Free Web NovelChapter 30: Trump Card
Priam ran over to Lumiere, who was sitting against a tree.
He looked like he was taking his last breaths, already extremely weak and debilitated. The grass around him was flattened, as if a powerful gust of wind had struck the area.
As he approached, Lumiere muttered something incomprehensible, but Priam stopped him and took a deep breath.
His spatial ring flashed.
First, a small whitish core appeared, only a few centimeters in size. It was the greatest treasure obtained from the Heaven-Purifying Piranhas.
Then, a bluish petal appeared, one of the seven flowers from the Celestial Aconite.
[Synthesize?] [Yes / No]
He accepted, and the power of the Nexus Seed activated.
The energy from those two items flowed through Priam’s arms toward the core located where his chest would be.
At that moment, Lumiere was so exhausted that he couldn’t tell whether the golden halo above Priam’s head was an illusion or something real.
He stared at it with widened pupils, but he couldn’t sense anything in his current state.
Priam waved his hand, and a small white rune appeared, floating above his palm.
His eyes lit up as the green information screen appeared.
[Heavenly Purification Rune: Can be used to cure unconventional poisons. It can also "purify" a person’s vital essence, ironically behaving like a poison.]
After checking the effect, Priam clenched his fists without hesitation, burning all of its power.
Lumiere saw a dazzling white light completely envelop him.
Then...
In barely five seconds, all the bitterness and exhaustion vanished from his body.
His eyes widened as they met Priam’s gaze.
Priam snorted.
"Don’t ask unnecessary questions and put me in an awkward position. I just have this ability, and that’s all you need to know. Now... what the hell happened?"
Priam asked, genuinely curious.
This young man, along with his younger sister and older brother, were supposedly the three most talented and powerful participants in this Trial.
Furthermore, as the children of the clan leader, they should have had privileged information about this place.
How could he have ended up in such a miserable state?
"I..."
Lumiere took a deep breath, still processing everything.
He calmed himself and began explaining from the beginning, because he was certain Priam knew nothing about this testing ground.
Basically, this place was the clan’s greatest treasure, created and improved for future generations.
The Ylisse Clan was merely a clan from the Mortal Plane, but it was also an extremely ancient clan that had accumulated many things over the ages.
Because of that, throughout countless generations, they had gathered treasures from other planets and even different universes.
They were nothing extraordinary by Divine Plane standards, but for people at their level, they were magical treasures that were nearly impossible to obtain.
The place they were currently in, the High Firmament Field, contained two-thirds of all those accumulated treasures.
Priam had no way of knowing this, but the place was sealed by a truly powerful inscription capable of distorting space.
In reality, the entire High Firmament Field was as large as an entire planet.
It was truly vast.
Seven days wasn’t nearly enough time to see more than a tiny fraction of it.
The treasures had been intentionally placed in specific regions far apart from one another.
In addition to the many things Priam had already found, there were also countless inheritances left behind by powerful clan Mages who had long since died.
Whenever an important figure, such as a clan leader, approached death, clan law required them to leave their inheritance hidden somewhere within this place.
Along with their greatest knowledge, they would leave weapons and various treasures behind.
Wouldn’t it be better to place everything in the library? ƒrēewebnovel.com
Of course.
And they did leave behind their techniques and theoretical studies.
However, placing those inheritances and special treasures here, where only those with fate and determination could obtain them, was a way of training future generations and discovering talent.
Because of that, every few hundred years, the clan leader would gather the younger generation and send them into this place.
Even those considered trash had a chance to obtain opportunities here.
But since it only happened once every many centuries, most clan members regarded this place as almost inaccessible.
Lumiere looked at Priam seriously.
"There is a secret place created by the clan to help train Acolyte Mages and generate interesting treasures over time. It’s called the Beast-Veined Glacial Peak."
