Arcanist In Another World-Chapter 53: Wretched Mother

[You’ve entered a Cursed Rift. Shadows loom in its depths.]

The moment Valens passed through the door and entered the space beyond, he was met with a System notification that appeared out of nowhere. Though he didn’t need to be reminded how ominous this place felt through his sound vision, getting an extra message only further enhanced that sensation.

Considering the captain and others hardly reacted, I guess it’s not strange.

He waved it off and peered out into the distance, where an alien landscape welcomed them. A desolate land sloping ever so sharply further ahead, dotted by rocks jutting out of the dead earth, their tips catching the moonlight blinking from between the dark clouds overhead.

It smelled of sulfur and wet soil, mixed with a stench of decay so sharp that Valens had to manage a Blockage around his mouth once again. The poison that caught the Miners senseless was plenty in this place. Plenty, as in, it clung to the edges of the protruding rocks like an eternal shroud.

I don’t like this.

“As expected from a Cursed Rift,” Garran broke the silence as the door blinked out of existence just behind them, vanishing from Valens’s senses as though it’d been a lie. “It has a sick way of welcoming people.”

“That’s normal, right?” Valens had to ask when the Templars didn’t give any reaction to their only exit’s sudden disappearance, pointing at the place where the door was just visible a second before. “Tell me we didn’t lose our only exit?”

Am I going to get stuck in a Rift… again?

“Easy. There’s always an exit if you know how to search for one,” Garran said to him, then turned to the captain. “This doesn’t look like a small operation, captain. I can’t feel the Sun’s Blessing, either.”

“A dark deal indeed,” Captain Edric’s voice was heavy as he leaned over his sword. “This place looks like a bad replica of Broken Lands. A small pocket of it, at least.”

“Save for the fog,” Garran said.

“Save for the fog. That’s real.” The captain nodded as he glanced down at the jewel cocked into his weapon. The dark lights were back, more alive than before, as though they were reacting to a strong presence. “The Fiend must be close. I think we’ll find it waiting for us beyond that hill. We’ll get the job done and return as soon as possible. I don’t want to stay in this place any longer than needed.”

They trudged toward the sharp rocks while Valens focused on the frequencies around him. Void’s hold was strong here, heavy over the Resonance like a rock pressing hard into the dimensions, cut sharply from the sides to establish boundaries that squashed the wide space in between. His surroundings blurred when he tried to pry into the sides, wavering like reflections on a disturbed lake.

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It’s a play on the senses, an illusion to give more depth to the vision than it actually had. Those rocks look real, though.

Some of them resembled swords while some others had long shafts that would fit more with the image of a spear, though it would take a giant man thrice the size of Dain to manage a hold around their handles, which told a lot since the toothless man could even rival Nomad in height.

These can’t be real weapons… Right?

The path sloped upward as they continued, worming their way between the rocks and up to the hill beyond, the silence bothering him like the promise of a bad headache creeping from the nape of his neck.

And Resonance was full of rhythms too scattered for him to make any sense. It was as though some outside influence was affecting it, but other than the cold rocks and the dreary sky, Valens wasn’t sure what could be the reason for it.

The wind picked up from behind them when they started climbing the hill, whispering biting cold down Valens’s coat. He tightened the collars of the old thing, pulled them close as he let the Templars lead the way. Something was strange about this land, but then, it was always strange in these Rifts.

Shadows here, and shadows there. Everything’s shrouded in a mystery. You’re not going to make my life easier for me, are you?

[Foe of the Damned - Title]: You have proven your potential to be a strong enemy of the Damned. When you are in the Broken Lands, your scent will draw the attention of lesser Damned, marking you as their natural adversary. However, this also will stir attention in greater Damned, making them more cautious in engaging you. Additionally, you gain increased resistance to shadow-based attacks and a small boost to damage against creatures of the Damned.

He had a growing suspicion of this title since they came across that group of Hollows in the stretch. There was no other apparent reason why they would try to get to him when there were three Templars out in the front. By logic, these men should’ve been their real foes. Light against the dark. Filth against what was holy. That should’ve been the fair way of things, but it didn’t seem to work like that.

Perhaps, Valens rather thought, being a minion of this Blessed Father came with its perks. If there was a title that could make him a foe of the Damned, then by all means there should be one that could save him from such things. Being a Templar, it seemed, was the most obvious choice. After all, what could go wrong if you take refuge under the wings of a faraway deity?

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But if the life of a Templar was to fight a constant battle against anything that was wicked in nature, then these men were cursed with an endless cycle. Pluck a wild weed out of your backyard all you want, but the moment you turn your eye to something else, it’ll grow back. That was the nature of bad things. They tend to be more stubborn than anything else.

Valens sighed out a long breath when they reached the top of the hill, taking his place by Garran and the others who were huddled around an odd sword stabbed there right at the top. Unlike others, this one hadn’t yet been covered in rust, still shining with a bright hue. It wasn’t giant either, more like a normal sword that any one of the Templars here could use.

“This must’ve belonged to our friend who’s responsible for opening this Cursed Rift,” Captain Edric said as he tore his eyes from the weapon and peered out into the distance. “I could feel the time’s weight over the winds. We are in an ancient place.”

“Told you it’s not a small operation,” Garran said. “By the look of those rusted weapons, it seems like a shared tradition. Think it could be one of those families?”

“Hard to say,” the captain muttered. “But let’s hope this has nothing to do with the Forsaken.”

