Magus Reborn [Stubbing in Seven Weeks]

376. Aspirations of godhood

As soon as Kai heard that, he froze. He was certain the others had the same reaction.There was no way any of them could hear those words and accept them easily. The thing they had come to the earth plane to retrieve—the elder tree seed—was in the one place none of them had wanted to enter.

The Spirit King’s castle.

Just being this close to it was already enough to make every step feel dangerous. That alone had been reason to stay wary. But now, if they wanted the seed, they would have to go inside.

Kai felt the severity of the situation settle in his mind all at once, and it felt like fate itself making a move on a board already stacked against him. The kind of move that ended with every piece he cared about swept away in a single turn.

No wonder the earth sovereign had called it suicide. It was exactly that.

But the spirit was not finished.

“The elder tree seeds that still remain on the Earth Plane are all within the castle of Spirit King Vaelthoros,” the sovereign said. “And reaching the castle itself is only the beginning of your problem. You would not even make it to the castle gates without crossing lands filled with aggressive beasts, all of them eager to tear you apart and offer your heads to Vaelthoros.”

The words settled heavily over the group, but the spirit continued before anyone could respond.

“And even if you somehow forced your way inside,” the earth sovereign went on, “the moment you touched what belongs to him, Vaelthoros would know within seconds. Then you would have to flee the castle, the land around it, perhaps the entire plane itself, while one of the strongest spirits in existence hunted you.”

That painted the image clearly enough in Kai’s mind.

He could see it as if he had already stepped into it—the push toward the castle through hostile ground, beasts coming from every direction, the pressure of entering halls filled with more danger, and then even if they got the seeds, things will turn for the very worst. The spirit king will realise thieves had entered its home. Then there would be a mad rush while something ancient and monstrously powerful came after them.

It was terrifying.

Kai would need far more than nerves to attempt something like that. He would need an army just to breach Spirit King Vaelthoros’s castle with any hope of surviving the approach, and even then that solved only half the problem. Once they had the seed, they would need a way out of the earth plane almost immediately, because if Vaelthoros caught them before they escaped, the entire effort would end in slaughter.

And as Kai tried to think through how he could possibly pull off something like that, Veridia spoke. “All of this is meaningless in the end,” she said. “Vaelthoros could kill each of us in seconds.”

At that, Killian—who had stayed silent until now—replied, “We don’t know that. We don’t have to fight it. If we’re quick enough, we could—”

Veridia shook her head before he could finish.

“You don’t understand,” she said. “I respect your skill as a Knight, but if we had to fight even the earth sovereign, we would need to give everything we have. Even then, survival would not be guaranteed.” Her gaze shifted toward the earth spirit. “The spirit king is on another level entirely. Perhaps two.”

Then, after the briefest pause, she added, “No offense intended, great spirit.”

The earth sovereign nodded.

“You are right, human,” it said. “The spirit king would kill you like insects. Whether you wield mana or not changes very little. Humans and elves have always been among the easier races to kill, simply because your bodies are frail compared to most other species. If even one of the spirit king’s attacks breaches your defenses, that will be the end of you.”

Kai did not argue.

He had no clear measure for how strong the spirit king of the earth plane truly was, but he had heard enough over the years in the Sorcerer’s Tower to know what spirit kings and queens were capable of. One story returned to him now without invitation: an Eighth-Circle Mage who had fought the flame spirit queen and lost so completely that even his soul had been burned away, leaving nothing behind to reincarnate.

Kai was nowhere near that level. Which only left one question pressing harder than the rest.

He looked at the earth sovereign and asked, “What does the spirit king even do with the seeds?”

The earth sovereign grunted, as though the question itself irritated it.

“It grows them in its garden,” the earth sovereign said. “It wishes to turn parts of his castle into the most mana-rich place in all the universe.”

Kai frowned. “That much mana would poison it in the end.”

The earth sovereign laughed at that, though the sound carried little humor.

“A being that seeks more power rarely thinks that way,” it said. “For some, poison is only another wall to break through. Another burden to endure until it becomes strength. In the end, the world often falls into the hands of those kinds of beings, and there is very little anyone can do about it.”

It looked almost sad saying it.

Kai noticed, but he let that line of thought pass without touching it. There was no point chasing the spirit’s bitterness when the only thing that mattered was the truth sitting in front of them.

