The trip through the elemental plane was uneventful, save for the scenery. It had originally looked the same as the rail from Ekbis to the supply depot, but slowly grew in both size and contents as the train raced across the monochrome wasteland. Bolts of lightning descending from lowering clouds near the horizon briefly illuminated what looked like cities. When the light faded they vanished, and remained invisible even if lightning struck again in the same spot.
Jonathan struck up a few conversations with the other passengers, but most ended after a few exchanged pleasantries. Most of the Umber Trolls present were of the more hard-bitten, soldier type. None of them were especially generous with their words, and a few even became openly hostile when Jonathan tried to talk to them. All he ended up learning was a bit more about the city of Valryis. According to the passengers, the city was many times larger than Ekbis and filled with all sorts of wondrous buildings and other attractions. The main palace, where the Council lived, was a floating island suspended over the center of the city.
By the time the train arrived, Jonathan was itching to explore. The portal flared as the train passed through it, and it was disgorged back into Tartarus. The train came to a halt swiftly, jostling the passengers around a little.
Jonathan looked out the window, but all he could see was a monochrome grey station, other tracks lined up by his own. At the end of the platform was what looked like a security station, a constant stream of Umber Trolls making their way past. Some of them were stopped and their belongings were searched, but most weren’t called aside.
Depending on how comprehensive the security was, Jonathan wasn’t sure how he would get through. He didn’t have any papers or identification documents, so if he needed any of those to enter Valryis, he would be in a tough situation.
“What’s the plan?” Eliza whispered, leaning. “How are we going to get past?”
“How about you go ahead and scout it out a bit, and if it’s safe, I’ll come after you with the others?”
Eliza nodded. “Sounds good to me.”
The doors slid open and she stepped out, forcing her way past the Umber Trolls with the sort of strength only a System user could produce. Seeing the slight woman shouldering aside giants was evidently a strange sight, given that some of the other passengers started muttering about her.
Jonathan waited until everyone else had disembarked before he did the same, motioning for his allies waiting near the roof of the carriage to follow him. As soon as they left the train, the doors closed once more and it headed deeper into the station, towards a shadowy archway at the end of the track.
He joined the line, keeping his eyes on Eliza all the while. She was about halfway to the front, the line picking up speed slightly. When she reached the security desk, one of the guards picked up small device from the table and spoke into it. He talked for a few seconds before looking up at Eliza. She said something to him and pointed at Jonathan. The guard eventually nodded and Eliza passed by.
Jonathan reached the front of the line about a minute later, taking care to hide any signs that he was nervous about being discovered.
“You’re with that woman who passed by earlier, right?” the guard who had talked to Eliza said. “She told me that you two are part of an adventuring team from another world.”
Jonathan nodded. “That’s correct.”
“What is your business in Valryis?” the guard asked, getting straight to the point.
“We wish to speak with the Council and travel to the rim,” Jonathan said honestly. “We’re trying to level up, and I’ve heard that the monsters out there are quite powerful.”
Both guards laughed. “Well, good luck with that. The Council hasn’t let anyone travel to the rim in decades. Too much risk and not enough rewards.”
“Be that as it may, I still want to try,” Jonathan said. “Will that be a problem?”
The original guard laughed again. “No, of course not. If you want to try, go ahead. You might have to wait a bit to see the Council though. They are very busy right now. Some wars to deal with, trade agreements, the like.”
Jonathan nodded and headed past the desk. As he went, he heard a small fizzling noise, almost like a spark burning itself out. Then a blaring alarm sounded and a wave of Light elemental energy washed over the room. The outlines of Edgar, Arkanon and the others were revealed, Jonathan’s cloaking skill not enough to keep them hidden.
There was a moment of stunned silence, then Jonathan’s shield broke, revealing his party.
“Uthraki!” one of the guards roared, pointing at Arkanon. “Kill them now!”
Jonathan only had about a second to react before all hell broke loose. A sliding metal grate started to fall, blocking off the exit to the station. He cursed, and rolled underneath it. Arkanon followed him, landing on the ground and racing through the forest of legs around him. He dove under the door, just barely making it through.
