Steampunk: Sixth Era Epic-Chapter 588 - 589: Volcano, Interstice, Death

Chapter 588: Chapter 589: Volcano, Interstice, Death

“So, it is indeed the lowest rank of undead creatures. Even though its strength and agility are astonishing, its intelligence is purely that of a beast. Can it not see how dangerous I am?”

Shard thought to himself as his right hand drew the Moonlight Greatsword from thin air. As the ghoul approached, he thrust the sword forward—

“Blade of Chaotic Space-Time!”

The ghoul agilely twisted its body in midair to dodge Shard’s first strike, but the second strike that appeared out of thin air pierced directly through its skull.

Its “life force” was incredibly tenacious, and it still lunged toward Shard’s neck even after being wounded, but Shard easily dodged it.

With a sweep of his hand, the arched light blade split the fallen ghoul in two. The two halves of the body wriggled trying to escape, while a stinking black-green fluid oozed from the wounds.

It took some time before it finally stopped moving, confirming to Shard that it had truly entered “death.”

He squinted at the disgusting corpse on the ground:

“Lat August the Cleric, though a Second Ring Sorcerer, isn’t adept in combat. Faced with what could be called an ‘elite’ ghoul, it’s no wonder he was driven into the underground cemetery. But he definitely wouldn’t have died from this. The Priest surely had a backup plan, but it required a secluded place to use it…”

With his sword, he prodded the grotesque corpse on the ground, a significantly stronger “ghoul” post-mutation, which could actually yield quite a lot of Alchemical Materials and Potion Ingredients. However, this required professional techniques and equipment to harvest, which, although Shard had learned basic material separation techniques from “Witch Echo: Feliana,” he lacked the professional tools.

It wasn’t as simple as slicing off a piece of meat with a sword.

Thus, he chose to open an ancient tomb chamber nearby, placed his palm on the ground, and used “Feliana’s Witch Light” to “melt” a large hole in the ground, into which he threw the bisected corpse.

Handling an undead creature’s body required caution to avoid greater trouble. The best method, used with oils like those in “Heart of Fire” by Priest Augustus, would completely incinerate the body, but Shard didn’t have such a magic potion, so he buried the body first and planned to deal with it later.

After burying the body, he returned to the wall where the Priest was last seen. Placing his hand on the wall, the cold, rough surface of the earth wall was nothing special:

“Any findings?”

“[No findings whatsoever.]”

“Really now… Feliana’s Witch Light.”

His palm emitted a golden glow, and then the wall melted like butter under this light. Shard controlled the power of arcane technique, merely allowing his hand to penetrate the wall.

But even as his elbow also went into the wall, the other side remained solid.

“Now, this is troublesome. There are no elemental traces, nor any mechanism.”

He withdrew his hand and then took a deep breath. As he sucked in an invisible airflow from the wall into his nose, at the cost of less than two seconds of his lifespan, he restored the wall to its original state.

“Could the Priest really have vanished into thin air?”

Shard surveyed his surroundings once more. The cold, damp underground cemetery seemed void of any other clues:

“Do you want me to lick the ground and walls?”

“[No need, because by using the arcane technique ‘Breath of Ages,’ you have made a deeper contact with the space before you, obtaining detailed information.]”

“Breath of Ages has such benefits?”

Thinking that the effect of the arcane technique was to inhale the flow representing “past time,” it seemed quite reasonable:

“I knew it. An arcane technique that uses lifespan as spellcasting materials couldn’t only alter time… What did it reveal?”

“A region similar to a space-time anomaly briefly appeared here. There’s a high probability that your friend fell into the space-time anomaly.”

“Lat August the Cleric was transported to another place?”

Shard thought of the time he and Luviya were in the cornfields of the Dark Realm, crossing through a spatial rift, and arriving directly at the doorstep of Miss Galina’s manor.

“The information perceived is not abundant, but it’s not the material world on the other end. I sensed distortion, malice, and an extremely pure death.”

