Soul Venerable (Re-written)

 

 

“Roughly two hundred years ago during the 4th Calamity, Demon King Maximilian sent his demon army to corrupt the Ancient Dawn Ent’s capital, the Emerald Wood Palace, in hope to gain demonized tree cannon fodders to continue his invasion northward.”

“To deny his advancement, the Great Archmage Mordred dropped 1.104 strategic nuclear warheads of various payloads, with the largest equivalent to a rank 5 attack, not only killing almost all demons and the living Ancient Dawn Ent but also terraformed the Emerald Wood Palace into the poison-path resource point it is today.”

“The whole area has become a heaven for poison-path lifeforms. Here, the land itself will try to kill everything.” 

“Therefore, those who can survive in this location are either evolved to have some resistance against poison, or would be poisonous enough to thrive.” 

“While the Ancient Dawn Ents lost their capital and almost got eradicated, some refugees survived in the adjacent Azaria forest. Due to their severed inheritance, they could not get back to their former glory, regressing into the point it is today. Since there’s no longer rank 4 and rank 5 Ancient Dawn Ents, they lost the ‘Ancient’ prefix of their race which are reserved for rank 5 races. The modern ‘Dawn Ents’ have great difficulty in reaching rank 2, and not a single Legendary Dawn Ent have emerged in the last 200 years...” Klauss Ludwig recalled the information he had.

“That being said, the Ruined Wood Palace is now under the hands of one of the many subordinate races of the original Ancient Dawn Ent. This area should be the territory of… the Fultherons. Though, they only controlled this part of the outskirts. Intel regarding the inner regions is something not even my captain can get.” He added.

“Those fungoids? Any intel regarding the relationship between Fultheron and Greenskins?” Shion asked as she scooped and then munched on the irradiated soil of the swamp. Nobody tried to stop her because refinement-path experts have their weird method of investigation. 

“Hostile.” Natsuko, one of the Thousand Flower girls who serve in the Vanguard team answered. She was ignored by Shion most of the time because of her lack of combat skills, but she’s an excellent corpse dismantler, logistician and a wood-path & faith-path healer. “Fultheron’s territory is being invaded and their poison-path racial advantage does not get an edge against the greenskins. There have been records of greenskins assaulting Fultheron encampments.”

“I see.” Shion spit the irradiated soil in her mouth. 

“So, not only we have to deal with mutated undead beasts and an endless number of greenskins, we also have to deal with a race of fungoids known for their poison-path racial abilities?” Kenji asked, annoyed with the increasing amount of threat.  

“That is indeed so, vice-captain. Worry not, our faith-path methods can counter most dangerous pathogens and the radiation in this place.” Natsuko added.

“No biggies.” Shion extracted a set of serpent-scale bodysuit from her mobile furnace’s dimensional storage and gave it to Kenji. “This is called a combat hazmat suit that will protect you from contaminants and pathogens. It came with an active carbon gas mask too, which shields your lungs from almost all poison in this place. Wear it.”

The suit and gas mask literally made Natsuko’s aid irrelevant towards Kenji and Shion. 

“You can use your method to aid the others, we don’t need them.” Shion simply said.

“Ah… yes.” Natsuko’s shoulder dropped. She wanted to get some contribution, but she’s helpless. She realized that slaughtering those dark-path beasts during pathfinding must be one of Shion’s machinations. After all, most dark-path beasts are poisonous themselves, thus the materials harvested from them have great poison resistance properties. Thankfully, she only made two sets of those suits, the others will require some aid from her methods, giving her a bit of contribution.

Of course, the other vanguards have their own method of protection. They don't have to rely on Natsuko or her friend from Thousand Flower to defend against the dangerous pathogens and radiation, but they are not as rude as Shion. Besides, they still hoped to conceal their methods to the best of their abilities, they will accept Natsuko’s protection.

“Anyhow, the radiation in the area is still within the acceptable level. No mutation should occur even if we got exposed for a prolonged period of time, but it's better if we don’t risk it. Go protect those who need them.” Shion ordered.

“Understood, captain!” Natsuko nodded.

Kenji went somewhere to wear the combat hazmat suit, whereas Natsuko activated her methods. With the exception of Shion, the vanguard team members have a faint green glow on their bodies as defensive blessings protect their body. It would affect stealth methods to some degree, but it wouldn’t hinder their movement in the slightest.

