Temple

[Southwest of the Central Continent]

Reappearing in a warm jungle after Ikrus dragged him along during its teleportation, Darganth dropped a meter onto the ground and landed by slightly bending his knees. The moment he regained stable footing, he then dashed to the side as he sensed the fluctuations of an incoming teleportation around him.

Barely a second after he left his initial position, Neandra burst onto the scene. Shattering treetrunks with her wings left and right as her momentum carried her through multiple dozen meters of forest, she created a shower of splinters as wood burst and trees toppled under the impact of her wings. Sliding to a stop almost a hundred meters away from Darganth, her form rapidly compressed into a humanoid shape before she returned to his side in an instant through pure speed.

"I'll miss having your powers, they are really convenient." Neandra said as she came to a standstill next to him.

"But mana thirsty as you might have noticed, and this isn't over yet. How are your reserves?" Darganth responded.

"Just under half remaining, summoning my past self took a lot out of me. You?"

"About a third remaining. But unless we encounter weaker opponents than Ikrus and Arkuns I won't be of much help anyways."

Already having guessed as much, Neandra nodded in response to Darganth's words while already expanding her senses to search for their enemies. At first, confused by the unfamiliar terrain that revealed itself to her during this, her eyebrows suddenly rose a few seconds later when her senses reached the westward coastline and swept across the shallow ocean beyond.

"Found them already?"

"No, but I think I know where we are. Seems like your precautions were warranted." Neandra answered Darganth's question.

Needing a moment to understand what she meant, Darganth's lips soon curled up into a grin. Letting his gaze wander through their surroundings, he took in the environment with some curiosity.

"Where are we on the island?" Darganth asked during it.

"South-West."

"Then we should find a small mountain further east, from there I know the path to the ruins. If there is anything because of which Ikrus and Arkuns teleported here, we'll find it there." Darganth said.

"Lead the way, meanwhile I'll keep my mana sense spread."

As soon as Neandra voiced her agreement, Darganth's form shifted into a compressed version of his true form, shortly followed by him leaping into the jungle around the clearing Neandra's arrival had cut. Knowing of the spells active above the island from Inrad, he stayed on the ground and weaved through the trees. While his unorthodox arrival might exempt him from being targeted, Darganth didn't risk it considering they almost cost the fire dragon a wing with just a near miss.

But due to this, they were forced to navigate the dense jungle from below the treetops while having only what Inrad shared in the few days Darganth stayed after the former was imprisoned. As such, it took almost an hour for the two of them to reach the foot of the barely three hundred meters tall mountain and another quarter-hour to climb to its peak.

Looking down at the jungle before him from there, Darganth gazed into the distance with mana flowing through his dragon eyes. Through the dozens of different sights they simultaneously took and that appeared as separate pictures next to one another in his mind he saw not only their destination but also the chaotic elemental energies there and the numerous beasts fleeing the phenomena down below.

"I have to say, I expected more from divine architecture." Neandra said.

Briefly surprised by her words, Darganth quickly remembered that even with all her power, Neandra was confined by the limitations of a typical mana sense. As such, she couldn't pick up details that require specific sensory abilities or organs, leaving her blind to certain events, especially those that don't cause disturbances in the natural mana like the spectacle before him.

"If I see what is happening there right now correct then you might soon get a look at it in an even worse state." Darganth replied a moment later.

"Are Ikrus and Arkuns already there?"

"At least Ikrus, so we'll have to hurry."

Taking a step over the edge immediately after he spoke, Darganth unfurled his wings as he let himself drop from the small ledge he stood on. With Neandra closely behind him, he carefully controlled his attitude to not get far enough from the ground to trigger the spell covering the region as he flew toward the foot of the mountain.

Landing back amid the jungle a few seconds later, he was immediately greeted by the stampede of fleeing beasts. Consisting of mostly feral beasts, the instinct-driven horde made no attempt to avoid him, their thoughts more occupied with getting to safety fast than the potential ramifications of conflict with him.

Raising a hand as the first beast was about to collide with him, Darganth caught its foot as it came stomping down on him. Immediately stopping the limb's momentum, he let the beast's body tumble over him by briefly holding onto its leg and bringing it tumbling to the ground.

Letting go as the beast slid a few meters further away, he then turned his attention toward the rest of the approaching beasts. Pointing his palm forward, he took a moment to orientate himself perfectly before aiming and twisting space in front of himself.

