Corvis Eralith
The rhythmic clang-clang-clang of hammer on refined ironite diamond finally ceased, the echo lingering in the cavernous expanse of the garage like the last heartbeat of a forged beast.
Sweat stung my eyes, tracing paths through the grime coating my face, mingling with the sharp scent of ozone from Sylvia's pulsing core and the acrid tang of superheated metal.
The Barbarossa loomed nearby, a silent crimson sentinel, its newly attached black exoskeleton segments adding a predatory sharpness to its frame. The Mana Wreath's hilt laid cooling on the anvil before me—a complex nexus of sculpted metal, embedded conduits, and protruding filaments that seemed to drink the dim light, promising contained annihilation.
"Meta-awareness even gives you smithing knowledge?" Romulos's voice cut through the focused silence, materializing as a spectral blur leaning insouciantly against Barbarossa's massive leg.
His tone held its usual sardonic edge, but beneath it, I caught a flicker of something else—genuine awe, perhaps, quickly smothered by a thread of bitter jealousy.
"So, care to explain what arcane monstrosity you're birthing now? You've been silent for an age. Starting to worry you'd finally succumbed to the mountain's solitude."
I wiped my forearm across my brow, smearing soot. Worry? From him? More likely boredom. "No time for a lecture," I rasped, my throat raw from exertion and inhaled fumes. I lifted the heavy hilt, feeling the latent potential humming within its cold metal.
"Think of it as… a vessel. A rechargeable conduit. The blade isn't steel as you can clearly see; it's going to be pure mana, drawn from Sylvia's core, shaped and unleashed through this."
I gestured towards the intricate guard, where specially designed connectives would mate with the sheath already integrated into Barbarossa's sheath at its waist.
"The sheath charges it. The hilt unleashes it." A perfect comparison surfaced, dredged from fading Earth memories. "Search my mind. Something called a 'lightsaber'."
Romulos scoffed, waving a dismissive spectral hand. "I refuse to dive into the swamp of your fictional fantasies for analogies, Corvis. I'm here for the bleeding edge of reality, the marriage of magic and brain. Not childish space-opera." He drifted closer, peering at the hilt with unnerving intensity. "Though… the craftsmanship is undeniable. For a lesser."
"Whatever strokes your ego," I muttered, turning my back to place the hilt carefully into a padded cradle. The Mana Stinger—its dagger-sized counterpart, dagger sixed for a 5 meters metal beast—gleamed nearby, already integrated into the torso armor's sheath.
Three to four meters of pure, mana-forged devastation… the thought should have sparked triumph. Instead, a profound weariness settled over me, heavier than the mountain above. Three weeks. Three weeks until the Xyrus semester ended. The image of Tessia's face, Grey's presence, the vibrant chaos of the flying city… it was a siren song pulling at my frayed resolve.
But Tristan Flamesworth's ambush was a brutal reminder: the net was tightening. Was the desperate need to see them worth potentially leading Agrona's hunters, or the Tri-Union's dogs, straight to their doorstep?
"You're ignoring a rather gaping chasm in your wistful little plan, Corvis," Romulos remarked, his voice cutting through my spiraling thoughts like a shard of ice. He floated into my line of sight, spectral arms crossed. "A very, very concerning chasm if you harbour fantasies of surprising our dear sisters."
I sighed, the sound swallowed by the vastness of the garage. Berna, curled near the entrance kf the garage, lifted her massive head, sensing my tension.
"What now? Don't have your blessing, Romulos? Am I confined to these mountains not just by traitorous kings, but by your whims too?" Annoyance laced my words, but it was hollow, drained by the sheer magnitude of the obstacles.
"Tsk. Petulance doesn't suit you anymore," he chided, though a flicker of amusement danced in his eyes. "No. The problem is far more… terrestrial. How, precisely, do you plan on reaching the floating citadel of Xyrus? You cannot fly. Berna, magnificent as she is, lacks wings. And the Barbarossa?"
He gestured grandly at the crimson giant. "Hardly inconspicuous. As for the teleportation gate at the city's base… guards, wards, identification protocols. You'd be apprehended before the mana shimmer faded. Your face is on every wanted poster from here to Etistin."
The cold water of reality doused the flickering hope. He was right. Utterly, devastatingly right. I'd been so consumed by the desire to go, by the ache of missing them, that I'd blinded myself to the impossible logistics. Disguise? Against Xyrus's layered security, orchestrated by paranoid nobles and potentially Agrona's infiltrators? Futile.
Contacting Cynthia? A death sentence for her, likely watched day and night by the Council already. Grey's accolade, the one that changed appearance… tantalizing, but unreachable.