Realizing that the rest of his party wasn’t going to make it in time, Jonathan grabbed the base of the gate with his hands, straining to lift it up. It was impossibly heavy, nearly beyond the limits of his strength. What felt like the weight of a mountain pressed down against Jonathan, his feet sinking into the solid ground.
Arkanon joined him, struggling against the titanic weight. The two men groaned in unison, managing to prop the door open.
Balls of flame and lava hurtled their way from the Umber Trolls, slamming into the door. Whatever it was made of was quite heat resistant, as the metal didn’t even redden. Instead it forced the lava to drip down, landing on Jonathan and Arkanon’s hands. It burned far more than it should have, the normal heat of lava amplified hundreds of times over by the elemental magics of the Umber Trolls. The lava cooled, adding more and more weight to the door. Some form of elemental manipulation increased the weight until the door slowly started to fall again.
The rest of the party raced underneath the inexorably descending door. Jonathan and Arkanon dropped it, the base landing with a titanic crash. Cracks spread out from the impact point and the entire building rumbled.
“Shit…” Jonathan muttered as he broke into a run. “We gotta get out of here and reapply the void cloak.”
There were fewer Umber Trolls in the tunnel presumably leading to the street level, but there were still enough that as soon as they noticed the Uthraki, their rabid hatred for Arkanon and the rest of his people ensured that they formed together to block the way out.
“You will die here, demons!” an especially tall Umber Troll holding a hammer roared. He hurled the weapon towards Arkanon, a trail of flame turning it into a comet of superheated metal. Another hammer reformed in his hands as the first one left.
Arkanon met the hammer with a punch, his fist glowing with radiant light as he used his Supernova Fist. Energy collapsed in on itself in the space before his hand, before detonating violently. While most of the power was directed into the hammer, shattering it into thousands of tiny pieces, a wave of flame washed over the tunnel, the force blasting most of the Umber Trolls off their feet.
Jonathan and his allies took the opportunity to escape, running up the tunnel so quickly that they sucked all of the air out of the passageway as they went. Most of the time, he never reached his max speed anywhere other than when he was traversing the sprawling landscapes of the Infinite Hells, but using that level of speed in an enclosed space had surprisingly destructive effects.
The temporary vacuum was so strong that it started tugging the walls inwards, chunks of stone breaking free. Clouds of dust filled the tunnel, making it hard to tell where the exit was. Jonathan cleared the way with the Void, erasing a swathe of dust to expose the light of the surface. The end of the tunnel was just a few hundred feet away.
In a fraction of a second, they were out in the streets of Valryis. Jonathan had a moment to take in the city, or at least, the small segment he could see. The first thing that caught his eye was the nearly monochrome orange of the horizon, a brilliant wall of flame struggling to reach the sky above.
The city itself was by far the most aesthetically designed settlement Jonathan had ever seen in Tartarus, or maybe even all of the Infinite Hells. While almost every city used the same type of stone for all of the buildings, due to most construction being carried out either by or in part by Earth elementalists. This city was different, looking more like those from Earth. All of the buildings were constructed in different ways, either from different types of stone or from mediums entirely. Jonathan saw the first wooden structure he had ever witnessed in Tartarus, a soaring apartment complex made from the reddish ochre wood of the local variety of trees.
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Of course, that moment of serenity was broken by a blaring alarm that carried across the entire district, and probably a good portion of the city. Jonathan thought about using his void cloak to hide the entire party, but it was already too late. Also, the display down in the train station had shown that the Umber Trolls had the means to see through such measures. In order to properly hide, he would have to reuse the skill out of sight of any witnesses.
Instead of trying to make his way through the crowded streets, Jonathan leapt into the air, obscuring his general shape with vast wings of condensed Void energy. His companions used their own flight skills, following suit. Jonathan took the opportunity to scan the city, sweeping his gaze all the way around. Valryis was shockingly large, so large in fact that the immense palace suspended over the city hadn’t even been visible from the street level. It was hundreds of miles away, casting a shadow over the land beneath it that extended across an entire district. Jonathan quickly noted its position, knowing that it would come in useful. The inklings of a plan were coming together in his mind, but he first needed to hide his party once more if it was going to work.