The elder tree seeds were in a place he could not reach.

Did that mean this had all been for nothing? Had they really come all this way only to find a door they could not open?

The thought alone stirred anger and frustration in him, and before he could speak, the earth sovereign grunted.

“I know you must have struggled greatly to reach this place,” the spirit said. “But return. That is the only advice I will give you, and the only advice you need. I do not know what is happening in your world, but if you attempt to steal from the spirit king, you will find only death.”

For a brief moment, no one said anything. Then Claire’s voice rose from below.

“Is there no other elder tree seed anywhere on this plane?”

The earth sovereign looked down at her. “No, there is not. And if there is, then not even the spirit king knows of it. I find that very unlikely.”

Kai’s frown deepened, but he could tell from the spirit’s silence afterward that there was nothing more to be gained here. No optimistic answer waiting behind another question. No final piece that would suddenly make the path ahead possible.

In the end, he lowered his head.

“Thank you for your help,” he said. “It is more than I expected.”

The earth sovereign grunted. “You are fortunate I was in a better mood today.”

Then its gaze shifted past Kai and settled on Aeralion, who still had not relaxed in the slightest. The spirit remained visibly tense, every part of it on guard before the much greater sovereign.

“Try to do something about your anger, child,” the earth sovereign said. “Anger is the downfall of every spirit that lacks the strength to support it. You still have much to learn.”

Aeralion’s expression hardened at once. “I do not need to hear that from you,” it said.

The earth sovereign’s eyes narrowed, though it smiled. “And yet you heard it,” it replied. “So make use of it.”

After that, its eyes moved on. They passed slowly over the clearing, over the array, over each member of Kai’s party one by one, as though fixing them all in memory.

Then it said, “I will take my leave now. Do not trouble me again.”

The next second, the ground shook beneath them as it stepped forward.

Kai immediately rose higher in the air and his party reacted immediately, scattering to either side to clear its path. No one was foolish enough to remain standing in front of something that size. The earth sovereign moved out of the clearing with startling speed for a being so massive, and within moments it was gone between the trees. Kai heard the crash of trunks splintering and falling somewhere ahead of it.

Even after it had already disappeared from its sight, the ground kept trembling for several seconds.

Only when the shaking finally stopped did Kai let himself drop back down to the ground, and looked over the faces of his party one by one.

He knew what they were all thinking. Most likely, they were all circling the same question as him in silence, turning it over and finding no answer. No one said it aloud, and Kai was grateful for that, because he had nothing hopeful to give them if they did.

Still, silence would not help either.

He was the one leading them. That meant he could not simply stand there and let uncertainty settle over the group unchecked.

So after a moment, Kai looked at them and spoke.

“I know what all of you are thinking,” he said, “but we should not discuss it right now.” He paused, glancing over them again. “We have worked hard for the last few hours, and I think we all deserve some rest. Let’s make camp and then think what we can do.”

***

Across the long history of the many realms scattered throughout the wider universe, spirits had always existed in countless forms. Some were small, forgettable things, no different from sparks that flared and vanished. Others grew into beings of real power. But only a rare few rose beyond the limits of what any spirit around them had expected. They became something that made lesser spirits tremble at a glance, something feared, revered, and envied in equal measure.

They became rulers.

These were the spirit kings and queens—beings who governed over stretches of land so vast that most mortal kings and queens would have looked on in jealousy. The elemental planes alone were immense beyond ordinary reckoning, and any spirit that wished to rule even part of one could not afford weakness. They had to stand above every rival spirit that might seek to challenge them, every ambitious creature that believed the throne could be taken, and sometimes even invaders from other realms who came seeking to carve out power for themselves.

Rule had never been safe.

Sword, sorcery, poison, curses, schemes—every method that could drag a ruler down had always existed, and all of them had been used. No king or queen lasted long by being merely strong enough for the moment. A ruler could not afford stagnation. They had to keep climbing, keep sharpening themselves, keep devouring strength wherever they could find it until even beings who called themselves gods no longer seemed untouchable.

That had always been the path Vaelthoros, spirit king of the earth plane, had pursued.

It had always wanted more than a throne.

To Vaelthoros, ruling an elemental plane had never been the end of anything. It was only the natural next step. If gods truly existed, then one day it would face them. And if it could face them, then it could surpass them. Perhaps even take what they stood upon and make it its own.

