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Chapter 818: The Iron Needle VIII

Laying eyes on the Iron Needle for the first time, there was a part of Leon that was profoundly underwhelmed. This was one of two artifacts upon which his Clan had been built, and yet it hardly looked the part taken all by itself. The Thunderbird had shown him a light projection of the thing before so Leon knew what he was looking at, but it still fell just a bit flat for him.

The Iron Needle was essentially exactly what the name implied: a simple sliver of iron about as long as Leon’s hand from the base of his wrist to the tip of his middle finger, without so much as a single scratch upon its surface.

However, even though it appeared simple, it was plain enough to Leon’s senses that it was anything but: the aura surrounding it was so inundated with lightning that arcs of multicolored lightning flashed about the underground chamber Leon now found himself in. The thing’s aura was so strange and otherworldly that it could not be mistaken for anything but a strange and extraordinarily powerful artifact with great command over lightning magic.

The Iron Needle rested upon a rough pillar of stone, burned completely black and given a glassy texture from the nearly ubiquitous lightning raging around. Surrounding the pillar was absolutely nothing save for the chamber itself, a crater thinner at Leon’s end, and wider at the far end. The ground, ceiling, and walls were, just like the Needle’s pillar, scorched and polished by tens of thousands of years of raging lightning.

It made more than a little sense that nothing else was in the chamber, for at any one moment, a dozen bolts of some strange-colored lightning were flashing around the chamber. Lightning of every color, from red, blue, and yellow, to green, purple, and even a bolt or two of black lightning, thundered around Leon, and even a few reached toward him—or rather, toward the tunnel he was now standing in front of, showing exactly how the twisting, root-like tangle of fulgurite pillars had been formed.

Leon just stared, his mouth hanging open, his eyes wide, his arms slack at the sight before him. As a lightning mage—and an uncommonly powerful one, he’d say if he were feeling particularly proud—this place was the definition of a paradise, with a few splashes of some ironic hell around for good measure. Even though he’d left Tusk murderously furious at the only apparent entrance to this chamber, Leon had no room in his head for anything but the Needle before him.

Each lightning bolt was terrifically powerful, though not so much that Leon thought it beyond his ability to control or absorb. All of this horrifyingly attractive power sprang from the Iron Needle, which seemed to radiate an endless amount of lightning magic. Magic just poured out of the thing like water from a burst dam that had been holding back the ocean.

Leon could feel himself almost salivating. Such an artifact, if he could seize it, would propel him so far ahead of his peers and everyone else on this plane save for perhaps the Grave Warden. His greed and desire dwarfed the brief moments spent eyeing up Tusk’s treasure collection. He had to have the Iron Needle, there was no other option for him to take.

With one step forward, finally dipping his toes into the chamber proper for the first time since his arrival, Leon learned just how foolish it was to screw around with the Iron Needle. A bolt of silver-blue lightning erupted from the Needle and slammed into him, hurling him back against the fulgurite columns with such incredible force that Leon smashed right through several of them. Vitrified sand crumbled around him and yellow-white lightning that had been contained within the lightning-made glass exploded, bathing him in the Iron Needle’s power.

His armor survived and mitigated much of the potential damage, though Leon noted bitterly that its exterior had been practically painted a black darker than any he’d ever seen before. Were his armor any weaker, then it might’ve failed him.

As he pulled himself onto his feet and caught his breath, he redoubled his caution, noting that this was only a single bolt from the Iron Needle. In the same breath, however, his curiosity increased exponentially, for it was the lightning of the Thunderbird that the Needle had used to repulse him—but then again, Leon knew that the Thunderbird had, at least in part, gained her power from the Iron Needle, so he wondered if it were more accurate to say that her power was the Needle’s power.

He wondered what he might be able to gain from taking the Iron Needle. A Universe Fragment that had absolute control over lightning had to have secrets he could uncover.

Grinning, Leon stepped forward, and almost immediately, green lightning poured out of the Iron Needle. Leon held out a hand and, calling upon all of his skill in lightning magic, managed to redirect the torrent just around him, causing enormous damage to the fulgurite behind him but avoiding taking any direct damage himself.

