Chapter 281: Test Run

The surrounding plant-flesh twisted away from me, spore-roots preventing the barbed undergrowth from creating more than a light pressure against my scale-flesh - far from enough to wound me. Maybe once, even that light touch would have been enough, but [Piercing Resistance - Intermediate V] provided me far more durability than I needed for something like that.

A durability that my most recently acquired [Death Boost] only made more pronounced. As if stirred by the thought, the former blasphemer’s soul fragment shivered against the mind-coils that wrapped it tight. I shrugged off the sensation; the motion was nowhere near enough to allow the thing to slip free.

With that done, I turned my attention back to my path. Not that I needed it. Between [Piercing Resistance], [Death Boost], and my covering of ore-flesh, I likely could have been somewhat safe from the ravaging barbs, anyway. And whatever that didn’t cover, I would have been able to easily heal. [Life-Death Inversion] meant that my [Death Essence Manipulation], equal in strength to my [Life Essence Manipulation] despite having acquired it more recently, would be able to keep me going.

Following behind me, the faithful marched, their many makeshift fangs in hand - and for once, I regretfully found myself appreciating the existence of legs. There was something so satisfying about the rhythmic thump, thump, thump that echoed in the wake of the Coreless’ passage. An announcement that shook the stone beneath me, even insulated by the surrounding plant-flesh as it was. I found myself commanding that very same plant-flesh to shake and writhe in unison with the sound, vines beating against ground and branches against bark.

Thump.

Thump.

Thump.

The greatest of those thumps, in a way, came from myself. My undead-self walked behind me, that gargantuan example of a Coreless that I’d brought back from death with the Great Core’s power. I kept him clad in his ore-flesh, as he always was, standing close enough to me to take a death blow in the event of an emergency.

I hadn’t forgotten that I’d already used my [Transient Reanimation] to keep myself from true death. Until [Life Hunter] brought me back in full, I was still in danger of being sent back into [The Endless Cycle] once more.

The stone vibrated again beneath me, and I let out a low hiss of satisfaction. Plant-flesh surged, responding to my commands - and through me, to the Great Core. As a show of power, I forced them to grow even further, even as they continued to pull themselves away from harming the faithful that stepped through them. Wicked barbs and flesh-hooks, some as large as my own form in length, erupted from formerly starved plant-flesh, the time and growth that had been stolen from them returned once again with even more besides.

The Coreless - the Great Core’s faithful - moved in [awe] behind me. Their strange jabbers filled the air, almost deafening in their [wonder].

And it was good.

Satisfied, I slithered onward, my Coreless-self walking in lockstep directly behind me. The echoes of our travels continued to beat against my scale-flesh.

Thump.

Thump.

Thump.

We had somewhere to be. Things to kill. My mouth started to salivate at the thought.

It had been too long.

The ground shivered; not from the steps of the faithful, this time, but from something else. I let my tongue drift out into the air, catching its scent-taste. It was off, different from the pervasive scent-taste of stale null-water and simple stone that had filled the air ever since we’d left the protection of plant-flesh behind, venturing out from the boundaries of the Coreless’ tower-nests and back into the more dangerous wilds of the World Dungeon’s tunnels.

With the shivering of the ground growing ever stronger, I hastened my efforts.

[The Golem’s Fading Heart]’s first aspect, [Sodden Earth], pushed stone about with barely a hint of resistance, parting beneath my touch. Around me, Coreless moved quickly, shifting the now-liquid stone into the proper shape - and in an astoundingly short amount of time, a new monument to the Great Core’s glory was soon to be born.

With everything prepared, I moved onto my Blessing’s second aspect, [Clay Crucible]. The soon-to-be focus hardened in little more than an instant - making it ready for the final touch. I pulled at one of the Great Core’s greatest Blessings; power coalesced beneath my scale-flesh as [Little Guardian’s Focus] activated, seeping into the stone and transforming what was already a monument to the Great Core’s glory into something more.

Into a thing of rightful worship.

Some of the newest of the faithful, those who had never witnessed the creation of a [Little Guardian’s Focus] themselves, having only seen one in its completed state, trembled at the sight; a few of them couldn’t stop themselves from pressing forward, runnings their hands across its now-glossy scales and against the burst of illusionary fire at its mouth.

None, it seemed, dared to touch the image of the Great Core itself; they focused on other aspects, too overwhelmed by [awe] and [wonder] to brave making physical contact with the representation of their faith.

“Form a line for attunement, and make it quick!” I heard someone cry, shouting to the faithful. I whipped around, noting that it was one of the Coreless that served underneath the Unrepentant One, that most bothersome of my disciples. Still, despite my misgivings about his nature, the burly Coreless knew what he was doing. I’d seen the way that, under his guidance, these newest faithful had grown from weak and bumbling things into a force fit to serve under the Great Core.

Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on Royal Road.

And despite the Unrepentant One’s relative lack of it, their [zeal] only increased by the day.

Before I knew it, the faithful were rushing towards the newest ofthe [Little Guardian’s Focus]es, quickly thrusting their [Little Guardian’s Totem]s into the flames at its maw before retreating again.

Each time, I noted a burst of [relief] as their objects of faith reattuned to the power of the Great Core, connecting them once more to the strength of my Creator.

Slithering closer to the giant Coreless that I had claimed as my undead-self, I pulled myself higher, twining around the ore-flesh that covered every bit of his form. By the time that I reached his shoulder, my disciples - all except for the-female-who-was-not-Needle, who had her own task - had finished gathering around me.

“It’s a lot for a test run, isn’t it?” Will muttered under his breath. “Some of them have been training for, what, a few days? Maybe a week or two for the ones who joined the earliest? A few might crumble under the pressure.”

