CHAPTER 6: Into The Abyss

The creature erupted from the ground just a few meters ahead of them, its black and gold carapace glittering under the moonlight as it released a piercing shriek.

“Move!” Thorne shouted, snapping Tunde out of his stunned state as Elyria grabbed his arm, dragging him to safety.

The creature crashed into the spot they had just vacated, shattering the rocky ground. It turned toward them, its movements swift and menacing.

“It can’t see—vibrations are its preferred hunting method,” Thorne growled, positioning himself between the beast and his companions.

Tunde, regaining his composure, activated his Ethra sight. The creature's golden Ethra lines glowed vividly through its body, but no obvious weak points presented themselves.

“It’s a peak Tier 2,” Elyria said softly, her metal blades spinning behind her in a deadly circle.

“Early Tier 3,” Thorne corrected. “I’ll handle it. You two, make your way out of the cave.”

“No!” Tunde protested, his eyes wide with fear and frustration. His Ethra sight began to dim, the strain on his Ethra heart evident in his ragged breathing.

Thorne cursed under his breath and shot forward as the creature prepared to attack again, its shriek echoing through the cavern. Tunde, feeling the drain on his Ethra heart, stumbled, the sense of helplessness overwhelming him. How could he become stronger if he kept fleeing from powerful adversaries? He turned back, ready to help Thorne, but Elyria yanked him by the robe and sped deeper into the cave, dumping him unceremoniously on the ground.

“Don’t be stupid,” she snapped, glaring at him as he struggled to his feet. “There’s a fine line between bravery and stupidity in our world—a very fine line that could easily get you killed.”

“He can’t fight it alone,” Tunde muttered, a mix of anger and guilt weighing him down.

“And you’re better?” she retorted. “Just because you managed to cut down a few savages who only knew how to swing a big bone stick, you think it suddenly makes you a ranker?”

Her words hit hard, but they were true. Tunde remained silent, his pride wounded.

“Thorne’s possibly an Adept. No Lord or higher would waste their time fighting a Tier 3 creature. He’s one of the elites of this backwater part of the continent,” Elyria continued, crouching in front of him. “If you want to live long, you’d better learn to pick your battles.”

Tunde reluctantly nodded, recognizing the truth in her harsh words. Elyria sighed, her tone softening as she continued, “The power, the strength—it’s intoxicating. I know. You feel powerful just because you broke into Initiate rank, but trust me, a billion other Initiates feel the same way, and they die in their thousands daily. Don’t add to that number.”

Her voice carried a bitterness that hinted at personal experience. “Initiates, Disciples—we’re all bugs in the eyes of Adepts and above. We’re the lowliest of the low, just bodies to be thrown into battle.”

Tunde realized that this conversation was about more than just him. “The best we can do is keep our heads down and grow stronger,” Elyria said, meeting his gaze. “And you need to, most of all.”

Tunde sighed, the weight of his situation settling over him like a dark cloud. “You sure you shouldn’t check on Thorne?” he asked, trying to change the subject.

Elyria snorted. “Tier 3 creatures are above my league. A peak Tier 2, and I could hope my skills were good enough. My fighting style of metal hands... it’s no match.”

“Creatures are ranked in tiers?” Tunde asked, eager to learn more.

She nodded. “Tiers 1 to 9, each tier rated for each of the ranks of rankers. It’s a very misleading concept,” she explained as the ground shook again, the battle between Thorne and the creature intensifying.

“Why misleading?” Tunde asked.

“Because a Tier 1 creature might lead an Initiate into thinking they could easily take it on. But creatures are double, if not triple, the strength of a ranker at each rank. Plus, low-tiered creatures—Tiers 1-3 specifically—move in groups. Unless you have a very powerful Ethra type or are skilled enough, it’s certain death,” she finished.

Tunde absorbed the information, nodding along. Elyria leaned back, closing her eyes briefly. “Try and cultivate Ethra. It’s sparse and arid in the air here, but it’s all you have.”

“Thorne doesn’t have any more of those fruits?” Tunde asked hesitantly.

“Only Disciple and Adept grade fruits are left. Those would blow your heart out—literally,” she replied with a grimace.

He winced at the thought. “How do I cultivate?” he asked, feeling lost.

Elyria blinked as if the question hadn’t occurred to her before. She paused, then scratched her head helplessly as the cave shuddered again from the ongoing battle.

“Well, each person’s cultivating style is suited to their Ethra type,” she began, thinking aloud. “But... can you feel the Ethra in the air?”

