Chapter 145: Big and Small

  The visage laid bare in the horizon was something ripped straight out of a dark fairy tale—a beast of impossible, sanity-shattering size.

  It was part animal, part mountain. All walking natural disaster.

  What had risen from below the crust was bigger than the human mind could comfortably process. It was a lava-spewing turtle, its feet the size of small cities. Each step it had taken to free itself created tremors that rattled teeth miles away. The volcano on its back—or more accurately, the shell that was the volcano—smoked violently, raining down ash that choked the sky and suffocated anyone foolish enough to draw breath near it.

  Temperatures rose instantly in its presence. Water in the lungs evaporated, leaving throats parched and skin cracking. Any normal living being had a near-zero possibility of survival under that radiating terror.

  "That is our report, Your Majesty," the scout finished his report, his voice trembling slightly as he retold the nightmare.

  The throne room of Kah-Kamun was silent, the air heavy with dread.

  "That does line up with what we saw yesterday," Samira said quietly, her usual cheer dampened. "We didn't even get close. Before any investigation could take place, we had to run away with all our might. just the sight of it rising, shook us."

  King Ahmed rubbed his temples, the crown weighing heavy on his head. "How is something that big managed to stay hidden all these years? How could our scholars miss a mountain that is actually a turtle?"

  "Heat, Your Majesty," Malik stepped forward to explain, adjusting his glasses. "The scholars who went on Tur'uga expeditions all those years ago... they must have been unable to explore deep enough due to the intense geothermal heat. Not to mention the existence of active lava flows and magma chambers. They must have thought Tur'uga was indeed just a volcano with peculiar seismic activity."

  Ahmed turned his attention to Tanvir, giving him a tired, accusing gaze.

  "Don't look at me that way, old friend," Tanvir said, raising his hands in defense. "Even I don't know how that thing hid from my elemental sight for this long. A creature of that mass…. underground... I should have felt it breathing. Something or someone must have protected it. Masked it."

  The King sighed, a sound of profound exhaustion. He turned back to the kneeling scout.

  "So tell me,”The King asked. "What is the most current situation?"

  "Yes, Your Majesty," the scout saluted, sweating in his armor. "The current situation is... absolutely nothing, sir."

  "Explain," King Ahmed demanded.

  "By nothing... I mean, there is no movement. None at all," the scout said, looking confused himself. "That beast... ever since it rose from the earth, all it did was stay still. Lava is still flowing from its jaw, and smoke still rises from its back in columns. However, so far... it hasn't taken a single step."

  King Ahmed exhaled, his shoulders dropping an inch. It was a reprieve, however small.

  "Alright. Good job," he waved the scout away. "Take a rest."

  "So, what now?" King Ahmed asked, his voice echoing in the sudden silence of the throne room. He looked at the assembled faces—his family, his generals, and the ancient beings masquerading as friends.

  "We still don't know what that thing is capable of," Queen Aleena added, stepping up to the tactical map spread across the central table. Her finger traced the red zone around the volcano. "How much destruction it can bring. If it indeed possesses the capability of, let's say, a Lord... then a full Zarateph region-wide evacuation would be impossible."

  She looked up, her eyes hard. "Millions... or even billions might die if we can't move them fast enough. The logistics alone would take months we don't have."

  She paused, looking at Tanvir. "I hope... I am not being pessimistic."

  "Not at all, Your Majesty," Tanvir replied, his tone grave. He adjusted his suit, looking more like a tired businessman than a demigod. "It is indeed the level of caution that we need to take. We need to be alert."

  He pointed to the scale of the beast marked on the map. "If we say that the beast, at its lowest, possesses similar destructive capability as a full-power Lord... then it would be capable of flattening this entire region with a few attacks. Earthquakes, magma flows, ash clouds that block out the sun. That is what we want to avoid at all costs."

  "And the elephant in the room," Zhu spoke up from the corner, her arms crossed. "No normal living being can approach that beast without being turned into dried fruit. The ambient heat alone is lethal."

  She walked to the table. "Investigation will be difficult, but not impossible. The beast—the turtle itself—has not moved an inch. We don't know why, but it is a good sign. That means it has no current urgency. It gives us a window. We can still find out what is behind all of this before it decides to take a walk."

