Weapons of Mass Destruction

One hour into my explorations and I’m starting to find that the deeper I go the hotter things become. At this point, I’ve begun to notice inscriptions buried within the huge plates of metal this place has been made of. They run through the entire structure of the pyramid, absorbing the heat from outside and sending it further inside.

So of course, I use my thermal energy to track where it’s heading.

Sometimes I have to backtrack when I reach the end of a tunnel, but so far things are going well and my steps continue to echo as I walk through the metal channels.

I really wanna know what kind of metal this place is made of. I take the opportunity to touch the walls with my damaged arcane ax to touch the walls just to see what happens.

Nothing too amazing, as it turns out, though when I use the ax, I find it easier to absorb the heat. Maybe the composition is similar, maybe it's an effect of the ax or maybe it’s a similar alloy.

I do eventually finally find tunnels meant for humans to pass through, rather than continuing through the heat pumps.

Not knowing how to get there, I focus on the thinnest part of the wall and channel a significant amount of my mana, combined with absorbed thermal energy, into a laser-like stream. This concentrated beam cuts a small hole for me, though it depletes a good chunk of my mana.

The new tunnels I enter aren't much different from the ones I just left. They are just a bit colder and sometimes there are working lights and more inscriptions. And so my journey continues.

I’m using a bit of kinetic energy to power my body just so I can move, and my [Focus], not to regulate my emotions but to deal with my disrupted mana and that evil orb over my shoulder.

I think I have already grasped how the orb works, so I should be able to mimic it in the future and create it on my own. Maybe I can even create a few for increased difficulty. Just the thought of that sends shivers down my back and I once again remind myself that I'm the most normal one. The others in group 4 are worse.

Within five hours I start getting bored of the never-changing walls and twisted tunnels and having to retrace my steps, so I'm happy when I finally find a room.

The door is obstructed by a dozen or so corpses each one wearing some sort of suit not unlike the ones the natives were using to scrape frost outside. However, these seem tailored to deal with the heat.

I can see that from the inscriptions placed on the multitude of mana stones each suit contains. There’s even some kind of weird dust coating the surface of the suit, which I recognize as the powder being painstakingly scraped from the bones of the dead serpent.

Each of these people is totally dried up, their skin shriveled, and burned. It's difficult to even describe properly. They must have been here for quite some time.

What seems interesting is that the heat here isn't that terrible. I don’t even need all that much thermal energy to deal with it. Plus, my physical stats couldn't be much higher than theirs, heck they’re probably lower in some cases assuming they were close to 200.

Does that mean that the heat is going to increase at some point, is that what killed them? I note that down for further observation and decide to keep an eye on it. Then I examine the door they tried to open, some tools have been left lying on the ground. Most of them have been scorched if not straight-up melted so not anything useful for me to loot, so I turn to examine the door instead.

The surface is smooth like the walls, only differentiated by the slightly darker color of the circular door. inscriptions have been carved Into its center, And I can sense the way they continue under the surface.

Well, this is certainly going to be fun.

I continue to juggle Lissandra’s training training while turning part of my mind to the lock itself.

In the end, it takes me two hours to figure out how the locking mechanism works. However, after that, it only takes me five minutes to unlock it with a combination of thermal energy and [Resonance].

[Resonance - lvl 48 > Resonance - lvl 49]

The circular door moves backward, sliding away from me before slowly rolling to the side, and admitting me to the room. There, I find even more corpses, Men and women in the same suits as the ones outside. All of them are close to the door, and some of them have clearly damaged their hands.

Did they get trapped inside? Were the people outside trying to get them out or were they trying to escape the heat?

Some of the corpses inside are also clearly damaged, parts of their suits have been burned, often leaving the bodies missing limbs.

But soon enough the ones responsible reveal themselves.

[Ashen Phantom - lvl 150]

[Ashen Phantom - lvl 101]

[Ashen Phantom - lvl 123]

They’re an ashen shade of gray and built like goblins, though the Ashen Phantoms seem to be sneakier.

I can sense that as heat concentrates in one place, they tend to appear there, using it much like a [Tether]. The moment they appear the heat in the room drops, all of it channeled through the monsters who start burning hotter before wordlessly charge me.

Curious, I shoot a mana projectile at one of them, only to have it blocked by a blast of heat. Then, while protecting the evil mana orb, I use [Redistribution] to try to absorb heat from them.

It works surprisingly well, there’s almost no resistance as I steal all the heat they just absorbed and once I decide to push more even the heat they did have slips away.

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Before they even reach me, they are cold, their ashen skin growing sickly, as their movements slow.

As a test, I throw a gout of yellow flames at them, but the monsters just absorb them, becoming lively again and forcing me to jump back a few times to dodge their attacks. Then instead I concentrate my flames more and a golden aura envelops them.