Tunde nodded. “I can also see it,” he responded.

“Oh, I guess that should make things easier. Try breathing in and drawing the Ethra in,” she suggested with a shrug.

Tunde blinked at her. “Is that even possible?”

“It should be. I draw in Ethra from metals around me—been steadily siphoning it from the metal blades I use,” she said, tapping the floating appendages around her.

“And if they run dry?” he asked.

“Then I fight like any average ranker. The Adept stage is when your body begins to naturally produce Ethra in large quantities—enough to be self-sustainable.”

“Is that why Thorne can fight for so long?” Tunde asked again.

Elyria furrowed her brow, considering his question. “No. The Ethra of undeath doesn’t occur naturally in nature. It’s an aberration. From what I’ve heard, they replenish by absorbing the lifeforce of every being they kill, their hearts transforming it into Ethra.”

“That’s why the cults and other great powers don’t like them,” she added, her voice growing softer as she glanced at Thorne’s direction. “Back in my continent, the Regent of Forests clashed with the Regent of Undeath. The followers of Undeath—Revenants, they call themselves—tried to encroach on our territory. It took an entire day of furious battle that decimated the landscape for the Regent of Forests to push the bastard back toward the sea. Everything that Undeath touched became a source for him to replenish his Ethra.”

Tunde absorbed her words, the scope of what she described overwhelming. “Do you think Thorne is one? A Revenant?” he asked, feeling a chill.

“No,” Elyria said almost immediately.

“Why not?” he pressed.

“Because we’d be dead by now. Everything is a source of Ethra for their advancements—everything,” she replied, her voice tinged with a haunted look that told Tunde to drop the matter.

*********************

Minutes later, Thorne emerged from the cave, dragging four large carcasses behind him. Tunde’s eyes widened in shock. Half of Thorne’s body was bubbling with sizzling acid, his skin raw and blistered. Yet Thorne walked as if he didn’t feel the pain, his expression calm and focused.

“There you are,” he said by way of greeting.

“Your skin…” Tunde said softly, horrified by the sight.

Thorne shrugged. “It’ll heal in a minute or two. Not much acid can do against someone like me.”

Turning to Elyria, he asked, “Can you store these in your void ring?”

“I’m not putting those dead things in my void ring—they’d mess up the whole place,” she replied, shuddering.

“Their carapaces sell for over a hundred lumens apiece,” Thorne pointed out.

“Still not putting them inside. You’re not short on lumens,” Elyria retorted.

Thorne sighed, turning to Tunde. “He’ll need them, to get essence fruits and elixirs to grow stronger. Sure you won’t help him?” Thorne asked Elyria.

“Since when did you care for him?” Elyria asked, narrowing her eyes.

Thorne paused, nodding as if to himself. “True. I just can’t let them go to waste. Tier 3 beast cores also sell for a good sum of Ethra crystals.”

“Common crystals, maybe a few uncommon Ethra crystals,” Elyria corrected.

“Ethra crystals?” Tunde asked, unfamiliar with the term.

“Crystals imbued with pure Ethra. They’re worth a good handful of lumens,” Thorne explained.

“No backwater town or city would have more than uncommon Ethra crystals—maybe a lucky merchant or two with a few rare crystals, assuming some noble hasn’t bought them all,” Elyria added.

Thorne sighed, walking over to one of the Sandshard centipedes. He tore off a barbed limb, which soon began pulsing with black and red veins as he extended his Ethra into it.

“This is known as imbuing,” he said, as if reading Tunde’s thoughts. “It’s when you infuse your Ethra into an object. It’s one of the three Ethra applications, the others being dominion and projection.”

“Concepts that are way above you,” Elyria interjected, “though maybe projection isn’t. But with how little Ethra your heart produces, you’re better off just using weapons for now until you get a proper body tempering manual or a fighting style suited to your Ethra.”

Thorne chuckled lightly, raising the imbued limb and slicing through the underbelly of the centipede with one swift motion.

“That move you made back in the hideout of those savages,” Tunde began, watching Thorne work. “You swung your weapon from far away, and those in front of you died. What application was that?”

“Ethra projection. Too fast for your eyes to follow. A Disciple might see it, but it would be too late for them to respond adequately unless they had some defensive artifact or bloodline ability courtesy of their innate Ethra type,” Thorne replied.

Tunde glanced at the manacle on his wrist. “And this?”

Thorne withdrew a small round yellow orb, yellow mists swirling inside it, and placed it gently beside him. He turned to Elyria and Tunde.

