Chapter 130: The Luminious wardens
The moment they stepped through the massive stone door, the world vanished.
There was no sensation of falling, no feeling of movement. One instant they were standing in the cold, dusty crypt of a ruined castle, and the next, they were floating in an endless, silent void.
The air, the ground, the very concepts of up and down, were gone. It was a place of absolute nothingness.
Rhys’s hand was still holding Emma’s. His grip was a firm, steady anchor in the disorienting emptiness.
He immediately held up his other hand, and a small, stable ball of his Voidheart Flame appeared.
Its black and silver light pushed back the oppressive darkness, illuminating the strange new reality they found themselves in.
They were floating in a vast, starless black space. Below them, stretching out into the infinite distance, was a bridge made of solidified, milky-white light.
It was about thirty feet wide and seemed to have no beginning and no end. In the far distance, he could see other, identical bridges, crossing and intersecting at strange angles, forming a colossal, silent network.
At regular intervals along their own bridge, and along all the others he could see, were identical stone doorways.
They were perfect circles of black stone, just like the one they had come through, each one floating silently in the void.
This was the portal network, the secret her mother had discovered. It was a world between worlds.
"This is it," Emma whispered, her voice sounding small and thin in the vast emptiness.
She was holding the ancient leather-bound book tightly in her other hand. "The Aetherium Weave."
"Where do we go?" Rhys asked. The sheer number of doorways was overwhelming.
Choosing the wrong one could lead them anywhere in the universe, or nowhere at all.
"The key is in the book," she said, her voice gaining a new confidence.
She opened the book. The pages were filled with her mother’s neat, precise handwriting, and with complex diagrams of runes and star charts.
The Voidheart Flame floated closer, providing her with enough light to read.
Rhys stood guard, his senses expanded. He was watching the empty void around them, his mind alert for any sign of danger.
This place felt ancient and empty, but he did not trust the silence.
Emma ran her finger over a complex diagram on the page.
"The portals are not random," she explained, her voice a low murmur of concentration.
Each one is marked with a series of microscopic runes, carved around the edge of the stone. They are almost invisible to the naked eye.
The runes correspond to a specific celestial alignment, a map of the stars as they were thousands of years ago. My mother spent twenty years deciphering them."
She looked up from the book, her green eyes scanning the nearest floating doorway.
"The book contains the charts. I just need to match the runes on the door to the right chart to find our destination."
She walked to the edge of the light-bridge, peering at the closest doorway.
Rhys followed, his own eyes trying to see the runes she spoke of. He could see nothing but smooth, black stone.
"They are only visible when exposed to a specific frequency of spiritual energy," she said.
She placed her hand on the stone arch of the doorway. She closed her eyes, and a faint, golden light, the light of her Soul Inquiry trait, emanated from her palm.
For a moment, nothing happened. Then, a series of tiny, intricate symbols began to glow with a soft, silver light around the edge of the portal.
They were complex and ancient, unlike any writing Rhys had ever seen.
Emma studied them for a moment, then looked back at her book, her brow furrowed in concentration.
"Not this one," she said after a moment. "This leads to a volcanic region in the far north. A dead end."
They moved to the next portal. The process was slow and painstaking. Emma would activate the runes, compare them to her mother’s charts, and then they would move on.
They checked a dozen different doorways. Each one, according to the book, led to a dangerous or useless location: a desert of black sand, a mountain peak so high the air was unbreathable, an island in the middle of a poison sea.
Finally, after nearly an hour of careful work, she found it.
"This is it," she said, her voice tight with a mixture of excitement and relief. She pointed to a set of glowing runes.
"This sequence matches the charts for a stable exit point on the western edge of the Boneyard Desert. This is our way out."
Rhys looked at the portal. It looked exactly like all the others. A perfect circle of silent, empty blackness.
"Are you sure?"
"I am sure," she said, her confidence absolute. This was her mother’s legacy, her life’s work. She trusted it completely.
"Then let’s go," Rhys said.
But before they could take a step towards the portal, the light-bridge they were standing on began to hum.
The milky-white light grew brighter, and the air around them grew thick with a powerful, ancient energy.
Rhys immediately pushed Emma behind him, his iron sword in his hand.