  "But we know that no normal living being can get close to that beast," Queen Aleena asked, looking between them. "What do you suggest?"

  "Thankfully, Your Majesty," Tanvir answered with a dry smile, "we have two unusual living beings right here."

  He gestured to himself and Zhu.

  "As unfortunate as it may be, only us two are capable of approaching that beast without burning up from the inside out. Our physiology... it's a bit more durable."

  Zhu nodded in agreement. "So, leave the investigation to us. We will get close, assess the threat, and find out why it stopped."

  "Alright then," Queen Aleena decided instantly. "I'll leave it up to you."

  She turned to the generals and ministers lining the room.

  "Meanwhile, the rest of you shall develop an emergency plan. Evacuation routes, supply caches, shelters. Any way to prepare for the worst of the worst. If that thing moves, I want my people to move faster. Understand?" the Queen barked.

  "Yes, Your Majesty!"

  All the generals and officials in the room saluted, their voices booming.

  Within a moment, the stillness broke. Everyone started frantically moving to their posts, shouting orders and unrolling maps, developing a doomsday scenario with their lives—and the lives of everyone they loved—on the line.

  Far away from the strategizing and the panic, at the very feet of the beast, a different kind of struggle was taking place.

  A lone, blonde-haired man was trying his best to climb up the leg of a still beast.

  The heat radiating from the beast's skin—scales made of cooling magma and obsidian—was absolute. It was a thermal pressure so intense it should have been enough to melt a normal human being into a puddle of fat and bone within seconds. The air itself was a weapon, shimmering with temperatures that defied survival.

  Only Harrison Aster did not appear to be affected.

  He was climbing, albeit slowly. His hands gripped the jagged, burning rock of the creature's hide without flinching. His rags smoked and curled at the edges, but his flesh remained intact, defying the laws of thermodynamics.

  With every stride, he stopped, chest heaving. He huffed the ashy, sulfurous air deep into his lungs with no concern for his well-being, as if it were sweet oxygen.

  "Lei... Lei..." he kept muttering, a mantra of madness.

  He looked up at the summit of the leg, which disappeared into the smoke clouds above.

  "Tur'uga!" he shouted, his voice cracking against the roar of the fires. "Answer me!"

  With nothing but conviction and an obsession of an insane level, he kept climbing. Hand over hand. Foot over foot. A flea scaling a burning skyscraper.

  However, Tur'uga, the beast, remained motionless. It stood frozen in time, just a giant, burning, unmoving mountain shaped like a turtle. Its massive yellow eyes stared blankly at the horizon, ignoring the speck crawling on its limb.

  "Why won't you answer me?!" Harrison continued to demand, striking the obsidian scale with his fist.

  "What is going on?!" he screamed, his voice raw. "Our deal! My cure! Where is my cure?!"

  He called out to the still beast, his pleas swallowed by the indifference of the monster he had awakened.

  Back in Kah-Kamun, outside the massive sandstone city gates, the air was thick with anxiety.

  Tanvir and Zhu were tightening the saddle girths on their mounts, their movements efficient and practiced. They were dressed in lightweight clothing, preparing to head into the beast's vicinity.

  However, they were not the only ones going.

  Beside them stood Raito and Yukari.

  "Are you two sure?" Tanvir asked, checking the buckle on his saddlebag. He looked at them skeptically.

  "We don't know if your bodies will be able to handle the immense heat." Zhu added.

  You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.

  "Don't worry, we are sure," Yukari answered without hesitation.

  "I'm just following her," Raito said nonchalantly, leaning against a hitching post.

  THWACK.

  Yukari jabbed her elbow sharply into his ribs.

  "Ow!" Raito rubbed his side.

  "WE are sure," she reiterated, emphasizing the word. She turned to Zhu. "I need to know what Father knows. How is he alive? What is his connection to that beast? I want to know. I need to go."

  She clenched her fist, and a faint mist of silver frost swirled around her knuckles. "As for our bodies... don't worry. My ice will give us ample protection. We won't burn."

