within the Ravener’s cavern.

Too much had happened too quickly.

Claygon’s father had appeared out of nowhere, stabbed the Ravener then ...

Chapter 885: Within the Darkness

Alex Roth couldn’t count how many hours he’d spent pouring over the Ravener’s schematics. There were times when he would go to the laboratory in the Research Castle when the sun was ready to set and not leave his chair—reading and memorising reams of papers mapping the constructs internal specifications—until the sun was coming back up.

He doubted there was anyone—except for maybe the ghost of Uldar himself—who knew those schematics quite as thoroughly as he did. Even taki...

Chapter 884: Breach

Alex Roth, General of Thameland looked over three different scenes.

In one, Merzhin was struggling with the divine ward around Uldar’s throne.

In another, the Ravener was battling his friends in its lair.

And in the third, monsters were spreading across Thameland, bringing chaos and death to the kingdom.

So, he got to work.

Channelling the power of the Traveller, the Mark of the General, his streams of consciousness, and all he’d learned since the auspicious ...

Chapter 883: A Mastery of Space

What was the Traveller’s power?

On the surface, it was teleportation: transporting oneself instantly from one place to another.

But was that truly the core of Hannah’s power?

Alex doubted that it was; the Traveller’s power wasn’t just about teleportation. Before he’d even used her strength to teleport himself, it had enhanced any teleportation spell that was cast on him, and it had improved the strength of his summoning spe...

Chapter 882: New Frontiers of the Traveller's Power

Alexander Roth’s soul abruptly returned to his body like a comet plunging into the sea.

His soul swelled with Hannah’s power, great amounts of her energy flowing in by the instant. It flooded in, radiating through every fibre, pore and cell, sparking his mind, his thoughts. When he opened his eyes, it wasn’t just to the confinement of the area between the two divine wards in the Fae lord’s throne room…it was to the universe itself.

For a moment, he was nowh...

Chapter 881: Blessings on Thameland

“W-what is this?” a soldier cried.

Holy light radiated from the Cave of the Traveller, illuminating the army’s fort, and the Coille Forest.

Ravener-spawn cringed away from that light, fangs clenched as if in pain.

A gentle wind caressed the forest, contrasting the sharp cries coming from the Cave.

“Something’s happening in here!” a soldier shouted from inside. “It’s the portals!” Throughout the inner temple and portal chamber below, holy light blazed,...

Chapter 880: Piercing the Veil

Hannah’s power sang all through Alex’s being.

She smiled at the Roth family, and it was like the sun coming out after the darkest storm.

“I’m strong now…strong enough to bridge the gap through you, Alex,” she said. “Because you gave me the last bit of energy I needed, Selina. And because you have been channelling your faith through your power, Alex. You and your companions rolled back the grey rain-curtain of the after-world. And now, Carey and I can return.”

Chapter 879: Reunion

Selina Roth ran past towering windows streaming early morning sunlight through the villa.

Her bare feet echoing through the halls, cut through the conversation the Lus were having with the queen of Thameland and a few of her guards, as they gathered in the dining hall, discussing the situation in the kingdom.

Mr. and Mrs. Lu—and their sons—sounded uncomfortable around the queen, and worried when they spoke of their daughter and Alex. The queen spoke in soft tones, her voice so...

Chapter 878: The Unmaking

All across Thameland, dungeon cores drank the power of their enemies’ terror, swelling with new energies.

Green fields became hellscapes dotted with black orbs, each one spewing  monsters by the score. Beasts hunted for Thameish flesh to devour, roaming through once quiet woodlands, springing on those unlucky enough to be caught there.

Clouds burned away as Skyfire Swarms rose up, together with Living Cores.

Rivers and lakes choked with acid, Sky Striders emptying the...

Chapter 877: The Ravener's Fuel

“Wh-what’s happening?” a soldier cried.

All across the city of Ussex, magical energy rose from the defenders of Thameland like steam escaping a boiling pot: the enchantment of Army of Heroes now dissipating.

As the city burned, warriors looked around in confusion, as though suddenly waking from a dream.

The magic in their bodies faded, muscles no longer gripped their weapons unflinchingly.

And—as their eyes fell on the monsters they’d just been ...

Chapter 876: Steel

The fae knights tensed. “Attack!” 

Armour clinked, halberds were raised, all eyes were fixed on the young archwizard. 

The line of knights standing in front of the divine ward swung their weapons, blades and hafts passing through the curtain of divine energy as though it wasn’t there.

Other fae knights came through the divine ward on either side of Alex, Merzhin, and the elementals at the same time. The two groups flanked them in between the wards.

“Y...

Chapter 875: A Surge of Power

Power poured through the Ravener’s inner pathways, replenishing its strength.

‘Yes. This is the way!’ it thought, drinking in the power needed for its trials. ‘These mortals will not rob me of what is mine, now they can learn that.’

The Ravener began channelling power.

###

Claygon split an air blaster’s skull, his war-spear carving through the carapace like dried grass. The creature shuddered once, then fell.

Two s...

Chapter 874: Who Are They Praying to?

The archwizard’s eyes turned toward Aenflynn’s castle. “What have you done?”

The Fae lord was beaming, pleasure filling his expression. He folded both hands behind his back like a naughty child hiding a stolen biscuit. “Not a thing. I did nothing.”

“Do not take me for a fool. I have spells that sense the rhythms of divinity; you are not the first entity with divine power I have battled, and you likely will be far from the last.”

“Oooo, scary!” Aenflynn sh...

Chapter 873: Confinement

Another divine ward sprang up, forming a half-sphere of divine light, sealing Merzhin and Alex in the throne’s chamber. 

Both young Heroes were now trapped between the first ward sealing the throne, and the second one sealing them in. They had little space to manoeuvre, perhaps only about five feet between the two wards. 

The Saint shielded his face from the ward as though he was facing a white-hot blast furnace. “The power coming from it…it’s incre...

Chapter 872: Divine Ward

The moment Alex teleported with Merzhin, he knew something had changed.

As he and the Saint catapulted through space—images of locations from across the planes racing by—it felt as though they were no longer travelling alone. Hannah’s power pulsed like a beating heart, reacting to…he didn’t know what.

It felt as if another presence was travelling with them, and Alex could…was that a voice?

He strained to hear.

Yes.

Yes!

It was...

Chapter 871: Blocked

Nothing happened.

“What?” Alex pressed his palm to the Ravener’s surface. “What’s going on—”

The construct seemed indifferent to him, fully focused on gathering strength to stop Claygon.

Alex called on Hannah’s power once more while recalling the image he’d seen when he’d connected to the Ravener. A dark place, filled with crystalline columns and crystalline wires.

He knew the space was inside the Ravener.

Again, he tried teleporting into the ...

Chapter 870: Attack on Ravener

Alex felt an ominous power building within the Ravener.

Building quickly.

Light surrounding the construct dimmed.

Its inky surface writhed as though swarms of worms were slithering beneath it.

“Everyone!” he called. “Get ready! It’s going to—”

His warning came too late.

Power skyrocketed, exploding outward releasing waves of transparent ethereal worms, visible with true seeing.

The world slowed,  Alex called on his teleportation magic...

Chapter 869: Death Beams

“Claygon!” Alex shouted, instantly teleporting to him.

The golem was pressed to the stone wall, his chest glowing red-hot, waves of heat rising, moisture steaming, drifting off the hot metal.

“Are you alright, buddy?” Alex asked him. “Is your core—”

“I am…fine! Look out…father!” Claygon pointed.

Alex turned.

The columns of flames faded, revealing the Ravener in all its glory. Undamaged. Not even in the slightest. A point of bli...