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Driving the Ostain Empire out of Voscea wasn’t even a question of if it could be done. It had taken them quite some time to actually get the area under control, not because of the actual fighting prowess of the nation but because of their tenacity and their knowledge of the terrain. Occupying Voscea for a few years wouldn’t give the Ostain Empire that sort of advantage. The only troops remaining there were a token force- nothing that could stop Stredo. The majority of the Ostain Empire’s troops had scuttled back deeper into their home territory.
The more important part would be convincing Voscea they weren’t planning to take over as well. Cultivators from Stredo used to pass through the area all the time- but that was what they were. Cultivators from Stredo, and not an army from Stredo. Hopefully the fact that they were destroying all of the fortresses occupying the area and not taking them over would get the point across.
Barrett wasn’t part of the negotiation process, those talking to the factions along the way, but Reina was and she came to him with a request for help.
“The troops we’ve seen so far were basically a decoy. There’s actually a contingent still here working on something. Something very important to Voscea.” Reina tapped a finger to her lips, “I guess it could be the equivalent of the Metal Core? Something that keeps this Voscea as it is. Personally I would prefer less volcanic activity, but I’m not a fire cultivator. And I do believe we would all prefer the Ostain Empire not have anything important.”
Barrett nodded. “What do you need me for specifically? Fighting, I assume.”
“Of course. And while I would recruit you for anything, what we need is a small group with high fire resistance. Capable of fighting grandmasters, of course.” Reina waved her hand across herself and Barrett. “I’m less fire resistant, but I can keep the heat away. Especially with the help of Grandmaster Iuevenalis. We still need others covering the rest of Voscea, but this mission can’t wait. As in we need to go now.”
“Then we go now,” Barrett shrugged. “You know I don’t have to prepare anything. Are we bringing anyone else?”
Reina shook her head. “The other appropriate cultivators are from Voscea to begin with, and they’re taking the opportunity to drive out the rest of the Ostain Empire. Personally, I just think they’re afraid to go into a tier 7 danger zone.”
Barrett raised an eyebrow. “Tier 7? Amazing. Also, I suppose that means I should leave my magic bag somewhere. It’s durable, but not… that durable.”
“I’d say leave it with me… but I probably can’t carry it.”
Barrett nodded. “Not comfortably. Though I have little reason to carry huge amounts of metal anymore, so it’s lighter than it used to be. And we could dump out the rocks.” Barrett reached into his bag and pulled out a box. “Keep these for me. Vitality pears. Just in case. If I need them I’ll ask for it… or if it’s an emergency just make sure you keep absolutely all energy and magic away from them as you toss chunks in my mouth.”
Reina sighed, “Please don’t collapse to that point.”
“I promise to try to avoid it,” Barrett nodded. “That’s all I can say.” Barrett reached his hand into his bag and pulled out a big ball of stone pits, all stuck together. They didn’t naturally do so, but it wasn’t hard to make them cling to each other. “I’ll leave my bag with someone up here.”
—–
“This is nice,” Barrett said. They had gone down deep tunnels which so far had led them many kilometers into the earth. They were being led by a man named Nathaniel with blackened skin, a native of Voscea. His skin didn’t seem to be naturally that way, but instead burnt that way over long years of training. It didn’t seem terribly unhealthy at the current moment, but Barrett wasn’t sure what sort of training method caused skin to darken as if burnt. Though of course being a native of Voscea it was easy to assume it had something to do with fire.
Reina rolled her eyes at Barrett’s comment, “You’re not even doing anything.” Wind swirled around them, keeping away the heat while Grandmaster Iuevenalis kept down the temperature with his cold magic. Barrett was just staying in the center with them and keeping cool.
While it was true that he technically wasn’t doing anything… that was because he didn’t need to. But as they went deeper and the temperature increased he made the air part of himself. He was able to draw energy out of one side and use it to lower the energy of another side, minimizing the amount of stamina of his own he actually had to spend.
Nathaniel cautioned the group, “We will soon begin to encounter living gouts of flame. They will be a constant bother as we go further in, and are likely to be quite agitated. I suggest we fight our way through them as quickly as possible to reach our destination.”
