LIGHTNOVELONLINE Chapter 21 — Winding Paths
“Very impressive, Alden,” Yuri exclaimed as she brought over a tray of tea.
Once again inside my house, Alden took the time to utilize his improved quanum control to fix the damages to it.
“It was nothing, half the damage was caused by me anyways,” Alden stated, grabbing a cup, taking a sip and then raising his eyebrows. “As always, your tea making skills are otherworldly,” Alden said, with a wink.
“Alden, you’re much too young to flirt with my wife,” my father joked with a chuckle.
“Well, you can’t blame me for trying,” Alden said, shrugging as he took another sip, my face buried in my hands.
“Can we just…get to the point here and have a real discussion,” I whined.
Alden and I caught my parents up on events, of which they were surprisingly aware, at least until we vanished into the nameless space of the Veytru tribe.
“I’m going to be honest with you Cian. There is a lot we don’t understand, we’ve been living normal lives up until this point, we were truly hoping to continue doing so forever…but it seems that our help is going to be necessary,” father sighed and Yuri placed a hand on his shoulder.
“It will be fine dear, we’ll figure it out. What I want to know now is, what is the Blood Phoenix Tome and why is it inside our son,” Yuri said, locking eyes with father.
“It’s complicated…It’s a relic of an ancient civilization of some sort, it’s used to aid in rebirth and reincarnation. In this case, the tome is being used to speed up the connection of the reincarnated souls that exist within Cian,” father explained.
“So, the church didn’t put them there?” I asked, sipping at my own tea.
“No, they have no such power. Call it fate or destiny, whichever you want, but clearly something is happening here,” my father said, taking a long pause. “Can you feel the power of the island?” he asked, gazing at Alden and I, as we simply nodded in affirmation.
“Good. I was originally tasked with helping identify what that power is, why it’s there and how it affects this island. After years of research it was clear that a greater power than we could understand was at work. It’s not quanum, it's closer to the soul power that the church utilizes,” father continued.
“Is that why that old man in the school’s basement called me ‘old god’?” I questioned.
“I don’t know, and I don’t think we should try and find out either. Stay away from the churches, the Graff and the Sundals,” father said sternly as he stood up to stretch. “If you see a Golden or Silver robe, just run. After this they’ll likely be back. Luckily I’m no pushover, so they can’t do much right now, at least until the Archbishop gets involved but we’ll worry about that later. For now, understand that there are powerful forces at play that are beyond a regular guardian’s abilities. I’m happy you have Alden to rely on, but you two need to be very careful, focus on your duty for now,” father said with a tone of finality that said he was done with the topic before walking away.
“Hey, why can’t Alden rely on me for once?” I whined.
“I mean…you really?” Alden asked pointedly, receiving an eye roll in return.
“Your father is just worried for you both. Being a guardian is no easy task and I honestly wish you could have remained ignorant of this world…but now here you are. As Tavarian said, Alden, Cian, do your duty, continue to eliminate quanum monsters. There is too much quanum flowing into this island and we still haven’t figured out where it’s coming from. That was my mission when I came here, to find out why this island is flooded with so much quanum, I would like you two to complete that mission. Can you do that for me?” Yuri asked with a smile, imbuing us with confidence and fervor.
“Absolutely,” Alden and I said at once.
“Wonderful,” she said as she stood up.
“Would you like to stay the night Alden? We can talk more tomorrow,” Yuri offered.
“I would like that,” Alden responded simply.
“Come on, I’ll get you setup,” I said, getting up and motioning him to follow me upstairs.
“Don’t stay up too late!” Yuri yelled to us as we ran off.
After rolling out a futon and some bed sheets for Alden we started discussing the days—months even—worth of events. A lot had been covered, like the churches. We now knew of their existence but that was about it. We had Cadeyrn explain the churches to us but he was obviously being a bit vague in his descriptions.
“For the last time Cadeyrn, we know there are two factions that created two churches, we just want to know who they are and why they exist at all. It’s not like they have some kind of god, they’re more like a cult. Unless they do have a god?” I questioned, suddenly having a thought.