“Explaining how you got it might shed some light on its origins,” he suggested.

Tunde hesitated, unsure if he should reveal the truth. But surrounded by oddities—a supposed Revenant, a one-armed pariah from another continent, and he, a former slave—what did he have to lose? So, he told them everything, from the beginning, recounting all he could remember. When he finished, Thorne had a contemplative look on his face.

“The skeleton had a worn-out black robe?” Thorne asked, and Tunde nodded.

He turned to Elyria. “Envoys?”

She shook her head. “No. I’ve seen images of the Cult of Death followers—they wear grey, which is odd for followers of Death.”

“There’s a Cult of Death?” Tunde asked, incredulous. “How do they get their Ethra?”

“From nexus points—places where different Ethra affinities appear in large quantities. Death Ethra manifests in areas of war and death, sometimes even in graveyards,” Elyria explained. “Though Death and Undeath Ethra sometimes clash in such places.”

Thorne kept silent, cutting open the second centipede before speaking. “A weapon of such rarity and grade should be nothing less than a blessed relic.”

“I’ve only seen one before,” Elyria added, “when the Regent of Forests battled on my continent.”

Thorne raised an eyebrow. “You were nearby? How did you survive?”

“My clan had a stronghold nearby. We were protected by the forest itself, plus a lot of defensive wards,” she replied.

Thorne grunted. “That must have been quite the sight—a Regent in the flesh.”

“I was too filled with terror to relish the moment. Perhaps if I were a Master or even a High Master…” she said softly.

Thorne removed the second core, placing it beside the first one.

“Look, I’ll be frank with you,” he said, turning to Tunde. “Don’t use that weapon. I’m not even sure you know how to activate it properly.”

Tunde glanced at the manacle, willing it to shift into a blade. He felt a tug in both his mind and Ethra heart, and suddenly he crashed to his knees, gasping for breath. Elyria rushed to his side, alarmed, while Thorne nodded to himself.

“I thought as much. Definitely a blessed relic or weapon,” Thorne muttered as Tunde struggled to regain his bearings.

“What just happened?” Tunde asked, his voice weak.

“The weapon just attempted to draw on your meager Ethra, and it wasn’t enough to even activate it,” Thorne replied calmly.

“You could have just told him! He could have died!” Elyria retorted angrily.

“He wouldn’t learn unless it’s the hard way,” Thorne said with a chuckle. “Besides, where’s the fun in that?”

Tunde blinked, the weakness permeating his body, and struggled to breathe. His limbs felt like noodles, too heavy to lift.

“Ethra deprivation—a very deadly consequence of emptying your body of its entire Ethra. Instant death on the battlefield, crippling in some cases, depending on your rank,” Thorne lectured as Tunde lay there, barely able to move.

With dim eyes, Tunde watched Thorne remove the last core from the fourth centipede. Finally, Thorne turned to him, his gaze calm and assessing as Elyria sat beside him.

“Breathe calmly. You don’t have a method to gather the Ethra in the air, so I’m going to teach you the one taught to Initiates without a fighting method yet within the Heralds,” Thorne said.

“I knew it!” Elyria exclaimed, wincing as she patted Tunde in apology. “You’re with the Heralds!”

“Was with the Legion,” Thorne corrected. “I doubt my brothers would welcome me back with open arms in my current state. I could get killed.”

Elyria said nothing, watching as Thorne shook his head.

“Anyway, back to you,” Thorne said, turning to Tunde. “Get in a seated position and cross your legs.”

Tunde blinked, unsure if Thorne understood the severity of his condition.

“He can barely breathe!” Elyria protested.

“It’s not my fault he wiped out his heart,” Thorne retorted.

“You told him to activate the relic!” Elyria shot back.

Thorne shrugged. “Semantics. If I told you to cause a ruckus at the home of some Lord, would you do it?”

“Don’t be absurd. Of course not!” she replied.

“Well, there you have it,” Thorne said, as if that ended the argument.

Elyria muttered something under her breath, too low for Tunde to hear. She helped him sit up and recline against the wall, her eyes on Thorne.

“Now, this is called the Ethra Attunement Cultivation Method,” Thorne began. “I know, it’s a mouthful. Personally, I’d call it the ‘Dummy’s Guide to Ethra Use,’ but… never mind.”

Then Thorne’s expression grew serious, a look that made Tunde shiver involuntarily.