“They’ll do fine,” the Unrepentant One grunted, far more [confident] than Will for once. There was even a hint of [pride] in him, a glint of the emotion visible above the hues of the many surrounding connections. “Bunch of crazy bastards…” he said, turning to spit at the ground.

I found myself tracking the glob of saliva mid-air, idly trying to make sense of the strange action. I already knew that Coreless saliva had no venom. What was the point?

“...but they’re my crazy bastards, now,” he finished. “Wouldn’t bring them out here if I thought it’d be a problem.”

“If you insist,” Will [conceded], agreeing to something that I must have missed. “I still want to be ready to jump in if anything goes wrong.” At that, he turned, eyeing the other disciples. “Elara, be ready to phase through the crowd if needed. Kala, any idea on when to expect Valera and her friends?”

“Shouldn’t be long now,” Needle answered, unslinging her needle-spitter and bending it to tie together its thread. She motioned towards a craggy trio of stone-spikes off to the side, each one just a little bit larger than the last. “I’m going to take up position over there, pick off anything that seems like too much trouble.”

Soon afterwards, my disciple was nested atop the broken surface of the uppermost stone-spike, having clambered her way up each member of the craggy trio in ascending order of height. And though I hadn’t been able to understand the sounds that she’d been making towards the other disciples beforehand, I knew that any approaching bad-thing would find itself in great danger.

Pleased, I turned my attention back towards the preparing Coreless, most of whom had finished attuning to the newest [Little Guardian’s Focus]. Each time they did, a sudden burst of [confidence] rushed across our connection, stirring their steps and causing more than one of them to let out an ill-conceived shout.

“...going to have to train them out of that,” the Unrepentant One grumbled, his face twitching. “It’s like they don’t even know the meaning of stealth.”

“The formation’s looking tight, at least,” Will remarked. “I know I wouldn’t want to try forcing my way past them in a hurry. No shields, though?”

“Believe me, I tried. They wouldn’t go for it. Said that they didn’t need them.”

Will let out a sharp bark of sound, [amused]. “Crazy bastards.”

“Crazy bastards,” the Unrepentant One repeated the sound, head bobbing up and down, decidedly less [amused] by whatever was going on.

“I hear them,” the Grateful One cut in, the simple sounds forcing the growing [amusement] to shatter as if it were smashed by the largest of bad-things. “Valera’s almost back. They’re coming.”

Below me, the ground thumped again and again.

Thump.

Thump.

Thump.

Thump.

Thump.

Thump.

Fenn flexed the fingers of his right hand, tightening his grip. The shaft of his spear flexed beneath them, his nerves forcing him to put far more strength into the motion that was wise. For a moment, his other hand pulled free of the weapon and found its way down his front, catching hold of the great wonder hidden within.

His doubts faded, melting away under its comforting warmth.

“Little Guardian protect us,” he muttered. Beside him, a few of his squadmates whispered the same thing, their own hands grasping at the magical necklace that pressed against their chests. One of them even briefly allowed his spear to rest against his shoulder, letting go of it in order to make a small squiggle in the air, something that had begun to catch on among the more enthusiastic members of the spearsquads.

Fenn briefly wondered if he should be doing it, too, but the thought was interrupted by the sudden arrival of Valera. The powerful woman was little more than a blur, moving faster than anyone Fenn had ever seen - and far faster than anyone had a right to, wearing armor like that. Fenn wondered if that, too, like the overwhelming health and stamina that he himself now possessed, had been a gift from the Little Guardian.

…could he move that fast, someday?

“Spears up!”

Fenn’s hands moved on their own, shifting his spear and stance around so that its butt was braced between the rocky ground and his back foot, his legs bent and ready to receive a charge. Beside him, others did the same. Supposedly, it wasn’t as safe as it was effective; most would have chosen to use a shorter spear, so that they could wield a shield with the other hand in an attempt to break an enemy’s momentum upon it rather than their own body.

Fenn didn’t care about that, and neither did the men and women he’d been training with.

The Little Guardian was with them. Pain was temporary. Fleeting. Gone between one moment and the next.

Strength was forever.

Fenn’s arms flexed in anticipation, blood flowing faster through his veins, and held it there experimentally. And held it. And held it some more. There was nothing; none of the tiredness that should have come with the prolonged flex. It was washed away in the very moment that it felt like it should begin.

As Valera passed the line of spearmen and spearwomen, pressing through a gap that opened up between them - because this was their fight, their chance to prove themselves, and not the people of Orken’s - Fenn caught a glimpse of the first of the monsters.

The last time he’d seen one - barring the Little Guardian himself, who Fenn didn’t really consider a monster anymore - Fenn had been barely more than a boy. Even so, the sight of the beasts had managed to carve itself into his psyche more thoroughly than any blade. It had been a ratling horde; small and sleek, the creatures had scurried out of the dark far more silently than anything had a right to be, almost seeming as if they’d appeared out of thin air. Only the shores of the null-water had kept the beasts at bay long enough for the warriors of his home to respond.

Fenn’s father had died that day, devoured by the horde. And, consequently, that same day, Fenn had learned to fear the dark - as well as to hate it.

The monsters that he saw now weren’t quite the same. No, if anything, they were worse. The ratling horde had been dangerous in its sheer numbers, but each individual beast had been a poor match for a well-trained man once they’d been discovered. It was only in working together that they became truly fearsome.

“Behemoths!” someone shouted, the sound echoing off of the cavern walls.

“Little Guardian protect us,” Fenn whispered once again, a brief lash of fear whipping at his heart. But only a brief one - for, in the cold of his fear, the necklace pressed against his chest began to feel all the warmer.

Steeling himself, Fenn raised his spear and braced for impact.