Reaching out to Grampa? Too risky, too slow. My carefully constructed world of runes and steel felt suddenly claustrophobic, a cage perched on a mountain.
Despair threatened to close its icy fingers. Then, Romulos whistled. A low, melodious sound that echoed strangely in the stone chamber.
"What?" I asked, the word heavy with resignation.
"Oh, Corvis," he purred, his spectral form shimmering with sudden, intense excitement. "This… this stasis… it's the perfect catalyst! The solution isn't upwards, towards guarded skies. It's downwards. Into the bones of the world. Into the Relictombs." He spread his arms wide, as if embracing the very concept.
"Imagine! The lost knowledge of the Djinn! Artifacts untouched for millennia! Power waiting to be claimed! An accolade—a relic—capable of ascending and descending… wouldn't that neatly solve your little aerial dilemma?"
The Relictombs. The whispered graveyard of a civilization, filled with wonders and horrors beyond comprehension. The place one which Arthur used the very artifact Romulos hinted at to access—the Ascension Portal Relic.
A key to bypassing conventional travel to the Relictombs entirely. Hope, dangerous and sharp, pricked through the despair. But…
"I don't have Aroa's Requiem," I countered, naming the impossible aetheric art Arthur used. "I can't reverse dead relics like he did."
Romulos rolled his spectral eyes dramatically. "Must you always dwell on limitations? For the Catastrophe allows you to wield decay, a power exclusive to Basilisk Asura! Meta-awareness bends Fate's threads around you! 'Impossible' is a word scribbled in sand before the tide of your potential, Corvis. Reverse engineering isn't magic; it's understanding. And understanding… that is where your peculiar gift truly shines."
He had a point. A terrifying, exhilarating point. The Djinn portals… Meta-awareness flickered, offering fragmented glimpses—ancient stone arches hidden in forgotten glades, dormant pathways scattered across Dicathen, remnants of a network used long before the Tri-Union.
One near the Darv desert… the path to the Sanctuary… it could be done. Reach a portal near Darv via the Barbarossa's enhanced mobility (thanks to the black exoskeleton), activate it using… well, that was a problem for future Corvis… descend into the Relictombs near the Sanctuary, find the descension portal there, locate the Ascension Relic within the labyrinth, and understand it. Reverse its function. The sheer audacity was staggering.
"Bingo," Romulos murmured, a predatory grin spreading across his face as he saw the realization dawn in my eyes. He drifted towards the Mana Wreath hilt, his spectral fingers tracing the air above its intricate surface.
"The blade is forged, the sting is primed. I grow weary of this mountain's silence, Corvis. The echoes of ancient power call. The Relictombs await." His voice dropped, vibrating with a fervor I'd rarely heard.
"Let the dead world tremble where the people exterminated by my grandfather left their knowledge. Romulos Indrath finally ascends into the Relictombs!"
His excitement was palpable, infectious even through my exhaustion. Was it the lure of Djinn secrets? The thrill of the unknown? Or something darker, tied to his lineage and his own shadowed goals? It didn't matter. Not right now. He offered a path, a thread of hope leading not just to a way into Xyrus, but to power that could tip the scales against the coming darkness. Power I desperately needed.
I looked at Berna. Her intelligent green eyes met mine, filled with unwavering loyalty and a question. I looked at Barbarossa, my strongest weapon carved in crimson chitin, steel and dark exoskeleton. I looked at the Mana Wreath, a promise of destruction and protection. And I looked at Romulos, the devil on my shoulder, glowing with anticipation for the descent into hell.
The mountain workshop suddenly felt too small. The weight of the past months—the fear, the killing, the loneliness—pressed down, but beneath it, a new current surged: purpose, sharp and dangerous. The Relictombs weren't just a solution; they were a crucible. One that could forge me into something capable of protecting everything I loved, or consume me utterly.
"Alright, Romulos," I said, my voice steadier than I felt. I picked up the Mana Wreath hilt, its cool weight a familiar anchor. "Let's find a door into the past."
I walked towards the Barbarossa, the exoskeleton humming faintly as I triggered its activation sequence and the sealed vault on top of my head opened as I sent a vibration from Accaron.
"Berna," I called, my voice echoing in the chamber near the garage. "We're going on a trip. "
We were going to the Relictombs. And whatever awaited us in those ancient, silent graveyards… it would change everything.
Olfred Warend
The thin, biting air of the Grand Mountains scraped at my lungs as I soared on the back of my magma construct—a broad, flowing platform of molten rock that hissed and spat heat into the frigid altitude.
Below me, the world unfolded in jagged peaks and deep, shadowed valleys, a tapestry of stone and stubborn pine. Yet, the grandeur felt hollow. A persistent shame gnawed at my gut, cold and unwelcome.
