Black Onyx - Phoenix Resurrection

Finally, after a long and arduous search which brought me nothing but more questions, I uncovered a special room. Well, to call it a hall would be more appropriate.

The space was designed in a half-circle, with five doors leading to the adjacent rooms. In the main room, I saw tools that most reminded me of a research facility or a lab. Maybe a refinery for medicine or alchemy products.

Once again, there was nothing of value. Not even a dusty old book or a jade tablet that would tell me what the things there were used for. But, there was something else. One of the doors to a room was open while the rest of them remained closed, and all destruction appeared to have come from there.

I looked inside and was not surprised to find it empty. Surprisingly clean too. However, there was one thing that I immediately recognized. A table with chains. A large, stone construction with thick, dull yellow chains. The cuffs were open but it didn’t seem like they were forced that way.

There were, however, a few of those small drones in the corner. Well, what remained of them at least. They were crushed, torn apart, and utterly dead.

[Mhm…] I nodded to myself as the history of the place began unraveling in my mind. But before jumping to any conclusions, I went back out and tried to open the other doors.

They were locked, and whatever held them closed was still active even after all this time.

[What secrets do you hold, I wonder?]

I summoned a blade and imbued it with Sword Intent. Then, exerting a significant amount of force, I slashed at the entrance, breaking the old gates. They were about ten meters tall and half as much across, so whatever was meant to be inside had to be large. As the damage accumulated and my slashes took out increasingly larger chunks, the door eventually collapsed and crashed down.

I retracted my blade and stepped inside.

The new room was just the same as the last one, with a large stone table and chains connected to it. It was empty just the same, though the drones inside were not damaged and were instead seemingly resting on the ground.

As soon as I approached though, they burst to life, scanning me with a light beam, before turning hostile.

The first one tried to ram me like the first one I met, but the other tree began blasting me with lightning, flames, and straight-up energy beams.

[Really?] I summoned a barrier as a conjured blade appeared in my hand. They breached my defenses in seconds, but that’s all I needed. I jumped at them, energy blade swinging, but though I cut them, I didn’t completely destroy them. I didn’t need another explosion in my face.

Cutting off as much metal armor as I could without completely breaking the floating drones, I eventually disabled them, leaving only the glowing core intact. Every other part of the aggressive machine went into my storage ring.

Seeing that the danger was gone and that the room was otherwise empty, I went to check out the other rooms. Two of them were the same empty rooms with a table and chains, guarded by four drones. The last one, however, had a surprise waiting for me inside.

Apart from all the drones, there was a corpse on the table. The dull golden chains were strapped to its limbs, holding it tight. The creature was massive, even slightly too large for the table itself, with its hands and feet dangling off the edge.

I judged it at just over eight meters tall, with dark gray skin and scales across its hands and legs. It had no clothes, and its body was shriveled up like a raisin. I did notice some golden tattoos across its chest and arms, and though it had a vaguely humanoid face, the white fangs and black horns were proof it was anything but.

Those long, shriveled hands with sagging skin told of a once great warrior whose muscle mass had to be quite large for it to deflate so much. Long claws stretched past its limbs, feeling sharp even after such a long time. They also matched the claw marks I so often saw on the walls and doorways.

[But what is a Demon doing here?] I wondered out loud as I turned it around, revealing a long, slender tail and a back full of dark scales. Two stumps were left where wings, much like mine, once used to be.

Demons weren’t supposed to be there. The portal opened on Neloron more than 10.000 years ago, and that’s where the great war took place. Even the ancient memories of the gods didn’t hold any information about them going to the other side of the world, especially since they were besieged from all sides constantly.

[Unless…]

As I thought more and more about this place, the more I came to realize it had to be some kind of a research facility. They had a few captured Demons for study, possibly learning from their physiology or magic. But one of them clearly escaped somehow, killing everyone in the facility and looting it clean. Maybe. And the incident had to happen towards the latter part of the war if nobody came to reclaim it. It was just left as it was.

Or maybe it was just not important enough and the loss of one research facility was not important enough to warrant repair.

In the end, I was just speculating. There were no records I could find, the only clue being the corpse and the destruction.

[Talk about a waste of time…]

Finding no loot anywhere, I decided to leave. I took the corpse with me though. People didn’t need to know there were Demons in this part of the world 10.000 years ago. Not unless they were willing to pay for that information.

I scanned the facility a few more times on my way back, but after confirming there truly were no secrets remaining, I left.

Well, by no secrets I meant no good secrets. There was stuff to find, obviously. There were the metal chains, which I seriously suspected were made of some kind of metal alloy that used the rare Celestial Metal as an ingredient. The entire facility was made out of a low-grade ore after all. I confirmed that after examining it up close.

It was the same thing I used to reforge my bones. To think that guy tried so desperately to hide a few fist-sized chunks when the builders here used it as a common building material. The disparity in wealth was just stupid.

I already took more than I would ever need, having pocketed the entire golem and the drones. Those were the purest metals anyway. It was best I didn’t get too greedy and leave some for the Clans up top. They could fight each other over the treasures for all I cared. Refining that stuff was extremely time-consuming anyway, especially since the stone was a really low-grade ore.

“You are back…” General Orange stated after I left the building.

By the time I came out, many more Cultivators showed themselves, and there was a large-scale cleaning operation going on. It seemed they also realized there were valuables to be found inside.

“By the authority given to me by Manager Green, I have to ask you to hand over what you found inside. While your help was appreciated, we need to keep a proper order and bla, bla, bla…”

I tuned him out and ignored his blabbering. As if I was going to hand over my stuff to a nobody like him. Did he seriously let me do all the work and think I wouldn’t require compensation? Laughable.

Seeing I wasn’t going to listen to him, he even began talking about waiting for the manager to sort things out or something. I disregarded him again and went to find my team. When he still didn’t relent, I turned to him and told him the mansion was empty. Whoever was there had long cleared it all out.

That made him shut up and he finally left me alone, grumbling he was going to speak to the man in charge about the lack of decorum.

That was actually not a bad idea. I already planned to speak with Gale about the manuals, and if I could maybe get some more info in exchange for the knowledge about the Demon, I was certainly going to do that.

After finding my team resting in a circle and meditating, I approached.

“Gerald.” General Red was the first to notice my approach and stood up to greet me.

[Hey.] I nodded at him and sat him down. [Before you say anything, I have to thank you for helping me.]

They looked at me, confused.

“Helping with what? We didn’t do anything.” Astrid said.

[Oh, you did. After my body was vaporized, I was unable to reform myself. You gathering the pieces helped to anchor my Soul so I could… regenerate.]

What I said was not entirely correct, but it was not a lie either. My core, my indestructible crystal core, shattered from the explosion. My body was nearly atomized, and I died. Only after they gathered the pieces did the natural powers of the Phoenix kick in, pulling back the molecules and atoms that made my body. But, it seemed like something was different from the first resurrection. I should have grown weaker after waking up, not stronger.

[You have my gratitude.] I cupped my hands and bowed my head. Being dead was not a pleasant experience.

“Oh, is that so?” She said. I could see her expression change as the intuition of a healer began calculating in her mind.

“You are welcome then.” General Red said. “I’m glad we did it.”

[Yes, and if it happens again, please do it once more.] I said, even if it probably wouldn’t work so fast. I had this feeling that I couldn’t resurrect again for some time. The ability had some refractory period I was not aware of. I just knew it could not happen for some time.

“Sure.”