Magus Reborn [Stubbing in Three Weeks]

377. No way forward

Spirit King Vaelthoros opened its eyes when the wave of mana touched it again.This time, it did not let it pass unnoticed.

It easily could have. The disturbance was thin—so faint that most spirits in its castle likely had not noticed it at all. But Vaelthoros was not most spirits. Its senses had long since spread through every part of its castle, and it knew the feel of the earth plane’s mana too well to miss even the slightest irregularity. To lesser beings, it might have been nothing. To it, it was obvious.

Something was wrong. The mana did not belong to this plane.

It was foreign, and more than that, it was unlike the mana of any spirit it ruled over. Vaelthoros could tell that much immediately. Spirits all had a different but familiar mana signature on them. Their presence always carried a texture familiar to it, no matter what. This was not that. The wave that brushed against its senses was sharper, more concentrated, more refined in a way that did not belong to the natural rhythm of the plane.

It had felt mana like it before, not as often, and especially not in such strength, but it knew who it belonged to.

A Mage.

Perhaps human. Perhaps some other race. That part it could not yet say with certainty. But the mana itself carried the stamp of a Mage’s will strongly enough that Vaelthoros found little room to doubt it.

Then another wave reached it. That made it certain—There were outsiders in the earth plane.

Vaelthoros remained still, but its thoughts moved quickly.

Outsiders entering the plane was not unheard of. The earth plane was not difficult to breach for those with the means, and over the centuries many different races—and even spirits from beyond its domain—had found their way in. He had fought such intruders before. Most came searching for resources, passage, or foolish opportunities they did not understand.

But this was different.

Rarely did any of them release mana in such concentrated waves. Rarely did they send it rolling outward like this, broad enough to be noticed from afar.

It felt deliberate.

For a brief moment, Vaelthoros considered whether someone was actually trying to draw its attention.

But nothat seemed unlikely. The source was still too far away for that to make much sense. If they truly meant to call it out, they would have done it closer, louder, more boldly. This felt like something else.

But in the end, the conclusion did not change. Whatever the reason, outsiders had entered its plane.

Normally, Vaelthoros would have ignored something like tits.

Most intruders never made it far enough to matter. Other spirits would notice them first, deal with them if they could, and if they could not, the outsiders usually ended up fleeing soon enough. That was how such things had always gone. A Spirit King did not need to lower itself for every minor disturbance in its domain.

But it had been over a century since the last outsider had entered the Earth Plane, and this wave of mana had stirred something in it that was difficult to dismiss.

It was curious. If nothing else, it could at least learn what was happening.

So Vaelthoros rose and looked out across its garden, drawing in a slow breath as the mana from the Elder Trees washed over it. The garden stretched wide around it, ordered but not overly rigid, with rich earth, carefully spaced trees, and currents of mana so thick that the air itself seemed heavier within its bounds. The Elder Trees were still small compared to the towering giants scattered across the rest of the earth plane.

Most of them had only been planted a little over a century ago, and though they had grown well, they were still far from maturity. Even so, their trunks were already thicker than most ordinary trees, their bark threaded with faint light, and their roots had begun to sink deep into the land beneath the castle. In a few more centuries, they would tower over mountains.

Vaelthoros let its gaze linger on them for a moment as it walked.

At the edge of the garden stood a great stone archway leading out of it, carved from dark rock veined with earth essence.

No one except it was permitted within these grounds. Vaelthoros had never tolerated the thought of another spirit stepping into a place so dense with mana, let alone sharing in its benefits.

As he passed beneath the arch and moved beyond the garden, he found the guards waiting where they always did.

Two wolf spirits.

They had served it for more than two centuries now, and the instant they saw their king, both of them straightened.

“I want news of the outsiders that have entered our lands,” Vaelthoros said immediately.

Both spirits looked briefly confused, clearly caught off guard by the order, but one quickly bowed its head.

“We will bring it to you, my lord.”

Then both of them vanished at once, hurrying off to carry out its command.

Vaelthoros continued on without another word, passing through a second archway that led deeper into the castle and toward its chambers. As a spirit, it had little use for furniture in the way mortals did. A bed meant nothing to it. A chair even less. It did not need comfort to rest, nor softness to recover. If it wished, it could remain standing in one place for as long as it pleased without inconvenience.

It had spent most of its existence that way, after all.

But once it had taken on a humanoid form, Vaelthoros had discovered that it rather enjoyed lying down. There was a certain calm in it, a kind of stillness different from the rooted stillness of its earliest life. More importantly, it knew that if it had never chosen to abandon the simplicity of being only a plant, it would never have become Spirit King at all.

He would have ended like its predecessor. Rooted to one place, waiting for time and complacency to turn into weakness.

To Vaelthoros, that had always seemed like the easiest way to hand one’s enemies the chance to plan a death.

It had wanted no such thing.

That was why he had struggled so hard to shape itself into a body that could walk. Even now, much of its body remained plant and wood, its form marked by deep green tones and the texture of living growth, but what it had become was far more useful than the thing it had once been. It could move and act, carry its will wherever it pleased instead of waiting for the world to come to it.