When Kenji returned, he wore a bodysuit that is identical to Shion in design, it was tightly hugging his body but his slim but muscular body made the bodysuit look good. Also, it has more defensive scales in certain areas, making it less erotic compared to Shion’s. “How the fuck did you get precise measurement on my body, boss?”

“Now that we can resist the environmental hazard, it’s time to find a staging ground for our battle.” Shion ignored Kenji’s question as she produced a scroll, it is a magical one that reveals some area of the Ruined Wood Palace.

Before the nuke hits, the Emerald Wood Palace is a city of Ancient Dawn Ents where tall ancient trees and wooden structures reach for the skies. Its wood-path resource generation is extremely high, allowing the Ancient Dawn Ents to become a threat towards Hartina Kingdom. 

Now, the rotten wood matter of the towering trees or wooden structures becomes heaven for disease and other pathogens to breed. Most of them have melted into pools of viscous dark green liquid, forming into poison pools or puddles. 

Dark and bright green glow filled the landscape while grey-green radiation clouds covered the skies. The earth is mostly wet due to contaminated waters or poisonous rot. Rotting corpses and dark puddles are everywhere, and there are countless glowing mushrooms growing in high-radiation areas. Some of them are extremely close to the group, but they do not dare to enter the periphery of the high-radiation puddles despite the bright green mushroom being a poison-path resource.

Because the puddle must’ve hidden something dangerous. Tiny, poisonous beasts are sometimes more dangerous than large beasts. It isn’t worth the risk. 

“There’s no need to enter the core region of the Ruined Wood Palace where even rank 4 Paragon seniors could not resist the radiation. Our mission objective is to launch an attack towards one of the Greenskin fortresses in the outskirts, Fort Esela. ” Shion pointed towards a location on the map. 

“Fort Esela is on the edge of the outskirts of the Ruined Wood Palace, there should be a minimum number of rank 1 poison-path lifeforms that roams freely so we aren't exposed to immediate danger. The greenskin concentration should be high on goblin and hobgoblin. Intel suggests an ork raiding party and a couple of trolls might be stationed there, but with our combined might, it shouldn’t be a problem to kill them.” Shion paused, before adding “But we need our main army. So, we need to find a staging ground for them to rest before we assault Fort Esela. Any suggestions?”

There was a brief period of silence before Klauss raised his hand. “Herr-Captain, if I may. What if we build a temporary campsite for our main army here...” he pointed.

“That’s too close to the Fultheron area isn't it?” Yulinka raised her eyebrows. 

Shion spared her attention to get a glimpse of Natsuko’s reaction through her echolocation the moment Klauss proposed them, but Natsuko does not react. 

No reaction meant she was hiding something, Shion was able to deduce why Klauss wanted the vanguard to get close to the Fultherons.

‘It seems like Radiant Desolation and Thousand Flower have already met and made a deal before the team contract was made. Isn’t Kobayashi Hana a mage who’s focused on enslaving wood-path creatures? So that’s what they are after. Shion erases the distracting thought as she shares her opinion. “The distance isn’t too far off from our target, and it has an abundant flat area and solid ground for our main army to rest before we launch the attack. I don’t see a problem here.”

“Then,”

“However,” Shion cut off Klauss’s words. “Being close to the Fultherons means the main army is at risk of battling with them. Don’t be mistaken, with our support, the main army could at least get away from them, but their spores are threatening. Keep in mind that the main army doesn't only consist of ent-type creatures who do not ‘breathe’ in the typical sense. We also have a moving, fresh and blood army of kobolds whose performance is severely affected by Fultheron spores.”

Natsuko interjected, “We have a sufficient number of support-focused members from my Thousand Flower team to ensure they are not affected in the slightest. It isn’t a reason for us to risk our team further to find another fitting location.”

Shion glanced at the green haired Natsuko. ‘That’s just a scam with extra steps. You wanted to pump up your team’s contribution that much? Ah, I get it. This is what Kobayashi Hana has been aiming for from the start. Fort Esela isn’t the goal, she wanted to exploit us to get young Fultherons or gather their spores… They are considered a minor race so enslavement-path methods aren't effective on them, but isn’t the Kobayashi clan known for their tree enlightenment and ent soldier refinement methods?’