Then, his magic still projected, Leon began to advance. He moved cautiously, though, even with the Iron Needle’s lightning crashing down upon him and slowing him down. The torrent of lightning remained constant, but that made Leon more and more cautious with every step he took. If the Iron Needle was such a powerful artifact, he figured it was hardly using any of the power it had available to it, yet it wasn’t responding to his advance.

Forcing one foot in front of the other, Leon finally made it back into the chamber proper and expected the Iron Needle to hit him with something powerful again, but the torrent of green lightning remained consistent. His grin rapidly turning to a suspicious scowl, Leon continued to advance.

‘Maybe this is it?’ he wondered. The Thunderbird had struggled to claim the Iron Needle, but from the way she’d described the event, the main problem she had was with other beings attempting to snatch the Iron Needle out from under her. Given her insistence that the Iron Needle wanted to be subjugated beneath one of her blood, Leon wondered if this was just token resistance the Iron Needle was putting up.

Not like it was sapient by human standards, though, so Leon wasn’t expecting an answer.

As he reached the Iron Needle’s plinth, Leon was straining, but not too hard. The green lightning hadn’t grown any stronger, but neither had it abated at all. He was still managing to get it to curve around him, but he now had to take hold of the thing emitting the lightning and hope that he was able to master it.

Leon outstretched a hand, committing all available focus to his magic, keeping the spigot of green lightning from hitting him. As much as he could control it, it was still dreadfully powerful.

His fingers approached the Needle, lightning curving around them. A single spark hit his gauntlet, and Leon almost flinched from the sudden pain. His fingertips in just a moment grew so close that the green lightning was being practically blown backward as Leon protected himself from it.

And then he had it; he closed his fingers around the Needle and the green lightning ceased immediately.

Leon froze, the sliver of iron in his hand, all magic flowing around and through it seemingly stopped. For all intents and purposes, he now held a completely unremarkable sliver of iron in his hand. But he didn’t dare release his lightning magic, nor open his hand just yet. Instead, he stood there and waited for a whole minute. Only when he was certain that the Needle was truly done did he slowly retract his hand from the plinth and bring it closer to his body.

It was only when he was relaxing his death grip on the Universe Fragment that it finally made its move. His fingers slowly uncurled as he surrounded the Iron Needle in his aura, ready for anything, but as he laid his eyes upon the simple sliver of iron, a bolt of black lightning erupted from the Needle. Leon attempted to stop it, but his prodigious control and skill over lightning magic was for nothing as the black bolt passed into his body through his hand, crushing all defenses he threw up in its way like they were wet paper in front of an avalanche until it reached his mind.

The bolt of black lightning hit his brain with all the speed and power that lightning bolts are wont to have, and Leon’s mind went dark. His eyes closed immediately, and he collapsed, unconscious.

—

When Leon awoke, he found himself laying down in a black void, nothing but a dim light in the distance to give him any context for where he was. Despite this near lack of light, when he glanced down at himself, he found that he was completely lit, as if he were standing in the middle of a field on a bright sunny day. He was fully clothed in leather pants and a green silkgrass shirt—basically what he would’ve worn on any old day when he was still living in the Forest of Black and White with his father—but otherwise, he was unadorned. No armor, no weapons, and when he attempted to reach into his soul realm, he could feel nothing.

Leon bolted to his feet, his heart rate spiking, his eyes swiveling about as he attempted to identify where he was. A few sparks of lightning magic danced about his fingers when he called for it, showing that his power was still there even if he couldn’t feel his soul realm, but that wasn’t a particularly great comfort.

The last thing he remembered was seizing the Iron Needle, but before he could attempt to try and reconstruct anything that might’ve happened since then, he heard a terrible roar in the far distance. It sounded rather muffled, as if the air was thicker in this space and preventing the sound from traveling.

‘That would certainly explain how difficult it is to breathe,’ Leon noted before noting a rapidly-approaching pinpoint of light.