Hunting a child. Prince or not, thirteen years old. It sat ill with me, a stain on the mantle of a Lance. In the prince's coreless desperation, his betrayal by the very powers meant to protect him… I saw unsettling echoes.
Echoes of the ragged, abandoned brat I had been, scrounging in Vildorial's underground gutters before Elder Rahdeas found me. He had offered me shelter, purpose, a semblance of family.
My loyalty to him was the bedrock upon which my world stood, unyielding as the mountains below. Obeying Dawsid's order, hunting the elven prince… it was Rahdeas's will that I obeyed the King. The only concession to conscience: I would capture, not harm. A fragile salve on a festering wound.
Reports painted a confusing picture. A coreless prince wielding untold magic—prosthetic artifice, they called it. Then whispers conflating him with 'Outis,' a spectral bandit slayer haunting the borderlands.
But Tristan Flamesworth's report… it was sparse, frustratingly so. A Yellow Core commander and twenty veterans bested by a child? Even with artifice, it defied sense. It reeked of omission, perhaps Flamesworth pride bruised raw. Still, the implication lingered, a thorn in my tactical assessment.
Yet, the gulf between Yellow and White Core wasn't just a step; it was the chasm between earth and sky. My power, drawn from the molten heart of the world itself, was a force of nature. What threat could a boy pose against that?
Days of scouring the lower slopes yielded nothing but wind-carved stone and the occasional startled mountain goat. Frustration mounted, sharpening my focus. I pushed the magma platform higher, skirting the snowline, the air thinning further, the cold biting deeper even through my mantle. My senses, honed by decades of conflict and the Lance's augmentation, swept the treacherous terrain.
Then, movement. Not the fluid grace of a mana beast, nor the clumsy stumble of a bandit.
Something… else.
My breath hitched. Nestled amidst the stunted pines on a high, treacherous slope, a figure moved with deliberate, unnerving purpose. But it was no figure of flesh. It was a construct. A titan of burnished crimson armor, easily four meters tall, its surface etched with patterns that drank the weak sunlight.
Its head was a seamless, opaque black hemisphere—a dark, unreadable orb. Limbs articulated with disturbing smoothness, augmented by sleek black protrusions that seemed to enhance its gait.
Sheathes adorned its torso and hip, hinting at weapons unseen. It navigated the rocky slope and dense trees with a calculated efficiency that belied its colossal size, moving with a low, resonant hum that vibrated faintly even at this distance.
Beside it, keeping pace with effortless, ground-devouring strides, ran a bear. It didn't seem any different from a normal bear but it was radiating a deep, ancient power, its coat the rich brown of mountain soil, its eyes intelligent and watchful. Untouched by fatigue, a primal force matched step-for-step with the mechanical behemoth.
My mind reeled. What in Rahdeas's name…? Not a mana beast. This was forged, crafted. But by whom? Gideon? His genius birthed radios and steam ships, not… this.
This was something primal yet sophisticated, menacing yet controlled. The Alacryans? I'd glimpsed their emissary, Uto—a creature of chilling, alien power that made my White Core feel like a guttering candle before a bonfire. This machine radiated a different kind of threat. Earthbound. Implacable.
Stories of 'Outis' spoke of a shadow, a knife in the dark, not a walking fortress. This defied every report, every expectation. Bandits? Laughable. Rebels? None possessed such resources or madness. Sanctioned by the Council? Impossible. The cold, logical conclusion settled like lead in my stomach, warring with disbelief.
It had to be him. Prince Corvis Eralith. The coreless child. The fugitive. Somehow… this was his answer.
A flicker of something warred with my duty. This changed every plan I had made. Drastically. My hand tightened as my feet stomped into the magma platform. Capture without harm? Against this?
I angled the platform downwards, descending silently on a thermal current. My intent solidified: summon the Magma Knights and contain the machine. Subdue the bear. Extract the prince from his armored shell, however impossible that seemed. The mountain air crackled with the building heat of my power, ready to be shaped into molten soldiers.
Then, it happened.
As I descended, the inky black dome of the construct's head shifted minutely. A beam of the high-altitude sun, sharp and unforgiving, struck its surface. Not a reflection. A focus. Like a single, baleful eye snapping open within the darkness, a point of intense, concentrated light flared on the obsidian glass, pinpointing my location with unnerving, mechanical precision. It held for a fraction of a second, a silent, chilling accusation.
It saw me.
The shame of hunting a child evaporated, replaced by the cold, primal surge of a warrior facing the utterly unknown. The magma surged beneath my feet, ready to answer my call. The hunt was over. The confrontation had begun.