Path of Dragons-Chapter 72Book 8: : Endurance

Roiling flames washed over Elijah, superheating the air until every breath scorched his throat. The huge slab of metal in his hands grew hot enough to burn his hands to ash, and the wall behind him melted under the onslaught.

Yet, he persisted.

Mostly, that was because he’d cast Wild Resurgence, Blessing of the Grove, and Nature’s Bloom a moment before the flames rolled over him, but it was also because he had funneled ethera into Grove Conduit, pushing it as hard as he possibly could manage. Ethera tinged with thick vitality spilled out, increasing his Regeneration and establishing what felt almost like a miniature domain. It wasn’t as powerful as what he felt within the grove – far from it – but it was enough to close the gap between the effects of his ongoing heals and what he needed to survive the Failed Iteration’s Self-Destruct.

Only barely, though.

Elijah lost count of how many times he re-cast Nature’s Bloom. Dozens, at the very least, and casting it so many times in quick succession truly highlighted the spell’s full power. It was necessary, too. Thankfully, the explosion burned through his nerve endings, so he didn’t feel much past that initial surge of pain. If he had, he probably would have gone into shock.

And that would have inevitably resulted in his quick and ignominious death.

Even as tiny flowers bloomed where no vegetation should have existed, then were burned out of existence only to reform, Elijah continued to heal until, at last, the flames died down.

He kept going for a few more casts before he dropped the hunk of metal. It was at least a foot thick, but half of it had turned to molten slag. So, when it hit, it did so with a loud thud before tipping over. It also took a significant portion of his flesh with it. When the melted side hit the cooler floor, a sizzling sound filled the air right before a loud gong echoed through the room. Vaguely, Elijah was aware that the rapidly cooling metal had cracked, but he barely paid it any mind.

He couldn’t.

The air was still far too hot for Temperate to mitigate, so he spent the next few minutes slowly healing himself until the air temperature started to normalize. He couldn’t allow himself to relax, though. Not until he was certain that the danger had passed. So, on bare feet, he stepped forward to investigate the hunk of ash and metal that had been the Failed Iteration.

The thing was dead.

Elijah could feel that much easily enough. However, he needed to ensure that it wouldn’t rise. After what he’d seen, he didn’t know what the fusion of Vey’thaalian and machine could do.

So, he spent the next few minutes sifting through the wreckage. Then, at last, he found a twisted piece of complex machinery. It still emitted a significant amount of ethera, but it was formless. Purposeless. It had nowhere to go and nothing to do. However, after inspecting it for a few moments, Elijah realized a couple of things.

The most important was that it resembled a heart. Certainly, it was missing a few pieces, and many of the smaller parts had melted entirely. Elijah had once been a biologist, though, and even if he’d been apathetic about his career, he wasn’t so terrible at the job that he couldn’t recognize the remains of a heart when he saw them.

Of less importance was a series of power crystals he found. They were entirely spent, but they featured a level of engraving he’d not seen since encountering the giant crystal back in the Desolate Reach. Without further delay, he slipped the crystals and the heart into his Ghoul-Hide Satchel.

Maybe someone smarter than him could figure out what to do with them.

In any case, the most disturbing part of the discovery was that he’d felt a similar mechanical organ, and not that long ago. The implications of Isaiah’s mechanical heart were undeniable.

And it should have been expected.

After all, he knew of the existence of multiple people who’d received other elder cores. Sadie and the others from Hong Kong had been blessed with angel cores. Benedict had similarly been given a demonic core. And Elijah himself sported a dragon core. So, was it so odd that Isaiah would gain the attention of the mechaniques?

No. Not at all.

However, it did highlight the fact that Elijah couldn’t allow himself to overlook any potential threat. Isaiah’s schemes notwithstanding, the man was easy to underestimate. He wasn’t a true combatant, and his class seemed more focused on creating and using technology. Still, if he had an elder core – which seemed almost certain at this point – he could prove a dangerous adversary.

Hopefully, it wouldn’t come to that. Elijah didn’t want to think of the man in that way. But after the Summit, he wasn’t entirely certain where he stood with the ruler of Seattle.

They definitely weren’t friends, but they weren’t enemies, either. Not yet, at least.

Sighing, he looked around the ruined chamber. The once-molten walls were nearly unrecognizable, having been reduced to hardened slag. Bubbles and fractures were frequent, and in places, they looked like a cooled lava flow.

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But more importantly, with the Failed Iteration’s death, a door had opened.

Clearly, that was the way out.

Still, Elijah wasn’t ready to move on. Not until he’d returned to peak condition. So, over the next day, he healed his blistered skin, ate roasted monster meat, and even spent a few hours sleeping. Nothing disturbed his convalescence, so after a little more than a day and a half, he felt prepared to attack the rest of the Primal Realm.

Still, he forced himself to wait for a few more hours – during which, he continued to heal and channel ethera through Grove Conduit – so he could be certain that he’d returned to perfect condition.

