Chapter 79: Temptation

To read up to 20 chapters ahead: https://www.patréon.com/SlyOW

---------------

The sound a body made when it dropped several tens of meters onto rocks was not a pleasant one, and having hundreds of them at the same time was much worse.

Even Gandalf himself was feeling a chill go all the way down his spine, so he intensified the output of Narya, making everyone in the company warm as part of their fear dissolved. Moreover, Edward, who was behind the group, used what Royal Will remained to him and shouted, "Let's go!"

Their spirits cleared from fear, the dwarves ran after Gandalf as they ran through the Goblin-town. Moreover, the sound of the falling bodies had quickly stopped, but in exchange the company would cross the splattered bodies of goblins every here and there.

It was disgusting, but it also was a much easier escape than it should have been for them. Usually, when Edward used his Royal Will, he had to act quick before the enemies would wake up, but here they could take all the time in the world, although they were quick to leave.

The dwarves sighed in relief as they left the dark cave, and looked back at the entrance with still some fear. Ori looked at Gandalf and asked with trepidation, "G-Gandalf, did you do that?"

The rest of the dwarves also looked at him with the same emotion, they always knew and respected Gandalf for being a great wizard, but this…

Gandalf shook his head though, and said while looking at Edward, "I was not the one who acted."

The dwarves followed his gaze, and saw Edward. They felt shocked, and for the first time did they actually start believing that Edward was really a powerful man without those so called seals of his.

Edward didn't see the gazes onto him though, as he was too busy with the gazes ongoing in his body. While they were fleeing from Goblin-town, his Chi Sense was always active, watching out for any goblin who could have been too far away to be hit by his Royal Will.

And as they were running, he felt three presences close to each other, one of which he recognized as Bilbo. The other was a disgusting creature's whose Chi had nearly completely dried up, but another power was keeping it alive.

Edward didn't know what it was, and didn't want to know. The energy keeping it alive though, while it was his first time ever feeling it, he could feel the third presence emanating the same energy. It was not a living being, it was an artefact, a ring of power…

Thoughts about the Lord of the Ring trilogy appeared in Edward's mind, and he finally remembered where Frodo got the ring: from his uncle, Bilbo. And now, Edward knew how he got the One Ring. The other disgusting being was probably Gollum then.

'Power I shall grant you~'

A whisper appeared to Edward's ear, it sent shivers down his spine, and yet he could feel a strange allure to it.

'Yours shall I be, Hades no longer will be~'

He nearly stopped on the spot as those words echoed in him, and for a moment, he nearly fell to it. The Ebony Sword was already in his hand, and he almost swung it. Bilbo was right next to him right now.

But before he could do so, a small part of his spirit awakened.

'Enough!'

The whispers disappeared from his mind, and as it did, Edward felt his Heart Chakra waver. With a thought of his, the Chi available to him smashed into the Gate, and with a single strike destroyed it. The Heart Chakra… was opened.

As he left the mountain with the others, he analysed the changes it brought to him. First, was the regain of his strength, or a part of it at least.

His dantian was further unsealed as a drop of liquid Chi now became available to him. This meant he had access to the power of the beginning of the Unity Realm, both in Chi quantity and body strength.

His body experienced the same explosive rise as it had when he had crossed Thor's Lightning Tribulation, elevating his power by a large margin.

Of course, the main point was the power of the Heart Chakra itself. He did not really know what to expect from it, but as he felt the effects, a large smile appeared on his face.

A while ago now he had discovered that his blood could be fused with a liquid drop of Chi to turn it golden, making it much more potent. However, because his livers were not strong enough, they would turn it back into normal blood.

When he opened his Solar Plexus Chakra, this problem was resolved, but unfortunately his power was sealed and he didn't even have access to one drop of liquid Chi.

He thought that once his Heart Chakra would open and he would get access to Liquid Chi, he would have to go through the long process of turning his blood into golden blood, one drop at a time.

This would have been a really long process because it took him about five minutes to transform one drop of normal blood into golden blood, and a human had 100 000 drops of blood on average in their body, so even if he worked non stop and ignored Chi expenditure, it would still take him around a year of constant hard work.

Adding in the fact he couldn't do that non-stop and he couldn't use all of his Chi everyday for this, it would take him years to do this.

However, the function of the Heart Chakra just so happened to be this, to purify his blood. Everytime his heart pumped blood, the blood that exited it would have been refined. It didn't directly turn into golden blood, but Edward could feel that with the Heart Chakra open, it wouldn't take too long for his blood to completely turn golden.

He was quite curious about how his heart was purifying his blood without using any of his Chi though, and as he looked into it he was quite surprised by the answer. It was actually using two energies to do so, and absorbed it from the world.

His Heart Chakra was gathering both the Chi and the fragments of creation into his heart, and infused it into his blood, meaning this refinement was even more thorough than his own. He couldn't help but be excited by what this would bring him in the near future.

While Edward was in a daze, thinking about his gains for refusing to take the One Ring for himself, the dwarves, who had first been looking at Edward with awe, soon turned their attention somewhere else seeing the fazed look on his face.