As that thought passed through it, its spirit guards finally entered the room.

Vaelthoros had sensed them well before they crossed the threshold. The moment they bowed, he spoke.

“What have you found?”

One of them raised its head slightly.

“There are humans in our plane, my lord,” the wolf spirit said. “One of our kind saw them moving through the lands near the castle. They were even seen killing a flock of vranids that tried to feed on them. At present, they are somewhere just outside the castle’s territory, and their presence has already stirred a number of nearby spirits.”

Vaelthoros gave a slow nod.

The wave of mana would certainly have done that much.

If its judgment was right, it would have drawn the notice of most spirits close enough to feel its source, and if these humans were truly near its castle, then there was no shortage of dangers that would have rushed to investigate them. He could easily imagine the kind of attention they must have attracted.

Perhaps they were already dead. That would have been the simplest outcome.

Too many strong spirits roamed the lands around its castle for a Mage—or even a group of Mages—to move freely there for long. And yet, the very fact that these humans had managed to survive long enough to be reported at all suggested they were stronger than he would normally have expected.

But why were they doing it at all?

Vaelthoros found the question irritating the longer it considered it. Were the beings who crossed dimensions to reach its plane simply fools? That explanation was tempting, but it did not truly satisfy it. Most Mages who ventured into other realms did so with purpose. They came with some goal already fixed in their minds, some resource to claim, some truth to uncover, some path they believed worth the risk. Suicide was rarely the reason.

So what was theirs?

It looked at the guards and asked, “Are they still alive?”

The two wolf spirits glanced at each other before the one who had spoken earlier answered.

“We believe so, Lord Vaelthoros. Another spirit we questioned saw them moving toward the edge of the elder forests. They showed no visible injuries and appeared to be making for a safer area.”

That surprised Vaelthoros a lot. “None of the spirits pursued them?”

Both wolf spirits shook their heads. That only deepened its suspicion.

No group of Mages should have been able to draw the attention of strong spirits and then simply keep moving through the earth plane unharmed. Not near its lands. Something about the whole thing felt wrong. Either the reports were incomplete, or these outsiders were far more dangerous than they ought to have been.

For a fleeting instant, a sharper thought crossed its mind.

Had some Mage arrived in its plane with strength enough to challenge even Vaelthoros?

It dismissed that almost immediately. That was too much. And yet it remained certain that something unusual was unfolding. Something that had reached into the long monotony of its cultivation and cracked it open.

At another time, it might have found that intrusion irritating.

Now, it felt only curiosity.

One of the wolf spirits bowed its head slightly and asked, “What would you have us do, Lord Vaelthoros? Shall we send spirits to kill the Mages?”

Vaelthoros was silent for a moment, considering the question.

“No. Observe them,” it said in the end. “I will decide what to do with them once we know more.”

***

Kai moved through the great forest with a heavy heart.

He barely noticed where he placed his feet. The wide vines stretching through the undergrowth, the turns in the path, the roots rising up from the ground—he passed over all of them without truly seeing them. He could have simply taken to the air and avoided the worst of it, but his mind was too clouded for that. If he tried to fly like this, he was more likely to smash straight into a tree than clear the forest cleanly.

So he walked.

Elias had taken over the task of guiding them back toward the clearing, and Kai had not objected. He was too lost in thought to pretend he could lead them properly at the moment.

How could he not be?

Everything they had hoped for had been crushed the moment the earth sovereign finished speaking. If every Elder Tree seed in the plane was truly in the hands of Spirit King Vaelthoros, then what path forward did they actually have? Kai could not simply walk into the king’s castle, introduce himself, and ask for the seed in exchange for a favor as though this were some ordinary negotiation between mortal powers.

He would be dead before the conversation properly began.

And from the way the earth sovereign had spoken of Vaelthoros, Kai doubted the spirit king was the sort of being who would even hear it out. To a ruler like that, he and the others would be nothing more than foreigners reaching for something far beyond their station, intruders who had no right to ask for anything at all.

The thought sat heavily in its chest.

He let out a quiet sigh and nearly lost his footing on a smaller vine before catching himself at the last moment.

Killian, who had been walking beside him, immediately closed the distance.

“Lord Arzan, are you alright?” the Knight asked. “Should we stop and rest?”

Kai shook his head. “No. I’m fine,” he said. “My thoughts are a mess right now, that’s all. I lost my footing because of it. It’s nothing you need to worry about.”

Killian did not look reassured. “We’ll find the Elder Tree seed somehow. We’re not going back without it.”

At that, Kai gave a faint smile.

“I like your optimism,” he said. “But I don’t know if there’s a single seed left in this plane that hasn’t already been taken by Spirit King Vaelthoros.”

Killian might not have known much about spirit kings, but Kai did.

And if the Earth Sovereign said Vaelthoros had gathered every Elder Tree seed in the plane, then Kai had no reason to doubt it. Something as valuable as an Elder Tree seed would never have been left unclaimed for long, not in a place ruled by a Spirit King. And even if another spirit had somehow found one first, there was no real chance it could have defended it once Vaelthoros decided it wanted the treasure. At best, such a spirit would have been fortunate to escape with its life.