"In simple terms, it’s a colossal mountain of ice. Everyone within this Rank has to slowly climb to the summit. At the peak, as a reward, a person can make a wish. That wish can directly guide them to the greatest treasure they desire within this place. But... obviously, reaching the summit isn’t easy."
The Beast-Veined Glacial Peak had been artificially created a very, very long time ago.
It was a place the clan had invested tremendous effort into building, refining the blood and cores of the strongest beasts of the Mortal Plane.
As a result, it became a sanctuary for the beasts living within the High Firmament Field.
The beasts could slowly become stronger there.
Furthermore, due to its unique nature and its interaction with beast bloodlines, it greatly increased the chances of mutations appearing among their descendants.
That fact alone made all of the clan’s effort worthwhile.
Ordinary beasts could develop unique traits and attributes, turning into genuine treasures.
From time to time, clan Elders would come to inspect the beasts living there.
Throughout history, they had discovered more than a dozen mutant beasts that were later sold for astronomical prices.
In the end, the Beast-Veined Glacial Peak was an incredible asset that allowed the clan to benefit from luck itself.
It was also useful for training weaker Mages.
After all, while climbing toward the summit, the beasts occupying each territory would attack without mercy.
Priam listened to the entire explanation and nodded.
He had absolutely no idea about any of this.
Given the sheer size of the place, the seven days would probably have ended before he ever discovered any of it on his own.
After thinking for a moment, Priam asked if Lumiere knew how the Ylisse Clan, a seemingly small clan with only forty-three youths participating in this coming-of-age ceremony, could possess things on such a grand scale.
His mother had told him a little about what she had seen across the planet, and how she, a woman who lived in the wilderness with her race and possessed neither great resources nor advanced knowledge, could still easily fight Mages from other clans.
And her strength had only been average.
Yet now, comparing that information to everything inside the Ylisse Clan, the difference felt like heaven and earth.
His mother would almost certainly have stood no chance against people from the Ylisse Clan.
Logically speaking, a clan with resources of this level should have had forty-three million young members, not merely forty-three people of the appropriate age.
But...
Lumiere clearly had no idea either.
The clan possessed countless secrets, and he had never questioned them because, to him, all of this was normal.
After taking a deep breath, Lumiere spoke seriously.
"Please, I need your help. My younger sister... she’s in an even worse situation than I was. We need to return to the Beast-Veined Glacial Peak and save her."
Priam was surprised.
Danger? How?
All they had to do was give up their tablets to be teleported out. Or, if they suffered severe injuries, they would be automatically expelled.
Lumiere had looked terrible earlier, but Priam could tell he still had some time left before dying. So the inscription should only activate its emergency mechanism and expel him when he was truly on the verge of death.
"This poison that afflicted me... it’s called Null-Vein Bane. It’s a poison that affects every type of energy in the body. It starts with life energy, then Ether, and finally it severely affects the Bloodline. It... alters vital energy in such a way that the danger-detection inscription doesn’t function properly. It can’t accurately detect the risk of death, so it doesn’t expel us from this place," Lumiere said with a tense expression and a look of despair.
"It’s only been two hours since I was poisoned and collapsed here. I was already unable to manipulate my Ether, so I couldn’t destroy my tablet and be expelled. I truly thought I was going to die alone in this place..."
Priam nodded.
It was only natural that inscriptions would have flaws.
The world was vast, and countless strange things existed within it.
The real issue was someone discovering the exact weakness of this inscription.
That could only be someone with privileged information.
"Who did this? And where is Shione?"
Lumiere heard the question and sighed.
"I’ll be honest... my younger sister and I cheated a little. We heard rumors that this coming-of-age ceremony would be held in the High Firmament Field. So we prepared beforehand and made plans together. We had a method that would allow us to find each other as soon as we arrived."
"Six hours after entering, we reunited and headed for the Beast-Veined Glacial Peak. With the two of us working together, we could defeat the beasts and reach the summit. We already knew which inheritance and treasures we wanted to be guided toward. It was a perfect plan, but..."