Shard pondered and then confirmed that with his own knowledge, he had no idea what this meant:

“Could it be that Priest August fell into the Netherworld? But there is no concept of the Netherworld in this world’s mythological system…”

In this world, when people die, if they are not taken away by a god or sent to plaster the Wall of the Unbelievers, the only possibility is to “continue on,” not even harboring the concept of “reincarnation” familiar to the Outlanders.

“Could it be some kind of subspace sealing an evil object?”

This was the most likely outcome.

Since there were no further clues in the underground cemetery, Shard left the misty graveyard and took a carriage back to the city’s “House of the Blind.” When he knocked on the door of 15 Ruff Lane again, it was nearly five in the afternoon.

At this time, the effect of “Shard’s Blood Echo” had completely dissipated, and the only clue Shard held was that the priest had last disappeared in front of the deepest wall of the underground cemetery at the foot of Sicarl Mountain.

This time, it wasn’t Ms. Michelle who opened the door for Shard, but likely with Ms. Michelle’s permission, the same young nun with cloth wrapped around her eyes directly took Shard to the third floor.

Ms. Michelle’s eyes had returned to normal, but she didn’t cover them with burlap again. Instead, she used a silver crown-like eyepatch, one that Shard had seen once, to cover her eyes.

As Ms. Michelle invited Shard to sit down, she also told him that in the Spiritual Practice Order, only official nuns and monks could wear such an eyepatch. In the stronghold of the “House of the Blind,” she was the only one qualified.

The two met again in the drawing room, where Shard shared his recent experiences. Ms. Michelle slightly frowned when she heard the word “ghoul,” and when Shard explained that he found the priest had fallen into a strange space by means he couldn’t disclose, this middle-aged woman in her forties frowned even more deeply:

“I apologize, I don’t doubt such a powerful Circle Sorcerer as yourself.”

She probably had some misunderstanding about Shard, but before he could clarify, the nun continued:

“May I ask, are you certain that it was a place of distortion, malice, and filled with death?”

“Very certain.”

“Then do you know the local myths and legends?”

“Except that the coachman said that every autumn, a mysterious fog rises around Sicarl Mountain, I know nothing else.”

Shard honestly said, thinking that he could inquire about this city’s rumors from Edmund, the Tower Keeper of Coldwater Port who claimed to be a folklorist.

“Actually, this city has a very ancient and difficult-to-verify rumor,”

Ms. Michelle said cautiously with her head lowered:

“First of all, it needs to be emphasized that, similar to the situation of Lat August the Cleric, disappearances at certain locations occur frequently in this city, about once every one or two years. People just vanish while walking, or while speaking with a companion, you turn your head, and the companion is gone.”

This sounds like an urban legend from the Steam Age. The fringe newspapers of Tobesk like to fill their pages with such chilling stories when they lack suitable topics such as “Duel of the Grand Duke’s Lovers,” even going as far to illegally publish collections of these stories.

“Mysterious disappearances?”

Shard frowned slightly:

“It seems many places have similar rumors, but those are just bizarre cases the city hall and police cannot solve.”

“But in Midshire Fort, this is a real occurrence. I originally thought that Priest Augustus merely had an accident, but it turns out to be this.”

“Has the church offered any explanation for this?”

“There are rumors that, under the Sicarl Mountain…”

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Shard looked out the window. From the third floor, one could directly see the mountain range now enshrouded in mist. The Sicarl Mountain is part of the Rommel mountain range, which spans like a dragon from the homeland of the Outlanders, across the far side of the city.

“Beneath Sicarl Mountain, there lies an ambiguous area that connects the world of the living and the dead. The church calls it the ‘Interstice of Life and Death.'”

Although there is no “Netherworld” in this world, because the deceased keep moving on, there definitely exists a clear boundary between the living and the dead. This “boundary” is a conceptual thing, and Shard had never heard of such a place:

“This is abnormal. There should not be such a place.”