“I have no data on that, however I can tell you about the factions,” Cadeyrn stated.
“Finally…That’s what we’ve been asking!” I exclaimed.
“Very well. Hundreds of years ago, humans began to exhibit quanum. It went unnoticed until the residual quanum started manifesting into monsters and warping the world around them. The Sundals, being a family of alchemists, began experimenting in an attempt to discover a cause for these anomalies. Simultaneously, the Graff, a family of doctors, were also performing their own experiments to discover the causes. Eventually, the Sundals and the Graff collaborated in an effort to solve the mystery. The distortions from quanum leakage were small but some were starting to get quite dangerous,” Cadeyrn explained.
“Wait, does that mean…things like dragons and griffins and what not existed because of quanum? Or did they manifest as a result of their mythos?” I asked, my eyes beaming with excitement.
“It actually depends, some were and some were not. As the Graff and Sundals worked together, they discovered the existence of The World of Dreams, or the 4th World, that could only be entered or accessed through your dreams. Through the use of different concoctions, they managed to induce a consistent lucid dream state and make excursions into the 4th World.” Cadeyrn had continued.
“Hold on a minute. So, they ventured into the 4th World, made of quanum, with no protections at all? That can’t have gone well,” Alden surmised.
“Correct, it did not go well. You do however need to remember that at this time, quanum, and much of the 4th world, were in their infancy. The Sundals and the Graff continued their collaboration and began mapping out the 4th World which was incredibly difficult due to its ever expanding nature. Eventually they discovered Dratmana and created a way to utilize us to destroy the monsters and correct the distortions manifesting in your world. Of course, we helped them freely as there was mutual benefit, but over time the two factions began arguing over ownership of our world,” Cadeyrn paused for comments, but Alden and I continued listening intently.
“In order to garner support from the people, the Graff and Sundals started their own churches focused on specific ideologies where each proposed guardianship over the 4th World. Unfortunately they also both leaned into genetic manipulation in order to manufacture perfect guardians. Their goal was eventually realized and led to increased authority over the 4th World. Unfortunately in their haste for supremacy their creations weren’t tested fully and issues began to arise. Their creations began to mutate which resulted in the creation of demons and angelic like beings. The Sundals lacked the ability to control their demonic monstrosities as they began wreaking havoc and so they requested aid from the Graff and their angelic creations to rectify the situation. After a prolonged conflict, the Sundals and Graff, having depleted a majority of their forces, merged to create Xiphias. The churches however remained in more of a cult existence in order to bring about the supremacy of their own factions,” Cadeyrn finished.
“My question is, they started off with quanum, but how did they get to this soul-like power they’re using now?” Alden inquired.
“Unfortunately I have no data on this subject,” Cadeyrn stated, with a tone of finality.
“That’s definitely one of the true mysteries of all this, among other things about that story that don’t quite add up. We can only sense that power now thanks to our training with Balfrus and I can only imagine they had similar training. So there must be another god-like being assisting them,” Alden said, and my eyes went wide.
“That power, the huge power we can feel in the island itself…maybe there’s a god here?” I asked excitedly.
“That might be the best place to start looking. Hopefully we’ll find answers to your condition as well. I’m just thankful that it seems I can suppress whatever it is affecting you if you go crazy,” Alden replied.
“That certainly is convenient…” I agreed, with a hint of suspicion.
“Anyways, we’ll need to bring Nicole and Zypher up to speed as well. There’s a chance that they could end up targeted after all this,” I continued, glancing at the clock.
“Time for some sleep though, I'm exhausted and my tiny brain cannot keep up with this nonsense,” I joked.
“Fair enough. We wouldn’t want to increase its capacity now, that might be dangerous if you started thinking through your actions all of a sudden,” Alden chided.
“Hey!” I said with mock offense.
We shared a laugh then decided it was time to sleep, it had been a long day and honestly, I was exhausted. However, as soon as I had finally drifted off I felt an odd sensation that seemed familiar for some reason. Cracking my eyes open, I was immediately greeted by a very recognizable aurora borealis themed sky and a landscape that shifted ever so slightly.
“Oh, come on!” I yelled.