That, too, felt natural to it. Because Vaelthoros had not begun as anything grand.

Centuries ago, it had been nothing more than a sprout spirit—a tiny, fragile thing that other spirits could have crushed beneath a careless step without ever noticing what they had destroyed.

Unlike the other plants around, it had always been aware.

Even in those earliest days, when it had been nothing more than a sprout pushing weakly into the world, Vaelthoros had known what moved around it. It had felt the presence of passing spirits. It had known fear each time one drew near. Back then, a single careless step in its direction would have been enough to erase it completely. Its existence had been that fragile.

At the time, it had thought what it felt was fear of death.

Later, once it had grown beyond that first miserable state and gained a true body of its own, Vaelthoros came to understand it better. It had not been death itself that had terrified it most. It had been the thought of living only to amount to nothing. Of dying not because fate demanded it, nor because a worthy enemy had struck it down, but simply because it had been too weak to prevent it.

That understanding had shaped it more than anything else.

Somewhere beneath its thoughts, beneath even its fear, it had fed its ambition. So Vaelthoros endured. It pushed himself forward century after century, and fate, for once, proved willing to meet it halfway. It was never crushed in those early years. It survived long enough to grow, and once it had gained enough strength to rise higher and higher, it stopped fearing the other spirits altogether.

Instead, it began shaping more for himself.

it worked until it had carved out a body capable of moving through the world as it pleased, a form that no longer needed to remain rooted and helpless while stronger beings passed by overhead. And once it had achieved that, once it had truly stepped into the world under its own power, Vaelthoros found that it wanted only one thing.

To kill everything stronger than it.

And for the next two centuries, that was exactly what it did.

One by one, it hunted down every being it had once looked at with fear. Every spirit that had seemed larger, older, stronger, more untouchable than it could ever hope to become. It killed them all, and with every death its name spread wider through the earth plane. What had first been fear became reputation. What had been a reputation became legend.

That legend hardened into something greater still when it killed the last spirit king.

The old ruler had been little more than a rotting trunk of a being by then, one that spent decades at a time asleep and useless, as though possession of a throne had excused weakness. Killing it had not been easy, but once Vaelthoros did, the earth plane fell under its control.

After that, it built a castle.

And once it had a throne, it began gathering every resource in the plane that could make it stronger still, taking what it wanted, seizing what it needed, and killing as many spirits as necessary to secure it.

Now, Vaelthoros possessed every major earth essence in the plane that could help push its power even higher. More than that, it had cultivated a garden of elder trees within the bounds of its castle, and there it spent each day drawing in their mana and refining itself further.

It had been its routine for the better part of a century.

The trees had not yet fully matured, but that hardly mattered. Even as they were now, the mana they produced was enough for it to feel the slow, steady rise of its strength. Vaelthoros could feel it in every cycle of cultivation, in every movement of essence through its body.

Enough that, at times, it itched to test it on someone. Some rival or some arrogant spirit foolish enough to challenge it.

Unfortunately, the Earth Plane had denied it even that small pleasure for nearly a century.

Every spirit worth naming already knew its power. None of them needed to be taught the lesson twice. Dozens served beneath it now, obedient and eager for scraps of its favor, and the rest kept their distance wisely. There were no challengers left.

Its life had become simple.

It cultivated. It grew stronger. It watched its body approach levels no spirit before it had ever reached.

It was not an existence Vaelthoros despised. Far from it. It understood better than most that the road to godhood was not paved in constant battle and glorious triumph. Sometimes it was only this—tedious, slow, and empty of competition. A long climb made in silence while lesser beings remained too afraid to interrupt it.

Perhaps, once it grew a little stronger, it would turn his attention elsewhere. Perhaps it would test whether the dimensional walls between planes could be forced open from its side. If they could, then other elemental rulers might yet offer it the challenge its own plane no longer could.

And then that silence shattered.

Vaelthoros had been deep in another cultivation session when it happened. A great wave of mana moved through the plane—it was foreign, unfamiliar, carrying a texture it had never felt before. It cut through its awareness so sharply that its entire focus shifted at once.

For the first time in a very long while, something truly unexpected had entered its world.

And in that instant, Vaelthoros knew—perhaps, at last, the routine that had ruled its century was about to be broken.

***

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