CHAPTER 145

  THE PHOTONIC FURNACE

  “That’s not what I planned, but… it sure had the most power. A three-layered attack. The first one keeps my enemies away, then the ridiculous explosion. Even my solar storm is weaker against that. Then the lands which absorb the impact, cracks and cave in.”

  “And the aftereffects are even sweeter.”

  He sarcastically remarked.

  His body wasn’t recovering as it should be under the barrier. Even his basic control over nature’s mana was going haywire. Yet he was smiling ear to ear.

  “I need rest, real rest.”

  He murmured, his eyes searching for a place to hide.

  He fell, he crawled, only his body didn’t listen.

  It was his fortune that for a time being no one found him, neither the Red—demons nor any other person looking for his quick death.

  When he regained a little bit of control, he burrowed himself deeper than the crater he had unwillingly created.

  A few days had passed in an instant, his body adjusted to his new creations. And he, as an Elderwood, emerged like a frog after hibernation.

  It roared, stretching its limbs and began pulling its body towards the next node. He had no idea where he was, but the general direction was east, so his heavy steps began.

  The non-appearance of any foe gave him some breathing room to think. Inside the elder form, he made a hole, a burrow where he could move a little and opened the book of power. “Maybe something has appeared after that experience.” He thought, but he couldn’t be more wrong.

  It was blank as always, it had been for a while.

  “Hmm…do I have to think myself from now on?” He questioned no one but himself.

  Cooked meal! Everyone loves it.

  But it seems, from now on, he had to cook on his own.

  He wrote down in it, his experience, his method of the new attack he just created.

  “Let’s see what more I can think of. Normally, I only have control over three individual mana paths, and if I really push it, a dozen in elder form, but it comes with a cost… how many days I slept… I’ve no idea.”

  He began thinking. His weakness was that he had to stretch his own path for a projectile. The advantage was that he could bend it as he saw fit as his enemy evaded.

  “But what if I can increase the speed so much that there is no need to curve directions? Just a straight shot none can avoid like a true dwarven musket but way—way faster.”

  He recalled when he fused the sunstone core with solar energy. The blast gave so much propulsion power that it straight up impaled the red demons. Even affecting their space distortion.

  A realisation hit him.

  “Yes. How can I forget the most basic thing… why red demons, which are capable of space shifting, can’t pass the barrier.”

  He paused. And answered his own question.

  “Because the core…their hearts are made of sunstone…and the barrier is just a reactive energy extracted from the node stone, which is eventually a big sunstone. When the reactive energy collides with their core, it explodes, just as happened in my elder form. I’m used to drinking that energy thanks to the day seed but not these invaders.”

  Another thought hit him.

  “Can I pass through the Deadlands barrier if I photonise? That would eventually make me the same reactive energy as the barrier.”

  He had a lot of thoughts speaking inside his mind. But the priority was to devise a way for what he did as Elderform… the steel spikes turned missiles. He wanted to recreate it somehow. “And it has to be without turning myself into the Photonic Furnace.”

  Several ideas brushed in and the same way they brushed off, nothing satisfied him for days, and in those days, he took his frustration on Red-demons, two-hands, four-hands; it didn’t matter. Everything was equally deserving of his pallet of frustration right at their heads.

  His haul grew big, and the frustration bigger.

  But something good came out of this. On his journey to the east, he met the purple-cloaked people.

  “Hmm… Sunfall Node must be on my left. That means, the next one is council node. I need to change my directions. Go a bit deeper. The hidden village must must be somewhere after the council node.”

  Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

  He turned his huge form, dragging the sunstones he extracted, crawling over his green skin like fireflies.

  The heavy steps send tremors and thanks to that people avoided him like a plague. But not red demons. They were as blind as he first saw. Threw themselves like a moth to fire.“I wonder what are they thinking? Its like they are born to hunt us down.”

  He recalled the words in book of spells.

  “Father said, these are just precursor of what is to come next… And Aadya hinted at that too…I supposedly will sacrifice myself to save others from that..If I can believe that nonsense.”

  But the name Aadya, reminded him when he first saw her in his dreams. A field covered by huge sunflowers and the named grave. “Was that mine? But if I was a Parvian. Shouldn’t I be cremated not buried?”

  He paused. Got another idea.

