The Runic Alchemist

Chapter 923: A Fish Too Angry to Fry

High above the town, Coresaw, five minutes before the current time, Sam.

“Why are they still fighting after seeing Landshark?” He asked in frustration.

Sam assumed the nobles of Leon’s group would see some sense after a terrifying transcendent showed the difference in their power levels. But they charged to their death with bloodshot eyes, taking so many with them.

“They have seen him before; they know very well what he is capable of. They.. I don’t think they ever hoped to gain anything from this. I have seen that look on people of Dawnstar before. The king may not have been loved, but the land was their home. Knowing that some other people now live in their houses must be eating them from the inside. Some people started new lives despite that, but some just could not let go, especially those who lost people dear to them in all that chaos.” Einar replied.

Sam turned to her and wondered aloud,

“You think it’s wrong of us to let them fight on their own and die on their own?”

“There are times when people are too hurt to make good choices. I respect Damian’s push for freedom of choice, but this just doesn’t feel right.”

Sam looked below. Landshark had suddenly thrown his sharp fins and created hundreds of big sharks that were swallowing people whole as they ran for their lives.

“If more than half of them turn back, we will save them.” He said resolutely.

It was Einar’s turn to snap her face towards him.

“It’s Empire territory; the treaty may not be broken, but there is no excuse we can give for this. There will be no trust left between us after this.”

“We save all who ask,” Sam said, “All those running are going in the direction of Sanctuary for a reason. They know they can never outrun Landshark, but they still hope somehow they will be saved if they go in that direction. I don’t care for the nobles, but I can’t break the faith of those people. I won’t be able to live with myself.”

Einar smiled, “Well, you are the keeper now. The final decision is yours alone.”

Sam glanced at her and nodded with a smile.

———

The battlefield before the gates of town Coresaw, current time, Einar.

The mosterous half beastman broke her Crimoson Prison in seven earth-shaking hits of his giant head. The liquid metal was hot enough for even a transcendent to feel it, but this monster’s skin was above that level even.

The sword in Sam’s hand slowly became blinding white. New Dawn.

They had already witnessed what it could do in a second-ranker’s hands. And looked like Sam was eager to see what he could do with it.

Einar blasted a flurry of her large aura-sword attacks and moved towards Sam. Landshark was trying his best to submerge in the land and leave, but her half-broken crimson cage and now aura arcs continuously interfered with that plan.

“Do it already, he is too slippery,” Einar shouted.

“It won’t let me! This is a weird thing..” Sam shouted back.

At the very last, when Landshark was only 30% above land, the blinding white radiance of the sword shot forward. But something was weird. It wasn’t an attack, but the whole energy body of Sam was sucked inside.

From the other end of the sword, a giant lion made of pure white and cyan jumped out; its tail had been transformed into a long, sharp, deadly thing with the giant version of the sword attached at the very back.

The goofy smile on the Lion’s face told Einar their third keeper was the one in control of whatever this was. To her absolute shock, the Lion roared loudly and then jumped high, going directly inside the land as if it didn’t exist at all, mirroring Landshark’s ability.

From the top fin of the ugly shark, Sam, now a massive lion, chomped on Landshark and threw him out of the land. The teeth of Sam gave continuous thousands of watts of shock to Landshark while in contact. It was enough to feel even for a gigantic thing like him.

Landshark’s movement were severaly slowed. Einar took advantage of that as well and pierced the ugly shark at several places with her Crimson Prison skill. A massive tornado that combined Sam’s lightning and her storm of liquid fire burned the Landshark to a crisp.

It was only enough to knock the guy for a few moments and not a real knockout. But those few moments were already enough. Einar pulled out three several-meter-long blue triangles with runic circles etched on them. She activated and threw them at three sides of Landshark.

Large ethereal chains emerged from the triangles and wrapped themselves around Landshark’s huge body. It contained several spells like environment mana expulsion, heavy sleep-inducing, and senses-confusing mana potion liquids, which injected on their own into Landshark’s body, keeping him unconscious and weak.

An invisible box was created over the triangles, followed by a cube of a wormhole that made everything inside pitch black. The triangles had a spell that generated oxygen, so the prisoner wouldn’t die inside. And at the end, the triangles reduced the weight of everything so anyone could carry the dark prison capable of capturing even the strongest transcendents.

When Damian told her to keep one with her at all times, she didn’t understand the deeper implication, but now it was clear he knew what Sam might do.

Sam opened a waygate to a town near Sanctuary City. Before leaving, Damian had given him a Sacrium crown that could do many things, one of which was opening waygates at hundreds of fixed places on the mainland. It would only work for him and with free will, so the risk was minimal.

The crown had so many spells that if Einar had that when she was the keeper, her life would have become ten times easier. If she had to compare, with that crown alone, Sam’s powers were enhanced by three to four times. It was on par with what New Dawn did for the king of Dawnstar.

Now that Sam had both, he was on a completely different plane of existence. Einar knew even this was one of Damian’s moves. He had made Sam a suedo fourth ranker, and the other runic tools available in the Sanctuary treasury, all third rankers of Sanctuary could fight at ridicoulous level of power.

It was Damian telling the gods: ’You saw this, right? Now tell your people and see them cower in fear.’

The work of the wall-building around the Sanctuary had begun as well. With the firepower of massive runic machines they already had, and a defence of a powerful barrier—any power on land and sea will have a very hard time attacking Sanctuary. But they were never a problem in Damian’s eyes. Einar had seen that several times.

Already, Sanctuary had more people than the individual Dawnstar despite the massive size comparison. People from not just Dawnstar, but the original Empire and even Faerunia were moving to Sanctuary in large numbers every day. And that was after the many restrictions the Faerunians and the Empire placed on their people for leaving the land.

With the new big islands discovered by Damian and announced in the voice channel, the mainland knew Sanctuary had a lot of land now. Enough that they could completely leave the mainland and live somewhere safe and new.

Of course, those places were not safe with Sea God and his army of divine beasts. But people didn’t know that. Damian would have sent people there if it were that easy. Hell, they all could have just migrated with the entire Sanctuary there. It would have become so much easier.

But gods were there. And they were not free.

Einar had no idea what their fate would be like under Astraea and the Sun God’s control, but they had to continue. Even with the pressure and fear of gods, living day after day and trying to get stronger was the only way.

Einar had half a mind to join Damian on raiding dungeons, but Sanctuary was not completely stable. Other than the spies, the chaos god and merchant guild, the sun god followers, and whatnot, still made running the country each day a challenge. Someone had to stay with Sam and help him do this. Besides, she could not leave Evrin and Drona alone.

The little boy was growing so fast day after day. He could already walk and talk in his weird language.

After all the things Einar and Evrin had gone through in that dungeon, alone. This situation with their friends and people can be handled by them.

’I wonder if Garuda is still alive..’

She had never told people where Drona had come from. She and Evrin had decided to keep it to themselves. The father of the boy was long gone, and telling people would not change anything. And even after sixty-plus years, to tell the truth, they were still not ready to share that part of their lives.