Depthless Hunger

Chapter 243: Beginning a Clandestine Mission

After the early agreement there were negotiations, arguments, and briefings, but the core of their decision had been made in the jungle. As far as Kai understood, they were going to strike at a pass between the Commonwealth and the Elven Wilds, taking down a small fortress and capturing the strange anti-glamour technology.

That task would almost certainly put them up against a true demon.

So far the others didn't seem overly concerned, despite how much caution they'd expressed around demons. Well, perhaps that wasn't strange, considering that they had previously taken on an entire ruling class and gotten involved in a revolution. People with ambitions like theirs couldn't exactly shy away from challenges.

Both returned to Roseport to gather all their supplies before meeting the elves. That gave him a short time in the jungle, which he could have used to visit the elven village, but everything was strange now that they knew Ceryyn favored him. Instead Kai just went back to their meeting point and found Zae Zin Nim cultivating.

"Aren't you worried about being discovered?" he asked her. "If things go wrong, I mean."

"Of course death is a possibility," she said without ceasing her cultivation. "But if we're discovered and still succeed, it will throw off the Brightwind sect. They'll have reports of me both in Roseport and in the north, which will split their efforts."

"That's what you're expecting? Then why did you negotiate for them helping us disappear?"

"We still can't fight the whole group of Earth Soul cultivators, so we need to plan for all outcomes. Now I am mostly worried that they might arrive in Roseport and destroy the crystal ship. It is a shame that we could not recover it. We need spatial storage of some kind."

Clearly, Zae Zin Nim had moved past fear of death to fear of losing her ability to fly. Since she was busy, Kai didn't bother her too much. Omilaena arrived not long after, still wearing her blue crystal goggles. It had been a long time since he'd seen those.

"What were you looking at?" he asked.

She blinked, seemed to remember she was wearing the goggles, and then shifted them up to her forehead. "I wanted to examine the teleportation totem they gave us." She slipped it out of her pack and tossed it to him. "It seems like it will do what they claim. If we can get what we need and kill the witnesses, that will whisk us out of the Commonwealth cleanly."

"You mean that it won't work unless we achieve our goals?"

"Nothing like that. But we'd better achieve those goals if we want to pull this off."

The totem itself appeared to be a short rod of sandstone, elaborately carved with elven faces that melted in and out of flowing lines that looked like wind. When Ceryyn had given it to them, she'd explained that breaking it would teleport them out. It was physically durable and took a surge of chakra to break, which meant that only Kai and Omilaena could use it... and he wasn't confident about his own chakra mastery, not in the middle of combat.

Omilaena was right: they needed to win a definitive victory here.

Abruptly there was a surge of mana through the wind. He turned just in time to see the air ripple like a curtain and two elves appeared in a surge of wind. The first was Ceryyn and her companion was likely a lord of similar strength, judging by how irrationally handsome he seemed. It was hard to tell which of them had handled the teleportation, maybe both given the distance.

It was surreal to think they were going to leap across the continent. In Goralia portals had been rare and valuable, even over short distances, and they barely existed at all in Krysal. Here in Rosemount they didn't seem to have any trouble with it, despite having more chakra than mana. Then again, it took a high class elf to take them this far, so distance was still a major factor.

"I hope you're all ready!" Ceryyn beamed at their group, though her expression was more muted than usual. "We have no current intelligence aside from the fact that the anti-glamour artifact is still in effect. Today is our best chance to strike without running into one of the demons, but it's still a chance."

"Why is this pass so important to them?" Omilaena asked. "There can't be that many demons in the entire Commonwealth."

"Approximately thirty. As far as we can tell from what's being stolen, the trade in this pass is related to someone's personal quest for power. We wouldn't dare strike at a location that was critical to all the demons or the whole Commonwealth. But enough about that! It's time for us to go."

They all moved closer to the other elf, who gathered up his mana and then suddenly twisted the world into a knot. After a moment of disorientation, Kai found himself standing on a rocky plain with crags all around. Everyone was visible and nothing looked wrong, so it seemed the elves were still on the level.

Their escort dropped to one knee and grimaced, though, as if the trip had been unexpectedly taxing. "Oh dear, I guess this is far as we can take you." Ceryyn gestured for them to check the area and then bent down to check on her companion.

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The others were better suited for in-depth investigations, so Kai just caught his bearings. He found himself gaping at the size of the mountains, some of them spearing through clouds in the distance. They were actually in a lower-lying area, since there was a navigable pass in between two of the nearby peaks. According to the plan, they would have entered in no-man's-land, not exactly the Commonwealth or the Elven Wilds. From this position he couldn't see much of either.

"Please take care of yourself." Ceryyn had crept beside him with elven subtlety and he almost jumped. She leaned closer, staring into his eyes seriously and apparently unaware of her own eyes' captivating qualities. "I wanted you to come back to prepare more, but I understand why you wanted to do this. I just hope the risk pays off for you."

"I'll do my best," Kai said. Since she couldn't see his full strength, he understood why she'd be worried. "Does it look like everything is as planned?"

