Chapter 480 - Conflicting Attunements (Patreon)

The interior of the temple was unremarkable.  Certainly, it was beautifully crafted, but given the impressions Zeke had of the exterior design, that was expected.  They entered through the gates, arriving at a large courtyard populated by perfectly manicured topiary and the tinkling sound of running water.  Fountains stood in each corner of the courtyard, with a much larger one in the center.  Predictably, there was a statue of a bird, its majestic wings outstretched, atop the fountain. 

Otherwise, the courtyard was empty.  It seemed that none of the aviaki had remained behind.  Instead, the entire flock had responded to Zeke’s and Talia’s presence, especially when the battle against the roc had begun in earnest.  It was ironic, then, that that decision had gotten so many of them killed.  After all, the roc’s attacks were responsible for at least half of the overall deaths. 

If Zeke hadn’t seen the way the aviaki had attacked the giant reptile that had wandered into their territory, he might’ve thought they were peaceful.  Certainly, that was the impression of the meticulously curated garden through which he and Talia wandered.  But he knew it was an illusion.  The monsters might’ve been peaceful among one another, but to outsiders, they were vicious killers.

Gradually, the pair made their way through the courtyard, exploring every inch until they were forced to realize that it held not importance, other than as a hint into the aviaki’s nature. 

“What do you think these creatures do when there are no challengers to the dungeon?” Zeke asked aloud.

“I do not know,” Talia admitted.

Taking on a visible form, Eveline answered, “They do not exist until they need to exist.  Everything you see is pantomime.  An act.  Or an illusion.  These monsters are built the moment you enter the dungeon, and the entire landscape will cease to exist the second you leave.  Only when there is another challenger will they be reborn.  Or recreated.”

“Really?  You know that for certain?” asked Zeke.

“I do.  Hell may be a cutthroat world, but we are not savages.  Many demons have spent their lives in an effort to decipher dungeons,” she explained.  “Of course, most were slaves to much more powerful masters who wished to manipulate the system for their advantage, but the research is still valid.  Often, that is the case.  Morality is a detriment to progress.”

“That depends on how you define progress,” Zeke said.

Talia added, “I have been the subject of such a thought process.”

Indeed, at the insistence of Abraham Micayne and Talia’s own mother, the now-undead girl had been the subject of invasive experimentation.  Certainly, Tucker had only engaged in that experimentation mostly to preserve his own life – back then, he was a prisoner – but the results were the same.  Talia had been transformed into one of the undead, setting her apart from everyone in the Mortal Realm.  Only when she’d ascended had she found any acceptance aside from what Zeke and his other companions had offered. 

“Progress at all costs.  Any researcher who follows any other creed needlessly hinders themselves,” Eveline persisted.  “However, I see that my input is not required, so I shall take my leave.”

With that, she disappeared, retreating once again to the back of Zeke’s mind.  He could tell that she was embarrassed, which he considered a form of progress all its own.  She wasn’t really shameless, but demons certainly looked at the world much differently than anyone else.  They were products of their environment, and Zeke knew it would take some time before she moved past the years she had spent in Hell.

But he wanted to believe she could change.  Already, she’d left some of her more murderous tendencies behind, though Zeke wasn’t certain if that was just an act or if she’d truly changed.  After all, she had adopted many of his speech patterns in an effort to better appeal to his sensibilities.  So, it wasn’t outside the realm of possibility that she would make other changes, outward though they may be.

Regardless, Zeke didn’t want to ponder the nature of demons.  It was a fruitless endeavor, because, even if Eveline was truly a monster, he wasn’t willing to crush her.  Not unless she proved herself a threat. 

After that brief conversation, Zeke and Talia continued to explore the courtyard until, at last, they decided that there was nothing to find.  So, they sighted in on the set of double doors on the side of the courtyard opposite the entrance, coming to the inevitable conclusion that it was the way they were intended to go. 

The doors themselves had been constructed of bare stone, without any carvings other than a slight indention that formed a rectangle around three inches from each door’s edge.  Otherwise, the surface was entirely flat, save for a pair of giant, brass rings meant to assist in opening the doors.

Zeke grabbed hold of one and heaved.

