Chapter 125: The Fall
This world was named JR-AG311, but the indigenous people called it Jarkarr. It was a Minor World that was ruled over by the Major World Trion.
This was a world of Ice, and was rich with one essential resource that was the cause of the conflicts ravaging this world in the past two thousand years of its discovery — Blue Iron.
Unlike what the name would suggest, Blue Iron was not a metallic ore, it was a flower. Before a brilliant Alchemist found that extracts from this flower could be used as battlefield stimulants that could even affect Second Circle Dominators, the flower was used for recreational activities.
As a stimulant, it could allow a Dominator to rapidly burn through the energy and essence inside his body while doubling or even tripling their combat capabilities. Its side effects could be quickly recovered from, which made Blue Iron one of the most important war resources of Trion.
Since this plant could only be grown on this planet due to a unique set of circumstances that were difficult to replicate, Jarkarr became the only source of this merchandise.
This Minor World was governed by the Merchant Association—A vast trading house that oversaw many resource rich worlds for Trion. The Merchant Association here had developed their own armies and gathered powerful Dominators and creatures from many other worlds, to protect the source of their vast wealth.
As with everything involving massive profits, there would inevitably be conflicts, and for the last forty years an open battle had commenced on this world, after it had spilled over by the incessant betrayals and hidden confrontation over the centuries by forces within the Merchant Association.
The Merchant Association was owned by one of the seven Noble families—The Boreas Family. They controlled the Pathway of Storms, and although they were mainly responsible for the economic aspects of Trion, there was a reason they were known as Storm callers. The dominators of the Boreas family were quite terrifying.
Internal conflicts within the family had spilled out into the many worlds they governed, and Jarkarr was especially affected by it, coupled with rumors that parts of the unending battle in Trion had spilled over into Jarkarr, left this a world at its edge.
The world was going through one of the most perilous periods in its history, and hundreds of thousands had died as a result of the conflict, and it was getting worse. This world was at the brink.
Yet as the people of Jarkarr settled in for a brand-new day, one filled with many unknowns, the skies lit up, as numerous streaks of fire blazed across the skies, a teleportation portal had opened far up in the atmosphere, and Rowan fell to this world.
His descent brought calamity.
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The moment Rowan stepped through the Teleportation portal, it flickered, for Rowan was inexperienced at utilizing Aether. The jarring sensation of space folding around him and squeezing tighter than a constrictor was not particularly comfortable, but he could still endure it.
Comparing it to the mental torture he once had when going through the yellow crystal, then this was a walk in the park, inside his mental space, there was a steady stream of Aether wrapped around the purple Spatial Sight Rune that transformed everything about the utility of this particular skill.
Yes, Rowan was wielding Aether!
The squeezing sensation suddenly got worse, and his bones began to bend with the strain, most of his flesh had been torn apart, yet the pressure from the spatial movement compressed them tightly to his body, else he would be nothing but bones at this point. Rowan had long become numb to pain of this level.
His Spatial Sight could only capture rapidly flashing lights and an awareness that he was moving through a tremendous distance within the barest fraction of a second. He pushed his Sight back into his body, anymore, and he feared he would lose himself.
He tried to tuck himself into a ball, and it seemed to reduce the strain and as sudden as it began, the absurdity of this teleportation stopped.
It was like moving at a thousand miles per hour and suddenly halting at once without any deceleration.
This abrupt motion made Rowan's body crack open like an egg, and his flesh and blood was sprayed across the skies of this world. Envy was wrenched from his hand, but Rowan was still in shock, as fatigue and pain dulled his mind. And he could barely follow the path of the Axe.
The blood and pieces of flesh that fell from him began to transform into numerous monsters of all shapes and sizes, some of them were the size of hills while others were small as ants, and they formed a swarm, his body bumped across and through them as he fell.
He could dimly notice passing through the jaws of a Dragon like creature, who snapped at him, and barely missed, and unlike inside the temple, these were not turning to ashes after a few seconds, they were still active and Rowan saw many with wings began turning to other directions.
The fall had spread his blood all over the sky, and in a few short moments, the entirety of the atmosphere was filled with monsters.
He would rather not announce his presence to this planet in this manner, and he hoped the fall would kill most of these creatures or their lifespan was still short, else only an apocalypse waited for those below, for the energy he was sensing from them was palpable.
By chance, Rowan's fall made him drift a little from the pack of howling monstrosities and the last thing he saw before he blacked out was a massive mountain that was going to catch his fall.
He sighed and squeezed himself into a ball, wondering how much would this hurt? He barely heard the sound of impact.
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Rowan did not know for how long he was out, he thought he might have heard countless screams while he was unconscious, but when he awoke, he was fully healed, and discovered he had been embedded deep into a mountainside, and somehow he knew the screams he heard were not a mirage.
Around his body were concentric waves that showed signs that the rocks must have melted and cooled. He stood up without any impediment and rubbed his face, pushing his long blond hair behind him.
He could see the light of the moon down inside the pit, he must be at least fifty meters deep into the mountain, and walking up to the wall of the mini cave he made, he began to climb out.
Even with his current strength, rocks were no impediment to him, and his fingers and toes easily found purchase in the rock as he propelled himself out of the hole, and after twenty seconds, his hands reached the surface of the mountain, and he pulled himself out.
Immediately he knew he was someplace different, and not different by a minor distance for that matter, for above him, he could see three moons, one of them was especially large; Rowan was lost in awe for a while, as he looked at the skies of a brand-new world.
Trion only had a single moon the last time he checked, and although when he used the Teleportation Dais to escape the Nexus, he chose a lucky direction which was to be his right side, the reason for that was he had given up his left hand to escape.
He had set the teleportation distance to the maximum limit it could tolerate, so he should not be so surprised that it took him to another world, everything inside the Nexus was top of the line, it should be expected that their teleportation device should also be one too.
Although traveling to another world entirely seemed like too much of a stretch to him, it might be the lucky break he needed to gather himself and forge his path.
He did not think he was unreachable from the grasp of his enemies just yet, he might never be unless he killed them all, but with enough distance, he had a little time, and he did not intend to waste a single second of it.