Principled Jewellery

"I know what I am doing okay? It was disgusting to pry open his mouth, so I didn't bother to do it. Anything he does is pretty much useless before me, so why should I bother to dirty my hands?" Grekas Toenil said as he increased the force that acted on David Washer.

The formless force pressed his body from all sides while producing creaking sounds that resulted from his bones grating against each other.

"Whatever floats your boat." Calymark Flincher shrugged her shoulders and walked towards a compartment where the corpse of Stephen was being investigated. Three people wore colourful jewels on their necks and the energy within their bodies poured into the jewels and transformed into a rainbow-coloured beam that gushed into Stephen's head.

Slowly, a screen appeared above Stephen's head that began to play the scenes from his memory from the moment of his death in reverse. Calymark Flincher commanded them to raise the speed of images flashing within the screen. All she wanted was to first copy the contents of his memory into a portable device that they could use to investigate in detail without trouble.

"…Stop!" The person that controlled the screen perfectly stopped the image flashing on it in response to Calymark Flincher's command.

"Zoom here," On her command, the person zoomed a certain part of the image. Taking a closer look, the eyes of Calymark Flincher widened in shock while her body shuddered in fear. Without any notice, she abruptly activated her ability in full force and rushed out of the compartment and dived into the river below.

"What the…? What happened to this woman?" Grekas Toenil wondered in amusement as he saw her figure jump into the river water, but for some reason, he thought he should be cautious. He knew that woman wouldn't act without reason based on his experience with her for the past few days.

"I…told you before right…this Lord is stronger than you…think…" David Washer weekly mumbled when the veins all over his body shattered in an instant while his body melted into a puddle of blood. The puddle of blood was then sucked into a small stone that flashed with a radiant hue.

"This..!" Grekas Toenil sucked in a breath of shock as he gazed at the figure that he had captured melt into a small stone in an instant. The sequence of events baffled him.

Decisively, he lowered the pirate ship he had lifted up with his formless force and converged his energy around him and erected a force-field surrounding his body in preparation for whatever might happen next.

The stone flickered for an instant as runes flashed across its surface and formed into the image of a room. The image of the sealed room began to break in response to the cracks that formed across the stone.

"A Sealed Room? Why the hell is something like that in the hands of a measly pirate?" Grekas Toenil exclaimed in alarm as he abruptly shot towards the sky. He went all out and expended the vast reserves of energy stored in his body to raise his altitude to as high as he could.

The surrounding soldiers could only watch with their eyes agape at the mystical phenomenon as the stone flashing with a radiant hue shattered into numerous fragments.

Energy exploded from its centre and constructed a room in the air. It looked like an ordinary room seen inside cargo ships but the aura that emanated from it meant otherwise.

The room began to crack in a matter of Ticks as bursts of energy leaked out of the cracks. Each outburst of energy cracked the surroundings as if it was a piece of glass that was repeatedly being hammered by a heavy metal object.

The room suspended in the air turned transparent before vanishing altogether. The bursts of energy that had leaked into the surroundings also dissolved in the air. Just when the soldiers thought that the calamity had passed on, they heard a loud crack resound from their surroundings.

When they looked towards the source, their souls almost left their bodies upon witnessing a phenomenon where even the fragment of reality was being twisted while the blanket of space was being shredded into bits.

With a bang, endless energy from the void gushed through the space cracks and engulfed their surroundings, disintegrating any matter that they touched.

All life forms ceased to exist in an instant the moment they came into contact with the energies of the void. The river water in the area was disintegrated into nullity while the river water from beyond gushed towards the region and was further disintegrated.

Suddenly, various runes flashed into existence and rushed towards the cracks in space and began to mend them. A few Chants later, the space was restored to its initial condition but the damage was already done by now.

A huge volume of the river water had been disintegrated until the riverbed was exposed. Chaotic energies intermixed in the region and seemed to be forming their own ecosystem after interacting with the runes that made the framework of the region.

The surrounding river water no longer tried to gush into the area, as if they had established an equilibrium with the chaotic energies that swirled in the region.

In a circular area with a radius of 20 Sitra, the chaotic energies of the void had established a habitat for themselves where no life form could dare approach.