"I have no idea how or why. But a trap had been prepared for us right at the entrance."
He spoke while clenching his fists tightly, consumed by hatred.
"We couldn’t see their faces or identify who they were, but we saw three shadows running ahead of us and climbing the mountain. Since there was only one path upward, everything had already been prepared. We were caught off guard by an explosion of poison while, at the same time, being surrounded by a sea of beasts that had been lured there."
"The poison began draining our strength immediately. Then... my sister and I found ourselves in an extremely dangerous and deadly situation. During the first few minutes, we still had access to our power. We could have destroyed our tablets and escaped safely... but we hesitated. We underestimated both our situation and the poison."
Priam snorted.
Doing that would have meant being eliminated from the Trial and being labeled the trash of the new generation.
As the children of the clan leader, that would have been the greatest humiliation imaginable.
Naturally, the two of them, not immediately recognizing the poison and caught up in the heat of the moment, trusted that they could fight their way out.
"Then, before we realized it, more and more beasts kept arriving and attacking us. When we finally figured out what poison it was, we no longer had the strength to even destroy our tablets."
Priam sighed.
The tablets weren’t something an ordinary person’s strength could break. The material was special, designed to avoid accidental destruction.
A considerable amount of Ether had to be channeled into it before it would automatically break.
Other forms of force wouldn’t work because environmental energy could potentially destroy it by accident. Large amounts of Ether, on the other hand, weren’t naturally found everywhere.
In other words, the mechanism was nearly perfect.
And it also seemed that whoever arranged everything knew that and had carefully considered every important factor.
"In the end... Shione... she burned her trump card. She used her hidden Bloodline power, one of the few things she still had left. She possesses a subtle Bloodline ability that allows her to control wind. She used it to create an explosion that could send someone flying far away. But unfortunately, at that moment she only had enough strength for one of us... and she chose to use it on me without warning, sending me away to safety."
Lumiere spoke with trembling eyes.
"Trump card? Nobody knew about that before?" Priam asked, narrowing his eyes. Something about that seemed strange.
Lumiere looked confused by the question but nodded.
"After losing to you like that before... she became so motivated and furious that she trained herself to complete exhaustion during those last few days. During the three days we spent in the training fields, she finally managed to use that power in her Bloodline. That’s how she gained that ability."
Priam nodded, already understanding a bitter truth.
Lumiere continued, pain evident in his voice.
"Fortunately, because that place is saturated with the ice element, she was able to use what remained of her primary power to merge herself with the mountain, sealing herself inside it. She can’t move, but she should be safe from the beasts. However, the poison is slowly killing her. She can’t quit on her own, and just like me, she’ll lose all her strength within a few more hours."
He stood up, looked directly at Priam, and then bowed with complete sincerity.
"I know you’re strong, perhaps as strong as my sister and me. I have no way of contacting my older brother for help, and we don’t have time. Our paths crossed here today, so I’m begging you... please help me save my younger sister." freewebnσvel.cѳm
Priam listened to everything and simply took a deep breath, filled with bitterness.
Wasn’t it obvious?
After remembering what those three idiots had said earlier, and now hearing this story...
That deadly trap had clearly been designed specifically for these two, taking into account their impulsive personalities and everything about this place.
The one responsible for all of this...
Could only be Gangrel, their older brother.
The reasons weren’t difficult to imagine.
Priam had already seen the potential of all three siblings.
That older brother must have already realized that his younger brother and sister were more talented than him and would surpass him sooner or later.
Considering the personality and malice Priam had already witnessed, he was convinced Gangrel had arranged everything to eliminate the competition.
Siblings killing each other for power...
It was predictable and cliché.
Unfortunately, he hadn’t known about Shione’s new secret weapon.
The fact that Priam had appeared and caused that change in her had allowed Shione to learn how to use that ability at the last possible moment.
As a result, that bastard’s plans had gained an unexpected and troublesome variable.