  Zhu looked into her stepdaughter's eyes. She searched for fear, for hesitation, for doubt. She found none. Only a steely resolve that mirrored her own.

  She exhaled, a small smile touching her lips. "Alright then."

  Her expression hardened. "But just know, the beast is our first priority. We cannot let innocent people die. If Harrison is somehow in the way of our investigation, or if he is a threat... then we can and will question him forcefully. Understand?"

  "Yes, Mother," Yukari nodded solemnly.

  With that settled, they each took a horse. Tanvir mounted a sturdy bay, and Zhu swung onto a black stallion. Yukari mounted a nimble white mare.

  Except Raito. He stood there, looking at the remaining horse, then at Yukari.

  "You really don't know how to ride one of these?" Yukari asked, raising an eyebrow.

  "Nope," Raito said cheerfully. He walked over to Yukari’s horse and awkwardly scrambled up behind her, settling onto the rump of the mare.

  He wrapped his arms around her waist, holding on tight.

  "Plump," Raito commented quietly, squeezing slightly.

  SLAP!

  A furious, backhanded slap was delivered across his face with quiet, terrifying fury.

  "Ouch," Raito muttered, rubbing his cheek against her back.

  "Hold on and shut up," Yukari commanded, her ears turning pink.

  And thus, this small group left the safety of the city walls, riding out to face the mystery of the Living Mountain.

  Somewhere else.

  In a dark place where light dared not tread, and the only sound was the echo of a dry, whistling wind...

  A lone red dot lit up in the abyss. It was a single, unblinking eye of artificial crimson.

  "You are mine," the red light called out. Its voice was muffled, distorted, as if speaking through layers of static and time. "Surrender yourself."

  "No... never...."

  Another voice refused. It sounded ancient, weary, like grinding stones.

  "You... are the last one I will submit to."

  "And why is that?" the red dot voice asked, amused. "You know it is only a matter of time. Your shell is cracking."

  "You... are a thief," the other voice spat. "A false….. I know it all."

  "Funny you say that," the red dot pulsed brighter. "When you are also a liar..."

  "Matters not," the red light dismissed the insult. "There is a reason why I left you alone all these years. To ripen. To grow."

  "Now, it is time to reap the benefit."

  A spark of red electricity began buzzing in the dark place, arcing toward the source of the weary voice.

  "ARGHHHHH!"

  A scream of pain followed, echoing into the silence.

  The group and their horses soon found themselves at the far edge of the danger zone, a demarcated line where the air shimmered like a veil between life and death.

  "We are here," Tanvir said, pulling back on his reins. He consulted a rugged map, though the geography in front of them defied cartography.

  "We need to ditch the horses," Zhu said, dismounting swiftly. "They will die if they come any closer. Their lungs can't handle the ash, and their hooves will burn."

  Yukari and Raito nodded, sliding off the mare. They unbuckled the saddlebags, taking only the essentials. With a sharp slap to the flanks, the horses were sent galloping back toward the safety of Kah-Kamun, whinnying in relief as they put distance between themselves and the unnatural heat.

  The group turned to face what lay ahead.

  The place they were standing in should have been a lush, vibrant jungle area teeming with life. However, the reality was a monochromatic nightmare.

  The land in front of them had been transformed. All the plants—towering ferns, ancient hardwoods, vibrant orchids—had wilted and died instantly, their moisture sucked out by the thermal shockwave. What was left was a barren, dead wasteland of grey dust and cracked ground that crunched like bone underfoot.

  "Everything died here," Yukari whispered, kicking a pile of ash that used to be a bush.

  "The heat from that beast has transformed the landscape itself," Zhu said, her eyes narrowing as she gauged the temperature. "It's terraforming through destruction."

  "If that thing moves," Raito commented, shielding his eyes to look at the mountain-sized silhouette, "the damage will be catastrophic. It won't just be a forest fire; it will be an extinction event."

  "That's why it's our job to make sure it doesn't," Tanvir said grimly.

  Everyone nodded.

  Yukari raised her left hand. The Sakura ring pulsed.