He scowled as he recognized what now approached: Tusk, fury in its gaze, and murder in its aura. It roared again, and Leon felt all of the air around him violent shudder, several small cuts opening all over his body as his clothes were practically shredded.

Leon responded by throwing a weak, if quickly-formed lightning bolt, and then assuming a more defensive stance, forming as much lightning in his body as he could.

Before his lightning spear even reached Tusk, the black void changed, with stone walls springing up all around him and the door to Tusk’s palace appearing right in front of him. Tusk roared again as it vanished from view, and Leon glanced around him.

It now appeared that Leon was standing in the hallway of skulls right before the final wall guarding the Iron Needle, and the wall separating this hallway from the rift beneath the Divine Scar far above.

Without hesitation, Leon turned to the Iron Needle’s chamber and began running for it, but he hit some kind of invisible wall. There were no enchantments that he could identify, no magic in the air that could lead him to understand what was happening, he simply couldn’t even run in that direction, the air in the hallway was too thick.

He scowled and began running for the carved wall above instead of making for Tusk’s palace. However, Tusk appeared in front of him, roaring out an earth-shaking challenge as it took shape from thin air.

“SMALL RAT!” Tusk roared. “THOU HAST COME FOR DEATH!”

Leon summoned his magic and sprang backward until he hit the invisible wall again. Tusk pursued him but didn’t hit him with any wind magic despite having him dead to rights. Leon wasn’t sure why, but he wasn’t going to start hitting Tusk with his own magic…

… at least, until he felt a well-spring of power open up within him. His body flooded with power, lightning practically leaking out of his body like water from a thinly-woven basket. He felt like he’d suddenly raced up to the tenth-tier, and then beyond, experiencing something that felt a lot like Apotheosis.

He could… reach out and slaughter Tusk as easily as a ninth-tier mage squeezing a mortal rat to death. He’d just need to surround Tusk in his magic power—not even using his lightning—and squeeze, and Tusk would pop like a grape.

For just a moment, Leon was about to do just that, his hand extending as his power rushed outward, but he stopped, senses elevated so much by this sudden power that even the tenth-tier Tusk seemed to move in slow motion.

‘I’m in its home,’ he thought. ‘I’m surrounded by its dead kin or kith… I think. Does it not have the right to defend itself from intruders?’

Leon scowled, silent criticisms running through his mind for how he’d handled this whole expedition. Tusk was a tenth-tier, he knew that he should’ve tried to peacefully claim the Iron Needle at least once before entering Tusk’s home uninvited. He doubted it would’ve made much of a difference, but he’d never know now.

Leon let his hand fall. He wasn’t sure what was going on, where he got this power from, but he had this power, and he wasn’t going to kill Tusk in its own home for doing something so heinous as defending its territory.

Instead, Leon channeled this new power into escaping, darting past Tusk so quickly that the creature only started to react after Leon had already passed it. He reached the carved wall at the bottom of the Divine Scar in a moment and charged right through, intending to head for the top and figure out his next steps. He wasn’t leaving yet, that was for sure, but he needed to—

Leon barely even saw sunlight before the tunnels and rocks around him fell away, dissolving into mist as he once again found himself standing in the black void. Tusk wasn’t there, thankfully, and after a moment of thought, Leon wasn’t too surprised.

He’d already started to suspect what was going on, but now he felt like it was becoming clearer.

He came to a halt, noting that all of that power that had flooded through him in the previous moment was now gone. He couldn’t say he was surprised, though.

In the distance, he saw a flash of light and the appearance of a humanoid figure. That figure strode towards him with anger in their steps, but Leon stood firm, neither advancing nor retreating as the figure approached.

Soon enough, they came close enough for Leon to recognize them: he saw the massive frame, the skin so dark that the glittering black scales around his red-orange eyes were almost invisible, and the long black braid that hung behind his back. The human form of the Great Black Dragon.

Leon’s more taciturn ancestor approached much more quickly than he appeared to be, and in only a few seconds, he was upon Leon, swinging a fist into Leon’s jaw before Leon had a chance to react, even with lightning flowing through his body.

