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Chapter 574: Turning Point

Leon felt rather terrible, and for more reasons than the long list he already had from the hours he and his party had spent within the temple. No, as he stared at the grand stone doors leading to the inner chambers of the temple at the center of the maze, he felt terrible for something else entirely.

He hadn’t quite expected to see what he’d seen as he, Maia, and Gaius had worked their way through the maze. Their route took them past a few of the other chambers that the hydra had warned them away from, but when it had told Leon that these chambers held treasures, it hadn’t quite prepared him for what he would see: great piles of gold coins sitting the center of otherwise empty rooms; one room filled to the brim with weapons that radiated startling magic power, hinting at the strength and complexity of their enchantments; and one room with a dozen plinths upon which rested thick, tremendously interesting tomes, all of which radiated even more power than the weapons had.

It pained Leon greatly to leave all of these things behind. Especially when seeing the gold, he’d felt a welling of greed surge up within him that he’d rarely, if ever, felt before.

But he didn’t have time to stop, and the hydra had proven itself trustworthy enough that Leon managed to heed its warning: these chambers were dangerous, and the treasures were laid out as bait.

Even still, despite knowing these things, Leon felt awful by the time he and his party reached the end of the maze. The uncomfortable feeling of having missed out on great things had settled into his stomach and dampened some of the enthusiasm he felt for having finally reached the end of this accursed place. It was only with great effort that Leon was able to tear his thoughts away from these missed opportunities and focus on the task at hand—after all, there wasn’t much reason to think that this place wouldn’t still be here in a few months. Maybe these treasures might be worth a repeat visit if the fancy struck him…

“Jormun should be within the chambers behind this door,” Leon stated as he, Gaius, and Maia stared at the ornately carved stone doors that stretched from the floor all the way up to the ceiling, nearly imperceptible so far above them. The maze walls had also widened, making the set of double doors nearly thirty feet long apiece.

“How can you know that?” Gaius murmured, looking as run-down as Leon did—though Leon couldn’t blame him for it, given the trial he’d undergone and the pain he’d been inflicted with to act as suitable bait for the shadow cat. Compounding those things was the fact that they’d been wandering in this maze for hours, giving all of them plenty of time to think and ruminate on the things they’d seen within those trials.

Leon grimaced. “A feeling I have,” he said. “Jormun isn’t going to cut and run; he’s waiting for us. This is all a game to him, but he’s not going to leave before it’s finished. We’ve reached the end, and it’s time for the final confrontation.”

“I hope you’re right,” Gaius said as he stretched himself out a little bit. “I do not want to have to do all of this again…”

“Yeah,” Leon quietly agreed as he let his silver-blue lightning course through his body, filling it with energy and power. His armor on his legs, left arm, and right shoulder was still intact, as was his helmet, but his cuirass and right gauntlet had been mangled beyond usability. That left nearly all of his vitals open, save for some lighter Skyflax padding that remained—effective armor when fighting a weak mage with an unenchanted weapon, but Leon knew that Jormun had other things at his disposal.

As he’d said during one of his many rants to Leon, he and his crew had found many curious artifacts while raiding in the south. The turquoise stone that the female fire mage had used on Maia and the sword with golden fire she used were probably two such artifacts, and Leon couldn’t imagine that Jormun didn’t have more.

So, Leon readied the weapons he had at his disposal. All of the trick weapons he’d developed, which used water, wind, and fire magic. All of his fire and lightning spells that might come in handy. His bow, his sword, and his power. He was as ready as he would ever be.

Without another word, Leon approached the door. As he drew close, the doors began to rumble and swing inward, shaking the ground and filling the air with the deafening sound of grinding stone.

Initially, Leon couldn’t see anything behind the doors. The maze was terrifically dark, so everything beyond the threshold was just a haze of white light. But, as Leon’s eyes quickly adjusted, he saw the other side to be about as different from the maze as it could be.

The doors opened into a small square atrium filled with small statues of serpent-men, while the walls were covered in reliefs of slithering serpents, each rendered in silver with sapphires for eyes. It was a staggering display of wealth, and while Leon was sorely tempted to stop for a second and admire it, he spared the atrium no more thought than he needed to assess any potential threats—there were none, it seemed the several dozen statues arranged like soldiers in formation were just decorative.

He didn’t let down his guard when he slowly strode into the atrium, though, and neither did Maia or Gaius. He could sense both of their auras rise in intensity with every step they took, ready to respond if anything unexpected were to jump out at them.