At first, it didn’t budge, so he pulled harder.  It wasn’t until he used the majority of his strength that it budged, and even then, it was only a quarter of an inch.  So, he used [Triune Colossus] in its unattuned form, augmenting his already prodigious might.  Then, he managed to open the door, albeit not without significant effort. 

Inch by inch, and with a rumble that sounded like an earthquake, the door swung open.  Finally, the gap was wide enough to allow Zeke and Talia to pass through, so they didn’t hesitate further before stepping into the next room.

That was a mistake.

The moment he set one foot onto the granite tiles on the other side of the door, Zeke felt an enormous weight settle upon his shoulders.  By that point, Zeke had reached the point where he could easily lift dozens of tons.  However, there was a limit even to his strength, and with what felt like the weight of the world pressing down on him, he couldn’t stop himself from falling to one knee.

He grunted, then tried to push himself upright. 

But it was too heavy.

The weight wasn’t just physical.  It pressed down on his mind, too.  On his very soul.  Even Eveline felt it, and Zeke heard an unspoken cry of pain coming from the depths of his mind. 

But he was more worried about Talia, who hadn’t simply fallen to her knees.  The immense weight had crushed her to the floor, and Zeke could hear her bones cracking with every passing moment. 

Arduously, Zeke turned his head, intending to retreat.  However, he saw that the door had shut.  With that weight pressing down on him, he hadn’t even heard it close, and there was no way he could  muster the strength to leverage it open – not when it took everything he had to keep himself from being flattened.

So, with that avenue having been cut off, he turned his attention to the room into which he’d just entered.  The stone tiles were unadorned – much like the door – and the chamber was otherwise uninteresting.  A few designs decorated the granite walls, though Zeke could tell that they weren’t runes.  Indeed, he had no notion of where the immense weight originated. 

But there were two things that gave him hope.

The first was that the room wasn’t particularly large.  Maybe fifty feet square, and on the other side of the room was another gate.  This one was much larger and far more elaborately carved than the one behind him.  Zeke couldn’t make any sense of those designs, either, and to his untrained eye, they seemed entirely random.  It was only after a few more seconds that he realized that they were not designs at all.  Instead, they were claw marks. 

Something had tried to dig its way through the door, and judging by the depth of those scars, they hadn’t even come close to succeeding.  And even though Zeke had discerned the nature of the “carvings,” he was still filled with dismay.  Clearly, he wasn’t the first one to fall victim to the immense weight.

In fact, Zeke saw a few bits of fossilized bone on the right side of the door, confirming his suspicions.

The second hopeful detail was the fact that the weight wasn’t gravity-based.  If it had been, he’d have had no chance to drag Talia to safety – if such a thing existed.  However, since it was not based on gravity, Talia would be just as light as ever.  More, lifting her would have probably further injured her. 

So, as far as Zeke could tell, he had two choices before him.  Either he could turn back and try to either destroy or open the door that would let him retreat, or he could cross the room and hope that he’d fare better than his fallen predecessor. 

The choice seemed obvious.

With a growl, he pushed himself to his feet, though that simple task nearly exceeded his abilities.  How much pressure was on his shoulders?  A hundred tons?  A thousand?  He’d never bothered measuring his own strength, but he knew he’d rarely met his match.  And he didn’t intend to let the room defeat him. 

So, marshaling every bit of strength he could muster, he reached down and gathered Talia into his arms.  Then, once he’d again straightened himself upright, he stepped forward.  The stone felt like it should have cracked beneath his feet, but it remained intact.  Zeke staggered forward, and with every step, the pressure increased.  The only solace he felt was that, once Talia’s feet had left the tiles, the pressure on her body had ceased. 

He could hear her bones straightening out, likely because she still had plenty of vital energy available from the potion she’d drunk after the fight against the aviaki and their roc protector.  Yet, he knew that even if she managed to completely recover, she could offer no assistance. 

She’d collapsed the moment she’d stepped inside.  So, there was no chance she could endure the ever-increasing pressure as Zeke progressed through the room.  Step by step, the pressure increased.  He could feel his body breaking with every foot traveled, and yet, he kept going. 

Because if there was one thing Zeke could do, it was endure.  His pain tolerance helped, and so did [Cambion’s Awakening].  However, both were soon overwhelmed, and as a result, he had no shield against the agony erupting across his body.  But he kept going until, at last, body broken and barely standing, he reached the scarred door.

