Heavenly Zenith

When Master told Lady Khloe about his battle with the Elder Lich, he mentioned a detail that he hadn't with my ancestor. The reason was lost to me, even if he explained it. Probably better if I didn't know it anyway.

According to Master, the Elder Lich used miasma-type magic that was designed to corrupt everything within it before raising corpses as undead minions. Miasma-type magics weren't unheard of. There was one for the element of Darkness, one for Fire, and even one for Life and Death. The Death miasma-type magic could also do similar things to what Master described, such as raising undead minions and corrupting the environment. The Elder Lich's version, on the other hand, was far worse. Based on his battle, Master had hypothesized, then confirmed via the Elder Lich itself, that it was the unique magic of the Sixth Devil King. The Elder Lich was, in fact, the Sixth Devil King after taking an undead form.

Lady Khloe was horrified when she heard this, enough for even me to clearly see on her face. While she was not born until 2700 years had passed since the Abyss Invasion, her eldest 'sibling' spent many years teaching each spirit the horrors of the ancient war, at least from what Master told me. Some were accompanied by projections of the era, whether it was an active or abandoned battlefield, ruins of civilizations forced to run for sanctuary, and even his own battles. He was only a little over a century in age at the time, and he was nowhere near powerful enough to be of any major influence on the battlefield. Instead, he was one of the spirits that stood at the frontlines in defensive battles, and one of the few that assisted healers at all times. The vividly gory scenes depicted by her eldest 'sibling' haunted the minds of those who came after him, and they did not take for granted the frequently peaceful era that followed the enormous war.

Greenwood City's guardian spirit blanched, immediately stating that she would pass it on to Mother Nature urgently. Given the Sixth Devil King's attempt to corrupt the remains of one of Lady Demeter's beloved champions, as hypothesized by Master, Lady Khloe was thoroughly relieved to hear that Eric Astheme remained untainted, mostly due to the remnant powers of the [Mage King] and the original [Oracle], along with the Sword of Hope's blessed insignia. The loss of the Fairy Prince, and the Fairy Race as a whole with him, was traumatic enough for Mother Nature three millennia ago. If Eric Astheme had been revived as a corrupted undead by the Sixth Devil King, Lady Demeter's wrath might have even exceeded that which followed Nature's Mourning Week. If even the eldest, and most powerful, spirit of Lady Demeter wasn't able to handle her anger an era ago, the nature spirits certainly knew that they would not survive it.

After bidding farewell to Lady Khloe, Master led us underground to a magically made underground beast den. It was quite a walk, but the walk was nothing compared to the grand size of the cavern at its heart. Curious, I cautiously dropped a pebble from the top floor, where we were, and patiently waited to hear a sound. Of course, Master caught me just as a dropped it, insisting that I stay away from the edge. Thankfully, I did hear something a few seconds later. After a lot of mental math, I had a rough estimate of the cavern's depth: just shy of 800m. Once I got that number, I hastily moved away from the edge.

Meanwhile, Master was doing another of his incredible magical acts to create an enormous, transparent column of water to illuminate the cavern with natural, though diluted, light. Now that I could actually see, the depth of the cavern really sank in. Hoo, I am definitely not going to play around down here!

I got to meet three of Greenwood City's famous S-rank creatures, the famous Chimera siblings. Despite their power and appearances, they looked very sweet and cute snuggled up to each other in their den. Of course, they didn't even notice Rexus and me. The first thing they did was pounce on Master, calling him 'big brother'. Seeing Master suddenly buried under scales and fluff, we both were briefly worried he'd be hurt, but, aside from his already super-powerful self keeping himself from being seriously hurt, it was obvious that the three were only cuddling him. Master wasn't kidding when he said they were basically toddlers mentally, as they immediately became guilty and sad upon being told that he couldn't breathe from all of their hugs.

Unsurprisingly, they calmed down after some soothing hugs from Master. As always, the legendary demigod continues to do incredible things. The three S-rank creatures even behaved nervously when Master introduced me to them. Leo nearly fell on his face, poor boy. Ophiuchus actually bit his tongue, rather ironic for a snake to do so, and Draco took three seconds to speak up after his scaled sibling did. That cute nervousness didn't take long to be buried under curiosity as the Chimera triplets began to question me about Skyhaven City. Ophiuchus and Draco were more enthusiastic, as they'd heard about their kin below the enormous mountain.

As I answered countless questions from Ophiuchus, Draco and Leo, Master smirked and snuck away to talk with Rexus. Why, Master? How do you handle this all by yourself every day? Please help me!