If Kai’s judgment was right, Vaelthoros was at least at the bottom of grade nine. And he could see no path to defeating a being like that.

Perhaps, if everything went perfectly and he burned through every resource he had, he could hold out against Vaelthoros for two minutes. Maybe five. But that was all it would be—holding out, delaying the inevitable. Sooner or later, if he tried to take an Elder Tree seed by force, he would die in the spirit king’s hands.

The more he turned it over, the more his thoughts drifted between two equally bitter extremes. One part of him wanted to give up entirely, to admit that this path had reached its end. The other kept digging, searching for some hidden angle, some impossible method by which he might still get his hands on the seed.

He became so lost in those thoughts that the world around him blurred.

He did not properly hear whatever Killian said after that. He did not notice when the others chose a place to stop for the night. He did not even realize when Claire pressed an earthen bowl into his hands, the herbal soup inside prepared earlier by Elder Caelith.

Only when the warmth touched his fingers did he seem to return to himself.

Kai looked down for a moment, then silently lifted the bowl and took a sip.

All around him, silence had settled over the camp.

They sat around the fire on rough logs, each with their own bowl in hand, and for a long while no one spoke. The crackle of flame and the quiet sound of soup being sipped were the only things that cut through the dark. It was a heavy silence, the kind that did not need words to explain itself.

Still, the warmth helped.

Little by little, Kai felt the tightness in his mind loosen. The soup cleared some of the fog from his thoughts and left it feeling steadier than before, but not lighter. The weight of failure still sat across his shoulders, making every breath feel a little heavier than it should have.

More than once, he felt the urge to speak.

He was their leader, whether officially or not, and sitting here in silence was doing nothing for the others. He knew that. He knew they were all waiting, in one way or another, for him to say something. But he did not know what to say.

In the end, it was Veridia who broke the silence.

“So,” she said, turning the bowl slightly in her hands, “what do we do now? Are you going to build the ritual and get us back?”

Kai lifted his eyes slowly.

Until that moment, he had almost managed to pretend the question would not come. But once he looked up, he found all of his party watching him, not just Veridia.

The answer, in practical terms, was simple enough.

Building the ritual would not be difficult. The mana in this part of the earth plane was denser than anywhere they had crossed before, and with some time they could gather more than enough essence to fuel the return. If he chose that path, they could likely be gone in a few days without even finding an essence.

That should have made the decision easier.

It did not.

Kai looked down into the soup still warming his hands and said nothing. Going back was possible. That was not the problem. The problem was what waited on the other side of that choice. What was he supposed to say to Elder V’aleirith if they returned now? That they had found an answer only to discover it might as well have been a death sentence? That the only thing left was to buy time with lives? The thought sat bitterly in it.

His gaze shifted, almost without meaning to, toward Elder Caelith.

The elf had not spoken, but there was a heaviness in his face deeper than what sat on the others. It made Kai wonder whether Caelith had already arrived at the same conclusion and simply lacked the cruelty to say it aloud.

Kai turned back to Veridia. “I don’t know,” he said finally. “I just know I don’t want to go back empty-handed.”

Veridia’s face tightened a fraction. “If by that you mean you’re thinking of fighting the spirit king,” she said, “then I’m not following you. Oath or no oath.”

Kai answered immediately, more quickly than he intended. “I’m not planning that.” He paused, then added, “And even if I were planning something, it wouldn’t be that.”

Veridia held his gaze for a moment, as if weighing whether she believed it. “Then why are we still here?” she asked.

Her voice never rose, but there was an edge to it now, a hard clarity that cut through the camp more sharply than shouting would have. “You may be brilliant, Arzan, but brilliance doesn’t change where we are.” She set her bowl down beside her boot. “The longer we stay in the earth plane, the worse it will get. Sooner or later we’re going to cross something we can’t handle. Maybe a spirit stronger than anything we’ve seen so far. Maybe something worse. What happens then? Do we keep gambling everyone’s lives because you can’t accept when a path is closed?”

Kai felt his expression harden as she spoke, but he did not interrupt.

No one else did either.

That, more than her words, pressed at him. The silence from the others. No objections. No one telling her she had gone too far. When he looked at Veridia properly, he saw no hesitation in her eyes, only a challenge. The mana oath might have bound her hands in many ways, but it had never taken her tongue.

For one brief, ugly moment, anger surged through him.

He wanted to bite back. To tell her to shut up. To ask whether she thought he did not understand the danger. A harsher part of him wanted even more than that—wanted to throw a spell at her feet, or near her face, just to crack that calm expression and remind everyone there that he was still the one leading them.

The thought passed almost as soon as it came.

Kai exhaled through his nose, lowered the bowl from his hands, and set it carefully on the ground beside him. After that he looked away from the fire, past the edge of the camp, toward the trees standing in the dark beyond them.

When he spoke, his voice was quieter than before. “Give me a few hours,” he said. “I’ll come back.”

That was all.

Before anyone could answer, Kai rose, mana gathering around him almost on instinct, and a moment later he was gone, flying out into the darkness beyond the camp.

***

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