Chapter 683: [683] The top.
Chapter 683: [683] The top.
A hand, ripped and torn but mending itself, grasped onto a rugged, white surface. The sharp winds, imbued with the mana of the ice element, threatened to rip it apart, but it withstood their relentless assault.
The rugged surface was as wide as a plain, yet it had a remarkably unique, harrowing feature, one that looked like the gate to hell itself, the abyss.
A hole, one so massive and deep one could not even fathom it's size, Alan climbed up, using his chin as a support. His hair was long gone, and his face was riddled with hideous scars from the lightning storm he just went through.
"Ha..."
He climbed up fully, gasping for breath. Quickly making a wall of thick ice to shield himself, he forced his mana to go to his heart, and cancelled whatever fortifications he had on him, using aura to speed up the regeneration process.
He let out a sigh of relief when he was done, and began to construct a tunnel in order to get closer to the hole, shards of ice flying past him, into the fog beneath. Back on Earth, Mount Everest was the tallest mountain ever, even after the changes to the planet due to the mana explosions.n/ô/vel/b//in dot c//om
It stood at a height above eight thousand meters, but this spear? Alan was sure he had climbed two Mount Everest. And this was merely half of the spear.
This was just the part of the shaft that failed to completely pierce Kizmal, the spearhead, and the remaining part of the shaft was in his body, and out from the other side, penetrating deep into the heart of Lanekia.
Alan steadily made his way towards the gaping hole in the spear, tired and out of breath. But he could not stop, or else the wind here would send him tumbling down once more.
His ice was barely keeping up, the tunnel he was constructing to get closer was being destroyed faster than he could repair it. He would take running from the battle between two dragons over this.
'Eh...'
Well, it depends. He had just escaped it and wanted to rest before going back there again to scour for information. It took him half an hour to reach the hole, one he would have reached in seconds if there was nothing obstructing his way.
Without a moment of delay, he jumped, or rather fell helplessly into the gaping hole, which was akin to the entrance of the abyss. His ears were finally spared from the sound of the howling wind, blessed with a moment of rest.
Alan stared into the darkness as his figure fell down, He did not enhance his eyes with mana just yet in order to see in the darkness. He could do it pretty well even without using mana, but true night vision would come only when he was a little older, or imbued his optics with
mana.
He knew it would take him a while to reach the ground, this darned monument was too tall. For now, he just embraced the cool, safe wind. The sound of howling in his ear returned, but this time, there was nothing to cut deep into his skin, and threaten to send him down.
He was already going down, but at least this time there was not a threat to his life in the form of broken bones, lightning, and sharp wind.
Alan descent was quick, but calm, and refreshing, for some odd reason. He imbued mana into his eyes when he thought it would be right, and was a bit shocked to see two peculiar things. "Is that a fucking elevator?"
He noticed two things, one, an elevator, and a ladder embedded into the inside of the spear. He was stunned by it.
'... Why can't you install one on the other side too?!'
He cursed at whoever had designed that damn thing, would it hurt them to make one outside as well? The elevator he could excuse, but a ladder outside would be helpful!
Even if one disregarded the purpose of it, if the person that was able to carve a ladder into the bone inside, he was strong enough to do it on the outside too. It would have been of great help.
Alan wondered why one even constructed such things here, even if one climbed the ladder or went up the elevator, where would they go? They would still have to withstand the harsh conditions up above and try to go down the spear, that too with no assistance.
Why would one even think to do that? But who was he to wonder about it. He had just climbed it, perhaps someone else could do the same.
Alan sped up, using his wings to increase his speed tenfold, and soon, his sensitive ears heard the sound of water, along with the crackling of electricity.
He stopped abruptly when he heard the sound of electricity, praying that there was not something like the fog down there, he would gladly take something he could fight, like something with a physical form he could kill.
The humidity seemed to increase, Alan saw moss soon enough, blue, glowing moss that eliminated the need to imbue mana in his eyes.
Alan approached the walls, and ripped some of it, storing it in his inventory for Alice to experiment with. She would probably have a use for it, alchemy used everything.
Soon enough, he saw a passage into the spear, he could even smell the water now, all of it, coming from that passage.
Alan entered the passage, walked the rest of the way in, the sound of electricity grew greater, along with the sound of water.
It was like there was a storm ahead of him.
The sea in the spine of Kizmal, a supreme giant of thunder. It was obvious it would be a storm constantly there. He was the previous monarch of storms, after all.
But, there was nothing. There was no storm, only a paradise.
"... This is unexpected."
There was no rampaging lightning, no restless water, no tsunamis, no thunderclouds... Nothing.
It was just a vast sea, of glowing water. It was as blue as the skies, and exuded a calming effect. But Alan knew not to trust it, the most beautiful of things were most vile.
He peered over the edge, and understood quite quickly that he should not be taking a swim in the water below, for there were streaks of lightning, each of different colors within the water, moving like they were alive.
Even from a glance, he could tell the power within each bolt of lightning within the water. The yellow ones, he could withstand, the green and purple ones would leave him at the brink of death, whilst the red and black ones would kill him outright, not even giving him a moment to
regenerate.
"So where do I go from here?"
He muttered, activating dragon eyes in order to find the way, but he had no need to.
"We train here, this is a great place for both of you."
"What the hell?!"
He jumped back in fright, slipped off the edge and barely managed to catch onto it before he
fell completely, sweat pouring down his face.
He looked up, and yelled.
"Can you not do that?!"
"Do what, prince?"
Azmakul inquired, confused as he stared down at Alan, who climbed back up. As he was about
to explain the dangers of appearing unannounced and how he almost died of a heart attack, he
noticed Azmakul carrying someone over his shoulder, which was Kazikato.
The boy waved at him.
"Hey boss."
"... what are you doing here?"
Azmakul answered in his stead.
"It is for training, it was quite a chore to separate the young prince from the bench where he
was resting, too much rest is dangerous."
"... I tried fighting him, I lost."
"Indeed he did."
"..."
Azmakul dropped Kazikato. The boy almost cried a tear, massaging his butt. Ignoring his
actions, he asked Azmakul.
"What kind of training...now?"
What the hell were they going to do here? Take a swim? Learn how to fight in water? Or
increase their resistance to electricity? Or even prepare for the fight against whatever was in
the heart of Kizmal?
"It's quite a dilemma, you see. I have to divide my attention because both of you are so
different."
Alan raised his brows, confused by what he meant, he didn't talk, though, waiting for Azmakul to continue.
"On one hand, you, my prince, are excellent in melee combat in your humanoid form, to the
point I cannot even find a fault in it, but you are terrible at using your true, dragon form. On
the other hand, the young prince is terrible with melee combat, but exceptional in using his
dragon form.
It is a dilemma, why are you both so different?"
Alan gave Kazikato a weird look, who promptly explained.
"It's not my fault, Grandma taught me how to fight like a dragon, I guess. She had me go
against many things, even her... It was hard."
He seemed to be on the verge of tears, recalling that memory. The mood had turned strange with it, leaving Azmakul and Alan with no room to speak.