With it, the tide of beasts rushing at him parted down the middle as beasts that had been running at him suddenly headed past him to the left and right despite not turning their path away. Stepping into the funnel this created, Darganth's position jumped forward over a dozen meters in an instant. Moving past the forwardmost beasts as a result, he appeared amid the horde at the same time as Neandra landed behind him.

Using the still toppled-over beasts as a stepping stone, she arrived at his original position with a light jump. Continuing to conserve mana, she followed after Darganth without any spells of her own. But even with this and the vastly lower retention of her physical strength in her transformed state compared to a dragon's transformation, she caught up to him a second later.

Slowing down once she did, she followed after him as Darganth continuously created a funnel of compressed space before them. Only moving the side to dodge the occasional tree, they stayed on a straight path as they rushed through the jungle, with Darganth quickly blasting back the three beasts that managed to arrive in their way.

Advancing toward their destination at a brisk pace like this, the two of them burst through the three groups of beasts they encountered on their path with ease. Even the lone mythic rank they found was repulsed by Darganth, who made it recognize that it was easier to give in after their initial collision left the raven-like creature's wing bent and bloodied to the point of almost preventing it from flying.

After this encounter with what was likely the ruler of the area, Darganth and Neandra started to encounter progressively fewer beasts. Whereas before they encountered a group fleeing from the direction of their destination almost every minute, over the following hour they merely encountered two such larger groups, with only lone beasts or small groups no larger than ten individuals in between.

As such, Darganth no longer had to shift space to reduce the number of beasts that would crash into them and could instead focus completely on reducing the distance they had to travel as much as possible. Thanks to this they rapidly closed in on their destination during that time, with the old and worn down yet still imposing structure they were heading toward already peeking through amid the thinning treeline of the jungle.

Once he noticed this, Darganth started moving more carefully. Slowing his pace and refraining from continuing to compress the distance in front of himself, he minimized the noise and mana emissions he made as he moved across the last hundred or so meters toward the clearing before him.

Stopping behind one of the thicker trees just meters away from the clearing, Darganth peered ahead while Neandra arrived immediately after him. As he swept his gaze across the clearing, he found it in the same state Inrad had described.

Surrounded by a lush field of grass that contrasted the tropical jungle covering the rest of the region stood a truly ancient stone structure. Five almost completely overgrown roads lead from it into the jungle, with the individual smooth surfaced stone blocks that they were made out of being almost completely covered in grass, vines, and other plants that grew out of the gaps between them.

Flanking these paths were pedestals that stood in regular intervals. On them, varying statues and round pillars that held up what remains of a roof stood in alternating order. Furthermore, even in the state of disrepair both the statues and the pillars along with the roof were, it was still clearly visible that the designs on each path differed.

The only exception to this were the last two or three meters of each path, with the distinct designs gradually transitioning into a uniform yet worn down marble stone the closer one came toward the point where all five met. There, they merged into a similarly overgrown plaza with a fountain at its center. And despite the damage the passage of time left everywhere else, water continued to flow out of the top of the fountain and into the basin at its bottom, resulting in it being the part of the structure untouched by the vines that covered almost every other stone surface.

Behind the fountain and standing in stark contrast to it was the main building. Consisting of dozens of multiple meters thick stone pillars, some still complete and some broken off somewhere along their height, that held up the third of the original ceiling that hadn't already caved in, the clearly once awe-inspiring and elegant building was a pitiful shadow of its self that only retained its imposing original height.

In front of this building Darganth found Arkuns and Ikrus' avatar. Seeing only the two of them on the clearing without any reinforcements, he recognized that his caution had been pointless and stepped out into the open. Moving down the nearest pathway to their position with Neandra at his side, he instead calmly approached the temple.

As he approached, Ikrus was the first to speak up, "Isn't this place beautiful?"

Addressing Darganth without turning toward him, the universe will's avatar gestured at the temple before it.

Leaving a short pause, it then continued a moment later, "Or at least it was. The two of you couldn't know it, but this here was once one of the liveliest places on not just the whole planet but also among the burgeoning colonies in the solar system. It was a place where even the gods dedicated worship toward me. Now it's one of the last remains of an era before your kind arrived here."

"That's an awful lot of attachment you're showing for a universe will." Darganth commented in response to the reminiscent tone of Ikrus' words.