He stared at the center of the bridge, his body tense.
The light of the pathway itself began to gather, to coalesce. It swirled together, rising up from the surface of the bridge like a small whirlwind of pure, golden light.
It formed two distinct, humanoid shapes.
They were tall and slender, made of a solid, glowing golden light. They had no faces, just smooth, featureless surfaces.
They held long spears of solidified light in their hands, and they moved with a silent, purposeful grace.
They were the Luminous Wardens, the ancient guardians of the Weave.
Without a sound, without a warning, they attacked. They moved with an incredible speed, their forms blurring as they shot across the light-bridge towards Rhys and Emma.
Rhys met their charge. He held up his other hand, and the Twilight Edge blade, his new, secret weapon, formed in his palm.
He threw the small, black blade at the first Warden.
The shadow blade flew silently through the void. It struck the Warden in the center of its chest.
Flash.
A brilliant, blinding burst of pure white light erupted from the point of impact. It was the devastating, unexpected second stage of his attack.
But the Warden did not even flinch. The holy light of the Twilight Edge’s burst washed over its golden, light-based body and did absolutely nothing.
The Warden was completely immune.
Rhys’s eyes widened in surprise. This was the first time his new power had failed. He had no time to think.
The Warden’s light-spear was already thrusting towards his heart.
He used Shadowed Dive, his body dissolving into a black blur just as the spear passed through the space where he had been.
He reappeared a few feet away. The second Warden was already on him, its own spear swinging in a wide, horizontal arc.
Rhys parried the blow with his iron sword. The impact was immense, a shockwave of pure energy that sent a painful jolt up his arm.
These things were incredibly strong.
He was now on the defensive, facing two opponents who were immune to his most powerful stealth attack and who were his equals in raw physical strength.
"Their cores!" Emma shouted from behind him. She had her mother’s book open, her eyes frantically scanning the pages.
"The book says they are powered by a central command rune! In their chests!"
Rhys dodged another spear thrust. He saw it now. In the center of each Warden’s chest was a single, more complex rune that glowed brighter than the rest of their bodies.
That was their weak point.
He tried to counter-attack, aiming for the core of the first Warden. But they were too fast, too coordinated.
They fought as a single unit, their attacks perfectly timed to cover each other’s openings. He could not get a clean shot.
He gritted his teeth. He was being pushed back, step by step, towards Emma and the edge of the light-bridge.
He could not use his Ashen Marionettes here. He did not know if they could even exist in this strange, non-physical space.
He needed an opening. A single moment of distraction.
"Emma!" he shouted, not looking back. "Can you do that thing you did with your eyes? The mind-thing?"
He felt a wave of cold, soul-piercing energy wash over him from behind. Emma had understood.
She focused all of her will, all of her Soul Inquiry power, on the first Warden.
The golden construct flickered violently. Its movements became stiff and uncoordinated for a single, crucial second. Its perfect, coordinated attack faltered.
It was the opening Rhys needed.
He used Low-distance Jump. He did not retreat. He jumped forward, his body appearing directly in front of the faltering Warden.
He did not use a fancy skill. He just poured his raw, neutral Qi into the simple iron sword in his hand.
The blade glowed with a faint, white light. He thrust it forward with all his strength.
The sword plunged deep into the Warden’s chest, shattering the central command rune.
The Warden let out a silent, psychic scream. Its golden, light-based body exploded into a shower of harmless, glittering sparks.
The second Warden, its partner now destroyed, seemed to hesitate for a fraction of a second.
It was another fatal mistake. Rhys was already on it, his own iron sword a blur of motion.
He parried its spear and, in the same fluid movement, thrust his blade into its core.
The second Warden also exploded, leaving the light-bridge quiet once more.
Rhys stood there, breathing heavily. He looked at Emma. She was pale, and a thin trickle of blood was coming from her nose.
Using her trait had taken a heavy toll on her.
He walked over to her. "Good work, partner," he said, a small, genuine smile on his face.
She looked up at him, a tired but determined look in her green eyes. "You too."
Rhys looked at the open portal in front of them. The path was clear now. "Ready?" he asked.
She nodded, clutching her mother’s book tightly to her chest.