At the other end of the atrium were another set of doors, though these were much smaller. They opened onto a set of apartments colored in deep sea greens and blues, from the upholstery on the furniture to the countless murals and paintings that adorned the walls. They were wide and open, clearly designed to be the living spaces for at least several dozen people.

However, for as lavish as these apartments were, Leon took in almost none of it. He registered a couple more important looking rooms, such as an empty room with empty arches set into the wall almost like blind arcades, but which he and Nestor identified as being frames for teleportation portals. He found another room that seemed almost administrative, with dozens of desks and scrolls cases—all of which were unfortunately empty. It seemed that this was where the priests of the Serpent performed all of their mundane duties and saw to their needs—or, at least this place would’ve been that, if there had been anyone around at all.

Leon found it a little strange. The place was bereft of people, yet it was perfectly appointed, as if perpetually ready for habitation. There was no sign of Jormun, yet, so Leon kept searching.

He finally found something more promising when he reached the back of the apartments. He’d been starting to entertain the idea that the hydra had been giving him false information when he pushed open a large set of doors in the back of the apartments. He and his party found themselves on a large stone landing in a huge underground cavern. It was such a shock to go from the opulent apartments to this place that Leon blinked in shock for a moment, before realizing that he finally realized that he’d reached his destination.

On the opposite side of the cavern was a sizable harbor, easily large enough to let a dreadnought dock, though the underground river that fed into and out of it wasn’t large enough to allow that. A familiar ship was already docked there, one that Leon had seen at the previous island diving and resurfacing with the help of a trio of krakens.

Jormun’s ship.

Next to the dock was a large, empty yard, and then a grand set of stairs with a ramp down the center leading up to the landing. To Leon’s right and left were walkways along the wall of the cavern that led to two more important-looking doors. The one on Leon’s right was probably the temple’s enchantment control room, if the magic that Leon could sense within was any indication.

However, Leon paid no attention to either of those doors. The cavern was filled with the sound of someone playing some kind of string instrument, but was otherwise completely devoid of artificial sound. The ship seemed deserted, with no lights on that Leon could see, and no sounds of work or conversation leaking out into the cavern.

Leon, with a few quiet hand gestures, had Gaius and Maia spread out along the landing a bit as he walked over to the top of the stairs. Directly across the yard, at the top of the gangplank that led up to the deck of the ship, sat Jormun, quietly playing a violin or something similar. He played a hauntingly beautiful melody, one that sounded more sad than intimidating or awesome.

Once Leon reached the top of the stairs and paused, his eyes locked on Jormun, his weapon in hand, Jormun stopped playing, letting the sound of nothing but the rushing of the underground river fill the cavern. He stood up from where he was seated, gently laying his instrument on his short wooden chair, and then turned toward Leon and smiled.

The two stood there, staring at each other in silence for a long moment, neither immediately making the first move, but both ready for it—both Jormun and Leon’s auras were towering, filling the cavern with their power. Their killing intents clashed in the center of the room, immediately dropping the temperature so far that they could almost see their breath.

As soon as he’d walked in, Leon had filled the room with his magic senses. He’d wanted to know everything possible about the place, and so when two more figures came walking out onto the deck of the ship and stood near the railings, watching Leon and Jormun, he’d seen it and reined in his immediate instinct to charge at Jormun and end the threat as quickly as possible.

One of the figures was a large man, tall and muscular, with handsome, chiseled features and relatively long brown hair. Estimating from the feel of his aura, Leon thought him to be a light mage, but no matter what, knew him to be seventh-tier. The other figure was familiar—the female fire mage that Leon had clashed with not even a day ago. None of the burns that he’d inflicted upon her were still there, indicating that she was back completely in fighting shape.

That wasn’t a good sign for Leon, as she probably still had that turquoise that had disabled Maia, as well as that powerful sword with its golden fire, and who knew what else that man might have. Leon wasn’t intending to let them go without a fight, but he could easily see them retreating if the fight turned against them, and he wasn’t sure if he, Maia, and Gaius would be enough to keep them here.

[Xaphan, Nestor…] Leon growled into his soul realm, [is that tracking arrow ready?]

[It’s not perfect and I can’t test it well under these conditions,] Xaphan cautioned, [but it’s about as ready as we can make it.]

[It’ll work,] Nestor assured Leon. [It’s a surprisingly good design from a demon. It’ll work.]

Xaphan made some kind of bitter retort, but as soon as Leon heard that the arrow worked, he shifted his attention back to the matter of hand.