Because Elijah suspected that his journey through the Primal Realm was nearing its end. Already, he’d spent a couple of months inside, and he’d been pushed to his absolute limits. However, he’d also made incredible gains, as evidenced by his attainment of another two levels, which put him at one-seventy-one.

But this time, he didn’t get a choice of spell evolutions. Instead, he’d gained a new ability to add to his repertoire:

Child of Fire

Feed your flamewrought body via Heart of Fire, increasing all physical attributes. Potency of enhancement dependent on number of charges of Heart of Fire. Duration determined by Core cultivation. Current: 32 seconds. Only usable under the effects of Shape of the Master (or its direct evolutions). Cooldown: 9 days.

It seemed like an incredible ability, though Elijah wouldn’t know for certain just how powerful it could be until he put it to the test. Unfortunately, that would require him to build charges of Heart of Fire, which in turn meant he could only test it out in battle. So, finding its limits would have to wait.

Still, given what he already knew about Shape of the Master – and how similar it was to the First Dragon’s progenitor – Elijah suspected that it would be quite powerful. The fact that Child of Fire took charges of Heart of Fire, rather than ethera or stamina, supported that notion as well.

In any case, Elijah was excited about using it, but he dreaded the situation that would require such an enhancement.

It was with that thought that he shifted into the Shape of Venom, then cautiously moved on under the effects of Guise of the Unseen. For a while, the corridors looked strikingly similar to the ones in the shifting maze of iron halls that had led him to the encounter with the Failed Iteration. But after a few hours, he smelled something absolutely foul. It was the malodorous aroma of chemicals and decay, and after only another hour, he found the source.

The room – if such a word was sufficient to describe the sheer scope of the space before him – stretched on for what looked like miles in every direction – even up. And everywhere Elijah looked, there were glass chambers containing monsters in various stages of development. Most of those containers were broken, spilling their contents across the floor.

That was the origin of the smell.

Rotting monsters, each more grotesque than the last.

Elijah stalked forward, ignoring the churning in his stomach as he stifled the urge to vomit. That lasted only until he reached the section clearly dedicated to the harpies.

Some of the bodies looked little different than human women – save for one monstrous characteristic or another. In some cases, they had grown beaks. In others, they had talons instead of feet. A few had feathers covering their whole bodies. As he went on, he saw the monstrosity progress as the bodies became more similar to the ones with which he was familiar.

It was like seeing their twisted chain of evolution.

The harpies had not originated as monsters. They had been created, and from humans. Where those people had come from, Elijah had no idea. Chances were that the Primal Realm had simply used that form to drive home the horror of the act. But given that Elijah still wasn’t entirely certain how Primal Realms worked, it was just as likely that the system had abducted people and let the chimeras experiment on them.

Or maybe they had been people who’d volunteered to have their spirits used to populate the place in hopes of gaining Feats of Strength that would positively affect their Legacies and give them access to better paths of progression.

Elijah hoped not.

That was a fate he wouldn’t have wished on anyone – not even his worst enemies. In fact, most of the thoughts going through his mind settled in similar territory. The only possibility that was even vaguely acceptable was that it was all just set dressing. But even that left him with disturbing thoughts – chiefly that the system was not a thing of creativity. From what he understood, for the formation of towers and Primal Realms, it needed to take inspiration from real things. So, it was likely that what he saw was a twisted retelling of a real event.

That sent a chill up his spine.

Over the next few hours, Elijah continued forward. He didn’t really want to see the things he witnessed, but he refused to look away from the evidence of just how badly people could go wrong. The chimera had clearly set out on a quest for self-improvement, but in their enthusiasm for that seemingly noble goal, they had done horrific things.

And in the end, they had given something up. Something essential to a true life. They had disconnected from nature.

That was what he’d felt from Isaiah and had been confirmed with the Failed Iteration. They still maintained a tenuous connection with the natural world, but it was thin and ephemeral. It wouldn’t take much more to sever it completely. In retrospect, it seemed obvious, and he wondered why he hadn’t immediately recognized the danger.

But it did beg the question – were mechaniques the enemy of nature – and by extension, Druids, then? If they were, wouldn’t Nerthus have mentioned it? Elijah felt certain that would have been the case.

As Elijah trekked through the enormous chamber, no answers for forthcoming. Just more horror. He saw hundreds of variations of monsters – from their original forms to the twisted and mutated shapes that had been forced upon them. Given what had been done to them, it was no surprise that they had been driven mad.

Eventually, he reached the end of the parade of horrors and found himself looking at massive door. Even with it closed, he could feel the heat billowing from within. When he drew close, the doors opened wide, revealing an enormous smithy featuring a massive forge that stretched from floor to ceiling.

Elijah couldn’t be certain, but it seemed that he’d finally reached the culmination of the Primal Realm. He stepped forward, eager to kill the Fleshwright who was responsible for all the misery he’d witnessed.