Grekas Toenil took a long while to calm his beating heart as he gazed at the sea of swirling energies from the void just before his face. If the runes of the world had acted an instant later, then he would have kissed his life goodbye.

Even now, he dared not step closer, afraid that he would be sucked into it. Grekas Toenil continued to fly higher and higher until he felt safe. He then took a ring out of his pocket and inserted it on of his finger. Energy gushed into the ring from his body as a faint light converged before him and took on the shape of an eye.

The eye calmly gazed at the mysterious habitat that had formed below as it zoomed towards many locations and recorded everything in detail. After a long time had passed and when he felt like he had recorded enough, Grekas Toenil pocketed his ring and began to fly towards his home.

'It is not possible for something like a Sealed Room to end up in the hands of a commoner, that too, in the hands of a lowly pirate. Is it a conspiracy of one of the noble houses or a plan of an enemy kingdom? I have to report it His Majesty immediately.' Grekas Toenil picked up another ring from his pocket and wore it on his finger.

…

Hipsink River, Great-Dust Reef; a figure wrapped in a layer of energy continued to silently float along the water surface. The figure was half-a-Dobin tall and seemed to be 10 years old. She was dressed in a casual gown with only an Aluminium bracelet strapped on her right hand.

The figure currently looked to be dozing off as the energy membrane shielded her from all external threats and proceeded to swim in a certain direction. Suddenly, the membrane wrapped around her began to shake like a leaf caught in a storm.

The violent jerks abruptly woke up the girl as she brushed aside a lock of Chestnut-Brown hair that had covered her face. A set of dark-brown eyes flashed open as tears uncontrollably leaked out of them.

"Dad, why did you leave me? Did we have no other choice but to do this?" The girl continued to sob when the membrane surrounding her popped open like a balloon. Immediately, the surrounding river water drowned her.

"Gaah," Caught by surprise, Sarah began to drown. She hurriedly flailed her hands in fright when the instincts drilled into her body since childhood overcame her fright and slowly oriented her body. Not a Tick later, her body surfaced. This was the characteristic of the Hipsink River.

The name of the river was derived from the fact that a person would only be submerged until his hips irrespective of how heavy his body weight was. As long as he maintained balance, he would never fully sink into the river.

As she inspected her surroundings and spotted the thing that seemed to the river bed placed only a Dobin below her, the gears in her brain churned before she remembered the place she had arrived to.

"I have come all the way to the Great-Dust Reef?" The eyes of Sarah widened in shock. She had arrived a great distance from where their ship was surrounded by enemies. Her father wasn't strong enough to send her all the way till here. She couldn't understand how he had managed to do so.

The moment she thought about her father, tears once again streaked out of her eyes and clouded her vision. Based on what he had said to her, he was probably dead by now.

"Father…" Sarah trembled in fright as something brushed past her feet. She instinctively retracted her feet and gazed below only to discover that it was a stalk of grass that had frightened her.

"A stalk of grass…? Here?" Sarah wondered in surprise as the Great-Dust Reef was famed for being a place incapable of sustaining life. If a grown man completely submerged himself underwater, his feet would touch the river bed. It was akin to shallow waters where nothing grew and a place that marine life avoided altogether.

But the mysterious part of this river bed was that it was filled with a special type of sand that lacked any nutrients to sustain life. Moreover, each grain of this sand weighed as much as a newborn baby. It was named as the Ash-Grey Sand thanks to its Ash grey colour.

It was one of the safest places among the Hipsink River due to the lack of any marine creatures that roamed here. But, it was also rumoured to house numerous treasure beneath the Ash-Grey Sands. Anyone capable enough to dig through them would always roam in these regions to unearth mystical treasures.

"This might be a treasure. Father mentioned that I should quickly hide such stuff before other people come to notice it." Sarah thought as she controlled the orientation of her body and dived in.

She had to struggle to go below and finally catch hold of the stalk of grass. She then had to exert strength into her hands and pull, but the stalk of grass stood rooted to the spot. Sarah took a moment to compose herself as she dived further down and placed her hands just next to the place where the stalk of grass was rooted in the Ash-Grey Sands.

Energy rushed towards her hands and invoked a physical phenomenon as she mentally bellowed the name of the Skill her father had imparted to her.

Divine Might!