  “Sunflowers, right? Big. Big sunflowers.” He muttered looking at the red sky. “Yes that would work. Well, I’ma. Genius for sure.”

  He nodded and then during his rampage over deadlands, he experimented again, failed again and repeated it like a mad man.

  After a while.

  The clearing smelled of scorched earth and metal. Shredded vines, shards of steel, and blackened petals lay everywhere—failed attempts carpeting the ground like the graveyard of a hundred broken ideas.

  Inside the Elderwood, his forehead pulsed with heat; the transmission of solar energy and controlling some thing high above the sky had strained him.

  He craned his head above.

  The half-formed sunflower construct hovered crooked in the sky—wide golden petals trembling violently as if one breath away from tearing themselves apart.

  Inside its black center, Sharpdeath turned to dust refusing to settle into spikes.

  “Hold, damn you,” he muttered through clenched teeth.

  He pressed his palms together, forcing solar energy in his levitating construct. The sunstones embedded in the flower vibrated, glowing with a harsh hum.

  For a heartbeat, the construct stabilized.

  Then the air convulsed.

  The petals twisted into warped metal spirals; the center sagged inward, collapsing like a punctured lung. A surge of energy burst backward, slamming the construct right into the ground with enough force to rattle his bones.

  “If I wanted to build a pressing bomb. I would’ve been happier with result but damn it.”

  He coughed out a mouthful of dust. And in Elderform, it looked even more bizarre.

  “Attempt twenty-two… failure.”

  The forest answered with dust clouds.

  Except—

  A chittering sound echoed between the trees.

  Hans’s head snapped up. “Great. Them again.”

  From the shadows, red demon crawled out—long limbed, black-eyed, drawn to the sound as the same way flies swarm rot.

  “I was running low on supplies,” he grinned and the elderwood imitated. It was so horrifying that the hoard stopped for a second.

  One screeched and lunged, and the rest turned usual.

  Hans’s wrist turned steel like, the Sharpdeath overgrowing on it.

  SolarStorm

  A blinding flash then a deafening blast!

  And the steel spikes that overgrown in his hand all launched in front.

  “See that’s the result I want but only from skies.”

  He looked his charred hand, withering away.

  “Yeah because loosing a hand by burning is not good feeling.”

  He shares the pain receptors with the Elderwood. Sometimes he suppressed using the Command centre in his head but it returned with interest when his senses are released.

  The creepers crawled towards the corpses.

  “Thanks,” he muttered. “Supplies fulfilled.”

  He returned to the clearing, tossing a new handful of stones into his conjured construct.

  Above his giant hand, a day seed, imitation of course, hovered.

  Around it, several SharpDeath seeds merged one to another. They absorbed solar energy, humming louder, brighter—even angrier.

  It grew bigger and bigger as he wanted.

  Started soaring high in skies.

  He inhaled deeply.

  Focused.

  Imagined the sunflower again—massive, beautiful, monstrous—its black core brimming with blooming sharpened steel spikes.

  This time, the formation responded.

  “Now add some sunstones around the circumference.”

  He started sending the sunstones to it. His mana path not tensed for not to react with sunstones.

  One after another they started attaching to the edged of black circle.

  Started digging their way towards the centre.

  The release of energy from them, turned to petal like scene, unfurling like wings of light and metal. The center thickened, sprouting the steel-like stems into shape. The air trembled with pressure. Clouds above the clearing twisted inward as if the sky was holding its breath.

  A faint shockwave rippled outward.

  Too soon. Too strong.

  Hans’s eyes widened. “No—stop—stop—STOP!”

  The construct detonated in a blinding burst of heat and force.

  It fell again. Dirt erupted in a crater around him. His green skin was torn to shreds; his arms burned with black, charred streaks from the recoil.

  He fell to his knees, panting.

  Another failure.

  But something was different this time—

  The aftershock had been sharper.

  The sprouting of SharpDeath more obedient.

  The pressure behind the construct… almost right.

  Almost.

  He looked up at the smoky sky where the unfinished sunflower had briefly hovered.

  His heartbeat steadied.

  “I’m close.”

  Another chittering growl rose behind him—more bakrans creeping in.

  Hans cracked his neck.

  “Fine. Come, then. I’ll get more sunstones… and we’ll try again.”

  He stood.

  Faced the darkness.

  And prepared for the next attempt.

  The next bloom.

  The one that might just work.