Black Onyx - Phoenix Resurrection

After eliminating the two troublemakers, the rest of the team fell in line and didn’t make unnecessary trouble anymore. While I would agree it was a bit cruel to end it like that, it was just about the only decision I could come up with on such short notice.

Cowards were detrimental to the mission, not to mention the first guy nearly exposed us to the enemy. If we had to fight the group of riders, while I was certain we would win, the chances of the conflict being detected were much higher. Then we would really have to constantly watch our backs.

The other guy had something against me from the start, and having absorbed his Soul, I realized what it was. The man was a snake, moving through the shadows, yet always desperate to be in the limelight. My actions that day with the memory exchange irked him, very much so. He despised the fact that I seemingly effortlessly got people on my side, convincing them to share their precious knowledge with me.

It gave birth to an irrational kind of anger, and he already decided to eliminate me at the first opportunity. The man even thought that by calling upon righteous fury he would gain an upper hand and be justified in killing me. Well, he chose wrong.

His death served as nothing more than a warning to others, and his body and Soul only empowered me further. His attempt at ending me failed spectacularly.

[Here, you have a piece as well. Looks like you need it.]

“Oh, thank you!”

I gave some Soul Essence to Onyx. He appeared to be quite starved, only being allowed to consume a Soul on occasion every few years or decades.

While he didn’t actually remember how long ago it was since he last ate, we figured it had to be a long time. Despite having many abilities, and a command over Souls much greater than mine, he was overall relatively weak.

I knew that because during my attempts at tampering with the bracelet, I triggered some sort of defense mechanism that forced Onyx to attack me for a while. All I can say is that I felt like a toothless toddler was trying to gnaw on my finger.

It was mildly uncomfortable, but that was about it. Of course, I had no doubt such an attack would be extremely painful, if not deadly, for any normal person.

“Sorry about that. I don’t know what came over me.” Onyx apologized as soon as was freed from the bracelet’s influence.

[Don’t worry about it. No harm done.]I waved it off. [Though it looks like this relic is more complex than I initially thought. It’s going to take me some time to free you.]

“That’s okay, I’m used to waiting.”

And so he waited. I split my attention while we traveled, only partially focusing on the land around us. There wasn’t much to see, anyway. Some wild beasts, plants, animals, and an occasional Drow patrol we could hear coming well ahead of time and as such always avoided successfully.

During the days of walking, apart from studying the relic and occasionally talking with Onyx, I was also looking into creating my own storage device.

The spatial storage rings I had were extremely useful, but they were also easy to break. At the power levels of the Spirit Realm and above, such simple relics became quite fragile.

Among all the countless Souls I absorbed, there were some enchanters among them. Not many, and they weren’t the best, as most of what I got came from warriors who had a hobby, but it was enough to get me the basics.

Creation of storage relics was a very basic skill since every Cultivator needed at least one, while many had enough to fill both their hands.

Of course, storage devices weren’t limited to rings. Actually, rings were among the hardest to make and had the lowest capacity due to their limited size, though they were simple to use.

There were also pendants, necklaces, and even swords and gauntlets that could be made into a storage device. The size of the Space crystal used as the core was the most important part of the relic. The bigger it was, the larger the folded sub-space contained inside it could be.

I never heard of anyone inscribing the Runes required for spatial storage on a living creature’s core, but it should theoretically be possible. Of course, the creature should be Space-aligned for it to work, but I wasn’t sure to what degree that was required.

I knew I could use spatial magic just fine and could manipulate it easily, so my plan of converting some of my body into a storage relic should be possible. Yes, I wanted to turn myself into a storage device. It was an unusual thought, but why not? My damn rings broke many times during my short few years on this planet, so there was no doubt they would get destroyed again, especially as I was growing stronger.

So I thought, why not inscribe it directly on my core? It should be the highest quality material I had access to, it was nearly indestructible, and I would never lose it. Heck, even if I was completely naked and the enemy tried to search me, they wouldn’t find anything.

Unlikely to happen, sure, but you never know…

With my plans slowly coming to life, I trained for a few days, testing my technique on some spare cores I had, doing microscopic inscriptions with Telekinesis. I was getting better and better at it, already able to perfectly replicate my design with my eyes closed.

That’s, of course, because I was using my Spirit Sense to see, haha.

Jokes aside, I felt ready to test it for real. The only problem was that I picked a really bad time to do such a thing. That’s because I needed peace and quiet to carve the inscriptions and also quite a lot of time to do so. And doing such a thing in enemy territory was just asking for trouble.

It has been a long time since we entered the Drow lands. About two weeks, or something like that. Our progress was very slow, but that’s why we remained undetected. For a while. As we neared the heart of enemy territory, it was getting harder and harder to advance.

We had to backtrack more often as lone structures and settlements were becoming more common. We also passed by many large industrial facilities that were just teeming with Drow. The technology seemed… not more advanced, but different from what the human Cultivators had. You could say they were more organized, and industrial.

While the humans mostly relied on artisans for making stuff, the Drow appeared to have established specializations where each facility produced only a few components. I was amazed at the size of the industry, and even more so at the power some of the structures contained. I would have loved to just sit on top of one of those large buildings and siphon the Qi coming from it.

They even had glass grow houses where I could see rare herbs blooming in the middle of autumn.

I could understand why the three Clans wanted to take over. The land was rich with both Qi and resources! There was so much of it, I struggled to take it all in.

“Someone is coming, right ahead!” Our scout warned us. He had some good ears, and with the inability to use Spirit Sense, he was our early warning signal.

[Hide. Hopefully, they will just pass us by. Try to make yourself invisible if possible.] I ordered and everyone did so.

Soon we heard the sound of hooves striking against the ground, and it was coming closer. A large deer-like creature jumped right over our heads, not bothering to notice us, and ran into the distance.

We were just about to breathe a sigh of relief, when a Drow suddenly appeared, running at full speed through the tall grass. It didn’t see us, but that just meant it couldn’t dodge. It collided with one of our invisible teammates, knocking both of them prone.

[Shit!]

“Aaaah! Humans!” The Drow jumped on her feet instantly as our presence was revealed and distanced herself from us.

[Don’t let her get away!] I shouted and my claws grew at light speed.

In a split second, I was beside her, my claws tearing through her flesh with no resistance, but then her form shattered into a million tiny lights and she reappeared a few meters away.

“Etixe!” She shouted.

A blast, an unstoppable force pushed us all back, and two short swords appeared in her hands. She then crossed them in front of her body and smiled.

“Linmos Eclud.”

Instantly pain assaulted my mind and the world began to spin, and I felt myself losing the grip on reality before darkness took me.

[Aaaaah!] I screamed and opened my eyes, only to squint them immediately after as the sun blinded me. A pounding headache made me woozy as I slowly shifted, moving to the edge of the bed I was lying on before throwing the covers off.

The sun was high in the sky, shining through the window of my room.

I looked around, trying to remember what the hell just happened, but my memory was fuzzy, and due to the headache, I couldn’t concentrate.

Hearing sounds coming from beyond the door, I stood up, holding myself upright by leaning against the wall, and stepped through the door. A pleasant smell assaulted me, making me salivate, and I followed it and the sounds down the short hallway to another room.

I opened it and realized it was a kitchen. My parents' kitchen. And there was a woman cooking there, her back turned towards me. Hearing me enter, she turned.

“Oh, hello, Gerald dear. Are you still feeling down? Did you sleep well? It’s already past noon. I told you not to stay up so late.”

I frowned and tried to shake the drowsiness from my head. I blinked a few times, taking it all in. It all felt like a bad dream.

[Mom?]