Chapter 23

CHAPTER 23: Cataclysm

Arkyn pressed the runes inscribed on the door with teal, non-elemental mana like Kresha told him to through the mind link. It was the deactivation sequence that disconnected the energy of the array from the door itself.

It may have seemed like a simple iron door with a deadbolt lock, but the runes composed of the edges were made to seal the frame shut with earth magic. For any type of intruder, it would be easier to melt the door to get it open, but the freezing temperature and lack of air would make conjuring any sort of fire and heat ten times harder.

By taking advantage of the mountain peak's environment with a few arrays of magical reinforcement, the Ash Keep was only accessible if someone knew how to properly disconnect the array from the door so that it didn't remain shut after the mana supply was removed.

Arkyn safely unlocked it per Kresha's instructions, but when putting his entire body into it, the door didn't budge.

'Well shit, you're gonna have to do something about the ice on the outside.' Kresha told him before hopping off his back and sitting on top of an old crate.

She clearly made it his problem while refolding her robe and coat to fight the chill. Having aged into her physiological fifties made her a bit scrawnier and retain less heat. Back when she drank Fangbell by the gallons, her body was boosted by the potent effects, making her stronger and faster than the average human.

It was more accurate to say that the fangbell kept her feral form compressed down into her regular size, giving her the sanity to control the strength and speed normally brought on by the infection of the Coven Virus's bacteria.

Now the withdrawal of fangbell was starving the disease's function until her body was barely that much stronger than a normal human.

Arkyn stared at the door for a moment before turning around and stepping back several paces. He turned into his metal form and before the flash of light dispersed, he was already sprinting at the door.

Kresha barely had enough time to cover her ears as the peak of the mountain echoed the sound of his impact. When looking at the result, she just sighed in mild irritation.

The door was unscathed while Arkyn was literally picking pieces of himself off the floor. There had to have been dozens of feet worth of ice and snow beyond the door normally. The massive quake from before would have caused even more to shake loose and pile up in front of the door.

No measly five-hundred pound golem was going to be able to move it all in one shove.

'Think a little bit harder on that, once your brain stops ringing of course.' Kresha pulled out her pipe out of habit but grunted in frustration at the inability to smoke with the breathing device.

Arkyn took a few minutes and eventually figured out a more chisel solution than a hammer method.

He may have been unable to conjure a fire externally, but running the fire mana into the edges of palms would produce the ice melting temperatures he needed. Internal circulations of mana would not disperse so easily.

Arkyn pressed both of his hands on the door, avoiding any damage to the array in the center, and transferred the heat through the door.

After a few minutes of draining about half his supply of fire energy into the iron door, he could hear a faint sizzle on the other side.

The door started to slowly crack open before melted snow spilled onto the floor. It refroze in mere seconds, but the distance of the opening gave about an inch of blinding white light shining through.

Arkyn reverted to his human form and saw visually the compacted snow piled overtop the doorway

'Good job, now we can both take care of this part. If it was just you then we'd be here till next spring.'

Kresha stood back up and took her wand off her wrist. All it took was a flash of all elements to turn the dull metal bracelet shape into an orchestration wand.

They both began infusing their water energy into the snow through direct contact in the crevice of the door.

They pushed it back with their mana as the willpower until the door finally swung open completely. Kresha had them cycle between shooting pockets of air against the snow and ice, then overtaking it with their manipulation in water magic.

She refroze the ice so that it was structurally sound and would not have an easy time collapsing on their heads. They dug through forty yards worth before finally breaching the surface.

Arkyn blinked a few times in amazement at the scene before them, while Kresha looked on in horror.

The Ash Keep had been built inside the mountain ranges along the west coast of Odbrane, the largest country to date.

From the exit of the Keep door, the mountainside on the left dropped straight into the ocean far below. The distance was so great that they could barely see the deep-blue ocean through the natural mist.

On their right side, the mountains dipped into a thick forest that stretched beyond the horizon with patches of lakes and rivers popping up along the endless range.

The sun had risen a few minutes after dawn, giving an orange and red light cascading across the ocean's horizon. Akryn was staring in awe, recalling more flashes of his past, while Kresha's eyes were locked on something else on the edge of the orange sky.

Just a few degrees to the left of the sun, there was a large, white bubble just sitting on the water. It could have been mistaken as a second moon considering the size and distance from the mountains.

'Oh gods, it's gone. The whole island is gone.' She unintentionally let her thoughts pour into the mind link, making Arkyn awaken from the sunrise stupor and understand what had happened.

The white sphere on the horizon wasn't a bubble on the water, but a massive explosion. There was an island there, at least thirty miles long and had a small fishing city based on Kresha's overflowing memories.

Now completely incinerated by whatever exploded at its center. The constant rumbling that followed was the shockwaves and small tsunamis hitting the edge of the mountains. The mist at the base of the mountain was swirling from the winds and even now, it was still pushing against them.

Kresha was still too shocked to realize the link had started to overrun Arkyn's mind, forcing him to disconnect the psionic tether and step away. Had he done otherwise, the link would have started inflicting psychic damage, causing the magical energy equivalent of a stroke.

'I don't understand.' Kresha thought to herself. She had visited the island a few times, they were primitive even by the Odbrane's standards of technology, yet somehow a magic-based explosion occurred there at a cataclysmic power level.