Shard pointed out, and the nun nodded:

“Indeed, it’s abnormal. Death should not have any contact with the material world, nor should there be a passage connecting the two, but indeed, such interstices exist in the material world. Most are quite small, while Midshire Fort is built directly above the largest known life-death boundary. It includes things like the white fog appearing every autumn around Sicarl Mountain and unexplained disappearances. All these are caused by the blurring boundaries, resulting in the direct overlap of the world of the living and the dead.”

Ms. Michelle sighed softly:

“Once fallen into that boundary, it’s almost equivalent to death; if one enters a certain door within the ‘Interstice of Life and Death,’ one truly steps into the irreversible state of death. There, it truly connects with the concept of death itself.”

“All these rumors you mentioned, are they local legends?”

These things were never mentioned in the folklore courses of the Second Ring Sorcerer.

“No, a lot of evidence proves that this is real. Mr. Watson, the order has long determined that there’s something under Sicarl Mountain, this volcano…”

Shard was startled:

“Volcano? Pardon my impertinence, but Sicarl Mountain is a volcano? Although my geology and geography are weak, this area doesn’t seem vulcanic at all.”

“This is indeed a dead volcano.”

Ms. Michelle said, though she wore a crown-like eyepatch and Shard could not see her eyes, it was evident the lady was not joking:

“The True God Church knows about the ‘Interstice of Life and Death’ beneath Sicarl Mountain, but they do not disclose any information. The order believes it to be a highly dangerous relic.”

“Angel-Level?”

Shard ventured to ask, but Ms. Michelle shook her head slightly.

“Unclassified Level?”

His eyes widened.

“That’s how the order sees it. There are some things I cannot discuss with you, but actually, the order has been exploring the secrets here. We venerate death, we perceive spirituality. You’ve managed to peep its emergence, even peeped that twisted, terrible power of death, and yet seem unharmed, which, to me, is truly inconceivable.”

Ms. Michelle concluded:

“From the current information, it looks like Priest August did not enter the door within the ‘Interstice of Life and Death,’ but simply fell into the ‘Interstice’ itself. And the ghoul you encountered emerged due to the blurred boundaries.”

“It turns out to be so… Please help dispose of the ghoul’s corpse then; whatever valuable is on it can serve as your compensation,”

Shard said, pressing his hand against his head, finding this situation to be an unimaginable trouble. Just a day before, he was assisting Big City Player with the finals’ preparations with Tifa’s aid, and 24 hours later, he was here, hearing another terrible rumor.

Today is Thursday, the 19th day of the Month of Harvest. After more than half a month’s rest from the month’s beginning, the Outlander knew that his own adventures were about to begin again.

The nun spoke softly:

“Thank you for your generosity.”

Digging up the buried body was not difficult, and the materials that could be separated from the powerful ghoul indeed were valuable. The most valuable were the ghoul’s brain and lungs, which could fetch at least 20 pounds at Mr. Copus’s place in Tobesk.

Shard allowed the others to take them, not only to express gratitude but also because he might need more assistance from the Spiritual Practice Order in this city.

“So if the priest really fell into such a place, is there a way to get him out?”

Shard asked again.

“One can only come out on their own. Such an ambiguous region of life and death is not something we the living can interfere with. And once one has been unable to leave for a long time or has truly crossed the boundary, passed the door of life and death, entering the world of the dead, they can never come out again.”

Shard nodded, understanding almost what the cleric meant by “dead yet not dead.” The priest thought he couldn’t come out, so he used his last strength to enter Shard’s dream to say goodbye.

“For the next while, I will stay in Midshire Fort City until I can rescue the priest.”

Shard stood up, walked to the window, and looked at the sprawling mountains in the sunset:

“I must.”

“Good luck,”

Ms. Michelle said softly.

She didn’t offer direct help not because she was unwilling, but because she truly was powerless.