A heavily armored group of guards burst out from a side street, charging towards where Jonathan had just been standing. Upon seeing their quarry flying away, the guards reacted with such speed and precision that Jonathan had no doubt they had practiced such a maneuver many times before. Of the thirty or so guards in the group, five broke off, gathering great spears of flame in their hands. The rest settled into a roughly circular array, each of them raising their hand. Orbs of lava formed within them, strands of molten rock speeding out to connect to the other ones.
It quickly became clear to Jonathan what they were planning to do. “They’re trying to make a net to drag us down,” he said. “We need to widen our formation. I’m going to try to slice through it. I’m not sure how durable it will be.”
His team instantly sprang into action, flying hundreds of feet away from one another but still heading in the same direction. A massed yell rose from the guards far below as they shot their net into the sky. As it went, the other five threw their spears, intended to sink into the flesh of whomever was caught in the net.
Jonathan turned around in the air, his wings reversing direction in a way that flesh and blood appendages never could. He raised his right hand, gathering the Void around it. As the net drew inexorably closer, the heat sending waves of flame across the air, Jonathan lowered his hand, keeping his palm open. A thin crescent of purple light streaked out from it, growing and growing the further it went from his hand.
When it met the net, the blade sliced straight through the lava, striking the spears next. A conflagration of flame and Void blocked Jonathan’s view of the street. He took advantage of the confusion to make some distance, catching up with his allies.
“Drop to the streets in three seconds!” Jonathan shouted. He counted down before beating his wings so strongly that the wind howled through the streets below like a gale. Then he dropped, accelerating his descent with his elemental energy.
He landed in a crater in the center of an alleyway, the rest of his group landing soon after. Jonathan used his void mantle instantly, blocking them off from hostile surveillance. Then he raced down the alley, knowing that his little stunt with his wings would have notified everyone in the area that something was up.
“What the hell are we going to do now?” Eliza asked, the wind nearly whipping away her words. “Are we still trying to get to the rim, or has that ship sailed?”
Jonathan shook his head. “If the worst comes to worst, we can always fight our way out. I have a plan, though. Don’t worry. I think we can still get out of this with what we want.”
While he couldn’t see deeper into the city while at the street level, Jonathan had already mapped out a good portion while in the air. His immense Intelligence stat came in handy, giving him a good point of reference for where he needed to go.
“If we can get to the Council, I think I can convince them to let us go to the rim,” Jonathan explained. “I’m not entirely sure how I’m going to do it. Right now we need to get there. I mapped out the way in my head while I was flying over the city.”
Jonathan led the others through the maze of streets, buildings beginning to blend into one another as they went. The scenery whipped by so quickly that even his sensory abilities were unable to truly capture the scale of the city. Parks that stretched out for miles, gargantuan edifices of multihued stone and thousands if not tens of thousands of smaller buildings vied for attention, but in the end it was just too much.
As was the case with any System integrated civilization, the natural caps on population growth, lifespan and resources like food, were almost completely removed, the former partially and the latter completely. If a high enough level System user wanted, they could grow a truly immense family, easily having thousands upon thousands of children over the course of their lives. Because the Umber Trolls had evolved in a way contrary to the System’s expectations for the realm, they were unbound by the same restrictions that the Uthraki were constrained by.
For the first few minutes, Jonathan thought that he had lost his pursuers with the circuitous route he had taken. Eventually, however, they caught up. Above the city, a searing orb of flame gathered, almost fifty or so miles up. A wave of hotter flame bubbled up in the center, forming the shape of an eye almost a mile wide. It blinked once and then sent out a hemisphere of pure energy, cascading down towards the city. It wasn’t intended to harm what it struck, but rather was a far larger version of the security array in the station.
“Damn it,” Jonathan said. “I’m not sure if I can protect us against this. Trying to resist will just reveal our position anyway.”
“I believe in you,” Eliza said confidently. “You’ve done the impossible so many times. Your element is one of the most ridiculous things I’ve ever seen, and I was transported from Earth to a fantasy world as large as a galaxy, and then sent to literal hell. You can do it.”