Valens frowned as he stared at the strange scene that welcomed them. There was a sharp fall just a few steps from where they stood, leading down to a dark pit that gazed back at them with its giant maw of a mouth. Further beyond awaited them a single structure that stood over this nothingness.

A dark feat of architecture, built from smoothly cut blocks of basalt that caught the moonlight on their surfaces, lined with black streaks that flapped against the breeze like ribbons. The wind was being sucked toward there as though something was beckoning at it. Calling at it from afar, calling at it with stubborn insistence. And Valens could hear the whispers caught in its waves over the Resonance. The words were incomprehensible, too faint for him to pick out, but their frequencies were unmistakable.

“Looks like a crypt,” Garran said as he opened the visor of his helmet, stepped over the edge, and peered down, face creasing into a scowl. “It’s a long drop here, captain. I don’t see anything resembling a path, either. We can try to jump—“

“We’ll do no such thing,” the Captain said grimly as he kneeled beside the cliff, placing his left hand on the ground. “There must be a way. We just need to find it.”

“Or,” Valens suggested before he reached into his mana pool while feeling the spell formulae with his mind. Gravitating Earth answered his call as the ground underneath the Templars’ feet jolted with movement. They all stared at him with questions in their eyes, but Valens offered them only a smile and a few words. “I can do this.”

He felt the cracked earth in the tip of his fingers, frail like a thin stretch of broken soil left parched for years. He carved a big piece of it with Gravitating Earth, fixed the tip of the block deep into the hill they stood before, stretching the other tip over the maw. Slowly, the land growled as it shifted to fit into the frequencies of the bridge Valens imagined in his mind.

We don’t need anything big, do we?

It was a little bridge, hanging precariously over the deep pit, but still stretching toward the crypt under Valens’s strong control. A little slip from his hold would have the whole thing crumble into a shower of gravel, but so long as he had mana to fill those gaps, it should hold true.

Ding! [Gravitating Earth (Master): 3 > 4]

Oh, how I miss these notifications!

After pouring all his stats into the Intelligence and Wisdom pair, his mana pool had grown into a roaring river that could barely fit into its fleshy walls. If he wanted, he could manage this bridge for a day, and save some mana for the change.

Best we act with caution, though.

“So?” he said when the Templars blinked at the bridge that grew out of the hill. “Is your plan to stay here and admire this little feat of mine, or should we continue toward that place there?”

“Not much of a Healer, eh?” Garran poked Captain Edric with an elbow, looking proud as though his having helped Valens to convince the captain was a feat worth more than Valens’s spells. He stepped away, grinning when it looked like the captain was about to smack him across the head, and out onto the bridge with Dain in tow.

“We move,” Captain Edric was short and stately in his acceptance of Valens’s alternative route to the other side, and nudged him with a gesture of his chin. “Go on, Healer. It’s your bridge. I’ll follow you closely in case those Hollows come chasing us from the back.”

What a cautious man! You think I’ll let you all fall down to— Uh, whatever. Best listen to the captain, as they say.

“Why, of course, captain!” Valens smiled him an innocent smile as he stepped over the bridge, with Captain Edric waiting for him to take a few steps ahead to join their group.

They moved on in a single file, the bridge crunching under the Templars’ heavy bodies, each step thumping at the path like the wide and heavy head of a hammer. Thump. Thump. Thump. That was the only sound across this stretch, but Valens was more focused on keeping the path stable than tapping out a rhyme that would fit the marching of their little group.

At least fifty feet, give or take. A little more, than it would’ve taken twice the mana for me to keep at it. So, how can that enormous crypt float over this pit like it’s nothing? What’s holding it? I can’t seem to sense anything.

If he were to guess, he would presume there would be glyphs engraved underneath its foundation to balance out its weight. The Earth Magi had their clever ways of putting those to good use, especially when tasked with heavy construction work. But for that to be a viable choice, the glyphs would have to use ambient mana as a source, which remained as indifferent to Valens’s probes here as ever.

Can’t be the wind, either.

He shook his head. The only explanation was that the structure had its own mana source inside of it to feed whatever spell formula was used to keep it stable like that. For what purpose, Valens didn’t know, but his gut told him he would get some answers soon.

“Hold it,” Captain Edric commanded from behind the group when they reached the entrance.

It was a set of double doors, looming high over the earthly bridge with no handles in sight. The moment Valens gazed into the sigil carved on top of them, his skin prickled with sudden dread. It was a symbol of twisted lines, coiling over one another, weaving a messy pattern that wriggled subtly as though it were alive. At its heart, a spiraling vortex pulled at a singular eye inward, one half of it marred with vein-like red strings.

Dark, sinuous extensions stretched outward from the inside of it, and within the jagged etchings, there was a set of characters that were worn by time, half of them too blurry to make out.

“Mother of Venerable Fates,” Garran said as Valens reached for the Apathy to manage a hold around this sudden dread. “This is an odd coincidence.”

“Coincidence?” Captain Edric clutched the sword tightly in his hands as he glanced up at the sigil and shook his head. “Such madness. I refuse to believe there’s anyone out there who’s insane enough to think they can strike a deal with the Wretched Mother. Get a move on—“

“Wretched Mother?” Valens muttered in a shaky voice. “You mean this is the crypt of the creature that cursed Selin?”

“Don’t be a fool, Healer,” Captain Edric said. “If we were in the presence of an Ancient One, we’d be devoured before we even knew to scream.”

…..