The Runic Alchemist

In less than an hour, the Land-breaker had led them to the rocky island. From afar, Damian could already see a large, three-layered, rustic black chaos runic circle mixed with the red of fire and the purple-black of space-time, with bits of the light element here and there.

A three-layer spell with five elements mixed in—now that was indeed some dungeon relic-level work. Normal or even transcendent runesmiths could not make something so complicated and put it into a runic device.

When they entered the hidden cave, Damian noticed another, much smaller in size, layer of the rustic black chaos spell. This one was placed right on top of a big, nightmarish statue of some mythic demon-like creature from Earth: giant horns, multiple hands, skulls around the neck, sharp weapons in a few hands, and heads of some weird creatures in the others. It resembled quite a lot one of the gods people on Earth worshipped—a large tongue out of its mouth.

The one on Earth was female, though, and not as scary—this one was truly evil in nature. The eyes were red, glowing gems and looked absolutely crazed. It resembled more to some powerful species' overlord or shaman.

"Have you seen anything like it before?" Damian asked the Land-breaker. Voidshaper had not entered the cave, staying above the rocky hill.

"No, and I have entered almost all dungeons on the mainland," the Supreme Blade answered.

"It has to be from a species that revels in the element of chaos," Damian commented.

"Are you saying they are natural beings that were born in some distant world? Like those pigmen.."

"Come on, don't tell me even an ancient being like you believes that life should be all warm and fuzzy. That only cute animals and light-element beings are good in nature."

The Land-breaker snorted. "Of course not. Long since, I have learned that nothing is as it seems. I was just wondering how some species have been given so many elements and some are destined to just use darkness and chaos."

"It's evolution," Damian replied. "At one point, even in their world of darkness, there could have been possibilities for something intelligent and sensible to exist, but the course of nature is such that survival comes before anything else. Those potentials must have been left behind in an attempt to survive the harsh environment of their world—or other space things."

"But at the end of the day, it is something out of their control," Land-breaker added.

"That's the thing. There is no grand purpose in existence—some are just simply more lucky than others," Damian said cheekily.

"Why do I feel like I am talking to some centuries-old geezer?"

"That is a very mean thing to say, you know?"

Land-breaker chuckled beside him as Damian connected some of his mana threads to the giant reddish-brown statue. It had rustic black chaos oozing out of its top—as if giving the statue a bath in liquid chaos. It was coming out of the same runic circle Damian had seen as he entered the cave.

The mana Damian released from his body was immediately sucked into the dark runic circle that had both rustic brown and purple tints to it.

Damian stopped and then flew out of the cave, landing beside Voidshaper as he looked at the sky where the three-layered ruins circle was situated. It was not moving like other layered runic circles Damian had seen.

He had tried a lot to replicate this kind of spell—but it just didn't work. Even when he created two runic circles at once, connecting the two spells with similar or matching elements. It was as if having one mind was just not enough to make a spell of this level.

All books in history stated clearly that ancient relics of the Primordials and high mana-requiring dungeon relics operated on spells that were simply impossible to master. It would indeed seem so—he could see the spells and had copied them, and yet he couldn't use them. The only known multi-layered spell Damian knew that a living being had successfully activated was the one used by Asher himself to trap the Demon Lord with him. He had said his grandpa had taught him that—who would be the son of Lightbringer himself?

Many things Damian wanted to ask that guy when he finally woke up from the energy sphere.

"Is there something in the sky?" Voidshaper asked, confused about Damian's weird behaviour.

Damian had already copied the spell and was simply trying to decode the different sections of the complicated spell.

"The spell is half-active," Damian concluded.

Both Land-breaker and Voidshaper became alert as they asked, "What do you mean?"

"The spell that is inscribed in the unknown metal statue—it has elements of a portal to an unknown place, similar to waygates, which is absorbing the mana from anyone who touches the statue. The liquid chaos is coming from this world, or whatever it is. The true core of the spell, however, resembles Silverspell's signature summoning spell—just not as simple as that though. The creature being summoned requires a lot of mana. Judging by the state of the relic statue, people have been trying to do that for a long time. I don't think the cult is something recent—this is a secret lasting centuries."

"They just found the cave.." the Land-breaker murmured.

"Could be," Damian said.

"Can you stop it? Destroying the statue should stop the spell, right?" Voidshaper suggested.

"Yes, that's how normal spells work—but this spell is way out of my league. There are parts I don't understand—maybe there is some failsafe added for a half-summoned spell.." Damian replied.

"What do you suggest?" Land-breaker asked Damian.

Damian thought for a while. There was no spell in his collection that would be able to counter something this weird. At last, only one solution came to mind. Damian looked up at the sky.

"We could throw it out of our world."

If there was one place that could house any horror imaginable to the human mind, it had to be outer space.