Captain Halder huffed for breath, his hammers coated in blood. The battlefield was pletely cleared, and unsurprisingly, there were very few still standing.
Theron didn't so much as flinch at this result. The only reason Captain Halder had even let so many live in the first place was probably because he was still wary of the shadow.
Should things go wrong, the fact he had saved these few might make it so that they were more likely to take his side rather than that of the second Gold Mancer present here.
Unfortunately for Captain Halder, he didn't know that his "partner" in crime was dead. And just as unfortunately for Theron, this left more opponents than he could deal with, on top of the fact that he wasn't all that confident in defeating a second Gold Mancer in his depleted state to begin with.
"Are you still hiding, Jieow? You can e out now." Halder called out between huffing breaths. His eyes quickly scanned the region as the scent of blood built up.
The bleeding red light was still ing from the cracks in the ground, and the others of the team were already having a hard time holding themselves back.
It was odd. This bleeding red light seemed to tap into something particularly primal within them. It was no wonder the hounds seemed to have lost their minds as well.
One of the warriors left couldn't hold back anymore and fell into a seated position to immediately start cultivating, but that was ended with a swipe of Captain Halder's hammer.
The head was taken so cleanly one would have thought that Halder had been wielding a blade and not a pair of blunt weapons. The strength gap was shocking.
"Control yourselves," Halder growled. "Anyone who oversteps, I will kill. In case you've forgotten, I put my life on the line against a Manaborn Beast to get us all this opportunity, don't forget yourselves."
The others grew stiff, but they nodded slowly.
'Clever enough,' Theron thought, though he still felt like it was clumsy. If nothing else, Halder had at least acted swiftly, but it was obvious to Theron he just took advantage of the chance to get rid of an extra mouth to feed.
It was also easier to make the decision since the one to die was one of the Ninth Resonance Mancers too.
The Captain continued to scan the region and was beginning to grow antsy.
"Jieow. This is not a game. Report your position."
Since niceties weren't working, Halder tried to flex his authority, but the response he received in return was the same.
Nothing.
Halder couldn't imagine that the shadow was already dead. In his mind, the only reason he wouldn't appear was because he was waiting for his opportunity.
"Fine."
Halder made a move to the crack again. He raised his foot up high and smashed down with a heel.
The flood of cracks grew more expansive, widening out into a larger and larger region until...
BANG!
The ground beneath him shattered.
Halder leapt back as the ground collapsed beneath them. With a wave of his hand, he sent the spike that held the Alpha in place up higher out of an abundance of caution. Unfortunately, he didn't have a spatial device strong enough to hold the core of a beast this powerful, so he could only keep it outside for the time being.
The flood of red only became more oppressive.
'So that's what it is…' Theron thought, his eyes narrowing.
Blood Crystals.
Suddenly, Akkun's words echoed in Theron's ears again. This Empire wasn't built on Darkness… the implication for the entire region was that it was built on Spirit, but more accurately, this territory in specific was meant for Spirit Wood.
Blood Crystals could only appear under such conditions. It was no wonder…
'This changes everything.'
Theron wasn't even thinking about the Blood Crystals. The problem was that if these Blood Crystals were being brought up now, it meant that on a macro scale, the Spirit Wood Mana that had been occupied in this region would be unleashed.
Once it was unleashed, the balance of power in the Empire would pletely shift. From a Dark Mana dominated region, it would bee a Wood Mana dominated region once again.
In as little as five to ten years, the balance would be pletely shifted.
No… the timing of the Thistle's movements couldn't have been a coincidence. They knew that this was going to happen, so they were prepared.
The sudden change of a region's Mana position would cause enough volatility that many stuck at bottlenecks would be able to use it as a push to leap over hurdles.
The power of the Thistles would undergo a qualitative change in as little as six months and in at most two years.
How was all of this related to Blood Crystals? It all came back to how Blood Crystals were formed.
Their origin was obviously blood, but it was a question of how this blood was accumulated. The only way for a Blood Crystal to form was by being gathered and purified over a long period of time.
There was no existence better suited to doing this than Mana Trees, Mana forms akin to Mana Beasts of the plant world. However, without an area of exceptional Wood Mana, it was impossible for such things to appear.
It was only after the Earth Mancer shattered the ground that Theron finally laid eyes on it, a streaming, powerful, thick, underground root system that must have taken thousands upon thousands of years to form.
Every time a creature died in this region, the blood would be absorbed by the Mana Trees, and then, over time, it would forge this incredible concentration of rich vitality, the purest essence of evolution itself.
Whether it was human or beast, it was one of the greatest treasures in all of existence, one that tapped into their primal desire for evolution, an insatiable greed for improvement that came not from the aware mind, but the subconscious mind.
That was because Blood Crystals were the only treasure known to Theron capable of evolving a bloodline…
Capable of helping a Manaborn Beast bee a Runebound one.
And it was at the moment this root system was exposed that the "dead" Alpha suddenly opened its eyes.
Its aura flared and a crack appeared high in the ceiling. The spike that ran through its body shattered to pieces, and it fell from above before Halder could even react.
Theron's eyes widened. 'It triggered its Tribulation!'
Even he didn't expect the Alpha to put everything on the line like this. But for some reason…
It made his blood boil.
He forgot about everything for a moment and felt that intent churning within him.
It wasn't the Blood Crystal, he seemed indifferent to it, as though it wasn't capable of helping him to evolve at all. Deep inside, he knew it wasn't good enough.
No. This was a pletely different sort of primal desire.
Seeing the Alpha throw caution to the wind, to bet everything on one chance to pletely change its fate, to acplish what its Ancestors would have hoped for and improve their bloodline to a pletely new level…
Theron suddenly felt the essence of the path of cultivation for the first time.
A breath as hot as molten lava came from his lip, veins of red pulsing in his eyes.
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