Gandalf, who could feel what was happening, did not worry about Edward, and instead asked after a while, "Where is Bilbo? Has anyone seen him?"

The dwarves looked around, a few cursed, "Did he lose himself?"

"Where did that halfling go?!"

Nori, who mostly remained quiet, especially for a dwarf, stepped out and said, "I think I saw him slip out when we were captured."

Gandalf frowned, furious they had managed to lose their burglar, "Tell me what happened!"

Thorin was not scared by the wizard's wrath though, and replied, "I'll tell you what happened. Our burglar fled! He saw his chance and took it! Since he first stepped out of his door he's only been thinking of his soft bed!"

Ori, the youngest of the dwarves, muttered, "He wouldn't have abandoned us…"

Thorin was about to yell at him to wake up when suddenly, "No."

Everyone turned around to see Bilbo, standing next to Edward, who was still lost in his thoughts. The dwarves looked at Bilbo with relief, wondering for a second whether he had been hiding behind Edward for their whole escape.

Kili, who was closest to him, asked, "Bilbo! How did you get past the goblins?"

Dwalin, who stood next to Thorin, squinted his eyes and repeated, "How indeed."

Bilbo released a short laugh, devoid of any fun, and put a hand in his pocket, putting something in. The dwarves ignored the gesture, but Gandalf flinched as he looked at the pocket.

He had felt, for a moment, a power come from Bilbo's hand, and a hint a gold appear between his fingers. Now was not the time to dwell on what he found though, so he diffused the situation, "It matters not how he came back, at least he did!"

The dwarves smiled, going Gandalf's way and dropping the subject. Thorin did not look convinced though, "I want to know! It's important."

Bilbo would usually not feel any wrong with revealing the existence of the artefact that helped him escape, but for some reason, he felt panic at the thought of others knowing of the ring's existence.

He was relieved by his next sentence though, "Why did you come back?"

Understanding he was asking why and not how, Bilbo revealed a smile, "I know you doubt me. Always have. And you're right…"

Bilbo went on to talk about his home, and the dwarves lack of one, and while he did Edward finally started paying attention to what was being said. He saw the dwarves looked touched by the hobbit's words, but they made reference to something he had said when Edward and Gandalf weren't here, so Edward didn't really feel much from the words.

The discussion was unfortunately cut short by the howls of Wargs.

"Out of the frying pan…" began Thorin, "and into the fire." finished Gandalf.

"Run!"

The numbers of enemies was unknown, so Edward did not say anything to go against the plan. Although he himself had become strong enough to hold off against probably more than a hundred Orcs and Wargs on his own, the problem with Wargs was their great mobility.

While he would be able to protect himself, if there were too many he wouldn't be able to protect the dwarves. And he couldn't use his Royal Will, as he had already exhausted the majority of his Spiritual Energy earlier in Goblin-town.

Twilight had already fallen as the company ran for their lives, with Wargs and Orcs following them. Unfortunately, as they ran, the found themselves at the edge of a cliff, surrounded by a few trees. They looked back, but discovered the Wargs were already within sight, galloping down the hill at full speed.

Edward looked at the number of the Wargs, and a smile graced his lips as he sent a look at Gandalf, before looking at the trees. Gandalf immediately understood and commanded, "Get in the trees!"

The dwarves, having faith in Gandalf, all jumped, alongside Bilbo, but as they reached the top of the trees, they saw Edward was still on the ground.

"What are you doing?!"

Several of the dwarves' voices were heard, but it was too late as the Wargs were already upon him. Edward did not worry in the slightest though, and swung the Ebony Blade several times.

With each swing of his blade, a Warg and it's Orcish cavalier would be cut in two, dying on the spot. They tried going around him, both to surround him and attack the dwarves, but they couldn't reach them in the trees, and didn't get the chance to make the trees fall as Edward was killing them quickly.

The Wargs quickly stopped coming at him, and Edward looked at the leader of the Orcs. He looked like he had his armor cutting deep into his flesh, and one of his eyes was blind.

Edward jeered at him, "What got you scared, Orc?"

The Orc growled, but did not command for the attack. Instead, he sneered, "How long can you protect those scared dwarves from the great Bolg?"

The dwarves were indignant at the insult, and looked ready to come down, but before they could do so Edward weaved his hands in the air.

The wind seemed to gather around him as a bow and an arrow were solidified in the wind. As it was wind though, it was barely discernible, and the Orcs and the Dwarves though Edward looked silly.

Edward did not care about the gazes, and banded the arc to it's fullest, before letting go of the arrow.

The wind arrow travelled through the air so fast it made an uncomfortable sound, and Bolg understood he was in danger. However, it was too late to dodge, and the arrow hit him in the shoulder.

The arrow was powerful enough to blow a hole in his shoulder, forcing him to drop his mace to the ground.

He only groaned lowly at the injury though, and directly yelled something in Orcish, before the Orcs fled on their Wargs.

Edward, who watched them leave, clicked his tongue in annoyance. He had aimed for the head, but he had only briefly learned how to use a bow, and Bolg was more than fifty meters away.