Chapter 190 - 192: A Strange Monolith

Words : 1672 Updated : Oct 1st, 2025

Alix exhales slowly and swipes his hand through the air. Shrrrk— A sudden pull surges from his palm. The surrounding items—Tier 4 weapons, glowing herbs, arcane tomes—shudder, then whoosh toward him, sucked into his inventory like dust into a vacuum. The magic relics vanish mid-air, no sound, no flare. Gone in a blink. Alix steps forward, unhurried, eyes fixed on the coffin. The obsidian lid is cold beneath his fingertips as he rests his hand on it. The air here hums—low, steady, a vibration only a few could feel. He pushes. Clunk. The seal breaks with a quiet click. Ancient wards flicker and die like candlelight snuffed out by wind. The coffin opens. Alix leans over—and his eyes gleam. Inside, nestled in velvet folds of faded crimson cloth, lies a body long since turned to ash and dust... but that's not what catches his attention. His gaze locks onto a herb—curled, black-veined leaves with shimmering veins of violet. Subtle, almost dormant, but unmistakable to him. He laughs, low and short, more breath than sound. "Well... that's a surprise." He ignores the tier 5 gear scattered beside the remains. Ancient armor, runed blades, enchanted jewels—all meaningless. But this? He reaches in and plucks the herb gently between two fingers, holding it up to the dim glow of the chamber. "The Whisperroot," he murmurs, a rare flicker of warmth in his voice. "One of the side ingredients..." He closes his hand over it, tucking it safely away. Then, softly, he says to himself, "Now, I just need the two main ones." His smile fades—not gone, just resting beneath the surface. Alix takes one last glance around the tomb, letting the silence settle. Then, without a word, he turns and strides back toward the entrance. The heavy air doesn't resist him. The seals that once warded the tomb stay silent now. He steps past them and out into the misty ruins beyond. A faint breeze moves through the crumbled archways. Dust drifts lazily, barely disturbed by his passage. Outside, he stops. Lifts the locator stone again. He channels mana into it again. This time, with intent. The stone's runes flicker once, twice—then shift. A new beam ignites, this one sweeping out in a slow arc before locking onto a fresh direction. West-northwest. Faint, but sure. "Another victims..." Alix adjusts his stance and begins walking. Quiet steps on broken stone, mist curling around his boots. Alix follows the locator's pulsing beam, letting it guide him deeper into the ruins. The fog thickens, curling around ruined spires and broken statues like creeping fingers. The hum of distant mana—active, sharp, chaotic—grows louder with each step. Then he hears it. Shouting. Clashing steel. The unmistakable whine of spellfire. Alix crests a shattered ridge, crouching low behind a chunk of broken masonry, and peers down. There they are. Two forces locked in savage battle—a full squad of Ember Claw soldiers hammering against a formation of Astram elites. Crimson armor versus silver and black. The clash is as brutal as it is chaotic. Bolts of lightning arc overhead. Explosions rock the stone. Blood slicks the ground in both colors. And at the center—two figures stand out. One is a broad-shouldered Ember Claw commander, his axe humming with fire-etched runes, barking orders and cleaving through Astram troops with raw aggression. The other is the Astram commander, leaner, wrapped in layered robes laced with arcane glyphs. She floats above the ground, her eyes glowing bright blue, casting layered barrier spells while launching counterattacks in sharp, vicious bursts. Alix watches them for a long moment, arms folded. Then he sighs lightly, his voice dry. "Well. That's convenient." He glances down at the insignia still clipped to his belt—the Ember Claw mark, half-torn, stained with old blood. "Technically, I'm still one of theirs," he murmurs. "Though not for much longer." His gaze returns to the chaos below. One Ember Claw soldier gets impaled by a pike—another Astram mage is incinerated by a fire wave from the commander's axe. He leans back against the stone, resting one elbow lazily. "Let them kill each other," he says quietly. "Why waste energy when the enemies takes itself out?" The battle drags on. Brutal. Sloppy. But inevitable. On the field below, it becomes clearer with every passing minute—the Astram side holds the advantage. Not just in coordination, but in sheer numbers. They're at least double the Ember Claw forces, maybe more. The tide shifts fast. Alix watches, unmoving. Astram mages tighten their formations, laying down wards and glyphs in practiced sync. Their frontline closes in like a jaw of iron, shields overlapping, spears stabbing with ruthless timing. Ember Claw soldiers buckle under the pressure—fatigue, wounds, and disarray breaking what little cohesion they had left. The Ember Claw commander roars, fire bursting from his axe, cutting three down in one swing. But it's not enough. Within