The Sovereign Chronicles novel Chapter 13

Kaelen remained perfectly still in the canopy, his expression entirely unreadable. He had never dealt with Mercenaries before, but he knew the reputation of men who made their living trading blood for coin. Fighting alongside them without a guaranteed payout was foolish; getting backstabbed by them the moment the beast fell was practically a given. He wasn't about to risk his life only to be robbed of the spoils.

The melee below devolved into pure desperation. The Saber-Tooth Fiend, driven mad by its accumulating wounds, went into an absolute frenzy. The five Mercenaries were trapped; retreating now would only mean being hunted down one by one.

Kaelen's gaze drifted past the bloodbath to a cavern entrance a short distance away. Something inside was radiating a staggeringly dense aura of Vitality. Since he cultivated The Genesis Mantra, his sensitivity to life-Aether was unparalleled.

It seemed this entire bloodbath had started over whatever was inside that cave.

"Agh!" The black-clad warrior was suddenly batted out of the air by the beast's massive paw. He crashed into the dirt, his back mangled by three deep, horrifying lacerations.

"ROAAR!" The Saber-Tooth Fiend let loose a shockwave of sound that rattled the very leaves of the canopy. A violent surge of pitch-black Aether erupted from its core, blasting the four flanking Mercenaries off their feet just as they attempted to intervene. Ignoring them, the beast locked its crimson eyes on the downed vanguard. It charged, the earth trembling under its massive paws, raising a claw to deliver the killing blow.

"No!" the four Mercenaries screamed in unison.

"You in the trees! Help us, and you'll be heavily compensated! Now!" The black-clad warrior forced himself to his feet. Ignoring the excruciating agony in his back, he burned his remaining Aether, hoisted his heavy Warblade, and roared as he charged the beast head-on.

"ROAAR!" The Saber-Tooth Fiend reared up on its hind legs, towering over the man. Swathed in a tempest of black Aether, it brought its tree-trunk-sized paws crashing down toward the warrior's skull.

"Get out of there! Move!" The other Mercenaries shrieked as they scrambled to their feet. There was no way he could parry a direct blow from that monstrosity.

"Raaagh!" The warrior's face contorted into a mask of pure defiance. He planted his boots, halting his momentum, and pivoted his entire body, channeling every ounce of his strength into a desperate, upward cyclone slash.

In that microscopic window between life and death, Kaelen struck. Dropping from the canopy like a meteor, he bypassed the crossfire and slammed directly into the Saber-Tooth Fiend. Every muscle fiber in his body was drawn tight as a bowstring; the boiling Aether in his cells surged into his right arm and shoulder.

"Titan's Vigor: Mountain-Quake!"

Kaelen roared as his shoulder collided with the beast's exposed ribcage. The physical impact was apocalyptic.

His base striking power was over a thousand pounds. Multiplied by the three-fold explosive modifier of the Titan's Vigor, the kinetic delivery was catastrophic.

BOOM! CRACK!

The Saber-Tooth Fiend convulsed as if struck by a falling meteor. Its massive frame was thrown entirely off balance mid-strike, the sickening sound of snapping ribs echoing across the clearing.

Capitalizing on the stagger, the black-clad warrior didn't hesitate. His ascending Warblade met zero resistance, cleanly severing one of the beast's massive paws.

"Don't let up!" Kaelen gritted his teeth against the concussive recoil rattling his own bones. Before the beast could even hit the ground, he stepped into its guard. The Daevan Blade snapped into his grip. With a flash of cold steel, he drove the ancient broadsword upward, aiming for a deep gash already weeping blood on the beast's throat. *Squelch.* The heavy blade sank deep. With a vicious twist and pull, Kaelen ripped the wound open, tearing a two-foot gash across its jugular.

"Beautiful!" The warrior roared in triumph. Heaving his Warblade, he brought it down in a devastating overhead cleave, burying the steel deep into the fiend's skull.

"Rooaaar!" The Saber-Tooth Fiend thrashed in its death throes, unleashing a final, apocalyptic blast of black Aether. The resulting shockwave sent both Kaelen and the warrior skidding backward through the dirt. But the beast's injuries were too severe; its rage finally gave way to a desperate instinct to flee.

"You aren't going anywhere." The black-clad warrior and his four surviving Mercenaries swarmed the dying beast, channeling the last of their adrenaline into a relentless, brutal offensive.

Moments later, with a final, pathetic whimper, the colossal beast collapsed into a pool of its own blood, dead.

The five Mercenaries stood over the carcass, drenched in gore, their chests heaving violently as they gasped for air. The lone female Mercenary couldn't even stand; she slumped against a tree trunk, her head hanging in exhaustion.

"Friend! You have our thanks!" The black-clad warrior took a moment to catch his breath before formally addressing Kaelen. Though the newcomer had only struck twice, his timing had been godly. Those two interventions had single-handedly reversed a total party wipe.

