Chapter 534: Divine Heist Gone Wrong? - Re: Tales of the Rune-Tech Sage

CH534 Divine Heist Gone Wrong? *** Meanwhile, Alex and Udara arrived at the makeshift underground shrine. What greeted them was gruesome enough to twist the stomach. True to its stench, the chamber was decorated almost entirely with skulls, bones, and strange ritualistic paintings the pair could barely make sense of. Symbols overlapped symbols, smeared in dried pigments that had long since darkened into something unpleasant. At the centre stood the main object of worship. A hideous statue. Neither Alex nor Udara could tell what race it depicted. Humanoid... yes. But its features were a nightmare collage of monstrous traits — goblin, lizardman, insectoid and others that refused to remain fixed in the eye. From one angle it looked like one species; from another, something entirely different. It was as if certainty itself slipped away from it. More disturbing, however, was not the shape. It was the divine aura. And the skulls. With Spirit Sight Lv.2, Alex could vaguely perceive the emotional residue clinging to the skulls— traces left behind by the owners at the moment of death. Normally, Alex could only sense strong negative emotions directed at him. This was in theory because the energy signature of emotions were subtle, almost imperceivable to most. This was why emotions could easily be misunderstood at times. Alex only reliably sensed intense negative emotions directed at him. That was partly due to the infernal sensitivity of the Furor bloodline, and partly because emotions aimed at him tended to spike hard enough to breach perception thresholds of his Truth-Seeker eyes. ’The fact I can still see what they felt...’ Alex’s expression hardened. ’...means those emotions must have been overwhelming.’ Fear. Pain. Agony. Despair. They saturated the shrine like rot. "This isn’t some righteous ancestral guardian watching over its believers," Alex said quietly, voice heavy. "This is a straight-up malevolent entity." His gaze sharpened. "I don’t even know if this thing is truly a Spirit born from gnoll worship." "The gnolls may be savages... but even they aren’t this twisted." Udara didn’t fully understand how he reached that conclusion. But she trusted his deductions. So her expression darkened as well. "What now, Master?" she asked. Alex exhaled, only then realising he had been holding his breath. "We can’t waste the trip." Then his eyes turned cold. "If it’s malevolent Spirit —or worse, a Navi— then that’s even more reason to strip it of its divine energy reserves." ’It’s on you now,’ he muttered inwardly. In the next moment, Lord Bonsai’s mark resurfaced on the back of Alex’s palm. Then, as if unfolding from a cramped dimension, a miniature phantom of the majestic metaphysical tree bloomed into existence above his hand. Its roots lifted. Then shot forward. They stabbed into the statue radiating malevolent divinity. Crack! Shatter! For a fleeting instant, through Spirit Sight Lv.2, Alex saw a spell circle flash into existence. And then— it was torn apart, annihilated by Lord Bonsai’s ruthless siphoning. ’Did the shaman manage to trigger a divine spell before dying?’ ’Or did the being it worships turn its gaze here and attempt to force a miracle?’ Cold sweat soaked Alex’s back. ’Thank goodness the Heartwood Tree moved fast,’ he thought, relief washing over him. He inhaled slowly. ’Whenever I face Navi, Spirits, or their clergy... I must immediately suppress their divine energy.’ He said to himself. A contingency began forming in his mind. But very quickly, Alex hit a wall. ’This works for me because I have Lord Bonsai.’ ’The others don’t.’ ’If this plan is going to be reliable, I’ll need a method that lets anyone interrupt divine manifestation.’ His thoughts trailed there and then stopped. Because he suddenly realised he might already possess the solution. His gaze dropped to the back of his palm... to the phantom tree. To the roots that were not merely absorbing— but devouring. ’The older the ginger, the spicier... you scheming tree,’ Alex laughed inwardly. ’So that’s why you’ve been doing it.’ ’I can’t believe I got outplayed by a tree. And lost on foresight too.’ He sighed. ’Fine. I admit it. You, Lord Bonsai, are terrifyingly farsighted.’ Whether the tree heard him or not was impossible to say. But it certainly didn’t slow down. If anything, it devoured faster. What shocked Alex most was the amount of energy present. The statue contained nearly half the divine reserves he remembered from Juror’s statue back in Barnsil Fortress of the Helton Barony. Seeing that, Alex’s suspicions were practically confirmed. ’I don’t know if this is a Navi or an ancestral spirit statue—and I don’t want to find out—but it’s obvious this divine entity isn’t something the gnolls could birth.’ ’There’s more at play here than meets the eye,’ Alex concluded. Meanwhile, although the divine energy inside this statue was only about half of what Juror’s idol had contained, Lord Bonsai discovered that it was far harder to extract. Rather than deter it, however, the resistance only made the metaphysical tree more eager to sink its—roots? branches?—deeper into the juicy Providence tied to the divinity. As expected, the reward proved worth the effort. The Providence was thick, rich and infinitely more satisfying than what had been tied to Juror’s energy. Unfortunately, Alex didn’t notice that distinction. All he saw was the phantom tree labouring far harder than it had the previous two times. ’Is the malevolent nature of the energy harming you or something?’ he worried. ’You’d stop if that were the case... right?’ The seconds stretched, long and uncomfortable. But eventually, the divine reserves inside the statue were completely devoured. And without even the courtesy of a tremor to acknowledge him, Lord Bonsai’s phantom vanished. Alex’s anxiety only deepened. "I’ll go check on it," he told Udara. "Head back up and help the others." Without waiting for a response, he called on OmniRune. A spatial gate unfolded and Alex stepped through. The moment he entered the Sanctuary pocket dimension, he immediate felt a difference. The Bonsai no longer carried that dreadful sense of a fading life force it had borne since the interplanar transit accident. Though the canopy had yet to fully return to its former lush glory, the tree now thrummed with vitality. It no longer felt like something clinging to survival. Instead, it felt like a being that had endured winter dormancy and now stood at the edge of spring, ready to explode back into life. ***