Exactly as predicted fire elementals began to appear in front of them. Nathaniel himself was the first to engage them in combat, stabbing his arms into them and tearing them apart. Flame wasn’t normally something that could be considered tangible, but Barrett had his own abilities to do something similar.
Before Barrett attacked, he lowered the heat transferring ability of his weapon and armor. While fire might still damage him, at least it wouldn’t easily build up on his armor or move down his weapon. And fire on the level of the first elementals to appear wouldn’t even cause him trouble. Barrett formed his weapon into a halberd, chopping vertically through one of the shapes of fire ahead, cutting it in half. Barrett had many bad experiences with fire, but he’d built up a significant resistance to it… and he’d kept up that training. He wasn’t afraid of fire anymore, but he certainly didn’t like it.
Reina and Iuevenalis concentrated on keeping the temperatures around them at a manageable level. Barrett and Nathaniel had no trouble taking out the fire elementals at their current rate of appearance.
As they moved even deeper underground, the walls themselves looked like they could melt any time. Barrett wondered why they did not, and felt a bit of magic in them. So the path they were on wasn’t the natural caves it seemed to represent, but something dug out. Likely long in the past. Reina floated just above the ground, so she did not have to directly touch the extremely hot surface. It was practically magma, but not liquid. Negating the heat on the ground as they moved would be both futile and a waste of effort. Iuevenalis managed to form something like blocks of ice on his feet, which he used to slide along the ground, leaving behind a trail of steam but preventing him from using too much magic.
The fire elementals which had started off merely as balls of floating or rolling fire took more concrete forms. Vaguely humanoid shapes or fiery hounds. The humanoid shapes tossed balls of fire ahead, while the hounds breathed fire as they got close… but both Barrett and Nathaniel could resist their attacks well enough. They only had trouble when the rate of elementals appearing was so high that they had to constantly be attacking- so Reina and Iuevenalis joined in on the fight.
Reina sliced them in two with a sweep of her sword and wind. They didn’t separate so cleanly, but the wind kept the elementals dispersed long enough to lose animation and merely become unpleasant bursts of heat.
“We need to pick up the pace,” Nathaniel warned. “They’re too numerous… which makes me nervous about the barrier being broken through. If they manage to take away the source of power…”
The group sped up, slicing their way through enemies as they ran at full speed. The surface of the twisting tunnels they followed were now glowing white hot. The air was acrid and hard to breathe, though Reina helped to filter the air.
Barrett didn’t bother cooling the air headed for his lungs. It burned… but only briefly. His lungs were in a constant state of regrowth, and he just had to get used to it. He wondered if he could come back to this place to train in the future… but now wouldn’t be a good time to ask, with invaders trying to take away what made Voscea the way it was.
Finally the tunnel opened up into a large chamber, just in time for them to see a figure slipping into the pool of magma. Three more remained in the chamber, facing the group. One of them immediately moved towards Nathaniel, swinging his sword. Nathaniel deflected the attack with fire energy, countering with a burning punch of his own. One of the other figures waved his arm, pulling a large ball of magma out of the pool behind her. The ball of magma was tossed towards them, but Grandmaster Iuevenalis waved his hand. A cone of ice sprayed out from his hand and the ball of magma froze over and instantly shattered, falling onto the floor and once again melting into little puddles of magma.
The final figure was another woman, who seemed to be controlling the heat in the area. Barrett could see the heat waves twisting and turning, and he felt his movements slow… though that was counteracted by Reina.
Nathaniel was clearly worried about the figure in the magma, but before he could do anything Barrett ran ahead. There was sufficient room to get around the group, and he dived into the magma before they could stop him. Of course, magma wasn’t a material made for diving. It was still rock, after all, if melted. It was thick and viscous… but it wasn’t really harder to swim in than the Metal Sea. With his ability to make it part of himself, Barrett reduced its viscosity and slid through it like it was regular water. Of course, it was very much not. The heat was on a level he had never felt before, except perhaps a brief moment from the Emperor’s attacks. It was many times hotter than the previous time he’d been on the surface of magma in the caldera of a normal volcano. However, he had someone to catch so he couldn’t think about the unpleasantness of the situation. He focused on the energy they emanated, only slightly different from the magma around them… but definitely a person and not natural. And there was something else ahead too. Something he couldn’t let them reach.
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