[You have defeated Ashen Phantoms - lvl 123]

[You have defeated Ashen Phantoms - lvl 150]

[You have defeated Ashen Phantoms - lvl 101]

They die right away. Surprisingly easy.

When I move closer to their bodies, they are already turning to ash that keeps burning with small golden flames of my primordial energy.

Am I really that hard a counter for them? I would have expected them to handle the heat better, but this? There was barely any resistance.

I kick one of the bones and it dissolves into a small pool of ash. Then I use a blast of kinetic energy to destroy all that remains. Everything with Phantom in their name shall be destroyed.

Instead of bothering with them longer, I examine the room and unfortunately, it seems to be empty, already looted who knows how long ago.

Done there, I leave it and head deeper into the pyramid, following the heat.

Over the next two hours, I find multiple groups of natives, all of them dressed in the same weird suits. Sometimes they’re near a set of rooms, other times I find them in the middle of a hallway. All of them are very dead and none have anything valuable enough to loot.

After that, I don't find any more. Either they avoid these parts of the pyramid or they aren’t able to go that deep.

At this point, I'm forced to use [Redistribution] and thermal energy to deal with the heat. Even so, I can feel my clothes sticking to my body as sweat drips from my brow. It’s at this point that I activate [Mana Crown] to help me handle the training while I feed it bits of my mana.

After activating it, it becomes much more manageable to do all these things at once and the heat becomes bearable as I stop holding myself back.

I'm attacked a few dozen times as I continue on my way. All assaults launched by Ashen Phantoms who just appear from points of heat they’ve focused into a small point. I can’t really complain much given that it doesn’t take much to kill them.

The deeper I go, the higher level they are, and they're already pushing level 200.

I had expected to be much deeper by now but all these twists and dead ends do a good job of wasting my time. Even the inscriptions and the way they funnel heat seems to have been designed to trick me.

Two hours later, and I experienced what probably killed the first group I met.

Immense heat fills the tunnel out of nowhere. Rushing from somewhere near the center of the pyramid rolling like a wave through the hallway. It crashes into me, burning the ends of my hair and singing my skin in the process. The air becomes dry and the tunnels brighten, the heat causing them to shimmer like the northern lights.

I'm forced to stop and concentrate on dealing with the sudden assault, both [Redistribution] and my thermal energy working double time. My body becomes so filled with heat that I heal at the same speed I'm getting burned.

When I try to counter it with barriers made of mana or my domain, I find the result so ineffective that I decide to continue with thermal energy.

That's also when the monster attacks.

[Heatseeker - lvl ??]

At least level 290 from my estimation.

It's barely as tall as me, but it is much longer. Of all of the animals I’ve seen it reminds me most of a centipede, though its face is more humanoid. It moves through the heat as if it were, skittering along with a series of quick, twitchy movements.

And when it notices me, it pauses for a second before its movements speed up and it starts absorbing the heat that currently fills the tunnel. Huge concentrations of the captured energy dancing across the monster's flayed form.

The Heatseeker charges me, its humanoid mouth opening and launching gouts of flame at me.

Freed from the burden of the formerly blistering heat of the hallway, I grab a chunk of thermal energy from my Vortex Core and concentrate it even further.

My golden flames meet those of the monster.

It's not even a fight. My flames pierce through, enveloping the monster and setting ablaze in a wreath of golden flames that spreads across its body in the blink of an eye. The humanoid face of the centipede-like monster twists in pain, its flesh burning and twitching and spasming until it finally expires.

[You have defeated Heatseeker - lvl 291]

The heat then starts filling the hallways once again, forcing me to fight its influence once more and it only takes another minute before it recedes once more.

As it slowly weakens and the temperature returns to previous levels, I almost feel cold despite the actual temperature.

After examining the corpse, I ignore the heat hallways I wanted to head to. Leaving them in favor of the tunnels the heat wave and Heatseeker came from.

Why are the monsters here so weak against thermal energy?

At some point, I find more and more burns on my body as my concentration begins to fail. Even so, I continue.

All the water I had on me has already evaporated and I eat what food I have on me.

At times I catch myself wanting to just sleep, but I push these silly thoughts away.

It would be easy to return, but I just don't feel like it.

Hours later, and I finally find another door. It’s circular as well but the inscriptions cover the entire surface. The heat here is higher than it’s been anywhere else. Rivaling the heat wave from before.

The 24 hours Lissandra gave us to explore the pyramid and meet her passed a few hours ago.

Ah well, sucks to be her.

I reach into my body and remove the inscriptions she placed on me. With the Burden Enhancement Inscriptions gone, I can move without having to use kinetic energy and my mana feels so tame, it's crazy.

Then I look at the orb over my shoulder. I can’t believe I’ve managed to keep that evil thing alive for so long.

I send a burst of mana through it and in a deep moment of satisfaction, watch it burst open.

The heat around me becomes barely a nuisance as I give it that much more attention.

I turn to the inscriptions on the door and start working on them.

Let's see what this place is hiding.