"Save the pleasantries. What's inside?" Kaelen gestured toward the cave entrance.

"Hmm?" The warrior's eyes narrowed slightly. He hadn't expected Kaelen to immediately spot the prize. He had planned to toss him a bag of silver and send him on his way.

The other four Mercenaries slowly raised their heads, their exhausted eyes hardening with sudden, guarded suspicion.

"Relax. I'm not here to rob you blind. Whatever is in there, I'm taking a twenty percent cut."

"Inside is..."

"I'll go verify it myself."

"It's Millennial Moss!" The warrior didn't know Kaelen's exact Phase or background, but based on the sheer kinetic force required to stagger a Saber-Tooth Fiend mid-lunge, the kid was undeniably lethal. Furthermore, the ancient broadsword in his hand was clearly no ordinary piece of steel.

His squad was practically walking wounded. If this escalated into a deathmatch, he couldn't guarantee they would survive.

"Enlighten me?" Kaelen had never heard of it.

An artifact of this caliber surely did more than just mend flesh. It likely harbored a multitude of miraculous alchemical properties.

"Let's see what you can do." Kaelen was desperate to solidify his foundation at Phase Four of the Spirit Warrior Tier. This was the perfect catalyst.

He carefully pinched off a small fragment and placed it on his tongue. As he chewed, a wave of intense, icy freshness flooded his mouth and rapidly cascaded through his body, seeping deeply into his organs, muscles, and bones.

Consume too much and turn into a tree? Please. He had The Genesis Mantra.

"The Twin Essences bridge the apertures, spirit pierces the void, and genesis reshapes vitality."

"Nine crowns the head, one grounds the heel, three to the left, seven to the right. Shoulders bear two and four, feet anchor six and eight, with five as the eternal core. Light claims the cardinal points, shadow retreats to the corners; the center balances The Twin Essences. Above resonates with The Astral Crown, below commands The Mortal Sphere."

Kaelen silently chanted the second phase of The Genesis Mantra, actively refining the priceless moss. Bypassing passive digestion for active, Aether-guided refinement wouldn't just prevent the petrification side effect; it would exponentially amplify the moss's benefits. As expected, the volatile, chaotic torrents of life-Aether were swiftly brought to heel. Under Kaelen's iron will, the energy began to circulate smoothly through his meridian pathways, rapidly assimilating into his core and violently rejuvenating his organs. It felt as though every single cell in his body was screaming with new life.

The small fragment was refined in minutes. Without hesitation, Kaelen tossed the remainder of his share into his mouth, relying entirely on The Genesis Mantra to break down and assimilate the staggering influx of power.

Imperceptibly, a thick, black sludge began to seep from his pores. The discharge increased rapidly, soon coating his entire body in a foul, tar-like substance laced with faint streaks of dark crimson.

Far from being alarmed, Kaelen was ecstatic.

He remembered the very first time he successfully circulated The Genesis Mantra; his body had reacted exactly like this. It was an alchemical purging of mortal impurities—a literal remaking of his flesh and bone. Every subsequent breakthrough in his comprehension of the Mantra had triggered a minor version of this purge, continuously optimizing his physical vessel. His current monstrous physical strength was entirely a byproduct of this marrow-cleansing process. Without it, mere physical conditioning would never have allowed his muscles to output over seven hundred pounds of raw force, nor could his skeleton have withstood the violent, three-fold backlash of the Titan's Vigor.

However, as his cultivation deepened, the amount of expelled impurities had dwindled. Since mastering the first phase of the Mantra, the purges had stopped entirely.

He hadn't anticipated that using the second phase of the Mantra to process the moss would trigger an even more profound purge. The dark crimson streaks in the sludge proved that the refinement was penetrating deep into his bone marrow.

By dawn the next day, Kaelen emerged from the alcove, his mind sharper than a whetstone and a dangerous smile playing on his lips. All lingering fatigue and hidden traumas were completely eradicated. His Aether-senses felt hyper-tuned, and his body felt impossibly light. Clenching his fist, he admired the perfect, coiled musculature of his forearm. The raw kinetic power at his disposal had noticeably spiked.

Whether it was purely the miraculous effect of the Millennial Moss or its synergy with The Genesis Mantra, the results had wildly exceeded his expectations.

After washing off the foul sludge in a nearby lake and changing into fresh clothes, Kaelen plunged back into the depths of the forest. The hunt for Moria resumed.

Judging by her calculated attempt to have him assassinated during this expedition, it was glaringly obvious that the woman was venomous to her core. They hadn't even shared a deep-seated blood feud, yet she was absolutely hellbent on putting him in the ground. If he didn't end her out here, the moment they returned to the Azure Sky Sanctum, she would become an endless, lethal liability.