  A chill, visible aura of silver-bluish frost erupted from the ring, expanding to encircle herself and Raito. The air inside the bubble instantly cooled, offering a fragile respite from the oven outside. Zhu and Tanvir, naturally resistant due to their elemental nature, simply steeled themselves.

  "Ready."

  Far away, the beast still lay dormant like a statue carved from hell itself.

  The group walked, closing the distance between them and the titan. With every step, the air grew heavier, the smell of sulfur and burning rock stinging their noses.

  "It's definitely hotter," Raito commented, wiping sweat from his brow despite the frost shield.

  "Even with my frost, I can still feel the heat," Yukari asked, watching the edges of her shield hiss as they fought the ambient temperature. "What is that thing made out of? Pure magma?"

  The closer they got, the bigger the beast became. It defied perspective. It grew until it filled their entire field of vision, blocking out the sky.

  Until finally... they arrived at the base of one of the beast's legs.

  The scale was incomprehensible. They were dwarfed so completely that they were barely the size of ants compared to the massive pillar of obsidian scales in front of them. The "leg" looked more like a skyscraper built of volcanic rock.

  "I doubt touching it will make this thing know we are here," Raito said, craning his neck back until it hurt. "This thing is huge."

  Curiosity getting the better of him, he reached out.

  "Don't—" Yukari started.

  Raito put his palm on the rough, scaly surface of the leg.

  "OW! OW!"

  He immediately yanked his hand back, blowing on his red palm furiously.

  "And hot!" he yelped. "Definitely hot!"

  "Seeing as this is a genuine beast, I doubt we have any convenient door or entrance at ground level," Tanvir said, scanning the leg with his earth sense. "It's solid organic matter and rock and flesh."

  "We should go up," Zhu suggested, pointing toward the clouds of smoke above. "Inspect the shell or the volcano first. That's where the activity seems to be concentrated."

  "I concur," Tanvir said.

  He clasped his hands together.

  RUMBLE.

  The ground beneath their feet began to shake. A platform of rock rose itself from the cracked earth, rising steadily into the air. It lifted them up like an earthen elevator, carrying them past the colossal leg and toward the burning shell of the beast.

  "See anything?" Tanvir asked, his voice strained as he maintained the steady rise of the earth while fighting the increasing gravitational pressure of the beast's mass.

  "Not out of the ordinary," Yukari said, peering over the edge of the rising rock. "Still looks like an overgrown turtle from up here."

  "Keep looking," Zhu ordered, scanning the horizon for movement.

  The elevator of earth finally reached a height that matched the level of the beast's shell—a landscape of jagged obsidian ridges and smoking vents.

  "Thicken your frost aura," Zhu commanded Yukari sharply. "Even I can feel the heat radiating from here. Concentrate. Don't let up, unless you want to turn to charcoal."

  Yukari nodded, sweat beading on her forehead despite the cold mist. She poured more power into the ring, thickening the silver-blue barrier until the air inside crackled with cold.

  "Hmm?" Raito perked up, his head snapping to the side.

  "What's wrong?" Yukari asked, noticing the tension in his shoulders.

  "Something is here," he said, his voice low.

  "Something? Is it my father?" she asked, hopeful yet afraid.

  "No," Raito shook his head slowly. "It is something else. I don't know how to describe it, but this presence... it felt real?."

  "You sure the heat is not making you hallucinate, kid?" Tanvir asked, wiping grit from his eyes.

  "I wish," Raito grimaced, clutching his chest. "But it's not. Something... is here. And my Void is screaming at me to be alert."

  "That does not sound good," Zhu surmised, her hand drifting to her gauntlets. "Your Void screaming at you... that means whatever we're up against is in no way normal."

  "I hope I'm wrong," Raito muttered.

  "Then we just need to be ready for what that 'something' is," Yukari said, gripping his hand.

  One by one, they stepped off the earth elevator onto the beast's shell.

  The heat emanating from the shell was so intense that their vision started to distort immediately. The air rippled like water, making distances hard to judge.

  "Everyone, don't stray far away from each other!" Tanvir barked.

  "This is one intense heat haze," Zhu commented, shielding her eyes.