"I certainly miss the times before Irsyr arrived here, so maybe. Though luckily I've found the perfect incentive to get someone here that can help me return to such a state."

Ikrus' words piqued Darganth's interest, prompting him to focus his gaze past the universe will's avatar and channel some mana into his dragon's eyes. Looking past the stone walls and spells that obstructed his view of the inside of the temple, his eyebrows rose as he saw what still remained in the sealed rooms below.

"That explains Allaire's old weapon." Darganth murmured as he saw the angelic weapons among the hundreds of artifacts and magic items stored under the temple.

Noticing another familiar design among them a moment later, he quickly glanced toward the sword in Arkuns' hand. Comparing it to the weapons and armors stored there, it took him no full second before Darganth found a sword of almost identical design.

"Not just the weapon that Allaire's old bow is based on, the emperor weapons are also from here, aren't they?" Darganth asked.

"They were once stored here, along with the personal weapons of two gods that fought back against Irsyr when he took this over as his territory. Though some of those that I gave out were lost over the millennia I now use this temple as storage, there are still hundreds left that the survivors managed to recover for me.

Or rather were. Because the best part is that even if Irsyr were here himself, he could only stop me from taking more with me, and the important ones are already gone. So even with you having foiled my original plan and now knowing this, I have everything I need to get some gods to help me if I want to."

Though he had to begrudgingly admit that Ikrus was right in its assessment of how secure the items would be once stored in the center of the universe, Darganth didn't miss the last part of its words. Studying Ikrus' posture and what little he could see of its expression as the avatar turned its head to look at him over its shoulder, he started to notice its reluctance.

"But you prefer to avoid it?" Darganth guessed.

"Now you get me. I just want your kind to stop intervening in matters that shouldn't be their business, I think we can come to a compromise on that." Ikrus said.

"Theoretically yes, but I fear you overestimate the position from which you negotiate. No god that Irsyr would have to worry about will be swayed by the kinds of weapons you can offer, so why would I make any large concessions if all you can offer is less annoyance for us." Darganth said

Shaking its head, Ikrus' avatar turned toward him with an amused expression.

"Because I don't need to get gods strong enough to fight him here, only ones whose disappearance would be noticed."

Showing little reaction to Ikrus' words, Darganth internally shook his head at the universe will's foolishness. Though a sound logic at first glance, it's proposal betrayed how little it truly understood of the politics in the greater multiverse of Vunreon.

While gods were powerful and most could attack its core directly, even if only a minority of them could threaten it in the same manner as Irsyr can, they were also far more numerous than most people who never left their home universe could imagine. As such only a few of the gods that Ikrus can hope to attract with its offer would actually be missed by anyone besides their believers and subordinates, making Darganth almost laugh at the threat it made.

Due to this, he relaxed slightly and used the look of consideration on his face to let his gaze sweep over the surroundings. Needing a few seconds to spot the minuscule disturbances in ambient mana a few dozen meters behind Ikrus and Arkuns, he nodded lightly before turning back toward the two with a grin.

"Yeah, that won't work. But thanks for alleviating my worries by showing me that I overestimated what you had planned."

Immediately after those words, Darganth vanished from his position by stepping through space and reappearing halfway toward the edge of the clearing. An instant later half a dozen draconic-looking heads faded into existence behind Ikrus. Striking before either it or Arkuns could react, they tore into the universe will's avatar from all angles, with teeth sinking into its flesh and ripping out chunks from its body as the heads quickly pulled back again.

Swirling around toward Ikrus in surprise, Arkuns had no chance to react before tens of glowing streaks of light tore through his body. Impacting at varying angles, most of the small comets of starlight exploded into waves of heat and pressure as they struck him. Some meanwhile tore through his defenses without erupting, leaving bright streaks of light in their wake as they punctured through his body and emerged on the other side.

Stumbling backward as his body was shaken by the repeated impacts, Arkuns found himself surrounded as the attack subsided a second later. To the one side was Neandra who had by then returned to her true form, while a dragon of a species he didn't recognize and what appeared to be a fourteen-headed hydra stood on the other side.

Before he could even start to process this, Arkuns was already forced onto the defensive again as Neandra lunged at him. Forced to place his hopes on Ikrus as he dodged her claws, he and the universe will became trapped in yet another fight while Darganth was already focusing on the next step.