“Close your eyes and visualize the Ethra in the air with every deep breath you take. Don’t exhale immediately. Now try to imagine your Ethra heart, with every beat, drawing in this Ethra until the air within you is empty of it, and then release it out,” Thorne explained.

Tunde lacked the strength to nod. He simply closed his eyes, mentally thanking Elyria for crossing his legs as he took a deep breath, imagining the Ethra around him. He supposed if he wasn’t so empty of Ethra, he could see it, but he pushed on. With each beat of his heart, he imagined the process.

Inhale. Exhale.

The process continued as he felt trickles of Ethra begin to enter his heart. Then, the manacle vibrated, and terror gripped him. Was the relic attempting to siphon the meager Ethra he had just accumulated? Unable to speak, he could only watch in dread as a presence blossomed in the back of his mind, like a bud or a seed. It pulsed, and Tunde shuddered as he felt the relic actually draw the Ethra—not from his heart, but as it entered his body. The relic did something to the Ethra before releasing it into his heart, and Tunde croaked in awe. Whatever the relic did, it was helping him.

The best way to describe it was like a cold bowl of water on a dry day. While the Ethra he absorbed was refreshing, whatever the relic did to it made it even better. It halved the Ethra he absorbed, but with every breath, Tunde could feel his heart beating with renewed strength. He lost himself in the process, completely absorbed by the sensation.

He had no idea how much time had passed when the first rays of sunlight pierced his eyelids, breaking his concentration. Wincing, he opened his eyes to see Thorne sharpening a barbed limb on a smooth stone with clinical precision. Elyria was seated nearby in the same meditative posture. Tunde raised his manacled hand to his face, staring at the relic.

Was it a curse or a blessing? Whatever it was, it had helped him. He actually felt strong—so strong, in fact, that his heart was filled to the brim with Ethra, with some still circulating through his body, strengthening him. Activating his Ethra sight, he stared at the dead bodies of the Sandshard centipedes. Thorne noticed his movement.

“Feeling better?” he asked.

Tunde nodded silently and moved closer to Thorne, who was holding a piece of carapace that he had somehow torn from the Sandshard’s body.

“Pick one,” Thorne instructed, pointing to a pile of carapaces in a corner.

Tunde nodded and picked one, realizing it was surprisingly light despite its size.

“They’ll sell for a good sum—enough to get you the things you’ll need to begin your journey,” Thorne said offhandedly.

Tunde looked at him, surprised. “You’re getting them for me?”

“Simply paying you back for helping me break out. An Initiate like you in the city, without backing or strength, would be snuffed out before you could blink,” Thorne replied with a snort.

Tunde said nothing, unsure of what to say. He had spent his life begging for scraps, trying to remain as inconspicuous as possible in his settlement. He accepted a bone blade Thorne handed him.

“Thank you,” he said softly.

“You’re in the world of rankers now, Tunde. Nobody does anything for free. Don’t ever forget that,” Thorne warned.

Tunde nodded as Thorne showed him how to scrape the remnant skin from the underside of the carapaces, the two of them working in silence. After a while, Tunde spoke up.

“The relic… it helped,” he said, catching Thorne’s attention.

“In what way?” Thorne asked.

“When I started the process—” Tunde began.

“Cultivation. You’re a ranker now, speak like one,” Thorne corrected.

“Cultivating. When I started cultivating, I felt the relic draw the Ethra I was absorbing from the air. I’m not sure, but I believe it somehow made it… better.”

“You think the relic refined your Ethra?” Thorne asked, glancing at the manacle.

Tunde nodded. “It felt like… like it purified it. Made it stronger.”

Thorne paused for a moment, considering Tunde’s words. “Describe the feeling,” he said.

Tunde did, recounting the sensations in detail. Thorne listened intently, his expression thoughtful. When Tunde finished, Thorne said nothing, simply continuing to scrape the carapace before picking up another one.

“You remember the advice I gave you about not using that weapon?” Thorne asked.

Tunde nodded.

“Well, here’s another piece of advice. Don’t even speak of it. Don’t utter a word about it to anyone. Don’t draw attention to it.”

Thorne pointed the makeshift weapon in his hand at the manacle. “That relic is blood-bound to you. If anyone else wants to use it, they’ll have to bind it to themselves with blood.”

Tunde’s eyes widened in shock. “They’ll have to… kill me for it?”

Thorne nodded. “Congratulations, Tunde. If I’m right, that’s some legendary blessed relic you’ve got there.”

He chuckled, but Tunde couldn’t find it in himself to smile. He glanced down at the manacle, trepidation filling his heart.