Emboldened by the words, Jonathan took a deep breath. His normal Void abilities weren’t going to cut it here. He had to dig deeper than he ever had before.
He had grown complacent recently, relying more on his basic abilities than his more advanced applications of his element. The Void was the sort of element that was focused enough that even its basic form did a good enough job of fulfilling its purpose. While an Earth elementalist could summon a boulder to hurl, or maybe even a mountain if they were higher level, it was still a secondary function of that element. Raw Earth elemental energy wasn’t all that useful in battle. It wasn’t necessarily dangerous on its own, unlike Fire, or Jonathan’s own Void element. Instead it had to be used to control the natural world, establishing the user’s dominion over stone and dirt.
Even though Jonathan’s own elemental generally sufficed in its basic form, which followed the aspect of Consumption, he had learned other conceptual forms. Negation focused on absolute destruction, the erasure of the target from existence. Cessation was more tied to the inevitability of the Void, the constant war between the element and the universes that floated within them. One day all matter would return to the Void, at least from any single given universe. The power of Cessation built up slowly, but it was extremely difficult to fully counter.
Instead of relying on one over the others, Jonathan attempted something he had never done before. Blending multiple concepts together. While he lacked the expertise to combine all of them, and the resulting energy construct would destabilize almost immediately, he had confidence in fusing two of them, at least for a few moments.
Consumption was out in this case as it was quite noticeable. It ate away at matter at a relatively rapid rate, but anything other than instant dissolution wouldn’t cut it here. Negation could erase matter in an instant, but on its own it was too destructive. While whoever he targeted with it would most likely never even know they had died, everyone around them would notice. Cessation meanwhile was far more insidious, a lurking menace that was nearly impossible to notice until it was too late.
Time seemed to slow down as Jonathan taxed his mind to the limit, racing against the descending wave of fire. He raised his hands, coating both in the two forms of Void energy. His right hand was surrounded by a gauntlet of colorless energy, representing Negation. His left was covered in a flickering glove of dull purple made up of a toxic miasma of decay.
Jonathan clapped his hands together, attempting to fuse the energies together. Nothing happened for a moment, then his hands were forced apart with a sharp crack, a tiny explosion rattling his bones. He had just moments to solve his problem.
He used Wrath of the Void to give himself more time, his mind speeding up to the very limit of his capabilities. Seconds stretched and stretched, letting Jonathan try to combine Negation and Cessation once more. A conduit of energy formed between his hands as he attempted to combine them in a more holistic way, rather than just smashing them together.
The tiny purple flames grew in size but dimmed in color, filling with the energy of Negation. Then those flames condensed into an orb of conceptual energy, hovering between Jonathan’s hands. He forced his will upon it, making his wishes clear.
No notification appeared, meaning that his efforts hadn’t been enough to create a skill, but that didn’t matter. The energy construct was stable enough to do what he wanted anyway.
The sphere rotated rapidly for a few moments then rocketed out of Jonathan’s grasp, speeding up into the sky. It struck the falling wave of fire with a light whoosh. A chunk of the flame vanished in an instant, but instead of introducing an instability into the formation, the Void spread out to fill the gap. Spectral flames of Cessation aspected Void energy covered up the damage, quickly changing in color to hide their true nature. Jonathan was able to keep track of it, but to anyone else, it would have been as if nothing had happened.
The disguised Void flame washed over Jonathan and his group without doing anything, breaking apart with the rest of the wave as it struck the ground. The city flashed with light for a moment as the fire made landfall, but it faded away without dealing any damage. An uncomfortable prickling sensation crept over Jonathan, the feeling that someone was watching him from a distance. It faded away after a few moments, leaving Jonathan unsure if his desperate elemental manipulation had worked.
Static gathered around him and his party, threatening to disturb the wider array of elemental energy that had been released by the looming eye. Jonathan held his breath in anticipation, but the pressure dissipated. The wave of flame faded away, motes of fire dissipating into the air. Jonathan let out the breath. They had made it.
The eye of flame collapsed in on itself with a roaring hiss, the fire shrinking into a tiny marble of white heat, before vanishing entirely. Jonathan took that as his cue to keep moving, closing in on the floating palace.
