The Elemental Source resembled a mountain at first. It was a couple kilometres wide and over eight kilometres tall, though its body was still rising from the ground. Its surface wasn’t exactly smooth, yet Percy struggled to describe the wriggling protrusions that extended from the structure’s sides before examining the whole thing.
The Source’s ascension looked rather slow from afar due to its scale, though Percy could tell that the colossal object was moving faster than a Violet’s flight. That could still be considered a leisurely pace, since the silver entity was currently in an incorporeal state and wholly unimpeded by physical obstructions, suggesting that it wasn’t in a hurry.
Percy and his companions were staring at the entity they had provoked from a dozen kilometres away. Its sudden appearance had scared most of the spectral fiends off, greatly improving visibility in the area.
“Shit, don’t tell me that it’s trying to leave the planet!” Percy spat as the Elemental Source headed straight toward the clouds.
He regretted disturbing it. Hidden underground or not, the entity had done its job, inspiring anyone who practiced their soul magic near the lake. Percy could have just ignored his suspicions and enjoyed his effective and exclusive ownership of this priceless resource. In his defence, he hadn’t expected it to flee as soon as somebody touched it.
Then again, the chorus of whispers that had infiltrated his mind at the moment of the Source’s emergence caused him to abandon those conservative notions. It was clear that the blissful state of concentration that he had experienced while practicing atop the lake had been little more than a taste of the real thing.
He needed this – the true power of the Elemental Source.
Even without his familiar’s mutation, he felt that training here would help him master his affinity faster than the reincarnated goddess. If he could somehow combine the two effects one day, it would completely trivialize the step that stumped most demigods in the universe for their whole lives. The prospect was enough to make his borrowed heart race.
Fortunately, the entity took a sudden turn when its upper tip was over twelve kilometres above the surface of the lake, flying back toward the ground. It curved into an elongated loop that looked like a leaf when the creature crossed over its serpentine body and shot towards Percy’s left.
Turning back to produce a second leaf, it passed next to its body for what looked like the final time. When the shape of a triquetra was almost completed, the creature’s bottom tip emerged from the ground, entering the loop and perfecting the pattern as the head of the monstrous entity started chasing its tail.
The Source was dizzying to behold. It kept accelerating along its length, but that wasn’t the only way in which it was moving. The three leaf-like loops began to revolve around the centre of the symbol, making it spin like a throwing star.
If that wasn’t enough, the creature’s many segments rotated along its length, adding a third degree of motion to its nauseating dance. It had thousands upon thousands of segments, making it resemble some kind of colossal millipede – or myriapede, perhaps – though there were three pointy limbs protruding from each section rather than two.
The longer Percy watched, the more everything blurred.
The creature’s body was covered in countless holes that appeared downright microscopic in relation to its size, but were actually wide enough for Green beasts to comfortably slip through. These gaps were constantly spewing copious amounts of soul mana that spread out like smoke from a celestial forge, gradually impairing Percy’s vision again.
It wasn’t just mana that the myriapede was producing. Percy suddenly realized that the creature wasn’t merely the Elemental Source of the soul affinity, but also the origin of every spectral fiend in existence.
A Spectral Broodmother!
‘It’s so fucking huge…!’ Micky figuratively gasped.
The creature was at least thirty times as large as the quasi-divine beasts they had seen on Ruby Heart. They still didn’t know whether true divine beasts were bigger, but the Elemental Source dwarfed every mortal creature in the universe. Its sheer scale bordered on the absurd, making mountains seem like little bumps on the side of a road.
Percy was of half a mind to grab Doh and run away before the Broodmother spotted them – assuming that it still hadn’t. With any luck, they would get away, the Source would eventually decide to resume its rest below the surface of the planet, and they could return to this place when they grew strong enough to handle the colossal creature. Maybe they’d even be able to take advantage of the Mirror Lake in its dormant state until then.
‘Do not make this more complicated than it has to be, Child of my Affinity. I would prefer to reach an agreement with you here and now,’ the myriapede warned, startling him.
It hadn’t spoken physically, nor spectrally. Instead, it had felt like every mote of soul mana in the area – including those residing within Sol’s cores, and even the phantom mana inside the clone’s wisp – had resonated with the Source’s thoughts, conveying their meaning directly to those who wielded the same element.
Gritting his teeth, Percy briefly considered disregarding his previous misgivings and opening a portal to the Vault, but he quickly smothered the idea at its crib. The Broodmother could clearly see through his intentions, so it would probably not allow his plan to materialize.
‘A wise decision,’ the creature confirmed. ‘Having your soul mana rip you apart from within would require but a thought, yet it would not address this most troubling connection that you seem to have to this faraway place. I would rather seek a solution that does not force me to relocate again. I have grown quite fond of this planet.’
Percy pondered over the Source’s words. The realization of how easily the creature could slaughter him and his friends was chilling, though the Broodmother’s apprehension gave him hope. For the first time since its appearance, he sensed a sliver of leverage.
More than anything else, the myriapede feared being discovered by the peak factions. It was obviously powerful enough to toy with a couple of mortals, yet it would likely struggle to resist a group of Twentieth Circle mages. Killing Percy’s clones wouldn’t help the Source much when his main body could still reveal its location to whomever he wanted. If anything, it would only guarantee that he would rat the Broodmother out in retaliation.
“Was that why you created the beast tides and granted these creatures the Command trait?” he asked, pointing at the Blue mantis. “To eliminate the natives before they reached the Concept realm and leaked your location to outsiders?”
Percy had spoken using his host’s mouth, hoping that the Broodmother could understand him. He didn’t think that the colossal creature had ears, but it had already proven capable of reading his intentions via the fluctuations of his soul.
‘The phenomena you call beast tides were not intentional. They are merely byproducts of the soul mana I constantly expel. However, you are correct about the second part. I have granted this species the ability to control my spawn and cleanse this area of intruders.’
“You nearly killed us just so that you could sleep a little better?!” Doh yelled, clearly unable to restrain himself.
‘What do you know, child? My wish was never to eradicate your civilization. Only to slow down its development so that I could continue to live in peace.’
“You think that there’s a difference?! Given the severity of our situation, even the slightest setback had been enough to doom us! If it hadn’t been for Percy, my people would have died out by now! All because of you!” Doh insisted, his tone laced with anger and bitterness.
‘And what about my survival? Beings like you appear weak and innocent at first, but I have witnessed firsthand what they grow into if left unchecked – what they do after acquiring true power.’ A trace of something ancient simmered beneath the creature’s calm words. Fear. Resentment. Most likely both.
Percy’s surroundings instantly changed, his sensory domain receding as the solidified water disappeared from under his host’s feet. In fact, he couldn’t even feel Sol’s feet, nor any other part of her body.
His first thought was that the Broodmother had decided to kill them, after all, though he promptly realized that that couldn’t be it. The Source wouldn’t have left even his soul behind, yet he obviously still existed in some form.
His surroundings weren’t completely empty either. Countless stars shone in the distance, reminding him of his time with Tiberius. There was even a massive sun close enough to encompass half of his vision, which surprised him. The brightness should have melted his eyeballs right out of their sockets, but the light seemed to have been filtered down to a manageable level, and he didn’t even recognize the structure of his body.
‘A vision of outer space? Is the Broodmother showing me one of its memories?’
A/N: Chapter 751 – Broodmother