minutes, the last of the Ember Claw soldiers fall. The field is quiet now—only the Astram survivors left, tending wounds, casting barrier reinforcements, dragging the dead away from the path. Alix pushes off the rock he's been leaning on. "Time to clean up." He walks down the slope, calm, unhurried. Mist swirls around him, hiding his approach until he's almost within striking distance. The Astram commander is the first to notice. "Who—?" Her words cut off as Alix steps into view, the Ember Claw insignia still faintly visible on his belt. "Ember Claw? There's still one that survive?" she spits. "Then you can die with the rest of them." Alix stops five steps from her. Doesn't answer. Instead, he just lifts one hand. Snap. A single, clean motion. And all hell breaks loose. A surge of mana pulses outward—cold, compressed, devastating. A shockwave flattens the nearest soldiers before they can react. One tries to cast a spell, but too slow. He shatters like glass under pressure. The commander screams, rallying her forces. "Kill him—!" But Alix is already moving. A blink. A shimmer. He's behind them. His blade sings. One Astram elite falls, throat opened in a perfect line. Another drops as a spear of shadow bursts from his chest—summoned and launched in the same motion. No wasted effort. No hesitation. Alix moves through them like smoke through fire. Untouchable. Unstoppable. The Astram commander manages to hurl a bolt of compressed ice. He raises his palm. The spell stops mid-air. Suspended. Then collapses into a ball the size of a coin. He flicks it back at her. Boom. The explosion throws her into a broken column. She slumps, dazed, blood trailing from her temple. Alix approaches, blade dragging slightly along the ground, leaving a faint glowing line. She coughs and tries to rise. She coughs and tries to rise. "Please... don't kill me. I'll do anything." Alix looks down at her. He raises his blade. "Then die." A sharp slash. And silence. Blood pools. Steel cools. Alix turns slowly, surveying the scattered corpses, the smoldering spells, the wreckage. He opens his palm again. Shrrrk— Weapons, relics, enchanted cores—all lift from the dead and streak into his inventory. A clean sweep. Alix exhales softly. Two enemy squads—gone. He lifts the locator stone again. The beam pulses, shifting now—pointing slightly northwest again, deeper into the ruins. Alix doesn't hesitate. He keeps moving. Step by step, guided by the locator stone, he weaves through the ruins. Every pulse of the stone leads to another group. More Astram squads. More cleanup. Some try to flee. Some try to beg. Most try to fight. None succeed. Alix is quiet through it all. Efficient. Detached. He doesn't revel in the killing—he simply does it. Like pruning weeds. The blood on his blade dries before he needs to swing it again. Eventually, he finds an entrance. Since the stone is pointing that way, he heads inside. He emerges from the mist into a wide clearing, the air here unnaturally still. The ground is flattened stone, overgrown in places with moss and cracks—but in the center stands a monolith. Massive. Black. Towering over everything like a silent judge. Glowing red runes shift across its surface, and near the top—hovering just above the stone—a burning timer counts down. 5:00 Around the monolith, two armies face each other. Ember Claw forces on one side, Astram forces on the other. Neither moving. No blades drawn, no spells cast. Just silence. Suspicion. Tension wound tight as a bowstring. Lathar spots him first. "Alix!" he calls out, relief in his voice as he waves him over. Heads turn. A few of his soldiers murmur, stepping aside as Alix strides past them, calm and unreadable. Lathar meets him halfway, grinning despite the grimness. "Our commander is now here." Alix glances at the line of soldiers at Lathar's back, then back at Lathar. "Almost half still not here." Lathar's smile fades a little. He nods. "They probably didn't make it." Alix's gaze shifts toward the Astram side. He tilts his head slightly. "Oh. A lot of people still aren't here on Astram's side. Even a few commanders are missing." His tone is casual. Almost bored. Lathar side-eyes him. "...Yeah. Looks like it." Lathar sighs, hands on his hips. "Anyway, looks like this is the end point. Everyone's been trickling in from different entrance." Alix looks up at the structure. The timer ticks down. 4:46 "What's that countdown for?" he asks. Lathar shakes his head. "No one knows. It started ticking once the first group arrived. No one's dared touch it. Everyone's just... waiting. Watching. No one wants to be the idiot who makes the first move." Alix studies the monolith a moment longer. His fingers twitch, almost like he's tempted to poke it just to see what would happen. Instead, he folds his arms and says flatly, "So we are waiting to see if it's a prize... or a curse." Lathar nods. "Pretty much."

Chapter 190 - 192: A Strange Monolith

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