"You'll have to move further south, but yes." She turned back to the others and shifted to a more cheerful tone. "The good news is that the interference shouldn't stop you from escaping. If you have to leave before you can find the anti-glamour, we'll consider our debts balanced. Better that than being captured and having information tortured out of you."

"How cheerful," Omilaena said. She'd made her goggles disappear and replaced them with a set of needles and syringes.

"Whoops, sorry. Good luck!" Ceryyn waved as the mana flowed around them, then she and her companion vanished. It was just the three of them in hostile territory.

They journeyed south into the mountains, silent and cautious at first. Normally there would be more people traveling between nations, but the thefts by the demons had reduced traffic. Kai tried to keep watch for anyone observing them and found himself repeatedly distracted by the environment.

Everything around them was rich with chakra, by his standards. Gemstones regularly glittered from out of the mountain walls, apparently not valuable enough for anyone to mine them. There were exotic plants everywhere, from glowing trees to flowers growing straight out of rocks. On several occasions he saw rocks drifting through the air. On Deadwaste all of these things would be treasures controlled by a major faction, but here they were just the environment.

When it became clearer that they wouldn't be immediately intercepted, they dared to talk again. Omilaena and Zae Zin Nim both discussed shrouds and avoiding attention, while Kai could only hope that his Krysali shroud was enough because he didn't have options.

"These mountains are huge," Kai said during a lull in the conversation. "I don't think there are any this big on Deadwaste."

"It's the largest mountain range in Rosemount," Omilaena told him. "At the center where all the forces meet is the single highest point in the world."

"Highest overall, maybe," Zae Zin Nim said. "Cloudspire has more lone mountains, some of which are higher from base to summit."

"Do you think Kai was asking about that?"

"All I said was 'mountains big'." Kai shrugged. "Be glad I'm not grunting and shouting about the giant rocks."

They smiled, but not for long, because the further south they went, the more the danger increased. Apparently only elves could sense the anti-glamour, which meant on their own they would need to guess. Omilaena suggested that she had methods to analyze the chakra while Zae Zin Nim wasn't sure whether that might draw attention to them.

It occurred to Kai that he should develop a monstrous ability specifically to act as an ambush predator - he would get more use out of that than for example Sahagin's Soul. Most likely there were monstrous cats and other such predators in the mountains, but they weren't attacked by anything. It would have been inconvenient for their mission, which was why he almost hoped that fate would throw something his way.

Eventually they spotted it: a blocky fort that seemed to have been grown from one of the mountains. That alone was impressive, but there was no time to think about that. A massive black obelisk had been jammed directly into the top and even Kai could feel that it was radiating some sort of chakra. When Omilaena lowered her goggles, she only said what they were all thinking.

"That's our target." She kept looking around the region with a frown. "The fort could house a lot of troops, but I don't see any. Scared off by the demon?"

"Commonwealth troops should be more professional than that," Zae Zin Nim said. "Aren't they used to working for conquerors?"

"Hard to say. That obelisk looks durable, but I'd bet Kai can sever it. Should we rush in, take it, and teleport out? The longer we stay, the greater the risk."

"We don't know who might be watching and what they could learn from the teleportation," Kai pointed out.

"Sure, but that could be true at any point. There are lots of vantage points in these mountains."

"Kai is right," Zae Zin Nim said. "There could be more obelisks or other things we can't see. The elves won't be satisfied unless we investigate properly and we'll just have to take the risk."

As they slipped into a silvery forest and crept closer, it seemed like the risk might have been overstated. Even as they approached the fort, none of them could detect any signs of life. There were the burned remains of several wagons lying at one side of the fort, but the ashes looked old.

Eventually they had no choice but to approach the fort itself, despite the lack of cover. No one shouted or attacked them. The outer wall, which had been grown in the shape of massive teeth, was no obstacle for them. They managed to get all the way to the obelisk, which was even more obviously added later now that they could see the damage to the structure. Someone, likely one of the demons, had just smashed it directly into the fort. No wonder the soldiers had retreated.

"Looks like this is the only part." Omilaena removed her goggles and propped them up on her forehead. "If we have time, maybe we should extract the whole thing and take it with us."

"Can we teleport something that large?" Zae Zin Nim asked.

Something at the edge of Kai's vision triggered his instincts and he acted without thinking. He was slashing a Tyrant's Claw to intercept the movement without hesitation, and it was good he didn't wait, because even his quick attack barely arrived in time.

His claw collided with a shabby bundle that tore over the ground at high speed. It should have torn the bundle-like creature apart in one blow, but to Kai's surprise it was only knocked back off the edge of the fort. There were others moving around them, hesitating now that their targets were alert.

"Who are you supposed to be?"

The cold voice drew all their attention to the side of the mountain near the fort, where a man all in black approached. His eyes glowed with demonic power and as he walked, his footsteps seemed to vibrate through the ground. Something was rattling, joining together...

Kai used his spiritual senses to examine the demon more carefully - he was only able to read the words "Bone Artisan" before the demon attacked.

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