  Raito reached into his pocket and pulled out a half-eaten piece of dried jerky. He tossed it onto the black shell.

  SIZZLE-POOF.

  The jerky didn't just cook; it carbonized instantly, turning into a pile of black ash within seconds.

  "Yikes," Raito said, swallowing hard.

  "If not for my frost aura, the soles of our boots would melt and be glued to this place," Yukari said, checking her feet. "We need to be quick."

  The group walked closer to the volcano part of the shell—a protruding cone that spewed a constant, choking ash cloud into the sky.

  The closer they got, the more they could hear something over the roar of the vents.

  A rhythmic pounding. As if two rocks were being smashed against one another.

  "Hear that?" Zhu asked, holding up a hand to stop them.

  "Yeah," Yukari whispered.

  "We are not alone here," Tanvir said. "Could it be what the boy senses?"

  They looked at each other, nodding silently. They readied their weapons. Yukari took out her Quintzel sphere, which hummed with anticipation. Raito clutched Koenka. Zhu formed her steel gauntlets, and Tanvir pulled minerals from the ash to form a heavy stone hammer.

  They moved closer to the source of the sound, rounding a jagged ridge of cooled lava.

  There.

  The blonde-haired man was fully revealed. Harrison Aster.

  He was currently kneeling before a solid wall of volcanic rock near the crater's rim, smashing a large stone against the side of the volcano with methodical, terrifying obsession. His hands were bloody, the rock stained crimson.

  "Open up... open up..." he kept saying, his voice a rasping whisper. "Lei is waiting for me... the cure is inside..."

  "Harrison? Is that you?"

  Zhu stepped forward, lowering her guard slightly, her voice thick with disbelief.

  Harrison stopped mid-swing. He turned slowly, his neck creaking. His eyes, wild and sunken, locked onto Zhu.

  "Zhu?" he asked, rubbing his eyes with dirty, bloody knuckles. "What are you... doing here?"

  He looked around frantically. "Lei... Lin... how are they? Am I dead? Did I fail?"

  "Harrison, calm down," Zhu tried, stepping closer with her hands raised placatingly.

  While this was happening, Yukari was slowly tucking herself behind Raito's body, hiding her own face from Harrison's gaze. The sight of her father—broken, aged, and mad—was a knife in her heart.

  "You sure you want to do this?" Raito asked softly over his shoulder.

  Yukari nodded meekly against his back.

  "Then just stay there for now," Raito said, patting her head gently. "We'll figure it out. I'll make sure that old man remembers you."

  "Lei! Where is Lei?!" Harrison kept bombarding Zhu with questions, ignoring the others. "Did I do it? That's why you are here, right? I cured her! I can come back now! You are here to pick me up!"

  "No... I..." Zhu was taken aback. The man she used to call friend, the husband of her best friend, a world-renowned adventurer... reduced to nothing but a bumbling bag of bones and insanity.

  How could he be like this? she asked in her head. Who or what did this to him?

  Tanvir coughed loudly, trying to get Harrison's attention. That did not work. Harrison's focus was solely on Zhu, the only anchor to his past reality.

  Suddenly... the ground shook.

  No, they were on top of the beast. That meant the shell shook.

  A very bad sign.

  The group looked around.

  The beast's massive head, visible over the rim of the shell, opened its eyes once more.

  But instead of the usual yellow glare... this time, the irises burned with a deep, malevolent purple color.

  "Tur'uga?" Harrison questioned, looking up at the smoke.

  And then, he collapsed.

  Zhu, with her quick reflexes, managed to catch Harrison's body before he hit the burning rock.

  "Harrison?" she asked, shaking him.

  No response. It was as if the puppet had been cut from its strings.

  Before anyone could even process what was going on, another tremor started, and this one didn't let up.

  BOOM.

  The beast’s leg started to shift. One massive pillar rose from the ground, crashing down miles away. The entire mountain lurched forward.

  The Living Mountain was taking its first step.

  Too many things happening at once. Too little time to process. And still too many mysteries.

  "What should we do?" Raito questioned aloud, gripping Koenka tight.

  He looked at Yukari's face, buried in his back.

  What should I do? he questioned within himself.