“Leon!” Jormun called out from the other side of the stone dockyard. “So wonderful to see you in person! I don’t suppose you’ve reconsidered my offers?”

Leon didn’t respond, merely began estimating the distance between himself, Jormun, Jormun’s ship, and the other two pirates on the deck. He’d need to move very fast if he wanted to achieve victory in this fight. With Maia on his side, he would’ve thought he had the advantage, but with that fire mage’s turquoise… he wasn’t sure.

“No answer?” Jormun asked, sounding offended, though to Leon’s ears, he sounded almost sarcastic.

Leon didn’t think he needed to give the pirate another answer. He’d given his answer enough already, Jormun would get nothing else from him save for lightning and fire. Leon began to slowly walk down the stairs as silver-blue lightning danced across his blade. Behind him, he could sense Maia conjuring a mammoth water dragon, while Gaius swapped out the sword he’d borrowed from Leon for a similarly-borrowed bow.

In response, Jormun just smiled and reached into his soul realm, procuring a massive bronze hammer, altogether far too large to be practical in combat. It had a long bronze shaft with faint etchings of flowing patterns, while the head was bigger than Jormun’s entire torso, with a lumpy and nonuniform shape. It looked like its weight was equal at least to that of an average mortal man.

However, for all of that, Leon didn’t discount the weapon at all: he could sense a staggering amount of magic power emanating from it, far more than Jormun with his seventh-tier power could possibly be channeling into it.

[Shit… Leon, be careful,] Nestor whispered from his soul realm. [That looks like a weapon used by one of my father’s subordinates…]

Leon paused a moment as Jormun brandished the war hammer. [Are you saying that’s a weapon of our Clan?]

[No,] Nestor replied. [It’s a weapon from one of our vassals. Some Strategos whose name eludes me right now… but that weapon is powerful…]

Leon nodded as he doubled down on his cautious approach. As far as he could remember a Strategos was the lowest political rank of Khosrow’s Law within the Nexus. It was generally reserved for those who’d just achieved Apotheosis. By the standards of the powers-that-be in the Nexus, not too powerful, but by those of Aeterna, this weapon was once the property of someone with godlike power.

“Like this thing?” Jormun teasingly asked as he shot Leon a smug smile. “I pillaged this from a Sky Devil ship back in the Argonaut Sea. I took a lot more than that, though this is one of the few things I kept. It’s been quite useful so far…”

Leon wasn’t entirely sure what he was talking about when he spoke about Sky Devils. It wasn’t the first time the pirate had brought them up, and about all Leon knew about them was what Jormun had told him so far: they were located in the extreme southeast of the plane, and they apparently stood in opposition of the Four Empires. The maps of the Bull Kingdom rarely went much further than the Empires, and those that did were centuries or millennia out of date, so Leon had little idea what was going on so far away—almost twenty thousand miles, if his knowledge of geography wasn’t failing him.

“It’s not going to save you…” Leon muttered as he started walking toward Jormun again. His words were arrogant and provocative, but Leon maintained his caution. He kept his eyes trained on Jormun, and his other senses tuned for any changes he might notice in the cavern that might indicate some kind of trap. He couldn’t believe that Jormun had been just sitting here playing his instrument without doing anything else. This had to be some kind of trap, Leon just couldn’t figure out what…

“I think you might be wrong about that,” Jormun said with a smile as he raised the massive hammer above his head.

Leon immediately began to sprint for the pirate, the lightning magic coursing through his legs propelling him to a fantastic speed in less than the blink of an eye. The magic power within the hammer that had been emanating from it had suddenly withdrawn back into the bronze—the magical equivalent of taking a deep breath right before performing something physically demanding.

Unfortunately, for all Leon’s speed, Jormun was hardly a slow man, himself. He brought the hammer down just as Leon drew within three steps of him, the blade of House Raime and the Thunderbird Clan before it drawn back in anticipation of a vicious stab, his entire body sparking and crackling with lightning magic.

The hammer hit the stone yard like a fallen star. The entire yard immediately exploded into shards of broken stone, the ground that remained shattering into deep cracks that almost became ravines. Great spikes of stone erupted from the ground and slammed into the ceiling more than a hundred feet above them, causing great slabs of stone to fall to the ground.

Worst of all, Leon was hurled back like a ragdoll. He was almost caught in the storm of flying stone, but a silver bracelet on his arm flashed with light and a few well-placed wind blades, aided by his lightning magic dramatically boosting his speed, cleared some of the air around him. A stone spike almost burst from the ground beneath him as he hit the stone floor of the yard and rolled, but Maia’s water dragon had already charged in and pushed him aside, saving him but impaling the water dragon upon the spike. The dragon was destroyed immediately, and Leon fell further back as the yard was torn asunder by the power of Jormun’s hammer.