The moment he laid his hand on the stone, a notification flashed across his mind:

New Quest Acquired!

Quest: Assemble the Key

Objective: Gather: The Heart of Goliathan, The Witchdoctor’s Staff, and the Eye of the Guardian to create the Key.

Reward: Key to Heaven

Zeke could intuit the meaning, even if it wasn’t outwardly stated.  To bypass the door, he would need the three items mentioned in the quest.  The only one whose location he knew for certain was The Witchdoctor’s Staff, which was back in the ratongi village.  It would take a little backtracking, but that wasn’t so difficult. 

Given the nature of the dungeon, with three sides constantly at war, Goliathan probably referred to a tortoloid.  Or perhaps the giant turtle itself.  Zeke didn’t know for sure, and he wouldn’t discover the truth until he investigated.

As for the Guardian’s identity, that became obvious only a moment later, when the doors on the other side of the room once again opened, and a giant aviaki stepped through.  The creature was even larger than Zeke in the form of the earthen colossus, but its bird-like body was very similar to the smaller aviaki Zeke had fought outside.

He used [Inspect]:

Aviaki Guardian – Level 74

The creature stepped forward, clearly unimpeded by the room’s pressure.  Zeke didn’t dare drop Talia so deep into the room, so he mirrored the monster’s gait, feeding corrupted mana into his colossal skill.  He transformed, his body growing more jagged and athletic.  To his surprise, the pressure lessened – not because of increased strength, but rather, due to the nature of the pressure. 

Before, he’d been wrapped in earth attuned mana.  Even his unattuned form had more than a trace of that flavor of mana, and clearly, the effect inside the room had clashed with his nature.  It wasn’t enough to stop him, likely due to his dual nature.  But it had slowed him down.

Of course, there was more to it than that.  Otherwise, Talia would not have been so affected.  Yet, Zeke was no scholar, so he had little in the way of context for how different attunements affected one another. 

“It’s wind and life,” Eveline muttered, barely loud enough for Zeke to make out.

That made sense to Zeke.  The aviaki were clearly acquainted with wind mana.  Perhaps they were even attuned to it.  And the entire dungeon was blanketed with dense vitality.  That also explained why the pressure had been so impactful on Zeke, especially in his colossal form.

But now that he was in his demonic form, the pressure had lessened.  Pointedly, it had not disappeared, but it had grown weak enough to allow Zeke to harness much of his normal strength. 

That was due to the nature of demonic mana.  It was domineering and corrosive, and when it came into contact with any other form of mana, it became even more volatile, voraciously consuming anything that opposed it.  As a result, his demonic form was, for lack of a better term, more pure than his others, which mingled multiple forms of mana into one effect.  For instance, while his earthen colossus form was predominantly earth-attuned, there was still a hint of corruption and quite a lot of unattuned mana in the form as well.

In any case, Zeke didn’t have time to ponder the interactions between myriad mana types.  With the impending class with the aviaki guardian, he needed to focus on the coming fight.  So, shifting Talia on his shoulder, he summoned Voromir from his storage space and threw himself at the giant bird-man.

Clearly, the monster hadn’t expected Zeke to move so quickly, so he took the thing by surprise, knocking it backward through the still-open doors.  That had been Zeke’s intention.  He couldn’t fight with Talia on his shoulder, so his first priority was to get her out of the room.  So, when he crossed the threshold, he kicked the aviaki guardian free, then took a brief moment to place Talia on the floor.

He straightened to his full height just in time to brace himself for the recovered guardian’s charge.  It screeched as it launched itself into the air, descending with its talons outstretched.

Zeke met it with a vicious uppercut that sent it rocketing toward the ceiling.  However, two factors alarmed him.

The first was that the guardian seemed completely unhurt by Zeke’s attack.  Indeed, he was used to his blows resulting in shattered bones – or in the case of some of the lesser aviaki, bursting them like balloons – but this time, he hadn’t even left a scuff on the monster’s beak.

The second issue was that the creature threw its wings out wide, arresting its momentum before colliding with the ceiling.  Then, it swooped around, to resume its attacks.  It was clearly far more durable than the smaller versions Zeke had fought outside, but it was also much more mobile as well. 

So, he hefted his hammer, adjusted his stance, and prepared to meet the monster’s diving attack the same way he always did.

Head on.