“Pathetic, boy,” the Great Black Dragon growled as Leon went sprawling. “And you think yourself a worthy inheritor of my power?”

Leon rolled as he hit the ground and sprang back to his feet. Without a word, he launched himself at the Great Black Dragon. There was to be no running from this one, and he wasn’t going to beg or chat with the Great Black Dragon—or whatever it was in front of him.

But ghost of his dead ancestor or not, his opponent seemed to bob and weave effortlessly, letting Leon’s fists injure nothing but air. He let Leon swing half a dozen times before striking Leon in the chest hard enough to send him flying backward twenty feet.

All the air was pushed out of Leon’s lungs and he thought a couple of his ribs had cracked, but despite the pain, Leon shot back to his feet and charged again.

But again, none of his attacks landed, and the Great Black Dragon sent him back to the floor a third time, this time with a humiliating slap across the face hard enough to bloody Leon’s nose and slice open his cheek.

It took Leon a moment to get back up this time, but he did, and he decided that enough was enough. Engaging the Great Black Dragon in a fistfight wasn’t going to get him anywhere, and his pride be damned, he needed to win this. When he straightened out, silver-blue lightning danced across his body, and he let loose a veritable thunderstorm upon his ancient ancestor.

The Great Black Dragon hardly seemed to care as he lunged forward, crossing more than thirty feet in a single step, and slammed his feet into Leon’s side, cracking more of his ribs and fully breaking two.

Leon went down a fourth time, his chest bloody, his breathing labored, his mind wracked with pain, anger, and humiliation. But he stood back up; this wasn’t the worst he’d been injured, not by a long shot, and he wasn’t going to bow to whatever this was. He was going to force it to bow to him.

He changed his strategy and called upon black fire. His fists erupted with the power of the Great Black Dragon, and for the first time since they’d engaged each other, Leon saw something that approximated anger in the Great Black Dragon’s red-orange eyes.

“I don’t need to prove to you that I’m a worthy inheritor of your power,” he growled around his pain and breathlessness, “I already am.”

Without hesitation, Leon lunged forward, but just as his lead fist was about to make contact with the motionless Great Black Dragon, a smile crossed his dark face, and he vanished, leaving Leon alone in the black void.

Leon stood there, letting the fire burn on his fists for a few moments longer as he scanned his empty surroundings for more threats. When none came, he let the fire die, but he remained on his feet.

His pain began to dull, however, moreso than it should’ve.

Then the void was illuminated by a bright, momentary flash of light from behind him, and five seconds later, Leon heard thunder so loud that it rumbled in his chest. The dark ceiling of this void space brightened slightly, revealing itself to be nothing but storm clouds, and Leon felt the charge of gathering lightning magic around him.

Sure enough, a lightning bolt fell from the sky above him, striking him with pinpoint accuracy.

For just a moment, Leon’s entire existence became pain. For as powerful as he was with lightning magic, as resistant as he was to its effects, Leon’s entire body flared with indescribable pain, but as much as he wanted to collapse and scream, Leon took it all, slamming his jaw shut and forcing himself to remain standing.

And as quickly as he was struck, his pain ended, but everything went dark anyway.

—

Leon woke up on his back in the Iron Needle’s chamber, the charge that had filled the air before now little more than a simmer where before it had been boiling in the air. Lightning no longer surged around the room, but instead danced a merry jig up and down his body, every bolt a different color and feeling slightly different.

After blinking blearily, Leon took this in, and then glanced at his right hand, where the Iron Needle now rested, practically purring with power. He clenched his fingers and the Iron Needle’s power filled him so quickly that he had to relax his fingers and stop absorbing power after less than a second, lest it fill him so quickly that his body was damaged.

And from the depths of his soul realm, he felt an outpouring of such pride and joy that he was momentarily overwhelmed, and the Thunderbird’s voice resounded through his mind.

[You have done it, Leon,] she said. [You have proven yourself the inheritor of my will, and the last, best chance of our Clan rising from the grave; you have mastered the Iron Needle…]