“So it’s two against one. Yulinka, what are your thoughts?” Shion asked.

The Frozen Heart team lacked an enslavement-path master. In fact, they are a team whose methods are especially effective in countering enslavement-path battle tactics because the Seas of Eternal Winters where they originated from has no lack of swarm-type sea beasts. Thus, there’s no detrimental effect for them to choose the location.

“I am in favor. We have no problem in selecting the location.” Yulinka has no grudge against Shion, but the location is simply too beneficial for the main army. There’s no need to take unnecessary effort which exposes the whole vanguard team to danger.

 “I see.” Shion simply nodded. “Then we’ll clean up the area before guiding our main army.” She started drafting plans based on that decision immediately.

Kenji, who was silent, raised his eyebrows. ‘There’s absolutely no way you’re willingly giving up our team’s interest, right boss? You must be hatching a scheme right about now.’ He couldn’t help but grin. As he got more familiar with Shion, he knew her unreasonable personality would make anyone against her having a hard time later.

 

…

 

“Breathe, and channel the internal energy within my body according to the predetermined path. As it reaches my arm, split the energy into countless strands so that each individual muscle tissue can use them to produce vibration...” Kenji muttered in silence as he tried to activate a Nurturing Technique given by Shion.

“[Sound Body Tempering Art]... is truly an excellent Nurturing Technique...” he praised. The effect from a few days worth of training is visible from the naked eyes. From a glance, it is a peerless sound-path martial art which has a lot of overlapping aspects with strength-path. 

“With this, I can produce vibration with my hand, therefore able to do this...” He grasped a moss-covered rock. He did not use a lot of force in gripping it, but it turned into dust as it slowly crumbled due to vibration. 

“Unfortunately, my body is not trained for this type of martial arts...” Kenji’s slowly arm bled as a few veins ruptured while a minor portion of his muscle tissues were torn from the self-inflicted abuse. The bodysuit did not allow anything to leak, but Kenji was smart enough  to unequip it before training. It exposes his arm to the hostile environment, but the concentration of poison, radiation, and other contaminants is too low to affect his immune system. It was okay.

“So sound-path martial art is like cutting one’s flesh to attack. It wounded me first before hurting others. Then, what kind of pain did you endure to reach that stage, boss?” He wondered.

Although Kenji’s physical attribute is greater than Shion, his body could not endure the self-inflicted vibration damage. In simple terms, he has yet to build up resistance against sound-path methods.

This is where [Sound Body Tempering Art] comes in handy. Each time his arm ruptured and was damaged, his supernatural healing factor aided by the Nurturing Technique healed his damaged flesh and rebuilt the new muscle tissue with greater resistance against vibration.

Kenji is brute-forcing this problem by slowly training his body into a vibro-weapon.

Even so, it is very effective because he can endure the biological energy expenditure required for recovery due to Shion who is constantly feeding him with a great amount of resources procured locally. 

Before, he can only consume this amount of high-quality food within the Academy grounds and pay for them with Academy’s contribution points, which limits him greatly. 

Now, he was like a tiger with wings. He could gain practical combat experience while being fed with high quality food. It is the perfect environment for him to cultivate, so his progress is significantly faster than ever before. 

‘If this continues for another week… I might be able to break through to 7 transparent stars, entering the late-stage of rank 0. Is this what you want, boss?’

A few moments later, Shion came to fetch him. “As expected, those mutated zombie beasts are attracted to our fresh scent. Prepare for battle.” 

“Roger that, boss!” Kenji followed her. 

When he arrived at the battlefield, he frowned. “So that’s why they are revered as zombie beasts. They are beast corpses being manipulated like puppets by those… creatures. Ew, disgusting.”

Just like most concept paths (refinement, enslavement, faith, etc.) being a sub-path, poison-path is also the same. There’s no pure poison-path lifeform, their categorization overlaps with elemental paths, but because of their poisonous nature, they are considered as poison-path lifeforms.

Thus, poison-path lifeforms are split into several sub categorizations. The one they are facing right now is… metal-wood poison-path lifeform. 

“Fungal Rotwolves… a dual-element poison-path beast, so disgusting.” Shion glanced at Kenji. “Be careful of their self-destruction. Try your best to kill them in one hit and don’t leave them a chance to explode.” she said while sending a telepathic instruction on how to deal with them effectively.