Leon almost shouted in frustration, just barely managing to keep himself under enough control to pull his family’s sword back into his soul realm and replace it with his bow.

He vaguely heard Nestor try to say something, but the roar of all this destruction was deafening, and Leon could see Jormun turning around to walk up the gangplank and back onto his ship.

Leon pulled out a Thunderblast spell arrow, one of the most powerful he’d ever made, drew it back on his bow’s string, and loosed. The arrow sailed across the yard, but the destruction wasn’t yet complete. A stone spike exploded from the floor, brushing against the arrow just as it sailed past, knocking it off course. The arrow detonated in a conflagration of golden lightning, shatter several nearby stone spikes and taking a huge chunk out of the yard not too far away from the gangplank.

But Jormun was already on the deck of his ship.

With a roar of frustration that he couldn’t hold in any longer, Leon pulled his helmet back into his soul realm, freeing his eyes from the relatively restrictive visor. He was not going to just let Jormun run away like this, not after the past few days of trekking through the jungle, fighting off his fire mage’s army, and then going through the temple’s ‘trials’. Jormun had even harmed Maia, perverted Elise’s image to do so, and even invoked Artorias’ image in an effort to cause Leon harm. All of the emotions that Leon had been suppressed for the past few hours came erupting to the surface of his current mental state, and he took his right hand off his bow and drew it back to his ear. There, bright silver-blue lightning that illuminated the entire cavern formed a dreadful spear, and with a clap of thunder that would’ve burs the eardrums of any mortal within the cavern, hurled it at Jormun’s back.

Jormun merely smiled as he turned, and with an almost dismissive wave of his hand, caused a huge curtain of water to rise from the river beneath his ship, intercepting the lighting bolt before it could hit him. The lightning surged through the water, scorching the sides of Jormun’s ship with black vein-like patterns, but with the water diluting it and spreading it out, this was nothing more than superficial damage.

“Good try, Leon!” Jormun shouted. “But not good enough! This was fun, and I’d like to continue, but unfortunately, I have business on the next island! I’ll see you there!”

With that, Jormun and his fellow seventh-tier pirates turned around and walked into his ship.

Leon roared again, his instincts driving him onward even as Gaius shouted behind him and he heard Maia’s voice in his head. His blood boiled, his mind filling with images of Jormun’s form burning to ash in black fire.

Leon sprinted forward, but he didn’t think he’d be able to make it. Someone within the ship had already started it, and it was sliding out into the river. He might be able to leap onto it, but even in his current state, Leon could understand that that was a terrible idea.

But he couldn’t just let Jormun leave like this. Not after everything he and his people had been through here. In one hand, Leon conjured the tracking arrow that Xaphan and Nestor had designed. It was just another spell arrow—a regular arrow with a spell tied around the shaft. This paper used for this spell, however, was much thicker than any Leon had ever made, but he didn’t think too much of it. As he reached the edge of the dock, Jormun’s ship had already pushed off and was rapidly gaining speed as it sailed down the underground river, only a few seconds away from disappearing into the cave system that the river flowed into.

With nothing else that he could think to do that wouldn’t be complete suicide, Leon drew the tracking arrow back and fired at the ship. From what Xaphan had told him, it would mark the aura of whatever it hit with something that would allow him to track it for a while. Leon wasn’t sure if it would work on something inanimate like Jormun’s ship, but there was nothing else he could do.

In a flash, the arrow flew across the cavern. With such a large target and nothing else getting in his way, Leon saw with some satisfaction the arrow impacting the back of the ship and embedding into the wood. The spell then flashed with a deep red light, a color that Leon recognized as being the same as demonfire, and the arrow shaft was burned away. Leon could just barely see in the dim light the arrowhead still embedded in the ship.

And then the ship sailed into the cave, carrying Jormun and his crew out of Leon’s reach. With that fire mage on his ship, Leon couldn’t even entertain the idea of going after him with Maia.

With one last loud groan of frustration, Leon kicked a nearby stone spike, shattering a good chunk of it. He wanted nothing more than to sink his teeth into Jormun’s neck, ripping and tearing as his claws scooped out the pirate’s entrails and his fire roasted him from within.

As Leon took a deep breath and Jormun’s ship vanished down the underground river, quickly moving past a point where Leon’s magic senses were scattered, he hoped that that tracking arrow worked.