Chapter 737: The Cult & Demonic Civilizations
Land-breaker started from the time he went looking for his Highswords. They were not in the Old Empire's lands—which was pretty obvious. Otherwise, the Emperor and other third-rankers fighting the demons for years in the alliance army might have sensed them.
The Land-breaker began searching along the sea route many ships had taken when he was at the edge of the Old Empire. After following a ship for a few days, he found an island hundreds of kilometers away from the mainland. It was mostly just a rocky island with patches of sand here and there, but behind it was a cave entrance where ships could enter.
A lot of demons and humans had been captured there and were being starved to death, forced to power some ancient relic that consumed an immense amount of mana. It was the cult again. Voidshaper had been kept unconscious for years, bound by some weird otherworldly cursed items. Land-breaker guessed they had to be from some dungeon the cult had discovered—one that had remnants of a demonic civilization.
Before he could question the cult members, they took their own lives by eating some ugly, glowing purple roots.
Voidshaper had been attacked by the transcendent demons after many of the third-rankers among the Highswords betrayed him and the others. After a brutal, desperate battle, Voidshaper managed to save most of the academy kids, but he himself had been captured. One by one, the third-rankers not aligned with the cult were consumed in the same way—used to harvest mana from their bodies to feed this giant relic.
Voidshaper and the surviving knights had no idea what had happened to the other third-ranker Highswords. Only five hundred of them had survived, out of the thousands captured alive or injured. All of them mentioned the same thing: the cult didn't want to kill them. They wanted to use their bodies like living mana batteries to power their enormous relic.
"So, where is it?" Damian asked.
"It was there, in the hidden cave," the Land-breaker replied. "That's the thing—it constantly oozes this dark, chaos-element liquid. I thought about breaking the whole island, but I abandoned the idea. I didn't want to bring such an abomination onto the land. It's poisoning the ocean though, and we'll have to stop that soon."
"Mindseer said you can copy spells," Voidshaper said. "Can you do that with this relic? Not to activate it, but just to get an idea of what it could potentially do. We'll have to find this abomination of a dungeon soon—assuming that's where it all came from."
"It has to be. Humans and even demons aren't capable of using the chaos element in such a way," Land-breaker said.
"All demons have a natural affinity to chaos, dark, and light attributes," Damian commented. "But the Land-breaker is right. Having an affinity doesn't mean having protection against the element. It has to be from a dungeon. I have a list of hundreds of underwater dungeons, stretching from the mainland to the Island of Demons, but only after entering them can we know for sure which one it is."
"That.." the Land-breaker said. "Are you sure giving demons access to unknown dungeons is a good idea?"
"We can't just ignore all the dungeons in our world. The ocean is full of them—unentered for five hundred years. Monsters are messing up the ecosystem of natural ocean life," Damian said. "Demons want to explore dungeons to find food for their people. I won't say it's right or wrong. It does make me profit, but it's a deal we both agreed upon. I didn't force them, and I doubt I can even make them explore thirty or forty dungeons before I find them a new home."
"I'm not condemning you. But it will be your responsibility if something dangerous comes out of one of those dungeons—like this evil civilization's remains," the Land-breaker warned him.
Damian nodded. "I'm checking what each demon brings out of the dungeons. But I understand your concern. It is my greed—and the consequences will also be mine to face."
"Good that you know." Land-breaker dropped the topic.
"What about this dangerous dungeon of the cult, though?" Voidshaper asked.
"If we can get more of these cult members, I could use the Divine Seeker spell to make them talk.." Damian thought aloud.
"You think the Demon Island has more of these cult members?" Voidshaper asked, alarmed.
"Not that I have any proof, but I believe that's where it all started. Let's just search around this rock island first. Maybe the three of us can find something nearby underwater if we divide the area."
Land-breaker and Voidshaper looked at each other, as if they couldn't understand his words.
"Son, how deep were these dungeons that you found on your way to the Demon Island?" Land-breaker asked, a weird glint in his eyes.
Damian felt strange under the intense gazes of the two geezers, but answered truthfully anyway. "All the way down to the ocean floor, around ten to twelve kilometers?"
The two ancient beings smiled with tired expressions, as if saying, 'Kids these days are too oversmart.'
It genuinely creeped him out. At last, Voidshaper explained:
"Even we can't sense anything deeper than four to five thousand meters underwater. Mana traveling through air and water is different—it dilutes, and most of it barely comes through. I knew you used to be a scout, but damn, that's impressive."
Damian widened his eyes. Right. He'd totally forgotten about water weakening mana signatures. His mana sense had reached such a level that he barely noticed such changes anymore. To him, an above-King-rank monster over fifty kilometers away was clear as day. Some second-rankers couldn't even sense that far.
"There's a chance I can find it, if it's nearby.." Damian muttered.
Both Land-breaker and Voidshaper nodded. Then Voidshaper said, sensing something out of place, "Why did you come here, by the way?"
"It's not that important. Let's first deal with this evil relic. If more cult members are alive, they'll surely try to reach it," Damian said. His need for communication technology wasn't as important as leaving something this dangerous unguarded.
All three launched into the air and flew at top speed toward the wide ocean.