Master Of None

”We need to check for survivors. There are a lot of places on the island for people to hide. We also need to deal with any lingering undead. They don’t have anything to control them right now. They could be going wild and killing whatever they encounter.” Walker caught on to this danger right away. He knew the dangers of the undead that the immortal king had created.

The worries that Walker had were only growing as he looked at the surroundings with even more detail. The number of damaged tents was much greater than the number of untouched.

This made him realize that the attack must have happened at night when the majority of the researchers had been sleeping. It was a despicable way to fight, but for the immortal king, it was just the amount of evil he would commit.

There were signs that some had been dragged while flailing for escape. The direction moved right toward the ruin mountain with the altar on top. The bridge to the elemental planes had opened up right there.

It was already clear that this was the goal of the immortal kind. But now, Walker regretted handing over any amount of natural mana to him. It could have been the key the immortal king needed to fully escape his self made prison. ”Walker! Snap out of it and help us. The researchers might still be alive. Gil found signs that none of them were killed.

They are most likely captives so that the immortal king can learn about the elemental planes faster!”

This also made a lot of sense. The undead would become extensions of the immortal king. They lacked self thinking intelligence. But he had always made them and used them as tools. Nothing more than a collection.

He needed living breathing thoughts now though. He needed them so that he could quickly figure out how the bridge worked and the elemental planes worked as a whole. Without that, he could be bombarded by the chaotic mana. Even he was not foolish enough in his desires for power and experimentation to ignore that.

Because the immortal king had so many undead, it was a surety that he had felt some of them become corrupted. No one doubted that this was happening and some undead might have been destroyed to avoid his own corruption.

Yet, this forced the immortal king to need something to defend himself with.

”I think he already had a way to separate himself from the tower he was trapped in. But he learned that he couldn’t handle chaotic mana at all. That is until he could manipulate or use some natural mana.”

”So you think that the stupid skeleton just used us to get his shield?” Remey cracked her knuckles while she searched the ravage of a large tent nearby.

She pulled a few documents out and passed them to Walker while still grumbling about how they had been used.

”That’s exactly what I think. The immortal king had taken more years than we know to understand how he was trapped. Regardless of him being an elder lich or not, he was trapped because of his own failures.”

”Whatever method he used to escape, he would not have been able to survive. I have a feeling that the immortal king did not even want to remain in the world for some reason.” Walker and the others thought about this for a few minutes. ”Weak.” Midnight’s comment was simple but clear. ”Sister is right, it’s an undead that is weak naturally, what if it cost a lot of power and the immortal king could be hunted down easily by us or others? We just defeated a demon lord.” Onyx’s expansion made Midnight nod her head vigorously in approval.

”So he was weak and needed outer mana to survive. And what other place other than the elemental planes might have some aspect of powerful dense death mana outside it or within it.”

Gil stomped his foot as he spoke. He was very unhappy that they had not only found people kidnapped, but also a threat that they should have dealt with immediately.

”We couldn’t have fought him right away. He has many powerful undead that we would have needed to fight first. Then we would need the mana to fight him. Walker was unable to do that as well. We would have lost one of our most powerful pieces in that fight.”

With Su’s logic, it made them feel a slight bit better. But they also felt that there was something they were missing. Something that had to do with how the immortal king had fled the tower he was trapped in.

”When those skeletons appeared at the mansion and elsewhere, he was able to speak and move through them. What if it was like that?” When Walker came to this understanding, he slowly grew it and things became more clear in his mind.

”He split off most of his soul or whatever parts of him to make a new main body. He wouldn’t be an elder lich in either place, but he could leave the tower. So he took his most powerful undead, copied a teleportation formation somehow, and came here. The crystals were left with the extra mana in them since they were how he moved over his powerful undead.”

”Then he began taking control and will be looking for a solution to his weakness now. Once he’s strong enough, he’ll most likely break his old body entirely. He doesn’t need one that’s trapped in a tower.”

They were all angry with this situation. None of them had wanted to be put in any position like this. However, there was a lot that they could do now to fix the issue.

Getting more Genesis forces here was a must. Beginning a raid on the undead city was also a must. Not that they would be leading it.

”We’ll ask the royal dragons to lead the raid on the undead city. All they need to do is destroy the immortal king’s original body. Once that happens, the immortal king’s undead left there will just be that, undead without a will. Trapped within the city. We’ll leave that for young people to learn from.”

”Once the immortal king has no connection to the world, we can finish this fight once and for all.” Walker took a confident stride toward the ruins. He knew the route to the top from what had been mapped and how he had gotten there before.

He could already sense the skeletons left behind within. They were moving around aimlessly. Their last order was to defend this place. So, they would do so until they were destroyed or they rotted to dust naturally.

The progress through the ruins was simple and easy. Walker barely needed to think to make the stone of the ruins move in to spikes. They crushed and shattered the bones of the skeletons in an instant.

Besides that, he sensed the places where the ruins might collapse so he began fixing them as he moved. The temporary supports could be Improved by the researchers when they returned. When they were safe to resume what they wanted to explore the most.

His fully focused mind didn’t even notice that subconsciously, he was absorbing more mana than before. Even when he meditated, he would not absorb this much mana.

Part of it was that denser elemental manas were flowing from the bridge between the elemental planes and the world. The wisps of these dense and pure manas moved through the air slowly becoming part of the world as it flowed.

His body was feeling more alive, his senses sharper. When he managed to walk back out in to the open, was pleasantly surprised to see what had become of the broken stone platform and altar that had been on the top of the mountain.

Ancient runes had come back to life with the purer mana. Not on the stone, but literally carved in to the space. In the air, these runes glowed and pulsed with every bit of mana that came through.

The bridge was the most amazing aspect though. It was a literal bridge. Made of various manas made physical, Walker felt like it was close to the spirit race in a way. But the manas that made it up were unmoving. Solid.

The space around it had warmed giving way to a view in to darkness and bursts of light. A strange expanse of unknown chaotic manas between the world and the elemental planes.

”That’s it, right? The way to the elemental planes?” Remey was gravitating towards it. She could feel the dense fire mana that she needed.

”It is. It’s amazing.” Their minds snapped back to attention as the others came near. This was a major step towards an unknown existence. They would be the first to truly explore this in many years.

Please say no to piracy! Don’t take part in crime! Don’t patronize thieves!

Drop those golden tickets!