The fungal rotwolves have the size of the typical wolves with a 1-meter tall and roughly 2-meter long body. Some parts of their body have been corroded by the radiation, exposing rotting internal organs while also having some sort of fibre-like roots and glowing mushrooms growing on their flesh. Within their body, there exist spore sacs that could be used to store toxic spores or when they are in danger, to explode in an irradiated spore-filled gore. 

Radiation from the nuclear warhead is primarily caused by a metal known as uranium, it is a metal poison-path material.

Due to the nature of wood-path lifeforms having strong survivability and generally being especially hard to kill, most that did not die evolved revolving radiation. Some became adept at investigation to evade radioactive material, while others embrace radiation itself and incorporate them into their bodies: the bearded rotwolves is one such example.

Unfortunately, it isn’t that simple.

Radiation damages every lifeform through cellular destruction. Although a strong physical body helps in enduring genetic collapse, with enough concentration and exposure, radiation will eventually kill. 

Thus, the rotwolves are actually semi-corpse puppets to the lifeforms who actually can endure the radiation, such as the mushroom-like growth on their bodies. The fungal rotwolves’ original consciousness is dim, they are difficult to be revered as the typical lifeform, they are poison-path lifeforms that borderline with necro-path creatures because of their unnatural lifeforce.

It isn’t wrong to call them undead or zombies. 

“So their weaknesses varied amongst each other, but were consistent. I need to hit the mushroom-parasite that contaminated the rotwolves’ central nervous system which is in their spine… Not only are they small, but they also move quickly. My marksmanship isn’t specialized to deal with small enemies in large numbers so the only option left is… my atmospheric strength methods.” Kenji’s battle intent is rising. 

“Advance! Don’t care too much about the resources from them, I can process them even if you turned them into meat paste.” Shion assured him.

“Alright, boss!” Kenji clasped his hands in anticipation as a blast of fire and ice exploded in the center of rotwolves formation. Other vanguard have taken the initiative, but there are almost a hundred rotwolves, there’s enough for him to get action.

“Boss has been paying her debt, it isn’t good if I did not show some goodwill to repay her effort.” Telepathic thoughts collided in Kenji’s mind as another Nurturing Technique given by Shion appeared in his sea of consciousness.

“First, channel my internal energy to my five senses and combine them to activate… [Synesthesia]!” His powerful sensory organs connected with each other, forming a new sensation that overwhelmed his mind. “So this is what it means to hear colors and see sounds. This is the world that the boss is seeing. Interesting.” He grinned as he felt a strong headache.  

With his heightened senses, it was easy for him to oversee the whole battlefield. In his perspective, everything that happened in a few dozen meters around him is clear for him to sense. His investigative methods are already powerful, [Synesthesia] has become the catalyst that allowed him to achieve a qualitative change. However, he could not activate it for a prolonged amount of time. 

Kenji took a horse stance as he punched towards the direction of the incoming rotwolves. Unlike his typical style, his fist does not produce a great amount of fist force. Instead, it creates a targeted, ‘armor-piercing’ wave of fist force that is selectively aimed at the mushroom-parasites within the rotwolves’ spines. 

Any rotwolves who got hit with this attack fell down as their mouth coughed spore-filled gore.

They were instantly killed as the mushroom-parasites controlling their body were destroyed.

 

 

At a distance.

Seeing Kenji’s performance, Shion mentally smiled. ‘As expected. He is extremely talented in strength-path martial arts. He was able to incorporate the profundity of sound-path after learning it for a few days.’ 

‘Of course, the [Sound Body Tempering Art] being an Apex-grade sound-path Nurturing Technique that I deducted after the first time entering this world might play a role. Although better, more streamlined Transcendent-grade sound-path nurturing techniques now exist, the one I gave him is still one of the cornerstones for the development of sound-path in this world.’   

“If things progressed according to my plan, he should be able to master [Flesh Tearing Bone Breaking Fist] and reach the late-stage of rank 0 before we fight against [Dragon’s Shadow]. Still, it isn’t enough. Perhaps… I should make use of Sumire’s combat resources…’

While watching the battle between the vanguard team and the rotwolves beast group, Shion is planning for her own interest. The combat exosuit minor inheritance is a crucial base for her to rebuild and resupply.